Hearts in Zenith (Four Husbands and a Lover)

36. One Blast of a War Horn

Those newcomer skeletons weren't the clumsy Ratne citizens butchered by Snehora. They wore ancient armor of woven bones. They brandished copper, bronze and stone weapons. That's ancient stuff next to our steel, but it could kill back in their time. It did so today, no problems. Those bones belonged to the guardians of the land, buried in the swamps. They were fighters before they willingly took the knife of sacrifice and plunged into the bog to never reach the River Vash. All they remembered was how to fight.

By the howls coming from the woods, safe within their confines, the forest beasts harassed the bravest of the soldiers, the ones who stood their ground.

Fragments, I saw fragments of it. I guessed at the rest, between slashing and stabbing, because I also remembered little save for how to fight. Also, I remembered Ondrey. Where was this blasted man?

Breva whirled—and I took Ondrey and Snehora in the same glance, at the same moment. My heart hitched in my breast.

Ondrey, back in his own body, was swinging a heavy ax at Snehora's bodyguards. He was a foot soldier against the mounted women. The ferocious strikes landed on the screaming horses and parried spears as if by magic. He could survive for a few minutes like this. I had to hurry.

The actual magic was happening inside the bastion of the bodyguard horses. The Princesses Granda sat in the middle of her guards, oblivious to Ondrey's desperate struggle. Her arms and face uplifted to the sky in the manner of a mausoleum statue.

Cold sweat of premonition trickled down my back. I rode down a faceless soldier who barred my path, screaming. The screaming streamed in my wake. My fury and their pain screamed together.

"Haida!" I yelled to Breva to shut it out, to shut out everything except for Snehora.

And I was too late.

In a blast of snow and smoke, Snehora and her horse doubled in size, shedding flesh. Or, maybe, not shedding, but melting it into nothingness. Once it had oozed down, underneath, shone the bones of crystal. The white light filled in, just tendons and sinew, and nothing else. A crystal crown sprouted from her crystal skull. Her eyes turned into sparkling gems—which was nowhere near as pretty as the poets lead one to believe. They are always prattling about sapphire or amethyst or some other precious stone-like eyes of their lovers.

If only those foolish women could see Snehora's dead, transparent, faceted baubles, rattling in the empty sockets! They would have run away screaming.

The coldest gaze of a living man was sweet compared to this!

I didn't have the option to run away screaming.

The explosion of Snehora's transformation felled the bodyguards closest to her. It bent the legs of the horses that crowded Ondrey, making them sit in their haunches like dogs. They rolled their eyes in madness, bolting under the struggling riders.

Incredibly, Ondrey stood tall. He used the panic to down two of his opponents, but Snehora--

'The Eternal Sovereign', I corrected myself, not Snehora any longer, as Breva's legs devoured the last desperate yards separating us. Snehora had achieved her dream. She became the Eternal Sovereign of the North. She turned her sparkling face to Ondrey and clicked diamond teeth. She reflected sunlight in a flurry of rainbow glitter. It was blinding.

"Die," she ordered in a ringing voice.

I put myself between her fingertips and Ondrey.

An ice-lance grew out of them, launched and struck Breva's noble chest—all in the space of one agonizing heartbeat.

Ice hit me hard, as I tumbled out of the saddle. Tears spurted out of my eyes. They weren't because I had wind knocked out of me or my burning shoulder. They were rage and grief—a horrid white-and-crimson flower bloomed around the impaled spike, unstoppable. Final. Breva still thrashed, but she was gone from the Knowable World.