Finan pinned his ears to his head and half reared, the scent of smoke and carnage making him nervous. At the same time, Irian swooped from the pearly sky, fanning his great wings before he transformed back to his Gentry form. He caught at Finan’s bridle, and though the horse shivered, he seemed less frightened of Irian than he was of the destruction before us.
“We should go back.” Irian’s brows were knitted and his gaze stark.
“Back?” I echoed, hardly understanding his meaning. My eyeskept returning to the straight lines of butchered animals, blood blooming on their pelts like vicious roses. A thought kept trying to nudge through the horror thronging my mind
There were no people. A farm this size would have likely housed a farming couple, their children, and half a dozen relatives or farmhands hired on to tend the fields and animals. But despite the dozens of slaughtered cows, sheep, and chickens, I saw no humans. Alive, or otherwise. Which meant—
“She is growing her army.” Just as the barkeep had warned. The wind and smoke whipped my suddenly stinging eyes.
“She may let them join while they are still alive,” Irian said softly. “But burns their holdings to ensure they have no place to return.”
“This is madness.” My hands tightened on the reins as I thought about all the innocents caught in this terrible conflict. And how many would die before it ended. “Without farms or farmers there will be no harvest. What does she expect to feed her army in a month? A season? A year?”
“Mo chroí.” Irian’s voice dropped a register. “One does not need to feed an army of the dead.”
The thought chilled me even further. Monarchs already had little care for the human lives they treated like cannon fodder. But they were at least forced to operate under the knowledge that a dead soldier could no longer fight. Eala was bound by no such restrictions. She did not care if her soldiers starved or died of exhaustion or bled out in battle.
“We keep going.”
“I know you think to kill her, Fia.” Irian’s expression grew even more troubled. “But we will be alone in a stronghold she controls. Surrounded by her army and her supplicants. There will be nothing to stop her from killingyou.”
“She will not kill me,” I said with utter certainty. Her words from the Longest Night were etched along the architecture of my bones.It matters not whether you are my enemy or my ally. Youare my sister. My other half. And only together can we be made whole.“She believes she needs me, and I need her, to be complete. She will not murder me on a whim.”
Irian hesitated a moment longer, then gave a brisk, unhappy nod. “Then we continue to the capital. And may the gods, living and dead, have mercy on us.”
I followed Irian’s anam cló as best I could, a shard of black screaming through the smoke-striped blue. Although I knew he tried not to lead me through the worst of the destruction, it was little use—the landscape was apocalyptic. Vast columns of black veered from burning villages and torched holdings. The stench of decay hung heavy in the air. Ravens and vultures swarmed above, their deathly calls casting a pall over the otherwise pleasant spring day.
It was early afternoon by the time we reached the ridge beyond Rath na Mara, but I felt as if I had been riding for years. The sight of the fort that had once been my home brought me little comfort; the dreadful army stacked in silent, orderly rows beyond its stockades nearly sent me running back the way we’d come.
I had never seen an army this size. It easily occupied the whole of the plain surrounding Rath na Mara. Ten thousand strong, perhaps more. And every single soldier was dead.
The stench slapped me full in the face, a noxious wave of carrion. I gagged, the spare contents of my stomach roiling as I fought not to heave. I lifted my arm to cover my nostrils with my sleeve, but the scent of death pervaded all my senses, stinging my eyes and crawling along my throat.
I urged Finan down the slope before either of us could change our minds. Irian alighted a bare moment later, his boots striking the road at the same time as he drew the Sky-Sword.
But as we trotted between their ordered rows, it was plain to see the army meant us no immediate harm. They stood perfectlystill, hands—if they had them—hanging loose by their sides and eyes—if they hadthem—staring blankly ahead. The bodies were in every state of decay imaginable. Some might have passed for the living were it not for the faint patterns of livid veins spiderwebbed beneath their skin, the dark hollows ringing their eyes. Some were little more than skeletons, bleached bones decorated by medallions of skin and ribbons of stringy hair.
Most of them were somewhere in between. Horrid, damaged, mutilated corpses. Bashed-in skulls and crippling injuries and gaping, maggot-infested wounds. Worm-eaten flesh and throat-slit smiles and abdomens garlanded by loose guts.
At last, I couldn’t stand it. I reined Finan to an inelegant halt, flung myself off his back, and vomited on the road until nothing but bile burned my throat and seared my nostrils. I barely registered Irian’s hands carefully smoothing the hair back from my face, his voice murmuring, “We can go back, mo chroí. You do not have to do this.”
I scrubbed my sleeve over my lips and blinked scalding tears from my eyes.
“We’re nearly there,” I croaked. “Let’s not waste any more time.”
Mercifully, the army of the dead soon gave way to a much smaller one made of the living. Men and women—nearly as dead-eyed and dull-faced as the walking corpses—moved listlessly between patched tents and ramshackle outbuildings and campfires ringed with bedrolls, polishing armor and sharpening weapons and cooking rations. It still stank, but after the rows of the dead, the normal odors of unwashed humans and open privies were practically perfume. Some fénnidi turned their heads to briefly stare at us, but their eyes seemed vacant, as if they knew they were little better than dead men walking.
Finally, the wooden palisade of the fort loomed before us. I stared up, searching for movement along the ramparts. I saw nothing. No one hailed us as I dismounted, stalked to the gate, and slammed my fist on it as hard as I could.
Bang. Bang. Bang.
The gate to Rath na Mara creaked, then swung slowly inward.
When I looked back at Irian, his gaze was shadowed with misgivings. Beside him, Finan stamped and sallied, the whites of his eyes gleaming with fear. I inhaled, hammered my spine straight with all my misplaced courage, and walked inside the place I’d once called home.
The moment we crossed the threshold, the gate groaned, then slammed closed.
Trapping me and Irian in the stronghold of the Deathless Queen.
