Chapter 28
Azriel woke with a start, his stomach clenched in knots. He rolled over on his sleeping mat and reached for a canteen of water. He blinked to clear his head and splashed some water on his face. He hated what the faebane cocktail did to his senses. His power was dulled but it felt like a blanket had been thrown over his other senses too. Though that could be more from the alcohol than anything. He scrambled to his feet and pushed aside the flaps of the tent.
Rhys was standing just outside, staring at the campfire in the darkness. The novices had been dropped off three days ago and the senior warriors had been reveling and drinking since then. But Rhys' body language was tense, not relaxed from nights of camaraderie.
"Did you call me?" asked Azriel.
Rhys looked up suddenly like he hadn't heard Azriel approach. "No."
"Oh. I thought I heard someone call my name." He paused and watched Rhys for a moment. "What's wrong?"
Rhys clenched his jaw. "Nothing. Something. I don't know. I've grown used to having Feyre in my head all the time. It's too quiet now."
Azriel just nodded and joined him in staring at the fire. "Is that from the Daemati skills, or…" His voice trailed off as he couldn't seem to ask about the mating bond.
Rhys looked up at him sympathetically. "Both. The Daemati allows us to communicate specifically. But the bond sends strong emotions around the mental shields. The extremes-fear and love-are always the strongest, but others such as anxiety, happiness, nervousness, and joy will trickle through as well."
Azriel continued to stare at the fire and reflect on this. If she accepted, would Kyla ever be able to feel those emotions from him? She was human and didn't have the same instincts, the same primal connection.
"Can you feel her?" Rhys asked gently.
"I try not to, but every part of me reaches out for her. The shadows pull everything about her back to me. It's overwhelming.
"She loves so freely and openly, delighted by the smallest thing, that it's hard not to pick up on it, even without a mating bond," Rhys added with a smile.
"But her fear shatters me. And she had so much to be afraid of."
Shouting erupted on the far side of the camp. Males were gathering at the edge holding torches high for a better view. Rhys and Azriel headed for the fight and found Cassian standing tensely with Lord Devlon. On the ground in front of them was the only female Illyrian who had dared take the Blood Rite. She was snarling viciously at the two warriors who held back her arms.
"I told you females could not be warriors!" Devlon shouted at Cassian's face. "Look how she had defiled our sacred ceremony! She freed her wings and was caught trying to sneak off." Other males began shouted and spitting on the female.
"No! I was not! I need to speak with my mate. I need to know if he can feel it! Something is wrong."
Devlon stepped forward and punched the female hard in the stomach. She bent double, winded from the blow.
"Shut your foul mouth! You will speak when I ask."
A shout came from the back. "Kill her now and be done with it. The others are still out there!"
Rhys stepped forward calmly. "You could kill her for this violation. It's unheard for a warrior to fail at the Blood Rite. You either succeed, or you die."
A warrior drew his drew his sword and lined it up with her neck.
"No! You can't! Please you have to check on them! Something is wrong, something is off!"
"What is wrong is that we ever allowed females to train in the first place!" someone shouted.
Rhys interrupted the execution. "But bearing male triplets is equally unheard of. She may not be a warrior but she is too valuable to waste in needless death." Azriel knew Rhys didn't want the execution to proceed but he needed to convince the lords it was their idea.
The warrior with the sword stayed his blade as someone pushed through the crowd behind him.
"Daria! Daria! What's wrong? Why did you come?" It was her husband pushing through the crowd of males. They shoved him around in disgust and grabbed hold of him. One even stepped in and landed a punch across his face. The female, Daria, surged to her feet and wrenched an arm free. She grabbed the sword from the surprised, and likely drunk, executioner and swiped at her other opponent. Another jumped at her from behind but she ducked and rolled to the side, taking out a furious Devlon at the knees. She scrambled up grabbing Devlon, holding the sword to his throat.
Cassian was reaching for his own sword but froze when he saw her hostage. "Daria, you don't want to do this. Think of your sons."
"I am thinking of them! That's all I'm thinking of because I can feel them! I can feel their pain and their terror right now. Something is wrong!"
