Act 4 Chapter 146
JAYLAH
Due to the sheer amount of things that needed to be done in the following days, Jaylah did not have a spare moment to check the camp for Zensa or Adelié. The dead and missing were still being counted and logged. Men kept dying in the hundreds from the injuries they sustained during the ambush.
Four days after the unexpected attack, Jaylah had her army march on the Navrikans again. They were headed a bit further south where the land was tamer and had no cliffside to be used against them. With their spy dead, they would never expect her to retaliate so soon. In fact, there was no doubt they thought this war was as good as won. Why should they believe otherwise? Jaylah had been losing every battle week after week. They were nearly at the capital.
This was her last stand.
Jaylah's limbs shook as she led her army, not caring how exposed she was on the front line. Yanni was back behind city walls. Her men needed a vigilant leader, even if the only thing she was leading them to was the arms of death.
Looking down at the expanse of open land in the minor valley before them, she might have once prayed to the Gods for victory, for minimal damage. But she had seen the way They sat back and watched as her people were extinguished like a million flames blown out with the wind. When she lost it was her own fault, yet when she won she was meant to give the victory to Them? Selfish Gods wanted all the glory. She could not blame Them, because she now wanted it all for herself too.
The dark line in the distance became crimson. She took a moment to marvel at the sheer amount of men they had, all new young boys. Jaylah was only nineteen—nearly twenty—and she had led masses into battle time and time again. She had wiped out their greatest enemy all by herself. They might have also been too young for war, but those boys never stood a chance against her talent.
She had her men stop a hundred meters from the river that carved through the valley's center. They had the cover of trees at their backs. The Navrikans were sitting ducks in a pond of sparse, flat land.
Still, she did not yet give the order for her men to attack. A breeze cooled the back of her neck. The simple knot of hair at her nape hurt her head as usual, but she had headaches so often nowadays she no longer noticed. She had not eaten more than one meal a day for a month; she had slept even less. But she was not weak. Never weak.
She waited until the Navrikans were on the opposite side of the river, their boots against the riverbank as they judged how deep the fast-moving water was. Their cannons, heavy enough to require four men to maneuver each one, were far back on the gentle slope behind the army just in case Jaylah proved to be more difficult than usual. They would have to be strategic about their aiming if they did not want to murder their own men.
Jaylah's eyes remained on the river, clear as glass as it splashed over itself in its haste. She would tint it crimson. At last, this could truly be a second Red War.
"Fire at will." She did not have to raise her voice.
Each soldier unslung the rifles on their backs, which had been too subtle for enemy eyes to spot, and unleashed their fury upon the men across the river. More precise than cannons, deadlier than swords. This was the future.
Jaylah spread her arms as row after row of corpses sprayed red and dropped into the river.
They were able to take everything she loved. They were able to nearly bleed her dry. But they would not withstand the effects of their own cruelty.
Her men kept firing, kept reloading. The Navrikans were not given the command to retreat—they would certainly all die as they ran—so they began to surge across the river, marching over the bodies of their fallen comrades. After all, they had bodies to spare. That was alright; Jaylah brought enough ammunition to shoot down every star from the sky.
The Navrikan cannons began to fire from afar, striking the ground around her in bursts of dirt. They had resorted to shooting their own men down to get to her.
Most of the still-fighting Navrikans had crossed the river in a last surge. Even with their numbers, they were being struck down at a rate so rapid they made nearly no ground. This was what she had made so many sacrifices, so many gambles for. It was glorious.
When the ground was so stacked with bodies no dirt could be seen in between, the Navrikans finally surrendered. There were no more officers to man their cannons. The rest of the soldiers were so close Jaylah could see the whites of their eyes. Slowly but surely, they raised their arms high above their heads. Their swords clattered down at once.
Their sudden desperation made her laugh. "Shoot them all," she said. It seemed the obliterated Kalingi military was not a fluke. Now she was collecting them like toys.
The firing began and she watched every body be peppered through with holes until the air was still again. A whole army gone.
If only her friends could have been there to see.
Jaylah turned her back and began the march home.
