I jolted when Dina extended her palm towards me. Suddenly, all eyes fixed on me. I didn’t even know the names of some of these people; they just sat and watched me, as if gauging whether I was worthy of their trust. Or simply not knowing whatto say to a stranger, I supposed, but my paranoia latched onto the former theory.
“We can sense it, child,” Mingyue said, tiredness creeping into her voice. Because she was still healing, I thought, until I realised it was true, ancient exhaustion when she added, “Every Jiang woman knows the feel of those dark stones. I bore the crown’s sliver all my life, as my mother before her, and her mother before that.”
I chewed the inside of my lip as I pulled out the pouch that contained the broken shards of the amulet I retrieved from the tower rooftop where I killed Bakshi. “The king wore it,” I explained tentatively, “but I—uh. Well, I found out what he did to my mother, and how he captured those other women, and—”
“Bashed the shit out of him?” Hsiuying asked hopefully, her eyes bright.
“I definitely bashed him with my magic,” I hedged.
“Is he dead?” Dina asked, peering at the broken amulet when I tipped the pouch’s contents into my hand.
“Verydead.”
The wild grin on Dina’s round face matched Hsiuying’s. “Good. That’s the Jiang way. We’re protectors, avengers. We don’t suffer evil to live. And if I’m not mistaken, this medallion can be mended.” She raised an eyebrow at Hsiuying. “And then filled with a new kind of magic, for example.”
“Oh, you clever bitch.” Hsiuying’s eyes turned to pure glitter, her smile nothing short of wicked.
“Any time you want to explain it to us would be great,” Nabil muttered, apparently having enough of sitting and waiting because he got to his feet and loomed, arms crossed over his dusty leather jacket.
“We can use the stones in this medallion to store magic. That’s all its purpose is—it captures power and uses it to shield the wearer.” Mingyue gave Nabil a sharp enough look thathe dropped his arms and stood straighter. She didn’t need to lecture him about his rude tone; that look did a good enough job.
“It could be enough to deal a mortal blow to the pretender,” Dina added, “and since she’s the tether, every dark soldier will be killed along with her.”
“Or healed,” Hsiuying added, watching me with warmth that made me a little uncomfortable. I wasn’t a healer, even if there was a tiny seed of light in my deathfyre. “Give it here.”
I couldn’t explain my reluctance to part with the amulet, but I gritted my teeth as I let the fragments drop onto Hsiuying’s waiting palm. Light glowed from her skin, and I stared, leaning forward in surprise and curiosity. This light had healed my strain of using too much magic and could push the dark corruption from the Zalaam fae in Ithanys.
The family rose one by one, and by some unspoken agreement, when Hsiuying’s magic faded, leaving the amulet whole once again, each of the family held out their hand. Magic flowed from each outstretched palm like an offering, and I felt another tremor through the threads of fate and I knew—we really could change the world with this magic, with healing and life. Light, as Xiaoyu’s journal said, to drive out the darkness.
These people I’d never met before, some whose names I didn’t even know, gave up tendrils of their magic to save a world they’d never been to.
CHAPTER 56
VARIDIAN
Mak was unconscious for the entire journey from the bloodied plain in Woodsurn back through the trees and into the dense, tree covered hills of Willow Green. It was far from ideal, and there were few clearings in which to land our aerial legions, but that made it harder for the Zalaam army to launch an attack here, too. The wyverns who still had strength carried our injured mounts strapped to their backs or chests, and carts rattled over the uneven ground, carrying wounded riders and warriors. Any magic users with power left remained on the hill overlooking that plain, pelting the enemy to allow us time to get under the treeline’s cover.
It wasn’t an easy retreat. Was barely a successful one; until we passed the dusty road and entered the woods, we were vulnerable to attacks from above. Our shields were weak enough that wyvernfyre tore through them like burnt paper.
By the time we reached the makeshift camp that had been hastily thrown up ahead of us, the medic’s lane among them,we’d lost fifty more fighters. The number that remained was nowhereremotelynear what the Zalaam army boasted. Even with ancient relics, legendary swords, and magic, we were guaranteed a certain defeat.
I slumped onto the ground, leaning back against a tree trunk with roots on either side of me, and I resisted the urge to drop my head into my hands. They were watching—our legions, our warriors, even the other commanders. They no longer eyed me suspiciously as if I’d turn on them. This battle, if nothing else, had assured them I was one of them even if I bore the lightning soul. Once more a valued warrior of the Ithanysian army. So, I could appear tired, and bloody, and angry, butneverbeaten. I was their prince, even disgraced and disowned, and I had to keep my head high. Had to give the appearance that this was a mere blip, not a crushing loss.
Yet… my bonded wyvern was unconscious, patched together but looking at weeks of tentative recovery. My wife was still in the fortress, sundering that gate so more enemies didn’t creep up on our vulnerable backs. And I didn’t see a way out—of the war, of the future where we all were forced to bow to a dark queen.
I glanced up when a shadow fell down beside me, grunting loudly. It was a sound of exhaustion and pain that spoke to the ache in my bones, the thump through my thigh, my ribs, and the droning noise inside my skull. My ears hadn’t stopped ringing yet. The adrenaline spiking through my system hadn’t yet left. I couldn’t stop seeing Kamila, her eyes bright as she looked at me and Mak. Seconds later, her head was ripped off her neck by the wyvern.
I scrubbed my hand down my face once—all I’d allow myself with so many eyes on me, looking for strength and reassurance.
“Saif ripped a wyvern’s eye out,” Shula said in greeting, her voice gruff with exhaustion. “He’s wearing it on his wing claw like a piece of fucking jewellery, and refuses to take it off.”
A smile twitched in the corner of my mouth. “God forbid a man make a fashion statement.”
She knocked her shoulder into mine, ignoring my choked sound of pain. “Still alive, then?”
“Yep. You?”
She peered down at herself. “Looks like it. Oh,look,it’s a bog monster.”
