“What about me?” Thalia asked. “Where shall I be posted?”
He addressed her as if she was an infantryman. “You and Day are our best shots, so you’ll both be in the pagoda, sniping.” He pointed to the tall, round structure. “It has windows on all sides, so the position is excellent both for defending the front gate and for getting shots at anyone who should breach the walls.” Gabriel didn’t add that it wasn’t only her excellent aim that earned her the post. Out of everywhere in the monastery, it was the most protected location, the one furthest from the actual battle, and he would only have to look up to know exactly where she was at all times. Having Day serve as her guard was a bonus. Gabriel might not like the charming bastard, but he knew that Day would do his utmost to keep Thalia safe.
Thalia seemed to guess the other part of Gabriel’s rationale for situating her in the pagoda, but at least she didn’t argue. Gabriel quickly went over a few of the final directions for the siege. “I believe that’s everything,” he said when he finished. He wanted to take up his position as soon as possible and get on with this damned fight.
“Not everything,” Lan Shun said, coming forward. He carried the kettle under one arm, and in his other, he held a gold silk pouch. A younger monk took the pouch from Lan Shun and began distributing its contents to everyone. Gabriel could not tell what they were being given, but when the monk approached Gabriel and motioned for him to hold out his hand, he did so. The monk set something tiny and round into Gabriel’s palm before moving on. Looking closely, Gabriel saw that he had been given a plant seed.
Even the Blades appeared puzzled as they studied the seeds in their hands. Lan Shun and his assistant both took seeds, as well.
“Place the seed here,” Lan Shun instructed, pointing at the hollow of his throat. Everyone obeyed, and Lan Shun started to chant.
No sooner did the words start to leave the head monk’s mouth, but the seed between Gabriel’s fingers became incredibly warm. He moved to drop it, but the seed didn’t move from where it nestled at the base of his neck. Instead, it began sprouting at an accelerated rate. He couldn’t see it happen on himself, but watched Thalia as she underwent the same experience, her eyes wide with surprise. Green tendrils curled out of both sides of the seed, curving up and around their necks like serpents. Gabriel tried to pull at it, but Lan Shun called out, “No! Let the seed do its work.”
Not particularly fond of snakes, even if they were actually plants, Gabriel struggled to keep from wrenching the seed away. But he endured the sensation of slithering, coiling plant shoots wrapping around his throat, until they met at the back of his neck. A living necklace.
“Do not, under any circumstances, remove the seed,” Lan Shun commanded. “It will protect you.”
“From the Heirs?” Altan asked.
“From this.” Lan Shun held up the kettle.
Thalia, Gabriel, and the Blades exchanged looks. What the hell were they getting themselves into, unleashing the power of the Source? But Lan Shun appeared confident, and, since Gabriel had almost no experience with Sources of any variety, he didn’t challenge the head monk.
“The Heirs will be here soon,” Graves said, checking his pocket watch.
Gabriel cocked his head to one side, listening. “I can hear them coming.” The hooves of their horses made a dim thunder, nearing the monastery. He knew the sound well. “Everyone, to their positions.”
As the assembled crowd dispersed, Thalia threaded through the men to Gabriel’s side. She reached for him, but he edged away from her touch.
“I can’t,” he growled. At her unspoken question, he continued. “I have to tell myself that you’re just another soldier. If, for even a minute, I thought of you as Thalia, the woman I love, the woman I want to be my wife, then I’d—” His voice hitched, cracked, and he squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them again, she’d taken a step back.
Her lips pressed tightly together, her eyes glistened, while twin spots of red stained her cheeks. “No kiss, then,” she said on a rasp.
Gabriel shook his head, not trusting himself to speak. Thalia nodded, looking not angry but determined, and then walked off in the direction of the pagoda. He curled his hands into fists to keep from reaching for her, and would only find much later the cuts his fingernails had made in the flesh of his palms.
