“How the hell are you planning to bring down the walls of the citadel? They’re impenetrable, and reinforced by magic,” he asked, his lips jerking into a smirk, as if he thought I was lying. “If you think I’m walking in there with some girl who is bluffing about her abilities, you’re fucking wrong.”
“She has leveled an entire castle to the fucking ground. If you’re scared, Basilius, just say so. I’m sure Aria can find something for you to do here. The cook probably needs help cleaning the kitchens,” Esme shot back, forcing my eyebrows to shoot toward my hairline. Shots fired! “You’re obviously not man enough to be comfortable taking orders from a woman, anyway.”
“Careful, Little Bird. One might think you need another trip to the supply closet. Was I man enough in there for you?” Basilius stepped closer, his rattle registering in my ears before it even built within his chest.
It was dominant, but Knox would easily subdue him. Esme, on the other hand, slowly began pressing her thighs together, clenching against his demand to submit. Her spine curved, even as she glared murderously at him. The moment she began to lower, his rattle silenced. Tipping his dark head, he smirked. Her eyes slid to mine with a look of I-told-you-so simmering in them.
“Everyone knows the plan?” Waiting for the eyes to go up, I exhaled. “Here goes nothing. May the gods be merciful, because I won’t be.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Aria
A dense fog drifted up from the riverbank of the Red River. It hovered within the ground inside the citadel, blanketing it in foreboding stillness. Footpaths high on the walls began flickering with flames, slowly revealing the soaring walls until they encircled the entire stronghold. As if they thought to ward off the moisture churning into a dark, foreboding obscuring cover. The more they fought to remove the mist, the thicker it laid on the ground, slowly rising to ensure no eyes fell upon us outside of the wrought iron gates, and stone bastion.
The denizens within loitered, unable to flee the moistness that soaking their cloaks, gowns, or tunics. It weighed against their lifeless flesh, adding dread to their sickly, lifeless minds. The foul, acrid scent of death clung to the wet air, forcing it beyond the fortified walls. Rotting corpses were pungent, revealing the level of the depravity within.
The rotting corpses weren’t the worst of the acrid, putrid scents drifting from inside. The flesh of the creatures Hecate exhausted beyond their worth, were currently being incinerated. The smoke was so thick I could taste it from where I stood, slowly and meticulously unweaving the multiple lines of magic drifting through the city around us, fueling the goddess within the towering protection of the citadel.
I moved my fingers, but not enough to even be perceptible to anyone around me. The entire army of the dead sat just beneath the surface of the ground beneath our feet. I felt the disturbance of the city at our back, the wrongness of those dwelling within the residences. Hecate had either taken control or she’d placed her own batteries close enough within range for her to use at her convenience.
“The village is filled with dark witches. Hundreds of them,” I whispered barely above a breath of air. “They’ll need to handle them. There’s also a convoy of witches’ incoming from the farthest southern pass of the Valley of the Dead.”
“We’ll handle them easily,” Basilius said, his hand touching the small of my back. “The right side, correct?” He turned, and looked down at me.
“Correct. Killian, until we reveal the others, aim the majority of the archers toward the village in case they join in, which I’m nearly positive they will. Instruct them not to hesitate no matter what they appear to be,” I instructed, continuing to find each slithering whisper of magic drifting throughout the land, straight to Hecate.
“They’re adept in murdering witches,” Killian said with a calmness I didn’t share.
One wrong move and we would end up dead. Hecate may be weakened, but she’d taken precautionary measures. She’d brought in reinforcements, along with several lords she’d forced to accept her darkness. Rolling my shoulders past the chafing of the untried armor, I heard Killian chuckle.
“Normally, you’d wear a new set of armor to train in before wearing it to battle. Due to all leather, you should stretch it before wearing it,” he divulged, and I narrowed my eyes at him. “Greer meant well. He’s not a fighter, though. He’d take a book—or a dick—any day over a sword.”
“He does like his books, and anyone willing to play willing victim.”
The scent of sweat and apprehension from the army behind our back, still coming through the portal clung heavily in the air. It was probably a good thing the mindless witches within were burning the expired batteries.
“Remember, once she’s seen you, you are to appear to ‘protect’ me aside from her intended hit, Basilius.” At my air quotes, he’d frowned. “She will strike through the middle, aiming for me. You shove me, I protect you.”
“How skilled are you at protecting people, Aria?”
“I don’t want to jinx it, Basilius, but one of the two numbers is zero. In my favor, of course.” His grunt was the only confirmation of acknowledgment to confirm he’d heard me at all. Turning to Brander, who’d forced Lore to stay behind in his stead, I called to him. “Brander, check on Siobhan in the back. Make sure the girls are almost finished. Hecate is right fucking there,” I whispered, watching as she moved forward, inching toward the front gates, then stood in the tunnel leading outside, directly in front of me. Her dark head tilted as if she were listening for something.
The bitch was walking straight toward us. A sadistic smile played on my lips, even as the air caught in my lungs, my pulse quickening as I watched her pause halfway down the tunnel, which led to the iron-wrought gates. My heartbeat was hammering in my ears, part excitement, part fear. She just needed to remain inside long enough for the girls to finish their part. They were close. I could feel them reaching, as the weavers beneath me braided each tendril of magic. Carefully, precisely, I slipped one after another to them through the shared bond.
Esmeralda pulled on her end, even as Soraya tugged on hers. Exhaling the dread, I counted to thirty inside my head and then forcefully ripped the larger, thicker veins of magic to me. Hecate’s head swung left and then right before the largest grid she’d crafted, the one that fed her the lion’s share of her magic, imploded beneath the ground, shaking through the entire citadel.
Her eyes rounded, feeling each vein collapse. I’d cut off the blood supply that threaded throughout the body. The moment she darted toward the tunnels, I unleashed hell on the citadel. The first, largest, ball of fire slammed down in the back, thundering through the air, deafeningly.
Inside my head, freeing the music to the air around me, In This Moment's cover of “In the Air Tonight” by Phil Collins hummed to life, hummed to life. Her head whipped toward me as I moved from the thick, whispers of the fog. Several fiery meteors slammed into the walls, damaging them. Then I brought the entire thing down with precisely-timed blasts of what remained of the meteors I’d constructed last night.
I waited until I could scent the grease burning on the arrowheads of the archers behind me before I lifted my arm. When I dropped it, a volley of arrows lit up the air around me. As they hit their marks, I heard the grunts of them tearing flesh to bone, igniting the corpses afire. Wiggling my fingers, I brought up the army, slowly strolling forward. Once I could see past the fog, I turned, watching a helmetless Basilius strolling exactly like his brother, toward me.