Warrior Blind (10 page)

That had to change, didn’t it? And quickly. What was the human saying? ‘If you can’t make it, fake it?’

Was that what she was going to have to do? Pretend to know what she was doing here?

“No one knows who built this city. It’s been here for thousands of years. No one has lived in it for almost that long. Just there one day, gone the next. Some think it’s cursed.”

“You’re teasing them, Phaenna. That is not well done of you.” Eaudne walked at Bronwen’s other side, but though she was obviously limping she was not slowing them down at all. “Bronwen, I came here while you slept those two days, though I saw it only from the top of the cliffs. It is a beautiful place. And will suit our needs well, I think.”

It was to be a city for the injured and ill, wasn’t it? What would they need to make it fit that purpose? “How many people are coming today?”

“We lead in three thousand four hundred and eighty-seven healers, their mates, and a few children.”

“We have children?” She didn’t like that at all. What if this city was targeted somehow? How would they protect children? How was she supposed to care for them? The weight of her new responsibility threatened to choke her.

“A few. Less than one hundred, too young to be away from their parents.”

“Why did they come? They could have stayed behind in Relaklonos; wouldn’t have been safer there?”

“Some are counting on the idea that this is in a protected world, that the healers will be able to keep everyone who comes here safe,” Thadd said. But she could tell her brother was worried.

“It was their destinies to come here, just as it was ours.” Phaenna sounded so cheerful. Bronwen wondered again if the woman was as crazy as Laquazzeana were rumored to be.

Was she Laquazzeana? It was not something she had really given herself time to think about. That was something she would deal with in the quiet of her own room—if she was to have one in Dekimos City—when the needs of more than three thousand healers weren’t weighing on her.

Three thousand. And she was supposed to lead them. Not just help someone else lead them, she was supposed to make the decisions, all of it. How was she supposed to do that?

“How are we supposed to keep everyone safe? Three thousand healers, many many wounded, and who else?” She couldn’t even begin to comprehend. Dardanos, the city she’d always called home, had only had fourteen thousand people. How many lives will Dekimos hold?

“Well, that determined warrior king arrived yesterday with more than six thousand big strapping warrior demons. Oh, they are going to be fun to play with.” Phaenna was starting to scare Bronwen. The woman was so... odd ... at times. “You’re man, Bronwen of Sebastos, is a very determined king. You will have interesting babies. If you don’t both die soon.”

“Phaenna! That’s enough. Bronwen, child...do not listen to the words of a half mad fool. She likes the results. Koios brought with him a force of six thousand to protect the city. We have three thousand or more healers to house. After that the city can hold another nine to eleven thousand wounded. We will take no refugees in—Phaenna has identified another city for that purpose, and it will be there that she heads. Probably as soon as possible—I will send her there myself, if need be. But we will keep every bed in this city available for injured that we can. Perhaps, through our efforts, we can keep some of the Kinds from being erased from the worlds when the fires come.”

“And I am the one you call mad?” Phaenna asked. “All this talk about fire. You think that fire will stop all that is good? We are doing something great here—we’re uniting most of the nineteen worlds. It is only those that are too stupid to realize what they face that are not joining our quest. Stupid, stupid. Still, those of us who are more enlightened will prevail.”

Was this other woman actually looking forward to a war? Maybe she was completely mad.

“Whatever happens, now we have to keep walking,” Eaudne said. “We have much to do once we get there.”

“Like what? Tell me about this city. What kind of condition is it in?” Would they be stuck in tents?

“We don’t know. Unless the Lothicano king has been able to move the boulders in the entrance. It was a bit difficult to get inside.” Phaenna giggled again.

Bronwen actually felt the urge to hit the other woman.

“Pay her no mind, Bronwen. The city gate was walled off apparently centuries ago. The boulders were having to be moved. Phaenna couldn’t do it because we weren’t sure of the structure of the area behind it. We didn’t want a power surge to weaken the wall further. It may be necessary for defense that we keep it in working order. Koios had his men working with the boulders to see what they could do.”

Koios again.

She would not be escaping him. She’d come to that realization late in the night when she was supposed to be resting. Was that what her original thought had been? To return to Relaklonos all those months ago, and then to Colorado? To stay as far from her mate as possible?

That hadn’t worked out too well for Aureliana when she had been in a similar position, had it?

But that didn’t mean she had to just give in because he decided he wanted her. Wasn’t that part of the problem? She’d let far too many people roll right over her? Wasn’t that one of the reasons she was hiking five miles to a city she’d never heard of before? Because other people assumed she would?

But she also trusted those other people, especially Auri and Nalik. They wouldn’t lie to her; not them. They, two of the people most responsible for her life, believed this was what she was supposed to do.

And like it or not, she was apparently supposed to do it with Koios at her side.

At her side did not necessarily mean within her heart. Or her bed, even.

“Koios would be good at the defenses, wouldn’t he?” She asked the question as a sense of purpose and determination began to well within her. “That’s why he’s going, isn’t it?

“Tell yourself that,” Phaenna said. “We all know it’s because of you. Or maybe the two of you were fated together because this was your destiny. Who knows? I doubt the Four Destinies even get the truth sometimes.”

The Four Destinies, again. Bronwen knew of them. It was one of the bedtime stories her brother Theo would tell her as a child though they weren’t a specifically Dardaptoan fairy tale.

Four creatures, neither male nor female, who decided everything between them. One handled family and friends, one occupation, one romantic love, and one...the one no one knew much about at all handled death.

