Even though her explanation made sense, I couldn't help but glare at Dante as he drew nearer. This was a mission to create peace and build trust. I didn't trust him. I never would again.
“Kane?”Primaasked, drawing my attention away from my former partner as her frown faded into surprised confusion. “Zya?”
“Oh yeah,” I said with a smile. “We’re going to need two more horses.”
***
As it turned out, the riding wasn’t the hard part. Neither was the camping since we barely stopped long enough to pull out a sleeping bag beforePrimaand her General were ordering us all to march again. I slept in the saddle more often than not and spent my waking hours wondering how an exhausted army was going to fare in taking an entire city. The hardest part was the hope.
Men and women in armor of varying states approached me every time we stopped. They gave me their portions at mealtimes, spoke to me of their losses during rests, and a few actually bowed to me when I passed by. I hated it. It reminded me of theGeist,but I wasn’t a god. Treating a being containing a great power that way was how we'd gotten into this in the first place. So I tried to discourage it as often as I could but that only seemed to make them more determined to appeal to me despite my perceived humility.
Gryfontrained me at odd intervals whenever we had a moment to ourselves which wasn’t often. He was frequently off with a chosen sect of his warriors discussing battle plans or checking on men or supplies. It didn’t matter. I was finding it easier and easier to call the dark now that I understood the feeling I was searching for. I memorized it, became familiarwith it, and called it whenever I closed my eyes. That power which had laid dormant within me for so long rolled restless just beneath the surface now. And it was mine. More than anything I’d ever had, this was mine. Because no one could take it away. Not without killing me. And I supposed then it wouldn’t matter.
I clung to it at night and during the day when I was nearly slipping from the saddle in my exhaustion. I drew strength from it when no one was looking. I let it guide me, be within me like the breath in my lungs or the blood in my veins. I no longer feared that vacant dreamland because, even there, it was with me. It was mine, intimately and personally and, though I didn’t have the slightest idea how I was going to call it in the volume I would need to take down the wards surrounding Sanctuary, somehow I knew I could.
I didn't sense a bottom to the well of this power. I didn't sense a limit. I was sure it existed but somehow I knew it lied far beyond the city-freeing amount I needed. I worried about failure. I worried about risking the lives of all the people who'd come with us to wait outside the human walls and then journey with a whole new army to free my homeland. I worried about fighting the famousPavosiansquadrons who'd already killed so many of our own. I knew we would lose more. I knew there was a possibility all of this was for nothing, if I couldn’t take down the wards in the end. But I also knew we were doing the right thing. Sanctuary deserved to be free. The Underground deserved to be free. I deserved to be free.
“There’s a color code we didn’t get the memo for,” Kane said on the third day of our journey.
Zyasnorted, causing me to look up at them. I allowed a tired smile to grace my lips as I glanced down at the black armor, black sword, and black horse below me.
“If it’s any consolation, I wasn’t offered a choice,” I informed him. “Hot pink is more my speed.”
He barked a laugh at that and I couldn’t help my grin. It was good to hear Kane laugh again. I didn’t think I had since what happened in the forest. But Kane must have been thinking the same thing because the laughter died, his smile faltered, and he turned away.
He didn't laugh again for the rest of the journey.
We saw the wall on the evening of the fifth day. It rose high above the desert before it, casting us all in its shadow long before we'd made it to the gate. Zya, Kane, and I couldn't help but gape and, I noticed, many of Gryfon's warriors did as well. The towering behemoth wasn't only imposing against the fading sun. There was also a power to it. A thrilling hum that buzzed through the air and vibrated beneath my skin like an invitation.
Come,it seemed to say,see.
Once I'd been lifted from my horse, yet again, by the annoyingly powerful arms of the general, I did just that, taking a step toward the perimeter of the human city. Gryfon's hand shot out and gripped my arm, holding me back.
"Where do you think you're going?" he growled under his breath.
"I—" I started, unable to look away from the strange wall. "You don't feel that?"
His grip loosened and I wrenched out of it, resuming my walk to the wall. Soldiers peered down from on top of it, now huddled together and muttering to themselves as if deciding what to do about the lone woman approaching their precious wall. They had bows and arrows and weapons that glinted in the sunset but I didn't fear them. Not with the power rushing through my veins, pushing me onward.
Gryfon followed. He didn't say another word, didn't try to convince me to stop or warn me that the guards would shoot me if I got too close. He just followed, silent and brooding as always.
My fingertips began to tingle as I approached the wall. It wasn't like the burning, itching sensation I'd experienced in my palms when I'd met the Oath Stone. This was different. It was a cold twitching, a whisper of power against my flesh, a gentle beckoning. It was a suggestion, not a demand. An invitation, not an order. And it felt familiar.
The wall was a solid piece of stone with little rivulets of jade running through it. I could only see the green when I got close. Something about the color felt familiar as well but the thought vanished when my hands began to shake.
I reached up and pressed my palm against the stone.
A deep thrumming started in my chest, a low energetic hum that grew louder and louder until it shot through my arm and into the stone and turned into a sound of a low horn. The guards above started shouting to one another, scrambling back away from the wall's edge. Dust rained down, shaken loose in the vibration connecting us.
I closed my eyes and breathed.
Flashes of living color flew through my mind. A woman with red hair staring into the horizon. Another with a dark complexion shuffling through busy streets with her hood drawn up. A man who walks through bone dust. A princess in a palace overlooking an obsidian sea. Burning fire, dripping blood, white mist.
"Gods," someone cursed.
I opened my eyes and turned.
Behind me were dozens of Zver, without saddles, without riders, sitting back on their haunches and watching me. Wild Zver, come from the caves and crevices of this desert, sat waiting with red eyes glinting in the light of the dying sun. Green venom dripped from their maws, a familiar shade. I turned to the wall at my back.
