Siren's Song (36 page)

Until a softer song begins and I get closer and our dance gets slower as our breathing grows heavier. Here on the edge of the world.

The music slows even more, and a moment later his hands are sliding to my waist. I gulp and try to keep my thoughts on the melody's words as his thumb moves up and skims along the edge of my jawline, forcing me to fail completely. I tip my lips toward his fingers before pushing his head back to gently kiss his throat.

His breath catches and his fingers move lower. Their warmth against my skin burns like a bleeding star.

I travel up his chin to his lips, and the next second he tips his mouth to meet mine, to meld with mine. And I swear a dam's broken loose inside me as every frustration and hunger from the past week pours forth into a single kiss.

Until his fingers gently tug on both wrists, untwining them from around his neck as he takes a retreating step and pulls away. “I can't.”

“Can't what?”

“This.”

I snort and open my mouth, but the torrent halts at his gaze.

“You're making me
insane
, Nym. As if this whole thing isn't hard enough. Can't we just . . . leave it alone for now?” His fingers loosen on my wrists as his eyes slip to my lips.

“
I
make you insane?”

“You're so bleeding stubborn.”

“Stubborn? I'm stubborn? About what, Eogan? That I want to kiss you? That I want to speak with you? That I want to see you without you trying every single way in hulls to avoid me? For litches' sake—what is it? Have I done something? Or is it that you really think I want the throne?”

He shakes his head. “No. Don't even think that. That's not it. Let's just go back to the party and—”

“What the hulls is wrong with you?” I wrench my wrist away and stalk the fifteen paces to my tent.

If it had a door, I'd be slamming it.

Too late, he's pushing back the cloth opening and entering too. “Nothing's wrong with you or me. I'm just asking that we not do this tonight. We can wait until—”

“Do
what
tonight? I'm sorry if it makes you uncomfortable to actually confess what is wrong with me or why you can barely look at me sometimes. Or why every time I see you, your eyes say one thing while your fear says another. You know what? Forget it—yes, we
can
do this tonight. Because tomorrow we might be dead.”

He runs a hand through his hair and I step right in front of him and let the sky rumble, prompting his lips to quirk as he stalls and this time looks down at me.

“This had better not be about whether you're still unsafe due to Draewulf's blood inside your body,” I growl.

He opens his mouth. Shuts it. As if choosing his words is a force of will. Until finally, “I am trying to give you a choice, Nym. But you're making it blasted hard.”

“I suggest you explain that.”

He shoves fingers through his bangs again and peers around. “I'm trying to set you free so you can make your own choices. You've spent your life having things chosen for you, and never had the opportunity to explore true freedom yourself. Until now.”

I think this is going somewhere.

This dratted well better be going somewhere.

He settles his gaze on me. “You're so blasted busy trying to help everyone else earn freedom, you can't even recognize it for yourself.”

What is he talking about? “Have you been drinking?”

“Look. What I'm trying to say is that you and I met under . . .
rather different circumstances. And it would be wrong of me to hold you to a relationship status that was established then. You have your freedom, and I would be a very indecent person were I not to encourage you to explore how you'd like to live with that freedom. Thus . . .”

This is it. I'd bet my life on it.

“Did the queen tell you what I'd ultimately choose?” I say smoothly.

He raises a brow. “I asked. She said it's not for others to know a person's destiny unless that person wants to make it known.”

She did, did she? “Well then, let me make it known.” I slide my palms over his cheeks and pull his face down until those emerald eyes are level with mine. “You are the only man I've ever met who's both respected me and managed to make me hate you for keeping me in line. And you are the only man I've ever known who makes me feel safe enough to breathe and believe there's some actual good in this world.”

I plant a kiss on his bottom lip. “
And
you are the only man who makes me believe that this world would be worth a pile of hulls if you weren't in it. So you can please stop acting like a daft fool and kiss me already.”

