Shield of Sparrows

“You cannot kill the Voster.” Right? I was fairly certain it would be impossible to kill beings with magical powers.

“He will try,” Ransom said.

Why? Since my father wasn’t here to ask, Ransom was going to get my questions. “What would that accomplish? If the treaties are dissolved, it would mean war. Quentis is strong but not that strong.”

Quentin soldiers did not fight the way the Turans fought. Father’s legion would be slaughtered.

“You have a geographic advantage,” Ransom said. “You share only a single border with Genesis on the Evon Ravine. And your father has enough gold to secure a navy the likes of which Calandra has never seen. He doesn’t need to stage a war. He only needs to be the last king standing. To wait out the migration. To let other kings war with one another. Then sweep in and claim the spoils.”

“For what? Gold?” He was rich beyond measure.

“Power.”

“Except wouldn’t my father be more powerful if the Voster were on his side? They have magic.”

“Magic that comes with strings. The brotherhood will never answer to a mortal king. But they will stand behind those of their choosing.”

So that was the issue. Not only had the Voster wound their magic into countless treaties and legends, like the Chain of Sevens, but they were a threat. If Father wanted to expand his rule, there was a good chance they’d stand in his way. Even if the Shield of Sparrows didn’t exist.

And the Voster, if I had to guess, would stand behind the Turans.

Behind Ransom.

“Well, even if he could figure out a way to kill them, no one even knows where they live,” I said.

Ransom hummed.

Not a yes. Not a no.

“Husband.” I narrowed my gaze. “You know where the Voster live, don’t you?”

Ransom held my eyes. And didn’t speak a word.

He didn’t have to. His silence was answer enough.

Allesaria.

Was that why the Turans had moved their capital? Had they sought refuge with the Voster after the migration three generations ago? Or had the city been constructed to protect the brotherhood? What had happened three migrations ago to send this kingdom into spiraling secrecy?

The man with answers stared at me, mouth shut.

We’d get nowhere with this topic, so I found a new one. “What if my father comes after the Voster?”

“Then my father will defend them.”

But what if Ramsey wanted their hold over him to vanish, too? Would he forge a new alliance with my father? “Are you certain of his loyalties?”

“Without doubt.”

There was magic involved, wasn’t there? Had the Turans been sworn to protect the Voster? Somewhere in Allesaria, was there a treaty signed in blood that the other kings knew nothing about?

“Ramsey will have to take a break from his book burning.” No sooner had the words left my lips than realization crashed into me, knocking the wind from my lungs.

The books. The Voster.

Ransom had mentioned Father’s spies in an offhand remark a while ago. He knew of Father’s plans, or at least a hint.

Ramsey wasn’t burning books to take information from his people. He wasn’t punishing the Turans. He was destroying information that might bring invaders to his door.

“He’s burning them to keep information out of Father’s hands.”

“Maybe.” Ransom ran a hand over his jaw. “I honestly don’t know. Nothing makes much sense where my father is concerned these days, and aside from going to Allesaria to find out, he is all but lost to me at the moment. He is not the king or man I knew. He might be trying to hide information. To keep Lyssa a secret and not send our people into pandemonium. Or he’s burning books to provoke and punish my mother. After I took her from Allesaria, he set her library ablaze. Nearly took out an entire wing of the castle. It was her favorite place, and he knows she’s hiding somewhere. I think he hopes that she’ll try to stop him one of these days.”

The day Ramsey had come to Treow to destroy the library, I’d watched from behind a tree. I’d stayed hidden. With Cathlin.

Was she Ransom and Evie’s mother? I doubted Ransom would tell me if I asked.

Burning books seemed like petty vengeance, but who knew how far he’d go. People changed when they were heartbroken.

Years ago, at a party in the castle, Margot had guzzled too much wine. She’d made a random comment about how much Father had changed after my mother’s death.

Love had its way of building us up.

And bringing us down.

“Let’s say that Ramsey does know about my father’s intentions,” I said. “That he will protect the Voster. Is that why he’s creating this militia?”

“Doubtful. It’s customary for kings to bolster their military before the crux migrations. From what I’ve been told, every king in the five kingdoms is currently training and recruiting more soldiers. Your father included. Mine has been constructing catapults for every major city for nearly a year.”

“While leaving towns like Ashmore undefended from monsters. And foreign invaders.”

