Raze the Night (Nightstar Book 2)

They crushed the other town even more quickly than the first, despite the locals attempting to use guerilla warfare against them. One soldier had nearly gotten stabbing through with a sword, but her armor protected her enough that she was only injured by the sword sliding along her breastplate and stabbing her shoulder.

And Ainreth still didn’t like this. The first town had only been defending itself, and this one had attacked them first likely only because the people had thought they’d have no chance if they tried to lock themselves away. And they had been right.

Ain highly doubted they would have attacked them, no matter what. They’d seemed very interested in simply minding their own business. But at least it was over now, and he and Petre could return to the rest of their regiment.

They’d stationed soldiers in the newly conquered towns to keep an eye on things, and while Ainreth certainly didn’t envy those people their task, he was eager to get out of here. And so, not even waiting on the rest of the soldiers to regroup, once the battle was over, he turned his horse around and started riding back to where their camp was.

They’d had to sleep on their bedrolls with no tents last night, the other town simply being too far away to reach and battle over before nightfall. And even an idiot like Onrymin had agreed that attacking at night when Ainreth would have basically no power would be very stupid.

This was nice, though, despite his many conflicted thoughts. Just riding along the road with Petre in silence. Ain had missed the silence. He was used to being around his regiment, and that was rarely quiet with so many people around, but being near the entire Lys-Akkarian army—or at least a considerable part of her, since some soldiers were now guarding their new territory—was something completely different.

Ainreth could barely get a moment’s peace with Fennrin, which was awful. They couldn’t be lazy together, couldn’t lay in bed saying sappy things to each other, couldn’t even draw out their love making to any capacity. Before they’d left to start their conquest of their lost territories, they’d decided to be a little adventurous and Fenn had ended up tying Ainreth to the bed. And the longer they went not being able to get a repeat of it, the more annoyed Ain got.

Ain was sure that they could have fit something at nighttime, but Fenn had gotten very shy about it when Ainreth had half-jokingly brought it up, so that was not going to happen. Though he didn’t blame Fennrin for it—though he had come out of his shell a lot, he was still quite new to this. Besides, the last thing he wanted was to make him uncomfortable.

“Are you going to say something to the Bulwark about this?” Petre asked after a long stretch of silence, raising a curious eyebrow as they looked at Ain, their curly red hair falling in their face before from the movement and the cold wind.

Ain nodded, sighing. “Yeah. I doubt it will change anything, though.”

Petre scoffed. “This was all pointless. Thinking those people would be interested in attacking us from behind? That’s paranoid.”

Yes, Ain agreed, but he still didn’t think pointing that out would change anything. He supposed it was better to be safe than sorry, and as far as he knew, no one had lost their lives, but it had still been pointless, and more than likely scarring for the people involved. Ain didn’t think he’d like someone seizing Kyr-Toryl, even if they simply took control and didn’t kill anyone.

“I’ll bring it up. This was a waste of time, you’re right.”

Petre nodded, shaking their head. “At least we avoided casualties.”

Ain nodded absently, his mind summoning the way Petre had been treated prior to that first battle all of a sudden. They hadn’t talked about it yet, too busy thinking about what they still had to do at the time to bring it up. At least that had been Ain’s case. But now was about as perfect time as any.

“Are you okay, little guy?”

Petre frowned at him, blinking a little as if completely confused by the question. Which was fair, Ainreth had brought it up out of nowhere. “Yes?”

“I mean, with that misborn implying you’re untrustworthy.” Ainreth had put it far too nicely, but nevermind. At least Petre had caught on to what Ain was saying now, their eyes widening a little in realization.

“Oh. Yes. I’m used to it,” the replied curtly, looking at the road again. Right, so that meant they were very much bothered.

“I’ll break his jaw later, huh?”

Petre’s serious face cracked a little with a small smile tugging on their lips. But as they looked back at Ain, the smile was gone, their expression schooled back to their usual brand of neutrality that always made them seem sarcastic without even speaking.

“Do. His plan was awful.”

Ainreth chuckled, but inside, he was boiling. He hated that after years of service in the army, Petre still got remarks like that thrown at them. It wasn’t being Orinovan that was the problem—the queen was. And perhaps her court. And that was where it ended. It would be difficult to find as loyal and capable a soldier as Petre in their ranks.

