I look back and see the twisted road
Best friends and despair took its toll
Take away my life
Lay by your side, please…
—I Won’t See You Tonight Part 2, Avenged Sevenfold
ELLIA:
I stood on a balcony facing the sea, my hands tight on the rail, and fresh ocean air moving all around me. Behind I could still hear the sounds of the celebration—for the success of the attack on Akadia, the death of its rulers, and Akadia’s subsequent evacuation of all the eastern kingdoms. Yanartas was filled to the brim with foreigners. Rescued Selkians, Katellians, some Ghaundians, and of course Democedians, who were honored above all.
It had been a week now since my true homecoming, an event of more cheer than I ever would have expected it could be. This was due in large part to Minstrel, who had written… say, twenty or thirty songs in preparation for my return, and he’d spent the first night singing them to me; each time claiming to have never once doubted I would come back (despite the presence of tears in his eyes for nearly every song he sang).
And as for tears, Estrid Larke had shed them for the first time I’d ever seen. She’d been waiting beside Tris on a platform when I’d first flown in, looking as if she were prepared to handle the whole event calmly, but as soon as I’d landed, after Minstrel had plowed into me, she’d burst into tears and raced forward to hug me.
“Ellia, you’re a perfect fool!” she’d shouted then. “I’ve told you a hundred times, your powers don’t make you invincible. You never listen. I swear I won’t ever let you go off on your own in a battle again. I’ve already spoken with Lucian. He’s promised me that he won’t let you fight any battles without him.”
I’d laughed, more pleased to be being yelled at by Estrid than I could have described.
Lucian himself, I’d met not far outside of Akadia—where he’d been waiting with Arrin and a pack of chimera for all those involved in the explosion. He’d led the operation because, for one, the battles were still severe in Ghaund and Democedes, so the first-order Warriors were much-needed there. Also (as I’d discovered later) Amalia had played a key role in the attack, sharing with the Warriors how the party in Akadia would take place, the structure of the palace, and so on. Lucian hadn’t actually gone inside Akadia with the others only due to his appearance, which would have given him away instantly.
His reaction when he’d seen me couldn’t have been more surprising. Luffie had landed, and I’d let Gael start to explain all that happened. When Lucian had stopped him to look at me, I’d begun immediately to go on explaining the same, and where were the others, and how could I help, master, but he’d smothered all of this with an immediate hug, kissing my head, and laughing. That had done it and I’d started crying and not stopped until his green leather jerkin was soaked.
He had managed to give one order, whispered but forceful…
“Never leave Luffie in a battle again.”
After that we’d had to wait for the other Warriors returning from Akadia and here came the deep grief that had marred the otherwise successful victory. Prince Nain of Karatel had not been rescued. As I’d feared, though the Warriors had searched for him, he’d been sent too far belowground to find. They’d looked and almost gotten trapped themselves because of it, but the complexes below Akadia were a maze too vast. I’d been able at least to share news of his safety and bravery with Selkie when I’d arrived in Yanartas. Even at the celebration today, there had been none who looked as sad as her, except for perhaps, the small portion of Warriors who had outlived chimera lost in Selket. Baraduce Nar, of course, was among them. He came only a short while. One of his eyes had been damaged beyond use and he now wore a patch over it. Seeing him, it was clear that the scar on his appearance held no comparison to the scar the loss of Ceras had left on him. And it was the same with the others.
Luffie stood beside me now, a silent, much beloved presence. We’d spent our past nights sharing the experiences of our separated weeks. How, after I’d been captured, she’d gone to every battle that she could, particularly those closest to Karatel, Akadia, and then finally Ghaund—all the places where the Warriors got word that I was being sent. And she told me how she would have stormed the city and probably gotten me out sooner if the Warriors hadn’t been holding her back. When the plan to attack the palace had come up, Luffie had demanded to be a part of it (on pain of following whether they would include her or not). That was why Gael had ridden her instead of Yurei in to rescue me.
What I’d told her of my time in Akadia had made her silent more than anything, though her frustration at hearing that I’d been travelling with a group of less than twelve near Ghaund had gotten her so furious that she’d spent on entire day displaying pictures of what she would have done to them had she been there.
Looking out at the crashing waves, the deep waters, the bright sky, I felt a stronger sense of the value of freedom than I ever had. The knowledge that I was my own, that I could go where I liked and be where I liked, was almost overwhelming. Yanartas, with its blazing fires, and currents, and trees, winds, and chimera seemed to sing of freedom with every part of it. I thought that I could drink it in for an eternity.
And yet so much of my heart was still across the sea.
Luffie alerted me to a figure coming up behind me. I turned to see Lucian, his sword on his hip, in a Yanartian green tunic for the sake of the celebration. He hesitated, then grew a smirk and nodded to my head. “I don’t think I’ll get used to seeing it on you.”
He meant, of course, my crown. Its effect was as profound with all the Warriors. Though I didn’t think they’d ever questioned my place among them, or even my claim to be the Princess of Shaundakul, they looked at me differently now that I wore it, and I had the sense that they couldn’t help but think of me differently as well.
Lucian said nothing for a moment, and then: “You don’t mind that I join you?”
“No.” I shook my head. The celebration had been going for many hours. I’d slipped away only a little while ago. I looked back out at the ocean as he came to stand just beside me. I took a deep breath. “I’ve been thinking about what will happen to Akadia now. I know it’s good that Molec has been destroyed—for whatever else because it’s caused the Akadians to stop their attacks on the eastern kingdoms—but Akadia hasn’t really lost any of its power…”
“That’s true,” Lucian agreed, “When the Democedians presented us with the plan to attack the palace, I had my doubts. I thought that it was too bold, and the deception… it is not the way the Warriors work.”
