The Queen's Consorts (33 page)

Haven stared in shock, as if terrified to believe. “Larim said—”

“Larim was lying.”

The two soldiers exchanged looks, and the hope that passed between them was so palpable it gave Taryen a renewed sense of energy when the pain in his back had finally started to creep up on him and his arms had grown tired from the fighting. They had all lost so much, but the optimism in that moment made him believe in happy endings.

Even if the world seemed to be collapsing around them.

“We need to get to the dungeons.” Calder looked toward the main guard gate, but it was hard to see from all the fighting. “She’s waited long enough.”

“And then what?” Macro raised his eyebrows pointedly. “We’re outnumbered four to one. Even with our superior fighting skills, we’ll lose this battle eventually.”

There was no doubt in Macro’s voice. After years of field and strategy training, he clearly knew a lost battle when he saw one.

“We can get you to the dungeons, but we can’t clear the way for her to leave.”

Taryen looked to Calder, and they seemed to have the same thought.

“Just get us there,” Calder answered for both of them as he wiped the rain out of his eyes and pulled his hood back on. “Then we’ll deal with breaking her free.”

Taryen didn’t play the damsel in distress this time. He fought beside his lifemate, and it felt good. The gods had designed them to complement each other. Taryen was faster with a sword, and as they got closer to the main guard station, the bolter blasts were everywhere. There were more women fighting here, and they were firing with such rapid succession it was taking all of Taryen’s skill to keep them both from falling to a blast. At the same time, Calder continued with his powerful, blunt force fighting style that had always been appealing to Taryen.

“There they are! Kill the consorts!
Fire on them.”

Taris’s voice echoed from her stance in the tower of the guard station. She was watching from above, which kept her safe from injury, something that didn’t surprise Taryen in the least.
Selfish and narcissistic to the end.
In a lot of ways Taris was worse than Laysa. She had done horrible things to gain Laysa’s favor and was often the enactor of the sister council’s cruel laws. Her quest for power had forced her to put aside all manner of morals, and even now she sacrificed hundreds of brothers for her own egocentric reasons.

Her command forced the fighting to push inward, but the more the brothers tried to surround them, the harder the soldiers fought to protect them. The clash of bodies as the soldiers rushed to come to their aid was loud.
Clanking of metal.
Bolter blasts.
Screams of the fallen.
It all echoed over the roar of the wind, and it got to the point that the soldiers could offer very little protection against the pressing attackers. They were forced in so tightly against Calder and Taryen neither of them could move their arms, and they were close to being trapped under the wave of enemies.

“No!” Calder shouted, pushing one of the soldiers by his side away and lashing out, stabbing at one of the brothers. “We’re almost there!”

Darin was able to open a space to the right. His fighting style was the same as Calder’s, brutal, unforgiving, and backed up with massive muscle and unending anger. It terrified opponents, making many stumble back rather than face them. Combined they were able to make headway by sheer intimidation, but the progress was slow. Taryen was starting to feel suffocated. The fighting became madness, with no style or form; it was just a vicious collision of body against body, and whenever one fell, there seemed to be three more to replace it.

Bolter blasts were raining down from above, and Taryen glanced up as he lifted his sword over his head, seeing the sisters all lined in the guard towers above, firing down on them.

Then Calder shouted and fell. It was instinct that had Taryen stepping over him. He planted his feet on either side of Calder’s hips to shield him while desperately trying to protect him from the barrage of bolter blasts. Darin, Macro, and Haven all formed a protective circle as Calder convulsed with the shot.

“You can fight it!” Taryen shouted as he worked on reflecting the bolter blasts from above back at the sisters shooting at them. “You
have
to!”

A bolter blast was always
incapacitating,
and sometimes fatal if it was set high enough, but Calder had the strength of the queen’s command on his side. Taryen found himself saying silent prayers as he
fought,
hoping to gods it hadn’t been a deathblow Calder had taken.

“Come on, Cal.” Taryen dared a quick look down, seeing Calder sprawled out in the grass and mud. His jaw was locked against the pain, his shoulders were still shaking, but he was fighting it by blinking past the rain. “You can do this. She gave you the strength to get to her.”

