Kill your darlings, p.10
Kill Your Darlings, page 10
In a perfect world, maybe someone like me could be with someone like Valen. Or rather, maybe someone like Valen would want to be with someone like me. But Solera is real, and is therefore inherently imperfect.
This other-world is dangerous. It always has been. Conflicts that once served simply to heighten tension in my writing are now far too real for my liking. What would have happened if my heart had stopped? Would I have died? Would my soul and consciousness have found a way back to my Earthling body, or would they have been forever lost in limbo?
He hesitates. “Are you still… ?”
A new coldness surges through my body. Even here, no one cares about me. It’s Kyla they want. Kyla they’re worried about.
“Still me? Yeah, ‘fraid so.”
Valen’s face falls. My spirits fall with it.
It’s better this way. Even if I were trapped here forever and all the pieces magically fell into place and Valen decided he loved me—even then it wouldn’t work. I can’t give him what he wants. I could never make him happy.
I was better off on Earth, alone.
Chapter 9
It’s the morning of the attack. My body vibrates with compressed energy and jittery nerves.
Our troops are arrayed in diamond formation. Platoons of defensive specialists, high-powered offense, healer support, and reserve wielders are clumped throughout the slanted rank and file. Valen and the officers are at the core of the formation, keeping watch on all sides. I’m on a rocky hilltop with the double-reserves and the aerial unit, watching the ground troops move out.
“Moment of truth.” Asher fiddles with his battery invention, a bulky metal bracelet. It doesn’t look like much. Then again, I suppose a couple of nine-volts don’t look like much to the naked eye, either.
He attaches the bracelet to my silver communication ring via wire. If it works, the ring’s airmagic enchantment will carry my words to the ears of anyone else on comms. Its lifemagic inhibitor will limit audibility to whomever I think of while speaking.
“Is the metal coated?” I ask, inspecting the gadget in the sparse pre-dawn light. “I don’t want to get electrocuted.”
“Give me a bit of credit.” Asher offers me the device, and I raise my arm. He clamps the bracelet around my wrist while slipping the ring onto my finger. “Go on, say something.”
“Lightbringer reporting to Commander-General Stormcrest.”
The bracelet warms against my skin. A moment later, I hear Valen’s voice in my ear, as clear as if he were standing beside me: “Go for Stormcrest.”
“Just letting you know the experiment was a success.” I swallow a lump in my throat before adding, “Good luck and stay safe.”
No reply. Surrounded by his troops, he couldn’t offer any similar personal sentiments. That’s the excuse I give myself to make the silence hurt a little less.
Asher watches me intently, peering over his glasses.
“Works like a charm,” I say.
He breaks into a grin. “Let me tell you, this project was amazing. Learning about non-magic-based energy sources is huge. We could bring power to every corner of the empire, even the villages that can’t afford voltmagic enchantments. I’ve got big plans for this technology once the war is over.”
“Yeah. About that.” I take him by the arm and pull him away from the crest of the hill, where Cendrion, Rexa, and her platoon of phoenix soldiers wait. Phoenixes wield firemagic (duh), and the natural glow of their plumage paints our surroundings with red.
“Quick spoiler alert,” I murmur to Asher. “This is the battle where you… you know.”
“Where I what?” His eyes go as round as the full Oldmoon. “Where I die?”
I nod, my lips thinning to a line.
“You didn’t think that was worth mentioning before now?”
“I didn’t want to upset you.” I also didn’t know how to say it. I still feel like I’m the Grim Reaper—the executioner swinging the blade, the demented puppet master pulling lethal strings. Even now, guilt shreds my innards. Asher’s expression makes it exponentially worse.
“Consider me still very much upset.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose and bow my head. So much for embodying Kyla’s heroism. Here I am, being cagey, escalating conflict in my desperation to avoid it.
A soft touch on my shoulder makes me look up. Asher’s face has softened. “I’m not upset at you. Zalor’s the enemy. It’s just a bit of a shock to hear I’m about to… you know.”
Grief thickens in my throat. I don’t deserve a friend such as this.
“You won’t die, not if I can help it. You can stay by the portal for safety.”
