Page 85 of A Rising Hope

“Tell Finnleah, her and I conveersse we mussst,” he announced to those in the room. With a single click of his metal heeled boots, he turned around, departing from the room, each step commanding power and might. The lines of Elven soldiers silently followed him in perfect unison. An ocean of black and white as, one by one, they left the room.

The moment they were out of our sight, one of my commanders swayed. His body hit the dusty floor with a dull thud.

“Get him on a cot,” I snarled to the frozen soldiers lingering near him.

“We have none left,” another braved to answer.

“Then fucking make one.” I scowled over my shoulder at him, but my feet were already across the room. Rage, fury and dread all mixed into an explosive mood as I stormed down the long-winding halls of the crumbling estate.

Screams, cries, and, at times, the too poignant quietness encompassed the dark narrow corridors of the building. Injured bodies of slowly dying soldiers covered every available inch of the chateau.Half of them won’t make it till the morning, I knew that. There was no comfort in delusion to believe otherwise. Our armies were destroyed.

We were alive. But defeat came in more shapes than death.

I recognized Yanush limping through the poorly lit halls. Her ear was torn, blood soaking her leathers. She and Motra wrapped their hands around the half-conscious body of Ioanna. Both of her legs were broken, an arrow wedged in her side and her face so swollen I wouldn’t have recognized her had it not been for the black-and-white hair that peeked beneath layers of caked on mud and dirt.

“Who else?” I asked, my voice cold and sharp.

“Tori and Cori, we found. Both are pretty torn up, but they’ll live. Ashe said that at one point she saw Cass, but she is still looking for Lulu and Gia,” Yanush mumbled, not hiding the brokenness in her voice at the report.

“Gia didn’t make it,” I revealed. She swallowed the lump, and her bloodied eyes filled with devastation, but she nodded understanding.

“Zora?” Motra managed to speak through her busted lips.

“Zora is alive.”

Ioanna moaned in pain, little tremors recoiling through her torn body.

“We are taking shelter in the third room down the servants' hall,” Yanush said. “Tell Zora to find us. We need her.”

I silently nodded, pushing forward through the crammed building. Dreadful chaos rushed down the halls. Bright flashes of flames followed by loud screams ricocheted against the lifeless brick. The smell of blood and burned flesh settled in the air from the never-ending cauterized wounds.

I searched every passing person, scanning for her menacing glare, but Zora was nowhere to be found. My powers flared like a drowning sailor fervently searching for a lifeline in the darkest of tempests.

Zora. Zora. Zora. Zora . . . Her name was the only spell to my existence.

I pushed past exhaustion, past the agony of my broken body, scouring for her in the crowds of dismay.

But no matter where I looked, she wasn’t there.

My powers cried out as realization brought me to a complete halt. My eyes were glued to a small shadow cast on the courtyard below.

My mouth turned dry.

And I knew what she had done.

54

ZORA

Silence.

So much of it that it hurt my head. My ears were out of focus, or perhaps I had gone deaf.

Silence, quiet and dangerous, lulled any sense of reason to sleep.

I watched the vultures circle on the horizon, the only reminder of the miles of dead bodies scattered across the destroyed meadows beyond that small forest.

We had won.

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