Taliesin Ascendant (The Children and the Blood) (9 page)

He looked back at her and raised an eyebrow.

Ashe’s heart quivered, the ludicrous authority Darius was handing her suddenly hitting her in full force. Everything Carter wanted, and with a single command, it would begin. Incredulity burbled up inside and she swallowed, trying to appear calm. “I do,” she managed.

He nodded. “Then I have only one thing to ask in return. If we do this, if we send out wizards to fight these invisible monsters you describe… you do not go with them.”

Her brow twitched downward.

“You are the last of the royal family, your highness,” he explained, a hint of gentleness in his tone. “You are all that stands between us and the loss of our magic to the Taliesin king, and you are quite literally our only hope of uncovering the spell to bind our enemies again. For you to be lost to us in a battle or even just an accident…” He shook his head. “It is unthinkable. We need you here as a symbol to our people, to give them hope and courage so
they
can go out and fight the enemies that have plagued us for so long. They need you here so they can know that, even if they die, hope for their families and loved ones remains.

“This does not mean you will be doing nothing,” he continued at the protests in her eyes. “Not remotely. Your father’s work is unfinished. We can train you in magic, teach you what we know, but only you can learn how to reinstate the spell to bind Taliesin.”

Darius paused. “Please do not see this as less important, your majesty,” he insisted. “I cannot understate what it will mean to end this war. We can negotiate with Taliesin as we have no chance of doing now. We can deliver war-criminals to justice, if the stories you bring from the cripples are true. And once there is peace, your Blood wizards will have infinitely more difficulty trying to hide. With the first one we capture, you will be able to extend the binding spell through them to all on their side, rendering them incapable of harming anyone ever again.

“That is the extent of your power, your highness, should the spell be reclaimed. And that is why you
must
remain safely here. So… do we have an agreement?”

With everything in her, she wanted to say no. A breath away from emerging, the word hovered on her lips. But her gaze tracked around the table, watching the unwilling expressions strengthen, and she could already hear the arguments that would follow if she disagreed. Everything would shatter. Carter’s plan and everything he’d asked her to do would just fall to pieces, because the only thing stopping them from dismissing every word she’d just said was the fact Darius was on her side.

But to stay here… to hide as others fought the ones who’d killed her family…

She swallowed, protests pushing so hard against her chest it hurt to breathe. But she’d come this far. She couldn’t back down now. Not when, with this one sacrifice, everything Carter wanted would be realized.

It killed her. But she couldn’t let that destroy Carter’s dream.

“Yes.”

Darius nodded gratefully. “Then we will gather wizards to assist us and, with your blessing, we will send them out to find the cripples. Given how they have hidden from us and the distrust they have for our kind, it may take time. But,” he added, “it is also a royal order. And we have the good faith you built with their so-called Hunters to aid us. No matter what it takes, we
will
see it done.”

Air escaped her. “Thank you.”

He bowed his head in return.

She glanced around the table. Cornelius didn’t look up, and Sebastian seemed ready to explode. But the others were expressionless and no one said a word.

“Well, if there is nothing else,” Darius continued after a moment. “Then I suggest we adjourn.”

At his words, the others rose, disappearing from the room in near silence. Sebastian was the first out the door. Ashe watched him go, and when Cornelius circled the table to her side, it took a moment for her to turn around.

“If you would come with me, your majesty,” he said with rigid decorum.

She stood, her gaze slipping over the room again and catching on Darius.

Incrementally, he nodded, giving her a tiny smile.

Drawing a breath, she echoed the motion and then turned, following Cornelius from the conference room. On the factory floor, she could see Sebastian snapping at a few wizards as he marched past, and swiftly, they hurried after him. She grimaced darkly and kept walking.

Winding deeper into the building, Cornelius led her through corridors she’d had yet to see, and along walkways that stretched past areas easily as large as the one they’d left behind. Doors opened along the walls below her, admitting wizards toting boxes of produce and bread through abyssal portals that made her cringe. Rows of crates were arrayed in front of the doors, the stenciled names of various foods on their sides, while tangled piles of metal and plastic lay in a jumble at the far end of the room. Her brow furrowed at the mess, till she realized the scrap heap contained the remnants of whatever machinery had once filled the factory.