Sometimes the four fought over the answers and the poor individual involved was screwed over in ways too unimaginable to think about.

“I don’t think we’re fated together at all. I think he’s just delusional.”

“I think you think wrong!” Phaenna sing-songed. “I think the handsome king sees you for exactly what you are—to him, and to his world, to all of those delicious Lothicano warriors he brought with him.”

“Phaenna! Really!” Eaudne’s irritation echoed Bronwen’s. She was starting to get the impression that Eaudne didn’t care much for Phaenna.

Bronwen was starting to feel the same way.

KOIOS
was stripped down to the waist like many of his men, sweat pouring down his back. This unnamed world was far hotter than he had expected—or was used to. His Relaklonos’ average temperature was a much more temperate climate.

The boulders that blocked the city gate were slowly getting removed. They were chipping them down one by one. The resulting smaller rocks would be used in defense in some way.

They were demons, and they were of modern times, but sometimes the best defense were those that were earthen made. Stone, water, men.

He would use all to fight to protect, if that was what was called of him.

He knew not what type of magics or powers this world could support. He suspected it was far greater than Relaklonos—why else would the Laquazzeana have favored it so?

Phaenna had told him that she had resided in this world for centuries—and it had yet to suffer from her presence. That was evident for him to see. Trees unlike any he’d ever seen on his world were everywhere. Vegetation was thick and in a variety of colors—green and red and orange dominated everything.

They’d arrived in the world near a huge river that rivaled any he had ever seen, and some of the men reported man-sized fish swimming abundantly.

It was as close to a paradise as he had ever seen.

He’d spent most of the morning at the front of his men, overseeing the opening of the gates.

He planned to be the first one through the wall. His warriors needed to see him taking that first step.

And he wanted time to view the city and evaluate before his people rushed in.

Before Bronwen arrived.

He would not allow her into a city he deemed unsafe. There could be anything living behind the wall. Behind the cliffs.

The city was located behind enormous cliff faces, with only a gap between the cliffs. A gap big enough for maybe thirty warriors walking shoulder to shoulder to enter at one time.

He understood that—a smaller door was more easily defended. He’d tried to flash himself into the city, but it hadn’t worked.

He’d gotten a knock on the head for his efforts, when he’d reached some sort of invisible barrier.

A shout went up a short distance from where he was. The last boulder had cracked, and they were about to break through.

Koios stepped over.

“I shall take the first step.”

His top man Callan protested. Koios held up a hand. Callan was the closest he could call to friend after his twin. But in this, Koios was determined. “It is needed. You and one other may follow. The rest of you, Dell, Portrick, you are to wait for the Queen and the Healers to arrive. Give my
gamata
, the Dardaptoan Laquazzeana Bronwen, a message for me. She is to wait by the river until I come for her.”

Dell bowed to him. “Will do, my King. I will guard her well in your stead.”

“See that you do.”

Koios slipped through the warrior-sized hole and into the city, now Dekimos, City of the Healers.

BRONWEN’
s feet were burning. She wasn’t sure about her legs—she couldn’t quite feel them. A five mile hike hadn’t been something she was used to.

“Keep your head up, and your words strong, kitten. The people are expecting something from you, our leader.” Nalik was there.

When had he come?

“I will close the portkey after everyone is through. I will rest easier knowing all are where they need to be tonight.”

“Cass?” She had been resting for the last several days. She was midway through her pregnancy, and had been one of the first attacked in Thrun.

“Jushua stays at her side. He will do until I can return to her. And Aureliana and Ren.”

“Nal, what do I say?” She was so full of questions anymore. Full of questions, weaknesses, uncertainties.

“That’s what it’s like anymore, kiddo. For all of us. The older I get the more those things grow within me. Especially in the last thirty years.”

“How did you do it?” Nalik had suffered so horribly in those thirty years. Everyone knew it. He’d gone through far more than Bronwen could even imagine. Far more even than she had.

That had her walking a little straighter. It was true, wasn’t it? Even though she couldn’t see anymore, even though Ramorakin had hurt her and terrified her—and basically killed her if what Auri had suspected was true, and she was a Laquazzeana—there were others out there who had suffered far more than she.

Wasn’t it time she stopped dishonoring that fact, and how was it Auri had put it?—look past what had happened?

“I did it because even when things were at their darkest after Erastine died there was always that hope. And the fear; I won’t lie to you, little sister of my heart, there was always fear. Mainly that my Rajni was out there somewhere and would need me. And that was exactly what the fates had in store for me. Cass needed me, needed me to be the thing Taniss had changed me into.” Bronwen knew the story. She’d read the files that had been found in that monster Leo Taniss’s things. She’d memorized the details, what had been done to Nalik’s younger sister, her best playmate Erastine. Era had been killed by the man who had tortured Nalik.

Who had killed Nalik and turned him into a Laquazzeana, too.

“Do all Laquazzeana have to die to become what they are?”

Had she died that day in the slave keeper’s prison? Was that what had happened?

“No. I don’t think so. I don’t think Eaudne died, I think hers was through suffering alone. And I know Cass didn’t.”

“So how was she changed?”

“She was changed through me, I believe. We can talk about it more at another time. But one thing I do want you to know—for whatever reason, you are a Laquazzeana, and stronger than you ever could have imagined before. Stop thinking that you are not. Learn what you are capable of and how to control it. You’ve been given this whatever for a good reason. You can do it, Bronie, I have no doubt about it.”