Crystal Crowned [ARC] (41 page)

“How do I look?”

“Like death warmed up.”

“Then assume how I feel to be ten times worse.” Vhalla pressed her eyes closed, holding her head. Victor had been quiet; perhaps he was as exhausted as she.

Their table of majors was thinner than it had been the night before, reflective of this day’s death toll. Aldrik had ordered them all sit rather than stand.

He looked just as dead on his feet as she felt. Someone had struck his cheek, and a small chunk was missing from his ear, which indicated a sword had swung way too close to his face for her liking. But, otherwise, their Emperor was mostly in one piece. Vhalla breathed an internal sigh of relief, focusing on the plans before her.

Strokes of the pen on parchment began to carve out the remnants of their army. Compared to the host that had started at the city’s entrance, only a small number—maybe a couple hundred—remained.
They would need a miracle, and another hundred or two soldiers to stand a chance
.

The door to the tavern was kicked open. All the majors turned, startled, half reaching for their weapons. Fritz stood in the doorframe, bloody, and holding their miracle.

“Elecia!” By the time Vhalla said the other woman’s name, the healer was already on her feet.

Elecia crossed the room and helped Fritz carry the man he was supporting to the table. Majors moved out of the way, freeing up a space where they could lay down Grahm. Vhalla looked at the Eastern man’s body, Fritz at her side fidgeting.

Her eyes landed on the source of Fritz’s stress. Grahm’s hand was covered in tiny crystals jutting out from blackening skin. His fingers looked like they were in the late stages of frostbite. Spider-webbed veins connected each crystal, pulsing deathly taint between them, working their way up Grahm’s arm.

“What happened?” she asked Fritz.

“We were beginning to establish a wall, a-a perimeter, so we didn’t lose the ground we gained,” Fritz started. “I saw more fighting. I thought it was another guerrilla force, the Wings, you know?” Her friend was clearly struggling to keep himself together. “But there were a lot of them. I went to investigate; I brought help with me because, you never know . . .”

Vhalla slipped her hand into Fritz’s. She held him gently enough that it didn’t distract him from his tale. But her fingers were firm, insistent that he wouldn’t escape her. At any moment, her Southern friend looked like he could fall apart, and Vhalla would be there if he did.

“It was a group of Silver Wings, a large one. Not like the rest of them. They were trying to regroup as well, and Grahm was leading them.”

There was a deep gash in Grahm’s shoulder by his neck. A finger’s width in almost any direction, and it likely would’ve been a fatal wound without a healer. Elecia’s hands smeared with blood as she pressed them into the severed flesh, trying to force it to knit together.

“Elecia, can you fix him?” Fritz whispered.

“I’m trying,” the woman didn’t glance up, not removing her focus from the wound.

They were ignoring the inevitability of the crystals. Vhalla dropped to a knee, looking closely at Grahm’s hand. He groaned softly, awareness returning with Elecia’s ministrations. From her new vantage, Vhalla could see Elecia’s eyes regularly darting to stones as well. The other woman was nervous about magically interacting with someone who was tainted.

“I have an idea.” Vhalla caught Elecia’s gaze. “But I want him to be physically stable before I try it.”

“That sounds foreboding,” Elecia mumbled.

Vhalla couldn’t disagree. “I’m going to take control of the crystals and destroy them, like I do with the monsters and the gates.”

“What will that do to him?” Fritz asked.

“I can’t say for certain.” Vhalla wasn’t going to make it out to be something it wasn’t. It was a last resort that could just as easily kill Grahm as save his life.

“Well, if you’re going to do it, do it now.” Elecia pulled her hands away. “While I have enough strength left in me to try to put him back together when you finish tearing him apart.”

No one expected Elecia’s sarcasm to be literal.

Vhalla raised her hand over Grahm’s, blinking her eyes and shifting into her magic sight. Her magic was thin and struggling. Vhalla briefly wondered what would happen at the moment when she had the same amount of her own magic as she had crystal magic laced with Victor’s. But she didn’t give it thought. Her friend was before her and ailing. It wasn’t the time for doubt.

Just like she did with the monsters, Vhalla connected herself to the crystals and willed their destruction. They exploded angrily off Grahm’s hand. Black shards littered the ground along with chunks of Grahm’s flesh.

All the majors took a step back to avoid being splattered with tainted blood.

The man lying on the bench cried out, roused back to awareness by the pain.

