Yes, we’d start there. Small like that fly—their destruction or alliance wouldn’t tip the scales one way or the other, but it would create notice. Force the other more prominent cities to bow.
Eventually, I’d draw the eye of Kaos’ incompetent Truthsayer. Right now, he treated my presence in Elyria like that fly—inconsequential and annoying.
My anger and hostility grew until it was a burning thing, ripping through my bloodstream and causing a ringing in my ears.
How dare he.Kaos should have put him down ages ago, when he still had descendants to choose from. Now he was stuck with this flagrantly rude imbecile.
I’d make him notice.
And then, I’d make him pay.
“You have a choice.”My voice rang with an otherworldly quality, silencing all other noises in the puny section of town these people called their ‘square.’ “Join me. Fight on my lines to take back Vespera from the Warlord, or die.”
My words hung in the air, echoing throughout the street and over the heads of the hundreds of humans gathered. They were a bedraggled bunch, many much too old or much too young to really be an effective fighting force.
But they were bodies.
Fodder for the front lines against the last Truthsayer’s well-trained Mage army.
Perhaps I could just stick some swords and other pointy objects in their hands instead of arming them with crystals. My eyes quickly scanned the shocked and silent crowd, noting that many of them had very little power, their magic barely a trickle in comparison to some Mages I’d felt in my very long lifetime.
I sighed inwardly.
No one had yet made a move in regard to my offer. It was as if time had frozen still.
Either that or they were simply too dumb to make the right choice.
Wind whistled between the dilapidated structures—some of the homes and businesses were built with mud and straw, others fortified with log beams. All of them were sad and in desperate need of repair.
Was all of Elyria like this?I was starting to second-guess my desire to rule this place, my nose wrinkling at the thought.
“Sorry, ma’am, but we didn’t quite catch yer name?” A grizzled older man stepped from the congregated mass of people, some of them still holding their washing baskets or whatever they’d come to do at market.
Anger rose hot and heavy in my veins. A cruel smirk lifted the edges of my mouth as my eyes flashed with danger.
I heard Kaos sigh audibly to my right, and I sneered.
This imbecile has sealed Cellia’s fate.
“You dare disrespect me,” I seethed. Lightning cracked in my palm as the air began to whip around my head, though my hair remained untouched.
Fear—pure and delectable fear—rose in the crowd of gathered villagers. Screams tore from the mouths of women and shouts from men as children began to cry. Baskets and carts were abandoned, women scooping children into their arms as they tripped on their dresses and feet to escape the fate they could see written in my expression.
I ignored their scrambling—very few would make it out of here alive; all with purposeful intent, of course. I had to havesomemouths to explain of the terror they saw here, of the awful power of Solace, of the return of the gods.
My feet left the ground and I floated, suspended in air as I watched the men slowly create a line, shoulder-to-shoulder, in an attempt to block my progress through their city.
“Do you not bow before your goddess?” A snarl ripped from the mouth of one of my rabid soldiers. We’d lost more than a handful due to dehydration during our trek out of the Stepstones and across the desert, but it was no matter. The villages we visited in the Borderlands would either join our cause and replace my missing numbers, or they would die.
There was no other option.
A few men instantly fell to a knee on the ground, showing me the deference I deserved.
“Take them,” I called, my voice ringing with otherworldly authority. A few soldiers moved to pull my newest recruits from the group of Cellian men. Their line of defense shifted to cover the open spaces, but it was much more sparse than before.
“We do not bow before tyrants. We didn’t durin’ the Sundering and not durin’ the War of Northern Aggression. We may only be simple merchants and traders. And we may fall heretoday. But we can return to the ground knowin’ we did our part in stopping you.”
“How . . . quaint,” I patronized. “But make no mistake, you do not have the power to stop me today.No onehas the power to stop me,” I hissed, magic swirling around my body. I watched as a few men grabbed crystals from their belts, their pitiful magic pooling in open palms, while others white-knuckled knives. I even saw an antiquated sword.