“Have people been giving you trouble?” Ainreth asked, knowing that he was pushing a bit now but not willing to ease off. He needed to know. And ideally, he also needed names, so he could hit the right people in the face.

Petre gave him a long, hard look, clearly not interested in talking about this, but when Ain held their gaze for a while, narrowing his eyes, they sighed, giving in as their shoulders slumped.

“Not really. There have been a few moronic comments. Nothing beyond that,” Petre said, their voice exhausted. Ainreth couldn’t blame them. Putting up with that sounded so tiring. “I think they are afraid of you.”

“As they should be.” Ain scowled as he patted Petre’s shoulder, angry at whoever had dared say anything about Petre’s heritage. And he was aware that Petre wasn’t the only one with an originally Orinovan family. So many people had escaped over the border when their countries had split, not to mention that the two countries had been joined for so long that it was a little stupid to think that they all weren’t part Orinovan to some extent, and yet idiots still used it to bully other people.

But Ain couldn’t say he hadn’t done this too. He had definitely thought of Varilik as being a worse person simply because he was Orinovan, and that wasn’t right. He hadn’t realized he’d been subconsciously thinking that until the incident with the misborn kissing Fenn’s cheek. He was working on getting rid of that bias.

“I can’t believe this is still a problem,” Ainreth grumbled, glaring at the horizon. “The fact that I made you my second should be enough proof you’re completely trustworthy.”

“Ain, it’s okay,” Petre said, smiling slightly, though for them that was basically a beaming grin. “Thank you, though.” Their smile grew a bit more as their eyes grew warmer. “I love you, too.”

Ain gaped at them, his heart soaring as he grinned wide, his previous anger forgotten completely. Sure, they’d always had a bond ever since Ainreth had noticed Petre was in his regiment, and he’d always been fond of them, but he didn’t think they’d ever voiced it like that.

“Aw, little guy!” He reached out, patting Petre’s hair, to which they rolled their eyes, still smiling. Satisfied, Ain put his hand on Petre’s shoulder instead. “Love you, too.”

He planned on saying more, but then his eyes focused on something right behind Petre instead—smoke in the distance.

“What is that?” he couldn’t help but ask as he made Sunray stop. The smoke was far away, but not that far away. And it wasn’t coming from the two towns they’d pacified. Had someone set their house on fire by accident?

Petre turned to look the way Ainreth was staring, scowling into the distance. “Should we investigate?”

“Yeah, maybe someone needs help,” Ain replied, already nudging Sunray to move, quickly getting into a trot in the direction of the smoke, up the small hill blocking off what the source of it was.

The two of them rode fast and hard, hoofs beating the fresh spring grass as they rapidly approached, soon discovering where the smoke was coming from. As Ainreth reached the top of the hill and looked ahead, he saw a village, only a few houses built near each other close to a small forest. And all of the houses were smoking, one still actively burning.

This couldn’t have been a simple mishap. Someone must have set them on fire on purpose since they wouldn’t catch fire from each other. They weren’t close enough to each other for that.

With a heaviness in his stomach, Ain pushed Sunray to go faster, eager to help try to extinguish the flames, even if his powers wouldn’t be very useful here. But surely the village had a well. The other houses were only smoking after all, not burning, so they must have been taken care of somehow.

When they were close enough to see people around the house, Petre took the lead, likely because they could actually communicate with the locals to let them know they weren’t a danger.

And as it turned out, it was necessary because the moment they got close enough to feel the heat of the flames, two of the about a dozen people around immediate grabbed pitchforks, pointing them at Ain and Petre. Ainreth had to admit that was a very brave thing to do, but perhaps this small community was removed enough that they wouldn’t recognize the Daybreaker.

The man and woman shouted something at them, which Ainreth was sure was insulting, but Petre shouted back, which made the two look at each other and then, with fear in their eyes, they nodded, running off.

Ainreth frowned, getting off his horse, but before he could ask Petre what that had been about, the two came running back with wooden buckets. Well, Ain didn’t need an explanation for that.

Taking one of the buckets from them, he ran to where the well was, with one person constantly pulling the water bucket up and down, filling the buckets of the people waiting in queue. He ignored the looks he was getting, waiting for his turn to have the bucket filled up, all the while people were shouting at each other in Orinovan, but he didn’t pay attention to that either.

