Page 27
Far in the distance, a spinning black cloud moved across the desert. It was as tall as the sky itself, reaching down to the sand like a crooked finger. She blinked and it vanished. But when she peered out with her spirit eyes, it reappeared. It was a giant in comparison to the hills it slid over.
“What is that thing?” she asked El.
A flash of lightning met with a distant boom, making the spinning cloud glow and sending prickles over her body. She tossed her gauntlets and clasped her hands together. “What’s coming?”
Whatever it was, it was approaching fast. She felt it like a tingling in her arms, like a sweep of cold blowing in from far away. Her breaths grew heavy, and she pulled off her mask and squeezed her eyes shut. “Spirit of fear, leave this desert!” she shouted, and the wind grew heavy, racing against her face, her hair. “In the name of El Tsebaoth!”
Burn Division Twelve was too far away to hear, collecting weapons and organizing themselves when she glanced back. People who should have been dead, who would have been if it weren’t for El. Shame fell through her that she’d almost not trusted El to save them, that things would have gone very differently if she’d resisted El instead of letting him take over at the Fall Order.
“I’m sorry, El,” she whispered. Heat burned behind her eyes, forming into bulbs of moisture as she inhaled. Tears broke free, tears that took too long to come, drenching her cheeks as her knees buckled. She fell to the sand, all she’d held back for so long washing in like a current with a loud heart’s cry she didn’t know she’d buried. “I was wrong. I let myself go blind, didn’t I? Forgive me. I don’t want to live that way.” Her tears fell into the sand, her body trembling. “I surrender—again.”
“How much do you surrender, Adassah?” That calm, gentle voice came like a whispered song. “Half your heart? Half your body? Half your mind?” And then, “How much of you can I use?”
No, Ryn saw now that wasn’t enough. Half a heart, half a body… what would that do if her loyalties were divided? If she held onto anger and only gave El half of herself to use? Nothing would ever be accomplished that way.
She would give everything. Anything less wasn’t enough. “I’m here now. Use me.”
What rushed into her was more than wind. It was an embrace, a cleansing, a war cry.
She thought of Per-Siana and those lost souls entertaining shadows of false gods who tore families apart with fear birthed from lies the Intelligentsia used to control the people. All the pain. All the suffering. She felt it now like a second skin, like a breath in her own lungs, like a flame in her soul. Things she didn’t know she could feel anymore coming in like a blazing fire: the spirit of El, flowing into her veins.
“I hate Per-Siana most days for what it’s become,” she admitted. A sob escaped. “But you love that kingdom, don’t you?”
She didn’t care if someone from the burn division approached and heard her wailing atop a hill like a madwoman, weeping and praying to the skies. She didn’t care as she lamented for her soul, for her people, for her kingdom. For all that was lost because of false gods. The joy that was stolen, the life that was stolen, the kingdom that was stolen. Everything that was stolen.
“I’m going to take it all back,” she told the gods in the sky, haunting the desert with her words. “Everything you’ve stolen!” She didn’t know what her kingdom was anymore, whether it was the Adriels, or Per-Siana, or Burn Division Twelve. “There will be a revival in these dry sands. There will be life instead of death! In the name of El Shaddai, Yeshua, Paraclete! And let it begin with me! I will do it!”
She would take it all back. She would take her kingdom back in the name of El Tsebaoth. Because after almost four months, her dead, dry, and destroyed heart woke up.
A tune echoed across the sand, settling in Ryn’s ears. She let the music trickle over her shuddering body. It remained a quiet, reverent hum as she scaled back down the dune an hour later where Burn Division Twelve was all packed up and waiting. It repeated itself, just a few notes, sometimes with words: a song of life instead of death. A song of courage instead of fear.
A song of war.
Dolem would be healed of her headaches today.
Ryn needed a songwriter. Because the strength in her sword wasn’t from the metal or the blade. It was the song inside it, put there by El. Worship was a weapon of El’s people, a power mightier than iron. And now she knew how she would fight these battles.
10
RYN
Burn Division Twelve fought every day. First, they faced a modest army without chariots. Ryn started by slipping her flute beneath her mask and blowing a soft, steady tune. Then the burn division went in, the light at Ryn’s back sweeping out like wings around them as they shouted their cries and charged. Men and gods fell side by side. Ryn didn’t realize there were witnesses until she looked up and saw five men in navy leathers high atop a cliff, cheering from afar. Per-Siana spies, maybe, meant to follow this B’rei Mira contingent in secret and mark their movements.
Second, they assisted the last of Per-Siana Division Sixty, with just seven soldiers left, as they were surrounded. Bastone sent the exhausted soldiers in blue back to Per-Siana to check in at the army offices for redistribution once they were rescued.
The third fight was an ambush—Ryn didn’t know they were being tracked until men in red kilts and bronze armour flew out from a desolate city of old stone ruins. Heva was thrown to the ground as Burn Division Twelve dove around buildings for cover, loading the few rickety bows they had. Arrows came from the hill too, where Bastone and Kiran hid. Arrows meant to kill deserters that instead killed enemies, paving the way for Burn Division Twelve to make it through the ruins.
Every evening, they built a campfire and cleaned their armour while Dolem recited the song she was working on, adding all the words Ryn fed her over the days.
In the mornings, Ryn climbed a dune, rock, or the wall of a broken city. She closed her eyes, never asking questions or voicing her doubts. She listened to El, to the quiet still voice that didn’t always use words, as the sand around her transformed into the cool water of the Abandoned Temple and her ears filled with the music of the birds there. The division complained at first, asking why their commander kept sneaking off. But they stopped raising questions when they continued living through battles.
When Ryn came back from the trees on the sixth day, Faro asked, “What does the God Original say to us today? What’s next?” Even Yusuf stopped fiddling with the rocks for the breakfast fire to listen.
They reached Sindahir Valley on the seventh day.
The sun hadn’t risen yet, leaving everything in ashy hues, but Ryn surveyed the thin trees, browning plants, and a shallow pool. An army of men on horseback in B’rei Mira red and bronze guarded it.
Atop the slope on the opposite side of the valley, a large group in dark blue attire with drooping Per-Siana flags half-raised were hardly visible in the early morning mist. Ryn could see them shuffling around, could faintly hear the rumblings of their existence.
