To anyone else, it looked like a happy, gentle moment after the battle.
“I need you to fly to Ryker and tell him what happened,” I whispered. “We need defenses on the rim. Traps, explosions, anything the Blood Brotherhood can spare.”
Sylvester squawked, but kept on rubbing his head against my cheek. He very much understood the assignment.
“Think you can do that?” I asked.
He bristled his feathers, insulted I’d even asked.
“Yes, yes, you’re very fierce. Go get fed and rest in the city, it’s going to be a long journey. Leave only under the cover of darkness and fly low,” I muttered. “I can’t guarantee you haven’t just become a target.”
His sharp talons dug harder into my flimsy tunic, as if trying to reassure me he’d be fine.
“And tell him–” I licked my lips, throat suddenly parched. “Tell him the crater feels his absence.”
It was the only thing I could say. It wasn’t a lie.
Solkar’s Reach needed him.
As for me, I would have been more…serene if he’d been here.
It was the most I would allow myself to admit.
With a final reassuring caw, Sylvester lifted off my shoulder, circled us three times, and took off in the opposite direction.With a heavy heart, I watched him vanish into the glint of the sun, praying for his safe arrival, before my gaze settled back down on the carnage I’d brought down.
I understood war.
I’d been trained to survive it. Learned its tactics and the sacrifice it entailed, so I’d never start one without good cause.
But this…snuffing out hundreds of lives with my own weapons…
I could tell myself the ice had claimed them and that I was only protecting more lives by ending theirs until the sky turned dark.
It still lay heavy on my shoulders.
These soldiers didn’t deserve my mourning–and they wouldn’t have bothered with ours–but they would get it nonetheless.
One thing was obvious.
This attack had only been the spark. We’d caught it before the fire could start and rage. Scaring the soldiers and making my power seem menacing and brutal hopefully delayed the flames, but the blaze was coming.
We just didn’t know when.
“Why didn’t they send more troops?” I muttered, as if asking the crater itself.
It remained stubbornly silent.
“More were about to rappel down,” Vylkor said.
“Only after the battle had started.” I shook my head. “That hadn’t been a full army.”
As my mind whirled with possibilities, each more grim than the other, Dax froze next to me. “Allie? What–what am I looking at?”
The dread in his voice made me whirl around.
My heart dropped as figures began to emerge in the distance.
Coming toward us.