“Kyla, think about everything the Shadow Lord’s done to us—”
“I am, and he’s ruthless. Evil.”
Asher draws himself to his full height. He’s not tall, but he’s got a couple inches on Kyla. “All evil needs to succeed is for good people to stand aside and let it spread.”
“Excuse me, don’t try to melodramatically dialogue your way out of this. This isn’t the moment for your morals and heart of gold.”
“There a problem here?”
I didn’t realize how heated I’d become, how loudly I was speaking. I turn to find Rexa has joined the conversation.
“He can’t fight,” I say, pointing at Asher. “If he does, he’ll die.”
Rexa’s sharp eyes dart between us. “Tell us how it happens so we can avoid it.”
“Or—just hear me out—he could eliminate all possibility of death by not fighting.”
Asher reaches out and takes my hand. In that moment, he looks indistinguishable from my best friend on Earth.
Whose name I suddenly can’t remember.
My stomach swoops, but I can’t waste time panicking about this precipitous drop in my mental capacity. I must focus on the war. Might be hard to do if my mind’s turning to mush, but such are the ironic contradictions of life.
“You’re here fighting for the people you love,” Asher whispers. “Don’t deny me that same privilege.”
His words burrow through my chest to lodge between my heart and ribs. Goddammit.
“Thanks for making me look bad, Ash,” Rexa drawls. “I’m just fighting because I hate Zalor.”
“I arranged for most of our non-human factions to join the Mortal Alliance,” says Asher, ignoring her quip. “The elves, the nereids, the ifriti—they’re here because of me, and I’d be the worst sort of hypocrite if I didn’t fight alongside them. I believe in Kyla’s battle strategy. It’ll be alright.”
I clench my jaw, envying his quiet strength while cursing his hope-springs-eternal attitude. “You can stay with Valen at the formation core. Relay orders and translate as necessary for non-human troops, but do not engage the enemy.”
When Asher opens his mouth to argue, I hold up a quelling hand. “This is already a compromise. And a stupid one. We need to win this battle, and you need to stay safe, or everything goes to hell.”
He isn’t pleased, but we’re out of time. In the valley, the widest point of our army’s formation is passing our rocky hill. Asher squares his shoulders and adjusts his quiver, preparing to join the march.
“Stay safe,” I blurt.
He reaches out as if for a handshake, then pulls me into a hug. “You, too. When we win the day, it’ll be your doing. It makes me wish I knew your real name.”
A leaden ball drops into my stomach. I barely remember my Earth name, and there’s no one in this world who knows the real me. No one who can remind me of the truth.
He nods at my silence and spins on his heel, hurrying downhill.
“Watch him,” I implore Rexa, my voice breaking. “If anything goes wrong, pull him out of there.”
Her arms are crossed, but her face is smooth as she scrutinizes me. “Huh,” she murmurs. “You really care, don’t you?”
“Of course I care. He’s my best friend. No offense.”
“None taken. I don’t know you.”
But I know her, no matter what she thinks. Her tone isn’t sharp, it’s dry. This is her idea of humor. I enjoy her ribbing when it’s good-natured.
“Be careful,” I tell her.
“You be careful. You’re so busy fussing over us that you’ve forgotten you have no magic.”
“Lucky I have the best fighter in Eldria watching my back.”
Her eyes crinkle at the edges. “This doesn’t mean I like you. It just means I really, really hate Zalor.”
Rexa begins to wield, her body distorting. Today she’s changing into a gryphon as large as a lion. She rears on her feline hind legs, avian forepaws slashing the air. Feathered wings sprout from her shoulders. She beats them once, twice, then she and her phoenix unit rise skyward together.
Now it’s just Cendrion and me. He tilts his head to catch my eye.
“Ready for war?” he asks.
Perversely, a small part of me is excited. How many times have I been swept up in an action sequence while writing? How often have I found myself lost in the story, a puppet swaying on the strings of my imagination, a conduit for the words flowing through me as events unfold?
To see it, experience it firsthand, will be beyond anything I’ve imagined.
Cendrion crouches. I clamber onto his back and settle between his wing joints. A shiver passes through me in anticipation of the cold, thin air. I have no right to be cold; I stuffed myself into four layers this morning. I should be sweltering.
