If that was supposed to be an encouragement, it felt like a somewhat weak one. But, though his words were calm and his tone oddly disaffected, I could sense that they were genuine.
“People like me have always had to fight,” I said. “It’s easy to abandon the dream of easy victory when it was never an option at all.”
Iya let out a wry chuckle.
“I suppose that is true,” he said, and before I could respond, he was drifting away, as if the conversation was simply over.
When I got back to my room, a letter was on my pillow. My heart leapt when I saw my name rendered in handwriting I now knew as well as my own. I tore it open and unfolded it, and despite myself — despite everything — I smiled, my chest suddenly warm.
Tisaanah,
Tell me you’re alright, you wonderful idiot.
Love,
Max.
I wasn’t stupid. I knew that “love” was a late addition, Max’s attempt at communicating what he didn’t know how to paint in written words. And that was funny to me, because this letter held more affection than pages of flowery language ever could.
It was always so easy, after all, to feel Max’s love. It radiated from him like the warmth of his skin. He didn’t need to say it. A brush of my hand. I love you. A conspiratorial half smile. I love you. A wrinkle of concern between his brows. I love you.
And even here, even now, with him half a country away. I felt it here, in the words he did write and the ones he didn’t. I love you, you wonderful idiot.
Of their own accord, my fingers wrapped around the butterfly necklace at my throat. My chest ached, with affection, with longing, and with the wound of his absence.
I went to the desk, grabbed a blank piece of paper, and started to write.
Chapter Eighteen
Max
We set up a barricade around the city. All roads leading in were blocked by my soldiers. No traffic in, no traffic out. Antedale was compact, with tall buildings, narrow roads, and little in the way of space for farming or livestock. Thus, the vast majority of their food production happened in the fields beyond the borders, then shipped the short distance into the city.
“If the goal is to starve them out,” Essanie said, when I made this order, “it won’t work. It will take far too long, and they have enough food sources within the walls to keep their population alive.”
She wasn’t wrong. They would have grain stores, certainly enough to keep everyone fed. Fed, sure. But not happy. Antedale was a prosperous city. The population was not used to going without variety, even for short periods of time. Add onto that the fact that these volunteer men were choosing to be separated from their families to do nothing but stand idly out in the cold for weeks on end — well, morale would be starting to fall. And with it, attentions would be growing slack.
But many of the soldiers shared Essanie and Arith’s trepidation. Every night, I listened to action-starved young men lament. “Hell, we could have them in the ground in two ‘Scended-damned hours,” I heard one of them grunt, taking a swig out of his beer. “Never would’ve expected Farlione to be such a pussy. The man who won Sarlazai!”
Indeed.
Still, I waited. Soon, the time began to take its toll. It was visible even from a distance — the soldiers beginning to wander around instead of standing in rigid lines, the space between them widening as they tried to hide their thinning numbers. They were distracted, they were tired, and their numbers were fewer. Perfect.
I called upon Essanie and Arith to assemble teams of their strongest Valtain, especially those who were skilled in illusionism. I was presented with a group of thirty — more than enough, for what we needed.
We made our move early in the morning. A thick fog had rolled in. Some of it was natural, common in this part of Ara. But our Valtain Wielders helped thicken it, too, lowering visibility until the city and the soldiers that guarded it were little more than misty silhouettes. The air was so thick it hurt to breathe, and everything was uncomfortably damp. The dawn was silent. The city had not yet awoken.
Then I gave my command, and the silence shattered.
Screams punctured the air. Soon they were joined with shouts, and the clash of metal upon metal, and the telltale blue-white flashes of Lightning Dust. This was the sound of a slaughter. It was the sound of a district falling.
It wasn’t coming from the main gates. No, the sounds came from the southern gates of the city.
The Antedale soldiers sprung to panicked action. Most bolted back into the city, no doubt headed for the southern gates, where the screams and sounds would be loudest.
They left less than half of their comrades behind, staring out into the fog as they clutched their weapons. They would not be able to see us at first. But the sight, I’m sure, was something to behold once they could — hundreds of us emerging from the soupy grey.
We outnumbered them many times over.
My men could capture or force surrender from these guards, rather than kill them. Little fight remained in them. We practically strode through the doors whistling with our hands shoved into our pockets, marching into the city like a solemn parade.
I gave strict instruction to avoid lethal force if at all possible. Unless someone’s blade is at your throat, I told them, yours should be far away from theirs.
Some of my men were clearly frustrated by this directive. Resolve was tested, and it began to unravel as we made our way to Gridot’s keep on the east end. His personal guards were more vicious and skilled. By then, the soldiers that we had distracted had realized their mistake, and had begun rushing back into the
