TWENTY FIVE

Leander reached the top of the massive arch over the shipyard after climbing too long. It was hung below with pulleys and hundreds of pieces of rope that hung useless all through the winter, but the stone arch itself didn’t seem to care what season it was.

The steps carved into the side did very little to ease his mind about how high above the ground they were. He knew Marella wasn’t enjoying it either, but it was the best vantage point in the area to keep an eye on the ships, the harbor, the capital, and the palace. Even Chainhome was visible farther away to the north along the curve of the shore.

The cold air bit at his skin through his thick cloak, and the darkness all around them was both unsettling and complete. It wasn’t yet time for Daiva and Hassir to strike, with the morning still so far away, but he still would have preferred some kind of movement, not the ghost of peace.

In case we ever needed more proof that Skyborn are insane. Leander looked over at Taimon and two of the other Skyborn who had accompanied them to the heights, so as to listen on the winds for signs of battle and give him updates on how things were progressing. The trio seemed absolutely relaxed, actually making jokes with each other about the climb the entire way. Who would enjoy this? Under any circumstances?

That’s why they’re crazy. They spend too much time up here where the air is thin. Marella shook her head and remained close to Leander, but she looked back down to where all the children were gathered. It was a crazy scene, puppies running all around, but they were contained in a shallow pit that she and the other Earthborn had created. Do you think we’re safe enough out here?

I think it was a good idea on Daiva’s part. Melyssa will be looking to her ships, certainly, but not to the shipyard. She’ll be too busy with the capital to pay much attention to anywhere else. There’s no military advantage to be gained here. By the time she notices where we are, it’ll be finished.

He looked to the south along the coast, and shook his head as he picked out the lines of his friends’ estate along the shore. I really thought she would have assaulted their home by now. Either they have and decided to leave the place standing, or they really haven’t even begun. I don’t like it when Melyssa surprises me.

There’s no one there. Marella looked toward the house as well. Why would she waste her time destroying an empty house? She looked over at Taimon, who was focused on the winds. It’s cold out here for those pups. I should dig deeper. Make some kind of shelter for them.

Your brother is working on it. He motioned down at the small shelter beside the shipyard, where the earth was still growing deeper and rising on all sides. There were several dozen small children inside, and just getting them to the shipyard safely had been a miracle. Leander hoped they managed to stay out of sight. It was difficult keeping all the pups in line without a fire to keep them warm, but there were some risks they couldn’t take. There were a few Fireborn women among them, and the heat from their bodies had to be enough for the time being. Until the humans arrived, if they ever did.

With any luck, we won’t have to be out here for too long, and the ships will…he stopped short, turning to look north in the direction of Chainhome. There was no sign of movement, but she could feel the spike that had gone through Leander nonetheless. There. Wolves are dying. I can’t tell who or how many, but I can feel it. Whoever it was, they just shed the first blood in this war.

She wished that there was a way to make Leander more comfortable, to shield him from what she knew he was going to suffer, but there was nothing Marella could do other than distract him. Let’s go down with the children. They have it handled here. The humans will be here soon.

Unless it was a large group of humans I just felt die, and not just a few wolves. He said with another look to the north, but no wolf could see that far with any kind of accuracy. He nodded and went back down the steps, putting a hand on Taimon’s shoulder to encourage the man and reaffirm that Leander would be using his eyes whenever it was necessary. Daiva can’t lose a brother again. Or if she does, she needs not to find out about it until this is over with. That family has been through too much.

It wasn’t long before the humans started to trickle in.

Marella and the others dug pocket caves in the ground to give them places away from the wind, but there were so many of them, it was difficult to shelter them all. She left Leander on his own to help until she heard a scream, and she immediately popped her head up to get out of the pit. “Leander? What was that?”

“That was the captain’s human.” He answered more calmly than she could tell he actually felt, but he rushed to help Miris carry the stretcher that he’d been carrying Adriana on the entire way south.

Fires sprang up in various places as the humans came in, since there were hundreds of them and they all needed to survive until the morning for their efforts to mean anything. He guided Adriana closer to one of the fires along with several of the human children whose teeth were chattering uncontrollably.

