My eyes swept over the army again, assessing battle readiness, weapons reserves, patrols—every tiny intricacy. It still wasn’t enough.
“We don’t know how the succubus organize, but the legacy of the Great War tells us they do eventually create a mass that can be faced in battle. Do you remember the carvings in the water gardens?”
I felt Veyka’s nod.
“The fae forces were depicted in organized formations, as you’d expect. What we believed to be humans—actually the succubus—were haphazard,” I explained. “Facing them will be different than any other foe I or anyone living has encountered.”
Lyrena shifted subtly on my other side. Isolde’s claws clicked together faintly. Barkke muttered a curse under his breath.
Veyka pulled her elbows under herself and turned away from the army camp below. To face me. “You did not answer my question.”
“I don’t know.” We’d made vows of truth between us. I would not break them now.
Veyka held my gaze, her blue eyes dull and flat. “Have you seen what you need?”
“Yes.”
“Then let’s go.”
26
VEYKA
The fortress of Cayltay was damn depressing.
Unlike Baylaur, with the goldstone palace perched on the mountainside and the city sprawling across the valley beneath it, there were no buildings or residences radiating out from the high stone walls. There was inhospitable marshland and trees whose branches did not start until a hundred feet in the air, making them impossible to scale.
The fortress itself was a mess of gray stone, with a dizzying array of turrets and crenellations that seemed to make no sense to an outside observer. Maybe that was the point—to disorient any foe trying to decide where to concentrate their attack. I counted at least seven towers rising above the tangle of stone, every one a different height. The tallest of them rose until its spire disappeared entirely into the fog that seemed to cling to the place.
It was not the sort of place that welcomed visitors.
“What is the best way in?” I asked, tilting my head to consider. Of course, there was my way. But Arran had already vetoed that.
“There is only one,” Arran said grimly. He took the first steps into the marshland and the rest of us followed.
“What about the lake? Surely there is a port of some kind,” Lyrena asked, falling into step off my shoulder, on the opposite side as Arran. I rolled my eyes, even though no one was paying me any kind of attention.
Arran had his battle axe already in hand. “It would be a point of weakness. There is only one way into Cayltay. And two ways out.”
I opened my mouth to say something sarcastic, but when Barkke beat me to it, there was no mirth in his voice.
“The way you came in, or death,” he said.
Barkke had never been south of the Spine, by both his and Arran’s accounts. But he knew the legends of Cayltay. They must be pervasive in the terrestrial kingdom—and carefully concealed from elementals.
“And you terrestrials think we’ve got a flair for the dramatic,” Lyrena laughed. Like Arran, she had her weapon in hand. In her other, flames danced. “What about magic?”
“Stone doesn’t burn, Lyrena,” I said, flashing a grin over my shoulder.
“But flesh does,” she winked back.
Arran’s beast growled at our insolence. “The wards here are different than the ones on the goldstone palace. Because the royal line does not pass through families, it repels certain types of magic instead. No vines can climb the walls.”
“And let me guess—no airy terraces that could be infiltrated by shifters?” I said, turning my saccharine smile in his direction and ignoring the fact that my boots were now wet with stagnant marsh water.
He’d once complained about the balconies of the goldstone palace. Coming from a place like this, I could begin to understand how he’d found the elemental palace deficient bycomparison. At least in terms of defensibility. This place would win no accolades for beauty.
“You want to linger outside in this?” As he said it, he caught my hands between his. I’d shucked my gloves so they wouldn’t be in the way if I wanted to grab my weapons. As we walked, he lifted one hand to his mouth, cupped between his larger ones, and blew several long puffs of hot air. When he was satisfied that one hand was warm, he changed it for the other.
