Fire Falling (41 page)

“I think it would be,” he agreed, pulling her closer.

“We will be together, from tomorrow?” She hadn’t dared ask, fearful of the answer. But if she had to brace herself for the worst, she wanted to know now. She would need the night to prepare herself.

“I wrote the list of soldiers myself.” Aldrik nodded. “We will not be apart ever again from tomorrow.”

“Isn’t that a nice dream?” She yawned again.

“My Vhalla, my lady, my love.” His words smoothed away the rough edges of her heart. “You make me do things far more dangerous than dream. You make me hope, you make me
want
.” He sighed a sound that was part bliss and part pain. “Mother, I have yet to discover if you will be my salvation or my demise.”

She twisted to look up at him, his dark eyes intense.

“I would never bring you harm.” She pressed her lips against his.

“Salvation, then.” He grinned against her mouth.

Morning threatened to burn through the canvas of the tent, and Vhalla felt as though the world began and ended with the man she was curled up against. His steady breathing and heartbeat were in perfect time with hers and created a melody that had a sweet timbre. Not quite awake, but no longer sleeping, Vhalla drifted through a blissful haze.

A haze that was abruptly interrupted by a broad-shouldered prince entering the tent. Vhalla sat quickly, as if doing so could hide the truth of spending the night in the crown prince’s arms. It was a contest to see whose face turned the reddest—hers or Baldair’s.

“Good Gods, you’re still here?” He cast a hand over his eyes as Aldrik sat as well, the covers pooling around his waist to reveal him only half clothed. “Brother, your debt to me is unfathomably great.”

Vhalla looked back at Aldrik in alarm, only to see that he had a lazy grin spreading from cheek to cheek. He turned to her, looking five years younger with a good night of sleep. Aldrik grabbed her for a brief kiss—startling in its passion, given their audience.

“My brother is right,” Aldrik whispered. “I must go or they’ll wonder where I am.”

She nodded.

“Wait for me until tonight?”

“Tonight?” She blinked at her prince.

“We will be together again with far fewer eyes upon us.” Aldrik grinned.

“In enemy territory!” She punched his shoulder, surprisingly playful given the subject.

“I’ll put the best men on watch.” He gripped her hand, bringing it to his mouth, kissing her knuckles.

“Any time now,” Baldair muttered, clearly uncomfortable by the lovers who had shared his bed.

“Unfortunately, no one will think twice about a woman leaving your tent,” Aldrik muttered, standing and dressing. “So I’ll go first.” He turned to Baldair. “Thank you, brother.”

There was a raw sincerity that Baldair was clearly not used to receiving from his brother. It brought a smile to Vhalla’s lips to be privy to it. The two of them weren’t so bad when they stopped fighting.

Aldrik gave her one last look, as if memorizing her form. Vhalla nodded. She only had to be strong for a short time more,
she could do it
. Then, that night, she’d find her way into his arms again. That knowledge alone kept her sane.

Baldair crossed over to the bed the second his brother left, assessing her. Vhalla regarded his gaze warily. “It’s real then.”

“What is?”

“You and Aldrik.” Baldair could barely say it, as if the words would bring the Mother’s wrath upon him.

“I love him.” She nodded. “And he loves me.”

“Vhalla ...” Baldair sighed and sat beside her on the bed. “
Please
, be careful.”

“More warnings?” She frowned.

“Not like before.” Baldair shook his head. “I’ve never seen Aldrik like this, I know his feelings are not mirrors and manipulation.”

“I tried to tell you that.” She was unable to hide her frustration. “He would never hurt me.”

“That’s not what I now fear for.” Baldair shook his head. “Vhalla, he is the crown prince.”

“I know that.” She gripped the blanket with white knuckles. “Why is it that you can be the playboy prince, chase whatever strikes your fancy, and he’s chastised for spending time with me? We haven’t even—” She stopped herself with a blush.

“Because I will not inherit the crown.” The prince regarded her with a heavy sincerity. “I’m the spare, Vhalla. No one cares what I do, they care what
he
does.”

“But they love you.” It was no secret who the common people’s favorite was.

“They love me because I never have to heap punishments upon them, or carry out executions, or levy taxes. I host parties and open casks of wine.” Baldair shook his head. “They don’t like him because Aldrik will be a fair ruler. He doesn’t care about being loved, he cares about doing what’s right.”

“And what’s wrong with—”

“Until you.” Baldair placed his palm on the top of her head. “You’re the first thing I’ve ever seen him want to take for himself.”

“What’s your point?” Vhalla knew already she wasn’t going to like it.

“That it also means that you are the first thing the world knows it can take from him.”

She froze in place and remembered Lord Ophain’s words:
the chink in his armor
. As deeply as their Bond ran, she was still learning about her prince and Vhalla saw the man known as the Fire Lord in a new way. His reputation, his titles, they elevated him and protected him better than forged steel or boiled leather.

“But I’ll try to make sure that doesn’t happen.” Baldair stood, helping her to her feet.

“Why?” She looked at him skeptically. “I have no interest in creating debts.”

He chuckled aloud. “That isn’t why I’m doing it. I have much to atone for when it comes to my brother. Maybe I didn’t realize how much until I saw him happy again. Either way, consider me your sword, Vhalla Yarl.”

She assessed him thoughtfully. He could be lying. But Baldair had never seemed to be intentionally malicious. Even the actions that had previously displeased her she couldn’t resent him for. If he was to be believed, it all came from a good place.

Vhalla raised her hand. “Then consider me your wind.”

Baldair smiled and clasped his palm against hers.

