21. Declan

Chapter 21

Declan

I stripped off my heavy coat and began lifting the straps of the pack from my shoulders. “We just walked into another cave. I’m going to put you down so I can look for wood for a fire.”

A second later, a feathery head poked out of the pack that now rested against the wall of the cave in time for a brief gust of icy wind to smack órla in the face. She disappeared back into the pack.

“I’ll just stay here and guard your pack. You never know who might be in these woods.”

I sent a trickle of amusement through our bond and rolled my eyes as I wrapped the heavy coat around my shoulders again, tossing the hood up before stepping out of the cave’s shelter. I scanned the area, but it was hard to tell where the dirt and stones of the mountain stopped and the tiny streams that normally bubbled down the slopes began. The blizzard had picked up. Snow slammed into me sideways, pelting me with bits of ice mixed with moist flakes. I couldn't see more than a few paces ahead, and after a moment of futile wandering, I returned to the cave empty-handed.

órla flitted about, stacking stray limbs she’d found scattered about the grotto into a pile that was now more than a foot tall.

I stood dismayed.

“You didn’t bother looking in the dry, snowless cave before you left.”

“Well, now I feel dumb.” I could barely move my frozen, cracked lips, but my eyes smiled as I joined in the search for more wood. Ten minutes later, we huddled around a small, crackling fire.

I couldn’t help thinking of Ayden and wishing he sat with us. He would likely have some jest teasing his lips, ready to make me feel less alone. We’d been apart a day this time, yet I already missed him.

I missed his smile. I missed his brassy hair. I missed his touch.

“You are thinking about him again, aren’t you?” órla asked without any of her usual teasing.

“I . . . were you in my head again?”

“I’m always in your head. You should know that by now.” A warm chuckle traveled through our bond and shook my chest. “But it doesn’t take a spiritual connection to see that look on your face. You’re staring at the fire like you want to stick your tongue—”

“All right, I get it.” I shot her a glare, unable to keep a smile from parting my lips. She was too cute for her own good. “Fine, I miss him. Are you happy now?”

Her head cocked. I prepared myself for a jab, but her voice softened to a gentle touch. “I could never draw happiness from your sorrow. The love you share flows through our bond as brightly as your magic in your soul. I would never see you parted, if the Spirits allowed such for any man.”

I stared at my companion, my mouth open and ready to speak, but could not find words. There was such sincerity in her voice, such compassion. It flowed into me and wrapped me in her embrace.

“I do love him, órla,” slipped out with a wispy breath. “I tried so hard to fight it, to resist what I knew grew inside me each time we spoke. How did he worm his way into my heart? How did he shatter the walls . . . I’d been alone for so long.”

The perky owl returned. “Bah! You have never been alone. You were just too stubborn and blind to see those around you.”

Despite my mood, I laughed. “Perhaps you are right.”

“As usual.”

I laughed again. “Yes, as usual, my little wise one.”

“Ooh, I like that. Can that be how you address me now?”

I buried my face in my hands. “Spirits, why me?”

“I have been asking that since I found you wandering in the woods.”

Unable to win the day—or any debate, ever—I reached over and scratched órla’s feathery head and let her coo-purr sing me into drowsiness.

I dreamed of fiery hair and passionate kisses.

The blizzard finally petered out, and the sun shone brightly in the cloudless sky when we resumed our journey the next morning. Snow piled up to my knees under the canopy of barren trees but rose above my head in places not shielded from the sky. I thanked Larinda throughout our trek, as the tunic and magical wine kept me warm. órla settled for a few sips of wine and the warmth of my fluffy cloak.

“We should make it to Grove’s Pass by midday.”

Over our days of hiking, we hadn’t seen a single animal, and only a few birds who had apparently missed the call to migrate before winter set in.

órla hopped out of my pack and flapped to rest on a nearby limb.

“Declan, stop. Look at this.”

“Shh.” I pressed a finger to my lips as I ran my other hand across the shaft of an arrow. “This isn’t Ranger fletching. Someone else was hunting up here, in the middle of winter, and from the tip on this arrow, they weren’t hunting game.”

I inspected the area around the tree, but snow dashed any hope of discovering more.

Trees finally gave way as we stood a few hundred yards from the wooden walls of Grove’s Pass. The town was usually sleepy and quiet in the dead of winter, especially after a storm like the one that had just passed through, but something felt wrong in the deafening silence that filled my ears.

It was too quiet.

Like the land around us for leagues in every direction, the buildings and roads of the town were covered under several feet of thick, wet snow.

