Page 54 of Angel in Absentia
“They’ve denied us,” Clea replied, not caring to hide the news. “And even if they agreed to help us, they would be hard-pressed to mobilize in time. We should send a courier to warn them anyway,” she added, staring at the stone ahead, the painting of ash and dried blood spoke of the skirmish here from hours before.
She took a deep breath and exhaled wearily, running her hands through her hair. “We have less than half a council, half an army, and a city in shambles with an imminent attack on the horizon.”
Sitting now, exhausted from a night of battle, wrestled in a fog, she found that in her dread, she could not blame Idan for sitting in his villa, enjoying their parties and drink, a thousand possibilities away from where she sat now.
She shook her head, staring forward as she leaned back against the base of the throne. The red of the setting sun seeped into the room.
“What is your call?” the scout asked, his voice a prod through the haze of death as her mind replayed the day in loops. “Queen of Loda.”
The title settled deeply, and as the minutes passed, neither of them moved. She thought of the day and all of its death, all of the bodies, and the wild parts of her mind concocted plans, plans where neither death nor life were certain, plans that had to be strange enough to deliver her people from an impossible situation.
The scout faced the door to stand guard in her prolonged silence. She closed her eyes.
Hours passed.
“I may have an idea,” she said numbly, her voice raw in the silence. She was supposed to be sleeping. The scout turned from the door where he’d been standing guard. It was likely he’d assumed that she had been sleeping.
“Send orders to gather all of the bodies. Order soldiers who are on their working shifts to lay them out in Dawn Field,” she said.
The scout opened his mouth to ask questions, and she abruptly stopped him.
“I can’t offer a reason right now. I don’t even know for sure that it will work. You’ll have to trust me.”
The scout hurried off, leaving Clea to the silence of a vacant throne and the gravity of a dangerous choice.
CHAPTER 17
DEAL OF THE DEAD
LEA DID NOT know if her decision would be the right one. Maybe Virday had been a mistake. Maybe everything had been a mistake. Maybe humanity had been destined all along to simply hide and survive, and she’d been led astray by fanciful ideas that selfishly allowed her to live in this world that might otherwise have been unlivable. But now it was less about right and wrong. It was about what was next, and Clea was increasingly prepared to open any of those doors.
Ryson had told her once that the choice was between truth and survival, and maybe all this time she’d chosen survival, unable to face the reality of what was to come.
Maybe Javelin de Gal would have simply let them be had she allowed her father to die.
Maybe this was her punishment for wanting to relinquish her duties.
Maybe being queen of such a world was what she had earned for her mistakes.
Nevertheless. It was done.
The king was dead. The heir and child vanished into the woods.
Their childless, unmarried queen now ruled in his place. The Belgears and Iscads were vanquished. The Insednians stillremained, and one last force still lingered beyond it all: the Ashanas, led by Javelin de Gal, who at any moment might attack again.
Clea had one card left to play, and the people were so distraught in the aftermath, they didn’t question when she told them not to burn the bodies of their own people.
No one objected, following the orders, no matter how strange, until Clea was there in the dead of night, the corpses of the battle lying around her, a vast field of them. She remained among the corpses with a row of torches, waiting as an encroaching storm thundered across the horizon.
She didn’t know if the attempt would work or what the result would be, but she willed with her soul as she sat in the grass among the corpses, her legs folded beneath her as if she were meditating.
She forced herself to stay awake as the night deepened, almost into the early hours of dawn, before she heard movement. Corpses shifted around her. Clea jolted awake and jumped to her feet just as a mask materialized in the darkness. It was the pale visage of a human face with thin slits for the eyes and mouth, and distinct markings painted down the cheeks.
She watched the face sternly, her voice feeling raw as she said the word in greeting. “Prince.”
Her heart drummed in anticipation.
Clea Hart.The voice drifted, giving her familiar chills. He was more haunting now than he’d been, even in memory.Dare I say, you offer such a delicious tragedy and yet I do not like to see such unhappiness on your face.