Ignoring the organized chaos, Cornelius continued onward, never looking back to see if she was still with him.

“Where are we going?” she called, speeding up to keep pace with his long legs.

“Library.”

Her brow drew down at his sharp tone. Reaching the far side of the walkway, he yanked open a door and then headed inside without pause. Grimacing, she broke into a jog, trying to catch the door before it slammed shut and she lost sight of him completely.

A panicked cry brought her up short.

With a bleeding wizard supported on his shoulder, a man rushed from a portal below her. Dropping their boxes of produce to the ground, the other wizards ran to help as more people came through the opening, some under their own power and others leaning heavily on their companions. From deeper in the building, she could hear shouts, along with the drum of footsteps running in her direction.

“Ashe.”

She flinched. Cornelius had reappeared behind her.

“Go back to your room,” he said, his gaze locked on the wizards coming through the portal.

“What–”

“Do it now.”

“Cornelius–”

He glanced over to her and she blanched at the look in his eyes. At a loss for what to do, she backed away and then started for the hall, still watching the factory floor. Behind her, Cornelius strode down the metal stairs and then grabbed the nearest wizard for information.

Guards rushed from the hallway and, startled, she stumbled back against the wall to stay out of their path. On the factory floor, more people were being carried in. Suspended between two wizards, a woman without an arm screamed, the bandages on her shoulder soaked and dripping red. Howling for his mother, a toddler flailed in the grip of a man whose head was wrapped in his own t-shirt and whose back bore viciously seeping burns.

And others didn’t move at all.

Trembling, her hands braced themselves against the wall.

“Your highness?”

Catching himself as he ran from the hall, Elias looked at her in alarm. Barely giving either of them a passing glance, Katherine kept going, a dozen wizards carrying bundles of medical supplies coming after her. “What’re you doing here?” he asked.

“C-Cornelius was…” she started, her gaze still on the wounded and the dying. She faltered, forgetting her response. “What happened?”

Elias grimaced, glancing to the factory floor. “You shouldn’t be here.”

“What
happened
?”

“We’re not sure yet. Ambush at another safe house, probably.”

Her brow drew down tremulously as a tiny body wrapped in a purple fleece blanket came through the portal in the arms of a larger wizard.

The look on the man’s face told her all she needed to know.

“Please go back to your room, your highness,” Elias said, gentleness struggling to cover the urgency in his tone. His gaze darted between her and the factory floor, and he reached over to guide her back toward the hallway. “There isn’t any need for you to see this.”

She shrugged off his hand, watching as the man set the little body down on a crate. A bloodied hand slipped from beneath the fleece. A pink bracelet dangled from the wrist and the glitter inside caught on the bright factory lights. Heavily, the man sank to the floor, and as he buried his face in his hands, his shoulders began to shake.

Ashe headed for the stairs.

“Your majesty!” Elias called, rushing to catch up with her. “Please, this isn’t–”

She ignored him, making a beeline for the man. Pulling his tearstained face from his hands, he looked up as she stopped by the body of the child.

Her fingers shaking, she pulled back the blanket. Confusion clouded the man’s face as he looked from her to Elias.

“Who…?” the man asked, his voice thick with pain.

“Her Royal Highness,” Elias explained quietly. “Queen Ashe.”

The man stared at her. She barely noticed.

With her dark lashes resting on her pale skin, the girl could have been sleeping, but for the blood staining her little green t-shirt above the blanket’s hem. Feathery strands of auburn hair lay across her face, above freckled cheeks still touched with pink.

Gently, Ashe brushed the hair from the child’s face and then looked down at the man.

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered.

Grief tugged at his expression. Wordlessly, he managed to nod.

Ashe turned. More people rushed down the steps to help, while others carried the injured farther away. Children wailed for their parents, the sobs mingling with the moans and cries of the wounded. Healers shouted for bandages as their magic flared, treating what could be quickly fixed and staunching the blood of what could not. The less injured leaned against crates at the edge of the chaos, their eyes glazed with residual horror. At the center of it all, Katherine stood, calling orders to her army of healers and pouring her magic into the worst of the injured brought her way.