“Kaia!” He shouted into the crowd, since he could feel the human woman thinking her name and looking around for her even through the pain she was in.

Kaia felt Leander calling for her more than she heard him call her name, and she put down the three puppies in her lap before she went looking for him. When she found him, though, she found Adriana, who was doing all she could not to scream out in pain. Kaia looked panicked, but she went to Adriana’s other side. She could smell blood, as every wolf could, she was sure. “Adriana, it’s alright, we’ll…”

“No, no it is not!” She bit so hard on her lip that it was bleeding along with the other parts of her as she was put down on the ground. Adriana was vaguely aware that she was out near the shipyard, the last place in the world that she imagined giving birth. “Shian!” She gripped Shian’s hand so hard that she was sure she injured him, but she looked up at him as tears streamed down her face. “Now, the baby is coming now, I can feel it!”

“Good.” Shian managed to say as he bunched up a blanket behind Adriana so she could sit up and push the way he knew she needed to after an entire day around the midwives. He stayed out of the way of the fire so that it could warm her as much as possible after the exhausting journey they’d taken down from Chainhome, and tried to sound calmer than he was. “Go on, then. You can do this. You know you can.”

Adriana didn’t know how long she spent pushing her child out. All she knew was a painful eternity until she heard both the cries of her baby and Kaia’s yelp of excitement. Adriana collapsed back against the blanket Shian provided for her, panting and crying. Kaia took up the responsibility of quickly wiping off the baby before she put the tiny squirming thing against Adriana’s chest.

“A girl.” Kaia put another blanket over Adriana and her tiny baby, trying to make her as comfortable as she could. “She looks a lot like you, doesn’t she?” She smiled at Adriana before she looked over at Shian and smiled as well. “Pretty little thing, right?”

Shian nodded breathlessly, glad to hear the little girl crying at last. He kept a close eye on Adriana, but all he could see in her face was relief that the night was over at last. She was still moving, still crying, still alive, even though the midwives had said they were concerned about how long the birth was taking to progress. “She is. And she’s right, she does look like you, Ana.”

Adriana couldn’t find the strength to lift up her head to look at the little girl on her chest, but she kept the baby snuggled close to her skin to keep her new little girl warm and alive. She gave him a weak smile before she closed her eyes. The midwives were still buzzing around her to get her cleaned up and deal with the after-effects of the birth. “Shanna, right?” She mumbled in her exhaustion.

He chuckled once mid-sob and leaned down to smooth away her hair and leave a kiss on her forehead. “Yes. Shanna.” He had one arm beneath Adriana’s as she held the baby, just to support her as he’d been trying to do all day. “I can take her if you need to rest, Ana. She’ll be here when you wake up.”

“Mhm.” She moved the blanket aside so that he could take their baby, and she opened her eyes just to watch Kaia wrap the girl snugly. Adriana watched Shian take their tiny Shanna from Kaia and she smiled. “When she gets hungry…” She said softly, her eyes drifting closed again.

“We’ll wake you up, I promise.” He patted her hand and tucked it under a blanket as he focused on holding the baby in his arms, moving closer to the fire so she would warm as they continued to tend to Adriana, even though she was already unconscious.

Kaia smiled as she watched Shian stand next to the fire and admire his child, and she walked up behind him and patted his back lightly in a friendly gesture. “You look pretty proud, as you should be. Baby humans aren’t as cute as baby wolves, but they’re still cute.”

“Mine is!” A small voice from nearby said as Malcom came to join them. He stopped to look at Adriana’s sleeping body for a moment just to make sure she was just sleeping, though he didn’t want to disturb her, just like he hadn’t wanted to disturb her on the way south when he’d found out she was actually alive. He was holding a small bundle of his own, but the little girl was awake and looking around at the world, having just eaten as soon as they stopped in the shipyard. “Look at her, isn’t she cute too?” He sat beside Shian, bouncing the little girl as she fussed.

Shian just had to laugh, but he nodded anyway. “Yes, she’s very pretty, Malcom, but why do you have a baby?”

Malcom hesitated at that explanation, and just looked at the little girl in his arms for a moment before he was cut off by a much older voice.

