The Beauty of Darkness - Mary E. Pearson Page 0,192

ax in his hand, poised to bury it in me, but Calantha lunged, slicing his belly wide, and his body tumbled, thudding into the base of the cliff. She looked at me, repeating Rafe’s plea, “Go!” and then turned to take down another of her own.

RAFE

I had fought by Jeb’s side before, but not by Draeger’s. He knew instinctively which were the strongest fighters. We fought back to back. I kept the Chancellor in view as I smashed one soldier’s face with my shield and sliced the calf of another to the bone. The Watch Captain hung back behind them all. Draeger’s blows drove Yanos back, and the governor fell. Draeger ran him through, then spun to block the blows of another soldier. The Chancellor bore down. The jolt of his sword hitting my shield cracked the air, but I deflected the force and it glanced into the skull of a soldier at his side. He fell as Jeb thrust his sword into a soldier beside him. Now it was one on one, except for the Watch Captain who still cowered behind the others. My hands burned on my sword, slipped with the wet blisters, but I gripped harder, meeting the Chancellor blow for blow. Our swords crossed, pressing, our chests heaving.

“It was you,” I said. He pushed away, and swung. Our swords chattered.

“I only killed the old one,” he said, not even knowing Sven’s name. His face glistened with sweat. “The Watch Captain and Viceregent got the rest.”

“Sven’s not dead,” I told him.

Steel rang, and sparks flew between us.

“Do you think I care?” he said between heavy breaths.

My sword rammed his shield, the metal crumpling under the blows.

“Not any more than you care about impaling a princess or betraying your kingdom.”

I pressed forward, not giving him a chance to attack, his arm weakening under the barrage, and finally his shield fell.

I thrust my sword forward. The blade slid through his ribs, my hand meeting his gut, my face inches from his.

“I don’t expect you to care, Lord Chancellor. I just expect you to die.”

LIA

I ran, coughing and stumbling through dark ruts. Night had closed in, but the valley glowed with pockets of light, the fires burning ridges, meadow, and bodies. Smoke hung in clouds, bitter and sharp, woven with the smell of burnt flesh. The clang of metal still reverberated from the valley walls. The cries of the fallen stabbed the air, and the animals caught up in the devastation keened with misery.

I wiped my stinging eyes, searching, falling embers burning my skin as I tried to find the trail to the bluff, hopelessness sweeping over me.

Don’t tarry, Miz, or they will all die.

I choked and stumbed forward.

A finger of clear air opened, and I saw the trail. I ran, tumbling and clawing my way to the top. I made it to the bluff’s rim, and my soul tore in two. In both directions, the valley burned, the weapons boomed, the glint of metal flashed, the bodies writhed en masse, like a nest of dying snakes.

“Brothers! Sisters!” I called, but my words were lost in the roar of a valley that stretched too far and thundered too loud. They couldn’t hear me. Trust. It was impossible.

I was desperate and cried out again, but the battle raged on.

Trust the strength within you.

I lifted my hands and raised my voice to the heavens, reaching not just for the strength within me but the strength of generations. I felt something reaching back to me, and then what I heard wasn’t my voice alone, but a thousand voices. They wove through me, around me, the world breathing us in, remembering, time circling. Morrighan stood at my side, Venda and Gaudrel on the other. Pauline, Gwyneth, and Berdi stood behind me and a hundred more. Our voices braided together, a steel reaching to the ends of the valley, swirling, sharing. Heads turned, listening, knowing, some swaths cutting deeper than others. The smoke coiled, thinned.

And then the battle stilled.

“Brothers! Sisters! Lay down your arms! I am your queen! Daughter of your blood and sister of your heart! I will stand by you. I will return to Venda.” I told them there was another kind of hope—the one Venda had promised. I begged them to listen to their hearts, to trust a knowing as old as the universe. “The strength is within us. We will settle the Cam Lanteux. Build new lives. With my last dying breath, I promise you, we will make it happen together,