Page 112 of Legacy of the Heirs
“Sadira!” Caellum shouted. Soldiers sat in the sand outside of the tents, tending to each other’s wounds and sharpening swords, weighed by the knowledge of defeat. “Sadira!” He shouted again, striding for the battle tent, hoping and praying Sadira would be there with the others. The tent flap opened, and he breathed a sigh of relief.
“Sadira,” he whispered as he spotted golden blonde hair matted from the rain and wind. She seemed to search for his voice before he ran and held her body against him. “I couldn’t find you,” he murmured. “I could not find you.” He kissed her, then, as though it was the only thing that might save them. Tears brushed his cheeks, and he pulled back, tracing his hands over her body. “Are you okay?” he scanned over her, tracing his hands over her body, searching for wounds. “Please tell me you are okay.”
Sadira nodded and clasped his face.
“I am okay,” she choked, her eyes rimmed red. “But not all of us are.” She sobbed, then, and he pulled her into him, gently leading them into the tent.
The air was thick with grief. His eyes followed those sittingaround the table. Soren stared into the distance, stroking one of her wolves. Larelle wiped her eyes beside Alvan, who wrapped his arm around her. Farid stood behind Nyzaia, his hands on her shoulders as tears flowed down her cheeks, but there was an empty chair. Elisara’s chair.
Caellum spun to Sadira.
“She is okay,” she said gently.
“She is in their tent,” Larelle said between sniffs.Their.Caellum took the room in again. Elisara was in their tent, and while she was fine, her commander was nowhere to be seen.
“No,” he breathed. While Caellum and Kazaar had never seen eye to eye, he had been the one to piece Elisara’s heart back together. “I…”
“Go,” Sadira said, squeezing his hand. “If anyone knows her best out of us all, it is you.”
He closed his mouth. “I do not…”
“I know,” she whispered and kissed him, a promise that she knew this was nothing more than him comforting her grief. Caellum grasped Sadira’s cheeks in his hands and kissed her once more before leaving the tent.
It did not take long for him to reach the rulers’ tents. Elisara and Kazaar had the first, the furthest from Caellum and Sadira’s. He rubbed his face with his hands, dried blood crumbling beneath his fingertips. Taking in a breath, Caellum sighed before reaching for the tent flap and ducking in.
Despite the sun peering in from outside, the light in Elisara’s tent had died. It was cold, as cold as Vala. Elisara did not move when Caellum entered. She sat on a stool in front of a makeshift vanity, staring at her reflection.
“Elisara,” he murmured, but she did not falter from the mirror. She sat in her soaked leathers while her hands rested on the table, palms up, covered in blood that had since dried. Many loose curls had fallen from her braid. Caellum wavered at the entrance. Perhaps being the one to face her was not a good idea.
“Star,” he whispered. Her eyes flickered in the mirror, glowing blue, meeting his. Elisara’s face crumpled.
“It’s gone. The tie, my eyes.” She turned on the stool, and Caellum met her in seconds, gripping tightly to her as she sobbed into his shoulder. “He is gone; he is gone.” She repeated the words as Caellum held her trembling body. It was the first time in years he had seen her break down like this and surrender to her emotions. Even when her parents had died, she was not this inconsolable. Caellum did not know how long he stood there, holding the woman he had once broken, now shattered further. He rested his head atop hers, murmuring quietly to her, attempting everything he usually would to soothe her. But the damage was irreversible. As Elisara finally stilled in Caellum’s arms, he knew that she would never be the same.
“I need you to tell me what happened, star, so we know what to do,” he murmured into her hair. Elisara did not pull back as she recounted the events between sobs. Caellum swallowed as she revealed everything to him, fighting his own tears that threatened to fall for her.
“Two hours,” she said. “We are to meet again in two hours.” She pulled back, and Caellum frowned. “Don’t you see? He wants me. He took away one threat; someone who might one day have possessed darkness as strong as his. Now, he wants me. If what we believe is true—if I really have the essence of Sonos in me—I could defeat him.”
“Right now, you need to focus on yourself.” Caellum lowered slightly to meet her eyes. “You are one of the strongest people I know. You can do this.” Elisara sniffed and turned, retaking her seat at the vanity. She stilled again, fixed only on her reflection.
“I will relay everything to the others. Someone will come for you when the time is near,” said Caellum, but Elisara did not answer.
Chapter Sixty-Four
Nyzaia
When Nyzaia was six, her three brothers had played their favourite game, hide and seek. Yet when Nyzaia hid in a servant’s storage room, they locked her in her spot and never sought her out. She cried for three hours until Kazaar finally found her, and it had taken him a mere three minutes to find her brothers and set their clothes alight.
When Nyzaia was fifteen, Kazaar started training her with swords. Although he knocked her down time and time again, he would help her up with a nugget of advice. Until one day—the day before her sixteenth birthday—she beat him. That was the day she left for the Red Stones.
Every day during her training, Kazaar would sneak a gift into the Red Stones den: a chocolate, a note, or new information. Kazaar Elharar had been her brother. Until today. Until he was taken from her, and she could do nothing.
Nyzaia replayed it in her mind on repeat, reliving the helplessness coursing through her as she tried to claw through the darkness to reach him. Yet fear had locked her in place once the darkness fell away. Elisara ran to him, but Nyzaia had not—instead, she was frozen with shock, heartbreak, and the grief of her fallen brother. It was the most pain Nyzaia had ever endured, and she had been tortured, used for trials, found the bodies of her family, and lost the love of her life to betrayal, but nothing—nothingcompared to losing the flame of her real brother.
She felt the mark in her hand, a reminder of her tie to Farid.Losing him might be the only thing that could one day hurt Nyzaia more. Warm hands rested on her shoulders and squeezed gently. She reached for Farid’s hand, tears trailing down her cheeks. Caellum arrived and left for Elisara, though Nyzaia did not think anyone could help her now, but it was worth a try. Nyzaia had not been able to.
As the shadows receded from the Novisian soldiers, Nyzaia commanded the armies to retreat. Soldiers had run, and in between it all, Elisara remained, kneeling in the blackened ashes of Kazaar. Elisara sobbed and frantically waved her hands to pull back the pieces of him floating away in the wind. She rocked back and forth on her knees and clutched his talisman to her chest. Nyzaia watched and knew she could do nothing, yet she tried. Bending down to Elisara, Nyzaia calmly spoke to her despite her own grief tearing through all reason.
“No,” Elisara whispered, repeating that one word. She shook Nyzaia’s hands from her shoulders before stumbling up the dune for the tent she shared with Kazaar.