“You’ve got to go.” Calder’s words were harsh, but the fact that he was speaking meant he was stronger than any other man on this battlefield. “Have them get you to the entrance.
Now!”

Taryen was Calder’s only defense against the pressing crowd. His arms hurt from the constant deflecting of the blue discharges, his back was on fire, but he still managed to shout, “No!”

“Do it!”

Calder reached out. His arm was shaking with the pulsing energy, but he managed to grab
Darin’s
leg. The older consort was fighting while standing his ground, a solid wall of unmoving muscle planted there in the mud with the sole purpose of protecting Taryen and Calder. Despite the chaos, he grunted in recognition of Calder’s hold on his ankle.

“Save him,” Calder demanded of the man who’d raised them.
“For Darisa.”

It took a second for Taryen to put the two together and realize Calder was talking about Sari. She was the queen they had been fighting for with blind faith all this time, but Darisa had never been real to Taryen like Sari was.

To
Darin
she was the reason he’d suffered alone all this time.

He nearly jerked Taryen’s arm out of the socket with the force he used to try and pull him away from Calder. Taryen stumbled but managed to wrench his arm back and stand his ground because he still had the strength of the queen’s command on his side.

“She does
not
want him to die!” Taryen refused to accept the sacrifice. “The sun will be gone forever. I promise.”

“So save him!” Darin shouted over the noise. “Open the doors when you get inside. The blast won’t hurt him.”

Taryen lifted his head, meeting
Darin’s
eyes for one second before he turned to look toward the guard station. It was so close; he could get to it…alone.

“Protect Calder. Warn Macro and Haven. Get as many allies as you can to retreat.”

With zero time to waste, Taryen left his lifemate behind and pushed into the battle, fighting with the same raw fury Calder had used. He had the strength of a queen’s command on his side. Nothing was going to stop him from getting to that door, and it wasn’t the fate of the world that pushed him far past the limits of natural endurance. It was love for the two people the gods decided long ago were the ones who completed his soul.

* * * *

Sari’s breathing had become irregular once more with the fear she was feeling secondhand from Calder and Taryen, and nothing Kayla could do would change it. The true heart was dealing with
her own
issues. Curled up on the floor, wearing Larim’s brown robes despite it being against the Rayian’s very strict cultural rules, her eyes had closed in sleep.

“What did they do to her?” Sari asked.

Larim released Sari’s hand, and she saw him stroke Kayla’s hair, which seemed matted and tangled, though it was hard for Sari to see anything clearly through the small slat.

“I shouldn’t have taken her with me.” Larim sighed. “But we would have never gotten past the battle raging outside the guard tower without her. Taris knew this was where they took you. The queen’s guard assumed you were captured and taken here once the storms started. They came to defend you. It’s the sister council’s last stand.”

“You say that like you’re already certain we’ll win,” Sari whispered, feeling weary on a soul-deep level. “When it looks quite the opposite from where I’m sitting.”

“I have the keys to this cell, Your Majesty. We could end this war right now.” Larim’s voice held cold determination. “We’re just taking the more diplomatic approach.”

Sari swallowed hard and asked in a hushed whisper, “Are we going to have to end it like that?”

Before he could answer, a lone voice echoed down the hallway.
“Sari!”

She pushed her hand farther out of the slat as her heart jolted, and she shouted back, “Tary!”

“Larim, take Kayla right now!
Get her into one of the other safe rooms in the dungeon. We’re opening the door.” Taryen’s voice was wild, frantic, and completely determined. There was a jingle of keys telling her he had yanked them out of Larim’s hand as he demanded, “Run, go! Get her somewhere that can withstand the blast.”

“We can’t open the door!” Sari leaped up and pressed her hand against the metal door that was alive with energy. She could hear Larim scooping Kayla up without question. “He said—”

“Calder and
Darin
made a last stand to get me this far, but they’re outnumbered. We need to open this door right now or we’ll lose them.” Taryen took a deep breath. “Macro knows our plan. We met him and Haven on the battlefield. We knew they had you trapped in a room like this underground. The storms made it obvious how much energy is in here. They’re getting as many soldiers to safety as they can, but we will lose if we don’t end this.”

