Crystal Crowned [ARC] (33 page)

“We’ve heard word that you will be our Empress. You and our Emperor rose from the dead; you’re the only one who can stop him now. You have defied him once; you can teach us all how to do it.”

Guilt burdened her heart. Her perceived resurrection was giving the people in the South a false hope. She was not their savior. She had been the one who dammed them to begin with.

“We’ve grown a Silver Wing network, there are many of us now. We will help, when the time comes. We could smuggle people out, but our routes have slowly been closed off. The best we can offer you would be a way in.” Grahm’s speech began to pick up pace. The man poured words frantically into the vessel. “When you come, carve a wing into the sky. We will know. We will lower the guard at any cost so you can enter. If—”

Grahm’s voice broke, and he rasped heavily.

“If there are any of us left.” He drew a long and quivering breath. “This place, is not what you remember. It is a city of taint, and death, and crystal. Be careful and-and . . .”

There was one final pause. So long Vhalla worried that he had somehow been caught and was never able to finish his impassioned plea.

“And if-if Fritz is still with you . . . If he’s there. Fritz, by the Mother. I am doing all I can. Tell me he is well. Tell me my dreams are not lies. Because I still, I can still dream.”

The water stilled and mirrored the motionless trio standing around the dish. Fritz made a strangled noise and dropped his face into his wet palms. Vhalla was at his side in a rush, clutching him, supporting him as his knees went weak. His sobs burned her eyes and ripped through the remaining shreds of her heart.

“Vh-Vhal, we must go to him.”

“We are,” she soothed, rubbing her friend’s back.

“He-he sounds so scared!” Fritz buried his face where her neck met her shoulder.

“I know.” Vhalla took a deep breath. “But he is also strong. Just as you are. We will stand with him on the other side of this.”

Her words may have been lies. Vhalla knew she would live with that forever if they were. But as the truth had yet to unfurl its grand design upon the tapestry of time, Vhalla was content to make such a vow.

She helped Fritz back to his room. Aldrik excused himself to handle other business, giving the two friends time with just each other. The sun was already setting, and, in a complete reversal of what he had once done before, Vhalla saw him bathed and tucked into bed before leaving. Reminding him that the sooner he slept, the sooner the dawn would come.

The day had been one somber reminder after the next that death was at their doorstep. Their time of preparation and—for lack of more eloquent,
nicer
words—hiding was over. They were about to stand upon the precipice and greet true evil. And Vhalla only wanted people to join of their own free will.

She found Jax and Elecia talking near a back storeroom in the training grounds. They were arguing over how many potions of this or that to bring when Vhalla interrupted them.

“Jax, a moment.”

“Ah, how I have longed for the moment you seek me out by your lonesome when the moon is in the heavens above,” he held out his arms dramatically, as though Vhalla would believe a word of what he said as sincerity.

“It’s important.” Her words shifted Jax’s expression from the light-hearted and fun-loving major to the darker soldier that Vhalla had become more familiar with during her time in Norin. Elecia was keen enough to excuse herself.

“What is it, Lady Solaris?” he asked as Vhalla shut the door behind him in a small side hall. “I don’t think either of us need to be reminded of, or want to repeat, the last time you pulled me off the training grounds for a private little chat.”

“Why do you think I picked a hallway this time?” Vhalla motioned to the left and right. “Look, we can both pick a different escape route.”

The Jax she plucked from the grounds would’ve laughed. This Jax remained solemn at her remark, assessing her warily. Vhalla clenched her fists, opening her Channel for good measure.

“We march with the dawn.”

“You didn’t pull me here to tell me that.”

“Do you want to go?” Vhalla cut straight to the point.

“I don’t know where else I would be. I have not been told to vacate my post as your guard. I realize it’s not been necessary here, but when we march again—”

“Is that what you want to do?” she interrupted him. “Do you
want
that post?”

“It is an order.” The panic she’d been expecting all along finally began to sneak up on him.

“No, that’s what I’m telling you; it’s not.”

He shook his head in horror. Vhalla could feel him willing her not to say the words, but she would say them anyway, for them both.

