Foretold (Daughters of Saraqael Book Three) (36 page)

Skye brought them to the single spot she could remember from their travels to the mountain. It was the last place Grolkinei set them down so Amber could heal her. She focused intently, not wanting anything to go wrong during the transport. She had never moved so many at once, but she wasn’t about to let anything happen to those she loved.

So she thought of the rocks covered with snow. She thought of the night sky and the freezing wind blowing off the mountain face. She thought of the copse of pine trees she had seen and the creaking sound the branches made as they shook.

And as she pictured it, it simply
became
.

Her head swam as they all physically connected with the landscape in her mind. She felt Caleb grab her and pull her against him so she wouldn’t fall, but she couldn’t command her limbs or her brain to respond.

Then Amber and Gabriel reached out and touched her. She felt better almost instantly.

Blinking, she raised her head and looked around at her siblings. They were all staring at her with such concern that she couldn’t help but be touched.

Smiling widely, she said, “Thanks.” Then she turned her head and caught Caleb’s gaze. “And now, if you’ll excuse me…”

She pulled him down and kissed him. She never noticed when their siblings moved away to have their own reunions. She couldn’t move away from his mouth. His warmth and vitality.

Eventually, though, they parted. He held her gently with both hands by the back of her head, threading his fingers through her hair and pressing his forehead to hers as they both fought for breath. Plumes of white mist surrounded them.

Are you okay?
he thought.

Yes. Are you?

I am now. You’re crying.

Of course I am.
She reached up to wipe her tears from her cheeks so they didn’t freeze. Then she once again encircled his waist with her arms.
You have blood all over you.

It’s not mine.

Okay.

He kissed her again. As he did, he thought,
You need to connect with Evangeline and ask for some warmer clothes. You’re going to freeze.

Sure thing. Absolutely. In just another minute…

James carried Olivia into the nearby copse of trees. She didn’t object, though she was perfectly able to walk on her own. The cats trailed quietly behind them.

He found a fallen tree a short distance into the woods and walked to it, sitting with her on his lap. She turned so she had her legs wrapped around his waist. Then she just clung to him and cried.

He stroked her hair and struggled to maintain his composure as she wept against his chest. He alone knew that she still suffered nightmares from her time all those weeks ago at Grolkinei’s hands. The helplessness she had experienced by being shackled and at the Mercesti’s mercy had so traumatized her that she hadn’t even wanted to wear her special bracers around her wrists for weeks afterward because they reminded her of the restraints. He knew that right then, she was suffering much more than either of her sisters because that experience had been revisited upon her. He hated that he’d had any part in it, however indirectly, by not preventing her kidnapping.

Aurora and Titan sat silently nearby, both wearing solemn expressions. They both knew Olivia’s emotions as well as he did. And to him, they were heroes.

After a few minutes, she calmed down. She used her fingers to wipe her face dry. He realized she was trembling and rubbed her arms.

You need to connect with Brenna for some warmer clothes.

She sniffled and nodded, then closed her eyes. A moment later, there was a flash of lavender light. They worked together to get her dressed in warmer pants, a long-sleeved shirt, jacket and boots. There was armor waiting for her at the base camp, but there was a little time left before they needed to worry about that.

I saw you
, she thought when she was dressed and again sitting quietly on his lap.

He didn’t have to ask what she saw. He knew her thoughts.

She had seen him kill Jean-Marc.

I’m sorry
, he thought, tilting her head back so he could look into her eyes.

No
, she returned.
I’m sorry you were put in that position. Jean-Marc brought his fate upon himself. I hold no qualms about what you did…what you all did. I’m grateful. And I know my time to deliver death to the Mercesti will come. I can only hope I’m a fraction as courageous as you are.

He rubbed his thumb over her lips.
Olivia, you are my courage. I don’t know what I would do without you.

Overcome, she kissed him. And she knew she would find the courage she needed right here.

Gabriel stood with Amber under a rock ledge. It gave them moderate protection from the icy wind but kept them within sight of their siblings.

He held her tightly and pressed his face into her hair, breathing in her sunlight and spiced honey scent and assuring himself she really was safe. The past hours now seemed a blur.

