Aya made her way to the center of the outer wall where General Dav stood overlooking the battle, his eyes narrowed in concentration, hands braced on the cement.
“We’ll wait until the fighting has reached the docks,” Dav instructed without moving his attention from the battle. “I want as many of our people clear before we move forward.” Aya couldn’t help but feel the words were directed at Evie, who stood at her side.
“I think we can trust Aya has more control than that,” Evie replied lightly. “But should she need extra motivation…”
Evie motioned toward the far side of the path, where a figure was making their way toward them, their head bowed as they followed the two guards at their shoulders.
Lorna.
“Surely you realize power is imperfect,” Aya said as Lorna reached them. “If your soldiers are in the way, I cannot account for what happens to them.”
“I suggest you try,” Evie replied evenly. “If not, it will be your precious lover’s mother who suffers the consequences.”
Lorna huffed. “She does not find me much of a mother, I assure you.”
She smirked at Aya, the twisted corner of it so similar to Will’s that Aya had to force herself not to look away.
“Besides…death is coming for us all, isn’t it?” Lorna added.
Evie trilled a laugh. “What a sudden lack of regard you have for your own life.”
Lorna tore her gaze from Aya to meet the demigod’s head on. “Perhaps,” she said softly, “I simply recognize my time.”
“Enough,” Gregor cut in. He’d taken up a spot at the wall beside Dav, and he leaned over it now, his jaw tight as he assessed the scene unfolding below them.
A loudcrackerupted from the city center, loud enough to have Aya ducking. When she rose, she saw a new column of smoke bleeding into the sky. A chorus of screams rose to meet it. The noise of the battle was getting closer, the shouts and screams and pleas melding together as the Midlands continued to push forward.
It was nearly time.
A second round of shouts rose up from the city. It was impossible to tell who they belonged to or what they meant, but Aya tried, her eyes squinting as she blinked away the burn.
“Your Majesty!”
She barely registered the desperate shout from the Kakos soldier until he was just before them, his chest heaving from his sprint down the long path on the outer wall. There was a sheen of sweat on his skin, and a smudge of what looked like ash stretching from his neck to his short blond hair.
“What is it?” Gregor asked sharply. “What’s happened?”
The soldier braced his hands on his knees as he coughed viciously. “The camp,” he gasped. “The camp is burning.”
“What?” Dav demanded, the battle seemingly forgotten as he rounded on the soldier. But Aya was looking past him, toward the eastern hills, where four pillars of smoke stretched toward the sky like beacons.
The soldier straightened, his throat bobbing as he swallowed. “The prisoners,” he croaked. “They escaped their pens. They must have set fire to the camp before fleeing into the woods.”
“Not the woods,” Lorna countered. She pointed further down the hillside. Aya knew before she even looked exactly what she’d see.
Running down the hill, rags indistinguishable at a distance, were Kakos’s prisoners, an almighty battle cry rising up from them as they rushed toward the fight.
***
There was a structured chaos to battle, Aidon had learned. It involved strategy and organization, lines and segments, planning and regrouping. There was order and rules and clean killing, and it was horrible, but it was predictable in a way.
None of that seemed to exist in Sitya.
They’d ridden as close as they could to the fighting until they had to rid themselves of their horses to push through the panicked crowds. He had thought the city would have been abandoned after the first attack. But either the Midlandians stayed by capture or by fear, and now they wereeverywhere, some running through the streets toward the battle that raged on ahead, and others toward the hills—toward a chance at freedom.
“We don’t even know where we’re going!” Dauphine yelled from beside him, her blade dripping blood on the rubble beneath their feet. A few paces down from her, Will threw hisknife into the back of a fleeing Kakos soldier. Aidon marked the pain that flickered across Will’s face as the man went down.
His shield must already be buckling.
