Half-eaten bodies lay scattered across the courtyard, limbs torn clean from joints, some frozen mid-reach as if clawing toward safety they never reached. Snow was churned into muddy banks streaked with blood and black monster tar, the thick, clinging substance still bubbling faintly where it had spilled from ruptured Korythid carcasses.
The creatures themselves sprawled like waking nightmares. Hulking bodies split open, hooked legs curled inward, mandibles cracked from battle. Frost clung to entrails and shattered armor pieces, and the metallic scent of blood hung heavy in the frigid air. Healers stepped around grisly remains with hushed murmurs, their boots leaving dark red prints behind them.
Except my sister, of course, who had never used a hushed murmur in her entire life.
“So help me Shard Mother, I will finish the hideous spider monster’s job if you don’t sit still and let me clean that wound.” Her voice rang out halfway across the field as she wrapped a bandage around the stump where Eryx’s hand used to be.
Draven’s hand clenched around mine when he caught sight of his Lord General, and I squeezed it in return.
I knew, technically speaking, that we had won today, against the monsters, against the neverending war itself. But looking at the bodies strewn across the field of the dying and the dead, it didn’t feel quite like victory.
This is the only kind of victory to be had in war, Morta Mea.His tone was one of quiet understanding, of shared grief. He, too, had lost his parents to a war.
And today, hundreds of soldiers under his command.
I know. I just…
I know.
He pulled me in closer just as the soft beat of wings sounded overhead. I looked up in time to see Zerina’s shadow descend, the Skaldwing herself landing several feet in front of us.
She didn’t speak right away, only flexed her jaw as she looked from me to the male who had slaughtered her husband. Then she held out her hand wordlessly, fist closed.
I reached out uncertainly, and she dropped a ring into my waiting palm.
My mother’s ring.
Tears pricked at the backs of my eyes. I knew. I knew that she was dead, had seen her body hurtling toward the ground, covered by fire, but somehow… I had still wanted to hope.
“Thank you,” I rasped out.
She gave a terse dip of her chin. “You’re welcome… Thane Everly.”
I blinked rapidly, her words coming through a fog. My uncle was dead. And my mother…
My mother was dead. I was the last heir to the Dragon, and the Thane of the Shadow Clan.
“No.” I spoke the word aloud before I could even think it, but I had no desire to take the denial back.
There are still portals,Draven reminded me.You don’t have to choose just one.
I know that,I assured him.But I also know what I want.
I might have been of both worlds, but my family in the Wilds was dead. My life was here, and I wouldn’t be an absentee ruler to people who needed a real leader, just to hold onto a title and tradition I had never wanted to begin with.
“I think…” I met Zerina’s gaze, watching the shadows that crossed her fierce features.
Though our relationship had been rocky at best, she had come alone to find me in enemy territory when she believed that I was in danger.
Then she had hated me, but she had stayed to fight today, long after my mother had fallen. And now she was here, bringing me the last piece of the family I had lost.
She knew loss, understood it on a deeper, more intrinsic level than most people would ever come to know in their lives. But she also knew loyalty, and for better or worse, she knew the price of war.
“My place is here now,” I explained. “So… take care of them, Thane Zerina. Let’s both try to be the people Alaric believed that we could be.”
Her lips parted, and she gave me a deep nod. Then she took off into the sky, calling for the Skaldwings to follow.
She didn’t look at Draven, but then, I didn’t expect her to. All of the old wounds we had gouged into each other’s kingdoms would take more than a single battle to heal.
