Chapter 24

Twenty-Four

Fieran sat with his back to the wooden stockade wall of the Outpost Museum, a bowl of soup in his hands. He stirred the soup, but he couldn't bring himself to eat despite the fact that he hadn't eaten in eighteen hours. Perhaps longer. He wasn't even sure what time it was.

The rays of the morning sun perforated the smoke and shadows of the destroyed city sprawling before him. In the distance, a train whistle pierced the morning. Perhaps reinforcements from the nearest army base to relieve the weary soldiers of Fort Linder. Maybe more elven healers from Tarenhiel to save those who could be saved.

Pip had gone into the Outpost Museum, which had been turned into temporary quarters for the army personnel and the other volunteers to rest after the long night. Hopefully she had managed a few hours of sleep.

Daylight hadn't made the destruction look any better. If anything, light just made everything worse. He could actually see the rubble. See the mangled, dead bodies laid out in the streets and on the stretchers as they were carried to the temporary morgue. See things so seared into his memory that he wasn't sure he would be able to sleep, despite the exhaustion weighing so heavily on him that lifting the spoon to his mouth seemed too much work.

Even his magic was a faint crackle inside his chest, though he wasn't sure if he'd used enough magic to actually deplete his power or if he was simply exhausted from wielding such a quantity of magic. Perhaps a little of both.

It wasn't just the physical and magical exhaustion, though there was that. He'd been up for over thirty-six hours, broken only by those handful of hours between falling asleep and waking just after midnight due to the attack. The rest of the night had been spent expending his magic, killing hundreds of Mongavarians, then digging through rubble to find both the living and the dead.

So many dead.

Women. Children.

His squadron. His brothers. Several had crashed during the night, and most of those had been from pilot error rather than the Mongavarian guns. A few had survived their crashes, but not all of them. Or even most of them.

So many empty bunks. He didn't yet know how many untouched glasses of beer would grace the bar when his squadron had a chance to mourn. It was all he could do to focus on those still alive.

Fieran squeezed his eyes shut. It did little good. He could still see the bloody faces of the dead. Taste the acrid smoke on the breeze. Smell the stench of blood and sulfur that hung over the whole city.

A stir of murmurs rose from the base of the hill. Fieran wearily peeled his eyes open.

His dacha stood among the cluster of officers with Uncle Julien and Aunt Vriska at his side. Dacha's long silver-blond hair hung down his back over his green and brown fighting leathers, his twin swords resting against his back. With the morning sunlight glinting on his armor, he looked like an elven warrior of old stepped from the pages of legends.

Dacha, Uncle Julien, and Aunt Vriska must have arrived on that recent train. Politically, it was a statement of support as top generals of Escarland, Kostaria, and Tarenhiel surveyed the destruction.

Something that had been wound tight in Fieran's chest eased. The burden of protecting Bridgetown and Fort Linder from another attack no longer rested solely on Fieran's shoulders.

Dacha glanced up, meeting Fieran's gaze across the distance. After a low murmur to Uncle Julien, Dacha stepped away, the officers and enlisted men parting for him, giving the famed General Laesornysh space.

Fieran set his bowl aside, not caring if he dumped the soup onto the ground. He shoved to his feet, stumbling down the hill.

He met his Dacha halfway, skidding to a halt, the words already rising out of his choked throat. "I understand now, Dacha. I understand. All of it."

"Fieran, sason." Dacha reached out and clasped one of Fieran's shoulders. With his other hand, he cradled the back of Fieran's head before briefly resting his forehead against Fieran's.

That lump in Fieran's throat grew, and he didn't care who might be standing around witnessing this moment. While elves were not the most touchy-feely culturally, this particular gesture was one of the few more intimate ones, signifying a great relief and comradeship in the face of great tragedy or struggle.

The gesture lasted only a moment, before Dacha stepped back and dropped his hand to clasp Fieran's other shoulder. "Today you are Laesornysh."

As if Fieran needed anything else to shake him today. Dacha didn't merely mean Fieran had earned the legacy he'd inherited. He was naming Fieran with the elven title Laesornysh, giving it to him in his own right.

More than that, elvish was a subtle language, and Fieran could hear the slight change in inflection. While Dacha had been titled Death on the Wind because he moved like a whirlwind, tearing into all who stood before him, Fieran was Death on the Wind. He was literally a weapon of death carried on the winds.

All Fieran could do was nod, his chest too tight, his throat too strangled, for any other response.

"Come, sason." Dacha steered Fieran back up the hill, away from the clusters of generals talking of war and flyboys struggling for a wink of sleep before going back up on patrol.