Azriel pushed through crowd and stormed up to the female looking her closely in the face. "What did you see?" he demanded.
Her eyes went wide as she beheld the shadowsinger before her. Her breathing was ragged and her voice wavered under the stress.
"I didn't see. There's a cloud, a mist over my eyes…"
"That's on all of us!" someone shouted. "It's the faebane."
Daria's eyes were wild but she ground her teeth and went on. "But I can feel something wrong. I came to get their father, to ask him to check while I'm in the Blood Rite. I did not mean to disgrace the trial…"
Azriel looked back to Rhys and saw concern growing in his eyes. "A mother has a strong connection with her offspring, almost as strong as a mating bond."
In the moment of distraction Devlon grabbed Daria's arm and twisted in one move, causing her to drop the sword and pinning her to the ground. Cassian and Azriel pulled them apart while Rhys turned to the crowd.
"Does anyone have a mate, a bonded mate, at the camp?"
The males shifted uneasily and looked at each other. Azriel knew it was likely some of them did have a mate, but it hadn't been acknowledged either because of rank or the female was promised to another already. He was getting impatient with the males' silence. Something had woken him in the night, and Rhys was uneasy as well. Now this female had broken the most sacred oath because of fear for her children.
A young male stepped forward nervously. "I have a mate. A bonded mate that is at camp. No one knows. It's new and...difficult."
Azriel didn't bother to ask why, he didn't care. He grabbed the male by the shirt and held him close. "What do you feel?" he shouted in his face. "Do you feel the tug?"
The male swallowed and began shaking under the shadowsinger's glare. "I thought it was because the bond is so raw. That it was just being away from her."
"What do you feel!?" This time it was Rhys who was shouting, fury pouring off his voice.
"Fear. Terror. Pain. I can't shut it out, even under the faebane. I was about to leave when Daria showed up," he confessed.
Cassian turned to Devlon. "Find the novices and head for camp!" He issued two more orders and then looked across the clearing as the warriors scattered to collect their weapons. But Azriel, Rhys, and Daria were already in the sky.
The males flew through the darkness, pushing their wings to the limit. Anxiety grew heavy in Azriel's stomach as they drew closer to the camp. He thought he caught the faint scent of smoke-burning flesh, not wood smoke-on the air. He glanced back at the warriors trying to catch up. Some were concerned as well, others confused as to why they had abandoned the Blood Rite. Azriel wondered at the consequences if this was a false alarm. He hoped he would get to see. He would gladly sit through the political discussions and haggling if it meant they were wrong about the camp. That their instincts were wrong.
He could feel Rhys rallying his power but they would have to land to winnow as a group, and they could only winnow to the edge of the wards. As the sun rose they came over a high ridge and Rhys let out a roar. Black smoke traced its way into the sky. The males drew their swords as they pushed their muscles to the max and dove for the camp.
They slammed into the ground like a shower of meteors, their crashes echoing off the hillsides around them. Some females screamed and stumbled to the ground, clutching children or scrambling for cover. With predatory calm Azriel, Cassian, and Rhys surveyed the camp, taking in the sights and sounds.
Tents were ripped and torn, houses and carts set ablaze. Blood spattered the snow, thicker pools around the bodies. Bodies of females. Mostly older females, he saw. A raiding party had come to take the breeding females while the warriors were at the Blood rite. Rhys, Cassian, and Azriel moved through the camp on the hunt.
An arrow flew by his head, too close. But Rhys reacted first, launching himself toward the source and taking down the shooter easily. Behind him hear the cry of a male who had just found his wife? his mother? his daughter? Slaughtered.
He looked down. A wing, still dripping blood, lay in the snow before him. His body went cold but still he pushed on. It was not her wing. Kyla did not have wings. She had nothing. No defense against this attack.
Then he saw the first male body. A wing had been crushed but the killing blow had been a quick stab under the ribs where his armor plates met. Close combat would have been necessary to deliver such a wound. The second male body had an arrow straight through his eye, has face frozen in shock. Feyre, Azriel thought. They had fought back.
