The Shadow Queen (Ravenspire, #1)(58)
Stepping back from Gabril, she said, “It’s time to start. You remember what we discussed?”
He nodded, his stoic expression back in place. “If you get weak from the magic, I’m to get you to the next location even if I have to drag you behind me.”
“Yes.”
“A task made much harder by the presence of a dragon trapped in his human form who is dedicated to killing you.”
“Use Sasha to keep him away until I wake up if you have to. Just get me off this mountain and down to the bridge that spans the Silber River and connects the Falkrains to the rest of Ravenspire before the army gets there. Irina will start using magic to try to stop us once she figures out what I’m doing. I need to be at the bridge or beyond it before that happens.” She flashed him a little smile, though there was no mirth in it. “And pray that Ravenspire recognizes my intentions and lends me its heart without a fight so that nobody has to drag me anywhere.”
“How do you plan to put a barrier between the ogres and my people if you can’t actually touch the land in Eldr? Don’t you need to touch the heart of the land if you want it to obey you?” he asked as they both turned to look up at the command outpost.
“I’ll use the river our kingdoms share.” She studied the way the outpost, with its thick stone walls and narrow towers, was carved into the side of the mountain itself.
Where is the armory? She sent to Sasha.
Kol sent back an image of confusion.
Sasha sent back an image of a massive building housed beneath the mountain.
It was going to get complicated having both of them listening to her thoughts.
How many people are in the outpost? she asked, and ignored Kol’s fractured thoughts as Sasha sent her pictures of row upon row of soldiers standing at attention beneath the pale blue sky while a woman with multiple silver bars on the breast of her uniform yelled something to them.
Troop review. Most, if not all the people who lived in the bunker would be in the outer court. The army hadn’t changed their schedule much since Gabril’s days in the palace. That would make Lorelai’s job a lot easier.
The bulk of Irina’s weaponry and supplies were housed in the bunker the stretched from the outpost into the center of the mountain. The bulk of her northern army was stationed here as well—partially because Duchess Waldina owned the land and was loyal, and partially because this was close enough to the Morcant border to act as a deterrent in case King Milek decided to challenge his niece for the throne.
Destroying the outpost and the bunker would leave the northern army without the resources to fight Irina’s battles from afar. Destroying the bridge that connected the Falkrain Mountains to the rest of Ravenspire would make it impossible for Irina to recall her soldiers to the capital for help once Lorelai arrived.
It made strategic sense.
It was also the biggest spell Lorelai had ever attempted, and she figured she had one chance to get it right before the threads of Irina’s magic that ran through the ground reported her actions to the queen and provoked Irina to do a spell that would save the outpost.
“Ready?” Gabril asked, the tension in his shoulders belying the composure in his voice.
“Ready.”
She knelt in the dirt and thought of the woman who’d killed her children to spare them a slow, terrible death. The villagers who’d mobbed the Eldrians because they were desperate to avoid a choice like hers.
She thought of Leo, telling her to run while Irina’s spell turned his veins black and stopped his heart.
Power flooded her body, streaking through her blood to fill her palms with the sting of magic. She raised her hands, wreathed in white light, and looked at the group of buildings jutting out from the middle of the mountain.
“Nakh`rashk.” She slammed her palms against the dirt and sent her power deep underground. The heart of the mountain felt stubborn, slow, and unyielding, its power steadily syphoned off by Irina’s magic. The second Lorelai encountered resistance, she stopped pushing and whispered, “I ask for the use of your heart, not for my own gain but to stop the one who is causing our land to die.”
She let her magic rest within the land and willed her kingdom to respond to her. To help her. To see that she meant to heal Ravenspire instead of ruin it.
Nothing happened. The mountain refused to yield. Lorelai closed her eyes and whispered a plea. If she had to force the mountain’s heart to obey hers, she’d be weak and exhausted for days, just as she was after healing Gabril. She didn’t have time for weakness. Destroying the outpost was the first move in a carefully planned attack, and every piece of Lorelai’s battle plan needed to happen quickly. She had to keep the queen on the defensive—scrambling to keep up by sending out spells of her own that would weaken her heart—and she had to strip all Irina’s extra defenses away, or she risked engaging in a battle she might not be able to win.
“Please. Help me,” she whispered. Her magic tingled and sparked, and then slowly, slowly the heart of the mountain moved toward the tendrils of her power that lay beneath its skin.
“Thank you,” she breathed as the vast, stubborn strength of the mountain merged with her magic and became a tool she could shape to her will. “Nakh`rashk. Find the foundation of the army’s outpost and shake it until every creature with a heartbeat has left its walls.”
The mountain groaned and shuddered. Trees snapped in half and tumbled down. Puffs of dust rose from the outpost’s compound, and then another shudder gripped the mountain and the outer wall of the compound cracked in half.