“It is,” Solvei answered.
Sjaf save us.
“Listen to me,” Reyker said. “There’s a battle in the village, Draki’s forces against the natives. Speak with the native leader, Garreth of Stone. You don’t have to harm them. You can ally with his army to overthrow the Dragon.”
Solvei’s eyes narrowed, inspecting Reyker’s neck—the Sons of Stone brand marking him as a slave. She poked it with the tip of her dagger. “I don’t want to overthrow the Dragon. I want to hunt down everything he covets, everything that gives him a sense of pride or pleasure, and beat it into dust. Including you.” She pointed to several warriors. “Take this vessel. Sail ahead of us back to Iseneld with our prisoner so the warlord will be forced to follow. The rest of you, don your battle armor and prepare for war.”
Several Renegades scrambled to the caravel’s helm and sails, while the rest climbed back into their longships.
“At least let the girls in the hatch go!” Reyker called. “Please. They are blameless.”
“No one is blameless.” The jarl’s boots clomped across the deck. Over her shoulder, she said, “Time for you to go home, Reyker Lagorsson.”
In spite of his failure, his broken vow, his captivity, peace settled over Reyker. He closed his eyes, letting that kernel of hope take root.
Home.
CHAPTER 17
LIRA
The dirt had turned to mud from so many lives spilled out upon the field in floods of red. My hands drooped at my sides. I clenched them into fists. I had to stop them. I had to.
Didn’t I?
I wanted to stay curled inside myself, with my grief and loathing, but the dregs of battle raged around me. Many of the warriors on both sides were either dead or too injured to fight, though bands of Dragonmen and nomads still staggered across the smoky field, Garreth and Quinlan among them.
Draki was conspicuously absent, no longer on the watchtower roof.
The Daughters of Aillira pulled injured nomads off the field. Mabyn healed them as quickly as she could, but she was struggling, fatigued. We all were. I hurried to help Sursha drag one of the larger nomads to Mabyn, catching the women’s wary expressions.
I’d struck the blow that killed four of our sisters. Though my choice had saved many lives, I doubted they would forgive me anytime soon.
I had to.
“Who in Gwylor’s name is that?” Sursha hissed.
A man lumbered toward us, his strides awkward, like he’d only just learned to walk. Torin looked so unlike himself, I hardly recognized him. He held a sword in one hand, but his other arm dangled limply, the shoulder bulging—he must have torn his arm out of the socket to reach the key to his cell.
“Father?” I whispered.
“He’s in here too.” The chieftain’s eyes danced with the darkness of the death god. He lifted his sword above Mabyn where she was crouched over an unconscious nomad. Sursha threw a knife at Torin’s throat, but he ducked. I drew my sword and rushed forward to meet his blade with my own.
Our swords locked together. “I won’t let you hurt them,” I said.
Torin grinned. “Too late for that. I left you a gift on the beach—six Daughters of Aillira, dead. I will kill every bitch with Aillira’s blood in her veins. I’ll save you for last.”
“Torin!”
We both turned at the shout that had come from the battlefield. Garreth stood in a calm patch amid the turmoil, looking more like a leader, a prince, than he ever had. “Last time we fought, you had your lackey hold me down,” Garreth said, pointing his short sword at the chieftain. “Care for a rematch?”
Shadows shuddered around Torin’s irises and he shoved me backward. He dropped his sword and picked up a scythe from one of the dead mercenaries, stalking to where his firstborn waited.
I started to run to my brother, but Quinlan blocked my path. He was panting, sodden with sweat and blood. “Garreth needs this,” Quinlan said. “Give him his chance.”
Father and son faced each other for the first time since Torin cut off Garreth’s warrior-mark and banished him from Stony Harbor. The swirling dust and smoke seemed to stand still as the two men squared off. Torin gestured at the gauntlet and vambrace on Garreth’s right hand. “It seems dishonorable to thrash a cripple, but if you insist.”
Torin’s scythe sang, arcing toward Garreth’s neck.
Garreth leaped sideways, thrusting his sword, but Torin dodged the strike easily. “If you weren’t so weak,” Torin said, “you’d have let Gwylor in and you would’ve been chieftain, boy.”
The scythe came at Garreth again and he parried with his vambrace, steel scraping along iron. “At the expense of my soul? A man is nothing without his morality. My father taught me that.”
“For all the good it’s done you.” Torin swung his body so his limp arm whipped out, clamped fingers opening, releasing a handful of dirt into Garreth’s eyes.
In the wake of pain and blindness, Garreth dropped his guard for an instant. The scythe curved toward his torso.
Zabelle’s arrow struck first, sinking through Torin’s mangled shoulder until it came out the other side. From her perch on the drawbridge, she nocked another, bow trained on Torin.
She could have killed him, but it wasn’t her life to take.
Torin ripped the arrow out, bellowing his fury, and Garreth followed the sound, blinking dirt from his streaming eyes, punching with the gauntlet. The strike cracked Torin’s jaw, splitting the skin from chin to cheek, until the knuckles of the gauntlet and the side of Torin’s face were glazed red. Garreth’s knee slammed into Torin’s gut, knocking him flat.
“You’re a shame to our family,” Torin said. “I’m glad your mother and brother died, so they didn’t have to witness your betrayal. I wish your sister was dead too.”
Garreth bent down, his sword ready. “Don’t make me do this, Father.”
I felt my brother’s anguish. I wouldn’t let him bear this burden alone. “I read his soul, Garreth,” I called out. “Father is gone. Gwylor buried him beyond our reach.”
“As I will bury you both.” Torin rolled away from Garreth, snatching up the scythe, charging.
Garreth’s sword came up, aiming for Torin’s chest.
There, on the edge of a blade, the parasite abandoned its host. The shadows in Torin’s eyes left him, streaking down pupils and irises, oozing into his lashes, until the darkness inside him was nothing more than trickling black tears.
Torin stilled. “Garreth?” he whispered, and then his son’s sword plunged through his chest, just below his heart.