Page 227 of Of Masks and Fury

The flight seemed to take forever. Exhaustion had settled on my bones like boulders. My head throbbed where the wound had finally scabbed over. Trew’s healing magic, unfortunately, only worked a bit on others, though he’d tried numerous times to help me. Every beat of Lakast’s wings made my skull throb.

Pherin huddled against my neck, her tiny body trembling with fatigue. Even she was flagging, and companions rarely showed weakness.

“We need to rest soon,” Coralee called over the wind, her voice hoarse. “I’m worried I’ll doze and fall off my dragon.”

Trew’s arm tightened around my waist. “There’s a ridge ahead. We’ll land there and assess our position. We can’t stay long.”

The word carried the weight we all felt. Today was the Day of Mercy. We’d lost too much time.

The sky lightened gradually, oozing blood-red on the horizon. Lakast swooped up over a low mountain range, and the world opened ahead of us.

My mind faltered and all I could do was gape.

An army marched across the valley, thousands of soldiers in neat formation, their armor catching the early light. Supply wagons extended behind them for cleks, pulled by teams of horses that kicked up dust in their wake. Banners in my father’s colors, the blue and white of Caldrith, snapped in the wind.

We quickly banked the dragons to the right, spiking down the other side of the mountain range, hoping we hadn’t been seen. No one was shouting or pointing, but that didn’t prove we’d escaped detection.

“Fates preserve us,” Maddox breathed from his dragon nearby.

“I expected something like this after the way we…departed,” Trew said. “Five thousand soldiers, maybe more. They’re force-marching south.”

“Toward Syllavar,” I said, though I didn’t need to say it. “And they left before the Day of Mercy.” My father must be planning to join them after.

While this was expected, the scale of the advance still stole my words. This wasn’t just an army, it was annihilation given form. Endless rows of armored soldiers, siege equipment that could level castles, supply trains stretching to the horizon.

My father had committed everything to this war.

“He plans to erase Syllavar from existence,” I whispered, my throat tight with horror. “Not just defeat it. Destroy it so completely that no trace remains.”

Trew’s jaw clenched as he studied the formations below. “Those aren’t just soldiers. Look at the banners. He’s pulled troops from every province. I bet they left the borders completely undefended.”

Because they knew their only threat lay in the south.

“At this pace, they’ll reach Syllavar in days,” Trew said, his voice tight with controlled fury. “We have to complete the rescue, return to help prepare defenses to meet their early advance, and somehow seal the veil before they arrive.” He paused. “And meet Lexie, Derren, and Kerralyn on schedule.”

The impossibility of it all pressed down on me hard.

Trew guided Lakast closer to Malcolm’s dragon. “I want you to return to Syllavar immediately.”

The other man’s face showed no surprise. “I was thinking the same thing.”

“Tell Grayson to accelerate the war preparations. Reach out to every border patrol and every scattered unit. Tell them to send who they can. Fortify the main approaches and prepare civilians for a siege.” Trew’s jaw set. “You’re needed there more than here.”

“The rescue team will be smaller,” Naveah said, her companion peering at us with anxious eyes. “More vulnerable.”

“It can’t be helped.” Malcolm was already turning his dragon. “I’ll fly straight through. They’ll have warning.”

His dragon’s wings beat hard as he raced back toward Syllavar. He disappeared into the distance, taking one more layer of our security with him.

We flew to the left, which would put us closer to Caldrith Castle but remain out of the army’s sight, and after we’d soared over another mountain range, we landed in a sheltered area. Gavelle and Pherin shifted to their larger forms and curled together in a protective circle around us.

Trew’s face showed the same fatigue I felt all the way to my bones. “We can rest an hour at most, but then we’ll have to leave for Caldrith.”

I looked down at my hands, which were still stained with the dirt of the wasteland and the weight of the first practice sword Thorne had placed in my grip when I was barely a teen. I remembered one evening in the castle’s practice yard when the sun had dipped as low as it was now, and I’d been nearly crying with frustration over a parry I couldn’t master.

Thorne hadn’t let me quit, but he hadn’t scolded me either. He’d simply stood there, as patient as the stone of the castle, his scarred hands steady on his own hilt.

“You aren’t fighting the steel, Princess,” he’d said, his voice a low gravel that always made me feel like I was more than just a decorative object. “You’re fighting the fear that tells you that you aren’t enough. A king can take your titles, but he can’t take your reach if you refuse to shorten it.”