Chapter Nine

Queen of Fracture

Queen Freyja Zyrr

Western bank of the Vo River, north of Voloi

Fifteen days after Xishlon

The Eastern Realm is in chaos, Freyja Zyrr considers as she stands on the Vo River’s broad bank. Her gaze slides along Noilaan’s runic border wall, the Vo River just beyond. She narrows her gaze at the Vu Trin forces positioned along the sapphire-glowing border’s base and takes stock of the situation, the overcast day as grim as her thoughts. Four of her Queen’s Guard soldiers surround her, her people having emerged from a portal lag into this stretch of wilderness north of Voloi one day prior.

A chill wind whipping at her black hair, Freyja battles back a surge of grief for her beloved Queen Alkaia, brutally slain by the cursed Mages. She pulls in a measured breath, struggling to adjust to the mantle their slain monarch placed upon her too-young shoulders—queen of the Amaz. Leader of a people who are suddenly refugees in a land where it’s clear they are thoroughly and completely unwanted. And leader of a people who would hate her if they knew how much she yearns to find out if her secret love, Clive Soren, made it to the East.

Is Clive even alive?

Freyja stiffens her shoulders against the rush of emotion, the pull of the straps attaching her runic axe to her back a steadying thing. Her people need to come first, above all things.

Even her own heart.

Willing fortitude, she glances over her shoulder at the half-decimated Vo Mountain Range, the upper half of the peaks now a dark, melted apex of Shadow-smoking stone. She turns back toward the runic border, which grows higher and moves farther north each day.

To wall Westerners out of Noilaan, including us.

Ire flares, burning hot in Freyja’s chest as she remembers the military support her people gave to Noilaan during the last Realm War. How courageous Amaz battalions took down legions of Mage forces after the last Black Witch was killed, countless women struck down, their sacrifices key to halting the Mages’ incursion into the East.

Now that the Amaz have landed on Noilaan’s doorstep, it seems the East has a very short memory indeed.

Go ahead and wall us out, Freyja seethes at the entirety of Noilaan as the wind grows stronger. We’ll claim the Northern Vo Forest as our own and wall you out in turn.

A hard crack of thunder sounds, and Freyja glances north toward the storm that’s moving in, the clouds ominous masses of gray. Galvanized by the incoming storm, her people call out to each other from both the riverbank and the wilderness to their west as they hastily fortify the small city of rune-marked shelters they’ve erected inside the Vo Forest’s tree line, an army of Amaz soldiers ringing their newfound territory’s hastily established periphery, guarding it with warrior focus from intruders.

Freyja surveys her soldiers’ weapons, a growing number of the axes and blades, arrows and battle-staffs glowing Varg emerald against the day’s stormy gray, the Varg runes swiftly crafted by their Smaragdalfar runic sorceress, Vestylle Oona’rin. There’s a martial light in her soldiers’ eyes as they study the Vu Trin forces stationed along the border wall.

Ready to war with them if need be.

Freyja’s response to the Noi Conclave’s firm “request”

to “portal back West”

was an immediate call to arms that seemed to catch the Conclave off guard. The sight of a few thousand Amaz, both soldier and civilian, leveling their weapons in unison at the three Conclave members and accompanying Vu Trin tasked with relaying the “request”

was a formidable sight to behold.

Force us into a corner, Freya fumes, and we’ll simply annex a piece of Noilaan for the Goddess’s Own.

Defiance on behalf of her people surging, Freyja makes the Goddess’s symbol on her chest, kisses her fist, and thrusts it toward the heavens, ready to face down every force on Erthia as she booms out the Goddess’s Warrior Prayer for the Defense of Her Free Daughters—

“We will fight with the Goddess’s Own Fury!

“We will fight to avenge every Blessed First Daughter!

“We are the Ever-Unbroken Free People of Amazakaraan!”

A roar of alliance rises, women’s voices vehemently echoing Freyja’s Goddess blessing all around her. A knot of emotion tightens Freyja’s heart as she turns and scans the countless tattooed faces turned to her, young girls and adults alike, their fists raised to the heavens, expressions of alliance on every face, including little Pyrgomanche, the adopted Icaral daughter of the warrior Alcippe Feyir, the young, winged child held in the arms of Alcippe’s longtime love, Skyleia.

