CHAPTER 45

RISSA

My breath rattles in my chest like someone is shaking it in a bottle. Manu and I watch out the window as the fae start to overwhelm our soldiers. Even I can tell we're losing.

We squeeze each other's hands hard, worry gripping us both.

But then, a terrible roaring rends the air, and it's not from the timberwings or Kaila's magic. We flinch, gazes lurching to find the source.

"What's that?" I ask, pointing toward the curve of the sloping hill.

Manu's eyes flash, something like relief crawling down his face. "That's phase two."

"Phase two…what was phase two?"

But he doesn't have to say, because the movement along the snow forms into actual shapes I can decipher. Ships of white wood being pulled by a line of fire claws whose paws spark with flames.

"The Red Raids have arrived."

There are five ships that I can see, and they stream down the slope with amazing speed, the fiery felines pulling them in an outright sprint.

One of the ships gets rocked by a hit of magic that strikes its hull. A spray of violet light bursts from it, making the animals scream. The vessel flings and tips, dark plum smoke blasting out of it and rising into the air.

"Oh, no…"

I have no love lost for the snow pirates, but they're fighting with Orea. We need their numbers. But as heartless as it may seem, I'll gladly see them sacrifice themselves if it means Osrik and the others live.

The other four ships skid to a stop. The ramps toss open, and pirates stream out, pouring into the fray. Their animals are loosed too. The fire claws start racing toward the fae and tackling them, the large beasts roaring with bloodthirst and predatory hunger.

But more fae come out to meet them.

With the morning light, it's easier to see as fae flood into the battle from the innards of Ranhold Castle.

"There are more of them…"

Great Divine, how are there more of them?

"That must be their last line of defense," Manu replies, though his voice is shaken. Even he can't discount the growing threat. "There must've been more than we realized."

"We can't win, can we?" I whisper. "Not even with the snow pirates or your sister's magic."

Behind us, both of our guards have come up to look out the window too. The tension and worry glues to each one of us, sticking to the silence as we watch.

The snow pirates, the Elites, Fourth and Third soldiers…we're getting overwhelmed. It's not enough. After all our plans, it's not—

Suddenly, a horn blares.

From up on the slope where the Red Raids first appeared, an army crests.

My hand snags onto Manu's arm, fingers squeezing. "Who is that ?"

I squint, and I just barely make out two things: a banner of two converging suns and another one of the serpent king's sigil.

"First and Second Kingdom?" I ask breathlessly. "I didn't know they were coming to help!"

"They weren't," Manu admits, glancing down at me with surprise. "We didn't know they would be here. We sent missives to Second Kingdom, but we didn't know… The prince must've sent soldiers on ships and met King Thold at Breakwater. And they must've just come straight here."

Hope locks itself around my heart. Then my eyes widen when I see King Thold standing, green cloak snapping in the wind, wearing armor of green and black and a crown on his head. His Elites are with him, and all at once, he raises his sword and lets out a battle cry, sending First and Second soldiers to sprint down toward the fae.

Then the king raises both arms, and the ground rumbles and foams, seeming to bubble up…and a torrent of serpents bursts through the snow. The snakes pop up, their bodies long and white and huge.

There are dozens of them, and King Thold sends their zigzagging bodies to slither down the slope. They start attacking the fae with viciousness. Big jaws unhinging to clamp over legs and torsos. Long lengths wrapping around entire soldiers and constricting them so tightly the fae drop to the ground.

"Oh gods…"

The new arrivals of both snake and soldier now flood the battle scene. From our vantage point, it looks like the snowy landscape is an ocean of white. Snow serpents continue to burst up every few feet like choppy waves coming to snatch at the fae and drag them under.

The soldiers from Second and First Kingdom have reached Fourth and Third's Elites, backing them up and pushing at the influx of fae.

In the air, timberwings swoop down in deadly arcs, talons snatching fae and tossing them down again, making them plummet to their deaths. Snow pirates fight, fire claws rampage, and my heart beats so fast in my chest I think I might pass out.

But I don't dare miss a thing because the fae…the fae are losing .

"It's happened, Lady Rissa," Manu says beside me, his voice strangled.

"What's happening?" I ask, just as tightly.

"We don't need a rotting ground," he tells me as he looks over with the ghost of a watery smile. "Because Orea has finally united. We're fighting… together ."

The guards don't let us leave until the battle horn blows.

As soon as they deem it safe, I tear out of the noble's estate with Manu right behind me. We head out onto the slick street, all of us racing toward the castle.

The battle is over.

