Page 113 of Deadly Maiden

“No. It sounds ominous, though, and I recall something about an army of undead protecting it, and people throwing themselves at it and dying?”

“Those? Undead?Pfft.I can deal with them. I also have two keys. And a compass key? After today…” She shudders. “Anything else will be easy.”

“If we ask Thander to set a day, I can bring you back here for the day of the funeral, even if only to fly overhead.”

“No. I am done. Father will be okay with me returning when I have avenged him.”

Ah. There it is. The call to war.

Some things are inevitable.

Perhaps she won’t mind what I am about to suggest then.

“If you feel safe there, at Slaedorth…” Assuming we can even get in the gates. “I want to visit Orish, where he died.”

I flash to the memory. The battle. His corpse lying there lonely, unattended, barely grieved, for two decades. I have been amiss. I need to go there and contemplate the emptiness he made in my own existence.

Her mouth is anO.

“Today has reminded me…” I gulp, an action horribly obvious when a dragon. “Of his death.”

“Oh, Rorsyd.” She rests her head against me. “You can go. You don’t have to ask this. Just be careful. I could not bear to lose you as well.”

My own sentiment. Once we embark on this journey into a proper, all-out war, the odds of one of us dying becomes astronomically higher. No point in repeating that. She knows. I know. I’ll just keep worrying.

“When I am certain the fortress won’t kill you, I will do so. Climb aboard, but first tell Andacc we’re leaving, and go find Kyvin. He’s wandered away somewhere. Probably off eating a squirrel or a fairy.”

“Oh!” She smacks my scale-armored hide then shakes her hand as if in pain. “You are insufferable!”

I grin at her, showing my fangs. She’s happy again, for a moment, anyway. The smile breaks as she remembers what she has so recently been doing, kneeling over her dead father. She covers her face with her hand and sniffles.

I nudge her, unfold a wing, and wrap her up so she can cry in privacy. I know her sadness, for it has also been mine.

It is progress though. Laughter is healthy sign.

Andacc brings us provisions he has collected for us, in case Slaedorth is bare of food and water. Once Wyntre and Kyvin are seated, I prepare my wings for flight.

Shake them out. Stretch my muscles until my wings fully extended. Check for flaws—failing in mid-flight would be the end of us all. I wish this was not necessary, but it is.

“Hold tight,” I instruct Wyntre. Her thighs grip me. Her handhold tightens.

I begin the pounding run…and take off into the blue, ascending toward the fluffy ice-cream clouds.

Chapter 37

Wyntre

Here we stand before Slaedorth Fortress, a dread place created by necromancers, and likely few fae would dare to trespass upon. A least, I’m guessing that is so? Even my parents thought it wasn’t a great holiday shack. Sad, that it has taken this grievously violent day to bring me here.

We have overflown the tower the king placed here, decades ago, to observe the fortress. There was a flurry of movement around it, and I have no doubt we were spotted. If I wait too long, we will have bad company.

I can appreciate why the king has not conquered Slaedorth. It dominates and nestles into a rugged mountain like a dam holding back…something hideous. The walls are monstrously high and constructed of a variable black-to-gray material. It is not dead or darkthing matter—I would feel that. However, what is strewn over the final few hundred yards before the wall is indeed the dead. Skeletons, rotted clothes and armor—the bodies have turned into compost, dried flesh, and dust. There isno odor, but I can imagine this place after this happened, and one would have needed a mask to get past without gagging.

There must be more than a thousand dead.

Some are partially buried, many are dismembered. Arm bones stretch before splayed bodies as if they strived to grab something. A few have died collapsing against equally deceased trees. Some partial skeletons in rags are wedged into ladders propped against the wall, left partway up, like butterflies on a tilted display tray. Time has made them fall apart. Hundreds of weathered arrows and spears protrude from the earth like spines on a porcupine. Almost none are lodged in the bodies.

Were they aimed at something else?

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