Fierce tears stinging at Freyja’s eyes, she nods stiffly in response to her people’s show of support, determination to be worthy of them, no matter the odds, burning in her core.

Even if it means giving up Clive forever.

“My queen.”

Freyja turns at the sound of Alcippe’s rough voice, the imposing warrior striding toward her through the throngs of Amaz, her newly Varg-rune-marked axe sheathed across her broad back. Alcippe is flanked by two Amaz soldiers—the silver-eyed, gray-hued Elfhollen-Amaz archer Teel and the sky blue–hued Sorcha Xanthippe, former lover of Andras Volya.

Freyja’s shoulders stiffen as she takes in the simmering hostility in Alcippe’s rose-hued gaze and Sorcha Xanthippe’s penetrating golden eyes. Freyja is quite clear that she’s the absolute last woman Alcippe and Sorcha would have chosen to replace their beloved queen, Freyja’s hidden relationship with Clive Soren an ill-kept secret—one that Freyja knows dredges up Sorcha’s own suppressed conflict over giving up both Andras and the male child they created together. Freyja also knows both Alcippe and Sorcha are guardedly willing to countenance her, but only because Queen Alkaia named Freyja monarch.

Confusion knots Freyja’s brow as she stares Alcippe down. “Where is Alder Xanthos?”

she asks. “I have assured the Vu Trin that we will bring her to them for questioning.”

“She’s disappeared without a trace,”

comes Alcippe’s harsh reply. “And so has a surviving flock of giant Issani eagles.”

Freyja’s jaw tightens, this development potentially alarming. The Noi have temporarily backed down on a multitude of demands as Freyja tensely negotiates with them for a new Amaz homeland in the East, but this is one demand she knows there will be no negotiating over—the possible past and present allies of the Black Witch are being hunted down.

Freyja is well aware that Alder and the former head of the Queen’s Guard, Valasca Xanthrir, bonded with Elloren Gardner when they all worked together to rescue the Selkies. Now, all of Elloren Gardner’s allies—including Alder—have up and disappeared. And through Freyja’s own negligence in not thinking to post a guard around Alder, the Black Witch’s allies potentially have access to flight.

Freyja catches the accusatory glint in Alcippe’s eyes, the unspoken thunderously loud between them. You’re already failing at being our queen.

Freyja closes her eyes and prays to the Goddess for clarity and strength. She curses herself for ever entertaining the idea that the last Black Witch’s granddaughter, Elloren Gardner Grey, should be allowed to live when Elloren journeyed to Amazakaraan, all because Elloren seemed powerless and was heroically bent on freeing Selkies, the Goddess’s own Sacred Wand-Stylus having inexplicably chosen her as its Bearer. In reality, the Mage was hiding her vast power the whole time and holding the Wand-Stylus hostage to eventually wield it as the Great Prophecy’s Black Witch.

Remorse strikes through Freyja as she wonders how much more she can fail her people before they see her for what she is—too young and morally compromised to succeed at being queen.

Tension taut in the air, she meets the gaze of Alcippe and then the soldiers bracketing her, unable to battle back her sinking feeling in response to the wavering faith in their eyes.

How much worse can the chaos get?

“Freyja!”

Her heart seizes at the sound of the deep and familiar masculine voice.

Her pulse kicking into a hard rhythm, she looks south toward the voice’s source and sees a tall, brown-haired Kelt striding briskly toward her, a line of Vu Trin behind him. He’s dressed in a crimson Keltish military tunic and black pants, a Varg-marked axe and assorted blades affixed to his body. His dark-brown gaze meets hers, and it’s like a firebolt of emotion straight through Freyja’s heart, a wave of incandescent love barreling through her.

“Clive,”

she breathes in a harsh whisper as the line of Amaz soldiers before her draw their weapons as one.

“You will address our queen with respect, roikuul,”

Teel snarls, aiming her nocked runic-arrow straight at Clive’s chest.

Freyja tenses over the aimed weapon and the slur Teel has just hurled at Clive, as well as the scowl she catches Alcippe leveling at her. She knows Clive is well aware that the Amaz slur roikuul is a direct reference to his male member, a part of his body Freyja is well acquainted with. Which would be acceptable if she only wanted daughters from him and hadn’t been seeking him out again and again because of true love and genuine desire.

