So I could fight like a god.
Fisting my hands, I willed the eather away. It took every part of my being to stop myself from allowing the promise of death to flow out from me.
“You okay?” Kieran asked.
“No.” I swallowed. “But I’m in control.” I looked at Naill. “Are you okay?”
The Atlantian shook his head. “I can’t understand how anyone is capable of doing such a thing.”
“Neither can I.” Kieran looked past me to Naill as Arden backed away from the tree line. “I think it’s good that we can’t.”
I forced my attention to the battlements along the top of the wall. I couldn’t look too long at the bodies. I couldn’t allow myself to really think about them. Just like I couldn’t allow myself to think about what he was going through—what was being done to him.
A featherlight brush against my thoughts came, followed by the springy-fresh imprint of Delano’s mind. The wolven was scouting the length of the Rise to gain information on exactly how many were guarding it. Meyaah Liessa?
I swallowed a sigh at the old Atlantian phrase that roughly translated to my Queen. The wolven knew they didn’t have to refer to me as such, but many still did. However, where Delano did it out of what he felt was a show of respect, Kieran often called me that to simply annoy me.
I followed the imprint back to Delano. Yes?
There are twenty at the northern gates. A beat of silence passed. And…
His grief tainted the bond. I briefly closed my eyes. Mortals on the gate.
Yes.
The essence throbbed. How many?
Two dozen, he answered, and violent energy pressed against my skin. Emil is confident he can take them out quickly, he said, referencing the often-irreverent Elemental Atlantian.
My eyes opened. Massene only had two gates—one to the north, and this one, which faced the east. “Delano says there are twenty on the northern gates,” I shared. “Emil believes he can take them.”
“He can,” Kieran confirmed. “He’s as good with a crossbow as you are.”
I met his stare. “Then it’s time.”
Holding my gaze, he nodded. The three of us lifted the hoods on our cloaks, hiding the armor Naill and I wore.
“I really wish you had some sort of armor,” I told Kieran.
“Armor would make it more difficult for me if I need to shift,” he stated. “And at the end of the day, no armor is a hundred percent effective. There are weak spots—places those men on the Rise know to exploit.”
“Thanks for reminding me,” Naill muttered as we quietly rode toward the edge of the pines.
Kieran smirked. “That’s what I’m here for.”
I shook my head as I searched for Delano’s imprint, not allowing myself to think of the lives that my order would soon end. Take them out.
Delano quickly responded. Gladly, meyaah Liessa. We will soon join you at the east gate.
“Be ready,” I said out loud as I turned my focus to those on the Rise before us.
I lifted my stare to the moonlight-drenched battlement. Three dozen individuals who probably had no choice but to join the Rise Guard stood there. There was little opportunity for most in Solis, especially if they weren’t born into families steeped in the power and privilege given by the Ascended. Those who lived so far from the capital. Much like most eastern locales, with the exception of Oak Ambler, Massene wasn’t a glittering and wealthy city, mainly consisting of farmers who tended crops that fed most of Solis.
But those who laughed and chatted as if those impaled to that gate did not affect them? That was a whole different breed of apathy and just as cold and empty as an Ascended.
Just like with Delano, I didn’t think of the lives about to be cut short by my will.
I couldn’t.
Vikter had taught me that ages ago. That you could never consider the life of another when they held a sword pointed at your throat.
There was no sword at my throat now, but there were things much worse held to the throats of those inside the Rise.
I summoned the eather, and it responded at once, rushing to the surface of my skin. Silver tinted my vision as Kieran and Naill lifted crossbows, each outfitted with three arrows.
“I’ll take those farther down the Rise,” Kieran said.
“I’ll get those to the left,” Naill confirmed.
Which left the dozen by the gates. The eather swirled inside me, pouring into my blood, somehow hot and icy at the same time. It flooded that hollow place inside me as every ounce of my being focused on those by the gate.
By the poor, veiled mortals.
My will left me at the exact moment the image of what I wanted filled my mind. The snap of their necks, one after another in quick succession, joined the snap of released arrows. There was no time for any of them to scream, to alert those who may be near. Kieran and Naill quickly reloaded, taking out the others before the ones whose necks I’d broken even began to fall.
But they joined those struck by arrows, falling forward into the nothingness. I flinched at the sound of their bodies hitting the ground.
We rode out, crossing the clearing as another cloaked figure joined me on horseback, coming from the left of the Rise. A snow-white wolven followed Emil, keeping close to the wall as I quickly dismounted.
“Those sons of bitches,” Emil growled, head tilted back as he looked up at the gates. “The utter disrespect.”
“I know.” Kieran followed me as I went to the chain securing the gate.
Anger brimmed from Emil as I clasped the cool chains.
Arden stirred restlessly near the horses’ hooves as Emil quickly dismounted, joining me. Naill pulled them forward as Delano brushed against my legs. I took them in my hand and closed my eyes. I’d discovered that the eather could be used in the same manner as draken fire. While it would not kill a Revenant—or have any effect on them, really—it could melt iron. Not in large quantities, but enough.
“We need to hurry,” Kieran said quietly. “Dawn is approaching.”
I nodded as a silvery aura flared around my hands, rippling over the chain while Emil peered in through the gate, searching for signs of other guards. I frowned as the glow pulsed, and pieces of the metal appeared to darken—thicken almost as if it were tendrils of shadow. Blinking, the wisps disappeared. Or were never there. The light was not the greatest, and even though I was a god, my eyesight and hearing remained annoyingly mortal.
The chain fell apart.
“Nifty talent,” Naill remarked.
I sent him a brief smile as he and Emil quickly and quietly moved the gate forward.
The Pinelands came alive as the gate opened, twigs snapping as the wolven prowled forward in a sleek wave of several dozen, led by Kieran’s sister.
Vonetta was the same fawn color as Kieran, not nearly as large as him when in wolven form, but no less fierce. Our gazes briefly met as I found her imprint—white oak and vanilla. Be safe, I told her.
Always, came the quick reply as someone closed the gates behind us.
Turning from her, I fixed my gaze on the silent, stone, one-story barracks several yards back from the Rise. Beyond them and the fields of crops, the outline of small, squat buildings could be seen against Cauldra Manor and the looming horizon that was already becoming a lighter blue.
Opting for the short sword instead of the wolven dagger, I withdrew it from where it was secured to my back, handle tilted downward, as we raced forward under the darkness of the pines lining the wide, cobblestone road. We halted before the barracks, the wolven crouching low to the ground.