Queens & Liars-Sequel to Three Broken Kingdoms (Completed)

Chapter Fifty-One: Silvera

Rose was dead. Dead. Truly and completely dead, forever and irreversibly gone. For the first minute she didn't believe it. Slowly, it sunk in.

Rose was gone. Forever gone.

Nala might not have been that close to the general, but they had spent five, almost six, years together, evading death and fighting for their countries. They had fought side by side forever.  Nala hadn't always agreed with her or even liked her that much but...she had been an ally. A friend. She still remembered the mischievous gleam in those now-lifeless eyes, the fierce determination that had driven her forwards, that laugh and that smile...Gone.

Next to her, Myra fell to her knees.

Dead. Nala didn't believe it, couldn't believe it. Rose had been so filled with light and laughter and life that it seemed impossible for her to die. That bright candle of spirit and hope and joy couldn't go out. The world suddenly seemed darker, colder, like the world was duller and dimmer without Rose in it.

In the distance, muffled sobs broke free. Myra or Gemma or maybe Kestra. Maybe some other friend of Rose's she had never bothered to get to know.             
"She's gone." Myra's words were the first to break the silence. "I failed her. With the ambush. I should have known—"

"It's not your fault," Kestra said softly, kneeling to comfort her mother. Nala could still barely breathe. Rose was gone. Gone forever.  How could they go on in a world without her in it? What on earth could they do now?

"We avenge her," Gemma said determinedly and her answer to Nala's silent question was a drop of water to break the dam. All around them, cries of vengeance came from not just the valkyries but the elves and the humans too, a roar of anger and determination. Nala trembled at the ferocity of it, her blood on fire as the roar spread through the crowd. Rose's death—the Empress' message—would not go unanswered.

They waited an hour and only to have Rose's funeral. The elves with the appropriate magic brought her down from the pole and gave her a shroud of mist. Nala bestowed her with her favourite locket, left behind when she went to the Bird of Prey Mountains, which contained a picture of her and Mia. Myra went last, draping her in her dark purple cloak and pushing her out to sea. No words were spoken except for the Blessing, as was customary of valkyrie funerals:

"Sarai, oh great goddess of warriors, receive this brave valkyrie with honour. Let her join you in the life to come, and know her greatness by the dark purple cloak. Rose Mariasdaugther Isidore, I say farewell to you, my sister. You died bravely, defending your people against evil and fighting, always, for truth. You stood beside me in war, and never faltered. May the sea, which you were born from, claim you again in death." Myra said the words again in the ancient language of the valkyries that was spoken before the common tongue had spread across the continent, her voice trembling with each word. When she finished, Gemma blew a horn—a replacement for the Horn of Sarai, which was lost in the last war. A single tear slipped down Nala's cheek at the sound—so deep and mournful, like a whale crying out in grief. It shook her to the core.

As she watched Rose's body float out to sea, Gemma's promise of vengeance burned in her mind.

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Talia

She had not returned to Silvera since the day she fled as a child forty years ago. Medea had wanted her to of course, but she had refused to and Lysandra helped her come up with excuses to avoid it. She didn't think she could bear it. Walking back into that city, the city that had destroyed her and her parents. It didn't feel like home anymore. Not just because she was a different person now but because its people had turned on her parents and wanted them dead for the simple crime of possessing a different kind of dangerous ability to their own. A mere forty years ago, these very people had thirsted for her blood. She had been only nine years old. This wasn't her home anymore. She hadn't particularly wanted to save it, but it had been the closest, the easiest. The most strategic.   
If it was up to Talia, she might have left them all to die.                                                   
The ships circled just out of canons and archers' range. Walls around Silvera—hastily built by the looks of things—were dotted with people carrying flaming arrows and preparing cannons. Talia drew in a deep breath as the Aerial Legion swerved closer and closer to the stone walls and what waited on them...