"What happened in the past five years?" Rose awoke to the echoing of that demanding voice and felt her headache.
"Gemma," someone else cautioned. "Give her a minute."
Rose bolted upright. "Where am I? Who are you? How did I get here?"
"Not so fast," the nicer one said slowly. "You're still in a bad state."
"What happened?"
"That's what we wanted to ask you," Gemma snorted. "First outsider in
five years and they ask us what happened? Really, Lily, she's just fine! Nerves clearly weren't damaged!"
"What did you remember?" Lily asked softly.
"I fell..." Rose answered. "Lost consciousness."
"We found you a few hours ago," Lily told her. "I imagine you collapsed a few hours before that. A couple of us know about treating wounds so we managed to get some stitches for your head-"
"My head?"
"You took a pretty bad knock. In a couple of days, you'll be good as new."
"Who's 'we'?"
"The guardians of the gryphon and wyvern nests."
"I found them, then. And-wait, there are valkyries here?"
"Of course, there are, idiot," Gemma scolded. " I mean, really.Did you think we just left the key to the aerial legion unguarded?"
"We're the injured warriors and war veterans who couldn't fight as well anymore. Not to say that we still can't hold our own." Lily smiled. Only then did she notice that Lily's right arm wasn't out of view behind the bed; it wasn't there. Gemma, her eyes previously hidden by a wealth of frizzy black curls, revealed an eyepatch, white contrasting sharply against her dark skin.
"How many are there of you?" Rose asked desperately.
"A thousand or so," Lily said nonchalantly. "Way more than we need. The War Queens were clever about making sure we didn't get bored."
"You can all still fight?" She asked, sceptical of such luck.
"Yes." Gemma snapped.
"How many gryphons?"
"Three thousand or so," Lily shrugged. "They don't all go into the army of course, but they all could in theory. Why?"
"Until today, I thought there were only fifty-three anointed valkyrie warriors left in the world and merely the barest hopes off surviving wyverns and gryphons," Rose began, breaking into a grin. The pair stared at her, dumbfounded. "A lot of things happened in the last five years, trust me."
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"We should have gone the moment Viktoria didn't come on schedule!" Gemma cried. "I told you we should, Lily."
"That would have meant leaving the gryphons and wyverns trapped and unguarded," Lily reasoned. "The past is the past anyway, Gem."
"Why couldn't you have brought them with you?" Rose blurted.
"They can't be released unless one of the higher-ranked warriors asks them to fly to battle. Ancient goddess magic." Gemma said shortly.
Rose's heart sunk. "The only valkyries of rank alive are Myra Isidore and me. The elders no longer have a title in the army, and neither do you. We've had informal trainees, but no one could have been anointed without a War Queen."
"Higher-ranked." Lily emphasised. "This sort of crisis was anticipated, it seems. The bearers of the three highest ranks could let us go. It's the same for all the valkyrie magically-bound laws. Usually it means the War Queen, her Heir and the Generals. But now it means Myra Isidore and you."
"So...I can let the gryphons and wyverns go?" Rose asked, not sure if she was willing to believe it.
"It sounds like you'd better," Lily grinned. "Miras has gotten itself into a good deal of trouble while we were stuck here it seems. Time for us to put things right."
"An army of the novices and the retired," Gemma muttered. "This is just going to go brilliantly."
YOU ARE READING
Queens & Liars-Sequel to Three Broken Kingdoms (Completed)
Fantasy'She was a blade, forged in the flames that had burned her kingdom.' Book 2 of the Lost Continent Asriel and Miras have fallen. Their legendary armies are gone, their cities burnt to their ground, their people enslaved or murdered. The Empress now r...