Ransom’s jaw worked as he nodded. Then he set off again down the street, turning us around a corner. “I don’t agree with it, Odessa. But I see his reasoning. My grandfather encouraged people to take shelter in the cities, but most stayed in their homes. My father saw the destruction the crux left behind. People were slaughtered, entire villages destroyed. Even the strongest houses, like those in Ravalli, cannot withstand a monster that can rip its roof off. He is trying to send them to a place where he stands a chance at keeping them safe.”

“The migration is projected for spring. If it’s later than that, as it has been in the past, it could be up to a year from now. Can you blame them for wanting to stay in their homes for as long as possible? He knows about Lyssa. Abandoning them means he’s left them to die. What difference does it make, which monster does the killing?”

Ransom turned, holding out his arms. “What do you want me to say? I do not control his army.”

“I know, I just…” My hands balled into fists. “This cannot be the way.”

“What about your people? Those who live on the land and do not have the luxury of hiding beneath a castle? Where do they go during the migration?”

“Most come to the cities.”

“And those who don’t?”

Died.

Some farmers spent years building shelters and digging tunnels beneath the earth, like the people in Ashmore. Sometimes those hideouts kept them alive. Other times, they did not.

The crux were ruthless in their pursuit of prey.

Even when people came to the city, it did not mean they were safe. Thousands had been killed in Roslo during the last migration. It had lasted nearly two months, and for all the strength of our walls, our keeps, there was only so much they could withstand. There were only so many people we could shelter.

It was the same across all of Calandra.

The weight of countless lives rested on my father’s shoulders. He knew there was only so much he could do. Maybe Ramsey felt the same. Not that I wanted to have any sort of empathy for the man, but in his position, I wasn’t sure what I’d do, either.

“I wish there was a way to stop the migrations. To effectively fight the crux,” I said.

Ransom gave me a sad smile. “Me too.”

Not that we didn’t try.

The alchemists in Laine had invented flamethrowers to torch the monsters from the skies. Roslo had plenty of catapults, too. Father’s smiths were already forging bolts for the large crossbows mounted on the castle towers and walls. Ellder had similar versions of the weapons on their ramparts.

Yet while we had the means to kill a crux, there were simply too many monsters to fully combat during the migration. For every one slain, ten took its place.

We could fight and die.

Or hide and live.

Ransom and I walked to the house together, but each of us was lost in our own thoughts. We’d set out on this walk so he could clear the fog from his mind. Now I felt it clinging to mine. By the time we returned to the house and he’d escorted me to the suite’s front door, I was reeling.

“Why did you tell me all of this?” Was he trying to make up for the lies?

Maybe I should have doubted his every word, worried that this was another elaborate scheme. But it didn’t sound like a lie. Granted, I’d believed everything he’d told me since the beginning, so what the hell did I know?

Yet this felt like the truth. Like he’d let down his walls to share the ugly truths about his family.

Ransom had never referred to Zavier as my husband. Over the past week, I’d replayed every moment I could recall. I’d picked apart my memory. And I couldn’t remember a single time when he’d called Zavier my husband.

He’d teased me. Made crude comments. It had been implied but never stated plainly.

Lies of omission were still lies.

But they were easier to forgive.

“I cannot trust you with all of my truths, Odessa.” He stepped closer, his hand lifting to the hair at my temple. To a wild red curl that he twisted around a finger. “But I will give you as many as possible.”

He pulled the curl straight before letting it spring free. Then both of his hands were in my hair, pushing it away as he took my face in his palms. “Forgive me, my queen. Please.”

Ransom didn’t give me the chance to respond before his mouth brushed across mine. He kissed the tip of my nose. He nipped at my bottom lip. Then he sealed his mouth over mine, his tongue darting out for a taste.

This kiss was different than the last. It was gentle. Soft. Sweet. It liquefied my insides, melting away my frustration. Peeling away the hurt until all that was left was the spark. The pull to this man that I’d never been good at resisting.

The secrets and lies faded away, for just a moment, until a scream tore us apart.

Ransom’s entire body went tight as he whirled toward the noise.

A symphony of shouts and screams filled the air, all coming from the direction of the gates. Of the courtyard.

Where a monster had been entertaining children with flying leaves.