Once his own bucket was full of water, he ran to the burning house as fast as he could, throwing water on the flames before doubling back to get more. With so many people trying to extinguish the fire, it wasn’t long before the building was saved, though there was a lot of a damage. The wood that made up the upper half of east wall was completely charred, with holes in that. And unfortunately, they didn’t have a plant sproutkeeper with them to fix it, though even then, they’d need a very powerful one. If Ain remembered correctly, growing planks of wood was very difficult.

And then a storm of an argument began, one of the people yelling something at them and the rest joining, which was especially fun for Ain because he only understood some of the insults, and that was that. Though there were a lot of insults, so he could imagine what the problem was.

Ainreth was about to tell Petre that they should just get on their horses and leave, but the words died in his throat when suddenly Petre’s glare changed into a look of surprise. The bad kind of surprise.

Ain watched a bit of a back and forth for a while, not knowing at all what anyone was saying, but he could feel dread pooling in his stomach anyway. Something was very wrong. He just didn’t know what it was.

After some more yelling, Petre patted Ain’s shoulder and jerked their head in the direction of their horses, and Ainreth followed them without a word, no matter how much he wanted to ask what had just happened.

Not until they were on their horses and heading away.

“What was that about?” Ainreth asked when Petre didn’t say anything for too long for him to keep waiting.

Petre turned to look at him, their eyes full of cold anger, so much so that Ain almost flinched, not used to them being like this. “That fire was started by a flamewielder.”

Ainreth immediately wanted to point out that not all az-ari were good people, so that wasn’t that strange of a thing, but Petre continued.

“One of our flamewielders, Ainreth.” Petre’s gaze grew even colder. “One of us came here, threatened to set those houses on fire unless the people gave her any valuables they might have, and then did it anyway.”

Ainreth just stared, not sure what to say to that even if he wasn’t too shocked to reply. He wasn’t naive—he had assumed there would be some looting involved. In fact, he was fairly certain he had seen some of it when they’d sieged the two towns, but since no one was getting hurt from what he could see, he’d turned a blind eye. But this was completely different.

This person had gone out of her way to steal from people who they wouldn’t have even passed on their travel to the towns and back to their camp. Which meant she’d gone looking for something to steal specifically instead of this being a case of quick-thinking opportunism.

Ainreth narrowed his eyes, turning his gaze to Petre again.

“I think we need to take a detour.”

Ainreth couldn’t believe this. Every single Orinovan civilian they’d talked to on their way back had told them some kind of story about the Lys-Akkarian soldiers bullying and stealing from them. One even reported someone being killed in front of them.

And yes, it was possible that they were embellishing things, more than likely making it all sound worse, but surely this wasn’t a coordinated effort. The people they’d asked had no connection to the rest aside from living in one general area.

So they would report this. And they would certainly make sure to mention that one of their flamewielders had acted out of line. They didn’t have that many of those with them. Petre had been writing it all down, and Ain was more than ready to use his influence to force the issue. This was too serious to just sweep under the rug.

When they finally arrived at the camp, they found it half packed up, soldiers rushing in all directions, carrying their folded-up tents as they got ready to leave. They had taken their time getting here so it made sense, but Ainreth couldn’t help but feel a little annoyed that no one had waited to brief him on what they would do next before packing things up.

But that didn’t matter. He was heading right for the command tent anyway, ready to discuss the situation with everyone. At least until he saw Fennrin talking to Varilik, looking worried. Changing his planned direction, Ain steered Sunray toward the pair, jumping off his horse as he reached Fenn, wanting to greet him first.

“Ain!” the shadowforger immediately cried, embracing him. “I was so worried. They said you left early, but you weren’t arriving.”

Ainreth grimaced. Right, he hadn’t thought of that. But at least he and Petre hadn’t taken long enough to get a search party sent after them. “Sorry, liri, Petre and I had a change of plans.”

Fenn frowned at him as he pulled away, a lock of hair falling his eyes. That look was turned at Petre as well, who was waiting a bit away, standing by their horse, before Fennrin focused on Ainreth again. Ain looked behind Fenn, remembering that the Herald had been right there the whole time, but all he was left to glare at was the man’s back as he walked away, now too far to be within earshot in the noisy camp.

