The Denai didn’t attack or join in the battle like the SwordBrothers, but were sent out into the field by Pax and Lorna to for the survivors. Breah was the first to stop beside a young man with a head wound, and she pulled off her cloak and gloves and began to heal him. Never once did she make a snarky comment as she tended this man of Sinnendor. Her enemy.
Lorna came over to me and looked at my tear-stained face. Her eyes filled up with tears as well, and she nodded her head. “I know child. I know,” she intoned in a motherly voice.
“Well, why didn’t you do anything? Why didn’t you stop them?” I cried out, feeling useless.
“We found out too late. It was when your father’s messengers came to the Citadel that we started to piece everything together. We searched Adept Cirrus’s rooms and found all the evidence we needed: detailed plans, maps, routes of all of the hidden laboratories. As well as letters from the queen. All of them signed with a raven in the corner.”
“We gathered everyone that was willing to come,” Pax Baton spoke, his deep voice rumbling in his chest. “And we happened to meet up with the SwordBrothers. It seems they were on their way here, and we explained what the dreadful turn of events.”
“Adept Cirrus. Is he…?” Lorna drifted off, unable to ask.
“Dead,” I answered.
“Where’s the queen?”
I shrugged my shoulders and pointed back to camp. She hadn’t seemed that powerful or important, since it looked like as if Cirrus was the one truly controlling everything.
“Is it over?” Kambel urged his donkey toward us. He had tied his long beard into little braids, which were wrapped around his head and tied. I supposed it was to keep them from impeding his hands, but it certainly was strange. I couldn’t help but stare at the beard.
“I told him to just cut the thing off but he insisted I braid it.” Breah huffed and put her fists on her hips.
“I told you, Breah, that a man’s beard is his dignity. It signifies age, experience wisdom.” Kambel slid off his donkey.
“You speak of dignity and wisdom when you look like a furry rabbit?” Breah called over her shoulder as she moved on to another injured soldier.
Lorna called out to stop the argument. “Hush you two. We have plenty of work to do. There are more injured. Get to it. Argue later.”
As the adepts went to work on the injured, I scoured the field, studying the faces of the dead, looking for any signs of Joss.
On and on. I searched the deformed hill where Joss had fought Syrani. A few times, I saw the hem of a shirt that looked like Joss’s and started to dig through the dirt. Each time to find nothing but a nameless face.
More SwordBrothers raced past me into the castle and I scanned each of their faces, looking for Kael’s. Not once did I see his stormy blue eyes.
Hours I spent, searching the battle grounds for them. For any signs of Kael, Joss, and my father, but I only found death and more death. It was becoming too much, too overwhelming.
Especially when I began to recognize more and more of the dead. Soon they were no longer nameless. I stumbled across Gideon’s and Tieren’s remains. My stomach tightened in a spasm, about to retch at the look of their glazed sightless eyes.
But it was Eviir’s lifeless body sprawled protectively across that of a young Sinnendorian child that really ripped the blindfold off.
I felt it. All the pain. And I began to mourn silently.
Bit by bit, with the help of the adepts and others, order began to restore itself around me. I knew peace would eventually ensue, but I couldn’t bring myself to go to the castle. I wasn’t ready to confront anymore familiar faces.
I needed solitude. I had something that needed to be done.
Wandering back toward the camp, passing the burned tent of the Raven, I headed toward the river. When I got to a secluded spot, I pulled out the journal and flipped through it. I couldn’t read a single word. It was in a language I had never seen or heard of. The script looped and swirled and then ended in sharp angles. It wasn’t going to do anyone any good, but then I remembered Xiven. He’d been able to translate it for Talbot. Cirrus had his own notes, and even Xiven had started making his own additions and performing his own experiments.
Even if I destroyed this copy of the Horden journal, there were other copies out there.
Still, it felt good to destroy the item that had ruined my life. I laid the journal on the ground, placed my hand over it, and sent it up in smoke, burning so hot and fast there were hardly any ashes left. After all of the death and battle, this was the one moment I felt a bit of vindication.
“Get up slowly,” his deep voice whispered into my ear. Instantly, my pulse raced and I felt my knees go weak. I turned to gaze up at him and he was dripping wet. Had he jumped into the aqueduct after me?
I wanted to throw my arms around him, hug him, kiss him, and tell him I would never ever leave him or send him on a mission again.
But I couldn’t, because he had a very large knife pressed against my throat.
My mind reeled. How could it be? I killed Cirrus—Kael should be free. I carefully used my hands and pushed myself off of the ground, standing up to face him.
That’s when I saw her, and my body recoiled in hate and fury. She was once again standing feet away from me, wearing a red dress instead of the robe, her hair spilling out of her regal bun. Of course, she wore the silver hook-nosed mask upon her face. It seemed that she needed the mask to help her become the Raven, that she couldn’t quite separate herself from Lilyana without it.
But what made my heart rise to my throat was the prisoner tied up and on his knees in front of her. Joss’s eyes were clear as day, and his face was red with anger. The Raven pressed the knife to his throat.
We were at an impasse.
When Joss saw me he called out my name.
“Joss, don’t move,” I answered back.
Physically, I was drained, and I couldn’t reach into the castle for power without endangering my friends and father. But I needed strength. I was furious at myself for foolishing turning my back on the queen, and that anger made me reach farther than I’d ever reached before. Instead of inward, or stealing from others, I reached down. Into the earth, into its very core, searching for magic. Gideon had said it was abundant in Calandry, but magic didn’t dwell where Sirens where. But he had to be wrong. There was power in everything. I just had to find it.
Pushing myself farther and faster than I ever did, I kept at it. Searching deeper into the earth. It was dark and cold against my consciousness.
There! I could feel it. Power. Miles below the earth. Slowly, like a dragon waking from a deep sleep, the power reared its head and moved toward me, almost eagerly. It filled my very being, and I started to shake with the intensity of the power I had touched. It was old—very old. And it was mine.
I pulled away from the knife and sent a bolt of lightning straight into the queen’s heart. She fell backwards onto the ground and twitched.
Once.
Twice.
And then she stopped.
I sighed in relief thinking I had done it. I killed her. But Kael still held the knife. I looked at him quizzically. He should be free. Kael’s eyes filled with pain.
Something was wrong. He gasped and then pressed the knife closer, deeper into my skin. I felt a slight sting but was afraid to move. Afraid for what was happening to Kael and what this meant.