“Hold him down!” Elecia demanded.

Fritz was the first to respond. Sitting, he cupped Grahm’s head in both of his, stroking his cheeks with his thumbs. “Grahm, it’ll be all right.”

Elecia hesitated only for a second before her hand thrust into the tainted flesh that had ripped open with the destruction of the crystals. Skin that was blackened and leathery turned into mush and goo in the instant the crystals had exploded. Elecia pulled her hand away, black flesh clinging to it like coagulated meat fat. She tried again in a different spot, the skin literally sliding over Grahm’s bones.

Grahm twisted his head, trying to shake them off.

“Hold him down!” Elecia insisted, thinking quickly. She turned to the other person in the room she trusted implicitly. “Aldrik, I’m going to need your fire.”

The Emperor gave his affirmation without question.

“Fritz, I need you to freeze him.”

“What?” Fritz didn’t follow.

“I need you to freeze him, slowly, don’t shock him. I need his heart to slow; the less aware he is of what’s happening and the slower his blood flow, the better,” Elecia spoke slowly and clearly.

“He’s another Waterrunner and—”

“And the taint has already passed his elbow. The damn things were like boils, and the infection is flooding the body!”

Vhalla stared in horror, wondering if she’d damned her friend. She swallowed, trying to follow Elecia’s train of thought. Grahm was dead from the moment the taint set in. This was their only chance to save him.

She ran over to the tavern’s bar, locating a long rag. On the way back she scooped up one of the major’s swords.

“Wait, that’s—”

The Empress silenced the major with a pointed glare. She didn’t really give a damn that it was his. It could’ve been the Mother’s for all Vhalla cared. The man realized it and silenced himself. Most of the majors took it as the cue to flee the room.

“Wait, you can’t possibly mean to . . .” Fritz gaped in horror as Vhalla began to tourniquet Grahm’s upper arm.

“This needs to go in his mouth to keep him from biting his tongue.” Vhalla twisted up the other rag, placing it between Grahm’s teeth.

“Isn’t there—”

“Freeze him, hold him still, and say nothing else.” Elecia’s breathing was heavy, nerves beginning to take over. She was a good cleric, but this was going to be a test for the woman. “Vhalla, push over that bench, spread his arm across it.”

Aldrik helped Vhalla accomplish Elecia’s order. It had become the most makeshift operating table the any of them had ever seen, and it was all that stood between Grahm and certain death. Elecia drew the sword and adjusted her stance a few times, pushing the benches into just the right spots.

“Vhalla, hold his arm. Fritz his shoulders. Aldrik be ready with the fire,” she commanded.

Vhalla gripped Grahm’s wrist. Her fingers compressed against the rotted flesh and bones that squished and slid like pond scum on a rock. She ignored the chilling sensation and held the arm as straight as possible.

“Can’t we rethink this?”

“Keep him subdued, Fritznangle!”

“But—”

“Fritz, trust Elecia!” Vhalla pleaded with her friend.

Fritz turned his head away as Elecia lined up her mark with the sword. Vhalla saw her plant her feet to the ground. She felt the tingle of magic through the air as the Groundbreaker made her arms as heavy as rocks in order to create as much momentum possible.

The blade
whizzed
through the air, and Fritz flinched as it connected with bone. Vhalla felt the crack reverberate through Grahm’s arm. The man screamed into the rag in his mouth.

Elecia was undeterred. She freed the blade with a small jostle, and raised it again for a second swing. Marrow oozed from the wound, blood pooling on the benches and dripping to the floor.

It took two swings to sever Grahm’s arm from his body.

“Aldrik, cauterize it, lightly,” Elecia instructed. “I only want to help the clotting along, I may need to remove more later once I see what the taint or infection is doing.”

“Remove more later?” Fritz swayed weakly.

“Hopefully when we have proper medical supplies,” Elecia murmured.

Grahm moaned in agony as wisps of flame sealed his wound. But his pain seemed to be lessening due to Fritz’s numbing of the spot, a makeshift sedative. Vhalla prayed that, when he woke, he would barely remember what occurred.

Elecia quickly bandaged the wound. But she didn’t release the tourniquet until the blood stopped seeping through the cloth. Fritz hadn’t let go of Grahm; he stared in dumb shock at his lover’s face.