No guards patrolled the wall or gates.

No children played.

Nothing stirred.

“The blizzard died days ago. People should be out gathering wood, caring for livestock . . .”

These were hardy folk who were used to winter’s bite. There wasn’t a single footprint or track.

Hundreds lived in Grove’s Pass. It served as a central trading town wedged between Melucia’s capital and the Kingdom’s border. Rustic cabins that housed the folks who lived at the foot of the mountain range stood quiet, their peaks frozen.

The only sound was the wind whipping through the wood of the palisade.

órla echoed my concern through our bond. “Stay here. I’ll take a look from above.”

I stepped back into the cover of the trees and pulled my hood over my head, then closed my eyes to share órla’s sight. She launched into the air and flew high above.

As she soared over the gate, my breath caught.

Details sharpened.

Every building was now little more than a charred shell. Blackened wood frames strained beneath the snow’s weight. In many cases, roofs had failed and snow had poured into the structure.

The snow obscuring the roads that crisscrossed the town was pristine, undisturbed.

órla’s vision swiveled in my mind as she turned her head.

The Rangers’ headquarters came into view, and órla dipped down to get a closer look.

The massive building was designed to house, feed, and train more than a thousand Rangers. When I had last seen the place, it looked like a colossal wooden box made of immense logs half as wide as I was tall. Hundreds of years earlier, when the complex was built, the Mages’ Guild had enchanted each of those logs to resist both weather and time.

They had not anticipated Mages’ fire.

The sight of the charred rubble of my former home stabbed me deeper than any blade, and I couldn’t sit and watch any longer. I shook off órla’s sight, grabbed my pack, and bolted from my hiding spot at the edge of the woods.

Dear Spirits, my brothers can’t be dead. Let them be all right.

Then my heart seized. What if Ayden stopped here on his way to Saltstone? What if . . .

I ran toward the wooden wall, heedless of danger, desperate to see for myself.

As I drew closer, my gut clenched.

The southern gate now stood broken, one corner barely clinging to its frame by its last surviving hinge. Every beam of the wall was charred, with many little more than ashes buried under snow.

Everything in me screamed to ignore the houses and buildings and race to the headquarters, but something rising above the snow caught the corner of my eye as I passed the first house. I slowed my sprint and peered around the burned shell. Barely visible stretching up through the snow, a delicate hand reached toward the sky. I threw myself to the ground and dug with gloved hands. When I finally felt something solid, my gloved fingers worked carefully to brush away winter’s shroud. A woman’s face, frozen in terror and pain, stared into my eyes, her mouth frozen wide in a soundless scream. Scarlet-stained ice covered her chest where she’d been butchered by a blade.

My eyes fell to the bundle in her arms.

A girl, no more than three or four winters.

Tiny arms clung to her mother.

The same scarlet ice obscured an opening in her fragile neck.

“No. This can’t be real. Please, Spirits, let this be another dream or test,” I pleaded as I cupped the girl’s cheek.

“Declan, come. You need to see this.” órla’s voice was hollow in a way I had never heard before. I spoke a silent word of blessing to the woman and child, then rose and staggered numbly toward órla’s call.

As I passed through the center of town, more bodies appeared as lumps in the snow. I spotted dozens of arrows rising above, their dull fletching a last monument to the poor soul buried beneath—the same fletching I had seen lodged in the tree.

I paused to uncover a few, finding Rangers and villagers. They’d been burned to unrecognizable cinders or lay covered in brittle blood that had once poured from gaping wounds. Lifeless eyes and voiceless cries imprinted themselves on my mind.

I stood on the main road, frozen by the surrounding devastation.

Rubble replaced the buildings that had once teemed with life.

Shops of the butcher, clothier, baker, and others—shops I knew well, people I knew well—lay wrecked and dead.

Charred skeletons of horses guarded remnants of the stable, while a lone anvil marked the mournful grave of the town’s smith.

My neighbors, my friends.

Gone.

The once-vibrant inn, the heart of the town, had been leveled. It wasn’t even a shell of a building anymore, as the roof and walls had simply vanished. The stench of burned wood and flesh had been largely muted by the feet-thick snow, but death’s aroma assaulted my senses as I stepped inside.

I climbed over mounds of rubble to find the marble bar that lined the back of the common room still standing. I brushed snow away, revealing the smooth surface of the countertop. There were odd pockets in the stone, as if someone had scooped them out with a large spoon. I traced a finger into the divots, as understanding dawned. The stone had melted , creating craters where none existed before.

