#and Miryam gets to be angry and she gets to be ruthless and she gets to do SO MUCH STUFF | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

cinaja · 3 years

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Before the Wall part 49

Masterlist

A/N: This took forever to write again, but I just had such a hard time with some of the scenes. I hope it all turned out okay.

Tw: Mentions of torture in the scene 6 and mutiliation in the scene 7 (towards the end). Also, scene 1 is Amarantha's pov, so it's a bit messed up as usual.

----

Amarantha ordered her soldiers to have their captured enemies screaming day and night, but even the screams now ringing out over her camp day and night fail to ease her fury. Not even imagining that it is Jurian screaming helps anymore, because she knows it is not and she knows that chances of her capturing him soon are low.

She lost her most valuable hostage, her direct path towards revenge. Like some new recruit with only a handful of battles under her belt, she let herself be outsmarted by Sinna of Erithia. Fell for a stupid diversion set with some idiot commander from Prythian as bait and didn’t notice the true plan until it was already too late.

On another day, she might have admired the ruthlessness of Sinna sacrificing hundreds of her own allies to save her new Princess. On another day, she might have been excited, might have started looking for an opportunity to pit herself against the Seraphim general, see which of them is truly better. But today, she is far too angry to be thrilled at the possible challenge.

It doesn’t matter how much she has the soldiers who served as a diversion tortured. Doesn’t matter that she ordered them all killed slowly and had ash bolts spiked through the commander’s wings. All that matters is that she still hasn’t gotten her hands on Jurian.

The very thought has anger flaring through her. Restlessly, Amarantha paces through her camp, looking for something to take her mind off the man who murdered her sister. Her soldiers, sensing her anger, shrink away from under har gaze.

A day spent on the march didn’t serve to improve her mood. But losing Miryam forced her to abandon her position at the Heseia Fort. Now that she doesn’t have a hostage, Jurian would never be stupid enough to attack her at such a secure position. So she had to give up some advantages, make Jurian think he has a chance to push him into attacking. And once he does, she will crush him.

Only she still needs a plan for that. She doesn’t doubt her army’s ability to take on that ragtag group of humans Jurian leads and win, but she can’t take any chances. Not when Jurian has proven more than once that he is clever, and surprisingly resilient for a human. If Amarantha wants to be entirely sure that she will defeat him, she will need some tricks up her sleeve.

“You,” she snaps at the nearest soldier, impatiently waving him over. “I’ll be gone for the next hour. Tell Lexo he’ll head the camp in my absence.”

Without waiting for a reply, she winnows away. She lands in the courtyard outside of the royal palace in Hybern. Distantly, the sound of waves crashing against the cliffs is audible, a seagull screams above.

Without pausing to look around, Amarantha stalks off towards the palace. People move aside to make space for her as she walks past. The slaves especially tremble and shrink away from her, knowing fully well that it is best not to cross Amarantha when she is this angry. On another day, Amarantha might have stopped to have her fun with one or two of them, but today, her goal is a different one.

The guards standing in front of the throne room step forward as she approaches, as if to intercept her. Amarantha doesn’t stop and at the last moment, they seem to think the better of it and jump aside. Amarantha pushes open the high doors leading into the throne room and stalks in.

With her arrival, the room falls silent. The courtiers standing throughout the room pause their chattering and stare at her, then quickly avert their eyes. On the throne, the King turns his dark eyes to her. He watches her for a moment, as if considering.

“Everybody out,” he orders without tearing his gaze away from Amarantha.

The courtiers follow the order hastily, shuffling past Amarantha out of the door as she slowly walks towards the throne. Ten feet away from it, she stops and bows.

“Your Majesty,” she says and offers him a small smile as she straightens again.

“So you deign to answer my summons at last,” the king says. There is anger in his voice, and only now does Amarantha remember that he did send her letters over the past few days. Letters she threw into the fire unopened.

“I apologize,” she says smoothly. “I was preoccupied.”

“So I heard,” he replies. “Ravenia is furious with you for refusing to hand Miryam over, and then allowing her to be freed. She demands your head.”

“What do I care about Ravenia of the Black Land?” Amarantha asks. “A woman who can’t even win a war against one of her runaway slaves has no business telling me what to do.”

“The Black Land is our most important trading partner,” the king hisses, “and you aggravate its ruler with your impertinence.”

He can truly be short-sighted, that king of hers. Does he ever look beyond what’s right in front of him? “The Black Land is done for,” Amarantha says. “It won’t recover from this, and indulging Ravenia’s wishes would have been folly. If we play this smart, though, we might be the ones who gain the power Ravenia won’t be able to hold after the way she embarrassed herself in this war.”

In truth, Amarantha doesn’t care about power, and she doesn’t believe that Hybern will ever become the new Black Land. They simply aren’t powerful enough to actually carve out a position for themselves on the Continent. No, all they’ll ever be is a country of mediocre importance, nothing more. But Amarantha doesn’t care about that, anyways, as long as she gets Jurian’s head.

Her gaze travels to the throne her king is sitting on. It is made from human bones, brown and withered with age. A charming idea, she thinks. Maybe she will make herself something from Jurian’s bones, too, after she killed him. A crown, perhaps, or a collier. Certainly something she will be able to carry around with her, so that she might always look at it and remember her victory.