Almost before he knew it, Fieran found himself sitting with his back against the outpost again, his dacha beside him. For long moments, they simply sat there in silence, regarding the destruction laid out before them.

After a moment, Dacha's gaze dropped to his hands, some of the hardness to his expression cracking. "It is all right to be strong, Fieran, but it is also all right to talk to someone. If you find yourself struggling after the past night, do not hesitate to reach out to someone. If not me or your macha, then there are counselors available. There is no shame in needing help."

"I know." Fieran shifted, not looking at his dacha. "I'm all right, Dacha."

Right now, he thought he was okay. He wasn't sure how he'd tell if he wasn't.

Strangely, the admonishment to talk just made him not want to do so. Even though this was his dacha. Even though Dacha would fully understand.

Fieran's gaze drifted from the blackened rubble to the shriveled remains of one of the airships crashed in the shallows of the Hydalla River, tatters of canvas rising and falling with the rippling eddies.

He'd been prepared to kill when he joined the army. He'd known war would entail death.

Yet even with Dacha's warning, he hadn't been prepared for killing on this scale. For the deep, shattering knowledge that he'd be asked to repeat such killing many more times before this war was over.

"I killed last night. Not just one person. Not just two. But whole airships full." Fieran gripped his knees, not daring to meet his dacha's gaze. Not because he feared he'd see disgust. No. It was the understanding he couldn't handle. "How many do you think I killed last night?"

"Sason." Dacha's voice remained low, dragging out the endearment on a sigh. "Do not go down that branch. It will shatter you under the weight. You are a warrior. Your duty will be death, no matter whether that death is dealt to a few or to many."

Fieran managed another nod, the reality of that sinking deep into his bones in a way he wouldn't have understood before.

"Fieran." Dacha's use of his name brought Fieran's head up. Dacha's gaze held that wealth of understanding, just as Fieran had feared. But there was also a hard layer of respect, the regard of one warrior to another instead of only father and son. "How many would have died in Bridgetown, Calafaren, and Fort Linder last night if you had not acted?"

That answer was easy. Too many. The Mongavarian airships wouldn't have stopped until they had run out of bombs. Without Fieran, there would have been nothing the Flying Corps training squadron could have done to dissuade them. The entire squadron might have been wiped out in the attempt.

"There were children, Dacha." The words came out a whisper past the squeezing in Fieran's throat, and he had to drop his gaze. "There were children in the rubble who were…that I…"

A tear trickled down Fieran's cheek, and he ruthlessly swiped it away. He hadn't cried all night, even when pulling little ones from the rubble.

Others had cried. Grown men who just sat right there in the rubble and sobbed.

Dacha rested a hand on Fieran's shoulder again. "This is why we fight. We are Laesornysh for them."

"Yes." Fieran took in the destroyed city before them, this time resolve hardening inside his chest, steadying him.

This was what he'd signed up for when he enlisted in the army. Not glory. Not legends. But to bring death to the enemy before that enemy brought death to others. It would mean killing. He would bear this burden so that others never had to.

Perhaps that was what he'd been struggling with this morning. Because he didn't regret what he'd done last night, despite the fact he'd killed hundreds of Mongavarian airmen. He couldn't regret it when he looked out over Bridgetown and saw what those same Mongavarian airmen had done to his home.

The only thing Fieran regretted about the previous night was that he hadn't been able to stop the destruction sooner and spare more of Bridgetown's people. The city had been hit harder by the bombing than the fort had been, thanks to Fieran's protection early in the night.

"How could Mongavaria do this?" Fieran clenched his fists, a heat rising in his chest to wipe away the pain of before. "I understand attacking Fort Linder. But Bridgetown? Calafaren? I know they are communications centers. I know they are a link between the Alliance Kingdoms. But it's still just…is this the kind of war Mongavaria intends to fight?"

"Sadly, yes. This city is a symbol." Dacha gestured at the rubble before them, his wave ending at the Alliance Bridge arching over the river. "Bridgetown and Calafaren were born out of the Alliance, and this attack was a strike at its heart. I—and your uncles—suspect the cities, and not Fort Linder, were the true targets of the attack all along."

That was both a relief and a blow. At least Fieran didn't have to harbor guilt that his actions in protecting Fort Linder had caused the Mongavarians to shift their attack to the cities. But it also meant that the attack had never been about crippling Escarland's ability to fight back in the sky. The bombing had been a message.

"Thus the choice in day as well as target." Dacha's tone turned even more weighty.

"The day?" Fieran blinked, his groggy mind unable to think of why this particular day would have any meaning.

Dacha's mouth tipped, though the expression was too grim to be called a smile. "It was seventy years ago today that your macha and I married, and the initial alliance was formed."

