Page 146 of A Reign of Embers

Even so, the impact wallops me hard enough to send me staggering backward. My ears ring. I stumble onto my ass.

For a few moments, my head reels. I gulp for breath.

Grunts and groans carry from all sides. Still dazed, I shove myself upright on shaking legs.

As far as I can tell, I’m unharmed other than the pained stutter of my heart and the ache that’s woken up in my recently broken arm, but all around me…

Hundreds of our soldiers lie limp across the hillside. Even Axius has crumpled to the ground nearby, blinking blearily as blood trickles from a cut on his forehead.

Just beyond him, Cleric Pierus sprawls face down in the dirt next to his toppled shrine. The blast has seared his robes red and black.

The back of his head has been smashed right off.

Dear gods… Of all the people…

He’ll never come back home to his wife.

I wrench my gaze to Raul, who sways where he’s fallen to a crouch. His bulging arms hang slack at his sides despite the straining of his jaw as if he’s willing them to move.

Are they paralyzed? Completely ruined?

Next to him, Lorenzo has toppled to his hands and knees. His eyes rove wildly, focusing for only an instant before they flick onward. His head bobs as if he’s lost all sense of balance.

In front of me, one of my guards cries out. “Kassun!”

The chill that was swelling inside me pierces right through my heart.

The skeptical man who once muttered derisive remarks about me, the guard I won over through combat and confidence who’s since defended me with every shred of his courage, has crumpled where the surge of magic hit him while he shielded me.

Blood gushes from a gouge in Kassun’s chest too massive for anyone to hope to survive. His eyes have already clouded over.

For me. He died so that I wouldn’t.

He’ll never again laugh as he spars with his fellow soldiers—or with me—in the training room. Never again make a pretty maid giggle in the halls.

Tears sear my eyes. It’s too much.

“What’s happening?” Bastien demands in a hard voice that can’t quite disguise its edge of panic. “Aurelia? Fuck!”

He swipes at his own eyes where he’s braced by the jugs—both of which are now shattered, the contents of the second spilling across the ground. The prince’s bow lies snapped amid the shards.

The skin of Bastien’s face is reddened, his gaze vague as if he can’t see anything at all. What did that deluge of hostile magic do to him?

Valerisse lets out a whoop of victory, and her army rushes toward us. The bottom of my stomach drops as if I’ve been hollowed out from the inside.

We’re bleeding now, all across this hill. So many have died for me… and in a matter of minutes, I might very well follow them.

Chapter Fifty-Two

Marc

Iheave myself off my knees, my arm aching where I yanked it up to shield my face from the worst of the magical blast—as if a few more scars would really make difference on my already mottled features. My other hand stings where I scraped it on a rock embedded in the earth. My ears throb with the sudden shifts in pressure.

Bodies lie strewn across our hillside. Some are still stirring, staggering to their feet, but… Great God help us. Did Valerisse plow over half our entire army in one fell swoop?

A sickly sensation twists through my abdomen like creeping vines. I’ve never fought in a position of such disadvantage before. I’ve never led the charge against anything other than ragtag bands of rebels, easily crushed.

These are our own imperial soldiers we’re battling, chosenfor their strengths and trained to greater might. Their leader has ridden into more battles than I ever have.

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