After that he found more male bodies, and sometimes pieces of bodies encased in ice. Her falling ice trick she had discovered during the attack on Velaris.
Cassian stalked up his flank. "It seems that allowing females to take the Blood Rite was not the only violation of sacred acts committed this night. They came during the ceremony," he said with disgust.
The clang of metal sounded around the corner and a cry made Azriel's hair stand on end. A female was engaged in combat with one of the males from the attacking clan. Blood seeped down her leg and she struggled to maintain her footing. She lunged for the male but lost her balance as he blocked the blow, and she fell to the ground. Azriel was running for the duel but he would not get there in time to stop the male. Then the male jerked up and screamed in agony as blood rained down his back. One of his wings fell to the ground and the distraction was enough for the female on the ground to drive her sword though is gut. The attacker fell on top of prone female revealing the terrified teenager behind, a bloody sword clutched in her hands.
The trio ran up to the females who were trying to shove the fallen male's body off the novice pinned underneath. They weren't even strong enough to move the male, and yet as a team they had taken down a full-fledged Illyrian warrior. Azriel and Cassian took up defensive posts while Rhys knelt beside the wounded female on the ground.
"High Lord," she gasped. "You came."
"We all came," Rhys whispered gently. He put his hands on her wound but his power was too muted to heal it. "You need a healer."
The teenage female muscled in, practically shoving the High Lord of Night to the side. "I'll get her there. You need to help the novices. Feyre and Mor are overwhelmed." She didn't wait for Rhys' order but bent low and helped the female to her feet.
A wailing scream ripped them to attention. The sound of voices and crying grew louder as they approached the centre of the camp. The males ran into the chaos of females racing about and children wailing. A mother clutched the limp body of her son to her chest, weeping as she rocked back and forth. Wounded lay on the ground while others leaned over to help. Young females ran through the camp carrying buckets of water and blankets.
Azriel saw Rhys scanning the crowd desperately looking for Feyre, as Cassian demanded answers from the nearest female he could find. She clutched her bundle to her chest as the general roared in her face then pointed to a large tent across the square. Cassian picked up a wounded female from the ground and carried her to the tent with Azriel and Rhys scanning the surrounding area behind him.
The tent was really a medical shelter. The floor underneath was slick with blood and the reek of death hung in the air. Feyre was at the centre of the chaos, leaning over table healing a wounded novice. She was so focused on her task she didn't notice Rhys walk up to her. She let out a sagging exhale as the wound closed and took several breaths before opening her eyes. She immediately latched onto Rhys as he pulled her into his chest. Azriel scanned the tent but Kyla was nowhere to be found.
"Rhys!" Mor called out from the tent entrance. She stormed in covered in mud and blood with fury in her eyes. "How many returned?"
Rhys let go of Feyre and turned to Mor. "All of us. But some are further behind after collecting the novices."
Mor then noticed Azriel and Cassian as well. Relief passed across her face but she didn't waste her breath on gratitude. She was in full warrior mode with only her next battle strategy on her mind.
"If we rally a party immediately we can chase the group that escaped. Only a handful made it off the ground but we think they're tracking the females and children who fled into the forest." She looked from Cassian to Rhys, avoiding Azriel's eye.
"Mor-" Azriel started.
"We don't have a head count so we can't be sure of casualties. Too many are missing still," she interrupted.
"Mor, where-" he stepped towards her but Mor kept her focus on Rhys and Feyre.
"We need the healers to this tent immediately. The females are collecting anyone they can find alive and bringing them-"
"Morrigan! Where is she?" Azriel shouted.
Mor pursued her lips and finally looked Azriel in the eye. "I don't know. She was with some children when they came. She was trying to take cover with them and I lost track...we're looking."
Azriel reached out with his senses but couldn't feel anything, either from the faebane or because she was...he couldn't bring himself to think it.
Rhys stepped in. "Cassian and Azriel, lead the hunting party and track down those still in the woods. Mor, organise those left at camp and gather the wounded. Feyre and I will stay here and heal as many as we can."
Without a pause they rushed from the tent and back into the chaos outside.
