Our Vicious Oaths, page 44
“Are you referring to these monarchs, my betrothed?” asked Rishaud. He extended his left hand and light pulsed from it. The severed heads of the four vassal kings appeared in a line in front of his feet. The jagged bloody stumps that had once been their necks made it plain their heads had been intentionally hacked off in a manner that delivered neither clean nor instant deaths.
Kadeesha didn’t dare take her eyes off the Hyperion king for longer than a breath. She only spared the dead monarchs a brief glance before she fixed her gaze on the threat that stood a few feet away.
Rishaud stared back and spat, “Any form of treason is unacceptable, but treason among my vassal kings is intolerable. Thus, I do not have vassal monarchs any longer. There will henceforth be only one monarch, and the sole sovereign power will be Nimani’s high king.
“The Six Kingdoms are no more.”
He gifted Kadeesha a sardonic smile behind the decree. “You were quite distressed at our wedding when you caused the slaughter of your court’s nobles. Are you interested in knowing that the lesser monarchs’ very unwise decision to let you and the seed you carry sway their allegiance resulted in identical slaughters among all of the remaining dominion courts?” The sick, sadistic bastard watched her closely as he asked, “Does that bother you, girl?”
No. Her chest constricted. She couldn’t imagine, didn’t want to imagine, the scale of death Rishaud had visited on the courts when turning his wrath upon them. She gritted her teeth, pushed her shoulders back, and lifted her chin, taking care to project as queenly an air as ever.
But of course it bothered her—she had a fucking heart. It gutted her that her actions, her choices, her political maneuverings had resulted in a widespread massacre among folks who had nothing to do with any of it. Yet, she couldn’t show it. Rishaud would prey upon any such displayed remorse and pounce the second he gleaned a vulnerability. So she stiffened her spine, steeled herself against the knifing guilt, and executed one of Malachi’s careless shrugs flawlessly. “There is always a cost to war. There is usually an even greater cost to making a bid for power. If your head ends up beside the vassal kings in a burn pit when this is all over and I wear a high queen’s crown without needing to be attached to you, then I am unbothered. My aim will have been accomplished and everything I’ve sacrificed will have been worth it.”
However, for all of the willpower she put behind making the callous words convincing, Rishaud passed her a doubtful look. Then, he pinned his focus on Malachi. “I do not negotiate with females, even if they think they’ve attained some level of power by donning a foreign crown,” he said like the prick he was. Then, loud enough to make sure his voice would be carried back to the front lines of the Apollyon army, he declared, “I will restate my terms to avoid a formal war in person: I’ll have my wife back and your head, Apollyon King, or I will continue to burn your lands and all of your folk to the ground.” He motioned behind him to raging flames and thick clouds of smoke that could be seen on the horizon. “This is but a demonstration of the utter ruin I will wreak if my terms are not met. Are you so prideful that three lives are not worth the cost of sparing the lives of thousands more that you are responsible for, Apollyon King?”
Malachi manifested two void scimitars in his hands, and, loud enough so that both armies could hear, said, “That tactic won’t work here. As Apollyonfolk, we are all prideful and we have always prized our independence above anything else. I can speak for the whole of my court and kingdom when I say we would rather perish and be shepherded into Nyaxia’s Mist Isles than willingly bow to an outsider who is thoroughly unfit to claim the honor of wearing an Apollyon crown.”
“And how am I unfit?” Rishaud asked, amused.
“There are many reasons. However, the chief one is you’ve never been brave enough to face an Apollyon monarch and fight them one on one for the right to lord over the Apollyon-folk, as is our way. You call my father a weak king, but you hid behind the Cleric’s Rebellion and instigated his assassination instead of directly clashing with him in battle. I am assuming that is because you knew you would lose. Just as you will this day. The army at your back and the attacks you have designed to sow panic and chaos will not sway the odds in your favor, Old King.
“I reject your terms to avoid war, if that wasn’t already clear. You will die on this battlefield. I will have my vengeance for my parents and yours will join the heads of the other lesser kings that you’ve laid at my feet.” He leveled both scimitars dead center at Rishaud’s chest. “Before I kill you, I’ll thank you for carrying out that task, by the way. I’d promised my wife, my high queen that I have exchanged vows and blood with, that I’d spare the vassal monarchs and be a tad more civil than I have a reputation for being.”
