Page 74 of Our Vicious Oaths
She told herself that mattered little and that any of Rishaud’s soldiers who managed to get near the castle would either be shot dead by the archers or incinerated by the kongamatos. But then she spotted a Hyperion soldier atop a white horse who held his mount motionless in the center of the field. About a dozen soldiers on horseback clad in white and gold surrounded him and faced outward, forming a clear protective barrier. Awrongfeeling settled in the pit of her stomach. The rider inside the circle raised his hand in the air. Dozens of arcs of sunfire shot from his palm and cracked across the sky like lightning. Each golden streak raced straight for the palace, then streaked upward, meeting at a point above the Apollyon Court’s seat of power. The rapid booms she’d heard right before the marketattack resounded and golden flames sprayed down on the palace. An ethereal blaze broke out along the front and sides of it for as far as Kadeesha could see. More golden streaks flew upward and the fresh ones raced straight toward the war serpents in the skies around the palace.
She might’ve screamed in fury and horror out loud. It might’ve been a thing that got stuck in her throat. She wasn’t sure.
All she knew was that suddenly she was running for the rider, alternating between watching the skies and watching the battlefield around her, cutting down anybody who presented an obstacle. She dimly noted Leisha and Samira at her side, tearing toward the rider who was aiming for her squadron too. So far she’d seen no kongamato hurtle to the earth, thank the skies. Zahzah and the others were dodging each calamitous golden streak, the kongamatos blurs against the sky. Still … the thought of her Zahzah—her friend—getting hurt …
It was almost too much.
She closed the distance. Two hundred paces out. Then a hundred. Eighty. Seventy. When she got to fifty and there were no Apollyon soldiers between her and the cavalry forming a circle around the male in the middle, she sent a torrent of flames roiling toward them. Leisha added her own magic to the assault. Apparently all of the cavalry had solar magic and they unleashed a tidal wave of sunfire that shot toward Kadeesha’s and Leisha’s aether flames. The combined solar magic of twelve Hyperion warriors might’ve been enough to overpower the magical assault of two Aether fae. But Kadeesha was a royal.
No—I am ahigh queen.
And these lesser men are going to have to bring a lot more firepower to keep themselves from being incinerated.
Her flames engulfed the wave of sunfire, snuffing it out even as Kadeesha, Leisha, and Samira continued forward. Thirty paces. Molten purple flowed over the circle of cavalry soldiers, melting them to nothing between one heartbeat and the next, and then continued to race toward the male shooting the golden flares into the sky. With one hand still raised in the air—and eyes wide at the loss of his bodyguards—he now angled the other hand toward Kadeesha.
Fifteen paces—close enough that he couldn’t dodge or outrun her next strike.
“No you fucking won’t,” Kadeesha snarled when sunfire that took the shape of arrows flew toward her, Leisha, and Samira. Like with the other cavalry soldiers, her aether flames obliterated each flaming arrow they touched. Then, they closed in on the remaining cavalry soldier, rising in a tidal wave of their own above his head. Kadeesha stared him in the eyes so he knew who was responsible for his end. Then he met the same fate as his brethren, and the raucous sound of screeching kongamatos told her they were no longer under assault. Relief washed over her—
“Leisha!”
She pivoted to the right when Samira screamed Leisha’s name. Leisha immediately moved to dodge the oncoming threat, but her movements were a fraction too slow. An Air Kingdom soldier’s battle axe bit into her right side. Kadeesha lobbed an aether bomb as the bastard yanked his axe out of Leisha’s flesh. The ball of purple fire slammed into his cheek and combusted into flames that melted his head off. He was dead before his body hit the ground.
Leisha touched her bleeding side momentarily. Then, she glared at Kadeesha. “Next time leave my kill to me, would you?”
Kadeesha didn’t justify that with a response.
She looked around and saw that the battle still raged on and that the two sides were too evenly matched. Even with the disparity of magic, the command of the Void the Apollyon fae brought to bear was staggeringly effective … which meant the fighting could drag on for days. Even if the southern army retreated, it could stretch into a war that spanned weeks. Months. Perhaps years like some of the most catastrophic wars in faekind’s past. That was always the risk when powerful, immortal beings went to war. The faefolk were hard to kill and they were savage by nature, which meant any war was vicious. Thinking back to Yashira’s analogy, and knowing the players inthisgame, she knew that the pawns around her would be fighting until something changed.
Rishaud.
The Hyperion king’s name became a steady drumbeat in her mind. He was the piece on the war board who mattered. Killing him this day was how the fighting ended as swiftly as possible. It was like she’d told Malachi before: ending Rishaud quickly was the path to staunching the bloodshed. She knew that was exactly what Malachi was trying to do, but the deed wasn’t getting done fast enough. She spun back in the direction of Malachi and Rishaud and stalked toward them.
It was time for a new player to take control.
WHEN SHE APPROACHEDthe fae kings, they were locked in a visible stalemate. Malachi was bleeding from his left side. Rishaud bled from a spot in hischest mere inches away from his heart. As Kadeesha watched, Rishaud’s flaming sword bit into Malachi’s right thigh. Malachi staggered backward, but it didn’t seem to truly slow him down as he roared and thrust forward with his void scimitars, impaling Rishaud through the middle with both blades. Golden light enveloped the void swords as Rishaud bared his teeth in a feral snarl. Then Malachi’s void blades were no more, having been dispelled by Rishaud’s sunfire. One of those tornado columns of swirling darkness slammed into Rishaud from the side. He stumbled sideways, face twisted in agony as if he’d been burned. While he was off-kilter, a dozen void daggers zoomed toward the Hyperion king. Each struck true, embedding themselves in Rishaud’s neck, chest, and stomach.
