Kingdom of Ash

It was the black blood that had made her stomach turn. Valg. There were Valg out there. Infesting human hosts. Too many for her to cure. No, that part would come after the battle. If they survived.

Soon, too soon, the injured and dying had begun pouring in. Eretia had organized a sick bay in the great hall, and it was there that Yrene had spent most of her time. Where she’d been headed, after managing a few hours of dreamless sleep.

The tower steadied itself, and Yrene announced to no one in particular, “The ruks are still holding off the tide. Morath only fires the catapults because they cannot breach the keep walls.”

It was only partially true, but the families crouched in the hall, their bedrolls and precious few belongings with them, seemed to settle.

The ruks had indeed disabled many of the catapults that Morath had hauled here, but a few remained—just enough to hammer the keep, the city. And while the ruks might have been holding off the tide, it would not be for long.

Yrene didn’t want to know how many had fallen. She only saw the number of riders in the great hall and knew it would be too many. Eretia had ordered the injured ruks to take up residence in one of the interior courtyards, assigning five healers to oversee them, and the space was so full you could barely move through it.

Yrene hurried onward, mindful of the debris scattered on the tower stair. She’d nearly snapped her neck yesterday slipping on a piece of fallen wood.

The groans of the injured reached her long before she entered the great hall, the doors flung open to reveal row after row of soldiers, from the khaganate and Anielle alike. The healers didn’t have cots for all, so many had been laid on bedrolls. When those had run out, cloaks and blankets piled over cold stone had been used.

Not enough—not enough supplies, and not enough healers. They should have brought more from the rest of the host.

Yrene rolled up her sleeves, aiming for the wash station near the doors. Several of the children whose families sheltered in the keep had taken up the task of emptying dirty tubs and filling them with hot water every few minutes. Along with the basins by the wounded.

Yrene had balked to let children witness such bloodshed and pain, but there was no one else to do it. No one else so eager to help.

Anielle’s lord might have been a grand bastard, but its people were a brave, noble-hearted group. One that had left more of a mark on her husband than his hateful father.

Yrene scrubbed her hands, though she’d washed them before coming down here, and shook them dry. They couldn’t waste their precious few cloths on drying their hands.

Her magic had barely refilled, despite the sleep she’d gotten. She knew that if she looked to the battlements, she’d spy Chaol using his cane, perhaps even atop the battle-horse they’d outfitted with his brace. His limp had been deep when she’d last seen him, just yesterday afternoon.

He hadn’t complained, though—hadn’t asked her to stop expending her power. He’d fight whether he was standing or using the cane or the chair or a horse.

Eretia met Yrene halfway across the hall floor, her dark skin shining with sweat. “They’re bringing in a rider. Her throat’s been slashed by talons, but she’s still breathing.”

Yrene suppressed her shudder. “Poison on the talons?” So many of the Valg beasts possessed it.

“The scout who flew by to warn us of her arrival wasn’t sure.”

Yrene pulled her tool kit from the satchel at her hip, scanning the hall for a place to work on the incoming rider. Not much room—but there, by the washbasins where she’d just cleaned her hands. Enough space. “I’ll meet them at the doors.” Yrene made to hurry for the gaping entryway.

But Eretia gripped Yrene’s upper arm, her thin fingers digging gently into her skin. “You’ve rested enough?”

“Have you?” Yrene shot back. Eretia had still been here when Yrene had trudged to bed hours ago, and it seemed Eretia had either arrived well before Yrene this morning, or hadn’t left at all.

Eretia’s brown eyes narrowed. “I am not the one who needs to be careful of how much I push myself.”

Yrene knew Eretia didn’t mean in regard to Chaol and the link between their bodies.

“I know my limits,” Yrene said stiffly.

Eretia gave a knowing look to Yrene’s still-flat abdomen. “Many would not risk it at all.”

Yrene paused. “Is there a threat?”

“No, but any pregnancy, especially in the early months, is draining. That’s without the horrors of war, or using your magic to the brink every day.”

For a heartbeat, Yrene let the words settle in. “How long have you known?”

“A few weeks. My magic sensed it on you.”

Yrene swallowed. “I haven’t told Chaol.”

“I’d think if there were ever a time to do so,” the healer said, gesturing to the shuddering keep around them, “it would be now.”

Yrene knew that. She’d been trying to find a way to tell him for a while. But placing that burden on him, that worry for her safety and the safety of the life growing in her … She hadn’t wanted to distract him. To add to the fear she already knew he fought against, just in having her here, fighting beside him.

And for Chaol to know that if he fell, it would not be her life alone that now ended … She couldn’t bring herself to tell him. Not yet.

Perhaps it made her selfish, perhaps stupid, but she couldn’t. Even if the moment she’d realized it in the ship’s bathing chamber, when her cycle still had not come and she had begun counting the days, she had wept with joy. And then realized what, exactly, carrying a child during war would entail. That this war might very well be still raging, or in its final, horrible days, when she gave birth.

Yrene had decided that she’d do everything in her power to make sure it did not end with her child being born into a world of darkness.

“I’ll tell him when the time is right,” Yrene said a shade sharply.

From the open hall doors, shouts rose to “Clear the way! Clear the way for the injured!”

Eretia frowned, but rushed with Yrene to meet the townsfolk bearing an already-bloodied stretcher and the near-dead ruk rider atop it.

 

The horse beneath Chaol shifted but stayed firm where they stood along the lower battlements of the keep walls. Not as fine a horse as Farasha, but solid enough. A bravehearted beast who had taken well to his brace-equipped saddle, which was all he’d asked for.

Walking, Chaol knew, would not be an option when he dismounted. The strain in his spine told him enough about how hard Yrene was already working, the sun barely risen. But he could fight just as well from horseback—could lead these soldiers all the same.

Ahead, stretching too far for him to count, Erawan’s army launched at the city for another day of all-out assault on the walls.

The ruks soared, dodging arrows and spears, snatching soldiers from the ground and pulling them apart. Atop the birds, the rukhin unleashed their own torrent of fury in careful, clever passes organized by Sartaq and Nesryn.

But after five days, even the mighty ruks were slowing.

And Morath’s siege towers, which they had once easily shattered into scraps of metal and wood, were now making their way to the walls.

“Ready the men for impact,” Chaol ordered the grim-faced captain standing nearby. The captain shouted the command down the lines Chaol had gathered just before dawn.