The golden fire rippling around Rishaud flared brighter. Its scalding brilliance competed with the sun itself in intensity. “She is nothing of the sort to you,” Rishaud hissed. “She is mine. The great Celestials have ordained it and high clerics have foreseen their will. I am chosen by the great Celestials to be high king of Nimani. The Apollyon Court will bow.” Yet for all his righteousness, Rishaud seethed, perhaps understanding that maybe that wasn’t the case anymore.
Malachi scoffed. Again, he made sure the front lines of both armies heard him when he said, “My wife and child you keep mentioning, they’re another reason you’re unfit to rule. According to your own fervent beliefs, whomever Kadeesha marries and sires a son with has been anointed by the Celestials to rule over the whole of Nimani. Whatever you surmised before, the interpretation where you are meant to be that high king no longer applies.” Malachi’s smile was blade sharp when he added, “I’d think the exceedingly rare event of conception, especially how it happened so swiftly, would not have occurred if it defied the Celestials’ vision for Nimani’s future. Thus, you stand here claiming the will of the Celestials while ignoring all the signs of the Celestials. Yes, northern lives may be lost, but so will the lives of many, many southern fae whom you’ve marched to war over nothing except willful blindness alone!”
After Malachi stated what was incredibly hard to ignore, Kadeesha studied the soldiers gathered behind Rishaud. Many of the faces she could see held expressions from uncertainty to reticence. A few even were contorted in dismay, pointing to just how terrifyingly cunning Malachi was. While Malachi’s speech wouldn’t keep the battle from happening, it did begin to lay the groundwork for the southern fae to readily kneel to him after the battle—at least those who were left. There’d be staggering casualties on both sides. Yet, their best strategy to lessen the carnage didn’t change with the vassal kings being dead.
Which was why Kadeesha said, as loudly as Malachi had spoken, “The prophecy was always about me and me alone. It specifically says I will become high queen of a united Nimani and my firstborn son will inherit the mantle. The prophecy names no specific male as a high king who’d rule beside me whatsoever!” Kadeesha paused and waited for the new perspective to sink in. She then continued, adding, “However, if the Celestials have blessed me with a child of dual royal blood, that can only mean this babe will be a boy, and Malachi, the prophesied child’s father, is the monarch the Celestials have themselves crowned to rule as Nimani’s high king.” When she next surveyed the reaction of Rishaud’s own high cleric, she caught a flicker of doubt there too.
Rishaud must have felt the shift as well, because undiluted fury burned hot in his gaze. “I’ve just decided to keep you alive past the coming battle,” he told Malachi. “At least for a time. I will capture you, instead of killing you straightaway, pup. I will make you watch as your court kneels at my feet and then I will make you watch as I thoroughly break your so-called wife and force her into submission as well. Perhaps I’ll even extend your torment so you live long enough to see your seed be born and grow up enough to kneel before me too.”
Shadows writhed along Malachi’s entire form by the time Rishaud was finished, and the air around them was more frigid than when they’d stood atop the Yunnas. Kadeesha understood the sentiment. She might’ve been resistant to all-out war, but she did want blood. Rishaud’s specifically. “This day will be the last day you make any reference to breaking me,” she promised the southern king. Afterward, she asked the witnesses, “Tell me, clerics, has there been sufficient bowing to propriety to satisfy a parley? The Hyperion king delivered his terms for peace. We’ve rejected them. Are we done here?”
Both clerics answering in the affirmative was enough to release Malachi in all his chilling glory. He roared and a maelstrom of shadows hurtled toward Rishaud. A blast of golden light collided with it. When void and solar magic—lethal darkness and deadly light—clashed together between the two kings, the magical recoil sent violent land tremors shuddering across the field. Kadeesha widened her stance to remain upright. As their magics slammed into each other over and over, Malachi raised his void scimitars and advanced toward Rishaud, not wanting to give the Hyperion king time to signal his armies to attack, all while emitting a furious war cry and sending a bolt of shadows shooting into the sky. Kadeesha heard the gallops of mountain horses and the thunderous boot thuds of the Apollyon army obeying their king’s order to attack. Rishaud sent a light flare into the air, issuing his own order. While both armies surged forward, Malachi and Rishaud circled each other, each king ruthlessly assessing their opponent.