“Because Destin was told that it was Adriana’s daughter.” Leander chimed in from nearby, having been present for the birth. Second to a mating ceremony, a birth was one of a Heartborn’s favorite things in the world, so long as it went well, and he could barely feel the cold all around them in the rush of power flowing through him from the proximity. “Chiara gave Destin a choice, either stay and be imprisoned or the child would die. He chose to save the little girl.”

Malcom nodded, though he still didn’t like Heartborn picking things out of his head, even if they seemed nice like Leander. He looked up at Shian with an apologetic smile. “He tried to name her the way he thought you two would want. Her name is Sheena.”

That made Shian smile in spite of the circumstances, and he nodded. “He was close. And Sheena is still a very pretty name.”

Kaia peered in at the little girl in the boy’s arms, and she looked at Shian a few times, since it did look like he could have fathered the child himself. She looked back and forth between the babies, both so fresh and new to the world. “I suppose this means you get two baby girls at once, then.”

Shian wasn’t sure what he thought about that, but if Chiara had stolen the girl from someone else, he hoped the mother would come looking for the baby, or at least still want to raise it herself with their newfound freedom. There were too many uncertainties for him to think about it at the moment.

“You look like you’re doing a pretty good job yourself right now, Malcom, so you go ahead and hang onto her for tonight.” He looked up at the sky, just barely beginning to grow light along the eastern horizon. “We all have to make it through today before we can worry about who’s taking care of who.”

Before the eastern sky could turn lighter with the coming sunrise, though, they all felt the ground shake, and the sky to the south turned brighter instead. Pillars of fire rose around the capital as far as the eye could see, dozens of them fanning out to envelop the entire city.

Shian put a protective arm around Malcom’s shoulders as the world trembled. He had no idea if the day was going to go their way or not, but he knew enough to be afraid of the conflict regardless.

* * * * *

Daiva smiled as she looked up at the palace, her people filling in behind her. Undoubtedly those within were primed and ready for battle, and so was she.

“Finally.” She turned to give the order over one shoulder, her eyes still fixed on the structure. “Prison for those who surrender. No survivors among the rest. If they resist, they have made their choice.”

Her wolves ran past her in every direction at first, all of them headed for the palace directly, closed off as it was after the threat of the night before. Rather than trying to break into the palace, her wolves stopped short of the walls and started pulling them down in sheets, tearing down some of the outer rooms entirely to crack the foundations from below. They weren’t just there to defeat the queen and her armies, they were there to destroy the place completely.

There was an Earthborn leader with her who came with Asira’s reinforcements. Though he had been tasked by Hassir to stay close to Daiva, he and his mate didn’t fit in very well with the rest of the wolves from the Reef, and it had taken her a moment to figure out why. Torren was an Earthborn, and his mate was Forestborn. Of all the wolves to be loyal to the Reef, they were easily the least likely.

That image of them changed, though, the moment the first wolves of the Isles came pouring out of the palace to confront them, and Torren put his fist directly through the chest of another Earthborn. The kill barely seemed to faze him, and he didn’t look over at Daiva as they advanced.

“How long has it been since these wolves have actually seen an assault on their home?” Torren’s concern was detached and almost amused. He stumbled on the stone for a moment as a pack of Stoneborn came upon them, but at the last moment, he dodged their attack and spun, cracking the knees of a wolf with the kick that resulted. “A century? Maybe more?”

“Several. Lifetimes, really.” Daiva used a large piece of stone like a sword, crushing several more Earthborn easily and similarly. “That’s why they hate the Reef. Because they’re so human that real wolves look like barbarians.”

“Well, that explains a lot.” His mate caught one wolf trying to get behind Daiva, which made Torren smile as they continued toward the palace. “I know my lord is going to be disappointed. He expected much more of a fight than this. If he had known,” he paused to get into a momentary one-on-one with another Earthborn who was almost his size but nowhere near his age, a fact the man realized quickly when Torren broke his arms and then crushed his skull between his hands, “he would never have waited for the advantage of you and your people before starting this insurrection.”

