Citadel of Fire (The Ronin Saga Book 2) (83 page)

Hannah spoke, “Wait, there’s still one more thing I don’t get… With Darkeye dead, does that mean the Darkeye clan is no more?” Again distracted, Gray looked up from his letter, half-listening.

“At the least now it seems they’re leaderless,” Darius said, puffing smoke rings from his pipe. “Good riddance, I say, for it should be a long time until Farbs is troubled by their ilk.”

Gray hesitated as he remembered Faye and the look in her eyes. He wasn’t so sure, but he kept his silence, glad for the look of hope and peace in his friends. A fire crackled in the nearby hearth, banishing the chill in the room, promising security. And all seemed to settle into its right place.

Ayva rose and moved outside.

“What’s with her?” Darius asked. “I said something wrong, didn’t I?”

Shrugging, Gray set down his pen and followed. He found her on a large stone balcony that overlooked the Citadel’s grounds. Again, he saw they flowed with servants, Neophytes, Devari, red-robed Reavers, and its flock of Lost Ones—men, women and children.
Life.
It had returned to the Citadel. Beyond that was Farbs. The desert city glowed in the light of the fading sun, which sat on the horizon like a golden flame. A breeze flowed over them, tousling Gray’s cloak and playing with Ayva’s short-cropped hair. The wind fell down the steep black walls and sifted into the crowded streets full of life, nighttime settling over Farbs.

The people are safe,
he thought again, content.

Ayva held the twisted black metal railing as he approached. He debated using the ki, but refrained. Instead, he touched her arm. “Are you all right?” he asked. “I was worried…”

“No,” she said and twisted, wearing an unexpected smile. “I’m not all right. I’m terrified, and yet… I’ve never felt more alive.” She looked away, north—over the clay buildings and colorful tents, into the desert and beyond.

Vaster,
he thought.

“Vaster,” she uttered, voicing his thoughts aloud. “The Great Kingdom of Sun. I can feel it, Gray. I swear I can almost see its gleaming walls shining like a jewel, those turrets of shimmering glass.” She turned to him, grabbing his hand in her soft palms. “Can you?”

He only nodded, slightly. Again, his heart thumped against his ribcage. “It’s waiting for you.”

“For us all,” she replied.

“What’s waiting for us?” Darius’ voice echoed from behind.

Quickly, Ayva let Gray’s hand drop as the others came from the wide doorway onto the large balcony. “Adventure,” Zane said, hand upon his blade, his wide and muscular frame nearly twice that of Darius.

Hannah spoke, wiping her hands from the stone dust. “You can’t be thinking of joining them, can you, Zane? How can we leave the Lost Ones?”

“There’s nothing for us here anymore,” Zane said. “The Lost Ones are safe now. I wish I could have found that traitorous little cur who nearly sent me to my death, but his little tip ensured that the Lost Ones will never be left cold and hungry again.”

She nodded and huddled closer to her brother. “Well, it doesn’t matter where I am as long as I’m at your side.”

“You’re both coming,” Darius stated firmly.

“Who says I care about you?” Zane asked.

Darius scoffed. “And here I thought we were becoming fast friends over Elements. Is it because I beat you too many times?”

“You beat me?” Zane asked, amused. “You have twigs between your ears.”

Darius interrupted him. “Psh, who are you talking to, fire for brains?”

Zane growled. Suddenly Darius yelped, grabbing his rear in pain. “What were you saying?” the fiery man asked.

“I changed my mind. Feel free to stay,” Darius said.

“Try and stop me from coming,” Zane replied.

“Only too gladly,” Darius retorted stepping towards him, but Ayva interjected, calming the two.

Gray watched them all, as if from a distance—Ayva the light of reason, Zane the fire of passion, Darius with his ever-changing nature.
Sun, Fire, and Leaf.
Each balancing the other. It was like watching Omni, Seth, and Maris all over again. And in that moment, he knew the Ronin really had never died.

“We’re going,” Gray declared suddenly, heart thumping in his chest in anticipation. “All of us.” They turned to him, and he twisted looking to Vaster—past the golden flame of the setting sun, towards the Golden City. “It’s time to find our brothers.”

Epilogue

“
M
ISTRESS
H
ITOMI!” A GIRL CALLED, RACING
down the half-constructed steps that were still missing their railing. Hitomi grimaced inwardly. How she still missed The Dipping Tsugi’s railing that was polished to a ruby glow by thousands of hands. A testament of a well-loved inn.

It’s strange what things one misses, and coincidently doesn’t,
Hitomi thought. Her first thought was for that strange, affable hermit… Karil said he was safe, but she knew he was deep in enemy territory. From what she could tell, or at least had heard, Eldas was the last place to be in this magical world. But that gruff old hermit had surprises up his sleeve. She knew Mura wouldn’t die so easily.

“Hitomi!” the young girl called again, leaping the last stairs into the mostly empty common room, save for the hearth made from large polished river stones—the only thing finished in the large chamber.
A hearth is the heart of an inn.
“He’s coming back soon! Just like he said he’d be!”