As badly as she wanted to bear witness to Rishaud’s demise, Kadeesha didn’t remain on the ground. The Aether squadron Rishaud had brought with him flew toward the palace, their kongamatos already spewing flames along their flight path. Her Nkita squadron zoomed toward their fellow Aetherfolk to intercept the flyers, and Kadeesha mounted Zahzah to help her sisters in the air. Their mission was to disarm and disable. The flyers and kongamatos they’d meet in battle did not have the same objective, though, which meant her sisters would be fighting for their lives against an enemy who sought to annihilate them, all while being hobbled.
For the first time, she and her squadron would engage in a battle that she wasn’t positive they’d come out of with the full thunder intact.
AS ZAHZAH BANKED a hard left to avoid a column of flames hurtling at her head, Kadeesha realized she had no clue how to actually achieve her mission. A quick look around at her squad told her none of them did either and the sight of them all barely staying alive while ever on the defensive lodged her heart in her throat.
A scarlet-scaled kongamato flew at them from the right, its massive wings beating against the air. It rivaled Zahzah in size and its flyer was a decorated squadron general. “You don’t have to do this!” Kadeesha yelled at the Aether male. “This isn’t your fight! Take your flyers and leave!”
Flaming aether fire shot toward Kadeesha in answer as the scarlet kongamato kept up its furious approach. The war serpent’s teeth were bared and its enormous jaws were angled toward Zahzah’s neck. Zahzah read the kongamato’s intent without Kadeesha needing to relay it. Kadeesha threw up a protective wall of aether flames in front of her that the enemy fire bounced off of at the same time that Zahzah dove beneath the scarlet kongamato’s snapping jaws. The scarlet kongamato dove after them. Its teeth ripped into Zahzah’s side and tore a chunk from it. Zahzah’s screech rent the air as fire erupted in Kadeesha’s right shoulder. She didn’t need to glance down to know that her momentary lapse in focus had caused her to be hit. She blinked past the agony tearing her shoulder apart and gripped Zahzah’s reins harder to stay seated in her saddle as Zahzah cut to the right, shot higher into the sky, and hurtled downward fast as lighting as the scarlet war serpent bolted upward toward her at the same speed.
If you collide, she warned Zahzah in case she was lost to battle lust.
I know. I’ve got you and our little one, Zahzah bit off.
Kadeesha gripped the reins tighter. A split second before the enormous war serpents would’ve collided, Zahzah banked a hard right, then pivoted around and snapped out at the scarlet kongamato. “No!” she screamed out loud as Zahzah’s teeth sank into the kongamato’s neck.
It is unavoidable with this one! Zahzah’s response was laced with misery. She released the kongamato’s neck and sank her teeth into it again. Like a winged cobra, Zahzah struck over and over and over again, spewing blood across the sky. Zahzah’s head and Kadeesha’s entire body were covered in it by the time the other kongamato went limp and dropped out of the sky, taking its flyer with it. Kadeesha looked on in horror as the pair plummeted downward. A boom cracked out when the war serpent crashed against the ground. The sound reverberated through Kadeesha, and she realized how naïve she’d been to think they could engage in battle against their brethren and not accrue any casualties. A high-pitched scream caught her attention and she jerked her focus to the left because she knew the voice behind that scream. Aether fire ate away at Rassa’s midsection while her kongamato—an emerald-green beast named Thilde—was at the mercy of a blue war serpent that was tearing gaping hole after gaping hole in his side.
Get to them! she screamed at Zahzah. The giant kongamato streaked through the air but they were far enough away that ice solidified in Kadeesha’s veins over the prospect that they wouldn’t reach them in time to intervene. She focused on the flyer who sat atop the blue kongamato. He was the one who’d engulfed Rassa in aether flames and was killing her slowly. As she neared, she heard him bellowing, “Traitor!” It was then that something inside Kadeesha snapped. She stopped giving a shit about sparing lives. None of it mattered if her sisters died in the attempt. The world narrowed to Rassa’s and Thilde’s anguish and the two beings who were inflicting it. Kill the war serpent. I’ll deal with the flyer, she told Zahzah. She flung an aether bomb toward the fae, who was so focused on Rassa that he never turned to see it coming. It collided with the side of his head and exploded on contact. Zahzah rammed into the side of the blue kongamato, knocking it away from Thilde. Her aether flames wouldn’t harm a kongamato, only mildly annoy them, just as the magic that bound Aether fae and kongamato as war serpent and flyer wouldn’t allow a kongamato’s flames to truly harm an Aether fae. But kongamatos could incinerate other kongamatos if they chose to and Zahzah breathed out a wave of red flames that roiled over the blue war serpent before it had time to return its own assault. The blue war serpent screeched in the sky and Zahzah circled around to its front and sank her talons into its right eye. Then she scored them across its neck.