“My defeating Jurian,” she says, “will benefit us far more than playing nice with some doomed queen.”

The king leans forward ever so slightly. Amarantha can see it in his eyes – he wants the power he is talking of. “Alright, then,” he says slowly. “Tell me what it is you have come here to say.”

Amarantha’s smile broadens. Of course he knows that she only came to ask him a favour. She wonders, sometimes, if he also knows that she doesn’t care at all about his orders and only plays along with his game for the power the position in his court gives her. Perhaps he does. But she is his best general, and he needs her as much as she needs him.

“I can, of course, easily defeat Jurian on my own,” she says. “But I thought it might suit your interests if I made it impressive.”

His eyes narrow. “And for that,” he says, “you need my spellbook.”

Amarantha nods ever so slightly. He allowed her to use the book once before already, during another war a century ago. But witchers are careful with who they allow access to their knowledge. Hoping that he will give it to her now is a gamble, but one she needs to take. Even without being able to use third grade spells, the book’s spells will open possibilities. And she needs those for more than just the battle.

“I would just need to look through it once,” she says.

For what feels like an eternity, the King is silent. Then, he slowly rises from his throne. “Alright, then,” he says. “But be warned, General: If you ever disregard my orders again, I’ll see to it that you regret it.”

----

Jurian has grown tired of waiting.

It’s been almost a week now since he killed Clythia, yet Amarantha hasn’t shown her face around his camp yet. On the contrary, she seems content to do anything but deal with him. From the reports he receives, she seems entirely focused on the war effort, capturing Miryam to get Drakon to give up an important strategic location, then capturing Rhysand and his army. If Jurian didn’t know better, he would think that she doesn’t care at all about him murdering her sister.

With each passing day, he grows more restless. Killing Clythia, especially the way he did it, was meant to put an end to that horrible game of cat-and-mouse him and Amarantha were playing, but if it doesn’t…

Jurian can’t wait anymore. With every day that Amarantha still lives, he feels whatever composure he has left cracking further. He doesn’t know for how much longer he will be able to hold it together, so he has to act now, even if being the one to attack will cost him some advantages.

At least Amarantha left her position at the Heseia Fort. Jurian isn’t sure why, and giving up such an important strategic location seems stupid, but he will take whatever advantage he can get. All that really matters is that Amarantha no longer holds Miryam prisoner, which means that he can attack without having to worry about her.

But at the same time, the situation with Miryam is the one thing that makes him hesitate. He desperately wants to talk to her before he goes to face Amarantha. They said they would talk, before she got captured. Jurian still needs to explain what he did to Clythia, before she gets a wrong impression of why he did what he did. And there was something she wanted to tell him, too, but he didn’t listen to her. Maybe they should have talked then, instead of waiting.

Unfortunately, Miryam is still unconscious. Jurian supposes he could visit, but that would require seeing Drakon, and that’s something Jurian doesn’t feel like doing at all. (He doesn’t understand why they brought Miryam to the Callian Pass, anyways. They should have taken her to Telique.) If he wants to talk to Miryam before killing Amarantha, he’ll have to wait for her to wake up, and he can’t stand to wait any longer. Besides, it’s probably easier if he kills Amarantha first and then talks to Miryam. Having Amarantha’s death to show for will make it far easier to explain why killing Clythia the way he did was necessary.

So Jurian comes up with a sensible strategy. He gets his maps for the area where Amarantha’s army is usually stationed and sits down with his captains to discuss. All of them get strict orders not to tell anyone about their plans, since he is sure Andromache would stop him if she knew.

Five days after Miryam got freed, Jurian is ready. The only thing he still hasn’t figured out is how to get Andromache out of the camp so that he can take his army and go without her interfering, but as it happens, fate is on his side. In the early afternoon of the fifth day, Andromache gets called away to an Alliance meeting, leaving him as the one in charge of the camp.

Jurian allows himself a moment to contemplates whether or not to take Andromache’s soldiers along with him. He could use the additional support, but in the end, he decides against it. Stealing Andromache’s soldiers away from under her nose would be bad form, and her captains would only raise a fuss should they realize that their queen didn’t agree to this sudden change of plans. No, if Jurian wants to go after Amarantha, he’ll have to do so with his own army.

His soldiers, fortunately, are well trained, and in spite of some of his past mistakes, they still trust him blindly. It takes only a few quiet words to his captains and they are off, readying his army for the march. Unfortunately for him, Andromache’s captains are far less willing to simply accept his word.

“And you received your orders from the council?” One of them, a woman named Demetra but whom everyone calls Dem, asks. She doesn’t even bother to hide her doubt.

“Are you accusing me of lying?” Jurian asks pointedly. Sometimes, to attack is the best defence strategy.

“No, General,” Dem says. She scrunches up her nose slightly. “I still need to know if the council ordered this, though.”

“I am a member of the council, and I am ordering this right now.” Jurian says. “And you really don’t have the rank necessary to stop me.”

That’s the funny thing about being on the council: No one can really forbid him from doing things. Even Andromache, in spite of being a queen, has the same rank as him and cannot technically tell him what to do. He reckons Miryam could – or would find some other way to stop him from going after Amarantha – but she isn’t around to do so.