Clive ignores the slur, his blazing eyes locked with Freyja’s, his whole body coiled as if he wants to leap through the line of soldiers and sweep her into his arms.

You’re alive. You’re alive, pounds out with every thundering beat of Freyja’s heart, the desire to leap toward him almost impossible to suppress. But she forcibly restrains herself, even as her heart catapults over itself. Because she has the full weight of the queendom on her shoulders. Which comes before everything.

“Halt where you are,”

she orders him, tone firm, struggling to harden her traitorous heart. “What is it you seek, Clive Soren?”

Clive straightens. “As leader of the Western Realm Resistance, I come to petition you on behalf of the Keltish and Vu Trin forces,”

he informs her, even as the edges of his eyes blaze with barely contained feeling. “We seek to broker an alliance.”

Angry gasps erupt all around, and Freyja inwardly curses. Clive must have been pressured to relay this controversial message himself by someone who understood the blow having her secret lover convey it would level. Straight at her.

She pulls in a slow breath, willing glassy calm. She’s already met once with Vang Troi—the high commander of the Vu Trin—to broach the possibility of a military alliance with Noilaan’s mostly female forces. But the Kelts, with their male-only forces and their male-dominated culture and religion . . .

Great care must be taken here if she’s going to move her people forward in this new land, unified, instead of coming apart at the seams. All this division playing completely into Vogel’s hands.

“Stand aside, Blessed Daughters,”

Freyja orders her guards.

The women swiftly step to the side of her, but keep their weapons aimed at the “evil”

man in their midst as Freyja strides through the gap toward Clive and the Vu Trin.

“Walk with me,”

she orders Clive, beckoning him with regal coldness and a flick of her hand, ignoring both the effect his proximity has on her as well as her guards’ hostile silence at her back.

The Noi soldiers before them convey permission to pass through their ranks, and Freyja strides briskly through the black-clad and equally silent Vu Trin and away from the Amaz’s tenuously claimed territory, not daring to turn and glance at Clive behind her.

Her heart thuds along with every one of his heavy booted steps as Clive follows her away from both the Amaz and the Vu Trin, then around a long curve in the Vo River’s bank, his fierce love for her seeming to thrum through the very air.

Like a firestorm at her back.

Freyja veers into the purple wilderness, and he follows, thunder rumbling overhead, the storm closer now. Still not looking at him, Freyja presses deeper into the forest, the voices sounding from the riverbank behind them growing fainter as she steps over a tangled mass of dark purple roots and weaves around trees, eventually striding toward a large, rocky hillock, then around it.

She ducks into a stone alcove, a robust wind beginning to lash against the violet canopy above as tension mounts between herself and Clive, strong enough to rival the brewing storm.

Freyja stops and turns to him, Clive’s searing gaze like a thunderclap.

Their storm breaks, his lips crushing down onto hers. She lets out an impassioned cry against his mouth, her back meeting stone as she grabs fierce hold of his military tunic’s sides, pulling him toward her, their mouths and tongues desperate and devouring, a sob of joy tearing through her to find him suddenly here, alive.

“My love,”

Clive rasps as he finally breaks the kiss, bringing his forehead to hers, tears escaping both their eyes. He reaches up to cup her cheek, his mouth tilting into a bittersweet smile. “Queen Alkaia chose you, then.”

Freyja nods tightly. “She did,”

she chokes out, her bottomless, soul-crushing grief for her queen breaking free, her chest pummeled by it as the grief sparks a vengeful fury that could level mountains. She yearns to portal back to the Western Realm this instant. To wield her axe and cut down as many Mages as she can before they strike her from this life.

Seething with rage, she holds Clive’s fervid stare as he keeps hold of her in turn. And she knows, from the compassion in his eyes, that he understands the full force of her fury.

“I’m not worthy of this,”

she grits out as lightning cracks above, her mouth twisting into a grimace. “I’m not worthy of her—”

“You are,”

Clive insists, emphatic as the thunder rolling in.

“I’m not,”

she bites back, motioning between them. “Look at where I am right now. I’m at full odds with my people surrounding this most central part of my life. This secret I dare not speak of.”