I’d heard plenty about this; everyone had. After the destruction of one the Democedian palaces, and the murder, by Commander Venoc, of the youngest of the Democedian princes, the six remaining elder princes of Democedes had banded together and finally joined the Yanartians in their offense against Akadia. But the princes had had more in mind than battle-field attacks.
Due to the palaces they built into the sides of hills, Democedians were specialists in explosives, something rare in any of the kingdoms, even Akadia. And they’d proposed to the Warriors to attack the very palace of Akadia with them when the right moment came along. The weight of loss at the defeat of Selket had been offset by the fact that it had created the perfect moment to strike—when both Molec and Commander Lox would be present at the victory party. Prince Vartus and Prince Kais themselves had gone the night of the attack. It was unlikely that any others would have had the skill to take off the top half of the Akadian palace so absolutely. And yet… in one way it had not been enough.
“You’re thinking of Lox,” Lucian guessed.
I took a breath, then dipped my brows a little. “I keep going back over the party. He was there the whole time I was, and nothing seemed unusual about his behavior. Even right before I left, I saw him, he was just standing there. It just doesn’t make sense that he could have survived.”
“No one knows how he did it. Vartus and Kais swear he couldn’t have lived through the explosion. They say he must have been gone.”
I bit my lip. This had been a hard thing for all of us to accept. All the kingdoms knew that Lox was the real power behind Akadia’s army, and now that he’d survived and Molec was dead, there was no telling what might happen.
“Lucian,” I broached carefully, “I have not wanted to say… but about Molec…” I looked to my trainer. “Did you not have any reluctance to the attack of the palace for his sake?”
Almost immediately Lucian smiled, though it was not very happy. “Do you think I should have?”
“No… I didn’t mean that.”
It was another long moment, then he sighed. “Whatever feelings I had, when I saw… my mother, going along with the plan the way that she did…” He hesitated, then seemed to start again from a different direction. “I could see in her eyes how it pained her, how she still thought of him. To some degree it revolted me, that she could still feel anything at all after what he’d done. It made me dislike more than ever any sympathy I myself had towards Molec, as his son. But even more than that… when she ignored her feelings, and chose to help the Democedians in their attack, for your sake, and for the sake of the kingdoms, I felt I no longer had a right to consider my own feelings. No matter what, I knew I did not think of Molec so much as she did, and she had decided it was best that he died. She’d put aside her emotions, I realized I could do no less with what few I had.” Lucian’s head was dipped as he watched the waves, his brow low.
He seemed so clear and decided as he spoke. He certainly had thought it through, and it almost surprised me. I could not think of anything to say or add to what I could only see as a generous decision. I thought, as I had thought of his brother before, that he spoke his mind very well, that he would be a good ruler. And I envied him for both.
I questioned, now more than ever—since leaving Akadia and hearing about my people being sent underground—whether I had it in me to be a ruler at all. So long my people had been trapped in Akadia, and now I was as far away from them as ever, and while I was there, I’d done nothing to help them. It wasn’t that I did not want to save them, I would give my life to saving them and never stop; I just didn’t know that if they ever were saved, that I would be fit to lead them.
“There is,” Lucian went on suddenly, “something that I have wanted to ask you about as well, Ellia. In fact it’s why I sought you out, just now.”
I looked from the ocean to him; his expression was the sort he wore whenever Estrid was present. As if he were trying to balance himself somewhere between the sternness of a trainer, and the delicacy required to keep from offending her. It gave me some daunting.
“I considered not speaking of it with you at all, but… Gael told me about your departure from the palace,” he explained. “About the Akadian?”
“He wasn’t an Akadian,” I replied firmly.
“Gael said he… Gael thought he was one of Lox’s lieutenants.”
Air filled my lungs, making my chest rise high. Luffie didn’t say anything, but I felt her mind, close and assuring. Not that she was happy about the situation, but she knew my feelings, and she knew Cyric as I did and that made all the difference.
“Did something happen while you were captured?” Lucian asked.
My cheeks got hot. “No. It’s not like that.”
“But you did save him?” Lucian checked. When I didn’t respond, he spoke again. “I’m asking as your friend, Ellia, not your trainer. I’m only worried for you.”
“You don’t have to be worried,” I said. “He was one of Lox’s lieutenants. But he was also my friend. He was since long before I was captured.”
Inevitably, I thought here of Tobias’s death, how even still I hadn’t told Lucian the truth of it. I wouldn’t until he asked. Instead I switched my thoughts to Akadia, wondering what—as I so often did—Cyric was doing, whether he was safe.
I hadn’t been able to shake, even with how Cyric had acted in those last moments, a hope concerning him. Perhaps because of our time together, perhaps because we’d danced, I felt as if I were tied to him now more than ever before. Like half of me was where he was, and that he must feel the same, but it was almost a peaceful feeling.
Luffie grumbled beside me. Since she and I were bonded, she made it clear to me each time I thought this way that she had no interest in being half a part of Cyric. I smirked and patted her head. It seemed as if Lucian had left the subject of Cyric where I had, though he was still watching me carefully. I gave him a smile. “We will save my people, won’t we Lucian? And Nain? And the Selkians? All of them?”
He matched my smile, but then he crossed his arms, looked out ahead, and lifted one brow. “It won’t be easy,” he said.
Just then a star crossed in the sky. It was still light out and only barely nearing dusk, but the star was vivid enough to outshine that. Seeing it, I thought of the Constellation Animals. I’d already spoken with some of the Warriors about them; Master Elminster had heard of them, he and I had plans to look over some of his books tonight, and Minstrel had already promised to join us. With any luck, we would find out more about them, and what they really were.
I bent my head down and crushed it close to Luffie’s.
“I know we will,” I said.
THE END
The story continues… with FALLEN WARRIOR.
Look to the end of this e-book for bonus content from the final book in this trilogy.