it’s no comfort now. He’s dead. A statue of a god shines gold in the heart of the city, and another good man who loved me is dead.”
She did her duty, walked the battlefield, visited the triage tents, the mobiles, the clinics to speak to the wounded, the medicals. With her grief frozen inside her, she did her best to give comfort to those who’d lost a friend or loved one.
She checked on Laoch, found Faol Ban and Taibhse with him. And going over the alicorn from ears to tail, found Duncan had indeed healed any wounds.
With the cheers of victory ringing hollow in her head, she made her way back to her headquarters, and to her quarters. She found her father waiting for her.
Simon opened a bottle of whiskey, poured two glasses.
“Thanks, but I need a shower more than a drink.”
“Have the drink first.” He handed her the glass. “I want to say first I’m sorry about Mick. He was a good man, a good friend to you, a good soldier. He deserves us lifting a glass to him.”
Her eyes stayed as cold as fog over a frozen lake. “He deserves more.”
“Start here. I’ve spent more time than I like to think about in combat, and plenty of that time commanding others. I know what it is to lose men, as a soldier, as an officer, and what it is to lose a friend.”
Not the same, Fallon thought. Not the same. Not the same. “I didn’t feel her, didn’t see her coming, didn’t anticipate. If I had—”
“That’s bullshit. It’s understandable bullshit, but still bullshit.”
“She killed him because he mattered to me, because he loved me. I know what she is, but I didn’t see this. I wrapped my power into the spell to lock down the DUs who would slaughter us, every one of us, so I didn’t feel her coming.”
“She didn’t fight,” Simon pointed out. “Didn’t risk herself. Ask yourself why. Instead of asking yourself why Mick, ask why she didn’t strike at you, or me, your mom, your brothers, Duncan.”
“I don’t know.”
“Because you’re not thinking straight yet. It was of the moment, Fallon. It was convenient and low risk. He was with you. It was the easiest way to hurt you without putting herself on the line. She wants your pain, wants you to question yourself, blame yourself. Don’t give her what she wants.”
“I don’t know what to do. I can’t think past finding her, ending her.”
“If that takes front and center, you give her an advantage. That’s how she thinks, Fallon, and you’re smarter. Where was Allegra?”
She looked up, stunned she hadn’t asked herself the question. “I didn’t think past Petra, the dragon. I’ve seen the dragon fly over New York, over the shield in Scotland—but not Allegra. I didn’t think about Allegra.”
“Is she dead? Is she alive but too weak or damaged to join an attack? Is she alive and well and on other business somewhere else? Can’t know,” Simon added. “But you can know she wasn’t part of this. Petra did this on her own.”
“Yes, it matters. The answers matter. Petra said she didn’t care about losing New York, but of course she did. Of course she did,” Fallon repeated as she paced.
Now she’s thinking, Simon decided, and waited for the rest.
“She waited. She’s no soldier. She’s a killer, but not a warrior, so she waited. She must have been furious when we drove them out. She’s waiting to take a victory lap, and instead watches defeat. Of the moment, you said, and yeah, yeah, that was blind fury. Mick’s dead because she’s a killer, because, like Denzel was to Duncan, Mick was important to me. She probably stayed close all these weeks. Not close enough for me to feel her, to risk her own skin, but close enough.”
“She fears you, even though she thinks you’re weak.”
Fallon stopped. “Does she?”
“What would she have done in your place today? With the enemy trapped, defeated, helpless?”
“She’d have destroyed them all.”
“You didn’t, and she sees that as a weakness. You love, and that’s a weakness to her. She struck down someone you love to exploit that weakness.”
“She miscalculated.”
“I know it.”
“I can’t think, Dad.” Broken, she thought as she covered her face with her hands. Something broken in her. “I can’t feel past the grief and the fury under it, bubbling under it. I know what has to be done, but—”