“Commander Folami! What happened? What was that noise?” Faces and voices blurred together as I ran, braids pounding against my back and beads clicking in alarm.
“Get to the palace!” I called, my voice booming with authority and a crazed, desperate edge. My feet slapped against the stone, my breaths sawing through my heavy chest. “We are under attack! Get to the palace!”
I never paused to see if my orders were followed, but I had to believe that their training—and perhaps the animalistic instinct to survive—would propel them into action.
On and on I ran, growing ever closer to the sea with each step. The streets sloped downward here, and my cadence only increased in an effort to keep my body from toppling head over heels.
My feet carried me to the docks, my boots slapping against the wood with a harsh echo. The smells of battle and death were thicker here, causing me to hack and cough as I approached a lone figure. They never turned, even as I retched onto the docks, my meager breakfast and bile coating the wooden boards. With eyes watering from vomiting and the thick smoke in the air, I turned to the end of the docks. There, silhouetted against the rising sun, was Talamh. He was clad in Deucena’s traditional attire, his hand resting lightly on a pouch of crystals—the last remaining from the mine collapse.
My breaths sawed in and out of my chest as I fought desperately to calm my racing heart. Sweat slicked my skin, causing my loose pants to stick obscenely, but I felt none of it. Time seemed to halt completely as I surveyed the wreckage aside Talamh.
It was worse from this angle; a graveyard of masts and ships, broken bodies bobbing with the currents and waves. Portions of the sea were darker, especially beneath groupings of more than one body.
Blood, I realized with a jolt.It’s from their blood.
I listened intently to the sounds of the wind and the crackling of fire as pieces of ships burned asunder, desperately searching for a voice—anyvoice. But it was quiet as a tomb—no calls of pain or cries for help or mercy came from the watery depths.
Were they all dead?
Silence reigned in the aftermath of the destruction, and I refused to break it, cautiously pulling even with Talamh.
He never acknowledged my existence, simply spoke on a broken whisper.
“We are doomed, Folami. They come, and we have no way to stop them. My people—” Talamh faltered.
“Your people”—I paused to inhale deeply a few times—“are safe in theirhomes or within the palace. But you are not. I am not. We must retreat into the city and plan our defense.”
“What defense, Folami?” Talamh looked at me then, and I saw the same worry and fear I felt reflected back at me in his azure eyes.
I hardened myself, then, closing off all emotion; any lingering personal cares I had needed to be buried for the time, at least until we were safe.
“We have Mages and?—”
“No, Folami. We don’t. We have unAwakened cadets and Mages too fearful to join the frontlines. They will break the minute Solace steps foot on these docks.” It was said with finality and a snort of disgust.
I kept my mouth shut, unable to disagree with him despite how desperately I wanted to.
The reality was weweren’ta fighting force and, if we did try and defend the city from Solace, we’d be eviscerated in seconds.
I crossed my arms, hugging my sides in a rare display of uncertainty.
“So what do we do?” I asked, my voice quiet and reverent as I watched the sails of the enemy ships slowly glide through the watery graveyard.
Talamh turned on his heel, having seen enough to formulate a plan. I followed in his wake, my eyes hanging onto the slowly sinking ships for a moment longer, praying I’d see a head of chestnut curls darkened by the water. But the waves kept their secrets.
“We pull back to the city. Hide everyone in the warded mines,” Talamh said as we quickly climbed the sloping streets back toward the heart of Alvor.
“Wait until they pass,” I said, understanding dawning. Talamh grunted, and I nodded my head. “It’s a good plan.”
“It’s theonlyplan.”
“Alvor will fall,” I said, preparing him for the inevitable destruction of his homeland.
“Palaces can be rebuilt. Homes and businesses, too. Stone may be scorched and Alvor reduced to mere rubble, but it is just that—stone and earth. It can all be rebuilt,” he intoned quietly, almost reverently, as we wound our way through the cobbled streets.
My heart hurt for him; Alvor was a beautiful, ancient city with ties to a time before the gods walked Elyria. To lose that history—his ancestral home—would be devastating. But one glance at his hardened expression and determined glint in his eyes told that the city wasn’t his concern.
“People cannot,” he finished as the palace loomed. He stopped suddenly, causing me to halt a few paces in front of him.
