CHAPTER TWELVE

FARON

FARON DID NOT FEEL WELL ENOUGH FOR BATTLE, BUT SHE DIDN’T have much of a choice. The invasion of Watson would take place whether she was there or not, and if she couldn’t stop it, then she should at least bear witness to her failure. Still, she felt nausea unrelated to how high Lightbringer chose to fly so they would go unseen during the two-hour flight from the Hestan Archipelago to the northernmost town in the Emerald Highlands.

By the time Lightbringer finally broke through the clouds, Faron’s nerves were as steady as they would get, and she could appreciate the beauty that sprawled out below them. Manor homes claimed endless acres of land, delineated by hedges and wrought-iron fences, but nature otherwise ruled from the Silver Sea north to the Tenebris River. They flew over a patchwork of greens—olive and pine, sage and mint, moss and fern—all the shades smearing into one another like mixed paint on a palette. Here and there, Faron saw the pewter of mountain ranges, the sepia of dark hills, and the cobalt of ponds and lagoons. Sun-dappled clouds hung above them, their color almost grimy compared with the arrant white of Lightbringer’s beating wings.

It was too nice a day for conquest. Lightbringer probably loved that.

Watson was a sprawling agricultural settlement pressed between one of the many mountain ranges that sprawled through the Highlands and a grove of pine and ash trees that clustered together like gossiping elders. They landed just outside the town line, marching past acres of flat farmland, crops in various states of decay, and browning grass preparing to be covered by a blanket of cold snow. Faron was reminded, inevitably, of Deadegg, her small agricultural town, with its farms that were slowly going out of business and the misty Argent Mountains watching over them from the center of the island. Her landlocked home with the people who had watched her grow up… and now hated her.

She tried to stop thinking of Deadegg, but she heard the bleating of goats and she smelled the pungent fertilizer and she could almost feel the Deadegg dirt still caked under her nails. Her town might not welcome her back, but she carried it with her even now—her love for her town as fixed and immutable as her love for her sister, her parents, her island. It might be too late to prove herself to them, but she had to try. She had saved them once with powers they didn’t understand. In a way, this was no different.

If her mistake had made her a villain, she would perform a hundred thousand conciliatory acts until she could go home again. She didn’t care what the history books would say about her. She only wanted to go home.

“Hm,” said Iya, his first sound since they had landed.

Faron followed his line of sight to see they had reached the town line—and the town in question was empty. Cows weren’t grazing near the windbreaks in the enclosed fields. Horses swaddled in rugs weren’t tied to wooden posts or slumbering in the stables. There were no carriages in the streets, no sounds of life, nothing but the echoing silence periodically interrupted by the rattle of the wind.

Estella Ballard found them first, jogging up from one of the side streets with her co-Rider, Briar Noble, inches behind her. She scowled at Faron and then, with effort, dragged away her gaze. Faron was brimming with too much tentative excitement to scowl back. The town was empty. The town was empty. It would not be a massacre after all.

“Did they evacuate?” Iya asked without giving Ballard a chance to catch her breath. “And, if so, how did they know we were coming?”

He didn’t look at Faron, knowing as well as she did that she had no means of contacting anyone, let alone the people of Watson. She hid a smile anyway. It was delightful, seeing Iya’s careful planning crumble so quickly.

“There are no tracks leading out, my saint,” Ballard said. “Our dragons have scented nothing, but we’re making a full search of every building just to be—”

From deeper into the town, there came a scream. Faron winced. Damn it.

Ballard and Noble ran back the way they’d come. The shadow of their ultramarine dragon, Ignatz, passed overhead. Iya told Faron to stay put, before charging after them, a dangerous look on his face. Lightbringer remained on the outskirts of town, watching for any attacks from the north, and Faron briefly considered waiting with him. As much as she hated being told what to do, she didn’t want to be a part of whatever was about to happen.

Fire flashed against the blood-orange sky. Her hands clenched at her sides at the next round of screams.

Didn’t it make Faron complicit, to be able to help and yet close her ears to the suffering? Iya couldn’t hurt her, and, if he was distracted by stopping her, then the villagers could still get away. She could help. She should help, no matter the consequences.