“What does that mean?” Fenn asked, his eyes worried once more. Ainreth sighed heavily.

“Our soldiers have been bullying the locals. We went to ask around on our way back.”

Fennrin’s worried frown turned into more of a scowl, but the concerned line of his mouth stayed. “Bullying how?”

“Stealing from them, mostly. Someone set houses on fire. And apparently a civilian was killed. On purpose.” Ainreth shook his head, running a hand over his face. This sure was a mess when he said it out loud. “We need to report this.”

Fennrin nodded, grimacing. “Right. But you might have to do it on the way. We are heading for Irnov.”

“Irnov?” Ainreth repeated, trying to remember where on the map that was. He wasn’t great at geography, but he was fairly certain Irnov wasn’t one of the cities near Diramisk that they would need to occupy to crush the local force. It was somewhere in the middle of Orinovo, right next to the Great River.

Which meant that they didn’t need to seize it.

“Heading in that direction or heading off to take it for ourselves?” Ainreth asked, making Fennrin sigh.

“I know, I don’t like it either. But Irnov is one of the main centers of trade for Orinovo. If we take it, it will cripple—”

“And since when are we trying to cripple Orinovo?” Ainreth cut him off, raising an eyebrow at the shadowforger. “I thought we were here to stop Orinovo from making more of those twisted, az-ari soldiers.”

“We are,” Fennrin agreed, huffing and scowling at the ground. Only then did Ain realize that the tone he’d taken had been a touch too sarcastic, which he hadn’t meant. “This will simply make it easier.”

“Yeah? And how many lives do we ruin during it, huh?”

Fenn flinched and Ainreth hated himself a little. But he couldn’t keep this to himself. He couldn’t even try to say it nicely. He couldn’t believe Fennrin was going along with this just like he was. If he and Fennrin decided they didn’t want to help, this conflict would end. So why wasn’t Fenn using that position of power to steer things the way he wanted them?

Unless he did want to conquer Orinovo, of course, but Ainreth certainly hoped that wasn’t the case.

“Casualties are unfortunately part of war,” Fenn replied, his tone sharp as he stared at Ainreth, his eyes narrowed, and his arms folded over his chest. “I wish things were different, but as is, all we can do is try to minimize them.”

Ainreth nodded, now intentionally sarcastically. “Yeah, and we can start by not seizing a city we can go around and ignore.”

“Taking Irnov will make it easier for us to seize Diramisk later. The trade supply will—”

“And who told you that? Varilik, I presume?” Ain once again cut him off, now resulting in Fennrin glaring at him. It kind of hurt, but Ain was sure he looked similar right now, so he couldn’t fault him for it. “Because you know nothing about strategy.”

Fenn’s glare turned twice as icy, which would be easier to bear if not for the very faint but very real hurt in those blue eyes. “Yes, I don’t. You are correct. Which is why I listen to the people who do know things about strategy.”

Those words immediately reignited Ain’s bad mood.

“Like Varilik?”

Ainreth regretted the words the moment they came out of his mouth, but he couldn’t help himself. It bothered him how much Fennrin talked to the man, and he’d been here before Ainreth had arrived. It was clear who had put these thoughts in Fenn’s pretty head.

But of course all it got him was Fennrin glaring at him, making his heart lurch.

“No, like the Bulwark.” Fennrin turned around. “You should ask her about the strategy. Unlike me, she is not useless at it.”

And with that he turned into a shadow as Ainreth reached out for him, disappearing, leaving Ain standing there, his arm outstretched.

“Wait, Fenn, wait!” he tried to follow, searching the ground for the subtly different shadow of his, but he couldn’t find anything. He sighed as he gave up, running a hand through his hair. “Sunder.”

This wasn’t how he’d imagined them meeting up again happening. He immediately wanted to search the camp so he would find Fenn when he decided to turn into his physical form again so he could apologize, but he knew he should give Fennrin some time first.

Shaking his head at his own behavior, he turned back to his horse and Petre, leading her to them. Petre thankfully said nothing, simply nodding, their notebook in hand, ready to report to the Bulwark what they’d found out.

“I really messed that up.”

Petre gave him a long look, still saying nothing. But Ain could very well tell they agreed.