Dem watches him for a moment, brow furrowed. She isn’t easily cowed, neither by his rank nor his reputation, and on another day, Jurian would admire that. Today, though, it’s rather inconvenient, so he is glad when she finally inclines her head.

“Then I won’t keep you,” she says.

“Good,” he says. “I want you to stay here until your Queen returns. She will give you your next orders.” He just hopes those won’t be to chase after Jurian and drag him back.

----

“Shit,” Andromache mutters, letting herself drop onto the cushions in Nakia’s suite. “What a complete and utter mess.”

After three hours stuck in a council meeting, trying desperately to appease the other members and spending each moment hoping that Miryam would be back soon, she finally returned to her camp to find Jurian and his army gone. She had just readied her army to chase after him – either to drag him back or to help him – when she received a directive from the council that her army was to hold positions under all circumstances.

The message didn’t specify why, but it sounded serious enough that Andromache could not risk to disobey. After eight hours of sitting on her ass in the camp, not an enemy to be seen, she finally had Yanis winnow her over to Telique to find out what it was all about, only to hear that the entire message had been caused by some administrative error. Naturally, Jurian’s army was far beyond her reach by that time.

“It’s almost like those bastards did it on purpose,” Nakia grumbles.

Andromache is inclined to agree, but instead says, “Still, please be nice when we meet with Zeku.” She hates having to urge for diplomacy when being diplomatic towards these people who do nothing but make her life more difficult is the last thing she wants right now. How does Miryam manage to do that without hitting someone? “If we want to reach Jurian in time, we’ll need Alliance support.”

Annoying as it is, but without the Fae, they’ll never catch up with Jurian before he attacks Amarantha. Human armies simply aren’t fast enough to reach him in time, so they will need the council to dispatch a Fae army. For which they will need Zeku’s support.

Normally, that would be easily arranged. Zeku is, after all, one of their closest Fae allies, which generally includes mutual support. But lately, he hasn’t exactly been accommodating to his allies’ requests and Andromache doesn’t know why. Six years of working together almost seamlessly, but now, Zeku seems to have decided to be just as difficult as most of his kind.

As if on cue, a knock sounds at the door. A moment later, Zeku enters.

He inclines his head. “Your Majesties,” he says.

“Your Grace,” Andromache replies, inclining her head as well.

“Have you heard anything from Princess Miryam yet?” Zeku asks, gracefully sitting down on the couch opposite them.

Hearing Miryam referred to as Princess is still strange, but Andromache will probably have to get used to it. “There has been no news,” she says. “Anyways, it is not Miryam but Jurian we asked you here to discuss. I assume you already heard?”

Zeku nods. “I have. And what is it you want me to do about this?”

“Get us an army,” Nakia says, which really isn’t the pinnacle of diplomacy. But considering how the Fae, Zeku included, have been acting lately, it’s probably better than he deserves.

“I’m afraid that won’t be possible,” Zeku replies. Nakia looks positively murderous at that, and he quickly amends, “I am truly sorry, but I couldn’t convince the other Fae to send aid to Jurian if I tried.”

“And why is that?” Andromache asks, trying desperately to contain her rising temper. Seriously, how does Miryam do this? In her place, Andromache would probably have committed murder more than once already.

Zeku sighs. “I understand that you humans care a lot about solidarity and loyalty, and it is something I admire about. Still, you will have to understand that many people will rightfully have a hard time understanding why they should risk their lives to get him out of a mess of his own making.”

“Because we are allies?” Andromache suggests.

“Well, there are more and more people in this Alliance who consider whether they still want to be allied with Jurian,” Zeku says. “There has already been talk of having him removed from the council, and the only reason the issue hasn’t been pushed yet is the human side’s continued support for him.” He sighs. “In all honesty, I have long since been having doubt about General Jurian’s ability to lead, and I only kept them to myself out of courtesy to Miryam. But I simply cannot warrant putting my name down for him any more than I am already doing.”

Andromache crosses her arms. Nakia scowls.

“It would be political suicide,” Zeku adds with a rueful smile. “I’m sorry.”

----

“Alright,” Jurian says, standing in a hastily-erected tent an hour away from Amarantha’s camp. “Here’s the plan.”

His captains, standing around the camp, look back at him expectantly. After more than a day spent on the march, they all seem worn out, but there is a light in their eyes like they, too, can’t wait to finally end this. Jurian likes to imagine that they sense the importance of killing Amarantha, that they are driven by the same frantic energy that keeps him from feeling any tiredness.

“Amarantha likely knows we’re coming,” he says. Her spies must have reported to her the moment their army left its camp, and Jurian didn’t have the magical means to cover their march. “Still, I would like to have gain some advantages for the attack, so we split our army up.”

He points to the map that lies on a makeshift table between them. Amarantha’s camp is marked, as well as all the information their scouts could gather. Amarantha made camp by the spring of a small river at the side of a hill. The position is good, but not all that strong, its biggest advantage lying in the fact that any enemies will have to attack from below, leaving her soldiers the high ground.