“I am glad, for my own sake, that he did. I’d much rather be his mate than his prisoner.” Daiva watched the dead wolf crumple to the ground before she plunged her stone sword into another wolf. She pulled it out easily and swung her weapon around to knock the wolf’s head off. “I see a path to the entrance. Come with me, we’ll go looking for the queen.”

“As you say, my lady.” He was her servant now as well, a fact that all of the wolves under Hassir’s authority seemed immediately aware of.

As they made their way into the palace, two of his Stoneborn dove in front of a cadre of enemy Skyborn, deflecting the attack with their own bodies in order to protect her. A pair of Fireborn roasted the wolves of the Isles alive in the next moment, calming the winds again, but Hassir’s people continued to move around her closely, constantly watching for nearby threats.

Daiva knew her way around the palace, and she took great pleasure in tearing down walls so her warriors could have access to whatever might be lurking on the other side. As they moved further in, there were suspiciously too few wolves to be seen. Daiva was angrier by the minute, and everyone could feel the stones shifting and groaning beneath their feet at her mounting rage. “Where are they?”

Torren took care to stay a little ahead of Daiva as they fought their way through the halls, but he had to agree, they were meeting very little resistance. By the time they reached the luxurious apartments of the royal family, there was almost no one in the halls, and what few they came across fled as soon as they caught sight of Daiva. The pillars and flowing arches of the royal suites had taken centuries to create and perfect, the long history of ancient rulers told in countless panels through the structure, but they were empty mosaics, with no one standing by to defend them.

“They’ve gone.” A voice called out through the halls, barely audible against the noise of the war being fought outside in the streets of the capital.

It came from Melyssa and Cadmos’ own private chamber, a cavernous vault of a room with open windows and a large bed on one side, a roaring hearth in the opposite corner. In the center of the room between the two, a Stoneborn had erected a thin pillar, to which was bound a young Skyborn with his hands wrapped painfully behind his back around the stone, like some kind of sacrifice waiting for Daiva’s arrival.

“They fled the capital. They left me to tell you, if you made it this far.”

“If I made it this far?” She growled loudly, and the pillar he was trapped against crumbled instantly, though the Skyborn wasn’t hurt in the action. She wanted him alive, especially if he was able to give her more information. “Such noble monarchs, and they run away like rats?!?” Daiva was quiet for a moment, but her silence was worse than her growling, since they could hear the ceiling cracking above them from her fuming. “In their place they leave a boy to speak for them. They deserve to lose everything.”

“I won’t argue with you there, my lady.” The Skyborn had prudently fallen to his knees as soon as the pillar was gone from behind him, and even though the ropes he’d been bound with were falling away, he didn’t move any closer. “They told me to warn you that you would not be able to win against them in a single day. If the Reef desires a war, she intends to give you one properly, as she once did.” He fell silent and dropped his face to the floor without pride or dignity, hoping she wouldn’t kill him for bearing the message on the queen’s behalf. “If I knew where they went, I swear to you, I would tell you. Please believe me.”

Daiva looked down at him, disgusted at the groveling. She didn’t barge into the castle to scare children, she came to rid the world of the wolves that thought they deserved to call themselves royal. “I don’t believe you for a moment. But run fast enough, and maybe you’ll survive the way out.”

The boy didn’t have to be told twice. He shifted and ran straight out the window into the night air, borne away on currents of air that would at least see him safely down into the ocean, which was more than he could say for his chances inside the palace with the wolves of the Reef.

Torren watched the boy go with a grunt, and looked around the rest of the chamber and the still-burning fire with a disappointed glare. “The queen values her life more highly than it’s worth. By noon, this entire capital will lie in ruins. Even if she and her family survive, all of her fighters here will be dead, her fleet will be gone along with the slaves that built it, and her people massacred. What victory is there in survival if your own people despise you for abandoning them afterward?”

“She must have another plan, otherwise she wouldn’t just back away like this. I know her well enough to know that she always has something brewing.” Daiva went to the window where the wolf had jumped out, and she looked out at the fires scattered just beyond the castle. “Let us finish our work here, then. We’ll find her. Today or tomorrow, she will not hide forever.”