How’re you holding up?
he thought when his mind cleared enough to do so.

I’m okay.
She moved her hand up and down his back, offering him comfort.
Skye got the brunt of it. Grolkinei doesn’t know what to make of her, and he lashed out at her because of it.

She’s everything he isn’t.

She nodded.

He pulled back slightly so he could look down at her.
And otherwise, you’re okay? I know the first time I killed a Mercesti…well, that was a long time ago. But it’s never easy.

It never should be. But, yes. I’m really okay.
She sighed and brought her hand up to touch the side of his face.
I love you, you know.

He managed a smile.
I love you, too.

Is it really possible that I was worried sick over passing my finals just a matter of months ago?

He laughed then, something he hadn’t expected to do. He had helped her study for weeks for those exams. Back then—just months ago—that had seemed life or death. Now, it simply paled in comparison.

Brushing his lips against her forehead, he thought,
Guess things got a little more complicated after graduation than we figured.

Yeah.
They held each other in silence for a few heartbeats. Then she thought,
How long until the troops get here?

About a half-hour, I’d guess. I contacted them as soon as we made it here so they wouldn’t go into the mountain looking for us.

Okay.

He brushed her hair from her face.
You’re probably freezing and hungry
, he thought.
Do you want anything?

In answer, she just pulled him down for a kiss.

Twenty minutes later, the siblings sat together where they had transitioned. James got a fire started and Gabriel produced some chairs. The sisters were all dressed more warmly now and sat clutching steaming bowls of soup. Aurora and Titan, after many pats and hugs from the group, were a short distance away enjoying their own food reward, though they had managed to hunt it on their own.

Skye spooned some of the delicious chicken noodle soup into her mouth and savored the taste. She didn’t think she had ever been hungrier in her life. It seemed like their picnic lunch had been days ago.

“Did you really hit Grolkinei?” James asked, grinning at her.

They had all been sharing some of the details of their different experiences. Skye felt her cheeks heat as she nodded.

“How’d it feel?” Olivia asked.

“Good, especially since it allowed me to breathe,” Skye admitted. Then she shrugged. “Until he hit me back. That part wasn’t so great.”

Amber snorted a laugh. Caleb tightened his hold where his arm rested across Skye’s shoulders, but he didn’t respond.

“I wonder how Jean-Marc’s death is going to affect Layla,” Olivia said.

“She won’t survive it,” Gabriel replied with a thoughtful frown. “This level of bonding is absolutely vital.”

“It’s sad,” Skye said quietly. “Even if they only did it to get to us, it’s still sad.”

They all exchanged understanding glances.

“The others are near,” Gabriel said then, glancing toward the east.

They looked up and saw the rainbow of wings in the distance. Just as Skye set her bowl to the side and it disappeared in a lavender flash, the first of the elders landed a few feet away.

They all got to their feet. Skye and her sisters were swept into hugs. She watched Sebastian wave his hand, removing the blood covering Caleb, James and Gabriel. Even without the blood, she thought they still looked incredibly fierce in their black armor and small arsenal of weapons. They didn’t seem like the same guys who had played Chicken and Marco Polo in the water earlier that day.

Or was it now the next day? She couldn’t tell anymore.

“We will wait until the morning to finalize the battle plans,” Jabari said after everyone had greeted them. “You all need rest.”

Sebastian nodded. “I have created a few temporary shelters that you may use.”

“No mental intrusions will get through here tonight,” Malukali added.

Zayna said, “We will work through the night arming everyone to be ready by morning.”

“We will maintain a thorough watch,” Uriel said. “Get the rest you need.”

Gabriel looked around at the elders and commanders surrounding them. Then he looked at his siblings. They all nodded. So he said, “We appreciate all that y’all are offering, and we’re looking forward to taking you up on it. But there’s something we need to do before we rest.”

“What is that?” Ini-herit asked.

And Gabriel produced the cursed arrow.

“They will not know what hit them,” Angius said as he stood beside Grolkinei in the War Room.