“Xeni, you take half my army and stage an attack from the front,” Jurian says. “You do not need to engage in battle, just make enough noise that Amarantha thinks you are the main attack. Meanwhile, I will take the main part of the army around the hill, and then, we will attack Amarantha’s forces from behind. That way, we’ll force Amarantha’s army to fight on to fronts, and we’ll gain the high ground.”

Xeni nods, surveying the map. “Amarantha will notice if my part of the army is smaller, though.”

She’s a good soldier – smart. Jurian would have made her his second months ago already, but he could never quite bear to give Tia’s position to another. Maybe after the battle is over, he will finally do it.

“The trees will provide cover,” he says. “Ideally, Amarantha won’t be able to get a solid count of our numbers during the battle, and my part of the army will only start moving once yours attacked and Amarantha is distracted.”

That means there will be a dangerous moment where Xeni’s army is forced to hold Amarantha off on her own. It’s a risk, but it will likely take a while for the battle to truly get heated, and by then, Jurian’s army should be there to provide reinforcements.

The battle will without doubt end in a duel between him and Amarantha. This will be the fight that decides the outcome of the battle, Jurian is sure of it. And he is equally sure that he will win. Amarantha will be driven by fury, and angry people tend to make mistakes. Jurian will use that. The only thing that might become a problem is that she has magic – however little it might be – and he does not. But Jurian picked up a few small tricks from Miryam over the years, and he wove spells into his armour that should be able to ward off most attacks.

It will work. It has to work.

----

Drakon genuinely hates the Callian Pass.

Everyone always talks about how hard it is to take it, but no one ever mentioned to Drakon that once you have taken it, it is near-impossible to get away from it again. Jurian is facing Amarantha in battle, he might be dying right now, and he is stuck in this cursed castle, unable to do anything. Miryam is still unconscious, and while the healers assure him that she will be fine, they aren’t entirely sure when she will wake up. (Apparently, there is some difficulty with estimating how quickly her body heals, given that she is neither fully Fae nor human, and half Fae healing abilities might fall anywhere in between.)

Drakon feels stuck in some never-ending nightmare where the people he cares about are always facing some kind of danger, and he is stuck here, unable to help. To make matters worse, Artax now has his soldiers probing the walls day and night. They still haven’t attacked outright, but they certainly have a knack for making everything more stressful.

Right now, Artax just finished his sixth pseudo-attack on the castle for the day. Drakon is standing on the battlement, flanked by Sinna and Helion, and looks down at the retreating soldiers below.

“What is he playing at?” Drakon asks. “Why won’t he just attack, put an end to this?”

“Because he is smart,” Sinna says. “He is trying to wear us out, make us expend our resources and keep us on our toes so that when he finally attacks in earnest, his own casualties will be lower.”

“That’s stupid, though,” Drakon says. “He only has the advantage as long as Miryam is out of the game.”

“I doubt the possibility of a human woman ever being a danger to him so much as crossed Artax’s mind,” Helion says, smiling slightly. His smile fades, though, as his attention returns to the enemy army. “And much as I admire Miryam’s abilities, I honestly cannot say his assessment is wrong. I doubt she would stand much of a chance against him.”

Drakon looks down at the army camping below, at the red flags flying in the wind. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” he says quietly.

Artax is, without doubt, the most skilled witcher of their age. He has centuries of practice on Miryam. But Drakon has seen the way she looked at him during their last meeting, eyes burning with so much hatred that they seemed to glow from within. Drakon may not know what Artax did to her, but he knows that Miryam hates him just as much as Ravenia.

So far, they never faced each other in battle. Should it ever come to that, they might just rip apart the world between them. But in the end, Drakon doesn’t think that Artax will walk away triumphant. Or walk away at all, for that matter.

“Let’s hope you’re right,” Helion says. “Because I certainly can’t take on Artax, and I don’t know anyone else on our side who can.” He pushes off the stone railing he was leaning against and inclines his head to Drakon. “I’ll go inspect the wards again,” he says, winks at Sinna and walks off.

Sinna rolls her eyes at his retreating form. It’s not that her and Helion don’t get along – as far as Drakon knows, they work together quite well – but they are simply very different people with very different styles and preferences. Helion realizes early on that it is very easy for him to get on Sinna’s nerves, and he seems to enjoy occasionally poking fun at her. Drakon finds the entire matter amusing, and he suspects Helion does, too.

Down below, the retreating soldiers have now reached their camp again. Drakon leans against the stone balustrade and stares down, but his mind is on a different battlefield, a different army. He hates that Jurian is facing Amarantha without either him or Miryam around to help him. It’s not that he doesn’t trust Jurian’s abilities, but lately, he has been reckless in his decisions, especially when it comes to Amarantha.

“You’re worried,” Sinna says. “About Jurian?”

Drakon nods. “I feel like I should be doing something to help him. It isn’t right that he has to fight Amarantha on his own.”

“You want my opinion?” Sinna asks.

Drakon hesitates, then gives her a half-smile. “Actually, probably not,” he says.

Sinna has the tendency to be honest about things, and in this specific case, Drakon doubts her honestly would be particularly pleasant to hear. After all, Sinna told him over a year ago already to press for Jurian’s removal from the council and the war, likely to avoid precisely this outcome. Besides, she doesn’t like Jurian, which is likely to make her judgement of his actions rather harsh.

