General Aylard, who led the newly arrived battalion, had been most displeased to have learned that and our plans for Massene. But I was the Queen, and two things were paramount to all.
Free our King.
And not make war like before, upending lives and leaving cities to become nothing more than mass burial sites. That wasn’t what he would want. That wasn’t what I wanted.
Massene was larger than both New Haven and Whitebridge, but smaller than Oak Ambler—and not as well guarded as the port city. But they weren’t helpless.
Still, we couldn’t wait any longer for Valyn and the other generals to arrive. The Ascended who lived behind those walls had been leading mortals into the woods, feeding from them, and leaving them to turn. The Craven attacks were becoming more frequent, and each group larger than the one before. Worse yet, according to our scouts, the city had gone quiet during the day. But at night…
There were screams.
Then they had killed three of our wolven patrolling these woods the day before, leaving only their heads on spikes at the Pompay border. I knew their names—would never forget them.
Roald. Krieg. Kyley.
And I could no longer wait.
Twenty-three days had passed since he’d given himself over to a monster who’d made him feel like a thing. Since I’d last seen him. Saw his golden eyes heat. Witnessed the dimple form first in his right cheek and then his left. Felt the touch of his flesh against mine or heard his voice. Twenty-three days.
The armored plates on my chest and shoulders tightened as I leaned forward on Setti, gaining Naill’s attention as the Atlantian rode to my left. I kept my grip on the warhorse’s reins firm, just as…he had taught me. I opened my senses, connecting with Arden.
A tangy, almost bitter taste filled my mouth. Anguish. And something acidic—anger.
“What is it?”
“I’m not sure.” I glanced to my right. Shadows had gathered across Kieran Contou’s beige-brown features, the once-bonded wolven and now Advisor to the Crown. “But he’s upset.”
Arden stopped the restless patrol as we approached, his vibrant blue gaze swinging to me. He whined softly, the sound tearing at my heart. Arden’s unique imprint reminded me of the salty sea, but I didn’t try to speak to him through the Primal notam since the wolven wasn’t yet comfortable communicating that way. “What’s wrong?”
He nodded his large silver-and-white-streaked head toward the Rise of Massene and then turned, prowling through the trees.
Kieran held up a closed fist, halting those behind us as he and Naill moved ahead, navigating the heavily clustered pines. I waited, reaching for the pouch secured to my hip. The small wooden horse Malik had carved for…his sixth birthday pressed against the marriage imprint on my palm.
Malik.
The once-heir to the Atlantian throne. He had been taken captive in the process of freeing his brother. And both of them had been betrayed by the wolven he’d once loved.
The sadness I’d felt at learning that Shea had done such a thing was now overshadowed by the grief and anger that Malik had done the same. I tried not to let the anger grow. Malik had been held captive for a century. Only the gods knew what had been done to him or what he’d had to do to survive. That didn’t excuse his betrayal, though. Didn’t lessen the blow it dealt. But he was also a victim.
Make his death as quick and painless as possible.
What Valyn Da’Neer had asked of me before I left Atlantia sat heavily on my heart. It was a weight I would bear. A father shouldn’t have to strike down his own son. I hoped it didn’t come to that, but I also couldn’t see how it wouldn’t.
Kieran stopped, his emotions sudden and intense, slamming into me in bitter waves of…horror.
Rattled by his reaction, my stomach knotted with dread. “What is it?” I asked, seeing that Arden had stopped once more.
“Dear gods,” Naill uttered, jerking back on his saddle at whatever he saw, his deep brown skin taking on a grayish pallor. His horror was so potent it scratched against my shields like bitter claws.
When there was no answer, trepidation grew, encompassing my entire being. I eased Setti forward between Kieran and Naill, to where the Massene Rise gates were visible through the pines.
At first, I couldn’t make sense of what I saw—the cross-like shapes hanging from the massive gates.
Dozens of them.
My breathing turned ragged. Eather thrummed in my tightening chest. Bile crept up my throat. I jerked back. Before I lost my balance and toppled from the saddle, Naill’s arm snapped out, catching my shoulder.
Those shapes were…
Bodies.
Men and women stripped bare, impaled at the wrists and feet to Massene’s iron and limestone gates, their bodies displayed for any to look upon—
Their faces…
Dizziness rushed me. Their faces weren’t bare. They were all shrouded in the same veil I had been forced to wear, held in place by gold chains gleaming dully in the moonlight.
A storm of rage replaced the disbelief as Setti’s reins slipped from my fingers. Eather, the Primal essence of the gods that flowed through all the many different bloodlines, throbbed in my chest. Far stronger in me because what was inside me came from Nyktos, the King of Gods. The essence merged with icy-hot fury as I stared at the bodies, my chest heaving with too-shallow, too-quick breaths. A thin metallic taste coated the inside of my mouth as I looked behind the horror on the gate, to the tops of the distant spiral towers, each a stained ivory against the rapidly darkening sky.
Above, the pines began trembling, showering us with thin needles. And that anger, the horror at what I saw, built and built until the corners of my vision turned silver.
My gaze shifted to those who walked the battlements of the Rise, on either side of the gate where the bodies of fellow mortals were so cruelly displayed, and what filled my mouth, clogged my throat, came from within me. It was shadowy and smoky and a little sweet, rolling across my tongue, and it came from a place deep inside me. This cold, aching hollowness that had woken in the last twenty-three days.
It tasted like the promise of retribution.
Of wrath.
And death.
I tasted death as I watched the Rise Guards stop mere feet from the bodies to speak to one another, laughing at something that was said. My gaze narrowed on them as the essence pulsed in my chest, and my will rose. A sharp gust of wind, colder than a winter’s morning, rolled across the Rise, lifting the hems of the veils and whipping around the guards on the wall, sending several sliding back toward the edge.
They stopped laughing then, and I knew the smiles I couldn’t see faded.
“Poppy.” Kieran leaned from his saddle, clasping the nape of my neck beneath the thick braid. “Calm. You need to find calm. If you do something now before we know exactly how many are on the Rise, it will alert them to our presence. We must wait.”
I wasn’t sure I wanted to calm, but Kieran was right. If we wanted to take Massene with minimal loss of life—those innocents who lived inside the walls and were routinely turned into Craven and hung from the gates—I needed to get control of my emotions and abilities.
And I could.
If I wanted to.
In the past weeks, I’d spent a lot of time on the Primal notam, working with the wolven to see how much distance we could put between us and still be able to communicate. Other than Kieran, I’d had the most success with Delano, whom I could reach deep within the Wastelands through the notam. But I’d also focused on harnessing the eather so that what I pictured in my mind became my will and was carried out by the energy instantaneously.