Page 50 of WarBride

“Lord Dormaris,” I say, my tone pitched to a low, careful tone of respect. “I come seeking one of your men: Ravagol, the warrior. I’ve been told he returned to your encampment with a warbride last night.”

The warlord’s gaze snaps back to mine. “LuinarTaarthalor,” he says, and places a hand to his chest, inclining his head. “Indeed, yes. Ravagol boasted to many of his new prize. A most unexpected turn of events.”

I don’t quite know how to interpret the look on his face. He speaks in common Eledrian, however, which the girl understands. She leaps out from behind me, heedless of risk. “Where did he take her?” she demands. “What did he do to her?”

Dormaris tilts his head, his black horns catching the midday sunlight in their coils. His eyes move from me to her and back again, his expression curious and cautious and something else I can’t quite define. “It would perhaps be easier,” he says at last, “to show you rather than to try to explain what took place.”

“What?” The girl’s fists clench, and she takes an aggressive step forward. She’s so small compared to his majesty, the sight would be almost comical were it not for the desperate look on her face. “What are you talking about? Where is my sister?” I place a restraining hand on her shoulder, but she twists free, reaching for her knife. Before she can draw it from its sheath, I grab her arm firmly and wrench her back. She staggers and falls against me, and I hastily slip my arm around her shoulders, pinning her in place. “Let me go!” she yelps.

I bow my head and growl in her ear. “You will not help your sister by offending Lord Dormaris.”

She strains in my grasp one last time before going still. Letting out a small huff of air, she nods once. I don’t release her but instead lift my gaze to the fae lord. He has taken a step back, and both his guards have half-drawn their own weapons. I don’t understand it. Any one of these men could break her in half between his thumb and index finger . . . and yet they all stare at my warbride with an intensity that borders on fear.

“Do you have her under control?” Dormaris asks, eyeing the girl.

I nod and, though it should go without saying, add: “She is no threat to you, lord.”

Dormaris narrows his eyes. Then, with a sharp word to his guards, he turns and strides through the encampment. We follow after, even as more armed men and women fall in around us. We are soon surrounded by ferocious Lunulyrian warriors. None of this makes any sense to me. Dormaris knows I am an ally, bound by my vows to Prince Ruvaen the same as he. And the girl? Anyone can look at her and see that she is harmless. Brave, reckless, determined, yes. But harmless.

We pass through the ordered rows of Lunulyrian tents. The stink of burned flesh intensifies, and the smoke in the air thickens. Something is wrong. Very wrong. I’m not sure what,but I do know that, if I had my way, I would spare my bride whatever revelations are coming. She walks at my side, her face set in grim lines.

Neither of us is prepared for what Lord Dormaris reveals.

We come to a swath of the encampment that has been flattened. Tents ripped from the ground, thrown down, poles broken, silk torn. Spatters of blood and gore everywhere. Signs of dragging, deep gouges in the earth. And in the center of it all, what appears to be a great blast of some kind.

I come to a stop, my warbride close beside me, and stare out at that scene of destruction, uncomprehending. Dormaris strides forward until he stands almost in the center, turning slowly to look at the carnage. “Ravagol brought her here,” he says, his tone almost musing. “Having won her in auction, he returned at once, first to show her off to his fellows, then to consummate the marriage according to Noxaurian law. It is the way things are done,” Dormaris adds, with a dismissive shrug. “Noxaurians always were a barbarous lot. Her screams could be heard across the camp, but then . . .” He sweeps an arm to indicate the scene around us. “Then something changed. And it was my people I heard screaming in the night.”

What he’s implying is unbelievable. “You’re saying the warbride did this?” I demand. There are hewn limbs, scattered entrails. I spy a severed head, half-hidden beneath a collapsed tent. “You’re saying she killed Ravagol?”

“KilledRavagol?” Dormaris chuckles darkly. “My friend, she did more than that. She ripped him to little pieces. We’ve not yet found all of him. Then she turned and did the same to all those nearby. I lost twenty warriors last night before she was finally subdued.”

I look down at the girl beside me, studying her face for some sign of confirmation. Surely if her sister was such a deadlywarrior, she would know something of it. But the girl looks confused. Horrified.

She looks up at me, her eyes limned with tears. “He . . . he’s saying Aurae did this?”

I nod.

“But . . . how?”

“Do you not know?”

She shakes her head. “It’s not possible. Aurae is . . . she’s sweet. And gentle. She couldn’t hurt a mouse. And she certainly couldn’t . . .” Gulping down a sob, she whirls on Dormaris. Though every bone in her body trembles, she demands fiercely, “Where is she? Where is my sister?”

“Your sister?” Dormaris answers musingly. “You are of the same blood then?”

The girl nods. “Bring me to her. At once.”

She speaks with all the imperious authority of a princess. Oddly enough Dormaris inclines his head. “This way,” he says and guides us on through the carnage to where the smoke is thicker in the air.

“Zylnala,” I say, laying a warning hand on her shoulder. “Don’t go. Don’t make yourself see this. It can do no good.”

She does not answer me, does not look at me. She simply strides forward, her face set, even as smoke stings her eyes.

Dormaris leads us to an open place on the far side of his encampment. There we find what the smell had already told me we would: a pyre. Bodies piled up and burning. The remnants of last night’s carnage, cleansed in fire. It is nearly burned out, and little remains but ashes and the twisted husks of corpses.

“No,” the girl whispers. “No, no, no . . .” With each word, her voice rises until it becomes a wail of such horror, such sorrow, it echoes across the whole encampment. It strikes me like a song of mourning, plunging straight to the depths of my gut where myown losses reside, suppressed but unforgotten. For a moment it nearly knocks me to my knees.

Somehow I find a ledge of reason inside my head and manage to steady myself, to remain present in this place of burning flesh and horror. I peer through the smoke, searching for the girl, only to see her hurtling toward the pyre.

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