How much heat and rage were required to liquify stone?

“Declan. Come here. Now.”

I lurched from the inn. My mind reeled, and my stomach churned. Nothing made sense. Nothing felt real.

Tears of anger and pain clouded my vision.

I stumbled into the snow.

I looked down to find another frozen Ranger with arrows protruding from his body.

It was Cormac.

Cormac Silivan.

The best of my trainees. The rising star. The one who would make a better Ranger than I ever could.

His face held such youth, such promise.

I rose to my knees and retched.

A moment passed before I found my footing and once again staggered toward my former home.

I could scarcely recognize the headquarters until I stood a few paces from its entrance. The giant front door still rested in its mighty frame, but it no longer guarded the hall built for a thousand souls.

Now it guarded a grave.

An immense mound of snow towered above. It shrouded tons of wood and ash and flesh.

How many men and women lay interned in that mound?

How many of my brothers and sisters?

I stepped to the door, removed a glove, and stretched a bare hand toward the charred wood. I didn’t know why I reached out. I felt compelled.

Was I paying some personal tribute to the lost?

Or did I just want to feel connected to the place—and the people—who were no more?

I knew not.

When my hand touched the door, my head swam.

My heart raced, and sweat bloomed across my brow.

Horror, pain, and grief ripped through my chest, and I sank to my knees.

“DECLAN!” órla screamed in my mind as she darted from the sky.

Visions seized control.

My eyes rolled back, and images flashed from one disjointed moment to the next.

The night is crisp and clear, the moon a sliver.

Snow has yet to fall.

Grove’s Pass stands quiet.

Smoke curls from chimneys.

The few unfortunate Rangers on gate duty chat quietly through chattering teeth.

A single bell tolls.

On any other night, no one would care. Had a guard on duty bumped the bell with a sword? Had he fiddled with the clapper or the hammer in boredom, accidentally slamming one or the other into the side of the cast iron dome?

A single peal would never send the village into a blur of activity.

It might wake the children.

But this wasn’t any other night.

The vision shifted.

Captain Whitman bolts from his office.

He looks terrified.

As he runs toward the front of the building, he barks alarm to everyone he passes. Steady, deliberate motion transforms into a frenzy in moments.

By the time the Captain reaches the door, men in green cloaks line every wall, bows drawn, arrows nocked.

Young boys race with more supplies of arrows.

Torches bloom every few paces outside the wall’s protective ring.

The Captain looks up at the signal tower, trying to make out silhouettes that blur in the twilight. There should only be one man on that platform.

He sees two.

Then one shadow falls to the ground with a heavy thud.

Before he can react, men cry out from every direction.

His head swivels, searching.

He takes one step before the first arrow slams into his shoulder.

Shock floods his eyes as a second arrow strikes his thigh, then a third his stomach.

He tumbles to his knees.

Rangers race from inside the building to aid their fallen Captain, but bolts rip into them as they darken the doorway.

A whistler arrow streaks from the forest beyond the wall, its shrill shriek jarring the silent night.

Rangers manning the walls fire arrows blindly into the woods toward their unseen foes. Responding missiles have no difficulty finding their well-lit targets as volley after deadly volley flies true, eradicating the defenders in moments.

Civilians pour from their homes, men and women carrying children or belongings, anything their arms could hold, screaming and crying as they race toward the eastern gate, desperate to escape.

When defenders on the walls fall silent, dozens of archers and swordsmen rush from the woods. Thick fur cloaks fly behind them as they run.

A ball of fire sails from the forest, incinerating a section of wall.

The intruding men barely slow as they pass through the smoldering gap.

Enemy archers form a line a few paces inside the wall, while swordsmen continue their charge.

Rangers pour out of the headquarters. They are cut down by flying steel the moment they taste fresh air.

Before long, a pile of dead Rangers bars the door as effectively as wood once had.

Shira is among them.

Shira!

Screaming civilians run or freeze altogether, unable to process the slaughter unfolding before them. Anyone moving is shot by arrow or sliced by sword.

A trickle of blood along the road grows into a stream as more topple and bleed.

Cries erupt from every direction—screams of men and women, of their children—screams of terror, pain, and death.

No one is spared.

My mouth filled with a metallic tang, as though I tasted the bitter fruit of the enemy’s wrath.

Dozens of soldiers burst into homes, a deadly dance choreographed for maximum devastation. Those not killed are dragged, many still in their nightclothes, into the gravel road, where they are silenced forever with blades or bows.