“Stay here.” Ransom gripped the railing of my balcony and launched himself over its edge, leaping to the ground. Then he was gone, a blur of dark hair and a clean white tunic as he ran toward the commotion.

I flung my door open, racing inside to grab the knives I’d left beside the door. If Ransom really expected me to hide away while there were children at risk, he didn’t know me at all. I flew down the walkway and stairs, reaching the ground as the front door to Zavier’s opened.

Luella filled its frame, one hand holding Evie back.

“What is it?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“You should stay here where it’s safe.”

Not happening. I pointed the tip of a blade at Evie. “Watch over Faze?”

“I got him.” She nodded and pushed past Luella’s hold, running by me for the stairs.

Luella frowned, following her charge toward my suite as I sprinted for the courtyard.

People came chasing toward me, fleeing in the opposite direction, terror and tears on their faces.

It was the High Priest. He’d done something. He’d hurt someone.

I gripped my knives tighter as I made it to the mouth of the main road. To the courtyard. Whatever I’d expected to find, this was worse.

There were bariwolves in Ellder.

Their coats gleamed black. Their fangs flashed white.

It was chaos. Soldiers were trying to evacuate the people while others were racing into the fray, drawing blades to fight back the beasts. Mothers and fathers were carrying away their children. And in the center of it all was Ransom.

He was fighting. Somewhere, he’d borrowed a sword. But it was like watching him swing a blade through water. He moved like a normal man, sluggish compared to his usual speed.

The High Priest had weakened him today with whatever treatment he’d performed.

Had that been the plan? To draw innocents into the courtyard, knowing that their famed Guardian was not at his best?

The thought crossed my mind at the same time I spotted the Voster.

The High Priest did not wield a weapon. He carried no shield. But he fought the bariwolves, taking on two of the monsters with shards of ice he formed from the air.

His hands were raised, those gnarled green nails splayed wide, and with a sweep of his arms, he sent an icicle the size of a grown adult into a bariwolf’s open mouth.

It sliced the beast in two, blood and entrails flinging wide, falling on those still trying to flee.

Green blood. Dark, putrid green.

“Oh, gods.” I breathed, swallowing down the bile rising in my throat.

The bariwolves were everywhere, crashing through the open gates as the soldiers tried to get them closed.

“Close the gates!” Ransom roared as he brought a sword down on the head of a bariwolf.

Except it wasn’t his sword. It was too small. Too fragile. It wasn’t strong enough to cleave a monster’s head at the neck. The blade snapped.

Ransom drove it into the bariwolf’s eye instead, pushing it deeper and deeper until the monster collapsed dead.

“The gates!” Zavier came running from behind a building, three of his rangers, including Vander, trailing behind.

A bariwolf leaped at him, teeth bared, but Zavier dodged its jaws, sinking his sword into the monster’s heart. Then he kept running, arms pumping, as he sprinted toward the gates.

There were too many of them. Fifteen. Twenty. Thirty. I’d never seen so many monsters at once.

Ransom grabbed a sword from a fallen soldier’s body and kept fighting.

They all kept fighting.

Move, Odessa.

I ran to the first person I saw who wasn’t trying to flee.

A teenage girl was hiding behind a spike in the middle of the road, clinging to it with all her might. That spike might keep her from a crux’s talons, but not a bariwolf’s jaws.

With my hand on her arm, I hauled her up. “Run. Go! Get inside.”

She screamed, tears streaking down her face.

It took a solid shove for her to move. Then she disappeared behind me while I ran to a soldier curled in on himself, clutching a gaping wound in his leg. “We have to get you inside.”

He shrieked in agony, lost to the pain.

“Come. On.” I pulled on his arm, dragging him through the dirt and away from the fighting. It took all my might to get him to the nearest building, the livery.

The horses inside were stomping and whining, as frightened as the rest of us.

I dragged the soldier to the closest stall, propping him against the wall. Then I tore off a piece of cloth from his shirt, tightening it around his leg and above the wound. “I’ll send help.”

“Don’t go, Princess.” He clutched my arm, eyes wide.

I shook off his hold, closing the stall door. Outside, a little boy was on his knees, a leaf from the Voster’s magical crown still in his brown hair. A woman lay on the ground beside him. Her eyes were as open as her gut.

“Mama!” The boy shook her arm like he could bring her back to life.

