I was completely gutted as I stood at the top of the tower, looking down upon the battlefield. All I saw was red staining the white snow, and hundreds of bodies. Arrows and spears littered the ground, sticking out of the corpses of dead soldiers. There were great holes in the earth where the tunnels had collapsed, burying shifters alive.
The collapse of the tunnels had completely gutted our army. It’d killed off more than just the shifters who’d been inside— anyone standing above them had also been blown to pieces. All I saw below me was a disorganized mess. Alicorns and griffins scattered left and right while dragons careened out of the sky, smashing into the bloodied earth.
The neat, organized battalions we’d brought were gone. Amongst the bodies of the dead, the remainder of the living fought in chaos.
And despite it all, Gabby wasn’t here.
“This entire thing was a trap,” Arthur spat. “She played us.”
Like a fucking chessboard. She’d been expecting us to take advantage of her weakness after her labor, hoping we’d be foolhardy enough to leave Emma behind, and attack the fortress. Gabby had used her weakness as a strength, and the poor timing of the eclipse to divide us from our greatest weapon.
“My king! What should we do?” Finlay’s brusque voice snapped me out of it. He’d been trying to get my attention for minutes. I shook my head, as if I was in a fog.
Finlay’s voice was rough. “Do we turn back our armies and retreat, or continue the search for Gabby?”
Everyone was looking at me. I was the king. I had to make a decision.
And yet, all I wanted to do was succumb to grief. Gabby had been cunning enough to outsmart all of us, and that infuriated me. We were smart, but she was craftier. And as I knew Gabby, she would do anything to win.
There was nothing more dangerous than a Marked scorned. I’d taken Elijah from her. She was going to make me suffer for it.
“Gabby’s not here,” I finally admitted. “She saw us coming and left. Her guards will protect her now. She’s out of our reach.”
“But where did she go? Why has this fortress been abandoned?” Finlay demanded.
Arthur shrugged, at a loss. Rage welled inside of me, threatening to spill over.
“Arthur, what’s happening?” I turned toward him, certain he knew. He had been so quiet since we’d defeated the golem.
He remained silent, and I yelled, “Arthur,answer me!”
Arthur’s green eyes resembled his sister’s. They took on an identical feature when Emma thought all was hopeless, and gods, it petrified me. “She took her army to Dolinska.”
The effect of his confession was similar to a dagger being run through me, cut straight down my torso and through my organs. Even after all this time, I hadn’t figured it out. I had been so impatient to get this war over with, I hadn’t foreseen the obvious.
Gabby had left General Davor and a portion of her soldiers behind to defend the fort and serve the ruse, counting on the strength of her walls and her sorceresses to keep us distracted long enough that we wouldn’t realize we were being tricked. The rest of her army had left the fortress through the tunnels— most likely last night— placing explosives in them as they went. Then they’d snuck past us as we’d marched by, leaving Dolinska defenseless and for the taking.
There were thousands of innocent people in that city. I was nearly certain she was already assaulting the palace. She’d gambled losing the fortress in order to beat us.
And she had. There wasn’t any way in hell we could make it back to Dolinska to defend the city. Not with the few broken soldiers that still remained.
Arthur was quiet again, and Finlay whispered, “What should we do?”
My mouth was dry, voice hollow as I replied, “We save who we can. That is all there is left to do.”
My goal switched from winning this war to rescuing whatever lives were still able to be saved. Outside, the sounds of battle were beginning to die down, but the snow had picked up into such a torrent, I could barely see the outline of my companions. Snow flew at a rapid rate through the tower’s balcony, the wind whipping through me like a knife.
“We must return to the battlefield,” I insisted. “There are soldiers out there who need assistance.”
“We can’t go out in this. We’ll get lost,” Arthur insisted, gesturing angrily at the snow. “We take shelter from the storm, then rescue who we can.”
I wanted to argue, but to do so would be pointless. Putting our own lives in danger wouldn’t do us any good, and I wouldn’t sacrifice anyone else today.
Hours passed. We waited out the snowstorm inside the fortress. As time passed, the noise of the fight got quieter… and quieter… then silent.
As the day lengthened, I knew that the fighting was long over. The cries of dying men and women had faded into the wind. The snow finally let up, and we left the fortress. Outside, we found a great hole had been blasted in the side of the fortress wall.
I did not know how it had gotten there, nor what kind of magic had created it. But it was abandoned now. The snow covered up the bodies of fallen warriors like a shroud. Of the living, the area was more or less empty. Gabby’s soldiers had marched onward, leaving the fort behind to join the rest of her army in Dolinska.
