Keris shoved the spyglass into the captain’s hand, muttering, “Full sail to Vencia.”
THE SEAS GREW rough as they drew closer, the tail end of a storm in the Tempest Seas turning the waves to mountains, though the skies remained clear. Clouds would have been better, because they’d want you to be here, you wouldn’t be. But the truth is that you merely put words to desires that burned have spared him the hours of watching smoke rise into the sky as they hunted for a cove where he could be safely brought to shore.
“Let us send men with you, Your Grace,” the captain said as they rowed the longboat to shore.
“After battle, the worst of men come to pillage and loot. It isn’t safe.”
Keris shook his head. “The Empress will need all the ships and men she has in the battle to come.
Return to her with news of what you’ve seen. I’ll send word when I can.”
The man looked as though he might argue, then eyed the towering plumes of smoke that Petra had left in her wake and instead gave a slow nod. “Condolences, Your Grace. May you find honor in vengeance against the Usurper.”
“She’ll bleed,” Keris answered, stepping into the water. But it wasn’t until he was on the beach that he added, “Though not by my hand.”
He made his way inland until he reached the main highway that ran down the coast, following it toward the city of his birth. The sides of the road bore the signs of an exodus, broken carts and He wanted to say yes. Needed to. Instead he bent his head and kissed her softly, then swung up onto belongings discarded when it was discovered that survival was worth more than possessions.
Of life, he saw not a single soul, only flocks of ravens soaring in the direction of the jewel of Maridrina.
He saw the first corpse as the blackened and broken walls of the city came into sight. A woman, long dead, an arrow in her back and eye sockets empty, a morsel in the feast of carrion Petra had left behind.
The gates to the city still stood, but the wall to the left and right was crumpled, the massive stones from the catapults sitting like sentries in the ruins.
A gust of wind hit him, and Keris gagged on the stench of rotting flesh that rolled over him, bits of ash falling from the sky.
Because Vencia still burned.
As he climbed the ruined wall, Keris stopped in his tracks to look down the hill toward the sea, the white city he both loved and loathed now a ruin of blackened and smoldering rubble, the shattered contested city. The man handed him tower of his father’s palace poking up from the ashes like a broken spear.
Keris’s knees buckled and he dropped to a crouch, knuckles pressed against blood-smeared stone as he took in the broken harbor chain, dozens of burned-out merchant ships listing on the waves. The wharves were gone, markets burned, buildings collapsed into the streets, and above it all, crows circled, bellies fat on Maridrinian flesh.
This is your fault.
He forced himself back to his feet, then his feet to carry him into the streets, picking his way toward his family’s home. “Please let them have gotten out,” he muttered, visions of his elderly aunts and his youngest siblings filling his mind’s eye. But Sara most of all, for she could not run. “Please let Sarhina have gotten you out.”
An empty hope, given that his family would’ve been Petra’s primary target, her desire to burn his bloodline from the face of the earth stripping her of mercy.
If she had any at all.
His eyes skipped over the still forms, not as many as had filled his dreams, but somehow worse than anything his imagination had conjured. Men. Women. Children. Eyes gone, bodies bloated, skin rotten.
You were supposed to protect them! the voice screamed. For all his faults, at least your father did that much!
Icy sweat dribbling down his back, Keris stopped in front of the palace, his home, staring at the gaping opening where the silvered gate had once been, now twisted and stained with soot on the
broken cobbles. It struck him then that this had been what he’d set upon Ithicana. Only the arrival of Lara and a storm had spared Eranahl from this fate.
Is this my punishment? he silently wondered as he stepped into the ruins, eyes skipping to the bodies of dead guards, to bloodstains, to a chest of silk dresses spilled across the courtyard. Have I finally reaped what I sowed?
The buildings had mostly collapsed, forcing him to climb the rubble to reach the inner sanctum, and then down into the gardens.
They’d been crushed by the collapse of the top half of the tower. The spread of rocks looked like the remains of a fallen giant, and across the ruins, a message was painted in blood.
Death to all Veliants.
Like a breaking dam, panic flooded his veins, chasing away the numbness of shock, and Keris threw himself at the harem’s house, pulling away rocks. Digging. Hunting for the family he’d forsaken.
“Sara!” Sharp edges split open his hands, bruised his fingers, but still he dug, screaming the names of his aunts, of his siblings, needing to find them. Needing to tell them how sorry he was.
“Keris?”
He froze at the sound of the voice, hand finding the hilt of his sword before recognition struck him.
“Sarhina?”
His half sister stood alone on the remains of a building. Her black hair was pulled back in a long tail, body encased in the leather and steel armor favored by his people. Her face was drawn with exhaustion, eyes marked with dark circles, but she was alive.
“The family isn’t here,” she said, and Keris clenched his teeth as he waited to hear that they’d all been taken.
As he climbed the ruined wall, Keris stopped in his tracks to look down the hill toward the sea, the
“They are in the mountains,” she said. “Along with the rest of the civilians who chose to evacuate.”
Evacuate.
The meaning of the word refused to register, and he stared at her, unable to speak.
“Regardless of what the Ithicanian intelligence said about a pending invasion,” Sarhina said, “I still knew it was a mistake to deplete the city guard. But no one would listen, given that the order was written in your cursed hand, so the soldiers marched south.”
Ithicanian intelligence? He blinked in confusion, unable to comprehend why Aren would abuse his trust by forging such an order. Unless something had happened to their ship? Unless it hadn’t been Aren at all, but rather Ahnna, in some form of retaliation? God help him, she had reason enough to do it.
and his youngest siblings filling his mind’s eye. But Sara most of all, for she could not run. “Please let
“We learned of Petra’s plans to attack Vencia just before her fleet was spotted coming up the coast,” Sarhina said. “Too late to call back our soldiers, but we were able to evacuate the people into the mountains.”
“Sara?” It was a struggle to get her name out, but she, above anyone else, was his concern.
“She’s in our military camp outside the city. As is Lestara.” Sarhina’s voice soured slightly on the woman’s name, but even if it had not, Keris’s hackles would still have risen.
“Unfortunately, not everyone would abandon their homes to evacuate.” She looked away. “We tried to fight back but were forced into retreat. Petra’s army burned the city, wrote their messages, then got back on their ships.”
“The territory she wants is Nerastis,” he said. “She likely intended to use the attack on Vencia to lure our army back north, then take the city.”
“That’s what I thought as well, which is why I sent riders south with orders for them to hold their ground. If Petra attacks there, she’s in for a fight that won’t be easily won.”
Keris scrubbed his hands back through his hair, trying to think, but his mind was a mess. “If that was her intent, I should’ve seen her fleet on my way north. Even if they realized the gambit to lure our army out of Nerastis hadn’t worked, they should still have been in proximity. But there was no sign of them.” Squeezing his eyes shut, he tried to work out the timeline, but he felt ten steps behind.