Children of Fallen Gods (The War of Lost Hearts Book 2) Page 14

  It was not an answer. But I didn’t want to give him one, especially not when mine was so complicated. And especially not when he was looking at me like he saw right through me.

  I looked to the ground, following the markings of his footsteps. “Show me your drills.”

  He hesitated. I cocked an eyebrow at him in a silent challenge, and moments later, he was showing me the exercises. To my surprise, he certainly knew how to wield the weapon — his movements were graceful and technically impeccable. It was the sort of thing that surely had served him well in a marble training room, where a sword was meant to be a dance partner rather than a weapon.

  Pretty. Impractical.

  When he finished, he turned back to me. “It’s what I know,” he said. “But useless against them.”

  Did he know from experience? Did he try to fight them and fail? I thought of his wounds — worse than any of the others. Not the wounds of someone who had been fleeing.

  “Do it again,” I said, and he obeyed. But this time, he made it three steps in before I slid in front of him, my blades raised, countering one of his strikes and forcing him to adjust. He stumbled and I took that opening, too — low, beneath the elegant strike of his rapier. But he recovered quickly. Another strike I had to dodge, and then one I blocked, our blades locked between us.

  “You can’t practice alone,” I said. “You need to learn how to make the movements effective, not elegant.”

  Caduan’s eyes searched my face. I had to resist the urge to look away. Mathira, it was uncomfortable to be observed so closely. Even if there was, too, an odd excitement in it.

  “If only what I had learned in the House of Stone had been more practical,” he said. “Perhaps things would have been different. And perhaps…”

  The gaze that had just been so sharp it carved me apart now drifted far away, and I felt a pang of pity for him.

  “There is no use in dreaming of realities that do not exist,” I said — echoing my father’s words before I even realized it. “Not unless we follow such dreams with action.”

  He blinked. When his gaze came back to me, there was something in it that was so unfamiliar and yet oddly pleasant. No one wore that expression when they looked at me.

  “Why are you not the Teirness?” he asked, quietly.

  The tension broke. I pulled away, shoving my blades back into their sheaths.

  “Because my sister is.”

  “I know the order of succession of the House of Obsidian. The power passes from mother to eldest daughter—”

  “My mother is not well.”

  “Then what of—”

  I’d had enough. I whirled around. One breath, and I’d disarmed him, his rapier in my hand. I pressed him to the leaf-covered ground, his own blade at his throat. Our panting breaths lingered in the air between us.

  “You will need to get better than this,” I said.

  He watched me, eyes narrowed. Surely he knew a distraction when he saw one.

  But then a smile twisted at one corner of his mouth.

  “I have no argument.”

  “I will help you. If you want it.”

  The smile warmed his eyes. They really were something.

  “I would be honored to receive your instruction, Aefe.”

  What was it about the way he said my name? I rose to my feet and threw his rapier to the ground beside him.

  “Then get up,” I said. “And stop asking so many questions.”

  Two weeks of traveling passed. Though we had all managed to refrain from drawing weapons on each other since that first night at camp, tension stretched out between us like a drawn bowstring. At night, I crept away from camp and joined Caduan in the forest, where together we would train. He was a passable swordsman, even a talented one, but what went further than raw talent was his obvious love for learning.

  Swordsmanship, though, was not the only thing Caduan wanted to learn. Every night, I dodged his questions just as I dodged his rapier. I quickly learned that he greatly enjoyed knowing things. Perhaps that was why his stare disassembled its subjects and put them back together again.

  But I was not ready to let him see so much of me.

  Still, for reasons I couldn’t explain, our nights together became a bright spot at the end of long and exhausting days. There was a certain satisfaction in chipping away at something so tangible when there was so much we could not control.

  We still received no response from the House of Reeds. Their silence could mean nothing, or it could mean everything.

  The night before we were to arrive, our training session was a mess — my instruction muddled and short-tempered, Caduan’s practice distracted and clumsy. After a few half-hearted rounds, I sank down onto a log. I had never been very good at stuffing away my feelings. And now, my anxiety overwhelmed me.

  “What do you think?” I asked. “What do you think we’re going to find, tomorrow?”

  He turned to me. He was panting, slightly, from the exertion of our last exercise. He wore a thin cotton shirt, which clung to the outline of his form, damp with sweat. It opened just enough in the front to reveal the shape of his clavicle and the edges of still-healing wounds running over it.

  He looked so different from the bloody figure I’d hoisted out of the swamp. And yet, the memories he never voiced were written into every line of his body.

  “I hope for the best,” he said. “But I suspect the worst.”

  He spoke so matter-of-factly.

  I stared at him, a wrinkle between my eyebrows. “How can you be so calm about all of this? If I were you…”

  There were no words for it. I would be drowning in my rage.

  Caduan’s face hardened. “What makes you think I’m calm?”

  I blinked, and when I opened my eyes, it all rearranged. I felt like a fool for not seeing it earlier. The stillness in Caduan was not calm. It was paralyzing rage.

  “I am not calm, Aefe.” He stepped closer, eyes burning, jaw tight. “I am on fire.”

