Аманда Хокинг - Ascend

The meeting went about as well as I’d expected. Lots of yelling and disagreeing, although the Marksinna Laurent was quiet since Tove threatened to banish her. Once I got them calmed down and explained what I was going to do and what had to be done, they took it a bit better. A clear plan helped ease their fears.

I ended the meeting by telling them that we were going on a recovery and fact-finding mission to Oslinna. Without even asking them, I volunteered myself, Willa, Tove, Loki, and Aurora to go. I was trying to ease them into the idea that Markis and Marksinna could do actual work, and hopefully, they would when I called upon them.

Afterward, we all dispersed to complete our tasks. As desperately as I wanted to sleep, I didn’t have time. I had to go to the library and find every book on the Vittra I could. There had to have been other immortals before Oren, and there had to be ways of killing them.

Of course, all the old texts were written in Tryllic in an attempt to disguise them from the Vittra. That’s where the most useful information would be kept on how to stop them. My Tryllic had gotten better, but it wasn’t fantastic. It took me ages to read a single page.

“Wendy,” Tove said, and I looked up to see him standing in the doorway of the library. My vision was blurry, as I’d spent too long staring down at old texts.

I was sitting on the floor amongst a pile of books near the far wall. I’d started out carrying books over to the desk before deciding that was a waste of time, and I had no time to waste. We were leaving for Oslinna in the morning, and we would be gone for a few days, so I wouldn’t be able to research then.

“Did you need something?” I asked.

“It’s late,” Tove said. “Very late.”

“I have a few more things to go through.”

“When was the last time you slept?”

“I don’t know.” I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t have time to sleep. There’s so much to do, and I don’t know how we can possibly do it. I don’t know how we can be ready, unless I’m working every minute.”

“You need sleep.” He came into the room and walked over to me. “We need you to be strong, and that means you need to rest sometimes. It is a necessary evil.”

“But what if I can’t do this?” I asked, staring up at him with tears in my eyes. “What if I can’t find a way to stop Oren?”

“You will,” he assured me. “You’re the Princess.”

“Tove,” I sighed.

“Come on.” He held out his hand to me. “Sleep now. We can look more in the morning.”

I let him take my hand and pull me to my feet. He was already in his pajamas, and his hair was even more disheveled than normal. I guessed he’d tried to sleep without me, but he’d gone looking for me when I hadn’t come to bed.

My mind was racing, thinking of all the things I had to do. I didn’t think I’d ever really be able to sleep, but as soon as my head hit the pillow, I was out.

It looked like a bomb had gone off. I’d never seen Oslinna before to have a real comparison, but everything was devastated.

Oslinna was a small town, even smaller than Förening. It was settled in a valley at the base of several low mountains. By the looks of what was left of some of the buildings, it had been quite beautiful.

All of the trackers’ homes were smashed. Trackers lived in small cottages, most of them nestled in trees or the mountains, and the floors were usually just dirt. They were very easily destroyed.

But the nicer homes of the Markis and Marksinna were mostly decimated too, with parts of the roofs missing and walls collapsed.

The palace in the center was the only thing still standing. It was like a version of my own palace, except on a smaller scale and with fewer windows. While the back of my palace overlooked the river, this one was built into the mountain behind it.

Half of the palace had crumbled, and it was blackened, as if burnt. The other half looked okay, at least from the outside. There had been some obvious damage, like broken windows and a destroyed fountain, but it looked much better than the rest of the town.

We’d driven slowly through the town, in awe of the carnage, and Tove had to swerve a few times to miss debris in the road. He stopped in front of the palace, parking next to an uprooted oak tree.

“This is too much for us to handle,” Aurora said from the backseat. She’d been complaining about helping the entire way here, but we’d left her without a choice. She was the strongest healer, and the people of Oslinna had been hurt.

“We’ll do all that we can,” I said. “And if we can’t do any more, then so be it.”

I got out of the car before she could voice any more complaints, and Duncan pulled up in another Cadillac behind us. He had Willa, Matt, and Loki with him. Finn had wanted to come too, but he was still healing and Thomas needed him to help with the trackers. Matt had insisted on coming along, and at first, I’d been against it, but we really could use all the hands we could get.

“This is even worse than I thought it would be,” Willa said. She wrapped her arms around herself and shook her head. “I can’t believe they did this.”

“This is who you’re fighting?” Matt asked, looking around. “The people who did this?”

“We’re not fighting anyone right now,” I said, cutting off his train of thought. “We’re cleaning this up, and that’s the only thing we need to worry about.”

Loki lifted up a heavy branch and moved it off of the path to the palace. It had been cobblestone, but many of the stones were missing, tossed about the lawn.

Tove and I approached the palace, trying to look both dignified and remorseful. The remorse part wasn’t that hard. Seeing that much damage was devastating.

Before we got to the palace, the door was thrown open. A girl not much older me than came out, her dark hair pulled up in a tangled mess, and smudges of dirt and ash covered her face and clothes. She was small, even shorter than I was, and she looked as though she might cry.

“Are you the Princess?” she asked.

“Yes, I’m the Princess from Förening,” I said, then gestured to Tove. “This is the Prince. We are here to help you.”

“Oh, thank god.” She burst into tears and actually ran toward me and hugged me. “I didn’t think anybody would come.”

“We’re here now.” I patted her head because I wasn’t sure what else to do and exchanged a look with Tove. “We’ll do everything we can for you.”

“Sorry.” She pulled herself away from me and wiped at her eyes. “I didn’t mean to do that. I’ve… There is much that needs to be done.” She shook her head. “My father would be angry at me for behaving this way. I’m sorry.”

“There’s no need to apologize,” I said. “You’ve been through so much.”

“No, I’m in charge now,” she said. “So I should act like it.”

“Kenna Tomas?” I asked, hoping I remembered her name correctly.

“Yes,” she smiled at that. “I’m Kenna, and with my parents dead, I’m now the Marksinna of Oslinna.”

“Do you have any survivors here?” I asked. “Any people who need medical treatment? We brought a healer.”

“Oh, yes!” Kenna nodded. “Come with me.”

As we followed her into the palace, Kenna explained what had happened. While they were sleeping, the hobgoblins had come in and started tearing the town apart. As far as she could tell, that was actually their main goal. People got hurt because the hobgoblins happened to be destroying homes with people in them, or throwing trees that would land on bystanders. It was like a tornado hitting a town in the middle of the night, without any sirens to give warning.