Across the room, Ashe spotted Cornelius heading for a portal, a handful of guards at his back. She started toward them, only to come to a sharp stop as they disappeared through the opening and the shadows vanished in their wake, leaving only an empty doorway.

“You should go, your highness,” Elias insisted, stepping aside as two healers rushed past.

Ashe ignored him and took off toward Katherine. “What can I do to help?” she called, raising her voice over the din.

Katherine cut off in mid-command, irritation flashing across her face before she realized who had spoken.

“Your majesty, you shouldn’t–”

“What can I do to help!” Ashe yelled furiously.

The woman paused. “Ermengarde!” she shouted at a rotund woman bustling past with an enormous bundle of bandages in her arms. “Take her highness with you.”

Ermengarde’s eyes went wide as she looked from Katherine to Ashe. Swallowing, she nodded and then motioned with a nervous tilt of her head for Ashe to come with her.

“You don’t have to–” the round woman protested as Ashe reached her and immediately moved to take the bandages from her arms.

At the look in Ashe’s eyes, she fell silent and relinquished the wrappings.

“Now what?”

Blinking rapidly, Ermengarde faltered at the question. Jerkily, she nodded toward a healer nearby and then obeyed her own direction and hurried his way.

Gripping the bandages, Ashe followed.

The healer barely glanced up from his wounded charge as they came closer. “One of you hold her and the other clean this up,” he ordered. “I can hardly see what I’m doing here.”

With an anxious glance to Ashe, Ermengarde dropped to her knees, ignoring the wet ground as she moved to hold the woman’s wound closed. Ashe set the bandages on a nearby crate and then grabbed two bundles before crouching down.

“Go on,” the healer snapped.

Biting her lip, she obeyed. Blood soaked the woman’s torso and dripped from the tatters of her shirt. In her abdomen, a ragged wound with blackened edges gaped and dark lines traced the veins radiating from the hole, as though the tiny capillaries had been burnt to charcoal. Magic raced around the perimeter of the wound, knitting the skin beneath the healer’s intent stare.

Swallowing hard, Ashe reached down and tried to wipe the blood from the edges of the wound.

“Hurry up, dammit,” the healer muttered at Ashe.

She worked faster. Skin knit beside her hands as she sopped the blood away and the woman gasped for air. His face tightening, the healer cursed and poured more magic into the wound.

Skin merged over the woman’s abdomen. The magic spread wider, covering her chest, her head, her arms and legs.

And then her breathing eased.

The healer sighed as the woman slipped into sleep. Without a word, he rose and headed for the next wounded person he could see.

Ermengarde took a breath and then gestured to two wizards watching from nearby. As they came to lift the woman between them, she gathered the clean bandages into her arms and then glanced over, catching sight of Ashe still crouched on the ground.

“My lady?”

Dryly, Ashe swallowed and dropped the soaking cloths. Trembling, she rose to her feet as shock raced in on adrenaline’s heels. Carefully keeping her bloodied hands away from her sides, she closed her eyes, struggling to drive away the memories clamoring at the edge of her control.

“You don’t–” Ermengarde started.

Ashe looked over at her and the woman blanched. Licking her lips, Ermengarde hesitated and then gave an uncomfortable nod before hurrying after the healer. Ashe followed right behind.

Hours passed. After a while, she barely noticed the time. The day became divided into who survived and who didn't; a series of snapshots that eventually began to blur. Bloodstains and sweat were interchangeable, and she soon stopped paying attention to either. Only the person she was helping mattered and the shouts and screams were just background noise, filtered for what was relevant to the moment, and otherwise ignored.

And then, it was over.

She sat back on her heels as the wizards carried away the boy she’d been helping, his eyes closed in sleep below the bandage she’d wrapped around his head. At her side, the healer blinked tiredly, and then sighed. Glancing over, he bowed his head to her with a smile.