The Offering (19 page)

“Here,” she told us. “We'll wait here.”

I looked to Brooklynn, who gave me a slight shake of her head. “Wait for what?” I asked Eden.

“I don't know,” she said. “But when the ground stops moving, we'll know it's over.”

max

The bird-faced warriors appeared like the scourge of death.

They didn't send a scouting party, the way Max had. Instead they came all at once, a vicious flock, arriving on horses and in tanks and on foot. In the fire from their torches, and from the headlamps of their vehicles, he could see their iron masks, elongated and conical, curving and coming to a spiked point at the tip, like they wore deadly black beaks. Their hobnailed boots and the hooves of their horses ate up the earth beneath their feet as they marched en masse—a deadly wall. Their tanks and armored assault vehicles flanked Max and his men on both sides.

Harbingers
, Max thought,
of things to come
.

He started to go down there, to warn the villagers who stood in the warriors' path, so they would at least stand a chance, but Claude held him back.

“There's nothing you can do for them,” he whispered into Max's ear as he dragged him back into the darkness of their hiding spot. He kept his hand clamped warningly over Max's mouth. “Not if you expect to save Queen Charlaina.”

The mention of Charlie caused Max to stop struggling. Claude was right, of course. He had to find Charlie before the Astonian troops did. But that didn't stop the bile from rising in his throat as he watched the first homes being burned. Or as he listened to women and children and men screaming from within—and without—those walls as they tried to escape. To save themselves.

Fire and gunshots filled the sky, and Max flinched again and again, but never once did he close his eyes. He needed to remember this. To memorize every last reason he despised Queen Elena, and the troops from Astonia, and the terror they rained down on Ludania's citizens.

He never wanted to forget what the Astonians were capable of.

He witnessed the occasional body fleeing from the burning village, someone fortunate enough to make it out of the wreckage.

Some made it all the way, unnoticed by the enemy forces. And others, not so fortunate, were caught before they could make their escape into the blackness.

Those were the ones he could hear the most clearly, because they came the closest to where he and Claude were hidden. He listened to their pleas for mercy, their unremitting sobs and promises to retract their loyalty from Queen Charlaina. And ultimately their final cries as they realized they would die this night, no matter what they promised. No matter where their allegiance lay.

Those were the ones that made Max sick. They were the ones who made him cover his mouth as he gagged and retched, until his nose burned with his own stomach acid and the smell of charred flesh.

xi

When morning came, my eyes were slow to open. They were sticky and raw, and I had to peel the lids apart. My neck ached from being crooked sideways against the rock wall where I'd fallen asleep. Everything about me, all the way to my bones, was cold and damp, and I was shivering long before I'd reached the point of awareness. The fog that had coated the land the night before had found its way inside our cavern, bringing with it a dank chill that saturated every nook and cleft and fissure.

As my eyes adjusted to the daylight coming in through the mouth of the cave, I could now make out the slick layer of moss I'd been able to only feel the night before. It covered every part of the walls and floors and ceiling. Much like the moss stuck to the rocks, my clothing stuck to my skin, damp where I'd been leaning against the slippery surface, and damp where I hadn't been.

Brooklynn had fallen asleep leaning against my leg, and I shook her now to wake her. She was snoring once more, and
the sound echoed inside the cavern we'd huddled in for the remainder of the night.

I didn't remember the roar from outside coming to an end; I'd simply grown too weary to outlast it and had closed my eyes.

Now it was gone. The ground was still. The air was heavy and cold.

Rubbing my arms, I searched for Eden, who seemed to never sleep.

I found her outline against the mists, standing just beyond the entrance to the cave. She faced me, and when she saw me watching her, she nodded. Even from where I sat, her black eyes pierced the fog, telling me, without words, that something terrible had transpired.

“What was it? Did you discover the source of the sound?” I asked, climbing to my feet just as Brook lifted her head.

She knew; I could see it in her face as she frowned at me.

“Tell me,” I insisted, crossing the cave floor.

She breathed heavily before answering. “Elena's army. They've crossed into Ludania. That was what we heard last night. Her forces.”

Behind me I heard Brook scrambling to her feet. “What about us? Do you think they know we're here? Did they find the VAN?”

I saw Eden shake her head, and heard her response, which sounded muffled and faraway in my ears. “I don't think so. Far as I can tell, they passed right by us.”

But I didn't care about any of that. All I could concentrate on was the meaning of what she'd said before that.

Elena's army . . .

Here . . .

In my country.

I staggered backward, trying to find my breath and my balance. This was it, then. War, plain and simple. There was no other explanation.

And now, any hope I'd had of bargaining with the Astonian queen for peace had been all for nothing. I had no reason to try to convince her not to attack us, because she'd already done it. My worst fears had come true.

I dropped to my knees.
What am I going to do now? What have I already done?

I'd made a terrible mistake, coming here. Leaving the palace in the first place on a selfish mission over a vague missive from a cruel and vengeful queen. I'd taken Brook—the commander of my armed forces—away when my armies needed her most. I'd taken Eden from my sister when she was at risk.

And I'd taken Ludania's queen off her throne.

How could I have been so selfish? How could I have risked my country's welfare for the chance to rid myself of Sabara?

It was too much—much too much to process.

“Get up,” Brook's voice boomed from behind me. “You don't have the luxury of falling apart now. So get up!” She hauled me up with hands that were demanding and not at all gentle. She was acting like a general, barking orders at one of her subordinates.

“Shut up,” I cried, the words falling pitifully from my lips. “Just shut up.”

Brooklynn shook me, forcing me to look at her. “I mean
it, Charlie. You don't get to pretend to be someone else anymore. You can't be
Layla
. You're the queen, and these are your people under attack now.
So what
that your plan didn't work. We'll come up with another. But we can't just stay here in this cave. This is your country. This is
our
country,” she added, reminding me that I wasn't alone.