Armed with a rifle and plenty of ammunition, Thalia climbed the stairs of the pagoda, Bennett following. Her feet took the steps as she ascended seven stories, but her mind was down in the courtyard with Gabriel. As much as she wanted one final embrace, one last kiss before the battle, she could not find fault with his decision to distance himself. If pushing her away was what it took to ensure his survival, then she’d let him. Anything to keep him alive.
Upon reaching the top floor of the pagoda, Thalia tried to suppress her potent memories of making love with Gabriel in that same room the night before. She looked out of the arched windows. As Gabriel had pointed out, the pagoda provided a view of every part of the monastery. She glanced down into the monastery to see people taking up their positions, and from her high vantage point, everything looked small and removed. Except for Gabriel. Her eyes went to him immediately—he commanded her attention, moving confidently and decisively through the monastery.
“You aren’t going to start sighing and languishing, I hope,” Bennett said dryly.
Thalia shot him a look as she moved toward the windows that faced the front monastery wall. “I should think you’re quite familiar with that.”
He grinned at her. “I’m long gone by the time the sighing and languishing begins.”
Her retort died on her lips as she and Bennett looked out the front windows. The Heirs and their mercenaries massed at the foot of the escarpment. They were a thick, bristling mob, a dark wound against the desert’s red plain. A handful of riders broke off to circle the mountain, but within minutes they returned. Scouting for a way up besides the front slope, and unsuccessful. Thalia spotted Lamb’s fair head at the front of the mob as he consulted with the riders. Seeing no other way up, he waved for the mercenaries to take the escarpment. The men surged forward.
“I see Henry Lamb is taking up his usual location at the rear,” Bennett muttered. “Protecting himself. What an ass.”
“Jonas Edgeworth is with him, as well.”
“That belligerent puppy? I suppose that’s Lamb’s punishment. And who’s that enormous heap of a man riding with them?”
“Tsend,” Thalia answered darkly. “The one Gabriel wrestled. A betrayer of his homeland. He sold his knowledge of the Source to the Heirs.”
“And Huntley defeated him? Good Lord, remind me not to get your captain angry.”
The sounds of the advancing horses grew louder as the Heirs and their army neared. Individual faces began to form from the crowd, all of them cold and ruthless, ready to kill for the promise of gold. As she fingered the strange necklace of plant shoots around her neck, Thalia wanted to crawl away to the other side of the pagoda and hide. She also wanted to throw boulders at their foes. Instead of doing either, she settled into position, shouldering her rifle and training the barrel on the approaching men. Bennett did the same in the window beside her.
Closer, closer. Thalia kept her finger on the trigger, though she knew she would have to wait until exactly the right moment to begin firing. Bullets were not in endless supply, and the moment she shot, her position would be revealed. She was no happier about having to kill, but she had no choice. One more mercenary alive meant one more person able to hurt Gabriel.
The mercenaries halted their advance fifty feet away from the monastery’s front gate. Horses pawed the ground, restive, and the men shifted in their saddles, ready for war.
“Last chance,” Lamb’s voice boomed out. It was so loud, Thalia’s teeth rattled. “Give us the Source, or you will all be slaughtered.”
“How can he do that with his voice?” she asked Bennett, her ears ringing.
“Caesar’s Clarion,” Bennett answered grimly. “A charm used by conquerors to intimidate their enemies.”
But those protecting the Source would not be cowed so easily. Stony silence met Lamb’s demand.
“Death, then,” Lamb thundered, sounding almost pleased at the opportunity to kill. He shouted to his men, and, with a collective roar, they surged toward the monastery gate.
“Now?” Thalia asked Bennett.
“Wait.”
The mercenaries drew nearer.
“Now?”
“A moment longer.”
The pagoda shook with the force of an explosion. Horses reared, and mercenaries were thrown as Catullus’s incendiary devices, buried in the ground, were trod upon. They were clay pots filled with an exact proportion of chemicals that combined and detonated when pressure was put on them. One after the other, the advancing mercenaries triggered the devices, which heaved dirt and chaos as they blasted. Confusion struck, and some tried to retreat while their brethren pushed forward.
