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I let out a shriek of surprise as we stumbled. A few blood fae lost their footing. Sea singers retreated, no doubt the most unsteady of us all on land. Some stumbled and found the tip of a blade, most dove into the tides.
“Take one for questioning.” Brilliant Cuyler, a true warrior, had the brains to act in strategy.
Blood fae moved at once. They battled the shudder of the earth, but managed to surround one of the fumbling, horrifying sea fae, smashing his rotting face to the sand before he could dive beneath the waves.
Cuyler looked for me and held tightly to a post. I staggered back and slammed into a firm body.
Silas gripped my arms, keeping me steady. I didn’t think, merely turned into him, clinging to his waist as an anchor in the turmoil. It took half a breath, but soon enough, his arms wrapped around my shoulders, keeping me pressed to his body until the quake ceased.
“Cal.” Cuyler pointed through the dust. “Look.”
More than the buildings, the people of the Row had fallen forward, unmoving in the road.
“No.” Agony ripped through my chest. They were gone. The folk I’d known. The folk I’d mocked with Stefan when they staggered from game halls. The folk who’d irritated me, yet celebrated my return from captivity in the North with honey cakes and mead ale, as though I belonged to them all.
One shoulder moved. Next, a knee. Followed by groans as men, women, the people floundered back to their feet.
Blood fae watchers grouped closer to Cuyler, to me. Most hesitated at the sight of Silas, but still lifted their spears and knives. I wanted to tell them there was no need to protect against the people of Raven Row, but the thought died like ash in the wind.
These were no longer the people of Raven Row.
Dressed in leathers. Belts thick as my arm. Boots with hard soles that struck the knees. Loops and sheaths marked their waists, shoulders, and backs. Their rugged faces and vomit-stained tops were now dark, woolen tunics spun with silver threads on the trims.
No one seemed to pause for a single breath to consider the impossibility of transforming from drunkard to . . . warrior.
A man with a deep blue mantle tossed over his shoulders barked strategic orders. Others followed in a ripple of different commands.
“Wall at the shore.”
“Archers above.”
“Shield formation.”
“Move your asses!”
The final command came from the man in the mantle. When he faced me, beneath the smooth, sun-kissed skin, the tidy beard, and braided hair, I could just make out his true features.
“Olaf?”
The aleman looked thirty turns younger, arms thick and chiseled with divots and strength, but he hadn’t rid himself of that irritating, stern expression.
He pressed a hand to his chest and bowed his chin. “The Rave fight for the first kingdom.”
The Rave?
“Wasn’t the Rave the army of the fate king?” Cuyler limped toward me, a little breathless.
I nodded. “Annon was Rave. I don’t understand what’s happening.”
“They’ve awaited the call of their royal, Little Rose,” Silas whispered against my hair. Low and seductive. His arms tightened around my waist. “You are the heir. They bow to you.”
“Silas, I . . . I don’t know how to command anyone.”
Lines of warriors—people I’d known from my earliest memories—trudged forward in uniform steps.
“Silas?” Cuyler tilted his head. “Now that I’m thinking on it . . . I know that name.”
With an irritated grunt, Silas turned us away. He practically recoiled away from anyone but me. “You do not need to be anything you are not. No one needs more than who you already are, Little Rose.”