Faron made it halfway down the street before she heard a noise.

It was too soft to have come from a dragon, but too loud to be a scavenger. To her left was a small ancient brick house with dark windows, surrounded by a half fence that separated the house from a dying cornfield. Ballard had said they’d made a sweep of the buildings, but it would be easy to hide within the wilted stalks that hadn’t been cleared in time for Harvest. Maybe the bulk of the residents were close by, waiting for the dragons to go farther into town so they could get away. Faron could distract Lightbringer long enough for that.

She had no weapon save her bond magic, but hopefully she wouldn’t need one. In fact, that was likely for the best, if she was to convince them that she was on their side.

She crept toward the source of the sound, only to find a child staring at her from behind a scuffed black bin. It smelled of straw and day-old milk, and it was large enough that Faron and the child could both stand behind it without being seen from the street. Standing in the dirt between the bin and the cornfield, the child watched her with wide blue eyes, her saffron hair divided into two pigtails. She couldn’t have been more than six or seven, though Faron had a hard time judging the age of children.

After all, it wasn’t as though she’d had much of a childhood herself.

The noise hadn’t come from the cornfield. It came from a single crutch the girl had tucked under one arm. Her opposite foot had a brace on it, and the sound of the crutch moving from the dirt to the concrete surrounding a set of cellar doors had been what had drawn Faron’s attention. Basements and cellars were a rare sight in Langley. Langlish towns flooded as often as San Irie’s seaside cities, and, as a result, they avoided underground floors in favor of keeping all their old belongings in storage rooms and garages. This building must have been at least a century old, from when they’d used cellars to stock fuel for the winter.

“Is your family down there?” she asked. This part of Watson was quiet for now, but she was well aware of how quickly that could change. Lightbringer had flown in with Irontooth and Ignatz. Cruz was on standby in case the people proved too difficult for three dragons to overcome. And if he wasn’t enough, Goldeye was at Hearthstone, eager for blood. “You should—”

The child threw the crutch with a high-pitched grunt. Faron ducked just in time to avoid getting hit in the head. It clattered against the bin, and the child darted over the fence to limp into the darkened field beyond. Either she was trying to get away or she was trying to lead Faron into a trap.

Faron didn’t follow her. Instead, she inched closer to the metal doors of the cellar, which were closed but unchained.

“Is anyone in there?” she whispered. “I just want to help.”

Faron tugged at one of the doors and it opened, though it was heavier than she’d expected because there was something affixed to the underside of it. The steps to the cellar were dark, but in the dying light she could see that there were rocks and drywall firmly attached to the door itself. More pieces were scattered across the steps and lining the interior walls, which were nowhere near as dusty as they should have been in an unused cellar. Something about it felt off.

“Of course.”

Faron jumped, dropping the door. It clattered against the frame, louder than her heartbeat.

Gavriel Warwick stood behind her. A quiet anger radiated from him, lending him a predatory air. “These are pieces of my home, Rosetree Manor. It was built with dragon relics embedded in the wood and stone, to prevent… unwanted spying.” He shoved Faron out of the way and pulled open the other cellar door. “Demolishing my house and using pieces of it to deceive us. Clever. Infuriating, but clever. Whatever they’re hiding down here must be very valuable indeed.”

Faron remembered the little girl—the decoy, she now realized—and her stomach twisted. “It’s probably nothing. You should get back to the fight.”

“Iya sent me to find you,” said the commander, summoning a ball of flame to his gloved hands. “I have time enough.”

He threw the fire down the stairs.

Faron screamed, stumbled forward, dropped to her knees.

The fire sputtered and went out before it even hit the bottom, smothered, she assumed, by the magic in the stones. But it illuminated a crowd of children gathered in the cellar, clinging to one another with wide eyes. They hadn’t made a sound, wouldn’t have been seen at all if not for the fire, and now they looked at the commander and Faron as if they were monsters come to consume them. Fear made them tremble. Faron trembled with them.

“Well,” Commander Warwick said smugly, “this should resolve things faster.”