Oh. Fieran had forgotten that today was Alliance Day, a national holiday in all three kingdoms and his parents' anniversary. Today didn't feel much like a holiday.

He opened his mouth, but the words stuck in his throat. It didn't seem right to say happy anything on a day like this. Instead, he managed a croaked, "I'm sorry."

And he meant it. Dacha and Mama should have been celebrating this day, taking Tryndar to the parade in Aldon or quietly relaxing at Treehaven.

Instead, Dacha was here in a destroyed city, carrying his swords and dressed for war, while Mama remained behind in an Aldon preparing for that same war.

Dacha just shrugged wearily, staring at the city and the arching bridge beyond. "Seventy years ago, our marriage stopped a war before it had begun. Today, our anniversary starts one."

Fieran had no words for that. Despite the pall of the day, he couldn't let the grimness linger so darkly. "It was just the Mongavarians' bad luck that I happened to be at Fort Linder when they attacked."

"Yes. It seems they were given some bad information when it came to the whereabouts of certain important people." Dacha shook his head, a note to his tone indicating that there was something to those words. "They had intended to assassinate your uncles Averett and Weylind last night as well, but your uncle Edmund thwarted both of those attacks."

Fieran straightened, a chill stabbing through him. "Was anyone hurt?"

"No. The assassins did not come anywhere close." Dacha waved the words away, as if attempted assassinations weren't a big deal. "I do not wish to worry you but to warn you. After what you did here, you will have an even larger target on your back. The Mongavarians know they cannot kill either of us in a simple assassination attempt, but they might grow desperate enough to try."

"I'll be wary." Fieran resisted a shiver. He'd been shot at last night for the first time, but he'd never been in that much danger. His magic was too strong. But someone lying in wait for him was another thing entirely.

Dacha nodded, as if satisfied his warning had been effectively passed along. After a moment, he breathed a soft, weary sigh of his own, a sadness dragging at his otherwise hard expression. His gaze dropped to his hands where a few bolts of his magic appeared, crackling blue in the sunlight. "I did my best to raise you and your siblings to see the possibilities and uses for our magic beyond killing. But I fear, in the end, that war will always remain the primary use of the magic of the ancient kings. That is a burden but perhaps not the thing to be scorned I once thought it to be. Yes, it means killing and death. It can be twisted for empire and greed. But the true purpose of the magic of the ancient kings is protection."

Fieran let a whisper of his own magic twine over his fingers. "Right now, our kingdoms and people need protectors."

If it took every spark of magic Fieran possessed in his whole body, he would make sure no other city suffered the way Bridgetown had suffered the previous night.

Forget whatever foolish ideas of glory and making his own legends he'd entertained before. This was his new mission. Protect Escarland, Tarenhiel, and Kostaria so that no more tragedies like this happened ever again.

He could see his resolve mirrored in his dacha's gaze. Protecting the Alliance Kingdoms wasn't a duty that rested on Fieran's shoulders alone. Dacha, Mama, Adry, and Louise would all do their part in this war.

Dacha gave him a slight nod. "I am proud of you, sason."

"Linshi, Dacha." Great. Now Fieran's throat was closing again.

For a few more minutes, they sat in silence, and Fieran wouldn't have wanted it any other way as he soaked up the comfort of having his dacha at his side in this moment, the darkest morning he'd ever experienced.

Then two figures strode up the hill toward them. One was Merrik with his short chestnut hair looking more red in the morning light and grime smeared over his uniform.

But the other…

Fieran jumped to his feet. "Adry?"

He hadn't thought he'd spoken that loudly, but his sister's head snapped up. She smiled, then broke into a run up the hill. Her hair—a red-blonde that was lighter than Fieran's hair but darker than Dacha's—whipped behind her.

Fieran jogged to join her, though he had to skid to a halt as she flung herself at him in a hug that was nearly a tackle. Not that he minded. He hugged her right back.

"Fieran!" Adry's hug was so tight it nearly hurt. "I'm so glad you're all right." She pulled back, her smile fading as she glanced from him to the destruction. "This is…really bad."

"Yes." Fieran couldn't bring himself to follow her gaze to take in the city yet again. There were a lot of words both of them could use. Terrible. Awful. Tragic. But somehow that simple bad seemed the most fitting. In the end, there were no words that could capture what he had witnessed that night. Instead, he kept his focus on Adry. "What are you doing here?"

It seemed strange that Dacha would take Adry along when traveling to something like this. Dacha was protective of all his children, but especially of his daughters.

"I'm on my way to join the Tarenhieli Army Reserves." Adry clenched her fists, her jaw tightening in that mulish way Fieran recognized even as her green eyes flashed. "I might be a girl, but I can't sit on the sidelines any longer. Not after something like this. Escarland might not allow women to join their army, but Tarenhiel does."

