They didn't bother to chase Hadlow and his men. Their warriors needed a rest more than they needed to face some of the best of the Kallian soldiers, even if they could have caught up with and defeated them relatively easily.
Myra herself was bone-weary. From the battle yesterday and the tension today, yes, but also from the great toll Rhea and Reyna's deaths had taken on her. My fault, my fault, my fault, the winds seemed to whisper. Her feeble reply of their choice never seemed to deter the loathing she held for herself.
But Myra Isidore was a general. She had faced such things before. Every step of war was a sacrifice; a careful calculation of how many lives were lost against how many were saved, a methodical trade of hundreds of lives for miles of land. Rhea and Reyna were just another heartrending calculation. Two lives to save five hundred. An easy, yet impossible choice.
She had given the note back to Kestra, no matter how much she itched to open it. Myra kept her promises, especially to her daughter.
Except that one. The one that still haunted her: I am never going to leave you again. It was a lie and she knew it was a lie from the moment it slid off her tongue. She was a general. A War Queen. One day soon, she would leave Kestra again to fight in the war brewing across the Lost Continent. To do otherwise would be to break another oath, an oath to her people to never abandon them, to never stop fighting, to never let personal life get in the way of her duty.
But Myra's duty was a tiresome, wearisome thing, a thing that she had followed for almost a century. It had taken over her life, become her so completely that the lines between the Dragon and Myra blurred and shifted. Hadn't she given enough? Her mother, her best friends, her daughter's childhood?
Myra thought of Rhea and Reyna again and reddened with shame. How had she entertained such selfish thoughts mere hours after the twins had given their lives for the cause they shared?
"Look up," Kestra said softly, her voice reverent. Myra turned up to face the sky and smiled.
Above them, a fleet of wyverns and gryphons graced the skies. Three thousand of them in an endless tapestry of scales and fur of a thousand colours. They swooped down, wings thundering in a way so familiar that Myra almost cried.
And riding them...valkyries. On a third of the mounts, valkyrie warriors gripped on for dear life, letting out whoops of joy.
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Rose
"There are three thousand of them," Myra repeated, dumbstruck.
"Yes," Rose replied. "Two thousand gryphons; one thousand wyverns, Your Majesty."
"And a thousand of the retired warriors," Myra said slowly.
"Yes," she agreed. "They're missing limbs or half-blind or deaf in one ear or just retired but they can fight alright. Additionally, they're all former members of the Aerial Legion. I imagine they'll be just as good as most valkyrie warriors on a gryphon or wyvern."
"Perfect," Myra smiled. "And Rose?"
"Yes, Your Majesty?"
"I find myself in need of an heir. You did well with the gryphons and wyverns. Would you like the position?"
"It has been my dream," Rose said, barely able to speak. War Heir! The very words sounded impossible in her own head.
The next few days were a rush of preparations. Rebels and miners from the Battle of the Warrior's Forest—Rose had been dumbstruck by the details of the battle—had mounted the remaining two thousand steeds and taken to the air-Myra had found Caelia's son and was now inseparable from the dark blue wyvern-towards the rebel base.
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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...