Clive’s jaw tenses, a wild defiance in his mahogany eyes. “She knew,”

he growls out. “Queen Alkaia knew what was coming. She also knew that there is no hope, no path forward with all of us divided. That’s why she chose you. What did she say to you when she made you queen?”

Freyja swallows against a painful knot of unbearable sorrow. “She said . . .”

She blinks hard against the tears. “She said ‘lead my people into the future.’?”

“She knew, Freyja,”

Clive insists, his voice rife with passion. “She knew about the alliances that will be needed to bring down the Mages.”

“Clive,”

Freyja cautions, her jaw tightening, “I am not completely against Amaz separation from men. To coexist with the bulk of malekind requires a firm hand. And a ready axe.”

She glowers at him, almost daring him to refute her, knowing, in this moment, that her reflexive flare of anger toward him as a male is misplaced even as it rises. But she also knows that, on some level, Clive understands. That he’s cognizant of the evil done to femalekind in every land. Evil that Freyja cannot invite into Amazakaraan’s new territory.

But she also knows her people can’t stand on their own against the Magedom.

“What’s the state of Noilaan’s governance?”

she presses, wanting the unvarnished truth. Demanding it. Trusting him more than the Vu Trin to tell her.

Clive’s hands come to his hips, and he spits out a breath as if it’s an epithet. “The Noi government is in shambles. Most of the former Conclave members are dead. Noilaan is under emergency military rule while they cobble together a full Conclave. Noilaan’s reactionary Vo’nyl political movement is poised to take control of it, and they’re bent on quickly rebuilding and enlarging their runic border and forcing all Westerners out of the East. No exceptions.”

Freyja curses, her mouth tensing with frustration. “Who’s in charge right now?”

“As high commander of Noilaan’s military, Vang Troi is, effectively, the de facto leader for the moment,”

Clive answers flatly. “But Vang Troi is dealing with more than a decimated capital city. Vogel’s Shadow tide is clinging to the land around Voloi, graying the sun and moon, poisoning crops and fisheries. It’s a real threat to Noilaan’s food supply. And now, Vogel’s forces are deploying east of the Verpacian Spines. The only thing that seems to be keeping the Mages from deploying farther east are the Wyvern-crafted storm bands crisscrossing the Central Desert. And, in a completely unexpected turn of events, a Selkie-led army has invaded Southern Noilaan and managed to drive back a massive Shadow attack Vogel sent in from the south sea. But now, the Ocean Peoples have imprisoned Southern Noilaan under a runic dome the Vu Trin can’t get through, and the Magedom has sent a net of Shadow over that dome.”

“So, the Vu Trin are fighting a war on two fronts?”

Freyja asks, stunned.

Clive nods. “Asrai Vu Trin just deployed south, along with a large number of Weather Wyvern Vu Trin, to break through both Vogel’s and the Ocean People’s shielding to retake Southern Noilaan for the Noi.”

“Avenging Goddess,”

Freyja huffs out, mind spinning. “What of Voloi? What’s going on beyond the Noi’s cursed wall?”

He shoots Freyja a jaded look. “Most of Voloi’s survivors of the Mage attack, including the refugees trapped outside the runic border, fled to Voloi’s Sublands. The ironic crux of this is that many of Voloi’s civilians are now Subland refugees, dependent on the largesse of the Smaragdalfar, who have the skills and magic to live underground.”

“An ironic turn of events, indeed,”

Freyja cuts back, just as jaded. She knows, as well as he does, that much of Noilaan’s rune-stone-based power is dependent on Alfsigr-mined lumenstone. Mined by imprisoned Smaragdalfar in the West.

A fact not lost on the Smaragdalfar refugees here in the East.

“The turmoil is just beginning,”

Clive continues. “The Smaragdalfar are deeply divided about having non-Smaragdalfar in the Sublands.”

“Well, that’s justifiable,”

Freyja says. “The East never once prioritized freeing the Smaragdalfar in the West, or providing them asylum.”

Clive nods, acknowledging the point. “And there’s the thorny issue of Ra’Ven Za’Nor and his Light Mage partner, Sagellyn, having disappeared. Along with a number of the Black Witch’s other allies.”

Freyja holds his grave look. “I should have killed Elloren Gardner Grey when I had the chance, when you sent her to find me. It was a mistake to let her live.”