Grolkinei didn’t comment. He stared expressionlessly at the map in front of him. They had thoroughly reviewed their plan of attack. Every rank of soldier in his army knew where to be at what point of the coming battle. They had layers of reinforcements for all forms of attack. He had no reason to think they would not succeed.

But then, Layla was not going to survive the night and Saraqael’s daughters had escaped.

He supposed it made little difference. There were plenty of mentally-skilled Mercesti ready to replace Layla. And although he had planned on using the deaths of the sisters to provoke the battle, just kidnapping them had served the same purpose.

There would most definitely be a battle.

“You are sure they will not go back to their hidden base?” Baldemar asked.

At last, Grolkinei spoke. “They will not. They will not risk the same thing happening again. We are now more of a threat than they ever believed.”

There was a knock on the door. He waited as Baldemar opened the door and spoke for a moment with the messenger. Then Baldemar closed the door and returned to the table.

“Layla is dead,” he said tonelessly.

Grolkinei shook his head and frowned. “I told her she had been foolish to avow herself to the Orculesti.” Then he shrugged, feeling oddly charitable. “Well, she served an important purpose to our cause.”

“Are we heading out?” Angius asked.

“Soon,” Grolkinei said. “Very soon. The girls are half-human and breeding. They will sleep away the rest of the morning trying to find the energy to face us. We will finish outfitting our soldiers and then head out.”

His lips curved into a humorless smile. “I am certain we will achieve our victory before noon. They will probably still be tucked into their beds when we reach them.”

The Estilorians, led by Saraqael’s daughters, greeted the Mercesti at the break of dawn.

They stood on the unforested side of the flat expanse leading to the Mercesti stronghold. Because Malukali and her most highly trained Orculesti sent out deceptive camouflaging thoughts to the Mercesti guarding the tunnel entrances, no one even knew they were there.

Skye, Olivia and Amber wore the special impervious armor created for them by the Lekwuesti. The fluid black material was so difficult to create, they wore only enough of it to cover their vital areas…high-necked tanks with short skirts. They also wore thigh-high leather boots to protect their legs. Skye wore supple black leather sleeves that covered the length of her arms, leaving only her hands and shoulders bare. Amber wore bracers on her forearms and wide metal bands around her biceps, and Olivia wore her special bracers on her forearms. They had all pinned their hair back into practical knots.

Skye also wore countless throwing weapons. She had eight easily-accessible daggers from her hips to her ankles and a few in more concealed places. She had throwing stars and darts hooked in the belt she wore around her waist as well as on the two weapon straps criss-crossed over her body. Olivia held her bow at the ready. The quiver on her back was full of arrows. Amber’s sword was strapped to her side and she also had a number of daggers at her disposal.

Beside them, their husbands stood equally armed. The Estilorians they considered family and friends waited around them, ready to fight to preserve what Saraqael’s daughters represented to them all.

And when Grolkinei emerged from the mountain, it was to the sight of them united against him.

Skye registered the almost imperceptible expression of surprise cross his features when his dampeners succeeded in dissolving the illusion and he saw them all standing near the mountain as far as the eye could see. Although she found it disconcerting to once again have silence in her mind rather than the low buzz of Caleb’s and her family’s thoughts, she had been prepared for it.

“Hello, Grolkinei,” she and her sisters said at the same time.

There was a pause as he and the soldiers around him absorbed the threat level. Then he smiled and settled his gaze on Skye.

“This is a pleasant surprise. Come back for more fun, have you?”

He was greeted by utter silence.

“Well?” he prompted. “We are not presenting a direct threat to any of you. Are you going to convert to Mercesti by trying to kill us?”

Although she and her sisters weren’t sharing thoughts, she heard Olivia pull an arrow from her quiver and Amber unsheathe a dagger even as she pulled a silver disc from her belt. They released their weapons at the same time.

Grolkinei didn’t move. The three missiles all struck some kind of barrier several feet before they reached him. He did glare at them, however.

“How about that?” Amber said. “We didn’t convert.”

“Guess you found us out,” he responded coldly. “We intend to kill you.”

“We’ve heard that before,” Olivia said.