A bit of sunlight has pierced through the clouds, and it's stopped snowing, but I'm still frozen.

Cold fear has taken root.

My body trembles, but I say a silent prayer to the Divine as I race down Ranhold's empty streets. We pass corpses and charred buildings, but my eyes stay straight ahead.

We won the battle. Manu and I watched as our forces took out the fae, but this noose around my throat won't loosen. Not until I see if Osrik is okay.

If he lives .

When we get out of the city and come to the stretch of land in front of the castle's destroyed outer walls, I skid to a stop, my breath panting in and out.

It's so much worse seeing a battleground up close than it is from a tower window.

Placing my hand over my nose and mouth, I gag at the sight and smell of bloodied bodies and entrails spread around and staining the snow. Seeing the faces of the dead is probably going to haunt me forever.

But I look.

I look for every armored soldier clad in black metal chest plates and fierce helmets. I search through them, while Manu breaks away, running to a soldier from Third.

Cran sticks to my side, but we stop when we find a Fourth soldier. He sinks down to his knees and turns the man over and then yanks off his helmet. Unseeing eyes stare up at the sky, and Cran lets out a shaky breath, his face going pale.

I kneel down in the snow next to him. "What was his name?" I ask quietly.

"We called him Tipper," he chokes out. "Never could hold down his henade. Always tipped over whenever he tried to walk home from the taverns."

Even though I didn't know him, I feel my chest tighten. "I'm sorry."

Cran shoots out a breath and stands, gaze scanning the battleground where so many more bodies lie. "We fight, Lady Rissa. But even if we win, we still lose."

My jaw aches with emotion and I want to sob, because he's right. I'm terrified I'm going to lose too. I'm terrified to keep searching the bodies.

But I have to face it. I have to know.

So together, we keep looking, while groups of Second and Third soldiers seem to be doing the same. Cran and I find another six of Fourth's Elites dead.

None of them are Osrik.

We pass by so much gruesome death that once my tears start falling, they won't stop. Timberwings, Elites, soldiers from every kingdom, pirates, and fire claws. They all lie here amongst the bodies of the fae in a terrible ice-cold graveyard.

My heart feels ripped apart and stomped on by the time we make it to Ranhold's outer wall. Only a small part still stands, the rest of it left in rubbled pieces along the snow.

I feel like my heart is a rubbled ruin too.

But then I hear a voice.

"Rissa?"

My gaze jerks up. I can barely see him through the tears in my eyes, but Osrik's bulky body is unmistakable. He has his helmet off and his arms are bare and littered with slices. His black armor is dented and singed, and there are splatters of blood on his face.

But he's alive.

My entire body jolts, and I'm running before I even realize it. I slip and slide in the slick snow, barreling past the broken stone, but then I reach him and jump .

Osrik catches me beneath my arms. He lets me hang there in front of him awkwardly while he looks me over, his expression intense, brown eyes wild with worry.

"You okay?"

"I'm fine," I say with exasperation. "I was trying to leap into your arms!"

"You are in my arms," he says, giving me a little shake.

"Stop holding me out like this! This is the way you hold a stray cat you're worried is going to claw you!"

"I'm filthy," he warns.

"I don't care."

The next instant, I'm finally crushed against his chest, and he holds me the way I want, with his big hands firmly at my ass and his beard against my cheek.

"Are you okay?" I ask shakily, leaning back to get another look at his face that's streaked with blood. "Is any of this yours?"

"I'm good, Rissa. I have you."

A sob escapes me and I bury myself against him again, trying to stop my full-body shakes. "I was so scared," I admit, my breath hot, my tears scalding.

He squeezes me against him, one hand rubbing up and down my back in comforting strokes. "I'm okay. You're okay," he rumbles out. "We won."

I nod and turn to kiss him, my lips wet with my tears. Then I pull away and press my hands on his cheeks, my eyes darting between each of his. "You gave Manu the better house."

He frowns. "What?"

"Manu. He had the better house. So I went there so I could watch. He had a tower , Osrik," I lecture.

He pauses, his jaw muscles jumping. For some reason, that sight makes my stomach warm. "You were in the same room as the fucker who almost got you killed?"

"I didn't get a tower. I needed to see."

He opens his mouth like he wants to start lecturing me back, but then he lets out a thick sigh. "You know what? Fuck it. I'm just glad I have you in my arms."

Osrik kisses me again, his tongue insistent, teeth biting at my bottom lip and filling me with warmth that finally makes my shakes subside. "You exasperating fucking woman of mine," he mumbles against me. "Always trying to see if I'm okay."