It stopped screeching.
Its wings ceased beating frantically.
It hurtled toward the ground.
Kadeesha swiveled in the saddle to frantically check on Rassa and Thilde. Thilde’s wing beats had slowed. He looked like he was fighting with all he had to remain in the sky.
And Rassa … Kadeesha killing the other Aether fae had extinguished the fire, but Rassa was slumped forward, her limp and badly burned body draped over Thilde’s neck, a hole burned through her chest in the region of her heart.
Ask Thilde if Rassa is dead. Merely projecting the words to Zahzah was like a hatchet to the gut.
She is, Zahzah said tenderly after the span of a few breaths that felt like they’d stretched on for an eternity. Grief cracked through her. Later. She’d feel it all later. Right now, she had to keep herself and the rest of her sisters alive.
Ask Thilde if he has the strength to fly Rassa’s body somewhere safe and keep her hidden until we can get to her. They were among the most awful words Kadeesha had ever needed to speak. A moment after Kadeesha sent the question to Zahzah, Thilde let out a mournful, ear-piercing screech and took off toward the eastern skies.
All around them, their squadron and Rishaud’s continued to wage a fierce battle in the sky. Right then and there she resolved that she would lose no one else—and she would not feel bad for the decision either.
Tell the rest of the kongamatos to disseminate to the Nkita the altered orders, she told Zahzah. Attack with deadly force. It is unavoidable, and the chief priority is to lose no one else.
Kadeesha finally understood what she hadn’t at first. They weren’t only fighting against their own folk. They were fighting against the sheer amount of control Rishaud now wielded over every individual within the Six Kingdoms—a control that had turned the opposing squadron into his agents of destruction. And there was no place amongst faekind for mercy when savagery reigned.
Chapter Forty
THE AERIAL FIGHT ENDED SWIFTLY ONCE THE Nkita could fight to their full potential. Although she’d issued the order and had resolved not to grieve the losses while they’d been fighting, there was a hollowness inside her when she and Zahzah landed on the ground alongside the rest of her squadron. The two armies were intermingled now, soldiers on both sides fighting and tangled up in a mishmash of clashing weapons, sizzling magic, and flying blood and bodies. There was no way to have the kongamatos spew flames across the battlefield without claiming Apollyon lives too. So, she gave her Nkita the order to form a ground fighting unit while Zahzah and the other kongamatos flew back to the palace to stand sentinel in case any of Rishaud’s soldiers managed to make their way there. Malachi had his own sentinels—archers—posted on the turrets and along the outer wall, but the kongamatos would be an added layer of protection for those Trystin was escorting to safety, Yashira being among them.
Once that was decided, Kadeesha didn’t bother reaching for actual steel. Fighting with her flames and her flames alone was second nature and much more effective. She, Leisha, and Samira worked in a unit as they always did. She and Leisha leveled lethal assaults with aether fire and Samira tore a path through enemy soldiers using her blade, the three of them creating a sea of corpses. The battlefield was the one place where she didn’t need to hold back or feel bad for the utter destruction her flames could wreak. And while she was holding it together still, witnessing Rassa’s death had left her leaning into her destructive urges in full. She hadn’t correctly adjusted for losing the allegiance of the vassal kings before, or for Rishaud having taken command of her court after Sylas’s death. Even those she faced in purple-and-black uniforms wouldn’t see her as a fellow Aether fae on this battlefield, let alone their queen. No, they’d see her as exactly what the flyer who’d murdered Rassa had screamed: a traitor. An enemy to be eviscerated. And there was no time to convince them that they, in fact, were the ones betraying her and their own court. So, she needed to pay them the same regard back unless she wanted to get more of her sisters killed.
