finish what he’d begun at the King’s Walk—and end the threat he still posed to everyone she loved.
“King Icaro and his eldest daughter remained on the island with the battle masters and full palace guard,” said Lady Junica. “The queens and the other royal children are in this camp.”
“Where the walls are hardly a defense,” Kelir said. “They have barely enough soldiers to keep watch, and no proper weapons to fight the bramble beasts aside from a few axes. They are fortunate the demon didn’t make revenants instead, or there would be no one left.”
Ardyl frowned. “Why didn’t the demon make revenants? They spread their corruption with a single bite, so these forests would have been teeming with the ravenous undead by now, and we would not have survived so many on the road.”
“Perhaps Goranik can’t,” Preter said. “Those revenants are made when a demon’s flesh and blood corrupt an animal’s—but always those demons are reanimated corpses themselves. Here the demon inhabits living flesh.”
“Then let us hope that also makes him easier to kill,” Aerax said, his big body crouched in the corner of the tent.
Nearly sitting on his lap and with her fingers idly stroking Caeb’s big head, Lizzan nodded. “Can the spell that raises the bramble beasts be cleansed from the forest?”
“It can,” Preter said. “Though he must have cast it many times between here and Radneh. To track down the source of every spell would take time—but killing him will break the spell, as well.”
“So they only need to hold out against the bramble beasts until Goranik is dead?” Tyzen asked.
The monk nodded.
“Then the question still is—how do we kill him?” Lizzan asked. “The Parsathean riders were united. If that is a requirement, then so we are united, too, hunched here in this tent and planning our attack.” That drew a laugh, but she was full serious. “Queen Mala was on a quest, but also seeking alliances as she traveled—and she found one with the king of Blackmoor.”
“And when my mother slew the demon-queen,” Tyzen said, “it was the very beginning of the alliance that brought Parsathe and the five realms together.”
“So that is a requirement met,” she said. “And though your Parsathean queen has forbidden you from going with us to the island, you will be here protecting Kothans while the rest of us are at the crystal palace. We are united in the purpose of saving these people.”
No laughter this time. Only nods of agreement—and then Kelir slanted a glance at Ardyl, who seemed to take that look as a prompt to say, “It is likely that Yvenne forbade us because she knew that if anything were to happen to us on the island, we would not know the comfort of Temra’s arms. But we will take the risk.”
Lizzan shook her head. “Better, I think, to stay and help protect the walls.” She looked to Aerax, who nodded his agreement. “Aerax knows the palace and is the only one of us who can open Varrin’s prison. I wear Nemek’s chain, which will help protect me as I protect him—and Hanan’s blood runs through Saxen’s veins. If we cannot do what must be done, better that you are here to help these people run.”
Though his jaw clenched, as if unhappy with the answer, Kelir must have seen the sense of it. With a short nod, he agreed.
“What else have we to compare?” Lizzan asked. “One demon killed with a steel sword, another with an ivory tusk. It is said that Mala stabbed the demon’s eye.”
“After she first cut off its head,” Seri put in. “When we were in Krimathe, at the feast that they put out for us, I heard her tell the story. She cut off the demon tusker’s head, but still it kept moving. So she then stabbed through its heart, but still it continued trying to kill her. The eye was the final attempt.”
Beside her, Tyzen sat up straighter. “My mother cleaved through the demon-queen’s skull.”
“So it is the brain that must be destroyed?”
“But the soldiers here said their blades could not even slice Goranik’s skin,” said Ardyl. “So it was true of the demon-queen, too. Many warriors attempted to. But only her daughter managed to injure her at all.”
“Though not even right away,” Tyzen said. “In our tower, my mother told this story to us over and over again—that she could knock the demon-queen back with a boot or a fist but couldn’t slice through her skin. And my mother was desperate,