It was hard to be Serien when Vhalla was so happy, but she donned the guise of the other woman—mentally anyways. Serien was what she had to be, it was all she could be by daylight. To be anything else would make her worth noticing, and she was beginning to discover she enjoyed not being important.

“There you are!” Daniel waved her over for breakfast, and Serien sat between him and Craig. “I was worried.”

“Sorry about that. I went for a walk,” she lied easily and neither man questioned her. Serien wondered if Vhalla’s old friends would call her a bad liar now.

Daniel and Craig were easy going when other soldiers were beginning to fray at the seams. This was the two men’s third tour, and they knew what to expect. Serien thought about asking what she would see, but doing so was pointless. What awaited her would be there no matter what words they shared. But she knew who she would face it with.

So when the host was being divided, Serien walked with confidence to Aldrik’s group. None of the majors had instructed her to do so, but one catch of the prince’s eyes and she knew she was in the right place. They would face the North together. Serien balled her hands into fists, opening a Channel she shouldn’t possess.

The army began to settle, and the Emperor rode to the front. “Before we march, there have been a few changes to the groupings to better leverage the skills of our soldiers,” he announced. “The following people will move to Prince Baldair’s group ...”

The Emperor listed off a few names and a handful of soldiers from his and Aldrik’s groups found a new place.

He listed off a few more names, “... will move to Prince Aldrik’s group.” More shuffling followed. Serien shifted her weight from one foot to the next. She was ready to leave.

The Emperor continued with a few more names, suddenly drawing her attention, “... and Serien Leral. Will be under
my
command.”

The most powerful man in all the realms had somehow found her among the hundreds of soldiers, though it couldn’t have been hard as she had foolishly placed herself near Aldrik’s side. Serien looked up at the prince, panic originating from the other woman and rising up like bile in her throat.

The prince alternated between glaring at his father and looking hopelessly at her.

She couldn’t refuse, and her prince couldn’t speak for her, not in front of all these people. Serien dragged her feet to life.
They were being separated.
The Emperor had done this just to spite them. Serien wanted to scream, she wanted to blow the Emperor off his high horse with the strongest gale he would ever feel.

Vhalla’s emotions crept up on her: the fear of abandonment, fear of her friends dying while she was distant and helpless. Later Vhalla and all her emotions would escape. That shivering and shaking woman would break through Serien’s strength and claw her way to the surface. She would cry at the injustice of it all, at the unheeded warnings and blind hope.

But at this moment, she would keep herself together. She would be Serien, and she would keep her dignity. Serien held her head as high as possible, high enough that it tightened her throat and held in the tears and screams. She would not give the Emperor the satisfaction of seeing the last shred of her hope being crushed under his boot.

T
HE JUNGLES OF
the North were unlike anything Serien had ever seen before. The Southern forests were tall timbers with a few low shrubs and trees but mostly a carpet of twigs and leaves covered the ground. The North was a dense and oppressive contrast. Bushes and trees closed in at every level, vines as thick as her arm spider webbed across the branches high above.

The ceiling the trees created was deep, and everything was cast in a hazy green shade. Despite the fact that it was the middle of winter, the humidity in the air instantly made it a little too warm for the amount of armor she wore.

The terrain slowed them, and everyone had been deathly silent from the moment they entered the forest. It was an abrupt line in the sand of the Western Waste. A clear marker created by burnt and cut down trees where the Empire ended. It was strange to think of herself as no longer being in the Solaris Empire.

With a step, the world she had always known ended.

But it hadn’t just been one step. It’d been countless steps that had taken her here, and they’d all begun with a rainy night and an injured prince. Not all the steps had been made with confidence, and some had led her to pitfalls, but she was strangely glad she had made them.

Now, however, she didn’t know where her feet would take her. Serien stood a stone’s throw from the Emperor and fake Windwalker. She glanced at the man from the corners of her eyes. He rode confidently atop his War-strider, but his shoulders betrayed him. Despite his age he was attentive, alert, mindful of every place a threat could appear.

War was his arena, his art, and his legacy. He had laid siege to an entire continent and swept it under his banner in one lifetime. Serien turned forward again before he had a chance to see her attention. She wished an attack would come. She wanted to see this man at work with her own eyes.

But the day was uneventful, and by the time night fell there had been no attacks. They slept under fallen trees and huddled beneath brush. There were no fires or jovial discussions. There weren’t even tents set up. Serien made herself small underneath a sapling, pulling moss around her. The nights outside had prepared her for this. She hardened herself and stayed the tears for one more hour, then the next hour, and the hour after.

By the third day she had yet to cry. Her emotions toward the Emperor and his switch were beginning to cool and mimic those of her feelings toward the Head of Senate, Egmun. She had seen it as Vhalla, and now as Serien, the actions of men who wanted to break her.

Unfortunately for them, one couldn’t break what was already broken.

It was on the sixth day that Serien’s ears picked up movement in the brush above. She looked upward to see the currents of air moving throughout the boughs of the trees. There was something unnatural that lingered on the edge of the wind, and Serien recognized a moment too late that it was the sound of breathing.

Northerners descended upon them in freefall. They rained daggers that immediately found their way into the skulls of unfortunate soldiers. Serien reached for her hood of chainmail, forgetting with a curse that she was not in Vhalla Yarl’s armor.

“Firebearers!” the Emperor shouted.

The Black Legion soldiers ran out to the perimeter creating a wall of flame. The Northerners were assaulted by arrows and magical tongues of fire to burn away the brush that reached out unnaturally to catch them. One fell straight before her, the body nearly exploding upon impact with the ground after such a long fall.

Serien took a breath, trying to assess their situation. The wind whispered to her once more.

“Incoming
left
!” she cried. Serien drew her sword as everyone, including the Emperor, stared on in confusion.