The snarls. The growls. The shouts. They faded until all I could hear was that boy’s cry.

He would die. If he stayed there, he would be next.

“Cross!” Ransom’s voice boomed. “No!”

I ignored him.

It was the fastest I’d ever run in my life. I was halfway to him when I felt the shift. When I felt the attention of a monster.

A bariwolf, jaws clamped around a man’s neck, shook the body so hard it was like a dog shaking a snake. It dropped its kill and turned its attention to me. Blood dripped from its maw as it tracked my destination with a single eye.

My heart stopped.

The one-eyed bariwolf.

The monster that had infected Ransom.

It should have been a mindless, bloodthirsty beast. But it knew exactly where I was running. And in that moment, it seemed to smile.

“No!” I screamed, still running, as it lunged for the boy.

Three massive strides. And it ripped that child’s head from his body, tossing it to the side.

Then it locked on me.

My boots skidded to a stop as it sent out a series of clicks. That noise was a promise of death. A vow that I wouldn’t survive this day.

The sound might as well have turned on a flashing light over my head. Every bariwolf in the courtyard looked in my direction, where I stood, frozen, with only my knives.

Shit.

“Run!” Ransom bellowed. “Odessa, run!”

I spun on my heels, tripping as my feet moved faster than the rest of my body. But I caught myself, knuckles scratching on dirt, as I barreled toward the livery. The snarls were deafening. The pounding of paws seemed to shake the ground beneath my feet.

A swarm of black raced my way. Every monster in Ellder was hunting me down, getting closer and closer.

The livery was too far. I wouldn’t make it. Even if I did, they’d crash inside and claw me to pieces if the horses didn’t trample me to death first.

A wind slammed into my chest as I faced forward, blinking through the cloud of dust that blew past my body.

When it cleared, I saw burgundy robes and endless eyes.

The High Priest had changed positions, standing in front of me and blocking my path.

Trapping me between him and the bariwolves.

A cold blast of icy wind blew the hair from my face as the priest lifted his arms. And with a flick of his wrist, an ice shard launched from above his head and over mine, crashing into the monster on my tail.

The bariwolf slammed into the ground, dead. It had both eyes.

No, that one-eyed murderous fucker was running in the other direction, toward the gates that Zavier and his warriors were still fighting to close. Running toward another escape with a handful of bariwolves chasing behind.

It had commanded the rest of its pack to come after me while it fled.

Another icicle flew by. Then another.

The agony of the High Priest’s magic drove into my skin, a thousand needles stabbing straight to the bone, but as much as it hurt, I ran toward the Voster, letting him fend off the monsters giving chase.

I darted past his towering frame, catching the side of his flowing robes with my boot. This time when I tripped, there was no keeping my balance.

With an oof, my shoulder hit the ground, sending a spray of dirt blasting into my face.

I groaned at the pain, forced myself up to a seat, and blinked away the grit in my eyes as seven more ice shards whipped from the High Priest and straight through the bodies of the seven bariwolves surging our way.

It rained blood, green and sticky. And as the last droplet floated into the ether, the courtyard stilled.

The gates closed.

Ransom stood ten paces away, his face coated in both shades of blood. It dripped from his hair, the tip of his nose.

The lips I’d kissed only minutes ago.

“Thank you.” His chest heaved as he spoke to the priest.

The Voster nodded, then turned, hand extended to help me up.

But I’d already pushed to my feet and was racing for Ransom. “The bariwolf. Did you see it? It had—”

“One eye. I know.” Ransom’s hands roamed my shoulders and arms, his silver gaze searching for any injury. “You’re all right?”

I nodded as tears burst from my eyes. “That little boy. He—”

Oh, gods. It was a nightmare. A scene I’d play out for the rest of my life, wondering if it was real. “Ransom.”

“I know.” He hauled me into his arms, crushing me against his chest.

I clung to his tunic, balling it into my fists as I breathed in his scent. Despite the blood, it was there. Wind and leather. Earth and moss. Cedar and Ransom.noveldrama

“Ranse.” Zavier appeared at our side, breathless and also covered in green blood.

Ransom growled but let me go, taking one last scan of my body to search for injury. “I have to go.”

I nodded and released his shirt.

He stalked through the courtyard, picking up a fallen soldier’s sword.

And with it in his hand, the Guardian ordered the gates reopened.

To kill a monster.