  Chapter Seventeen

  Tisaanah

  When I awoke, my head felt as if it was made of stone. Nura told me that I had slept for almost two days. It still didn’t seem like enough. But at least I could stand without tipping over, and though my head pounded and my stomach still churned, I seemed to be done emptying my guts.

  “Clean yourself up and get dressed.” Nura threw a military uniform onto my bed. “We have a meeting to attend. One battle might be over, but we still have a war to fight.”

  Didn’t I know it.

  I obeyed, and when I met Nura again, she led me to the library of the Farlione home.

  It might have been one of the most stunning rooms I’d ever seen — even compared to the cold grace of the Threllian Lords’ architecture. The entire Farlione estate was beautiful. But this room was the one that reminded me most of Max’s cottage, albeit a much, much grander version of it. Still, it had the same cluttered warmth, the shelves overflowing with books and packed with curious oddities. I wondered if Max used to spend a lot of time here when he was young. I could picture him, tucked away into little crevices with a book, hiding from whatever social gatherings were happening beyond the doors.

  But no one here, today, was looking at the books. There was a long table in the center of the room, covered in maps. Zeryth sat at its head. Anserra was there, too, as were Eslyn and Ariadnea. The others I did not recognize. There were five figures, all of whom looked to be in their fifties or sixties — two were Valtain. All of them wore red sashes around their neck, hanging down their backs.

  “The Council of the Orders,” Nura murmured to me. “Or what’s left of them, anyway.”

  My interest was piqued. I had read of the Council, but never met any of its members — though I’d tried to get one or two of them alone during the ball, what felt like a lifetime ago. But even though I didn’t know these people, they clearly knew me. When we entered the room, every set of eyes turned towards me. As I sat down, I could feel magic reaching f
or me, a mind trying to examine mine. I carefully guarded the wall across my thoughts, my gaze slipping to my left, where a Valtain man with long, wavy silver hair eyed me with great curiosity, smoking a pipe.

  I gave him a polite smile that told him I knew exactly what he’d been up to, and he returned it with what looked like genuine satisfaction.

  I still felt awful. But I was careful to appear completely put together.

  “Ah yes,” Zeryth said, eyeing me. “Our savior returns.”

  He looked exhausted, the shadows beneath his eyes even darker now. He leaned back in his chair, gaze trailing around the table.

  “As we all have seen, thanks to Tisaanah, the Kazarans have surrendered. Retreated, but… I suppose we can’t have everything. The question remains, then, of what we do next. There are many cities in the north that need to be dismantled. General Farlione is currently laying siege upon the city of Antedale.” Again, a twitch of disapproval at his lip. “Though I have made it clear that time is of the essence.”

  Just the sound of Max’s name made my heart leap. A siege. I wondered what his plan was. I knew he must have one.

  “And after that,” Zeryth went on, “he will move on to other cities in the south. We, then, are left with many here.” His gaze fell to me. “Thankfully, as we all saw, we have…significant resources. It should be quick work, if we leverage all that we have. And so, that brings me to my request for all of you. Many of you have strong connections among Aran nobilities. I ask you to write to them. Ask for their support, from their private armies. We have cities to conquer, and we must conquer them quickly.”

  The Valtain man across from me let out a puff of smoke, gesturing to the map on the table.

  “This,” he said, “is a great deal of sacrifice, Zeryth. There is a high cost to what you plan to do.”

  It was difficult for me to hear accents in Aran, but his words were tinged in an unfamiliar lilt that made me think that he, too, was not a native speaker.

  Zeryth gave him a withering stare.

  “Are you suggesting, Iya, that we can’t win?”

  “Of course not. You can certainly win.” I did not miss the change in his wording. “But the Orders were never intended to be an Aran institution. They belong to no nation. And yet, you want to discard thousands of lives in an attempt to secure Ara’s throne. This is not our fight.”

  Zeryth’s lip twitched.

  “We have already had this discussion. Does anyone have anything more helpful to contribute to this conversation?”

  But Iya was not done.

  “Are you feeling alright, Zeryth? You don’t look well.”

  Zeryth gave him a cold smile. “I feel perfectly fine.”

  “Mm.” Iya leaned back in his chair. “As I said. There are some things, some magics, that are not worth the cost.”

  Did I imagine the way that his eyes landed on me before moving back down the table?

  “As always, I so appreciate your insight, Councilor,” Zeryth said. Then, pointedly, he rolled out the map. “But we have more important things to discuss. Our path has already been decided. It’s just a matter of how.”

  The meeting went on for hours, and by the end, my head was pounding. The future yawned out in front of me like a terrible, endless mountain. Whatever sense of accomplishment I’d felt after this victory withered away with every new X slashed over the map.

  Perhaps I had managed to avoid the worst of a battle once. But I would have to do it again, and again, and again.

  The thought sickened me. As it was, I already felt the hot blood of those that I had killed staining my hands. By the end of the meeting, I could barely breathe. Not that I allowed myself to show anything other than calm confidence.

  When we finished, Zeryth was the first to leave, and slowly the others filed out of the room too. But I remained, walking the library. Every inch of it was packed with books or plants or archeological specimens, every piece of white wall covered with tapestries or paintings.