“Probably smart,” Sinna says.

Drakon is almost tempted to ask her for some reassurance, but in the current situation, that would basically come down to asking her to lie to him. Which is something he definitely does not want. Besides, reassurances are never quite as convincing if you have to ask for them.

----

Rhys doesn’t know how long it has been since he got captured. Days, weeks, months. It all blurs together. All he knows is that he’s in pain, so much pain that he can’t even think straight. The constant screaming of his dying soldiers rings through the camp, piercing his head like knifes.

He can’t take it anymore. All he wants is for it to end. But there is no end. The soldiers who are torturing don’t even ask questions, so there’s nothing he can do, nothing he can says, to make them stop. If there was anything they were asking, he knows he would have given it by now, if only to buy himself a moment of peace.

There’s only one thought that ever manages to pierce the haze of pain in his mind, and that is the thought of revenge. He will kill Amarantha for this. Kill her for what her soldiers are doing to his, to him, and for the fact that she doesn’t even seem to care. He will kill her. And if it’s the last thing he does.

They tied him up between two trees and spiked ash bolts through his wings. He’ll have to tear them free if he wants to fight, destroy his wings in the process, but that doesn’t matter. If he does manage to kill Amarantha, he will be killed soon afterwards, anyways.

As long as he just manages to take her with him, it won’t matter.

Still, he hesitates. Again and again, he tries to summon the courage to tear his wings free from the spikes, but his muscles refuse to obey his commands. He can’t. He loves his wings, loves the sky, and he can’t bring himself to destroy this.

And then, suddenly, it is too late. A horn blast rings out, followed by a second one, then a third, louder than the screams. Slowly, painfully, Rhys looks up.

From where he is chained up, he has a clear view over the camp, so he can easily see the army that is stepping out of the forest in the valley below and approaching.

Distantly, Rhys is aware that he should be glad. If Jurian and his army has arrived, if they are going to defeat Amarantha, he will be saved. But all he can think is they are stealing my revenge.

----

Sneaking through the forest with a thousand soldiers in tow is precisely as challenging as it sounds. It is made harder by the fact that there are magical traps and wards throughout the entire forest, and they keep having to stop and wait for the few Fae or humans with distant Fae ancestry in their group to disable them. They do their best to hurry, but they can’t risk setting off an alarm, so they are still slower than Jurian would like.

It takes them precisely fifteen minutes to walk around the hill and another five to climb up again on the other side. It isn’t much, but still, Jurian’s stomach clenches with worry with every moment they waste. With only half of his army, Xeni won’t stand a chance against Amarantha. They need to hurry.

Finally, they make it to the top of the hill. Jurian holds up a hand, commanding his army to stop, and steps forward until the edge of the forest. From there, he gets a good view of Amarantha’s camp lying a bit below, and the battle that’s raging at its edge.

Jurian can make out Amarantha amongst her soldiers. Her red hair is like a flag in the slight wind, clearly marking her where she stands, dressed in dark armour, at the centre of her troops.

Further down, he can see Xeni’s part of his army. They keep their position at the edge of the forest like he told them to. Jurian is about to give the order for attack to his army when Amarantha suddenly turns around towards him. Jurian freezes, sure that she has seen him, but Amarantha merely surveys the trees they are hiding in for a moment before turning back to the attacking army. Jurian could have sworn she smiles before she does, though.

A shiver runs down his spine. His gut tells him that something is wrong. It is too late to go back, though, and anyways, Jurian didn’t come this far only to turn back at a mere feeling.

He turns around to the soldiers waiting behind him. He opens his mouth to order the attack, but before he gets a word out, a slight tremor runs through the ground below. Jurian spins back around to the battle. His eyes immediately find Amarantha, who has raised her hands high above her head and appears to be chanting something.

Another tremor runs through the ground. But that isn’t possible. Amarantha isn’t a witch, and none of Jurian’s reports on her hinted at her having any affinity for spells. Her king is a witcher, but Amarantha, as far as he knows, rarely ever relies on magic in battle. Still, she is clearly casting a spell now. Jurian takes a step forward, as if he’ll be able to stop whatever she is doing.

Just below Amarantha’s camp, the ground bursts open. Behind Jurian, someone gasps, and he takes another step forward. But there’s nothing he can do as a fountain of water shoots out of the ground. Drops glitter in the moonlight, and for a moment, it almost looks pretty.

Then, the water goes crashing down into the valley in a giant flood wave.

Jurian is distantly aware that he screams something, but the sound is drowned out by the roaring of the water. The wave is high enough that he can’t even make out the tips of the trees anymore.

“No,” Jurian whispers. He can’t believe what he is seeing. There’s no way Amarantha just summoned a flood wave from nothing, there’s no way she… “No, please.”

His fingers begin to tremble. Below, the water recedes slowly, rushing further down into the valley. In its wake, it leaves trees torn from the ground, bent over and broken. There is no sign left of the army that was standing there until a moment ago. Jurian’s entire body is shaking now.

Amarantha turns back around, and this time, Jurian is sure that she smiles at him. He realizes that he is no longer hidden behind the trees, that he is standing in plain sight, but he can’t bring himself to care.