“I pardon you.” Vhalla stood as tall as she could, trying to evoke the Empress that people expected to see. An Empress that Vhalla didn’t even know if she’d ever be. “Jax Wendyl, for your crimes—”

“Don’t,” he breathed.

“I hereby grant you an Imperial pardon. You are a free man and you can now go where you will.”

“Your first Imperial pardon, on
me
?” His words were cut with laughter. “They will make a fool of you.”

“Let them.” Vhalla shrugged. “You know how I care so deeply for the opinions of others. I will write my name and your pardon in the Western record. A record no one will ever see. It’s up to you from here.”

“So I am your shameful act in a dark hall?” he sneered.

“No.” Vhalla remained resolute. “If you want to tell the world, then tell them. I merely am respecting your choice as a free man.” Vhalla braved a step forward. “Jax, if you stand with me as my guard, I want you to stand with me of your own will. Not because you are ordered. Not as my slave. But as my friend and comrade—or I don’t want you there at all.”

“You don’t understand . . . I’m the mad dog. I’m the fallen lord. I’m the one who the lords hide their daughters from and only feel safe around when I am on an imperial leash!” he snapped. “Do you think you can make me worth her? That you can absolve me and make me someone that she could look upon with fondness from the Father’s realms?”

“No.” Vhalla kept her voice calm and level, realizing he was very close to lashing out as he had last time. “That’s something that is well beyond my power to give. Such a thing must come from you.”

“What do you want from me?” he cried.

“To be your friend.”

“I don’t have friends, I have masters!”

“What was Baldair, then?” Emotion betrayed her the second the younger prince’s name was mentioned. “Was he just a master? Is that all his memory is to you?”

Jax stared at her at with complete loss for words. Vhalla took a step away and started down the hall to leave him to his thoughts. She went straight up to the library, hunted down a familiar tome, and found the page listing Jax’s sentence. Alone in the library, Vhalla penned her name as the Empress for the first time, and she freed a man.

Come the dawn, Jax rode at her side. He remained at her left hand for the entire march to the Crossroads. It was as though their conversation had never happened. He didn’t bring it up again, and Vhalla honored his silent wish by doing the same. The only person she even told about the small confrontation was Aldrik.

The Emperor supported her decree with Jax like he did with most of her other decisions. Vhalla demanded a hard pace through the West and regular training for all groups. Sehra had been right; many soldiers were green, and she was determined that, by the time they arrived at the Southern border, all soldiers would have a shot at surviving the upcoming battles.

She intentionally kept her meetings short and restricted only to the mornings. Vhalla and Aldrik settled into a rotation where he focused on the appeasement of the lords and majors, and Vhalla spent her time among the soldiers. As much as possible, she wanted to lead by example. If she wanted them to perform three rounds of drills each day, she would perform them herself.

Vhalla also made sure the men and women saw her learning. She split her time between training with sorcerers and training with the sword. One where she could be a teacher, the other where she was still much the student.

Before leaving Norin, she’d commissioned a new blade. It was short and light, well balanced but sturdy. The pommel was wheat, in the shape of wings.

Every time she felt the weight of the blade in her hand or on her hip, every time the wind soared through the skies at her command, she thought of Victor. Vhalla tried to envision what his face would look like when she killed him. There was no other alternative in Vhalla’s mind. She would be the one to do it. She had created him—she would be the one to destroy him.

On the ride into the Crossroads, Vhalla tried—once again—to find the small curiosity shop where she’d met Vi. But between the crowds, the sun shades, and the tongues of fire celebrating their arrival, she couldn’t find it. It lingered on her mind for the rest of the day as Vhalla tried to recall exactly where it had been or what it had looked like. She began to wonder if the whole encounter was nothing more than a walking dream. Exhausted, Vhalla pushed it from her mind and fell into the arms of her lover in the first bed they’d had in weeks. If she was to meet Vi again, Vhalla was fairly confident that the woman would be the one to find her.

