Page 4 of Undying Lands
She hurried through the garden and stepped into the palace. Warm light glowed from the ceiling of the corridor, illuminating the path with its flameless glow. No lamps or fires were used; the palace didn’t need them. She had once loved how magical her home had felt, how safe and free it was. But even the warmth that seeped from the walls didn’t reach her chilled skin.
The walk through the palace was bustling, and, as always, people were running around frantically. The corridors used to brim with all sorts of people. It would always feel strange to see so few humans in the palace; so many of them had migrated to the other side of the Zenovia Mountains to stay with the rebel stronghold.
Her exhaustion caught up on her walk to the infirmary. She felt the heaviness of the day, having been healing and aiding the refugees since before sunrise. Once she finally made it back, she felt the chill on her skin start to warm.
The infirmary wasn’t anything grand. A room within the palace that used to be for storing fabric had been cleared out.They mixed herbs, made medicinal salves, and had several workstations for the soldiers brought here to be healed—if they weren’t too wounded to make it this far.
There were rows of shelves partially filled with herbs and tinctures, their stock running much lower than it used to. A few cots were crammed into the center of the room, long enough for a fully grown Aegis to lie down on. Other times, they used it to spread their herbs out when mixing tonics.
The room was empty now, save for Gloriana.
“We’re running low on stinging nettle,” Gloriana said from behind a shelf, her body hidden. Jars clinked together from where she stood, and she whispered softly to herself as she listed off her items. “Lorene said several in the eastward camp haven’t been healing as quickly as he would like, so he took most of the stock with him this morning.”
Lorene had been a healer nearly as long as Gloriana. He was a soft-spoken Woodland who tended to fade into the background, but he came to life under pressure, shouting orders at the younger healers on where to go and what to do when the situation grew dire.
“The batch growing in the garden will be ready within the next few days,” Evelina said. She walked over to one of the wooden tables and set her satchel on it. Disappointment bit at her as she counted how much supply was left after her visit. “Looks like we’ll need more linndula root soon too.” She glanced over at the far-right shelf, finding the top two shelves nearly empty. She frowned. “And blood-replenishing brews.”
Gloriana poked her head from around the back shelf. Her hair had come more unraveled, large pieces now falling out of the knot. She looked over Evelina’s shoulder to where the empty jars were piling up, her mouth pressed into a thin line.
“How much longer until the roots in the garden are ready?” she asked slowly.
Evelina sighed and turned to put her half-empty jars back on the shelf. The top row for linndula root—only a few jarsremaining now—the middle row for stinging nettle—even less of those left—and the bottom two for an assortment of mixed tonics. “Longer than what we need,” she answered.
As she worked her way through the first shelf, taking stock, she tried to shove away her frustrations. The list of needed items grew longer each week—the demand much greater than the supply, which was alarming considering how vast the healer’s garden was. It took up a large portion on the west side of the palace, filled with every herb imaginable. But if it weren’t for the Woodlands using their Essence to speed up the growth process of the herbs, they would’ve run out years ago.
She started to wonder how much longer the empire could sustain things the way they were. The rebels were pushing more and more refugees toward the palace as they burned, looted, and destroyed villages. Camps were reaching capacity, and the soldiers were stretched thin even with the aerial units helping to cover more ground with patrols.
Those who traveled to and from where the Riders trained brought back word of how the wyverns were growing restless. Of how their lead commander was fighting so hard to keep spirits high.
Daimon was good at that when they were young, too.
Evelina cursed as she lost track of her place, rereading the list. The days were long enough without adding worry over how he was or if he survived yet another battle. There were so many lives lost andeveryonewas exhausted. Her empire needed her to do her part—to heal and soothe those she was able to help.
So, she pushed her fatigue aside and moved on to the next shelf.
Two
Daimon
Even in the daylight,darkness lay like a heavy blanket across the faces of the soldiers. The lack of any real progress was wearing on them day by day. Daimon was constantly in strategy sessions with other commanders, preparing for Moros’s next move and the rising power of the rebels.
Everything changed when the wyverns started to show. Ancient texts talked of the beasts and how they flew beneath Eurydice’s blessing, only arriving in a time of need. No one had seen the war coming. It was a shock when the beasts arrived, the rebellion building right under their noses.
The empire was able to easily defeat the rebels in the early days, when they were still a regular human army. They grappled for power through praise of the dark gods, looting villages and burning innocent homes to instill fear. That was before Moros realized his advantage over the fae: the ever-replenishing resource of human soldiers. He no longer cared for the death toll, but instead the damage they could cause. Then they found a way around fae magic, using malicious spells to curse their swords and weapons—at the expense of their own souls—maximizingtheir damage while depleting the Essence of nearby fae. This high-risk advantage severely tipped the scales in favor of the rebels.
It didn’t help that the dark gods seemed to be pushing the rebels closer to victory, using the war to fuel their power. What they would do with that power was harder to guess. Vidaris could be playing the long game for something that wouldn’t come to an end for centuries—long after they’d all ascended to Caelum and a new generation had been born.
All he knew for certain was now, each time one of the beta fleets brought a report of their patrols throughout the empire, their shoulders slumped a little more.
Aegis were stretched thin throughout the realm, and no matter how many of them there were, the mass of land was far too vast to fully patrol every single village. Even with the Undine, Woodland, and Nox joining to train among the Aegis, it wasn’t enough to covereverycorner of the realm.
Most of the ground soldiers fighting with Daimon’s fleet were Aegis, their fire affinities invaluable. They were on the border with him and his Alpha Fleet, tasked with stopping Moros and his human army from advancing past the Zenovia Mountains.
He scrubbed a hand down his face, his skin rough and lined with stubble along his jaw. Daimon always spent his mornings the same way no matter where he was—with a steaming cup of rhodiola to calm any lingering nerves, meditating beneath the rising sun. When he was young, a talented little herbalist had brewed a cup for him. Said it’d help to center himself before the day.
He couldn’t bring himself to stop drinking it long after he’d left her.
The trees around him shook, swaying violently with a gust of sudden wind. Daimon jumped to his feet, his Essence surging to life in his veins as he felt his wyvern draw near.