No. No, this can’t be real. His soldiers are fine, they will be fine. They didn’t… Half his army. He can’t have lost half his army in under a minute. It simply isn’t possible. And yet, his soldiers are gone, and he knows, deep down, that they won’t have survived this.

With shaking hands, Jurian reaches for his sword. As soon as his fingers close around the hilt, his mind stills. His senses seem to sharpen, and his focus zeroes in on Amarantha. Slowly, he draws his sword.

“Attack!” He shouts, raising his sword into the air.

Around Jurian, the battle rages. He is only distantly aware that his side is losing, that they are sorely outnumbered and don’t stand a chance. In his mind, he still sees the wave rushing down into the valley. He lost half his army in under a minute.

Amarantha. He needs to find her, needs to kill her. As soon as she is gone, it will… it will all be fine, then. He knows it will be. But the battle is so chaotic, and he has no idea how to find her. He simply keeps fighting, killing his way through the enemy soldiers, hoping he will find her somehow.

In the end, he isn’t sure if he finds Amarantha or if she finds him. But suddenly, they are standing mere feet away from each other on the battlefield. Around them, their soldiers part, as if to make space for them. Jurian barely notices. All he can see is Amarantha, standing there, mere feet away from him.

He thinks of his soldiers, mutilated beyond recognition and left for him to find. Of the flood wave crashing down into the valley and killing half of his army. Of all the pain and guilt and suffering, all caused by Amarantha. It will end today. He will end it all, here and now.

“I’m going to kill you,” he says very softly, not caring if she hears him or not.

A smile twists Amarantha’s mouth. “You are welcome to try,” she replies.

They both attack at the same time. Blades flashing in the air, they circle each other, jump forward and back as if caught in some twisted form of a dance. Amarantha is faster and stronger, but Jurian knew that in advance. She is also undoubtedly good, her technique nearly flawless, but like he estimated, she fights angry instead of smart.

Anger seems to dictate her every movement. She puts too much force behind her blows, and takes nearly every opening Jurian gives. She’s like a wild animal, eager for his blood, and it makes her reckless.

In the end, it is him who lands the first blow, a slice across Amarantha’s shoulder. She snarly at him for it, as if she is truly more animal than person, and Jurian grins.

Amarantha raises her hand and sends a flare of dark power shooting towards him. Jurian dodges, but not fast enough to avoid the entirety of the blast. The fringes still hit – and bounce off harmlessly at the ward that jumps to life around Jurian. His entire body seems to vibrate under the power, but the ward holds.

“Learned some tricks from that witch-friend of yours?” Amarantha hisses. “Maybe she should have taught you how to counter my flood spell.” She laughs. “But wait. You’re human – you couldn’t have.”

Jurian charges. This time, he is the one whose attacks are fuelled by anger, and he forces Amarantha back a few steps. The laugh vanishes from her face as Jurian’s blade slices through her armour and into her arm.

In answer, she sends another wave of power shooting towards him. His wards crack under the assault, and he can almost feel them splinter. Amarantha might not have much magical power to call her own, but it is more than Jurian can counter with the few tricks Miryam showed him. Under her next attack, his wards shatter entirely and he gets thrown to the ground. He only barely manages to roll aside in time to avoid Amarantha’s sword shooting for his head, and jumps back to his feet.

“Are you so pathetic a fighter that you need magic to defeat me?” He shouts at her.

“I’d defeat you even unarmed,” Amarantha snarls back at him.

“Go ahead, then.” Jurian laughs. “Drop your sword.”

She doesn’t, of course, but she doesn’t use her magic again, either. For a moment, they simply circle each other. Jurian looks at Amarantha and sees his own anger reflected on her face. She loses her patience first and charges. Jurian manages a slice to her cheek, although she moves aside quickly enough to keep it shallow.

But to his dismay, Jurian notices that he is beginning to tire. Amarantha is faster, stronger, and with each moment the fight lasts, he is finding it harder and harder to keep up. He needs to end this before he becomes too exhausted to keep fighting, but while she makes more mistakes than he does, she doesn’t give him to opening he would need to win.

They break apart again. Circle each other before attacking once more. This time, Jurian is a bit too slow in his reactions, and she manages a cut to Jurian’s side. Her sword slices through his armour and bites into the flesh below. He barely feels the pain, but the blow still makes him stumble.

Amarantha is already moving again, so quickly Jurian can barely follow. She brings her blade down in an arc, metal glinting in the moonlight. Jurian jerks his own sword down in an attempt to counter the blow, the movement far too sloppy. He only barely catches the blow, and with his sword’s hilt instead of the blade. It isn’t a clean parry, and Amarantha’s blade slices his leg as she swings it around.

Jurian changes his grip on his sword to meet her next attack, but the hilt is suddenly slick in his grip and the sword almost slips out of his fingers. He looks down and finds his hand drenched in blood. It is running all over his sword’s grip, dripping down the blade. So much blood… Jurian blinks down at his hand, suddenly dizzy. It looks wrong, under all that blood. Almost like…

Jurian stares and stares at his hand. The hand that is now missing three fingers. His index finger is gone entirely, and from there, the slice goes diagonally over his hand, severing most of his middle and ring finger. Then, as if it had been waiting for him to realize what had happened, the pain hits. Jurian gasps, tears making his vision go blurry.