Eerie silence wraps around us. Our airmagic wielders stifled the sounds of five-thousand feet tromping through the hills, and the world has not yet woken. It feels as if Solera is holding its breath. I fidget, anxiety coating my lungs with ice.
Ahead, a ripple runs through the rainforest. Flocks of birds scatter skyward, dark against the gray dawn. Moments later, a low, brassy note reverberates.
“Lightbringer, we’ve engaged the shadowtroops.” Valen’s voice blooms in my ears once more. “You’re cleared for take-off.”
“That’s the signal,” I tell Cendrion. “Let’s go.”
The dragon trembles with a guttural growl. He kicks off and we’re airborne. Wind whistles past my ears, and I squint against it. As we clear the tops of the rainforest trees, the first bands of sunlight brush the eastern horizon.
Cendrion stays low, skimming the treetops as we swoop toward the growing sound of battle. We clear a formation of rising stone peppered with stubborn jungle plants, and Torvel comes into view.
Saying it’s a small city does it an injustice. It may be off the beaten path, but it sits atop a regal ridge with a sheer southern cliff face. Its burnished iron buildings—magically smoothed to a mirror-like shine—make for a striking silhouette against the lightening sky.
Enemy troops swarm out of the city walls, but the Mortal Alliance has gained a low foothold on the cliffs. A unit of earthmagic wielders helms the formation, creating a path for our soldiers. Pitch-black shadowbeasts—dead creatures who’ve been reanimated by Zalor’s dark power—hound them from all angles, making the progress slow.
I wince at the carnage. Shadowbeasts are vicious foes. Zalor controls them, body and soul. Once resurrected, they become his demonic, mind-controlled slaves.
I draw a plain steel sword from the scabbard that hangs at my waist, gripping its hilt with a palm that has grown sweaty. “General Faeloryn, requesting backup on the front lines.”
There’s no audible response. Rexa can’t speak in gryphon form, but as Cendrion banks over the valley skirmish, I see the telltale glow of phoenixes. Ten, eleven, twelve of the mythical birds rise, shrilling battle cries as they flank us.
Cendrion lets loose a roar of his own. It obliterates the ethereal echoes of phoenixsong and presses into my ears, reverberating in my skull.
The sound draws the shadowbeasts. The winged ones peel away from our ground troops and make a beeline for me. Of course, they think I’m Kyla Starblade, lightmagic wielder extraordinaire, she who has the power to kill the Shadow Lord.
They want her—me—dead.
Our phoenix friends dive. The foremost red-gold bird—whom I recognize as Fyr’thal—arrows toward the black cloud of shadowbeasts, his bronze beak a deadly point. Not to be outdone, Cendrion follows. He raises his wings, tucking me between his humeri, keeping me in place as he angles down. My sword sticks out over his right shoulder, my hand amazingly steady.
Then we’re in the fray. Fyr’thal’s body ignites with living flame as he clashes with the winged demons. His impressive seven-foot wingspan trails blazing sparks. A plume of errant fire clips me, but it doesn’t hurt. Phoenix fire won’t burn unless its wielder intends it to.
My brain stalls, overwhelmed. I’ve never, in all my life, had so much sensory input. Explosions of magic. Grating shrieks of demonic creatures. The searing scent of fire and blood. The seizure-inducing movement of a million bodies swirling around us.
Cendrion’s neck recoils and darts out, a striking serpent aiming for a shadowbeast. The shadowbeast in question looks like it might have been a harpy when it was alive. Now it’s something both more and less than a harpy: it died and bartered its soul to Zalor in exchange for a second chance at life.
The harpy no longer exists. It’s an extension of Zalor. He’s all there is.
Cendrion catches the hapless harpy in his jaws and crunches down. Black blood explodes from its wounds. Some of it flies back and hits my face, landing on my tongue in my open mouth. The acrid, burning taste and the foul smell of its body fluids—like human waste mixed with too-ripe fruit—jolt sense into me.
No matter how unprepared I am for the horrors of war, no matter how vulnerable I am without magic, I must fight. Who would I be if I didn’t?