A pained look slashes across Clive’s visage, and he nods tightly, holding Freyja’s troubled stare. “Yvan Guryev brought her to meet with me in Keltania. He’s in love with her.”

He shakes his head, conflict knifing through his gaze. “I’ve known Yvan for most of his life, but I never knew what he was.”

He grows silent, jaw flexing, before he lets out a frustrated huff of a breath. “And now, Vogel’s fully turned the Gardner girl into his hellish Black Witch, and Yvan’s foolishly gone after her. Or maybe she’s imprisoned both Yvan and the Dryad Fae who portaled them out of Noilaan. In any case, both Yvan and the Black Witch are headed for the Northern Forest, caught up in a long Dryad portal lag. She’ll likely kill Yvan when they get there and bring about the damned Prophecy.”

“Or worse,”

Freyja responds, harsh and unsparing as she thinks of Vogel’s gray-eyed soldiers.

Clive winces, a tortured look entering his gaze. “When I met the Gardner girl in Lyndon, gods help me, I should have killed her.”

“Yvan Guryev might have burned you down.”

“He might have,”

Clive soberly agrees. “But he wasn’t the warrior then that I hear he is now. A student more than anything. Ignorant of the extent of his power. He’s been training with Wyverns. With Lasair.”

A guarded hope lights Clive’s eyes. “He might survive her yet.”

“Clive,”

Freyja cautions, a trace of sympathy edging her tone, “he’s not strong enough to stand against both the Black Witch and the entire Magedom.”

Clive’s mouth forms a tight line, his expression darkening. “I know it, Freyja.”

She straightens against the impossible situation bearing down, suddenly all business.

Queen’s business.

“Why did you come as messenger,”

she challenges, “knowing it would undermine me?”

“They gave me no recourse,”

he answers, his tone edged with anger. “Yes, Noilaan’s reactionary, sorry excuse for a Conclave wants to undermine you. Their rising Vo’nyl majority wants conflict between and against all Westerners. To give them an excuse to drive every Westerner out of the Eastern Realm.”

Outrage burns hot at the base of Freyja’s throat. “So, they want me to fail as a leader.”

“Yes,”

Clive bites back. “So, don’t indulge them.”

They exchange a loaded look. “What do Vang Troi and your army seek?”

Freyja finally asks, fighting back the urge to draw him nearer.

“Well,”

he says, his gaze flicking over the Varg-rune-marked weapons strapped all over her form. “For starters, we’d love the help of your Smaragdalfar runic sorceress.”

He takes her hand, and Freya’s breath hitches as that familiar heat rises between them. Turning her hand gently over, he studies the Varg weapon-retrieval rune marked on her palm, its emerald color flashing and fully charged, Freyja’s hazel skin tough and calloused beneath it.

His brown eyes flit to hers. “The Vu Trin also wouldn’t mind a few more Varg-charged weapons in their own hands either.”

Rebellious heat smolders in his eyes as he lifts her hand, holding her gaze, and presses his lips to the rune. Freyja’s heart trips into a pounding rhythm.

“Freyja,”

he says as he lowers her hand, a martial glint edging into the adoration in his molten-brown eyes. “We all need to align, and quickly. Vang Troi wants the Amaz to lead a new division of the Vu Trin.”

Surprise strikes through Freyja. This would be more than just an alliance.

This would be a merging of armies.

“Their Conclave will never approve that,” she says.

“The Noi Conclave can go straight to the deepest of hells,”

Clive shoots back, keeping firm hold of her hand.

For a moment Freyja is caught up in tumultuous conflict, the East’s sheer political chaos a monstrous obstacle to overcome. Yet Vang Troi wants to pursue unity. The underlying ramifications crackle through the air between them.

“Is Vang Troi about to go rogue?”

Freyja presses.

Clive simply gives her a knowing smirk. “Lead your people into the future,”

he challenges, as gooseflesh ripples down Freyja’s back, a sense of the momentous cycling down.

“What future would that be, Clive,”

she challenges back, her head spinning from the impossible idea of merging three militaries, three peoples—one of them zealously set on isolation from men.

“Not fracture,”

Clive shoots back. “Not if we’re going to have any future at all.”