Page 193 of Ash and Feather

He looked momentarily furious at the idea of needing tosave face.

But it passed quickly, and the expression left behind was a confusing mixture of regret, stubbornness, and resolve.

Finally, he placed a hand on the saddle and prepared to leave.

I started to just let him go, but my mouth was moving again, words spilling out before I could stop them.

“You may have felt like you’ve been alone these years,” I said as he hoisted himself up, “but I’ve had your palace wrapped in protective magic for years. Even if you couldn’t see it. Or feel it. You are more than just aking. And I need you to fall back because I need you to survive this. Just so you know.”

He adjusted the reins of his horse and turned it away from me—toward safety—without another word.

But he paused after only half a step.

Glancing over his shoulder, he said, “If their numbers are as great as you claim, then this isn’t a battle you can likely win, either. Even as a god. They have weapons that can strike successfully against divine power—we saw them in Altis.”

“Yes.”

“So what can you possibly do against these monsters?”

“There are powers greater than any the middle-gods can wield. And things are in motion, now—they only need time to come to fruition. We only have to keep the situation from escalating beyond repair in the meantime.”

His stone-faced glare returned.

“You just have to trust me,” I told him.

Trust me.

The same words Karys had said. The words I’d been holding on to like a lifeline these past two days.

Ididtrust her.

But it was not a feeling I could easily explain to the skeptical king before me. And again, I knew what my stubborn brother was thinking.

Trust you? As I trusted you to negotiate a ceasefire?

But he said nothing.

Which was a kind of progress between us, maybe.

My brother and I were still caught in our quiet stalemate when a small explosion went off behind me.

I looked back to see powder raining down over a large swath of ground, landing upon the divine trap of ice Valas had laid.

Melting it.

The powder hissed as it hit the ice and ignited. Secondary, smaller explosions of violet-colored fog popped up all along the forest’s edge.

The first line of elven warriors emerged through this fog, wearing masks of white, their clothing patterned like the pale grey trees they’d been hiding among. It created an eerie effect—their bodies being hidden by a combination of these patterns and the swirling fog, their movements only noticeable when one of their masks caught a bit of the overcast sunlight.

“These monsters won’t be stopped,” Fallon said through clenched teeth.

“Fallback!” I said again, giving his horse a swat on the hindquarters to get it moving. It lunged into a gallop—beyond ready to run by this point—and he didn’t try to stop it. To my relief, he managed to direct it through the opening I’d created in my barrier.

I doubted he would retreat entirely. It would not be that easy. But at least he was out of my way for the moment.

Now I could focus on the growing disaster behind me.

After sealing off the wall of fire, I turned just in time to see another bomb landing against the glittering, ice-coated ground. Another explosion. Another blanket of dust landing upon Valas’s ice, another series of explosionspop pop poppingand filling the air with an even thicker layer of noxious fog.

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