“Yeah,” Skye agreed, catching his gaze. “It’s getting boring.”

He flexed his jaw. Then he lifted his hand.

They all knew what was coming. Olivia held her fist out. Skye turned and touched hers to it, just as her siblings did. Then Olivia and James turned and disappeared into the crowd. From the corner of her eye, Skye saw Grolkinei close his own hand into a fist.

The battle had begun.

As they had planned, Gabriel and Caleb turned with Amber and Skye and moved behind the front lines as Grolkinei issued the call for battle. Although the sisters were now highly trained and could hold their own in combat, there were fighters with many more years of experience who were more appropriate to lead the charge. So when the Mercesti began flooding from the mountain like fireants from a ruined anthill, they met a wall of Waresti, Gloresti and Corgloresti led by Uriel, Ini-herit, Harold, Hitoshi, Raphael and Quincy.

Skye had expected to be terrified. So she was surprised to feel quite calm as she and Caleb hurried to the predetermined location established for their battle position. The elders had very bluntly pointed out that Saraqael’s daughters were bait. They were what drove the Mercesti in their battle. So it only made sense to place the sisters in several different geographic areas to try and subsequently scatter the Mercesti soldiers.

Her location was on the far left of the battleground, several hundred feet behind the front lines. She stood with Caleb on a rocky outcropping shadowed by the mountain face. The landscape shone white due to the snow covering nearly every surface. Although the air was crisp and filled with white plumes from their breath, she didn’t feel cold.

She saw Malukali and Knorbis communicating with their classes even further back and to the center of the battleground. They were speaking out loud because the level of dampening in effect prevented mental connections. She knew without hearing them that the elders were reminding their classes to continue to attempt their various mental attacks, interceptions and protections, even though they were currently ineffective. They were again telling them how the fighters were going to target the Mercesti who had mental powers to try and lessen the dampening effect as the battle continued.

Scattered throughout the battleground were hundreds of the highest level Lekwuesti and Scultresti. Both classes were prepared to assist their comrades by creating or repairing armor or weapons or healing injuries. All of them risked injury or death themselves by being even remotely near the field of battle. Two weeks of cross-training had really only taught these non-fighting classes the basics in self-defense.

The last class participating in the battle, the Elphresti, was also strategically positioned. Unlike the others, however, they were on the high ground, prepared to evaluate the action on the field of battle and then convey their suggestions to the fighters. They would use the intercepted thoughts conveyed to them by the Wymzesti and Orculesti to aid them in their strategic planning.

As Skye saw it, they were poised for victory…if it wasn’t for the dampening.

Closing her eyes, knowing her sister couldn’t hear her, she still thought,
Come on, Liv!

When Olivia and James turned from their siblings, they headed straight to their positions on the right side of the battlefield. Beside the forest, it offered them excellent cover.

“Look for Mercesti who aren’t heavily armed,” James said in a low voice as they ran. “The others will be trying to protect them.”

Olivia already knew this because they had reviewed it multiple times, but she simply nodded. She knew he was worried about her, just as she was about him. It came with being in love, and she could accept that without thinking he didn’t trust her abilities. In fact, it helped center her as they approached the perches they had created earlier.

Using their power, they had bent some of the trees to create stable, raised platforms for standing on to shoot. They had formed as many of the perches as possible to house the most skilled archers among the different classes. Each of the stands was camouflaged by foliage and vines, but allowed a clear view of the battlefield. They intended to return the trees to their normal positions after the battle.

Aurora and Titan, still wearing their armor, stood beneath the stands intended for Olivia and James. The couple gave the cats quick pats on the head before turning to their stands. Olivia reached for the branch that would propel her up, only to be yanked from behind, whipped around and kissed soundly.

“I love you,” James said when he pulled back from the embrace.

“I love you, too,” she said, giving him a brief touch on the cheek.

Then they both leaped to their platforms. Small contingents of Estilorians—some from every class—moved to stand beneath her post as well as his. They stood prepared to defend, to hand up more arrows, or simply to offer any other assistance they could. She could only pray that wouldn’t be needed.

