Not the sorrow. She would not focus on that now. She focused on what she had seen, in Ulreah’s eyes, as the light faded from them: hope.
She focused on his last words: “For Xanthia.”
And so Alianna took a deep breath, fighting back the sobs that threatened to spill out of her, and prepared to make her final stand in this war.
For Xanthia.
For Ulreah.
For Rionan.
41
Rannirr
The silence of the skies seemed to shout at Rionan, like a dreadful, menacing alarm.
Something was wrong.
Lightning had assaulted around the courtyard, all of those in the grounds surrounding its entry points, and shot for the swarms of enemy Amassa that had been sailing through the air.
But something was wrong.
The night around him was silent, if only for a few heartbeats.
The warriors around him - now mostly his own – looked around between heavy breaths, as if waiting for the next wave of soldiers to appear and charge at them.
For a few heartbeats, nobody came.
Rionan looked up.
The sky overhead was clear.
The stars within the velvet sky shone above them, like the gods smiling down on such a dark day.
The wind had stilled.
The lightning had stopped.
Rionan knew that something terrible had happened to his friend.
He let out an almighty roar and began running ahead. Running in desperate hope that wherever Alianna was, Ulreah had bought her the time she needed to get this done.
Ulreah had bought that time with his life.
Rionan could not mourn his friend now. He needed to focus. He could not cave in to grief, now.
He would not speculate as to where Alianna was, or how Ulreah had become so overwhelmed that he had died in battle.
Ali is not dead. He told himself.Ali is not dead.
Ali is not dead.
He would know, wouldn’t he? He would feel it. In his heart, in his chest, in his soul; as a fragment of it was hers, he would feel it.
Rionan had to believe that Alianna was ok.
Rionan continued running, weaving through his warriors, who were all closing ranks between them, maintaining the defensive positions around Savangrad that they had been instructed to follow.
