I nod to him. “That’s interesting. That means that Priests would probably have a reasonably good chance of standing against them?”
Rhaskar shrugs. “I don’t know. If they’re built like Chained, I doubt it. If they’re built like dragons, definitely not. Regardless,they’d have the numbers. We have what… a few thousand Priests? Most of them are barely more than typical humans other than the ability to wield dragonfire, which I’d assume is worthless against Hunters. Otherwise, the dragons wouldn’t have had any problem fighting them. The numbers are the real danger, though. You can always figure out how to kill a single enemy if you can find his weaknesses and exploit them, but to do that millions of times? That’s a completely different question, and it’s not always one with a reasonable answer.”
I chew my lip. “That’s not the best of news.”
“It is what it is. We’ll have to adapt just like we did when the gods began their war. We can’t adapt until we know what we’re up against, though.”
I look him in his eyes for a few long moments before saying, “You should begin recruiting more heavily for the Order. It feels like something is happening behind the scenes. Echo died. Saelira said one of the gods will die soon. Other gods have mostly disappeared. Things are changing, and it’d be better if you had more people trained up now rather than trying to scramble for numbers later.”
His face is grave as he hears my suggestion. “We will do our best to increase our numbers. This is good information. Do you have any more?”
“I’m fighting on a team in the third trial. All the gods, champions, and most of their generals will be watching us. I won’t be able to use any of my Marks, and any use of Infusions will need to be hidden.”
He nods. “We already expected you to have to hide your strengths. That you’re on a team is worrisome, though. Do they trust you to hold your own in a fight? If they still look at you as a…”
“No, they trust me. I said that a Priest had trained me from a young age, and they haven’t questioned it. Rurik and Erik Halden are on my team. Both of them believed me when I explained why I could fight like I do, so the rest of the group has accepted it.”
Rhaskar’s eyes harden at the mention of the princes’ names. “You’re working with the Halden boys?”
I nod to him, and he lets out an exasperated snarl. “They’re not to be trusted, Fiona. Their father, Brandor Halden, was the first to give in to the gods’ demands. He allowed thousands of his people to be tortured for five years to create the Stormbringers. They were the first ones taken and the last ones to be brought back to Nyth.”
I’ve been told how each of the Godforged were created. The process wasn’t pleasant for any save Adelyth’s group, though they all started as Fae rather than humans. I thought it was horrible what each of the gods had done because Rhaskar had spoken with such ferocity on the matter. I’d trusted him implicitly then, but now…
“How many years of torture do you put the average Priest through?” I say softly.
He whips his head toward me with anger in his eyes. “I don’t tortu…”
“What do you call breaking my legs when I was seven? What about when you flayed my arms? How about when you forced me to learn to think while my body fought for air?”
I can see the telltale signs of him trying to control his emotions. The way his jaw tightens. His hands go behind his back so that he can clench his fists. “I had to do that, Fiona. It was a necessary part of your training. You were going to go with me on missions, and if someone had captured you…”
I stop him. “If it looks like a goat, walks like a goat, and bleats like a goat, it’s not a fucking duck just because you put some feathers on it. You tortured me. You’ve tortured countless others during their training as Priests. Yes, you had your reasons, but the Haldens aren’t angry that they went through theirtraining. Stop acting like you haven’t done anything terrible in the name of saving people. Their father decided the best way to save his people was to make a deal with a god. More than likely, they would have been crushed, so he probably made the right decision for his people.”
Rhaskar’s eyes blaze. “You don’t know what you’re saying, Fiona. Spending time with thesepeoplehas changed you. You never would have considered our enemies to have been in the right before you came here.”
“That’s because you never looked at anything from their side,” I say through gritted teeth. I know I’m fighting with him because of what I’ve learned rather than because he was saying negative things about Erik and Rurik’s father. That doesn’t matter. No one stands up to him. No one tells him he’s as much of a tyrant as any of the gods or their champions. Yes, he’s saved Sylvantia from the torment that so many other kingdoms have experienced, but that doesn’t mean he’s some white knight from stories.
“Each of them allowed their people to become a commodity for a god. The humans in every kingdom other than Sylvantia are little more than demon fodder.”
I smile at him rather than let the anger take hold because if I give up any of my control, I’ll tell him exactly why I’m furious at him. “I didn’t say you did anything wrong. What I’m saying is that the other kings and queens didn’t have the tools you had. They didn’t think they could hold back the tide of the Godforged armies. Decisions are hard,Father. You made the right choice. I think Brandor did as well. It’s time you stopped acting like they all gave up so easily.”
I don’t let him get a word in. “The only reason you refusing Lysara worked was because everyone else agreed. If not enough of the kingdoms had given in, the gods would have come down and fought you themselves. You wouldn’t have been able to win that fight. From what I understand, if any of the other kingdoms truly wanted to destroy Sylvantia, they would march the full strength of their armies on us. Even with almost eighty years of you recruiting Priests, we would crumble like paper walls before a storm. Have we ever faced a full-sized force from any of the Godforged armies?”
He pauses for a moment, and I don’t respond, forcing him to accept my statement. “Once,” he says softly. “Once, Lysara’s army of the Undying attacked Sylvantia at the beginning of the war. The Order was tiny then, barely three hundred of us. We had only two Marks, the Phoenix and Chains. It was a massacre. They pushed us all the way back to Stormhaven. Inni led the attack, and I alone stood against her on the wall. It was only because of theballista we’d installed that any of us survived. That and because the Undying were so new to their powers.”
His voice trails off as he remembers the same battle that Inni had mentioned. “She didn’t even have a champion. What would have happened if Azric had been riding Inni?”
“We’d have lost, I should think,” he says softly. “We held them off for three days, and then they left, not even bothering to hold the land they’d taken. It was as if they had given up. The casualties were massive on both sides, but for every one of them we killed, at least three humans died. There were only a handful of Priests that survived. It was catastrophic, but we won. The wall held the storm back even if very little was left. ”
“They gave up because every Undying that you killed stayed dead permanently. It’s why they don’t bother with us anymore. It’s why me becoming a champion is so dangerous to their plans.”
I take a deep breath. “You need to stop thinking as though everyone in Nyth is the enemy,Father. The more and more I’ve heard about these Hunters, the more I think we need to have conversations with champions. You made your stand, and you were successful. The Godforged don’t want to go to war with us, but soon enough, we’re going to war alongside them, whether or not you plan to. You got lucky in this war. No amount of Veris’s touch will protect you or the rest of humanity from the next one. We can’t be shortsighted.”
He doesn’t respond for a long time, and it’s only when he turns to face away from me that he finally answers. “Maybe you’re right. We’ve been fighting for so long, but if what you say is true, thenwe need to look to the future rather than the past. It’s the mark of a good leader to put his own biases to the side and listen to reason.”
He turns back toward me. “I will speak with the most experienced Priests and see if we can come to some agreement on how to move forward in a world where the gods and their armies aren’t our enemies any longer.”
I nod to him and lift the sack of Infusions. Just like within my cloak, there are no clinks of vials. Each of them is protected against any accidental impact by decades of experience. Infusions are, after all, the greatest treasure the Priests hold. “How long should these last?” I ask.
