Triumph Reign (The Callistra Chronicles #3)

TWO

Chapter Two

Twenty-four hours earlier

Eo is burning.

It was those three words that rung over and over in Pasiphae's head as she rode on, barely a blur of a girl whipping through the wind. The skies above her were dark, murky and heavy in a way that spoke of an hour unknown to most of the living. Houses and trees were rooted motionless into the land here: the attacks hadn't reached Maesen yet.

Everything was still, and quiet.

All except for the synthetic horse thundering through the gravel paths, a creature with the strength of something that once might have been a servant to the old gods. No matter how hard Pasiphae pushed, it did not slow. No matter how relentless Pasiphae became as terror and fright ate away at her bones, it only accommodated to her breakneck speed.

Pasiphae didn't know how long she had been riding for, she only knew the distance left uncovered. With the world joined seam upon seam, with countries that wanted nothing to do with each other stitched together like a gross amalgamation of an entity, the fastest route from Airesi to southerly Eo was no longer by boat. Instead, it was a direct route through Medeis, through the sleeping witches of the neighbouring sectors who would face panic once morning came and news of the invaders tore through the land.

At present, the land before her was only a scene of shadows. After weeks on end of Airesi's midnight sun, it was a strange sight to take in before her; but Pasiphae had once spent months in a place of eternal night—she adjusted quickly.

It was those months of nothing save nighttime—nothing save the weary blanket of blackness pushing down on a neon glow that fought to stay alive in the twilight—that Pasiphae knew something was wrong with this night. It was not her unfamiliarity with the scene that pricked all the hairs upon her neck upright. It was not her unfamiliarity which had been bothering her increasingly ever since she left the border of Airesi.

Pasiphae threw a glance back.

Someone was following her.

"There's no other way to do this," she had said, defeated. She retrieved her knife from the throne room table and tucked it into the folds of her clothing. "I have to leave." Darkness and war had fallen upon Airesi. The Seelie people had barely recovered from a civil struggle: they had barely bound up their wounds and counted their dead.

But it was time to prepare for another battle.

"I know," Seth replied quietly.

They had run through every possible course of action in the shortest span of time. There was no time to be wasted and no room for mistake. It was this that they had settled on: Pasiphae would run ahead to aid the witches at the front line of the war; Seth would organise the Seelie army, and as soon as they were ready to march, he would meet with Pasiphae's recruited forces to push the Unseelie army back once and for all.

It sounded simple when it was described so succinctly. The reality was anything but.

"I need a horse," Pasiphae had decided. She was moving across the Court, heading for her rooms. Seth was on her heels.

"A carriage would be faster." He was confused, and rightfully so, wondering why she would choose an animal over a bullet-shaped machine that guaranteed a day's travel.

Pasiphae clicked her tongue. "Ah, but a fae carriage would scare the witches into thinking a faery invader was coming from the north," she said. "The last thing I need is for the people in Maesen waving me down. I have to pass through relatively undetected."