Page 57 of Angel in Absentia
Embrace Before the Blade
HE CITY STAUNCHED its bleeding quietly beneath the pale light of dawn, and by midday, the remaining wounded had been moved into one central medical wing, and what was left of the Golden Army took up their posts again.
Clea stood on the highest wall of Loda, wind pressing against her face. Dae was at her side. His wounds had healed, though shadows still lingered under his eyes. Soldiers moved below, mending stone, piecing together a broken stronghold into something that could still stand one more night.
“It’s going to take days, maybe weeks to rebuild that portion of the wall,” Dae said grimly, his hand still hovering over the bandaging of a wound that no longer existed. Clea suspected it wasn’t just the physical wound he was trying to reach. He’d been different since waking up again, silent. Maybe, like her, he was avoiding words and the thoughts that paired with them.
Clea was now the Queen of Loda, and Dae was now the sole general of what remained of the Golden Army. Catagard was the sole council. As Clea looked out at the forests, she hoped that the others were out there somewhere, alive, finding a way to carry on the name and story of their city. Neither she nor Dae discussed that. There was no room to believe that they were anything but thriving, because she and Dae were what remained to help hold up the city in its final moments. The longer they survived the oncoming onslaught, the better the chances that theprevious queen and her caravan would be able to establish safety somewhere far from here.
She and Dae spoke only of strategy, and briefly of losses, but there were so many losses, and Clea found herself unable to truly digest many of them. Or maybe it was that she digested them too quickly.
It was hard for her to understand the complexity of her own feelings. There was little fear, little insecurity, little grief, only one action and then another. It was a slow, deliberate march under eyes who searched her daily for signs of weakness and panic, permission for their own panic.
She showed them nothing. She couldn’t.
Clea observed the mountains in the distance, the sun inching toward another tedious night. She glanced back over the city, taking in a breath of the fresh air that pushed over the walls, protected from the whirling scents of destruction and smoke. Up here, she could breathe and also get some perspective. The top of this portion of the wall was vacant.
“We will have guards stationed there en masse until it’s rebuilt,” Clea said, but knew the vulnerability that Dae addressed could hardly be mended by a few guards.
The aftermath in the city had been catastrophic.
Dae had told the story well. The Ashanas had come in the early night, submerged in darkness and vast in number. Loda’s warriors had held them off for hours, but there had been so many of them, and even touching one could cause the illness they carried to leap and infect. They bit and gnawed hungrily, at moments so distracted eating a corpse that they were at last ableto be killed, but the sheer carnage of it had been enough to freeze some Veilin in their tracks.
Three Venennin capable of manifesting their own monstrous souls had accompanied the Ashanas army. They had towered above the army with massive claws and gaping mouths that could slice and bite a soldier in half like straw.
Dae was a seasoned warrior, but he still seemed haunted by the stories he told. Her father had been decisive, ordering his wife, guarded by Ivy and her noble house, out into the forest with Ignat.
“How is Iris?” Clea asked, knowing full well that Iris was fine and only seeking to move Dae’s mind to a lighter topic. Iris had remained close to him and she’d watched the two of them huddle by each other in times of quiet respite. All arguing had ceased.
“She won’t go back to Ruedom,” he said without emotion, and yet his hand drifted from his wound at last and landed back on the hilt of his sword. He swallowed and glanced over at her. They both wore full, polished armor, looking much more together than she knew they both felt.
“It’s been an honor serving you,” Dae said honestly. “I am proud to fall in defense of our home.”
“We’re not dead yet,” she replied coolly, unwilling to admit openly that her feelings were the same. She was, by all estimations, the last queen of her city, and was in many ways grateful that she would not live to witness its passing. “You would have made a fine ruler, Dae,” she said, a sentiment she’d always had, but never shared. “A natural king. There is humor that I now wear the obligation instead.”
He chuckled sorely at this, following her eyes beyond the walls. “Your father once told me the same,” he said, which startled her.
Clea shifted in her armor, inspecting him, but he didn’t return his gaze to her as he continued.
“Though, I’m quite sure it was an insult. When he spoke of you, it was as if you weren’t meant for this world, but this world wearied him. I think he ultimately admired you for it,” Dae said, and Clea could have sworn that she saw the subtlest traces of forming tears, but he blinked twice, and they were gone.
Clea prepared to offer another word, an encouragement or even just an acknowledgment of their struggles, but then the horn of alarm groaned through the air. Clea’s eyes followed it along the wall, and her stomach dropped in horror as she saw the Veilin with the horn facing the mountains to the south.
She and Dae both turned. A dark line was visible on the horizon. The mountains rippled like wind through long grass. Next, Clea made out shapes, thousands of shapes.
“By cien,” Dae breathed in recognition as Clea’s mind still struggled to understand what she was seeing.
Another wave of Ashanas poured over the mountains in such volume it looked as if they were water spilling into the valley.
“This wave is even larger than the last,” Dae said.
Clea’s stomach twisted, but she didn’t flinch. She whipped back along the wall, marching off.
“Archers to the walls! Light the signals!” Dae shouted behind her, and the orders cascaded through the city, from one leader to the next.
“There is no way out but through,” Clea said in a lower voice. She and Dae exchanged glances a final time before descending into the chaos of preparations.
The command caught fire in her people. All across the ramparts, lines of Veilin raised their hands, igniting the barriers in radiant threads once more. Blessings wove into walls, burning prayers that made the city shine like a beacon against the approaching dark.
