“This is why we never sent you on recon missions.”
Sonara raised a blue brow at him.
“You’re too damned tense to lie in waiting all day. Now relax your jaw, before you shatter your teeth.”
He lifted the spyglass. The old eyeball, plucked from a beast that lived beneath the ice in the White Wastes, swiveled in its liquid glass casing as Markam shook it, setting the eyeball right before he peered into the glass. He whistled softly. “No breaks or folds.” He slowly peered left and right, then up and down. “I don’t see a way out of it.”
The network of tunnels surrounding their cave had several entrances and exits,noneof which—much to Sonara’s dismay—led into the Wanderer camp as she’d been hoping. She and Markam had settled not far from their cave, where a dark, forgotten mining tunnel spat them out on a small rocky ledge on one of the mountain peaks neighboring the Garden of the Goddess.
The light-wall spread before them, visible even in broad daylight.
Power like this… she’d seen only a glimpse of it, ten years ago, when it had stolen Soahm. Today, it was tenfold.
A rippling wall of pale blue light—not opaque, for they could see clearly through it—spanned down from the belly of the ship. It seemed held aloft by some invisible power, a constant hum that sent the fowl, that so often flocked to the valley, soaring far from it.
Not a single flock of them had flitted across the blue skies in the hours she and Markam had been here watching.
Not a single beast at all had shown itself. No herds of black mountain goats,not even a damned snake had slithered past them. It seemed all life had been scared away from the Garden; as if nature itself was repelled by it.
Sonara looked back at the ship, and the blue wall of light spanning from its belly. Every so often, fingers of lightning crackled and snaked their way across the wall, like it was swimming with it.Madeof it. She could sense the power in the air, taste the crackling burn of an endless storm upon her tongue as her curse stretched its fingers through the bars of its cage.
The entire light-wall spanned from the continuously hovering ship to the valley floor, like it had been sealed shut, seamless in its design.
And inside…
Sonara forced herself to look through the shimmering pale sheet of light, her entire body tensing up like a spring. “They’ve trapped them down there, like steeds in a slaughter pen.”
She had no idea what had transpired in the hours since they’d run, seeking shelter in the neighboring mountain caves. But while they’d been watching, the scene inside the Garden had shifted.
No longer were there bodies sprawled across the grass, or the burned remains of what had once been a bustling market day. The rubble of tents and market stalls had been moved aside, the once-emerald, sweeping grass of the valley charred in a wide circle that left the Garden barren at its base.
The river that spanned across its center, stretching down from the fingertips of the goddess, looked dim, filled with ash and muddied by what seemed to be a constant trail of feet stomping through it, or the fat tire marks of the Wanderers’ black vehicles that were now parked beside the river.
The Wanderers themselves stood paces apart, in groups of two, holding their rifles as they made a wide circle around the prisoners.
A herd of them, as Sonara had said. All kingdoms were gone. They’d been shoved close together, warriors and artists and merchants, nobles that had come to be seen and peasant revelers that had come simply to witness the Gathering’s glory. All of them, now madeonepeople, sent to their knees. Jaxon was among them. Alive…
But kneeling, just like all the others.
“Why?” Sonara asked. “Why don’t they make amove?”
They all had one thing in common, one thing that set their classes and kingdoms aside: the metallic black beetles that had swarmed at the end of the attack. They clung to the backs of the prisoners’ necks, their sharp needle-like arms digging into the skin, like ticks sucking the freedom from them.
Little red lights, on the backs of each beetle, glowed like devils’ eyes.
“There,” Markam said suddenly. “Something’s happening.”
He passed the spyglass to Sonara.
She swung it around to where Markam was pointing, pressing it to her eye so that she could see him up close.
The Wanderer leader, adorned in his crimson armor, emerged from the back of the largest of their vehicles, a massive metal wagon on six fat tires. And beside him…
King Jira.
They walked side by side, as if they wereequals.Jira, with his massive frame, his gold tunic tied at his waist by a belt of diamonds. His crown of bones was upon his head, but it could not distract from the gaping socket in his face where his eye should have been.Sonara’s lips spread into a devious smile as she beheld it. And remembered, suddenly, that the king was without his sword.
She had no time to question Markam about the whereabouts of Gutrender, forgotten in the chaos, as the Wanderer leader steered Jira towards the group of prisoners. Wanderer soldiers in crimson armor bowed their heads as they passed, stepping aside so that the Wanderer and Jira could stand at the front of the group.