“I’m going to go find something for him,” Elecia announced. She swayed slightly. Vhalla knew the exhaustion was just as much mental as it was physical. “Some cleric in the rear guard must have something . . .”

“Will he be okay now?” Fritz whispered.

“I hope so.” Vhalla cringed as she picked up the severed arm, enough meat left above the elbow for it to wag uncomfortably. She deposited it in the alleyway behind the tavern. Vhalla ran her hands over her pants legs all the way back, trying to remove the feeling of liquefied tainted flesh and a limp severed limb.

Grahm groaned softly. Vhalla quickly kicked away the bloody bench upon her return. It was bad enough what had happened to him. She didn’t want him waking up and having to see the remnants.

“Grahm?” Fritz breathed.

“Fritz?” The Eastern man began to rouse.

“I’m here. I’m here with you,” Fritz reassured.

“I need, I need to bring updates . . .” he murmured, almost delirious.

Shock did incredible things to the body, Vhalla reasoned.

“Hush, it’s all right.”

“No,” Grahm refused Fritz’s consoling, squinting his eyes open. “I need to tell the Emperor . . .”

“What?” Aldrik stepped into Grahm’s field of vision so the patient wouldn’t have to turn his head.

“Silver Wings,” Grahm fought for every word. “My Emperor, they fight for you.”

Vhalla stood, taking her place next to Aldrik. Grahm’s eyes widened a fraction, as though he was struggling to see her.

“Lady Empress, it’s true?”

“Grahm, thank you for your service,” Vhalla soothed.

“It-it was our honor.” He swallowed thickly. No doubt his mouth still had the cotton taste of the rag. “We have one hundred men and women who escaped the palace. They fought with me.” Grahm looked up at Fritz. “Did they make it?”

“Most.” Fritz nodded.

“Thank the Mother,” Grahm’s eyes pressed closed. “They’ll know the paths, once you get in. There’s another hundred or more, if they . . . fighting in the palace. They will help you. Victor’s retreated - up. They’ll help you get there . . . He’s . . . There’re more monsters. He’s not done . . .”

“We understand. We do. Now rest.” Fritz smoothed away hair from the man’s forehead.

“Fritz . . .” Grahm stared up at his man, who was doing a better job of holding Graham than holding his own emotions together. “I’m glad I could see you again.”

“Me, too.”

“I love you,” Grahm whispered.

“And I love you.” Tears fell from Fritz’s eyes. “Now,
don’t die
.”

Elecia returned, crossing over to Grahm with intent, ending the conversation. She poured three vials down his throat that she swore would have nearly the same effect as Deep Sleep and helped Fritz carry Grahm up to the second floor of the tavern to be kept safe and hidden during the remainder of the battles.

Vhalla let out a heavy sigh. Aldrik’s arms wrapped around her; she accepted his comfort and strength, stealing a moment alone with her husband. The room was quiet; even the night outside was still.

“What are we fighting for?” Vhalla closed her eyes for a moment, but all she saw was blood. Blood of her allies. Blood of her enemies. Enough blood to drown in ten times over. “What will be left when the wars are done?”

“That’s what we’re fighting for.” He squeezed her gently. “Whatever, whomever,
is
left.”

“Even if that’s not us.” Vhalla stepped away, not giving into the alluring comfort of retreat that his presence offered. There was still a war to win.

Victor had little concern for the unspoken etiquette of war. Just as Grahm and his soldiers had forewarned, the false king had been preparing another wave of monsters and abominations. The lull was only long enough for him to plan that next attack.

They had barely enough time to brace themselves. But they did have some time, which was entirely thanks to Grahm and the Silver Wings.

The rush of battle seemed duller the second time around, and Vhalla struggled to move her feet with the same speed as she had before. Majors ran screaming into the early morning light, organizing what was left of the troops.

Vhalla followed, leading what was now her command. The defensive wall they’d built out of ice and earth had been destroyed. Vhalla sprinted in a direction opposite Aldrik, but Jax remained glued to her side. Jax was foolishly determined to live up to his prior oaths of dying for her life, if need be. Vhalla was equally determined to make sure it didn’t come to pass. They weren’t nearly as synced as she and Aldrik were, but it was better than any other soldier, and they were both fast learners.

Fritz remained behind with Grahm, a new reason to hold the line. Elecia’s clerical opinion was uncertain; she couldn’t be sure that he’d pull through, if the taint was even gone. The notion was one Vhalla refused to entertain.