Page 68 of Autumn Queens & Shadows

“Call Atlas,” I said to Pen, taking Rain down from her shoulders.

“Atlas? Why?” she asked, rubbing a bruised spot on her forehead.

“To observe.” To keep me from doing something my father would do.

Everyone but me knew something in Isjord. I’d been my brother’s Eldritch Commander, his eyes, his ears, I’d been his enforcer. I knew about a thousand ways to get someone to tell me all their secrets and none involved me using any magic. Perhaps I’d gotten rusty. Or perhaps I was giving a certain songbird too little credit.

Casmere had fallen silent. The one city that never fell silent. There was always a sound of nature, either it be sea or wind or a wild sailor selling his stinkiest fish. But the Seer Sea was tranquil despite the approaching harsh winter. The wind was quiet, too. And the stinking fish remained piled up in their crates, their dead eyes all on the scene laid ahead.

The scene smeared with small bits of Isline soldiers.

The third scene of the sort that I had seen this week alone.

In the midst of all the gore and death that had slapped like red oil paint in an empty canvas, stood someone donned in a white pearlescent cloak that pooled to the ground, blending with the white of snow, its face hidden under the shadow of the hood. Whatever hid under it emitted no signs of life nor death. No heartbeat, no emotions. Nothing. Empty. Only a senseless amount of magic that was somehow seeping all around it, being absorbed by the ground, air and even the stones on the village walls. I’d never seen an Aura more in sync with the nature around it. Every magical being in Numen held a specific scent, something that was modified around their magic and made it their own. There were only four other creatures who did not have that separation, whose nature blended entirely too closely with nature. My brother and the three Skygards. But one stood behind me, the other was pregnant and beside my brother who’d never lose her out of his sight, and the last one was miles away gentle parenting the future bride of Hells.

The White Veil’s head turned to Thora who stood by my side, bowing at her before evaporating into nothing, only flakes of snow remaining where it once stood. Every ounce of the magic it carried disappeared with it. Too seamlessly. As if the magic had been there to begin with.

The old gods are dead, and so are their kings, the village walls behind read in old Ysolt, written with blood.

There was a sheen of sweat on Thora’s brow. But not because the scene was distressing to her or because she was afraid. I doubted it was because of something else entirely.

What had my little bird been up to all this time? Making all sorts of friends it seemed.

“Who is it?” I asked her for the dozenth time, hoping she might just answer me this once.

“I do not know,” she said, spinning on her heels and heading to her dragon.

“Then how about we find out.”

She stopped walking and all of her soldiers gasped at me, murmurs and prayers filling the chilled atmosphere that stank so horribly of blood that it was turning over my empty stomach.

One of her captains stepped towards me. “The last time we tested the gods, a war nearly wiped us all out. Leave alone what wants to be left alone.”

“Clearly, this thing does not want to leave us all alone.”

The old captain glanced between his quiet queen and me. “What does it matter? Those were Iskyla's soldiers.”

“And once it is done with them, are you next?”

Her soldiers gave me the most idiotic confused look I’d ever witnessed. “It always bows to our queen. Clearly, there is no reason to believe that.”

“Clearly,” I said, turning to the queen herself. “Right?”

Her gaze was distant, but she was not entirely gone. “Right.”

Looking around the scene of the perfect crime, I asked, “Why were her people so close to the city this time? It doesn’t make sense. All of their previous attacks have been on an odd small village on the outskirts.”

She nodded at her soldiers in dismissal and waited until they’d gone out of ear shot. “Because I have her husband tied up.”

I knew that. “Thought you were having a more peaceful approach.”

“I am. No one knows. She will tell no one because it will make her seem weak. And by attacking so close by, she is doing only one thing. Scaring Isjordians. Not me.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Put those big boy powers to some use. Do I look scared?”

No. Not even a little. And I didn’t even have to use my powers to know that was the truth. I knew every little sign when this girl felt anything. Knew every little quirk that came with what she felt. The exact sound her heart made, the way she breathed, the way she shook, how she tried to calm herself down, how she talked herself out of any emotion that would have her paralysed. I knew even where she went to hide from the big ones. How she avoided feeling the small emotions no one knew she was able to feel. There was more colour in her small expressions than many carried in their entire soul. There were colours, and then there were the colours of her.