Ihvon stopped for a moment. He closed his eyes, focused on his breathing.
Just a moment. I just need a moment.
The heavy wind nipped at his face and neck, but he did not flinch. He felt as though he had been sitting by the fire for hours. Beads of sweat rolled down his forehead. He kept moving. His steps echoed through the paved streets, accompanied only by the whistling of the wind and the occasional shout of a sentry on patrol. He walked through the merchant’s square, under the arch of the bell tower. He fingered his pocket, where the stone had been.
It’s too late now. There’s no going back.
Arthur had given him no choice. They couldn’t resist the empire any longer. And the dwarves were not the answer. They only cared for their own desires. Through his coat, he touched the scar that ran along his stomach. It was a constant reminder of that day. He had screamed at them to go back. To let him go back. But those dwarves were too scared for their own skins. They ran, and dragged him with them.
Alyana. Khris.
Ihvon clenched his hand into a fist. He felt a sting in his palm as his nail cut into the skin, leaving a thin line of blood that trickled along the creases in his hand. Even as his anger burned, he fought the other half of his heart. The guilt that scratched at the back of his consciousness.
He nodded as he passed two sentries, not breaking his stride.
The boy and his dragon, for the emperor’s amnesty.
It was a good deal. A fair deal.
He kept one foot moving in front of the other. He couldn’t allow for weakness, but his pace slowed. He stopped. His chest rose and fell in heavy sweeps.
“Fuck!” he yelled, feeling a crack as his knuckle connected with the stone wall. The boy reminded him too much of Khris. “Gods curse me, I can’t do it.”
He turned on his heels. He wasn’t long past the bell tower. He could still warn them. He ignored the pain that shot up his weary knees as his feet pounded against the stone.
There is still time.
He ran faster.
CHAPTER 33
Of Blood and Fire
Falmin was true to his word. The Crested Wave was ready to launch in five minutes, not a minute less or a minute more. The man knew his craft.
Kira had brought all one thousand of the Queensguard with her. To bring more would have required the agreement of the other council members, and that was something they didn’t have time for. She had also sent for more navigators, but that was something else that they didn’t have time to wait for.
The Crested Wave could fit two hundred at the most, as long as everyone was standing and didn’t mind a few bruises along the way. Even that number sent Falmin into a flustered temper. He flounced onto the vessel, muttering to himself, “They always think they know everything… Never listen… ‘Just do it, Falmin.’ I’ll show you where to…”
Kira, Aeson, Calen, Valerys, and Asius went first, piling in as many of the Queensguard as was practical. Asius’s size meant a few less dwarves. The others would follow when the rest of the navigators arrived.
Oleg stayed behind to “coordinate.”
The trip back up to Belduar was far less comfortable than the trip down. It was impossible to tell whether they were going faster or not, but it certainly felt like they were. More than once, Calen was lucky to avoid the nick of a loosely held axe as the Crested Wave jostled from side to side, bouncing off the smooth tunnels. Valerys nearly tore strips from the platform as he attempted to keep himself steady.
As they approached the landing in Belduar, the din of fighting echoed down the tunnel. Calen felt the atmosphere around him change as everyone on the Crested Wave readied their heads for what was to come.
Chaos.
The attacks in Durakdur were quiet and calculated. Belduar was under siege. The courtyard that fronted the Wind Tunnels was a meat grinder full of bodies, dead and alive. Calen couldn’t tell Belduaran from Lorian. All he saw was steel and blood. Men howled battle cries, screamed in pain, wailed in death. Calen saw threads of Fire, Wind, and Earth everywhere he looked as mages on both sides reaped maelstroms of destruction.
The dwarves leapt from the platform as soon as the rings ceased spinning. Their short legs belied their speed as they bounded across the rope bridge and onto the landing, leaping into the frenzy of the courtyard below.
“This is madness…” Aeson said, furrowing his brow. “How is it even possible? How did they get past the walls?”
“We can ask them that when they’re dead,” Kira replied as she bounded off the platform. She sliced through an imperial soldier as she landed, as if he were made of dry paper.
She is insane.
Except for a passing glance, Aeson paid her no heed. “We need to get to the Inner Circle.”
Calen was incredulous. “What about here? We can’t just leave them!”
“We need to get to the king. If we don’t, then these people die for nothing.” Aeson held Calen’s gaze for a long moment, as if daring him to challenge. When he didn’t, Aeson nodded across the courtyard, to one of the six entrances that lined the southern edge of the yard. “That passageway leads to the main street. We can get to the bridge from there and cross to the Inner Circle.”
He didn’t wait for a response but leapt down from the platform into the yard, expecting the rest to follow. The group cut their way through the fighting, never stopping. But if a blade could be raked across someone, it was. About halfway across the yard, Calen caught Kira’s eye as she heaved her axe from the chest of a behemoth of a man. He didn’t