The next morning Vhalla met with the high-ranking warriors in Sehra’s forces. She took careful note of the princess’s advice on what was likely to offend those from the North and learned a few phrases of greeting in their native tongue. Despite her mouth struggling to form the words, the Northerners seemed to appreciate that an effort was made. It was one of the only things they appreciated about being faced with the Solaris family, who they still very obviously considered to be their Southern oppressors.

Elecia was at her side, in place of Aldrik, for the greetings. The woman couldn’t speak the Northern tongue either, but she already knew a few key words and phrases and could make the sounds with ease. Vhalla made her now-cousin promise to teach her a few phrases when the war was over so she could be a better delegate to the Empire’s newest addition.

Decisions became no easier to make with time. The day before they were intended to leave, they received a message that Hastan’s scouts had confirmed movement of Victor’s army further north. An attack on the Eastern capital was likely. Vhalla knew that if they pushed the army East, they may be able to make it to the capital in time to crush Victor’s offense. If they didn’t, Hastan had a fifty-fifty chance of enduring or falling.

Vhalla’s hand shook as she quilled the response back to the Eastern senator. Aldrik had offered to do it, but Vhalla was insistent. These were her people, and she had always made sure they knew orders that put them in danger—the decision that they could sacrifice the East—came from her and why.

Her world kept producing rainbows of conflict cast in deepening shades of gray. The only black and white was her ink on parchment informing Hastan that help would not be coming. That they would use Victor’s attack to strike when the Southern border was likely to be weaker.

Rested and restocked, the army proceeded south from the Crossroads. Vhalla resumed her previous regimen of training among the soldiers. As much as possible, she made herself available to them. Fritz had been right: the day that they had escaped from Norin’s castle, these were her people.

Her favorite Southerner was at her side one night when she took dinner with the swords she had trained with that day.

“My lady,” one remarked during a lull in the prior conversation. “I was there when you stopped the sandstorm.”

“Were you?” Vhalla smiled politely. She’d heard this story at least one hundred times on the march.

“We all thought she was suicidal.” He began speaking more to the rest of the group than to her. “I was in the late prince’s legion, but in the back. So not really that far from where our Empress rode.”

Everyone seemed more interested in the man’s story than the woman who was the living topic of the tale, but Vhalla was content to let them tell it as they saw fit. Fritz still got great amusement at all the embellishments the men would include, and Vhalla elbowed him in the side more than once to curb his snickering.

“I knew then,” the man wrapped up his tale. “I said to my mates, ‘This woman is special.’ I knew she was far better than I saw others giving her credit for. But the prince, now the crown prince is a man with a good head on his shoulders. Well learned. He sees it.”

Vhalla tore off a strip of dried meat and chewed it to tenderness.
That was another recent hobby
, soldiers and nobility claiming that they knew her and Aldrik would be together. Certainly the support pleased her, but it rested uneasily in Vhalla’s heart. She had no doubt some of them had seen it, but she also had no doubt that many of them had spoken ill of their former dark prince.

She kept her feelings to herself, except for Aldrik. He agreed with her that it was a relief to have the soldiers supporting them. It helped keep a balance. Whatever issues the nobility still harbored toward her, the common man’s love kept their lips still.

Golden wings and suns were emblazoned upon nearly every breast. They looked to her for strength; they believed her wings would never be still, that she really had risen from the dead. It was a mantle she never wanted but had no choice in wearing. There was precious little hope, and, as the giant crystal wall closing the border of South and West came into view, Vhalla knew they needed all the hope they could get.

The weather had begun to chill, the heat of the Western Waste giving way to firmer ground and the cool winds of the South. The army halted for the majors to convene, to discuss the best plan of attack. Scouts with telescopic lenses peered at the wall, reporting what they could discern.

Five hideous crystal beasts prowled the wall’s top. Vhalla knew that if they could see the creatures, the creatures and their all-seeing eyes could see her. That was the most immediate threat. Then came opening the gate. This wasn’t like the East where they only needed to slip a few horses through. The army needed the doors to be wide open and hold that way. Finally, logic dictated that Victor had more forces on the other side of the wall, bracing for such an occasion.