I tug at his beard. "Well, stop putting yourself in danger and I won't have to."

His hand squeezes my ass, making my stomach spin. "That's the end goal, Yellow Bell."

After a moment, he sets me back down on my feet, keeping me tucked to his side. Everyone else is gathering in this courtyard area too, and I look around, trying to see who else is alive.

"Your commander? The captains?" I ask, because I know how much he cares about them.

He nods. "They're good too."

I breathe out a sigh of relief.

My gaze darts to the wall just as Manu and his queen sister pass through. Call me crazy, but I'm actually relieved for him. He looks across the courtyard, and when he sees I'm with Osrik, he gives me a small smile and a nod.

Osrik tenses next to me, but I tap his arm and look up at him. "It's fine," I tell him. "Sharing that tower window was good for me, I think."

"Killing them would be good for me," he mutters.

I laugh and pat him again before wrinkling my nose when I see all the blood I got on my hand. I wipe it off on his armor. "You just killed, like, a hundred fae," I point out.

"Actually, I killed a hundred bloodthirsty fae," Judd says cheerfully as he walks by, strutting like a peacock and tossing back his sweat-slicked hair. "I practically won this battle single-handedly!"

"You did not," Captain Lu shouts back as she appears.

"Aww, don't be jealous, Lu-Lu," he tells her as they meet up. "You helped a little. Right, Dig?"

Auren's old guard shakes his head at Judd. It's strange to see him in black armor instead of gold. Right behind him is Commander Ryatt. Every single one of them looks just as bloodied and battle-worn as Osrik.

But alive.

Second Kingdom's soldiers gather around too, their copper-hued armor stained with blood, and I can't help but notice there are fewer of them than the number that first crested the slope. I wonder how many they lost. I wonder how many all of our kingdoms have lost.

Like Cran said, even if we win, we still lose.

King Thold enters the ruined courtyard with some of his guards trailing after him, and he heads straight for Queen Kaila and her Elites. He still has a snow serpent dangling from his neck, the snake's tongue darting out and tail flicking against his side.

"Where did the rest of the snakes go?" I whisper to Osrik.

"He sent them back under the snow."

I glance down at the ground, barely stopping from picking up my feet. "That's…unsettling."

Osrik chuckles.

Judd breaks off to speak to a couple of Red Raids, their blood-colored cloths still tied around their faces. In the distance, some of their ships are smoking and ruined, their fire claws roaming free to feast on the fallen.

My stomach turns and I yank my gaze away.

A shadow suddenly casts over us, and I look up to see a timberwing landing. Commander Ryatt strides forward, stopping right in front of where the bird lands.

"Tyde?" he asks.

The Elite on the saddle has a bandage around his arm, and he holds himself stiffly. Beneath his armor, I can see the bulge where I know his chest is also wrapped. He was injured at the battle of Cliffhelm, but he didn't want to be left behind. His power of sight is so helpful that Osrik and the others didn't argue.

Tyde pulls down his face mask and wipes away the frost at his eyes. "I tracked them. There are still a few battalions between here and Breakwater."

An Orean with a copper breastplate steps forward. "Second Kingdom will defeat them. We have another ship landing at Breakwater soon. We will trap them and end them," he declares.

Everyone nods, and Tyde speaks up again. "Commander, I also tracked another group. Stragglers that fled back toward Sixth Kingdom. And there's still the fae who took Highbell."

"Then we take it back," the serpent king declares, his expression firm. "We go to Highbell and then to Seventh Kingdom too. We chase every fae all the way to the edge of the world."

Queen Kaila looks at Manu before stepping forward. "Third will help. Let us rid Orea of the rest of these fae," she says, her voice strong, her braid of black hair still perfectly in place and her silver armor gleaming.

Commander Ryatt exchanges a glance with Osrik, Lu, and Judd, and they seem to communicate silently. "We will track down the stragglers and meet you in Highbell," he says before he looks to Kaila. "Like Her Majesty said, let us rid Orea of them. Once and for all."

Everyone looks around at each other, the weight of this battle, this win, settling in. Orea was victorious. Through luck and strategy and uniting together, we somehow won against a devastating force. But it's not over.

Not yet.

King Thold nods. "For Orea."

Commander Ryatt is the first to repeat it, and then they all do. It falls from my own lips too, just as I hear Osrik rumble it out.

Even if we win, we still lose…but we do it for Orea.

For each other.

"We've won three battles," Lu announces, her dark skin streaked with bright blood. "Now, we have to win the war."