Ruks took to the skies, flapping toward them, soldiers in their talons and clinging to their backs.
“Has anyone warned the healers?” Elide pointed to the white banners waving so far out into the plain. “The Healer on High?” Hafiza was down there, Yrene had said.
Silence. Then Prince Sartaq swore in his own tongue, and sprinted for his golden ruk. He was spearing for the battlefield within seconds, his shouts ringing out. Kadara dipped every few moments, and when she rose again, another small figure was in her talons. Healers. Grabbing as many of them as he could.
Elide whirled to her companions as soldiers began running for the keep, trampling corpse and injured alike. Orders went out in the language of the southern continent, and more soldiers on the battlefield leaped into action.
“What else—what else can we do?” Elide demanded. Aelin and Rowan only stared toward the battlefield, watching with Fenrys and Gavriel as the ruks raced to save as many as they could. Behind them, Princess Hasar paced, and Chaol and his father murmured about where they might fit everyone in the keep. Those who survived.
Elide looked at them again. Looked at all of them.
And then asked quietly, “Where is Lorcan?”
None of them turned.
Elide asked, louder, “Where is Lorcan?”
Gavriel’s tawny eyes scanned hers, confusion dancing there. “He … he went out onto the battlefield during the fighting. I saw him just before the khagan’s troops reached him.”
“Where is he?” Elide’s voice broke. Fenrys faced her now. Then Rowan and Aelin. Elide begged, voice breaking, “Where is Lorcan?”
From their stunned silence, she knew they hadn’t so much as wondered.
Elide whirled to the battlefield. To that endless stretch of fallen bodies. Soldiers fleeing. Many of the wounded being abandoned where they lay.
So many bodies. So, so many soldiers down there.
“Where.” No one answered. Elide pointed toward the battlefield and snarled at Gavriel, “Where did you see him join with the khagan’s forces?”
“Nearly on the other side of the field,” Gavriel answered, voice strained, and pointed across the plain. “I—I didn’t see him after that.”
“Shit,” Fenrys breathed.
Rowan said to him, “Use your magic. Jump to the field, find him, and bring him back.”
Relief crumpled Elide’s chest.
Until Fenrys said, “I can’t.”
“You didn’t use it once during the battle,” Rowan challenged. “You should be fully primed to do it.”
Fenrys blanched beneath the blood on his face, and cast pleading eyes to Elide. “I can’t.”
Silence fell on the battlements.
Then Rowan growled, “You won’t.” He pointed with a bloody finger to the battlefield. “You’d let him die, and for what? Aelin forgave him.” His tattoo scrunched as he snarled again. “Save him.”
Fenrys swallowed. But Aelin said, “Leave it, Rowan.”
Rowan snarled at her too.
She snarled right back. “Leave it.”
Some unspoken conversation passed between them, and the hope flaring in Elide’s chest went out as Rowan backed down. Gave Fenrys an apologetic nod. Fenrys, looking like he was going to be sick, just faced the battlefield again.
Elide backed away a step. Then another.
Lorcan couldn’t be dead.
She would know if he were dead. She would know it, in her heart, her soul, if he were gone.
He was down there. He was down there, in that army, perhaps injured and bleeding out—
No one stopped her as Elide raced inside the keep. Each step limped, pain cracking through her leg, but she didn’t falter as she hit the interior stairwell and plunged into the chaos.
She had made him a promise.
She had sworn him an oath, all those months ago.
I will always find you.
Soldiers and healers fled up the stairs, shoving past Elide. The shouting was near-deafening, bouncing off the ancient stones. She battled her way down, sobbing through her teeth.
I will always find you.
Pushing, elbowing, bellowing at the frantic people who ran past her, Elide fought for each step downward. Toward the gates.
People screamed, a never-ending flood surging up the stairs. Still Elide pushed her way down, losing a step here, another there. They did not even look at her, even try to clear a way as they flowed upward. It was only when Elide lost another step that she roared into the stairwell, “Clear a path for the queen!”
No one listened, so she did it again. She filled her voice with command, with every ounce of power that she’d seen the Fae males use to intimidate their opponents. “Clear a path for the queen!”
This time, people pressed against the walls. Elide took the small opening, and screamed her order again and again, ankle barking with every step down.
But she made it. Made it to the chaotic lower level, to the open gates teeming with soldiers. Beyond them, bodies stretched into the horizon. Warriors and healers and those bearing the wounded rushed toward any stairwell they could find.
Elide managed all of five limping steps toward the open gate before she knew it would be impossible. To cross the field, to find him on the endless plain, before that dam burst and he was swept away. Before he was gone forever.
He was not dead.
He was not dead.
I will always find you.
Elide scanned the gates, the skies for any sign of a ruk that might carry her. But they soared to the upper levels, crawling with soldiers and healers, some even depositing their charges onto the mountain face itself. And at ground level, none would hear her cries for help.
No soldiers would stop, either.
Elide scanned the other end of the gates’ entryway.
Beheld the horses being led out from their stables by frantic handlers, the beasts bucking at the panic around them as they were hauled toward the teeming ramps.
A black mare reared, her cry a sharp warning before she slashed her hooves at the handler. Lord Chaol’s horse. The handler shrieked and fell back, barely grasping the reins as the horse stomped, her ears flat to her head.
Elide did not think. Did not reconsider. She limped for the horses and the stables.
She said to the frantic handler, still backing away from the half-wild horse, “I’ll get her.”
The man, white-faced, threw her the reins. “Good luck.” Then he, too, ran.
The mare—Farasha—yanked so hard on the reins that Elide was nearly hurled across the stones. But she planted her feet, leg screaming, and said to the horse, “I have need of you, fierce-heart.” She met Farasha’s dark, raging eyes. “I have need of you.” Her voice broke. “Please.”
And gods above, that horse stilled. Blinked.
Horses and handlers streamed past them, but Elide held firm. Waited until Farasha lowered her head, as if in permission.
The stirrups were low enough thanks to Lord Chaol’s long legs that Elide could reach them. She still bit down on her shout as her weight settled on her bad ankle, as she pushed, and heaved herself into Farasha’s fine saddle. A small mercy, that they had not even had time to unsaddle the horses after battle. A set of what seemed to be braces hung from its sides, surely to keep Lord Chaol stabilized, and Elide unhooked them. Any weight, anything to slow her, had to be discarded.
Elide gathered the reins. “To the battlefield, Farasha.”
With a whinnying cry, Farasha plunged into the fray.
Soldiers leaped from their path, and Elide did not stop to apologize, did not stop for anyone, as she and the black mare charged toward the gates. Then through them.
And onto the plain.
CHAPTER 60
Rowan knew his magic would merely delay the inevitable. He’d debated flying to the dam, to see if he might hold the structure in place for just long enough, if he could not halt the river entirely, but the force of the thing on the other side … it could not be stopped.
Soldiers and healers raced for the keep, the ruks darting across the battlefield to bear those first in the water’s path to safety. But not fast enough. Even without knowing when the dam would break, it would not be fast enough.
Was Lorcan currently amongst those running, or had he managed to get onto a ruk?
“The power,” Fenrys said quietly to him, gripping the gore-slick wall. “It was the one thing Connall and I shared.”