She positioned herself and indulged in a quick scan of the battlefield. How different and more intimidating it looked now that it was occupied by thousands of beings, she thought with a hard swallow. She made sure she spotted Skye and Amber.

Then she drew her first arrow and focused on drowning out the now incredible noise of battle.

Her first target drew her attention. It was a male with glowing red eyes who was focused on the far side of the battlefield, the area housing the Wymzesti and Orculesti. He was wearing armor but no other apparent weaponry. Hoping that Grolkinei was keeping the shielding to himself, she fought against her inherent qualms over aiming a deadly weapon at another living being and let her arrow fly.

Her aim proved true. He fell as the arrow pierced his eye and brain, the most vulnerable part of an armored Mercesti.

The moment he fell, a volley of arrows left the copse in which she stood. She was already nocking another arrow when that volley resulted in a number of Mercesti hitting the ground. She didn’t take long to find another target and fire her arrow. Another volley followed an instant later.

When she reached for her third arrow, she caught flashes of sunlight on something metallic from several of the cave entrances. She realized that Grolkinei’s archers were scrambling into position. The Mercesti hadn’t anticipated a battle at the mountain that morning, and thus hadn’t been prepared to defend that location. They were hurrying to correct that.

Turning, she shouted to her fellow archers, “James and I have got the dampeners—aim for the caves and their archers!”

Then she turned back around, found another target and fired. Even as that target fell, she pulled another arrow and nocked it, sighting the next one.

Watch for the archers, Amber
, she thought.

And let her arrow fly.

Amber hated leaving the front lines. She wanted nothing more than to remain with the most skilled Estilorian fighters and take a stand with them.

But she understood and even agreed with the logic of moving her and her sisters to locations that would draw the Mercesti out of the mountain. So she hurried with Gabriel straight down the center of the mass of fighters behind them.

Much to her surprise, she found herself holding her hands up and giving fives to all of the fighters she passed, just like at the end of a softball game. Only this time, she was telling them “good game” before the “game” had even begun. She did this not of her own volition, but because all of them were reaching toward her.

She sincerely hoped it wasn’t the last contact she ever had with them.

They reached their destination and turned to face the battle. She had to pause to catch her breath as she scanned the field in front of her. The noise was monstrous.

She saw Olivia’s arrow fly. Saw the target Mercesti fall. And thought,
Great job, Liv
.

“What do you think of the name Clara if the baby’s a girl?” Gabriel suddenly asked from beside her.

Blinking in surprise, she glanced at him. “What?”

“You know,” he said, his eyes focused on the battle. “After Mrs. B.”

She had, of course, known he was referencing their human guardian. What baffled her was his choice of topic as they faced a flood of Mercesti heading eagerly in their direction. Although she wasn’t the most perceptive individual on the face of the earth, she understood Gabriel better than she knew herself. So she simply shrugged.

“Works for me.” She watched Olivia’s next shot and saw the target fall. “Clara Kate?”

“Perfect,” he agreed. They both heard a female voice shouting something indistinguishable above the battle noise and knew it was Olivia. “And if it’s a boy?”

Amber’s gaze scanned the mountainside, her instincts heightened after hearing Olivia’s voice. “Well, Saraqael’s a bit of a mouthful for a first name,” she said as she spotted the flash of metal from the caves that must have alerted her sister. “I’m kind of partial to Joshua.”

That brought him up short. Then his gaze filled with understanding and remembrance. “The Corgloresti who sacrificed himself to send you to the human plane as a newborn.”

She nodded as she watched Olivia’s third arrow fly. Then she shouted, “Heads up—archers in the caves!”

A volley of Estilorian arrows headed right for the caves, and Amber knew she had guessed correctly what Olivia had been shouting about.

Gabriel touched her arm and she looked at him. “Joshua Saraqael it is,” he said.

Emotion—unwanted but unavoidable—flooded through her at the look in his eyes. She fought it back and cleared her throat. Then she stopped focusing on the battle long enough to hold his gaze and said, “You know we’re going to live through this, right?”

“Of course I do,” he replied.

They were the last words they spoke before the sky above them filled with Mercesti arrows.