A movement at the corner of his eye catches his attention. At the last moment, he jumps back, only narrowly avoiding being beheaded by Amarantha’s blow. He nearly drops his sword in the process, though.

Amarantha bares her teeth in what might have been a smile. “Already done?” She taunts.

Jurian grits his teeth and changes his sword hand, doing his best to ignore the pain, and the blood still gushing from where his fingers used to be. The sword must have gotten heavier in the last moments, though, because he can only barely lift it.

“Not yet,” he manages through gritted teeth.

But he is done. He feels it with every blow he manages to execute only sloppily, with every too-slow reaction. His body is trembling and he can only barely hold onto his sword. He does not land a single hit, and with each moment, his vision swims more and more. As Amarantha continues to attack, he has to yield step after step.

Amarantha smiles at him. “Oh, I think you are done,” she says.

The force of her next blow knocks Jurian’s sword straight out of his hand. He stumbles back, loses his balance and falls to the ground. The impact knocks the air straight out of his lungs and for a moment, Jurian simply blinks up at the dark sky above, unable to so much as move.

Amarantha’s face appears above him. She still has her sword, and its tip is now hovering only an inch away from his throat.

No, Jurian thinks, this is all wrong. This isn’t how it was supposed to be. But he can’t even summon the strength to move. His mind is moving too slowly, he has a hard time holding on to individual thoughts. He is strangely cold, and everything hurts. Maybe he will die from blood loss before Amarantha manages to kill him.

Slowly, he tears his gaze away from Amarantha and towards her sword, its blade painted red with his blood. If he is going to die, her face isn’t going to be the last thing he sees. His thoughts drift to Miryam. He should have waited to speak to her before rushing off to face Amarantha. Now, he won’t get the chance. And his soldiers… he led them to their deaths, all of them, and then, he didn’t even get the chance to avenge them. When it came down to it, he failed. He failed all of them.

His vision blurs further, but still, he keeps his eyes trained on the sword, waiting for the blow to come. What is she waiting for?

“I won’t kill you,” Amarantha says.

Jurian refuses to look at her, won’t give her that satisfaction. He keeps his eyes trained on her sword, still waiting for it to fall in spite of what she said.

“No,” Amarantha says softly, almost gently and moves her sword up towards his face. “I won’t make it that easy for you.”

The sword comes down and Jurian screams.

----

Jurian faced Amarantha in battle and lost. Most of his soldiers were killed, he himself captured.

The news arrived two hours ago, brought by one of Grand Duke Zeku’s spies, and the Alliance has been in an uproar ever since. It is almost worse than when Miryam got captured, although this time around, most people seem more concerned with the lost battle than the fact that a member of their council got captured by the enemy. In fact, most of the Fae don’t seem to care about Jurian’s fate at all. At least that’s the impression Andromache got after listening to the council’s endless arguments for the better part of an hour.

Only a week without Miryam around to deal with the council, and she already feels like she is slowly losing her mind. With every passing day, she hates the council more and more. Their endless quarrelling, the needless arguments, the fact that they never ever do what it takes without at least an hour of arguing in advance.

But what annoys her the most is the lack of loyalty, of principle. Andromache is human, and if there is one thing she learned, it’s that you always stick together. You have each other’s back. Most of her Fae allies seem more inclined to put a knife in her back the moment she lets her guard down, though, and loyalty seems to be a foreign concept to them as they prove again and again.

“Amarantha is no longer at the Heseia Pass,” she says slowly, trying hard not to let the annoyance creep into her voice. “An attack could be executed with little risk, especially with Amarantha so focused on Jurian that she likely doesn’t pay attention to anything else.”

She tries very hard not to think about what Amarantha’s focus likely looks like. She has seen what Hybern does to their prisoners, and Amarantha will likely think up something especially gruesome for Jurian. Andromache needs to get him out somehow, but the council is blocking her at every turn.

“How many times do you wish to go over this, Your Majesty?” Shey asks. He actually has the nerve to sound like she is the one who’s being difficult. “We do not risk lives unnecessarily to free captured commanders.”

And this is exactly Andromache’s problem. These are their allies they are talking about. It is their duty to do everything in their power to free them, and even though Andromache isn’t in favour of sacrificing many lives for one, this is hardly the case here.

“It isn’t just about Jurian,” she says. “It’s also about all the soldiers that got captured with him, and about the Night Court soldiers.” She hesitates. “Rhysand,” she adds, because it is entirely possible that the Fae will care more about one of their own than about a human and because she knows Mor cares. “And about the chance to win a big victory against Hybern. Why are you so opposed to this?”

She looks around the table, desperately searching for support. But the only Fae who seems to be on her side is Drakon, who winnowed over from the Callian Pass specifically for this meeting. (Unfortunately, he didn’t bring Miryam along, which would have made things easier for everyone involved.)

“We simply cannot spare the troops right now,” Shey says. Complete and utter bullshit, of course. The war is going well enough for them that they would have the troops to spare, and easily.