He arches a half smirk and gives me a look that says he's still unsure.

“I'm waiting.”

“Perhaps you need more—”

“Why? Because I've not made myself clear? Or are you unsure of your feelings for me?”

He chuckles. “Bleeding hulls, have I ever told you I love your temper?” Then leans in to obey.

The sound of a clearing throat rattles the atmosphere. I pull back, but Eogan won't release me. Just mutters, “What is it, Kenan?”

I glance over at the large soldier filling the tent opening.

“Your Majesty, King Sedric has requested your presence. I believe there's a question as to Lady Isobel's—”

A groan rumbles deep in Eogan's throat. I look up to discover his eyes are torn between annoyance and desire and it's all I can do not to tell Kenan to go to litches.

CHAPTER 35

M
ORNING DAWNS WITH A THICK, WHITE,
blanketing mist rising up from the warm earth to greet the cool sky and blackened clouds. The sun is peeking between it on the eastern horizon, pale and dull and lifeless, as if it knows what today holds. As if it knows who will die today.

I step out of my tent fully dressed in my blue leather shirt and pants and boots. White hair braided back like I used to keep it when I was a slave. I pull my hood up. Like on auction day.

Oh hulls. That is the feeling I'm sensing—today feels like auction day, only it's not just me who's going. It's every person here.

“Don't let them die,” I whisper to the Creator, hoping the spirit of him still resides in the Valley of Origin and can hear me, and care.

A sudden breeze rustles from that direction and with it the sweet scent of lake water carrying the melody that plucks at the strings of my soul, then it's gone and I'm blinking and left feeling a bit lighter, a bit stronger. I search around for Eogan and Sedric and the knights, whom I spot on a plateau surrounded by rank upon rank of our fellow countrymen.

It's only when I'm descending the slight slope toward where they're waiting that my breath catches. It's the first time I've seen our army assembled—and while they look tattered and patchworked together, there are so many more than I realized. My eyes warm
and my throat hitches. They're all facing us—thousands of them—split into row upon row of farmers and mothers and soldiers.

But it's not until I get closer that I notice it. The silence. It grows as I move forward, and then the mums' and peasants' and soldiers' hands slip out to reach for me, like the words falling from their moving lips—whispers I can't understand but that cling to me anyway.

My heart constricts.
Oh litches.

I swallow and force my face to display a radiant hope for them—a smile of promise for the victory we will claim—as the thought from two weeks ago in my room nudges its way into focus. An observation I've noticed a million times throughout my years but had never felt so real as on that night. And now, again, here. With them. The observation there is a moment before every storm when the entire world pauses. As if the atmosphere, in unison with the ocean tides, the wind, the sky's watery teardrops, is forced to hold its breath. A bracing against the violence it knows will come—the tempest that perhaps this time, this moment, might actually shred the world's soul.

I've been in that moment in a physical storm so many times before.

I have
been
that moment.

But today . . .

I look around at the few pitched tents and the bedrolls littering the open ground behind us as far as my eye can see. I look at my people—some of whom are dressed in fancy clothes too idiotic for a battle, while most are dressed in rags hanging off bodies that are too thin, too cold, too overworked. Soldier and farmer and nobleman.

Today
we
are that moment.

We
are the storm.

And I have never been more proud of my people.

Nor more afraid for them.

No matter how hopeful my face may be, my stomach's performing flips so hard I'm wondering if my gut's just going to jump out from my spine in front of them all.

Keep walking, keep smiling, keep breathing.

When I reach the plateau, Rolf and King Sedric are finishing up giving a final exhortation to the individual generals, and Eogan and Kenan are speaking with Allen the dwarf who's hopping up and down on one foot as if he can't wait to get started.

A loud trumpeting from a meadow a half terrameter away shows why. Not only are his oliphants enormous, but at some point between late last night and this morning's dawn, they were fitted with giant, spiked leather strips along the sides of their bodies as well as down each of their hind quarters and legs. Long silver blades have been attached to their trunks so that anyone within twenty paces of their faces will get sliced in half with a single head shake.

