None of that awaits us in the Western Realms. Even with Gent’s poor vision, I can see an endless vista of stark, moonlitmountains and valleys filled with dull gray sand. Nothing seems to move in this barren hellscape, nothing breathes, nothing?—
A light flickers on.
Gent’s mournful cry reverberates through my blood and bones, but there is somethingthere, I think, a tiny speck of gold glittering against the relentless expanse of shadow. As I study it, stare at it, it flares even brighter, almost as if it recognizes me, reaches out to me. I yearn to reach out to it as well, to grasp it and hold it in my hand, as if this tiny speck is my birthright, my own peace of sunshine to claim and call my own.
All this happens in barely a blink, but with that desire, I experience a lifetime’s worth of agony as Gent forcibly turns his head away from the barren landscape and fixes his gaze on the white canopy of stars. Because he’snotcarrying me, because I’m only seeing what he can see, I can no longer glimpse that tiny burst of light. I can only sense his abject misery at the fact that it even exists, a sorrow so great, it sinks into my bones and renders me hollow on the inside, with endless tears pouring down.
Gent continues on to the Blessed Plane, leaving me behind, and I fall back into to my own body, in my own plane, still reverberating with his pain. I was pierced through by Kreya’s talons as she strived to rescue me from the Eighth House, I know that clearly—and yet, I’ve been damaged worse by that tiny yellow speck against a boundless sea of ashen sand.
And that wound…I may not recover from.
I huddle into my cloak, weeping in harsh, shuddering sobs without really knowing why. Then the sounds of shouting men and women overtake me, and I collapse to the ground, my blood seeping into the earth of the Fated Plane.
Chapter 31
Istare out at the sky as it lightens over the distant eastern horizon—dawn breaking across the wide plains. It’s even more beautiful than I expected it to be. I munch on thick bread and shift under my bandages, willing myself to spontaneously heal from Kreya’s talon punctures. I don’t have time to feel this bad. I certainly don’t have time to have bled so much.
The smell of cooking meat wafts toward me, reminding me of how long it’s been since I’ve eaten. I glance over to where Tennet lies collapsed beside me, his face clean, his shoulder bandaged, his long dark lashes soft against his sunburned face, a warrior in repose.
He’s totally awake, of course. He has been for a while. But awake and stretched out under heavy blankets is better than awake and functional, and I’ve let him “sleep’ for another quarter hour past what he should have. If I have to be upright and suffering, he should be too.
“Yo.” I reach out to poke him, wincing at the stretchy ache in my shoulders. “What happened to you? Did the skrill decide to return for a second course of tasty lord?”
He cocks one eye open, then serves up a self-satisfied grin, which is effective even from his reclined position. “Could you blame them?”
“Only if they were starving. And had seriously low standards.”
His chuckle dissolves into a groan as he hauls himself up to a seated position. “They were only part of the issue. I also nearly got my own arm dislocated hauling that Savasci woman, Syril, up onto Ayne. It seems she’s the type to punch first and ask questions later. I can see why you two get along.”
“I’m surprised she didn’t knock you right off your dragon.”
“At least I didn’t drop so fast that only a long-beaked death monster with pincers of doom could catch me. I’m surprised you still have any blood in your body. It took three Savasci healers to patch you up—I think one of them may have sacrificed a goat.”
Fortiss’s loud command from the front of the cave draws our attention, and my eyes widen as I focus on him. He’s gotten cleaned up since the night before and changed his clothes. But there’s no great stock of lord protector black and gold silks sitting amongst the storehouses of the Eighth House, of course, especially since the Eighth House is now apparently overrun with death.
Instead, Fortiss is wearing head-to-toe leathers, suitable for fast horse rides over harsh territory. He looks like the male equivalent of a Savasci.
It’s…a good look. Good enough that my mouth goes a little dry. Blight him for looking like that right when I’m trying to regain my sense of equilibrium.
“Try not to drool.” Tennet smirks at me. “Speaking of low standards.”
“Everyone, look sharp,” Fortiss begins, saving me from a response. “We don’t have much time, and we all need tounderstand what’s happening here in case one or more of us fall to the wayside. The plan has to continue. Who can fight?”
Every one of the Savasci stands tall and pounds her fist to her chest. Tennet grunts his way off our makeshift bed and pulls me to my feet as well, then we echo the move. Nazar, Caleb and Miriam are all present and accounted for at the far end of the gathering, though I don’t see any of the hummerlets. Hopefully, they all made it back to the Blessed Plane when the skrill first attacked.
There are some male guards as well, all of them dressed as Savasci. None of them look like any of the men who accompanied us to the Eighth House, though. My head is swimming with questions, but for once I hold my tongue as Fortiss continues.
“Nazar, Caleb and Miriam, you’ll take the talonstones I recovered from Daggar’s vault and travel to all houses along the western border, as well as those along the southern border that allied with us during the melee in the Tournament of Gold. Speak to the house lords, recruit any soldiers they can spare with Divhs, and return. Horses won’t help us here, and we’ve got more than enough along with skilled riders already. If the men are willing to fight on their feet and there’s a Divh that can carry them, we welcome them. Otherwise, no. They should stay behind and prepare to defend their own houses.”
He turns to Syril. “If you can spare a delegate, it would be good to have a first-hand account of what they need to expect should we fail. Plus, they can describe the locations to Nazar, so he can ask our Divhs to travel there.”
“I’ll give you two,” she says. “One of our own and one of the guards of the Eighth House. Where a woman’s words may fail, a man’s won’t, and these guards have lost good men. They’ve also lost their leader.”
I jolt, Syril’s revelations from last night flooding back to me. Was it all true? Could we seriously have walked into a nest of skrill without realizing it?
Fortiss just nods, then looks to Nazar.
“I can carry two additional riders on Wrath, and Marsh can harness a second in,” Nazar says. “Miriam’s hummerbill would love nothing more than to pinion any traveler who needs a lift, but as we’ve already seen, she’s not so careful with her claws.”
