SWNOVELS Court of Ice and Ash: Chapter 32
little brother.” Sol’s blue eyes grew dark, like the black parts of the sea. “Fight Valen! You fight like you’ve never fought before! Fight like the gods! I’ll save a space for you in the great hall!”
My final glimpse at my older brother raced through my head, trying to make sense of what I was seeing now.
“Sol?” His name slipped from my lips.
How? Was it an illusion? This haggard, empty creature was a shadow of what Sol Ferus once was. Bold, cunning, always filled with laughter. No. I would’ve known if my brother still lived. I would’ve felt something. The land would not have bloomed for me.
Elise’s hands braced me. I hardly noticed, but somehow knew she was keeping me steady.
The initial stun began to shatter. What had they done to him? Why did he look at me like he didn’t know me? My heart shot to my head when a painful cry shattered the rest of my daze. Tor raced for the front.
“Sol!” Tor cried. “Dammit, Sol what have they done?”
Tor’s pain seared into me. Halvar reached for him, but Tor flashed his pyre at anyone who tried to stop him. The hollow eyes of Sol found Tor in the bloody crowd. Did he know him? Care at all? Was he nothing but emptiness? I’d rather he be dead if they’d slaughtered the goodness of his soul.
My brother—what was now my brother—lifted his hand. Black mist wrapped around his fingers. He aimed them at Tor.
“No!” I shouted and rushed for Tor, but he was too far ahead. “Sol, no!”
The black mist crept from Sol’s palms and like skeins of dark ribbon the inky blight seeped into the soil at Tor’s feet. His consort stiffened and fumbled to his knees. Black veins slithered up the back of Tor’s neck, around his eyes. His lips turned a ghastly shade of blue.
I gripped my axes. No. No, this wasn’t Sol. Poisoned land could sicken folk, true enough. It was a battle strategy we’d planned on using during the raids before our own courtiers betrayed us to the first false king. Sol never had the chance to test it. But watching Tor weaken as the blight soiled the earth, it was sickening.
“Sol, no! This . . . this is not—”
“You are not the only one with secrets, Night Prince,” Calder interrupted, grinning. “What is a Night Prince when we have the death magic of the Sun Prince?” The Timoran king looked at my brother. “The woman.”
It happened so quickly. A second dart of black shot from the dais, destroying a narrow piece of shattered soil until it struck beneath Elise’s feet. She coughed, clutched her throat, then crumbled the same as Tor.
“No!” A frenzy of panic wrapped around my throat. I reached for Elise, but Halvar pulled me back.
“Don’t touch her,” he hissed at me.
Elise’s smooth skin was overtaken by black, poisonous veins. The whites of her eyes turned gray and yellow.
I rushed for the dais, the black eyes of my brother following me the entire way. “Sol, release them. Release them, damn you. He is yours—” I pointed at Tor. “Remember him, brother. He is yours. And she, she is mine. Sol, look at me! She is my hjӓrta. Stop, I beg of you.”
“I do love when royals beg,” Calder said. “You cannot beat this, Night Prince. We hold the oldest fury.”
I ignored him. “Sol, release them. Release them, please. You are killing Torsten!”
For the slightest moment, his gaze twitched to the place Tor struggled to breathe. A hint of light colored his eyes. The barest flicker of light blue. Our mother’s eyes. One heartbeat is all he had before blackness struck again. The Sun Prince glared at me. He spoke as if each word ripped from the back of his throat. “I can’t. Bend it. Go!”
An instant to make a choice. I understood what he meant, what needed to be done, what Calder did not understand about two brothers’ fury. But it would mean choosing—a choice I did not know how to make now that the truth was here.
I prayed I’d be able to live with it.
My fingernails dug into the soil. From the battle, my arms ached, fury had exhausted most of my energy, but I had a bit more. I had enough.
I did not crack the earth, but it shuddered all the same. A gust of wind shot at the dais when Calder ordered his guards to take me. The ravens toppled with their king. Halvar, Stieg, and Ari stalked toward the dais. Cries of vicious sights came from the ravens as Ari twisted their minds in illusion. Stieg and Halvar tossed a whirlwind about. I held my grip on the ground until the blackness drew back. Bits of poison and blight faded against my healing fury.
Torsten drew in a sharp breath. The painful poison pulled away from his blood. Ten paces away, Elise coughed and rolled onto her side.
I turned to the dais, heart breaking. Sol’s unnaturally dark eyes drank me in. It might’ve been my imagination, but I thought he nodded. As if he knew what I needed to do and agreed. But on second glance only his flat, unfeeling gaze met mine as he lifted his hands to strike again.
“Back to the boats,” I shouted at Ari.
He nodded and called a retreat as Halvar slung Tor’s arm over his shoulder. My hands trembled. I needed to do this. It wasn’t over, but the false king was right about one thing: I could not beat this, not today. Not wholly unprepared.
One final time, I pressed my hands to the ground until stone split. Instead of carving ravines and valleys, I bent the earth until a jagged, stone wall sprung from the ground like rows of teeth. It would not be enough to stop Calder’s units forever, but it would give us time.
With Ari, I demanded our folk run for the shore. My body ached from using too much fury, but I gripped my axes and took what few ravens remained. Most didn’t engage; they ran. Those who fought didn’t live long.
I reached Elise as she found her feet. She trembled and was pale. I drew her against me, kissing the sweat on her brow.
“Valen,” she said, voice hoarse.
I shook my head. We’d speak of what happened here later, but I couldn’t now. Not when I was abandoning my own brother to the cruel hands of enemies.
“Elise Lysander!”
We turned together. My stomach plummeted when that bastard, Jarl, raised a crossbow. Bloodied, and covered in ash, hate burned in his eyes. He pointed his bolt at Elise’s heart, but before he fired a woman used a fallen scrap of a wooden post against Jarl’s head.
“No, Maj!” Elise shouted.
I hadn’t recognized Elise’s mother, but at my next step, I ran for her.
Jarl rebounded quickly. His anger pointed at Lady Lysander when he stuffed her heart with a curved knife. I tore him off her and swung a frenzied strike with an axe. He dodged, and like the coward he was, fled with the ravens to the safety I’d created with my own bleeding walls.
Elise’s mother shuddered, knife in her chest. She reached for me. We had no time, but I clasped her hand and held the back of her head as blood dripped over her lips. “You’ll c-c-care for her?”
I nodded, blinking rapidly. The knife went deep. Too deep.
“Swear to me.”
“I swear,” I said. “I swear she will never fear me. She will have all of me.”
She smiled. It was a frightening sight with all the blood. Her grip tightened on mine; her voice soft. At peace. “I hope fate returns your crown, prince.”
Mara Lysander died with a soft smile. I rested her on the ground gently, then gathered my axe, and faced Elise. Her cheeks were lined in tears, her fists clenched. She lifted her eyes to mine when I tilted her chin.
“We must leave,” I whispered. “Her last hopes were for you.”
Elise closed her eyes, more tears fell, but she allowed me to guide her away. Away from the stolen throne. From Castle Ravenspire.
Away from the Sun Prince. The true king of Etta.