Impressive.

A burst of laughter bubbles up at the sight of Kel on top of the largest oliphant. He's surrounded by a host of lethal-looking acrobats, and even from here I can make out his attitude. It declares he could own the whole Faelen island up there—the way he's sitting so proud and serious. Next thing I know he's waving like a madman at me.

I give him a salute and a whispered, “Creator, keep him safe,” before turning to the kings who've stopped talking and are now directing their attention at me.

“Nym.” King Sedric nods.

I return it, and the moment my gaze finds Eogan's handsome face, he breaks into that half smile I love. He extends his hand and I don't care what anyone will think—of who I am and who he is, or whether or not it's appropriate in the face of a war we're all going
to die in. Perhaps it's the reality that we are
quite likely
going to die that makes me walk straight up to him, take his fingers in my own, and lift my face to his.

His lips brush my forehead. “Stay near me today,” they whisper before he leans back to say to the others, “Gentlemen, it appears we are ready.”

A rumble through the ground jerks the earth beneath my feet, drawing my attention to the fact that it's been building, growing louder like a herd of bolcranes. I'd been so overwhelmed by the sight of our people when walking down I'd barely noticed it. But now . . . now I release Eogan and stride forward to peer over the edge of the plateau. Down the steep hillside. Into the valley below.

My lungs shrivel.

If I thought the wraith army looked terrifying yesterday, this . . . this is beyond imagining.
Have they been multiplying overnight?

“It seems Draewulf's magic has been busy,” King Sedric says as if in answer.

I snort. “I think you mean out of control. This is obscene.” The massive black horde that existed yesterday has grown to twice its size, which, given the land space they're occupying between us and the sea, seems hardly possible.

They're so tightly packed together down there, they look like a bubbling black oil slick. Always moving, always simmering. Always that blasted hissing that, though duller to my ears than a week ago, still makes my veins itch.

“They're moving, Your Highness.” Rolf points to the front of the horde where the wraiths appear to be assembling in some sort of straight line stretching from the edge of Litchfell Forest to the eastern base of the nearest Hythra Mountain.

Oh hulls.

“They're simply going to march right into us,” Kenan mutters.

“Like a wave,” King Sedric says softly. “A tidal wave . . .” He doesn't finish, but I can sense the words anyway:
“of terror.”

“Stations!” he suddenly yells, so loud I about jump out of my skin. It immediately sets everyone in motion. The generals who're still lingering hurry off to their ranks, Kenan strides over to stand with a very large unit made up of archers standing right along the plateau's edge, and King Sedric and Rolf turn to mount the horses a soldier's just brought up.

I'm peering around for Haven when Allen the dwarf flips his hat and bows at me. “M'lady.”

“Allen the Fabler, Travelling Baronet.”

He grins. “May the sun shine on us by the end of the day. But in the meantime . . .” He winks. “May your storms kick their sorry wraith hind ends all the way to hulls.” With that, he trots off to make the rather tedious trek for his short legs to his troupe of oliphants and what appear to be panther-monkeys and magicians.

I smirk and swallow, and the next moment Eogan is standing beside me.

“Where best can you battle from, m'lady?” King Sedric asks.

I look down on the wraiths just as a horn blare ricochets through the Valley. It's so loud, so eerie, it's clearly not from a natural horn. The sound has barely died out when a roar bigger than the sea waves at night, or the thundering of a morning storm, picks up and blasts across us—as if powerful enough to create wind in itself. And on it, I swear the seven airships are moving toward us.

Litch.
“Right here.” I glance at Eogan, who nods his agreement.

“You'll stay with her, yes? To increase her abilities?” Sedric's now staring hard at Eogan.

Wait, what?
I frown and turn. “You don't have to—”

“I told you we stay together today.”