Andromache shoots a helpless look at Drakon. He just lifts his shoulders slightly and turns to Zeku with a pleading look on his face. The Grand Duke ignores him, as he ignores most of their problems lately. Andromache will need to have a word with him. Or better yet, she will ask Miryam to have a word with him once she returns, since she will probably be more diplomatic about it.

Andromache considers calling for a vote, but what use would it be? She already knows the outcome. She probably shouldn’t have hoped. If their allies weren’t willing to save Miryam, odds of them moving a finger for Jurian, whom most of them don’t even like, were slim at best. Still, Andromache had hoped… But she should have known better.

Abruptly, she rises to her feet. “If you insist,” she says, and now, her voice is sharp. “I certainly won’t forget your generosity.”

With that, she stalks out of the room. She only barely manages to keep from slamming the door.

By the time she reached her room, she at least managed to calm herself down far enough that she can offer the guards a smile. Inside, Mor is waiting sprawled on the couch in the drawing room. When Andromache enters, she straightens.

“Anything?” She asks. Andromache knows that her concern is probably more about Rhysand than Jurian, but that’s only fair, since Andromache is certainly more concerned about Jurian than about Rhysand.

“No,” Andromache says, letting herself drop to the couch next to Mor. “Fuck each and every one of these bastards.”

Andromache’s calling, she decides, does not lie in diplomacy. She thought she was good at it, and before this war began, she never had any trouble, but these days, she feels more like screaming at Shey with every passing moment.

“Shit,” Mor says and buries her face in her hands.

She worries about Rhysand, enough that she barely sleeps anymore. Andromache cannot claim to care a whole lot about the heir to the Night Court, but she cares about Mor, so she keeps reminding herself to also care about Rhysand.

“We’ll figure something out,” she says and puts an arm around Mor’s shoulders. “Rhysand is still alive, I’m sure he will be fine.” Even though he’s currently being tortured, as both of them know. It makes her reassurances far less convincing.

Andromache’s thoughts drift back to Jurian. The report they received said nothing of what state he is in, only that he’s alive. Andromache privately thinks that it might have been better for him if he hadn’t survived the battle. Now, he will still die, but Amarantha will likely find a way to make it slow and painful. And Andromache won’t be able to stop it. They got lucky with Miryam, but Andromache isn’t stupid enough to believe anything like this will happen again. Not when Amarantha has likely been planning Jurian’s death without pause for weeks.

A knock sounds at the door and one of her guards pokes his head in. “Your Majesty?” He asks. “Prince Drakon is waiting outside, he wants to speak to you.”

“Sure, let him in,” Andromache says.

Drakon enters a moment later. Both his feathers and hair are slightly ruffled and he looks about as tired as Andromache feels.

“Hello Only Fae Council Member I Can Currently Stand,” she says. “Could you pass me the wine from the cupboard?”

“Sure,” Drakon says. He walks over to the cupboard and searches around a bit before fishing out a bottle of wine. “I can’t find glasses,” he says.

“Doesn’t matter,” Andromache says.

Drakon sits down on an armchair opposite them and hands the bottle to Andromache. She takes a swig, then passes it to Mor. They end up passing the bottle around, although that strategy is hardly very effective since neither Mor nor Drakon can actually get drunk on human drinks. Andromache for her part could theoretically get drunk, but she takes care not to drink too much. There might be developments at any moment, and she needs to keep a clear head.

“I keep feeling like we should have done something,” Drakon mutters. “I mean, we all saw this coming, we should have…” He shrugs. “I don’t know.”

“We should have taken away his command position,” Andromache says. “Months ago already.”

Drakon wraps his wings around himself like some kind of blanket. Andromache wonders if it’s as comforting as being hugged. If it is, she finds it extremely unfair that she doesn’t have wings – she could certainly use a hug right now. As if sensing her feelings, Mor moves closer to her and wraps an arm around her. Andromache leans into the embrace, immediately feeling better.

“I tried to talk to Zeku after the meeting,” Drakon says. He sounds miserable. “But he wouldn’t listen to me.”

“He doesn’t listen to me either,” Andromache says. “You wouldn’t by chance have any news regarding Miryam?”

Drakon shakes his head. “Still unconscious.”

“Damn,” Andromache mutters. Miryam might have been able to somehow turn this around. And if she would have had to cleave the world apart to do so, she would have found a way to save Jurian. Andromache rubs her hands over her face, sighing. “One army. We’d only need one army and we could free them.”

One army capable of travelling more swiftly than humans are able to, unfortunately. Andromache could take her own army and go – considered doing just that more than once already – but Amarantha’s spies would see them coming from miles off, and any chance they might have had of freeing the prisoners would vanish. Even if Andromache should win, chances are Amarantha would kill Jurian and Rhysand before she allowed them to be freed.

“I have an army,” Drakon says, “but…” He shrugs helplessly.

“You can’t, I know,” Andromache says. “There’s nothing any of us can do. We’ll just have to wait.”

----

A/N: This chapter was originally meant to go longer, but I had to split it up for pacing reasons (and also because of the length). This means that the next chapter is already mostly written, though, so I should have it done within a few days.

Tags: @croissantcitysucks @femtopulsed

#writing this was PAIN #😭#still not entirely satisfied with how some parts turned out but ig that's just how it is sometimes #before the wall #miryam #jurian #drakon

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