CHAPTER

35

 

Hybern had made its grand move at last. And we had not anticipated it.

I knew Azriel would take the blame upon himself. One look at the shadowsinger as he prowled through the front door of the town house minutes later, Cassian on his heels, told me that he already did.

We stood in the foyer, Nesta lingering at the dining table behind me.

“Has Tarquin called for aid?” Cassian asked Amren.

None of us dared question how she knew.

Amren’s jaw tightened. “I don’t know. I got the message, and—nothing else.”

Cassian nodded once and turned to Rhys. “Did the Summer Court have a mobile fighting force readied when you were there?”

“No,” Rhys said. “His armada was scattered along the coast.” A glance at Azriel.

“Half is in Adriata—the other dispersed,” the shadowsinger supplied. “His terrestrial army was moved to the Spring Court border … after Feyre. The closest legion is perhaps three days’ march away. Very few can winnow.”

“How many ships?” Rhys asked.

“Twenty in Adriata, fully armed.”

A calculating look at Amren. “Numbers on Hybern?”

“I don’t know. Many. It—I think they are overwhelmed.”

“What was the exact message?” Pure, unrelenting command laced every word.

Amren’s eyes glittered like fresh silver. “It was a warning. From Varian. To prepare our own defenses.”

Utter silence.

“Prince Varian sent you a warning?” Cassian asked a bit quietly.

Amren glared at him. “It is a thing that friends do.”

More silence.

I met Rhys’s stare, sensed the weight and dread and anger simmering behind the cool features. “We cannot leave Tarquin to face them alone,” I said. Perhaps Hybern had sent the Ravens yesterday to distract us from looking beyond our own borders. To have our focus on Hybern, not our own shores.

Rhys’s attention cut to Cassian. “Keir and his Darkbringer army are nowhere near ready to march. How soon can the Illyrian legions fly?”

 

Rhys immediately winnowed Cassian into the war-camps to give the orders himself. Azriel had vanished with them, going ahead to scout Adriata, taking his most trusted spies with him.

Nausea had churned in my gut as Cassian and Azriel tapped the Siphons atop their hands and that scaled armor unfurled across their body. As seven Siphons appeared on each. As the shadowsinger’s scarred hands checked the buckles on his knife belts and his quiver, while Rhys summoned extra Illyrian blades for Cassian—two at his back, one at each side.

Then they were gone—stone-faced and steady. Ready for bloodshed.

Mor arrived moments later, heavily armed, her hair braided back and every inch of her thrumming with impatience.

But Mor and I waited—for the order to go. To join them. Cassian had positioned the Illyrian legions closer to the southern border the weeks I’d been away, but even so, they wouldn’t be able to fly without a few hours of preparation. And it would require Rhys to winnow them in. All of them. To Adriata.

“Will you fight?”

Nesta was now standing a few steps up the staircase of the town house, watching as Mor and I readied. Soon—Azriel or Rhys would contact us soon with the all-clear to winnow to Adriata.

“We’ll fight if it’s required,” I said, checking once more that the belt of knives was secure at my hips.

Mor wore Illyrian leathers as well, but the blades on her were different. Slimmer, lighter, some of their tips slightly curved. Like lightning given flesh. Seraphim blades, she told me. Gifted to her by Prince Drakon himself during the War.

“What do you know of battle?”

I couldn’t tell if my sister’s tone was insulting or merely inquisitive.

“We know plenty,” Mor said tightly, arranging her long braid between the blades crossed over her back. Elain and Nesta would remain here, with Amren watching over them. And watching over Velaris, along with a small legion of Illyrians Cassian had ordered to camp in the mountains above the city. Mor had passed Amren on her way in, the small female apparently heading to the butcher to fill up on provisions before she’d return to stay here—for however long we’d be in Adriata. If we returned at all.

I met Nesta’s gaze again. Only wary distance greeted me. “We’ll send word when we can.”

A rumble of midnight thunder brushed against the walls of my mind. A silent signal, speared over land and mountains. As if Rhys’s concentration was now wholly focused elsewhere—and he did not dare break it.

My heart stumbled a beat. I gripped Mor’s arm, the leather scales cutting into my palm. “They’ve arrived. Let’s go.”

Mor turned to my sister, and I had never seen her seem so … warriorlike. I’d known it lurked beneath the surface, but here was the Morrigan. The female who had fought in the War. Who knew how to end lives with blade and magic.

“It’s nothing we can’t handle,” Mor said to Nesta with a cocky smile, and then we were gone.

Black wind roared and tore at me, and I clung to Mor as she winnowed us through the courts, her breath a ragged beat in my ear—

Then blinding light and suffocating heat and screams and thunderous booming and metal on metal—

I swayed, bracing my feet apart as I blinked. As I took in my surroundings.

Rhys and the Illyrians had already joined the fray.

Mor had winnowed us to the barren top of one of the hills flanking the half-moon bay of Adriata, offering perfect views of the island-city in its center and the city on the mainland below.

The waters of the bay were red.

Smoke rose in gnarled black columns from buildings and foundering ships.

People screamed, soldiers shouted—

So many.

I had not anticipated the scope of how many soldiers there would be. On either side.

I’d thought it would be neat lines. Not chaos everywhere. Not Illyrians in the skies above the city and the harbor, blasting their power and arrows into the Hybern army that rained hell upon the city. Ship after ship squatted toward the horizon, hemming either entrance to the bay. And in the bay …

“Those are Tarquin’s ships,” Mor said, her face taut as she pointed to the white sails colliding with terrible force against the gray sails of Hybern’s fleet. Utterly outnumbered, and yet plumes of magic—water and wind and whips of vines—kept attacking any boat that neared. And those that broke through the magic faced soldiers armed with spears and bows and swords.