I nodded, slowly at first, and then along with her as she released her grip on my arms. She was right. This was no time to fall apart.

I couldn't stay here and let my people down. Not now, not when they needed me most. There had to be something I could do.

“Okay.” I nodded again, my chin lifting. “Let's do this.” I turned to see if Eden felt the same way, and saw that she was nodding too.

Brooklynn grinned. “That's better. So, what's the plan? Where are we headed, Your Majesty?”

max

Max waited till dawn before sending Claude back to the ridge where he'd left the troops they'd been traveling with. He hoped that the bare-branched copse of Swamp Maples had provided enough shelter for them.

Now that the violence was over, he was grateful he'd ordered the soldiers to remain out of sight and to not attack any rival forces, no matter how close the other battalion came to them. He understood the hearts of soldiers. That their instincts and training would make it difficult for them to sit back and watch while Elena's army invaded their land. But he needed them alive, now more than ever. He needed to find Charlie.

He stayed behind while Claude went to collect the others, wanting to assess the destruction left behind by the enemy army. He wasn't sure what he expected to gain from the inspection of the decimated village—he could see from his vantage point on the hillside that the Astonian soldiers had left no witnesses to their rampage—but his curiosity called to him all the same.

The black smoke that coiled and twisted through the air
stood out against the pale morning fog, like an obscene reminder of the night's events. His lungs felt leaden. The sickening crunch of newly charred wood and paper and textiles shadowed him with each and every step he took. The scent of destruction was cloying.

But worse than the burned homes, and the shattered glass that spilled onto the streets, was the blood that splattered stone and dirt and everything. Everywhere.

There were bodies, both those that were whole and those not whole. Burned and unburned.

Max walked through the streets, avoiding as best he could the stares of so many vacant eyes. The corpses of children were piled against the still smoking rubble, their expressionless faces dirty from soot and ash.

Spikes had been speared into the ground at irregular intervals, and there were several with heads mounted on them: an elderly man's, his eyes and mouth open; a woman's, her hair tangled with blood, her eyes mercifully closed; a boy's, not yet to adolescence, with red hair and green eyes that were now hazed over with death.

There were nooses, too, and several victims had been hanged. Max glanced over them quickly, trying not to notice the way their feet still swayed, ever so slightly, as the sea's breath rocked them.

But it was one woman in particular who caught his eye. Her hair was the same as the boy's whose head had been impaled. His mother, if Max were to guess. But it wasn't her hair that drew his attention; it was her neck. Something that glinted in the morning light.

He moved closer, feeling sick as he noted the way her hands were crudely bound behind her back, and seeing the blackened ligature marks that feathered out from the cord beneath her chin.

He tried not to look at her pale face as he reached for the chain that disappeared beneath the front of her bloodied blouse.

“Damn it,” he muttered as he ripped the necklace from her body and clutched it in his fist.

He barely registered the sound of hoofbeats behind him as he tried to imagine how this woman had come into possession of the pendant, although he wasn't sure the
how
was the problem.

Fear lanced him, freezing the blood in his veins and making him incapable of moving for several long moments while he considered the implications of finding the necklace here, in this place. Now.

When he turned around, he was facing the division of men and women he'd brought with him to find their queen.

“We need to scour every inch of this village, check every body to make sure Queen Charlaina's not among them. And when we're certain she's not, one of you has to go back to the palace with word of this attack. We need to be certain they know we're at war with Astonia.” When Claude approached, his eyebrow raised, Max opened his hand and showed the guard Charlie's necklace. “She's been here,” he announced. “And we're going to find her if it's the last thing we do.”

xii

Brook frowned as she patted her waistband. She stopped in front of me then and bent down, dropping low and patting her ankle, too.

“Damn,” she cursed. “I think I left my blade back in the cave.” She raised her hand to her forehead and glanced back up the hillside, her frown deepening. “You two go on ahead. I'll be right behind you.”

I watched for a minute as she jogged back up the way we'd just come. Rocks skittered down behind her as her boots found their way more easily in the daylight. The fog was clearing now too, and what remained was only what clung to the ground, wisps that hadn't been whisked away yet by the crisp gusts coming over the cliffs from the water below.

I turned and followed Eden, focusing on making my way back down the rocky terrain.

We couldn't see the VAN yet, but it wouldn't be long. It would have been better if we'd been able to go farther the night before. Unfortunately, we hadn't had enough time to
plan, and it had been too dark to see where we'd been going, both of which had limited our escape route.

As the VAN came into view, I sighed out loud, and the tension in my chest loosened. “It's still there,” I breathed.

Eden turned to face me, a slow grin spreading over her face, and I could see she was relieved as well. “It'll be good to get out of here.” And then her expression changed as her focus shifted. I couldn't tell what it was she was looking at, but I knew it wasn't me. It wasn't Brooklynn either, because Brooklynn had gone in the other direction.

Her attention was fixed on something in the hills, but not toward the cave where we'd spent the night.

Instead she scowled at something just past my shoulder, and then the confusion on her face cleared and she pulled me as hard as she could. She shoved me behind her, and beneath her breath she ordered, “Run, Your Majesty. Run!”

She hadn't even finished her sentence when I saw her pull her gun from the holster and release the safety.

Before she had the chance to fire her weapon, I was doing as she'd instructed, no longer taking caution about where I stepped, just knowing that if Eden had told me to run, I needed to run.

There could be only one reason: Elena's forces
had
found us after all.

The sound of gunfire was earsplitting, and it rang into and around the rock walls of the rugged hills. It echoed inside my head and matched the pattern of my footfalls.