Lachlan, another of my troop, races from his hiding place behind the inn.

A half dozen arrows find their mark.

He falls to the cold, hard ground.

And then the Mages come.

Men in long coats of quilted pelts emerge. They stride slowly, deliberately, ancient words dripping from their lips.

Their eyes blaze.

Fire leaps from their palms.

In moments, the ancient town is ablaze.

Archers bar the gates. None may leave.

An old man, hobbled by age, staggers forward. His thin robe is torn and edged with sooty blackness. His eyes are desperate. Angry bolts tear through him, one after the other, until he falls atop the rising heap of those who had sought mercy before him.

Mages ring the Rangers’ Compound.

Their hands lift toward the sky.

Their bellowing chorus rises above destruction’s roar.

Blue-white flame erupts from their palms and blasts through the ancient structure.

The roar is deafening, the flare blinding.

The building falls.

I tried to block out the screams of Rangers trapped inside the inferno.

I covered my mouth and nose, desperate to keep the stench of death from my lungs as scorched flesh and charred pine floated on billowing black smoke.

The Mages finally tire and lose their fury.

Nothing remains of Melucia’s ancient Order of Rangers.

The scene shifted again.

Soldiers fade back into the forest.

Mages retreat.

A lone man strides through the lifeless town.

He stops and turns as if listening. Yes, he heard something—or someone.

He rolls his shoulders and grips his bloodthirsty sword, then creeps toward the mysterious sound.

A house has survived the flames.

With a powerful kick, he wrenches the door from its hinges. His quarry cowers on the floor before him.

A mother, her weeping child clutched tightly, begs for mercy.

His sword offers none.

My eyes opened to find órla staring down from my chest as I lay on my back in the snow. I felt the back of my head, and my numb, ungloved hand came away wet with blood.

“Are you all right? You hit your head pretty hard when you fell.”

Bile was sour in my mouth.

I sat up slowly, trying to make my head stop swimming. “Yeah, I think so. I had another vision. This time it wasn’t the future.”

“I know. I can see them with you now.” Her voice carried little joy in our newly shared Gift.

I reached into my pack and drank deeply of the healing wine, then braced myself against the door as I gained my feet. Images from the vision flooded my mind. A maelstrom of grief and anger welled within my chest. I turned away from the door, forcing myself to take in the town’s devastation again.

My feet carried me forward on their own.

Before I realized it, I was standing in the center of town.

I looked down at the Ranger I’d uncovered before, a man I had trained beside when I was a cadet.

Righteous fury rose.

My magic raged.

Without thought, I called air from every direction, demanding it bend to my will.

The tornadic cacophony was deafening.

When I could hold no more, I screamed my anger toward the sky and threw my palms outward, releasing the powerful pulse. Like a crater carved by a fallen star, snow billowed around me for a hundred paces.

Ancient trees bowed against the powerful gust.

Loosened boards flew from buildings and fences.

What remained of the town’s walls shattered and flew.

The thick blanket of snow was blasted away, forming massive drifts well beyond the wall.

Freed from their frozen tomb, broken bodies stared up in anger and anguish, frozen in their final agonizing moment of life. Some lay buried under fallen roofs. Others bore gashes from swords. Even more were riddled with arrows and bolts.

“Ayden!” I shouted, knowing my voice would reach no living man, but desperate for anything that might offer hope. “Damnit, Ayden Byrne, answer me!”

No one stirred.

I dropped to my knees and focused all my will. I grasped my Light as one ready to wring a chicken’s neck. Its power pulsed and writhed, yet I held firm.

In my mind’s eye, I conjured Ayden. His hair blazed beneath the bright sun. “Hear me, Ayden. Where are you? Spirits, are you alive? Tell me you still live. Please . . .”

I knew he couldn’t respond. Even if he had survived the devastation, he had no magic. Unless he slept and I entered his dreams, he could receive my mental plea but not reply.

Still, I could not surrender. The enemy had taken so much. They could not tear hope from my chest. I could not let them.

So, I walked among the dead.

“Declan.”

“I must do this. I have to know.”

Tears stained my face as I kneeled beside each of the fallen. I gripped hands and muttering words of comfort and farewell. I memorized each face, seared each fractured pose into my thoughts.

Hundreds—a thousand? How many lay frozen . . . and broken?

My mind could no longer count.

My eyes begged to turn away, to close, but I forced them to see and remember.

The snowy shroud blown aside, I saw them now.

I saw them all.

But I did not see Ayden.