Page 79 of Her Cruel Redemption

It was difficult to put my finger on what it was initially. It was perhaps a feeling, a shiver running over my skin as another growl of thunder rumbled overhead. Perhaps it was a collection of a dozen tiny indicators at once—torches beginning to waver in unsteady hands: the front ranks, so steadfast moments ago, rippling like unsteady water: heads swivelling, men shifting uneasily. My horse pranced beneath me, and I held tightly to the reins as he shook his head.

Then the first scream shattered the air.

It was sharp, high-pitched, splitting the night with the sounds of terror. Nothing like the groans of the injured and dying. Ahead of me, men swayed like a gale was pushing through their ranks, discipline unravelling as stalwart soldiers turned from the front lines and began to run towards the rear. I scanned the scene furiously to find the cause of their fear, expecting to see some monster of magic or nature, but there was only what had been there moments before: the gates, the wall, the defenders above.

‘What in Aether’s name is going on?’ Morozov bellowed. ‘Hold the line!’

But the men kept running. A mob of them, now, jostling through the ranks, and as they neared us, I could see how their eyes were wild with terror, mad with it. Something was terribly wrong. The world shifted as I was jostled, my horse rearing up beneath me. I yanked on the reins, hanging on, trying to retain control. I slammed against his rear end as his back legs lifted. The reins slipped from my grip as I fell. My breath rushed out of me as I crashed to the ground, the thunder of hoofbeats rattling my head as the horse galloped away. I staggered to my feet, gasping for breath, a hand to my stomach as I tried to reorient myself. I caught a hit of an acrid, smoky scent on the air, but then I stumbled as a soldier surged past me, clutching his head, weapons forgotten.

‘We’re all dead men! Dead men!’ I heard him wail as he fled the army, his comrades, his countrymen and the king he’d sworn himself to. I watched him disappear into a gloom punctured by the flickering fires behind us, and suddenly I was thinking of another flame, another night, a palace kitchen, mugs of warm, spiced milk.

‘I have no talent with fire. It costs me more.’

‘What do you have a talent with?’

‘Minds.’

Spinning back towards the wall, I sought that figure I’d picked out before, the one who’d merely stood watching. He was in the same spot, standing still amid the chaos. The heat of anger surged and curled through me, coaxing forth the pulsing hum of lightning in my blood.

‘He’s using magic,’ I said, though I wasn’t sure who was listening, whether Morozov was still even anywhere nearby. Draven was using magic to inflame the fear the soldiers would be feeling, leveraging their inexperience in the face of a battle. He was trying to break us before we even breached the walls.

And I was supposed to just hang back here andwatch?

Pushing through the army was easy when there were flickers of lightning crackling along my shoulders and arms. Men stumbled and staggered away from me, their fear redirected from the vague promise of death at the wall to the very concrete threat of a woman wielding magic in their ranks. The wall appeared impossibly far away, but it didn’t seem to matter as I stalked across the battlefield, attention entirely fixated on that figure on the wall, magic rising and hissing. The thunder rumbled above again, louder this time, and I felt an answer rise inside me, rolling across my skin with an affinity that seemed to call me onwards. Because Draven’s tide of fear didn’t touch me. I was lightning, and lightning feared nothing.

The clamour of voices and armour and weapons grew louder as I approached the front. I could hear the shouts of commanders trying to reestablish order, trying to turn terrified men back to the task of overrunning the city wall. The battering ram came into view, sitting abandoned by the gates, licked with tongues of flame. It didn’t matter. We had no need of a battering ram.

I raised my hands, throbbing with pulses of white-hot energy, and flung them before me. A blinding flash split the battlefield, burning its way across my vision.

Crack!

The sound tore the air as the lightning struck stone and the wall exploded. Dust and debris rained down as soldiers were flung backwards and a sharp, metallic scent filled the air, magic or ozone or just the smell of scorched soldiers and earth. I blinked away the white burns from my vision as my head spun and elation sizzled through me, coaxing me to strike again. The air seemed to hum around me, and above, there was an answering flash of lightning in the clouds, like the storm itself was bending to my will, called forth by a sense of affinity with the magic below.

But I hadn’t struck the gate. My bolt had gone wide, instead hitting the point where several ladders had been balancing against the wall. Now little of those ladders remained. A crater shadowed the wall, and streams of rubble still poured to the ground at its base. The other bolt had struck the ground some distance in front of the wall, leaving behind another crater licked with flames.

And the bodies of those who’d been too close.

Bile surged in my throat and my stomach twisted with nausea. Whether it was the aftereffects of magic or just the sight of the squirming men I’d felled, I didn’t pause to contemplate. I snapped my gaze away, swallowing it down as I scanned the battlements, looking for that still, watchful figure. He was gone. Where had he gone? Had I scared him into taking cover? Had he fallen from the wall when I’d struck it?

I gathered the vague sense that the men in the army at my back were rallying, their commanders succeeding in bullying them back into positions as some began to surge forwards again, running with replacement ladders. A stone flung from a catapult whizzed past overhead, striking the wall, displaying the magical defences Lidello had said were embedded in the stone when it made no visible impact. I gathered the lightning to my palms again, buzzing with an energy that made me feel light-headed and a little drunk. BecauseIhad damaged the wall. The blood in the mortar wasn’t enough to stop me. I would avenge the fallen, strike the enemy from their lofty perches. I just needed our own soldiers to get the fuck away from the wall.

Suddenly, a heavy stream of hot oil was sprayed from the gates, hitting the new crew of soldiers at the battering ram, sending them running and screaming. A volley of flaming arrows followed them, setting them alight where they struck true. The fire spread to anyone it touched, and a wide circle cleared around the gate as soldiers retreated to get away. But behind all that fire was the gates—the portcullis was lifting! The gates were opening! Our reinforcements must have already fought their way through to the mechanism!

A roar of triumph erupted from our ranks. The gates were ours.

But… something wasn’t right.

The portcullis was still rising, but there were no cries of alarm at a breach from the defenders, no renewed flurries of activity on the walls to indicate panic. The flames at the gate sputtered and died as if smothered, their work done. The heavy iron gates groaned open wide. The portcullis slammed open with a shuddering crash, and from behind that iron maw came the first line of soldiers, crashing into our front ranks with a force that shook the earth. Shields smashed against shields, pikes stabbed through gaps in armour, and the momentum of their charge sent our men sprawling back in chaos.

Because these weren’t our reinforcements. Our enemy had opened the gates themselves to meet us on the battlefield. And we weren’t prepared for that. Our chain of command was still trying to muster the terrified front line back into position. We didn’t have the numbers. We’d split our forces to send men into the tunnels. What good would it be for our reinforcements to emerge from the tunnels if the enemy had already torn through the forces waiting for them to open the gate?

‘Hold the line!’ someone screamed, but it was useless.

Behind the first wave, more poured out, driving forward with ruthless precision. Their weapons glinted through the smoke, cutting arcs of death into our scattered ranks. I saw a cluster of our soldiers scrambling to reform, their faces twisted with panic, only for a line of charging cavalry to split them apart.

And then the ranks around me were splintering, fracturing, and there were foot soldiers chargingme.

But I still had palms full of lightning. And my fury was pulsating around me, thickening the air, choking it with static. They were going to chargeme?They thought they could slaughterme, the Whore Queen, these insignificant soldiers who didn’t even warrant a horse to charge me on? Again, thunder rumbled, so loud I could hardly hear the battle. I raised my hands. Bright light arced around me in brilliant flashes of white. Something like understanding crossed the faces of the soldiers charging me. They tried to pull themselves up short, suddenly panicked. But it was too late for that.

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