Rishaud doubled over, but was back upright in an instant, teleporting out of range of Malachi’s next attack, delivered by newly formed void scimitars that aimed for Rishaud’s head. Neither king was slowing down. And both were too skilled in battle to allow a killing blow. Like the war itself, Kadeesha could see that Malachi and Rishaud’s fight might drag on for a small eternity. While it did, the palace was ablaze and there was no way of telling if Trystin had gotten the hundreds of fae inside to safety. Then there were the groups of soldiers who were now managing to slip around Malachi’s forces and press on toward the burning palace. A good number of those were cavalry who were wielding solar magic indiscriminately to clear a path, cutting down Apollyon forces and dominion soldiers who were on their side alike, including a good number of Aetherfolk. It was … it was horrifying to witness. Each additional Aether life that got dispatched to Nyaxia shredded her. But she focused beyond the spilled blood of her folk that would haunt her for eternity because there was a greater,swiftly approaching tragedy that needed her full attention—the slaughter of civilians.
She could call for Zahzah and the other kongamatos to rain down on any enemy that got near the palace, but there was no guarantee that these fae who comprised the cavalry weren’t strong enough to block such attacks. And if enough of them managed to cross the gates, then the innocents they’d left behind for Trystin to shepherd to safety would be in danger, for even the ones who had made it into the tunnel by now wouldn’t have gotten far.Including Yashira.When she thought of her mother, Kadeesha’s heart was a drumbeat in her chest. But she didn’t let the cold dread drive her to rash action. Instead, she forced herself to stay calm, to keep assessing the war pieces in action so she could discern how best to be the power moving pieces on the board, not the queen still being yanked around by kings on the board.
With that aim, she turned away from the palace and looked back to Rishaud and Malachi. She manifested a flaming aether sword and tracked the kings’ fight. She marked where and precisely how each tended to teleport out of range of a fatal blow. Malachi’s movements were unpredictable. At first, Rishaud’s seemed the same. But she’d been trained to observe from hundreds of feet in the air for the tiniest of movements, and—
There!
It had taken a bit, but Kadeesha finally saw it: Rishaud’s teleportation gave away a certain pattern to the spots he elected to reappear in. Armed with that info, Kadeesha moved into place. When Malachi shot void daggers Rishaud’s way, the Hyperion king vanished from the location the daggers flew toward … teleporting about a foot to the right of the aether bomb Kadeesha set to detonate.
She was slightly off, but the blast zone was wide enough that it encompassed where Rishaud stood. The Hyperion king flew backward and crashed against the ground. Malachi’s stunned gaze looked around wildly, searching for the source of the attack on Rishaud that hadn’t originated from him. When his eyes that had turned wholly black met hers, a faint smile touched his lips. Then, he wiped away the amusement and stabbed her with an icy glower that commanded she stay out of the fight.
She scoffed.You’re not getting it done fast enough on your own, she shot back with an immovable glare.
Then, she mentally shook herself because neither of them could afford even fleeting moments of distraction. She refocused on Rishaud, who was standing upright again. Purple flames burned at numerous places along his battle leathers not covered in armor. Kadeesha willed them to burrow inward and torch the bastard’s vital organs, only for blinding golden light to flood each spot and snuff Kadeesha’s flames out. His furious stare threw daggers her way. “Stay out of this, girl! Or I will make you regret it. I will decimate everything you love, your entire court, your Nkita, your mother!”
“You’ve already issued that threat. It’s getting rather tedious,” Kadeesha snapped.
“There isn’t a chance you’ll live that long,” Malachi snarled, sending a pair of violent tornadoes forged from shadows hurtling Rishaud’s way. One came at him from the front; the other raced toward him from behind. Rishaud teleported and when he landed Malachi set a fresh pair loose. Rishaud continued to teleport away from the lethal tornados as Malachi unleashed pair after pair. Kadeesha contributed to the constant press of attacks Malachi kept up on Rishaud, continuing to anticipate the spots Rishaud would appear in and sending aether bombs careeningtoward their enemy at the same deadly speed as Malachi’s tornadoes. At some point, Rishaud would have to lose speed. Or make a miscalculation. Or teleport right into the epicenter of a bomb explosion. At least that’s what she counted on. But even with her assistance, the fight with Rishaud dragged on unceasingly just as it had been doing when only Malachi fought him. Rishaud would never be a male who simply remained on the defensive when pressed, and the entire time he returned a barrage of flaming spears that flew toward Malachi with lethal accuracy and speed as he teleported from place to place.
Every time Rishaud let a new volley loose, Kadeesha’s heart boomed in her ears. But this was Malachi and he was a more than formidable warrior. It was a fact proven even truer as Malachi didn’t bother needing to swiftly teleport away from Rishaud’s strikes. He simply danced out of their path or ducked beneath them relying on nothing except agility and frighteningly quick reflexes alone. An appreciative smile ghosted across Kadeesha’s lips. The Apollyon king was showing off. Or at least that’s the impression Malachi wanted to give. She realized his dodges were a little too flashy and they bordered on recklessness. Malachi might’ve harbored a vainglorious estimation of himself that sprawled greater than the Yunnas themselves, but he’d never shown himself to be arrogant in a way that dove into idiotic territory. He’d been cunning and calculating from the very first moment she’d met him. And as she studied Malachi while bombarding Rishaud with aether bombs, Kadeesha realized that as he physically dodged Rishaud’s attacks, he held his void scimitars at the ready,prowling—not prancing—about the space that had become his and Rishaud’s battleground. He also kept ending up near the regions Kadeesha was lobbing the aether bombs at. He chanced meeting her eyes for a second, then his voicesounded in her head as clear as when Zahzah communicated with her.When this is over, remind me to tell you you’re brilliant if I haven’t before, wife. I see what you’re doing.Keep it up.
