Chapter 19: Chapter Nineteen

Armaila winced as she opened her eyes. Her entire body throbbed with pain and her vison was little more than a bur.

“Be still,” Eric said. He placed a damp cloth stinking of medicine herbs over her forehead.

The air was warm, she thought. Or perhaps she was delirious with fever.

“Shera.”

“I know. Rest.”

* * *

When Armaila woke again, it was light. Her wounds were cleaned and bandaged. She lay in a small cottage that smelled of wood-smoke and dust, and Eric sat by the window, his face buried in his hands.

She struggled to sit up, eventually settling for an awkward position leaning on her uninjured arm. Eric stirred and a small, half-felt smile crossed his face.

“I failed everyone,” she said.

“You did everything you could.”

Armaila inhaled sharply, from both physical and mental pain.

“Theodore is alive, kept in his own dungeon as a spectacle. Azghar has sent out word to every city that he is now king.”

“What did they do with Shera?”

Eric frowned and looked away.

“What did they do with her body?” Armaila repeated, stronger.

“They placed her head on a spike by the front gate.”

Armaila groaned. The constant presence in her mind was replaced with an empty hollow, and shame and guilt threatened to overwhelm her.

“I should have known there was a bluestone,” she said. “I killed Shera.”

How she was supposed to live with that. Was it even possible?

Eric added a log to the hearth, causing wisps of smoke to escape with a shower of sparks. “I’ve had plenty of time to this these past days,” he said. “Isn’t it odd Azghar attacked now? Over six hundred years since he fled.”

“He needed time to build the Legion’s numbers.” Armaila laid back down, unable to take the pressure on her arm any longer.

“Theodore has spent a great deal of money and effort in searching for bluestones over the years,” Eric continued. “My father—adoptive father—worked closely with him to track every piece of scholarly evidence related to them. And, now, there is a bluestone in Normar.”

“What do you mean?” Armaila asked, her throbbing head struggling to keep up. “That King Theodore wanted Azghar to attack?”

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“Maybe. If anyone can escape the dungeon, it’s the man who ordered dozens of secret chambers to be constructed.”

Armaila closed her eyes. She wanted to imagine her sword didn’t kill Shera, that the bluestone hadn’t affected her and she was still in the field, wounded but alive. But she couldn’t. The emptiness made it impossible.

“I’m going to look for more survivors,” he said, leaning her sword against the wall within reach. “I will be back before nightfall.”

Despite the inability to move her body, Armaila’s mind raced. I should have known.

Days turned into weeks and Armaila’s wounds healed, leaving behind gnarled scars. Two fingers on her right hand no longer bent as well as they should have, but they were functional. Her body ached when it rained.

Including Eric, they were a group of thirty-seven survivors. They took up residence in the south, not far from where Viral’s cabin had been, and Azghar had not bothered them. He was preoccupied with tightening his grip on the many cities in the kingdom.

“I know you are grieving,” Eric said one afternoon, taking a seat beside her. The cabin he constructed was small and dark, like most of the buildings put up hastily to keep out the cold bite of winter. “Spring is almost here… perhaps it is time you join us in rebuilding.”

Armaila groaned.

Eric frowned and stood. He opened his mouth to speak, but frantic shouting interrupted.

It was enough to make Armaila walk to the window—a feat that made her realize how weak and stiff her legs had become—while Eric was already trudging through the melting snow with a sword in hand. A familiar figure appeared through the trees.

“Florine, it is good to see you,” Eric said with relief.

She was accompanied by Burn and a small army of fairies. “There is much to speak of,” she said. “I am sorry that I did not reach Normar in time.”

The four of them took a seat by a fire, while the other fairies formed a protective circle around the camp. Armaila hated to admit that the fresh air felt good.

“I cannot imagine the pain you have to bear, Armaila,” Florine said. “You have my sincerest condolences.”

She told them of her long journey to and from the Fairy Kingdom, and how she had become queen. There were new scars, ugly and jagged, on her neck but she gave no explanation for them. Eric told her intimate details of the battle in Normar and of Veral’s death.

“I…” Florine’s frown deepened at the mention of the old man’s death. “It seems I will be forced to leave some questions unanswered.”

“Speaking of questions,” Eric said. “What do you know of King Theodore’s research into bluestones?”

“Too much.”

Armaila listened in shock as Florine explained her original plan to find a hidden bluestone to use against Azghar.

“There is perhaps still a use for it,” the fairy said, “but we must be careful to not cause another incident like the Land of Ash.”

Two bluestones together were an unimaginably large source of power.

“The risk is too great,” Armaila said.

Florine studied her for some time, much the same way Veral used to do. “You have been broken,” she said, barely above a whisper. “Those pieces can be mended. They must be, for Shera and for Erithor.”

She ordered Armaila to get her sword, and with some resistance, Armaila agreed. The hilt felt familiar, yet foreign without Shera’s presence in the back of her mind.

“This blade has done terrible things,” Aramaila said.

“So has mine.” Florine drew her sword and set it to the side. “They are an extension of our own choices, for better or worse. It is something all great warriors must come to terms with.”

Great?

The only great thing about her was the size of her failures.

Florine struck at Armaila’s chest with a tree branch. Armaila dodged the blow and the crude weapon brushed against her left arm. Harmless now, but a serious injury in battle.

“You remember what Veral taught you,” the fairy said, “but you have not maintained it.”

“There is no point.”

“Try again,” Florine urged.

Armaila gritted her teeth and selected a branch of her own use, this time deflecting Florine’s blow with enough speed to take advantage of an opening it left.

“Now you would be the one bleeding in battle,” she said.

Florine laughed, and for the first time, the emptiness Armaila felt was not all consuming.