Faron wished she had just followed that little girl into the fields, pretended to get lost for a few hours, and minded her own business for once in her life. Instead, she watched the commander draw a sword on the children she had inadvertently damned, evacuating them from the cellar to be used against their parents.

The way they looked at her. Her fingers curled against the packed ground and loose stones.

“I didn’t mean—I only wanted to help,” she whispered.

“Thanks for your help,” one of the boys sneered.

“We know who you are,” said a redheaded girl, clinging to another’s hand. “You’re the Empyrean. A monster.”

“I—”

“We won’t hurt you,” the commander assured them with such faux kindness that Faron felt sick. “As long as your parents surrender immediately, we won’t hurt any of you.”

Faron glanced over her shoulder. His eyes were on the group of children, seemingly counting them. They were well trained, these kids. Not a single one of them glanced toward the field, where one of their number had disappeared. Those who weren’t watching the commander in fear were glaring at her with hate in their eyes.

Hate she deserved.

She turned back to the cellar, pretending that she was closing the doors behind them.

And she slipped a loose stone, still warm with magic, up her sleeve.

As soon as they had seen their children wedged between Commander Warwick and Faron, most of the adults of Watson had surrendered. Some lives had already been lost in the battle, but the rest had dropped their weapons as quickly as Warwick had hoped.

“How could you?” an adult had asked as he’d turned over his pitchfork to one of Iya’s soldiers. “They’re just kids.” His eyes had caught on Faron, and his expression had changed to something so hateful, she felt it like a punch. “I should’ve known. You—you’re immoral. You’ve always been a savage.”

This wasn’t my idea, Faron had wanted to scream, but what had it mattered? Whether he’d thought her a savage because she was the Childe Empyrean or because she was Iryan, she had been standing with the people who had threatened a group of children. She’d had no moral high ground to stand on.

Iya had waited hours before allowing the anguished parents to reunite with their children, first confiscating their blades, drafting the able-bodied farmers into his army, and interrogating the mayor about any incoming reinforcements. By the time Iya’s forces dragged themselves back to Lightbringer and flew the two hours to Hearthstone, it was nearing midnight. And still he called another meeting in the war room before dismissing anyone.

There were two empty chairs at the table this time. Estella Ballard and Briar Noble had remained in Watson with Ignatz to “maintain order,” along with a small contingent of soldiers in case of retaliation. Faron didn’t want to think about what they were doing to the people who had refused to bow to Iya, children or no children. She didn’t want to think of the role she had played in their downfall.

“Once we secure the Highlands, our next phase should begin with Joya del Mar,” Gavriel Warwick said. “The Dragon Legion would be split between coming to their aid and minding the south, which would make them easier to eliminate. Besides that, Joyan magic is derived from nature spirits. By razing their forests and drying out their lakes, we could render the people powerless.”

“My current goal is not to eliminate the Dragon Legion,” Iya said, his chin resting on his steepled fingers. Soot caked the side of his face, but he was otherwise uninjured from the battle. “I want to command them. To show them how powerful they can be when truly unleashed.”

“That would require them to heed your threat, my saint,” Oscar Luxton chipped in from the other end of the table. Beneath the electric lights, a bald spot was visible near the back of his silvering blond hair. “Two days from now will make a week since you issued it, and we haven’t received word of any deserters.”

“Hm. Well, I hardly blame them for not taking me seriously when I reside in the body of an eighteen-year-old boy.”

“It’s not just that,” said Mireya Warwick. “The Sotos and the Hylands have been surprisingly capable leaders in our absence. According to my spies, they’ve assured the people of Beacon that they are taking steps to neutralize the threat you pose to their way of life.” Faron’s ears pricked at the word spies, and she filed away that information for later. She had thought those loyal to the Warwicks were only among their army here at Hearthstone, but of course they had left a few in key places to pass along information. “Whether that’s true or not, they’ve kept the empire together well enough that everyone is taking them at their word. Or at least waiting to see what happens next.”

“What happens next,” Iya drawled, “is that we pay Beacon a visit.”

“And what?” Faron asked with a glare. “Burn it down? That didn’t work out so well when you tried it on San Irie.”

