Page 64 of When Sisters Collide
Recognition hit Alena like a wave, stealing her breath.
“By the Moon…” she breathed. “Leywani?”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
KATELL
Katell didn’t waste time lingering in the Twelfth’s camp. With Arnza and Pinaria at her back, she made her way through rows of mud-caked tents and bleary-eyed soldiers towards the command pavilion. She’d slipped a Tear in her mouth before leaving—its rush of magic steadied her hands and sharpened her focus.
Today, she would work on the problem of breaking into Tiryns.
The sooner, the better.
The red standard of the legate snapped above the pavilion, a blood-soaked warning caught in the wind. Katell squared her shoulders and kept walking.
Inside, the air was thick with oil, sweat, and damp leather. Maps littered a long table, held down with knives and half-drunk cups. Legate Tarchun stood hunched over it, barking an order to a junior officer before glancing up.
He looked like a stockier, cruder version of his brother Tyrrhenus—same squared jaw, same perpetual sneer—but it wasthe eye that turned her stomach. His left eye, the one that wasn’t his, gleamed like a cold shard of moonlight.
The eye of an Amazon. A trophy.
She despised it.
Tarchun barely glanced at her as his praefect, Ennius, announced her arrival. “I told the Emperor I’ve no use for Black Helmets,” he muttered, as if she weren’t standing right there.
Anger coiled hot beneath Katell’s skin, but she didn’t let it show. Pinaria stood silent and watchful, while on the other side Arnza shifted slightly, a faint ripple of tension betraying his restraint.
Katell stepped forward and offered Dorias’ sealed scroll with a steady hand.
“We’re here on a mission to infiltrate the city,” she said in a clipped tone.
Tarchun raised a sceptical brow, then snatched the scroll without ceremony. His mismatched eyes flicked over the contents—his Amazon eye glinting with faint, unnatural light. After a beat, he let out a derisive snort.
“As if we haven’t been trying for years.” He scoffed. “Well. Best of luck. The city is impregnable.”
The contempt in his voice was clear, and the smirk tugging at his lips made her want to break his nose. He didn’t believe in their mission, but Dorias did. And for his sake, and her own, she had to succeed.
Her gaze drifted to the maps spread across the table—inked lines marking supply routes, siege positions, the jagged edge of Tiryns’ outer wall. No clear weaknesses. No entry point. Just the city, closed and defiant.
“You mean because of the barrier surrounding the city?” she asked, forcing her voice to remain calm. If she was going to break through it, she needed to understand exactly what stood in her way.
Tarchun gave a stiff nod. “So long as Queen Charis sits on her throne, the Grey-Eyed Maiden guards her city. Or so the priests claim.” He waved a hand dismissively. “No one’s breached it.”
The Grey-Eyed Maiden—one of the Achaean Twelve. They were supposed to have disappeared, or at least been weakened, since the Rasennans took over Achaea. Yet the Maiden still protected Tiryns.
But how would her magic fare against Laran’s?
“What kind of barrier is it?” she asked.
“One that burns,” Tarchun replied without pause. “We sent several soldiers to test it, and each returned with severe injuries.”
From his tone, Katell gathered those soldiers hadn’t gone willingly. A knot of revulsion tightened in her throat. The legate seemed to treat lives like siege stones—tossed forward until they shattered.
And this was the man she was expected to defer to.
Her jaw ached from the effort of biting back her contempt. But she drew a breath and forced a smile. “Well, we’d like to try our luck and see if we can find a way. We wouldn’t want to disappoint the Emperor.”
The words turned to ash on her tongue. It was Dorias she refused to fail. But if the legate thought she was doing it to please the Emperor, it couldn’t hurt. Her loyalty had been questioned enough already.