"I'm sure Mama and Dacha weren't too happy with that." Fieran glanced over his shoulder.

Uncle Iyrinder had appeared from the crowd—of course he would have come with Dacha, loyal friend and guard that he was—and he and Merrik now talked.

Dacha remained alone, leaning against the Outpost Museum. He'd closed his eyes, and if Fieran's guess was correct, he was likely communicating with Mama through the heart bond as best they could as they could only share emotions and impressions, not words.

"They weren't. But they couldn't really argue that all of us will be needed." Adry sighed and grimaced. "They kind of got their way in the end. I wanted to join Tarenhiel's regular army, but Uncle Weylind wants me in the Reserves so I'll be stationed in Estyra. After this attack, I understand why one of us needs to be in Estyra to make sure it won't be bombed the way Bridgetown was. But it's still frustrating."

Fieran opened his mouth, but his words caught. Before yesterday, he would have told his sister he was sorry that she was being held back like that. But now, all he could feel was relief that she wouldn't be put on the frontlines alongside him and Dacha. Finally, he cleared his throat, settling on, "You've been thinking about this for a long time."

"I have." Adry swung her clenched fists, not looking at Fieran. "But I couldn't do it too soon after you left, and I didn't want to disappoint them, you know?"

"Yeah." Fieran flicked a glance over his shoulder again to where Dacha was still sitting. Perhaps that was the burden of having a good relationship with parents instead of a bad one. The fear of disappointing them had a different taste, a different hold, when that fear came out of love instead of terror.

"But there's no choice now. Not after this." Adry waved at the rubble in the streets down the hill. "I'm needed in Estyra."

"I can't imagine something like this happening there." Fieran didn't want to imagine the great oak Ellonahshinel reduced to splintered limbs and burning, blackened branches.

He hadn't crossed the Alliance Bridge to see the destruction in Calafaren, but Merrik had come back with that grim, mourning look elves got when trees were hurting. From what Fieran had gathered, Calafaren hadn't been hit as hard as Bridgetown. Smaller and tucked in the trees as it was, Calafaren wasn't as big a target as the sprawling, well-lit city on the southern side of the Hydalla River. But Calafaren had still suffered, especially from the fires that had spread from the few bombs that had fallen on the elven city.

"Mama is going to stay in Aldon for the time being and protect the city. Louise will stay there, too, to fill the magical power cells." Adry gave a little shrug. "And, of course, cousin Rhohen will keep Osmana safe. He wouldn't exactly take it kindly if we offered any help."

"No, he wouldn't." That brought a huff of a chuckle, something Fieran hadn't thought he'd be capable of that morning.

His cousin Rhohen was the half-troll, half-elf son of King Rharreth and Queen Melantha of Kostaria. Even though he was only eight months younger than Fieran, the two of them had gotten along about as well as a perpetually grumpy cat and a far-too-friendly dog, especially once Rhohen came into his magic, a rather rare mix of ice magic and the magic of the ancient kings. Rhohen would clench his fists and threaten to fight someone if any of them implied he needed help protecting Kostaria's capital.

Adry hugged her arms to her stomach, any trace of humor fading from her voice. "We won't be all together until after this war ends, most likely. You left first, and now I'll be in Estyra. Dacha is headed for Fort Defense at the border."

"At least Mama, Louise, Ellie, and Tryndar will be together." Fieran had to cling to that, even as his family scattered in a way it never had before.

Yes, he and Adry had traveled independently between Escarland and Tarenhiel more and more often in the past decade or two. He'd stayed behind in Aldon many times while the rest of his family traveled to Estyra.

But that separation only lasted a month or two at the most, and none of them had been heading into war. They'd still had plenty of family dinners, all gathered around the dinner table, chattering and laughing so boisterously that Dacha needed earplugs to keep from being overwhelmed.

Those family dinners wouldn't happen again until the war was over. They might never be the same again if something happened to Dacha or Fieran or Adry during this war. As the Mongavarians had proved with this new warfare of bombs and flight, no one was truly safe. Mama and the younger siblings would all be in danger in Aldon. Both from bombs and perhaps even assassins, if the Mongavarians decided to target the main source of Escarland's power to fuel aeroplanes, airships, and their entire infrastructure.

"Yes." Adry sighed and dropped her hands back to her sides. "Mama will keep them safe."

"And we'll have to keep ourselves safe." Fieran tipped his head in Dacha's direction. "We have Dacha's training. We'll be all right."

He had to believe that. They had been born with the magic of the ancient kings. This war had always been theirs to fight.