Page 15 of Harbinger
“I vastly underestimated how long it would take this abomination to reach us here.” Regina’s knuckles tightened on her ash-wood staff. She whirled around, her robes swishing around her legs. “I beseech you, my liege.” Her pleading gaze swept the royal family. “Youmustleave the kingdom! Your bloodline is too precious to be—”
Roald stayed the distressed seer’s words by laying a gentle hand on her shoulder. “We belong here, Regina.”
Hildur smiled tremulously as tears pooled in Regina’s eyes. “We shall not abandon our people, my friend.” She turned to look over the city beneath them and the vale beyond, her expression growing steely. “If we are to die here, then it is our Fate.” Her knuckles whitened at her sides. “But mark my words; we will fight to the bitter end.”
The queen froze mere seconds later, her gasp echoed by Regina’s. Morgan’s head snapped around. Victor lowered his brows as he followed their gazes.
“Looks like we’re about to find out whether death awaits us all today,” Galliad said grimly.
A dark line now edged the horizon to the south, where none had been before.
The black mist that heralded the plague was pouring over the far-flung peaks that rimmed the valley the capital overlooked. Birds darkened the sky ahead of it as they fled the ominous phenomenon.
Power detonated across the terrace, startling Morgan. The dense wave pressed against his body and shoved him back a couple of steps. Victor grunted beside him, feet similarly skidding across the flagstones.
The air shimmered emerald as the Dryad royal family and their retinue unleashed their magic. Emerald symbols manifested on the staffs that appeared in their hands. Twigs and shoots sprouted on their flesh and in their hair, the blossoming leaves and buds shimmering with potent force as they unfurled. The scent of the forest swelled around Roald, Hildur, and their sons when they manifested the blackthorn and alderwood crowns that denoted their lineage.
“That’s a sight you don’t see every day,” Victor murmured.
Galliad’s eyes flashed. Relief brightened his face. “Thalia!”
Morgan and Victor looked in the direction he stared. Pale shapes glimmered into view against the dark haze growing in the distance. They multiplied, forming a solid line of gleaming armor that thickened and grew in size.
An army of Dryad soldiers upon giant golden eagles were racing ahead of the darkness about to engulf the land. They passed over the city and crossed the palace walls minutes later.
Thalia Fenhorn, Galliad’s wife and the chief commander of the Dryad army, landed heavily a short distance from where they stood, her eagle kicking up clods of dirt and grass with his claws. The Dryad warrior dismounted and turned swiftly, her cape billowing in the breeze raised by her alighting troops. She stumbled to an abrupt halt when she registered Morgan, Victor, and Galliad’s presence. Her eyes rounded.
Thalia sagged. “Thank the Gods!”
Galliad closed the distance to his trembling wife and took her in his arms. Roald and Hildur approached the couple.
“Our people?!” the queen asked in a brittle voice.
Thalia stepped out of Galliad’s hold, her fear fading as her fingers found his hand. “They hide inside the mountains and flee along the rivers like we planned, my liege. So far, the plague has spared those regions, even in the east.” She dipped her head at Regina. “Your counsel was wise. We have curtailed the loss of life for certain.”
Regina’s mouth thinned. “We can thank the Goddess who brought me the Harbinger for that tip.”
Winged shadows danced across them before Morgan could ask the seer about Atropos. A large flock of eagles had appeared from the direction of the military aviary. The birds landed noisily in the garden, the soldiers atop them holding staffs and weapons blazing with green magic as they readied for battle.
Asteria, Leiv’s eagle, came over and lowered her colossal head. She studied Morgan with a beady, ochre eye before peering forlornly around him.
“Cassius isn’t here, you dumb bird,” Morgan muttered.
He patted her flank nonetheless. Something that sounded like a sigh huffed out of the eagle. Her wings drooped.
Leiv grimaced as he grabbed her harness and climbed onto her back. “I swear she’ll dump me in a flash if Cassius so much as suggests she come to Earth.”
Unease darkened Thalia’s gaze.
“This second wave is behaving differently from the first,” she told the king and queen.
“It’s accelerating.” Regina frowned, her glowing gaze focused unblinkingly on the looming threat. “I don’t know how nor why.”
Galliad fisted his hands. “Accelerating?”
Morgan stiffened, a singular truth resonating through him then. He saw the same realization dawn in Victor’s flaring, crimson pupils.
Hildur’s face tightened. “What is it?”
