“I know. Boudica showed me everything.” With a sigh, Toryn pulled away and motioned at the battlements and the city beyond. “I’ve already started the preparations. We will be ready for war by morning.”
Forty-Two
Ruari
The trek was longer than I’d expected and more arduous than I’d hoped. About halfway to Dubnos, two massive scorpion-like creatures punched their way out of the sandy ground and launched themselves at our army. We managed to fell the beasts, but not before they killed three of our men and injured a dozen others.
Still, we carried on, our pace quickening when we got a new report from Kalen Denare. There was an army of monsters camped just beyond the border, led by storm fae loyal to the gods. The defenses around Dubnos were strong, but I worried the enemy would send forces through the Gaoth Pass and attack from two sides.
That was where we were headed now.
Gaven rode beside me, his eyes locked on the distant horizon as if he were gazing up at the mountain city, though all I could see was mist.
“We’re close?” I asked him.
I had spent a lot of time outside Albyria’s protective barrier, secretly meeting with the mortals across the sea and storing all those supplies in my hidden cave. But I’d never ventured farther than the beach where the sun carried on, rising and falling, unlike everywhere else in the Kingdoms of Light and Shadow. Sometimes, I had sat on that beach, just me and the waves and the fish that nibbled my toes. I would watch the blue sky bleed into pink and orange and red, slowly turning inky as the stars appeared. I could have sworn a handful of times a whisper had drifted to me on the wind, a whisper from those brilliant stars.
Do not abandon hope.
I did have hope. I had hope that everything I’d done would help turn the tide when it mattered, I had hope that the mortal king was right, that as long as we followed the path the Druids had seen in their visions, we would be able to fight this.
We’d be able to win.
But despite the sunrises, the sunsets, and all the meetings and planning I’d been involved in, I’d never ventured further north. I’d never even seen Endir, much less Dubnos or the path that cut through the mountains, leading east to the Kingdom of Storms.
Which, according to Kalen Denare, was also now coated in mist.
Gaven slowed his horse as the vague shape of a mountain came into sight through the mists. “The Gaoth Pass is just around there.”
The mournful wails of a war horn fell upon us. Gaven jerked on his reins, spinning in his saddle toward the sound. A moment later, a raven raced by and screeched out a warning. The muscles around Gaven’s eyes tightened.
“What’s wrong?” I asked. “That’s to be expected, right? We knew the enemy would attack the city. They’ve planned for this.”
“That was Boudica, Kalen’s familiar. She never sounds that distressed, and something feels off,” Gaven muttered, shielding his eyes as if to gaze into the sun itself. But then he shook his head and swore. “I’m taking a score of men up the mountain path to Dubnos. They might need reinforcements if the beasts have climbed the wall.”
It was all I could do not to gape at him. “That will take hours, at best. And what about the Gaoth Pass?”
“I’ll only take a score,” he said. “You can take the rest of our warriors to the pass. And fight like the sun, Ruari.”
I nodded grimly. “You can count on me. I swear it.”
“I know.” Gaven leapt off his horse and gathered other fae to join him on his trek up the mountain. And then I turned to the rest of the waiting army who would stay behind with me. They all looked at me expectantly, even the fae of Endir. The mortals of Talaven had not warned me about this fight, either. It seemed they’d kept a lot from me. Or they did not have any idea these events would come to pass.
For the first time in my life, my fate was blurry to me. A thrill went through me as I raised my voice to address the army. “Ready yourselves. It’s time to fight. For Aesir!”
Their echoing cheer drowned out the thunder of my pounding heart.
Forty-Three
Kalen
Iwalked the battlements with Toryn by my side, watching the fae of Dubnos prepare for the worst battle they might ever endure. During the long years of my life, the city itself had only ever been attacked a handful of times, and it had never been anything we couldn’t handle. We’d faced the storm fae, of course—just once or twice—when Toryn had first come to us. Then there had been an attack by a small band of light fae while I’d been out fighting Oberon near Itchen during our war. At the time, he’d believed I’d left my home city unprotected, too focused on destroying him.
He’d been wrong. And he had never reached Dubnos himself.
Pookas had never attacked us, not once in four hundred years. They’d been content with waiting for the solo traveler to wander too far out into the mists. That would change soon enough.
“Which god do you think is with them?” Toryn said, referring to the strange collection of beasts that were coming for us. “Sirius?”