At the same time, the brigands stationed along the front wall began firing into the group. Smoke and noise. Men pitched backward off of their mounts.
“Now!” Bennett commanded.
She and Bennett fired. Thalia tried to pick her targets wisely, only taking shots she knew she could make. Some men went down. Between each shot, she ducked down as the mercenaries returned fire. Chips of stone flew from the window as bullets flew overhead.
But there were only so many bandits stationed at the wall, and she and Bennett were only two, versus well over a hundred men intent on getting inside the monastery. Before too long, the mercenaries were at the front wall and swarming around the sides. As Gabriel had predicted, they had ropes attached to grappling hooks, and Thalia soon heard the clank of the metal hooks thrown up the walls and finding purchase.
Thalia continued to shoot, watching as the mercenaries began to scale the walls. When the attackers were midway up, a few monks tossed burning embers down. The mercenaries laughed as the embers grazed passed them, but their laughter cut off abruptly. Flaming embers caught on the ropes that Catullus had wrapped around the monastery walls. Soaked in a chemical solution, the ropes burned quickly, then exploded. Men toppled from their severed grappling lines like ants.
“Remind me to kiss Catullus later,” Bennett shouted over the din.
“You’ll have to queue up,” Thalia yelled back. “I’m first.”
“Don’t think your captain would appreciate that.”
“He’ll be second in line.” Thalia reminded herself that Gabriel was ensconced in the temple, protecting Lan Shun and the Source, and, for now, he was safe. Turning her attention to the action outside the monastery wall, she continued to shoot, reload, and shoot. Even though their grappling lines had been cut, the mercenaries continued to swarm up the walls with makeshift lines.
Knowing that bullets were precious, Thalia scanned the advancing mob, trying to find the Heirs in the midst of the pandemonium. If she could wound or kill Lamb and Edgeworth, the mercenaries might turn. Go for the officers, she remembered Gabriel telling her once. An army without leaders couldn’t fight.
But Lamb, damn him, was elusive. Never staying anywhere for long, ducking in and out of the attacking mercenaries, he kept himself well hidden behind a human shield. And Edgeworth…
“I can’t find Edgeworth!” she shouted at Bennett.
Bennett scanned the horde, using his spyglass. “Where did that squirrelly bugger get to?” he muttered. “Wait—I see him! But what the hell is he doing?” He handed Thalia the glass, and she followed his direction.
Kneeling in the dirt, far at the back of the invaders, Edgeworth focused on the soil at his feet. Something metal glinted on the ground. It looked as though he chanted, and, as he did so, a small whirlwind of dust began to gather and twist in front of him. Edgeworth continued to chant as the eddy grew and gathered momentum. Soon, the whirlwind was taller than a man. And it glinted and glittered with the presence of magic.
“He’s casting some kind of spell,” Thalia said darkly as she returned the spyglass.
“Not if I can stop him.” Bennett took up his rifle, aimed, and fired. “Damn! He’s too far to get a decent shot.”
“Maybe I can get closer,” Thalia said. “If I went down to the wall, perhaps I could—”
“No.” Bennett, his gaze still fixed on Edgeworth, rose from his crouch. “I’ll go.”
“He told you to keep me up here, didn’t he?”
Bennett didn’t bother asking who she meant or denying the charge. He headed for the stairs, with Thalia at his heels. “I’m a better shot than you,” she protested, following. They reached the sixth floor. Sounds of battle drew closer as the bandits continued to fire on the mercenaries, while the enemies fired back. A man screamed.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Bennett threw over his shoulder.
“I’m not. But be reasonable.”
Bennett barked out a laugh. “There’s nothing reasonable about the way your captain feels about you. Get back to the top of the tower, Thalia.” Fifth, then fourth floors.
“But—”
Shouts and yells interrupted her, louder than the terrible and typical noise of warfare. Thalia and Bennett raced to the window on the fourth floor of the pagoda to see what caused the uproar. Shocked at what she saw, Thalia gripped Bennett’s arm without knowing that she did so.