♕ ♕ ♕ ♕ ♕
When Jaylah first laid eyes on Zensa and Adelié sitting together safe and alive, she could have cried. See? she asked the sky. You could not take everything from me.
As she walked closer, ignoring everyone else in the camp, she noticed the way Zensa gently wrapped thick bandages around Adelié's hand. They were already stained red. And...there was no hand there anymore. Just a severed stump.
"Adelié," she breathed out when she was close enough.
"They're gone," Adelié said, her voice thick with emotion, "aren't they?"
Gone. It was such a final word. "They died as heroes." She stepped closer. "I am...so relieved to find you did not join them."
Adelié seemed unable to form any more questions, so Zensa said, eyes still on her working hands, "You were in the middle of the chaos. It is a miracle you escaped at all, much less unharmed." She tied Adelie's last bandage in a neat knot.
"A miracle..." Was it really a miracle if she was only strong enough to survive, but not to keep anyone else alive? "Whatever it was, it allowed me the time to crush the Navrikans. It was full-scale destruction. They will not be sending more battalions over anytime soon. Only one enemy remains."
"And it is the one we know the least about. What will you do?"
"Word is, Ermalai sent a stream of support to a region near the eastern end of the mountains near Saratov. Seeing as my father is his last resort, he has every reason to protect him. The revolutionaries must be marching south as we speak. I am setting sail on a covert mission tonight to remove them before they reach their full strength." It took a moment to summon the courage to say: "I suppose this is goodbye."
Zensa finished Adelie's last bandage in a neat knot and looked over at Jaylah. "You are out of your damn mind if you think you are going alone."
Jaylah's shoulders slumped. She knew this was coming. Especially right after Ghislaine and Sonia... "Adelié just lost her hand. You have both fought for days on end. I cannot—" She pressed her lips tightly together. "I cannot watch you two die too."
"They're all gone," Adelié whispered, cradling her wrist. "Only our determination remains. What else do we have?
Zensa's thin brows lowered. "It is either we wait here for the next attack or go with you to make a true difference. You know how I despise being passive."
Helpless, she was so helpless. "If you die—"
"If I die, I die." Adelie's eyes were bleak as she stared at nothing. "I will go with no regrets."
Jaylah expected Zensa to agree, but all she did was sneak a glance at Adelié through shadowed eyes, meaningfully quiet.
♕ ♕ ♕ ♕ ♕
The air turned cold as the ship braved the rocky waters. Every time Jaylah thought she saw the Navrikan coast on the horizon, it turned out to just be dark clouds settling amidst the hazy sunset. It would come soon enough. Her cloak flapped uselessly around her arms as she watched the sky shift to unending black.
A presence was approaching. She whipped around. Each of her muscles instinctively tensed for a confrontation, but it was only Zensa.
"How is Adelié?" Zensa had always been protective of her best friend, but ever since the reality of losing her had been brutally drilled into Zensa, she had been practically glued to Adelie's side. Even seeing her alone now was unusual.
"With time, she will be alright. I have always known her to be resilient." She stood still as the wind whipped her dark hair into her eyes. "She kept trying to be sure I was alright, how I was taking the loss."
"And how are you?"
Somehow, in a way Jaylah could not fathom in her own molten, fitful state, Zensa remained calm. "They were the first real friends I ever had. I only cared for my family. Before then, I thought the idea was below me, that friends were people one made connections with for mutual gain. When I came to them, they had no idea who I was, but treated me more genuinely than my family ever did. They were my family." Her chin dipped lower, though her expression did not falter.
"Sonia told me to take care of you," Jaylah said, closing her eyes. She and Zensa were so frighteningly similar given their circumstances during childhood, and yet Zensa still managed to be superior to her in every way. "Even as she died, you were the last thought on her mind."
Zensa was quiet for a long time.
At last, the outline of the coast came into view, stark against the moonlit night. "My father is there," she said, and though it sounded obvious, the true weight of it had only just struck her.
"Will you have the strength to kill him?" Jaylah knew it was Zensa's way of offering to do the job herself.
She inhaled a deep breath. Would she? It was so much more difficult to hate him now that she understood what drove him to do the things he did. Now that she was him.
It was her turn to give only silence as an answer.