“I don’t want anyone to die because of me,” she whispered fearfully.

“So many more will suffer if we can’t stop the rule of the sisters’ council, and Calder will die if you don’t open this door. Do you hear me? You’ll never see him again! We’ll lose him forever!”

All the air rushed out of Sari at the horror of that one statement. There were so many innocent people out there.

But she couldn’t lose Calder.

It was horrible and selfish of her, and something she knew would haunt her for the rest of her days, but she put her hand on the door and demanded, “Open it,” knowing Calder and Taryen couldn’t be hurt by the energy in here anymore than she could.

But she needn’t have bothered with the command. Taryen had already put the keys in with his own free will.

History would write that they did it to save the world.

The truth was they did it to save Calder.

When the cell was opened, Sari jumped into Taryen’s arms as the energy boomed past the door, pushing it off its hinges. The sound was earsplitting, but it didn’t even ruffle her hair or wrinkle Taryen’s robes as she clutched at him. She buried her face in the curve of his neck. She just wanted to hide there forever, breathing him in, feeling his calming energy and his strong arms around her. Her entire body shook in fear of what they’d just done together.

The dungeon must have been made out of the same stone her cell was. Sari could tell even with her eyes closed that they were still standing in a fairly intact room.

Maybe she’d underestimated the strength of her fear.

Then in the next breath, the energy exploded out of the dungeon with a reverberating
boom
so loud that it shook the floor. Her ears rang with the force of it, temporarily deafening her to the point that everything seemed in slow motion. All she could hear was the thump of her heartbeat; then as the moment passed, underneath the muffled throb she heard the crumble of a building falling in the aftermath.

It felt like a lifetime that she and Taryen stood there holding each other before they pulled apart, breathing heavily. They met each other’s eyes. She could see her terror reflected in his gaze. It had been a rash, reckless decision, and Sari found herself praying that they wouldn’t spend the rest of their lives regretting it.

She considered all the new friends she had outside those doors, not the least of which was little Aria. Gods, please let them have gotten her to safety. Had she brought Aria into the Sacred City only to lose her to a blast she’d personally created?

She shuddered as she asked frantically, “Kayla, Larim, tell me you’re safe!”

“Yes.” Larim’s voice sounded stunned and shaky. It was muffled by a door, making it clear they had taken refuge in one of the other cells. “We’re fine.”

“Stay here. Lock yourself into the cell and hold on to the keys. You can hand them to me when I get back.” Taryen held Sari’s shoulders. His dark eyes were wild. “I’m going to find Calder.”

“No!” Sari shook her head. “I’m going with you.”

“I can’t let you see—”

“I created it.” Sari stood up straighter in determination, though her voice shook from the panic. “I should have to face it.”

The situation was dire enough that Taryen didn’t argue; he just called out, “Larim, stay here with Kayla. We’ll send help back!”

“Go,” Larim yelled back. “Find your lifemate.”

Taryen grabbed Sari’s hand, and together they ran down the long hallway and up the stairs of the dungeon. The door was wide-open and littered with debris to the point that they had to crawl over the broken stone and bricks to get a look outside. Once they did, they saw the wreckage stretched much farther than just the door. The rain was torrential. The sky was black. The darkened clouds blocked more of the late day sunshine than usual. Lightning flashes illuminated the destruction, and they saw the massive guard tower had been reduced to rubble. The blast couldn’t have hurt Calder, but a falling tower most certainly could.

“Calder!”

She and Taryen shouted it together as they worked to crawl over the remnants of the guard tower. They weren’t the only ones screaming. They could hear the chaos on the other side of the devastation, but they couldn’t see much. Sari was barefoot, and she cut her feet more than once. The broken parts of the building were unsteady, but Taryen was right
beside
her, holding on to her as they were reduced to crawling on their hands and knees in some sections.