Triumph Reign (The Callistra Chronicles #3)

FOUR

Chapter Four

Calva had once been an isolated mound of dirt drifting in the sea, untouched for centuries while the organisms upon the land morphed and morphed into something unrecognisable. For so, so long, it had been waiting in anticipation, flicking off every timbre of disturbance that dared to strike against the usual cord of dissonance ringing across the land.

When its clouds darkened into ink and its ground rose into mountains, the country tore apart. All the magic that had been building in the lines and cracks within it burst to the surface, dispersing across the world—killing every house-sized, eight-legged creature that roamed its forests, destroying every two-headed, winged specimen zipping through its air. The path cleared. The beaches and the rocky cliffs lowered, allowing feet to pad onto the land, allowing the humans to drop onto the sand in exhaustion and look around, their breaths held for danger, then exhaling loud in realising this was their new home.

That had been before Callistra changed, Falon thought. That sense of safety had been before Calva slammed right into the east of Maesen and Eo, merged onto Callistra's giant block of land as the outermost east side.

"It is time we assemble," Averon James had yelled when the land collided. "We must come together. We must form something greater than ourselves." He had yelled and yelled until all the humans who had survived the voyage were gathered in front of him. They stood upon the very beach which their ship had landed upon, the beach that was now only miles away from the edges of Eo, separated from the land of the witches by nothing save a small strip of something that may have passed for a lake once upon a time. The humans, upon hearing their leader's call, had put down their branches and fabrics, their wood tinder and their farm seeds, abandoning all the tasks expected of settlers upon immediate arrival in favour of a plan of defence against coming war.

If it were up to Averon James, however, it wasn't a plan of defence. It was a plan of attack.

"The fae, they are vermin," Averon James shouted. "The witches, they are groups of disillusioned creatures playing with dust and shadows. They take up spaces that are ours. They take up spaces which should belong to us instead."

Falon remained quiet through this all. Her eyes darted back and forth rapidly without time for pause—scanning through the crowd and eyeing to their temporary leader, squinting into the trees behind them and counting the seconds it took for each new wave to blow in. She wondered what was in that wooden chest Averon kept looking at when he thought nobody noticed his attention idling elsewhere. She wondered why she kept hearing strange grunts coming from the large tent that had been set up along the beach.

The sunburn on Averon's face was peeling slightly at his neck, Falon noted absently as his words flew over her head. He was not speaking to her anyway—he was speaking to the masses, the crowds of humans, or at least what was left of them after the journey here; what was left of them after thousands and thousands of years on Earth and then the barest lifestyle on Callistra. At the height of their power, humans had edged on tens of billions. Tens of billions, wiped out like nothing but dust mites when the fae rose for war.

Falon thought she counted a thousand before her now. Perhaps less.

"We ruled the world once!" Averon screamed. His spike in volume suddenly brought his words back to Falon's attention, much to her chagrin. His quiet hatred had rolled off of her back like water on a duck, but it was more difficult to tune out his roars. "We can rule it again!"

"How?" a nervous voice called from the crowd. "How can we best creatures who have war in their blood?"

Averon James puffed out his chest, then gestured for two others in his group of carefully selected protectors to bring something forward. Falon didn't know what qualified her to be a part of this group too, and yet when Averon rose to power as a central leader amidst the formerly separated groups of humans, he had chosen her.