My old Earthling self, that’s who. No more.
Cendrion snaps his wings out and levels off. Caught in the moment, I loose a battle cry of my own. My left hand closes around one of the pearly spinal protrusions on his neck. I throw my weight forward, leaning over his shoulder to stab at a winged demon.
The monster dodges my blow. I swing my blade wide and feel a nauseatingly satisfying thunk as I connect with my target. The shadowbeast howls and plummets toward the rocks, its corpse spouting black blood.
With that, something inside me changes. Darkness rises in my chest, taking the form of a familiar sensation: anger.
Wrath tumbles through my veins, burning me from the inside out. How dare these shadowtroops try to hurt my darlings. How dare Zalor try to ruin this beloved world of mine.
I make a private vow that I’ll be the one to kill him before I leave Solera.
Cendrion banks to avoid a jet of deadly darkmagic. I hack at the shadowbeast wielding the accursed spell. This time, my aim is true. I slice through its neck, and it dies on impact.
My anger bubbles and mutates. A grin stretches my lips. I feel strong. The visceral horror of this moment will catch up with me later and I’ll vomit, maybe cry. For now, I’m a puppet once more. As it has always been while writing a battle, I’m caught in a swift-moving current. I’m powerless to fight it. I don’t want to fight it. I revel in it.
Passive-aggression may be my specialty, but I’m pretty good at aggressive-aggression, too.
The phoenixes provide an excellent defense as Cendrion carves through waves of shadowbeasts. With my left hand flat against the base of his neck, I feel his muscles bunch and sense what he’s about to do. The first few times he banked, I was thrown off balance, but now I’m anticipating his movements. He dips right and I lean left, slashing with my sword as we circle a demon. It falls beneath my blade.
“You fly like a natural,” Cendrion roars. Black blood coats his maw and streams down his throat. His eyes are wide and his pupils are the thinnest crescents of focus.
“It’s all you,” I call back, unable to contain my growing smile.
Am I a sociopath for enjoying this? I know the risks, but the feel of making a visible, quantifiable difference in the battle is exhilarating.
Another low, brassy note rumbles from the south, dousing my good mood.
“The ambush,” I whisper, squinting over my shoulder.
I can’t see through the storm of swooping phoenixes and motley demons—but I don’t need to see what’s happening. I know reserve shadowtroops are flanking our division at the base of the cliffs, the Torvellan Pass. I know, because that’s how I wrote it. Everything’s playing out exactly as it does in my manuscript.
My heart’s in my throat. This is the moment my meddling must make a difference.
A shockwave blasts from the trees at the southern foot of the valley. Debris mushrooms in the air, creating a visible wave as the blast rockets toward us.
“Tuck your wings,” I scream, huddling low and hooking my arm around Cendrion’s neck. He does so not a moment too soon. The billow of air rams us, but we aren’t caught in it—unlike the demon horde. I hear shrieks and the snap of delicate wing bones as our enemies tumble head over tail through the sky.
The shockwave of power came from the activation of the Midgard Portal. Our second division should be marching through to support the rear guard.
“Let’s check the formation core,” I call.
Cendrion dodges a dark spell and I swipe at an addled monster, making it shriek in agony and fall away. Cendrion falls too, angling into a controlled dive as we streak past the cliffs and approach the seething knot of battle.
The sun has risen, though hazy mist dilutes its light. It illuminates a scene of chaos. We’re making headway on the cliffs. Our formation remains intact. The rear guard hasn’t buckled beneath the ambush. It’s holding against a snakelike band of shadowbeasts emerging from cliff caverns. Beyond, the reserve vanguard marches to assist.
My gaze floats over the army, coming to rest on the center. Valen is visible, distinguished by an occasional crack of lightning. He’s technically not in a wielding position (he’s technically not supposed to engage at all, being our highest officer), but he can’t help himself. If he sees an opening, he takes it.
Asher stands beside him. I can’t hear him over the cacophony, but I know he’ll be relaying orders and shouting encouragement. Asher is an effortlessly good person. His bow is drawn. Like Valen, if he spots a weakness, he strikes.
