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“And?”
“And my point exactly. You want to be anywhere but here. Is it Liliana? Or something else?”
The irony of Vadim trying to talk about my feelings for his sister wasn’t lost on me. “I do miss her. I was hoping to see her in the Day Realm…” I trailed off, hoping he’d believe my lie about my sullen mood and not that I didn’t want to slaughter the Crystal Fae.
“But she wasn’t there.”
Vadim selected another rock and loosed it across the water. I watched it hop and sink before responding.
“Yep. And we left in a hurry.”
Please go away.
“Why weren’t they there, do you think?” he questioned, and I didn’t need to ask who he meant by ‘they.’
“By my guess, Izidora likely still sleeps, and neither of them wanted to leave her side.” I shrugged, toeing a few rocks until I found one I wanted. Grabbing it, I hurled it across the lake, where it landed with a plunk.
“Which means we are doing the right thing by preemptively attacking now. Ruslan’s focus will be divided, and we’ll have an easier victory, with less bloodshed.” Vadim’s reassurance fell flat for me, because, like everyone else, he only came up with logic that suited our current situation rather than the other way around.
And no one seemed to remember the prophecy either.
The words repeated themselves automatically in my mind, just like every time I thought about it these days.
“The ones that are part of all will be born under a full moon
Her white light will fill the land
But her mates darkness will rise
Kings will fall
Rivers will run with blood
There is a choice
Follow the light
Descend into the dark
The harrowing pass decides it all”
There were no harrowing passes in the Crystal Realm – only lakes and giant willow trees, glaciers and towering pines, and sand and ocean toward the coast. This campaign was pointless. What were we destroying, really? Vineyards? The Crystal Fae were the most peaceful. They didn’t want war. They wanted to sip wine and lounge lakeside.
I said nothing, and eventually Vadim sighed and rose to his feet. “There’s always room around our fire for you, Endre.”
He hesitated for only a moment before walking away. I chucked another rock into the water, wishing I could take my anger out on something other than these rocks and this lake.
Dawn broke over the horizon,and my horse shifted nervously beneath me. Tension bled through all our mounts, as if they knew that many of them would die this day. The soldiers on foot around me held their breath, waiting for the sword or axe to fall and end their lives. I’d never been to battle before. Fates, none of us had. The last ones in Északi took place before my parents were born.
And yet, here I sat, atop my mount, waiting for the signal to begin wielding my axe and magic to kill, to maim, to destroy.
Across the open plain, the Crystal Fae wore stoic, stern expressions, hands gripping spears and archers shielding magic wielders behind them. On both sides, large bodies of water provided all the material they needed to work with for anything they couldn’t conjure we had a few tricks of our own to deal with their elemental magic.
Kazimir rode his dark horse down the front line of Night Fae soldiers, shouting orders and words of encouragement, all the while allowing black to creep into his eyes and blot out the emerald color that was as familiar as my own peridot.
We were only miles from Vlisa, the capital of the Crystal Realm, and yet I did not see King Airre doing the same for his soldiers.
Did he think he would win so handily that riding out to battle was unnecessary?
