Chapter29
Cancelled (Renna)
Stellan kicks a fruit bowl across the room. Oranges roll under the table. Even our food is avoiding his tantrum.
“This is such bullshit.”
“Six,” I mutter, under my breath.
“What?”
“Six times you’ve said that sentence in five minutes.”
“Well, itisbullshit, Renna!”
“Seven!”
Rexxan cancelled the war. And I thought that cancelling a war is not a thing, but it is, because he has just done it. All we received was a note in his posh stationery informing us that we can stand the army down and await further instructions.
Stellan’s favourite pastime is stabbing things. He is not happy. Onyx is, though. He is currently sitting at the table in my bedroom working through a children’s activity book that’s teaching him how to write the letters of the alphabet. It hurts my heart as I watch him muddle up his ‘b’ and his ‘d’. I love him so much.
Ellatar swings his golden-haired head around the door as Stellan’s brown, tattooed hands move to punching a pillow. Ellatar is in casual clothes and I hardly recognise him outside of his golden armour. “Are you off work?” He asks, and I nod.
“What the fuck is going on?” Me and Stellan ask, in perfect time.
“Come with me,” he whispers. He holds up a bottle of wine, and Stell is instantly sold. Onyx wants a quiet night in, but I follow.
I thought I was drinking with Ellatar in the palace gardens, but as our journey on horseback approaches its third hour, I realise I was wrong. I am definitely about to get murdered by the King’s guards. I knew I wasn’t getting away with the whole chaining-to-the-bed incident.
Only once we’ve tied our horses at the base of a hill and climbed to the top does Ellatar stop, flopping down onto the grass. When I turn to see the view of the dark landscape, my heart leaps into my mouth. At the base of a mountain lies the army that had been seen, lit by torches and campfires. They’re within a day’s reach of Rexxan’s gate, and we’re unprepared.
What…the fuck?
I whirl around to face Ellatar, anger bubbling up in my chest. “What have you done?!” I hiss, kicking dirt onto his legs. “We’re all going to fucking die because you and the other guards stood down the army! You had me believe their army had turned around! Is this some kind of joke?”
Ellatar holds up his hands in acalm-downmotion, notoriously the most effective way to get a woman to calm down. “Just stop talking and wait.”
“For what?” I snap. I’m yelling and Stellan is chugging the wine; both immersed deep into our coping mechanisms. Ellatar pats the ground beside him and pulls out a paper bag of sweets to lure me into submission. I hate that it works.
As I stare in silence at the army who have clearly stopped for the night, I wonder what I’m supposed to be looking at. Then as dark brown splotches appear on the paper bag and raindrops start running over my nose, I’m wondering again why I, a five-foot-five—five and a half on a good day—female, let a man double my size who I don’t know particularly well drag me out to a remote location at midnight.
Just as I go to leave, our faces are illuminated purple by the most powerful bolt of lightning I’ve ever seen. I shriek, grateful that it’s masked by Stellan’s high-pitched scream as he runs to hide beneath a tree, shouting something about his eye makeup.
“This is why I brought you here!” Yells Ellatar, over the deafening thunder. The rain pelts our faces and I’m chilled to the bone. But I don’t move, and neither does he, because this is mesmerising.
And as the third lightning strike spears the mountain opposite us, I realise why he has brought me here. One by one, rocks begin to tumble down the cliffs like marbles, an ear-shattering rumble filling the air. A fourth bolt hits the mountain, blinding me momentarily. It’s weaker now, as if the storm is losing its power, but it’s enough.
I watch, frozen to the spot beside my two friends as the army is buried in several feet of stone and mud. For the first time in living memory, neither Stellan nor I have a single word to say. “That’s why we’re not fighting,” explains Ellatar.
“You have the gift of foresight?” I ask, wondering how he could ever have known this chain of events was going to happen.
“No, that was Rexxan,” he says, vaguely gesturing to the landslide as he starts making his way downhill. “The army chose the stupidest possible place to stop for the night, so the King capitalised on it.”
“Fucking boring way of doing it,” moans Stellan. But I’m not really listening, because my skin is prickling with unease. Rexxan has told me more than once that he does not change the weather because it doesn’t leave him with enough energy to manage his burns. Now what should be a happy sight is stained with sickening concern for his welfare.
I race back into his palace, kicking open the door to his bedroom, then his libraries, then his armoury, then his study, but he is nowhere.
“Rexxan?” I shout, running through his training courtyard. I’m winding myself up, convinced he’s hurting, or worse, dead. I shout his name again, distressed.