  I paused at one display of insects mounted on little golden stilts. There were moths and enormous spiders, caterpillars and shiny, colorful beetles. The one that caught my attention was a small butterfly, wings glinting with faded flecks of gold. It reminded me of the one that Kira had shown Max, all those years ago. This one looks too pretty to be a part of your collection, Max had told her. Words I could remember so clearly that it felt like they’d been my own.

  I wondered if this had all been for her. Perhaps it had been one of her parents’ many efforts to avoid more live insects in the house.

  “The Atrivez butterfly.” A smooth, accented voice came from behind me. “Beautiful. Extinct now, of course, like all magically-sensitive creatures.”

  I turned to see Iya approaching.

  “They used to say they were impossible to kill, because they were so skilled at sensing danger,” he said.

  My eyebrow twitched. “Perhaps this one was not so good at it,” I said, and Iya let out a short laugh.

  “Perhaps not.”

  There was a brief silence, and I looked up to see him regarding me with a wrinkle between his brows.

  “How are those that came here from Threll?” he asked. “Are they settling well?”

  I blinked. Perhaps my surprise showed on my face, because he chuckled and said, “Please don’t tell me that I’m the first to ask about them. Not that it would surprise me. Ara is a self-centered country.”

  The truth was, no one seemed to give any thought to the refugees beyond mild annoyance.

  “It is a big change,” I said. “But at least they are safe. Still, there are many more that need help.”

  “And the Orders have demanded such a high cost from you, to give it to them.”

  I didn’t answer. I wasn’t sure how much Iya knew about my Blood Pact — about Reshaye. But the weight of his gaze told me enough.

  “I believed in the Orders, once, for what they were intended to be,” he said. “An organization that stood for all Wielders in the world, independent of any nation, no matter where the Towers stood. And perhaps once I thought I could guide it back to that light, from within. I’m ashamed to say I’ve grown tired and lazy. But…” His head cocked, slightly. “It is nice, to see someone so young who is still willing to try.”

  If that was supposed to be an encouragement, it felt like a somewhat weak one. But, though his words were calm and his tone oddly disaffected, I could sense that they were genuine.

  “People like me have always had to fight,” I said. “It’s easy to abandon the dream of easy victory when it was never an option at all.”

  Iya let out a wry chuckle.

  “I suppose that is true,” he said, and before I could respond, he was drifting away, as if the conversation was simply over.

  When I got back to my room, a letter was on my pillow. My heart leapt when I saw my name rendered in handwriting I now knew as well as my own. I tore it open and unfolded it, and despite myself — despite everything — I smiled, my chest suddenly warm.

  Tisaanah,

  Tell me you’re alright, you wonderful idiot.

  Love,

  Max.

  I wasn’t stupid. I knew that “love” was a late addition, Max’s attempt at communicating what he didn’t know how to paint in written words. And that was funny to me, because this letter held more affection than pages of flowery language ever could.

  It was always so easy, after all, to feel Max’s love. It radiated from him like the warmth of his skin. He didn’t need to say it. A brush of my hand. I love you. A conspiratorial half smile. I love you. A wrinkle of concern between his brows. I love you.

  And even here, even now, with him half a country away. I felt it here, in the words he did write and the ones he didn’t. I love you, you wonderful idiot.

  Of their own accord, my fingers wrapped around the butterfly necklace at my throat. My chest ached, with affection, with longing, and with the wound of his absence.

  I went to the desk, grabbed a blank
piece of paper, and started to write.

  Chapter Eighteen

  Max

  We set up a barricade around the city. All roads leading in were blocked by my soldiers. No traffic in, no traffic out. Antedale was compact, with tall buildings, narrow roads, and little in the way of space for farming or livestock. Thus, the vast majority of their food production happened in the fields beyond the borders, then shipped the short distance into the city.

  “If the goal is to starve them out,” Essanie said, when I made this order, “it won’t work. It will take far too long, and they have enough food sources within the walls to keep their population alive.”

  She wasn’t wrong. They would have grain stores, certainly enough to keep everyone fed. Fed, sure. But not happy. Antedale was a prosperous city. The population was not used to going without variety, even for short periods of time. Add onto that the fact that these volunteer men were choosing to be separated from their families to do nothing but stand idly out in the cold for weeks on end — well, morale would be starting to fall. And with it, attentions would be growing slack.

  But many of the soldiers shared Essanie and Arith’s trepidation. Every night, I listened to action-starved young men lament. “Hell, we could have them in the ground in two ‘Scended-damned hours,” I heard one of them grunt, taking a swig out of his beer. “Never would’ve expected Farlione to be such a pussy. The man who won Sarlazai!”

  Indeed.

  Still, I waited. Soon, the time began to take its toll. It was visible even from a distance — the soldiers beginning to wander around instead of standing in rigid lines, the space between them widening as they tried to hide their thinning numbers. They were distracted, they were tired, and their numbers were fewer. Perfect.

  I called upon Essanie and Arith to assemble teams of their strongest Valtain, especially those who were skilled in illusionism. I was presented with a group of thirty — more than enough, for what we needed.