“Burning down the capital of a dragon-riding empire isn’t as easy as you think. I’m aiming for something more subtle.”

“Like what?”

“We could raid the Preserve,” Nichol Thompson suggested. He faltered a little when all eyes turned to him, but his voice remained strong. Faron wanted to burn him. “The dragon eggs there are still incubating, but we shouldn’t risk them hatching into new enemies.”

Marius Lynwood smirked. “We can handle that one alone, if it pleases you, my saint.”

“A sound idea.” Iya leaned back with a smirk of his own, nodding at each person in turn. “Warwicks, you’ll be with me in Beacon. Lynwood and Thompson, you take the Dragon Preserve. Luxtons, you’ll hold Hearthstone and identify if any other cities are being shielded from us with the wreckage of Rosetree, so that I can plan accordingly. We leave in two days.”

Everyone murmured their assent and began to leave the table in a cloud of yawns and stretching. Oscar Luxton and Mireya Warwick left together, speaking in quick whispers. Marius Lynwood was attempting to flirt with Margot Luxton, who thoroughly ignored him, as Nichol Thompson trailed silently behind them. Gavriel Warwick was the last to leave, and he did so reluctantly, as if expecting Iya to ask him to stay. Faron’s lips thinned. How pathetic.

“He is loyal only as long as it benefits him,” Lightbringer said through the bond. “Does that make him pathetic or me pathetic for needing such a snake?”

“You’re an overgrown lizard,” Faron pointed out. “Should you be using snake as an insult?”

“Hilarious.”

“So, what preparations will we need to do before we go to Beacon?” Faron asked aloud, her voice dull with resignation. News of what had happened in Watson would surely have spread by the time they made it to the capital, and that howling emptiness threatened to swallow her emotions. The way those parents and children had looked at her. The way they’d called her a monster and a savage. The way their clever plan to face Iya’s forces had been ruined in seconds by her errant curiosity. She was a danger to others just by being around them, but maybe she could sabotage the planning somehow. Maybe she had lulled Iya into a sense of security that would keep him from noticing what she was doing.

“As much as I’d love to give you the opportunity for sabotage,” Iya said, getting to his feet with a snort, “you won’t be coming.”

“What are you planning to do to them?” she demanded. “And what’s the point of letting me sit in on these meetings if you’re going to keep secrets? You either trust me or you don’t.”

“I don’t,” Iya said without hesitation. “And even if I did, your amateur efforts to get in my way have proved that I can’t. You’ll remain here with the Luxtons until you see reason.”

Faron stood, scrambling for something to change his mind. “With the Luxtons? One of them punched me in the face. How do you know they won’t take the opportunity to get rid of me once and for all?”

“I told you I’ve already dealt with that. They know now that hurting you hurts me.” Anger simmered in Iya’s voice like a pot about to boil over. “They wouldn’t dare touch you and expect to live.”

She swallowed. “What if I hurt myself?”

“How morbid.” Iya checked to make sure there was no one at the door before those wrathful eyes turned on her. He stepped closer, until there was no more than a hand’s breadth of distance between them. “I know that you’ve noticed that my souls are… unruly. Have you realized yet why?”

Slowly, Faron shook her head. She had her theories, of course, but none that she was willing to share.

Iya smiled, small and sharp. “These fool boys love you, Faron Vincent. It is the one thing that they agree on, the one emotion they feel so strongly that it enables them to unite against my influence. I will take this body to Beacon, and it will not matter how much their souls yearn for you. Your death may kill them, but not Lightbringer. It would be a minor setback at best.” His hand lifted as though to touch her, and Faron ducked away. He chuckled. “You cannot stop me. You cannot stop the Warwicks. You cannot stop what is already in place.”

“I don’t believe that,” Faron said, her voice stronger than she felt. “I’ve saved the world before, and I can do it again. I have to.”

“You can certainly try.” Iya headed for the door and then paused. “You know? I think I will take you with me to Beacon. But not so you can prove yourself.” His expression was unreadable when he glanced at her over his shoulder. “I will take you to Beacon so the world can prove that I told you the truth: You can never make them love you again. You can only make them bow.”