Hitomi had been watching from the corner of her eye. At last, she looked up from her ledger and saw the men surrounding her—
elves
, she corrected. Strong and dutiful they were, and not so surprisingly handy when it came to woodworking. “Slow down, girl,” she instructed, putting a hand to Piper’s arm. The girl was one of the villagers who’d survived the chaos, a refugee of Daerval. “What are you talking about? Aren’t you supposed to be in charge of the Aviary? And who’s coming back now? With all this ruckus, it better be the devil himself.”

“Gray!”
the girl exclaimed.

Hitomi raised a dubious eyebrow. “Piper, has Balder been putting tales into your ear again?” She knew she should put the man to work on her inn, for he was incredibly talented,
for a drunk
, but he’d taken more to being the resident mischief-maker and storyteller of the camp. “I told you not to talk with that fool, anymore.”

Stuffing her hands on her narrow hips, Piper shook an admonishing finger. “Hitomi, you really ought to be nicer to Balder,” the girl chided. “It’s not very polite, you know. Besides, he only says nice things about you.”

“I doubt that,” Hitomi snorted, holding back a scowl. But it was the girl’s attitude and appearance that made her frown. Piper had taken on a whole new look recently. Not two days prior, the girl had chopped her pigtails off trying to look older. Her raven black hair was now strewn in a short, edgy mess. She wore
white
pants and a
white
shirt. If that wasn’t enough, she even wore a makeshift gray haori. A haori was a cloth vest—what the Ronin were said to wear in the stories. On the breast and back of the vest she’d painted a symbol of wind she’d copied from one of Hitomi’s books. It was safe to say that Piper had developed a bit of a crush on Gray since the aftermath. Not to mention, her tall-tales were growing quite infamous around the camp. Stories concerning the Ronin. “Piper, if this is another one of your stories, I’ll make sure you’re scrubbing pans until those pretty little hands are more wrinkled than my own.”

“It’s not, I swear!” the girl protested, and handed over a crisp letter with a red wax seal that was broken. Piper winced guiltily, wringing her hands. “This came in from the Aviary… I
might
have opened it.”

Hitomi grumbled, but then saw the marking on the red wax.

It was the Citadel’s sigil with all eight elements, the red flame brightest for Farbs, the Great Kingdom of Fire.

Quickly, she read it and stiffened.

“Turn it over,” Piper said, eyes wide as she teetered on her toes.

On the front was an etched symbol, not stamped but drawn meticulously by hand.

“See?!” Piper exclaimed, breathless, “It’s him!”

“Spirits take me,” she cursed softly.

Piper tugged on her arm. “
So?
Can we go already?”

Hitomi looked up, in a half-daze. The girl looked ready to leap out of her skin. Despite being on the short side of fourteen summers in age and as skinny as a well-picked bone, Hitomi doubted she could stop the girl. “Yes, yes, let’s see what this is about. I suppose the inn can wait.”

Piper giggled in glee and darted for the gaping entry where the doors were still missing.

“See to the Aviary,” Hitomi informed the elves. “If the queen is having me run letters for her then I will see it properly constructed as a center for communication. If she wants an army ready for war, then intelligence, which is all too underrated, comes first.”

“Wisely stated, innkeeper,” said the lead elf, Yuna. He hadn’t liked giving his
birth name
, but she couldn’t go on calling him
“big elf”
forever. Oddly, he hadn’t seemed to mind that name. “However, if this is the Eminas indeed, we shall join you as well.”

She waved a hand. “Fine, fine. Come on then. The whole family it is.”

With that, Hitomi lifted her heavy skirts, gathering the others behind her, following after the fool girl into the wooded camp.

* * *

Flanking Karil were a dozen of her elite guards who bore the fragments of her father’s crown upon their breasts. She was glad to have them at her side as they moved proudly in their broken, dark green plate.
Rydel moved at her side with his gaze set ahead, his presence giving her comfort as always. But she could sense his curiosity too. Hitomi hadn’t said much, save for impressing urgency. Perhaps it was unwise she’d elected a woman of few words as her intelligence gatherer. But the woman did seem talented, even suited for it.

Gray…
she thought, again.
Is he really here?

Karil had dropped everything to see if it was true.

As she moved through her camp, she eyed the commotion again. The air seemed alive with activity. Amid the tall, heavy green trees, blacksmiths from the illustrious Maldon hammered anvils in canvas tents, steam rising into the canopy above. Men and women, villagers mostly, moved about aiding in one errand or another. Karil passed long picketed lines of horses and silken-haired cormacs. Beyond them, everywhere, were elves in moss-green leather armor.

Not a camp,
she amended.
A city.

The once-small camp was growing day by day. She knew it needed to be, too, if they were to contend with the might of Eldas, a Great Kingdom. However, beneath it all, she saw the deeper, darker truth.

The little signs were everywhere, from empty quivers, to the smell of sweat from the lack of soap, or even the frustration on her blacksmiths’ faces. The last was almost the worst.
For what is an army without swords?
Without money they were reduced to little more than a rabble with a cause. Iron was becoming a scarcity all too quickly, and what little they had was riddled with impurities. As they stood, only half of their men could be fitted with real blades, and the other half had holes or chinks in their armor. No, the worst was the men, women, and even elves that went to bed with empty stomachs, hungrier every night. Her already hollow stomach soured at the thought, seeing gaunt faces at every turn.