books – The Tay Smith Effect

She Is A Haunting

I would like to begin by apologising; I haven’t made a post in a few weeks. I got a full time job, and figuring out how to balance this blog, my writing, and life in general with work isn’t easy for me, though I do hope to get better at this in the next few weeks. Thankfully, today I have a day off, so I will be writing a couple of posts and scheduling them to automatically go live. Now that I’ve explained, let’s get into the review.

*****

This house eats and is eaten.

This summer, Jade Nguyen has one goal: to survive living a lie with her sister and their estranged dad while he fixes up a decaying colonial house in Vietnam. If she can be straight enough, Vietnamese enough, American enough, then college and freedom will be hers.

But the house has other plans. Dead bugs line its windowsills and its gardens grow monstrous blooms. Then the ghost of a beautiful bride gives Jade a cryptic warning: DON’T EAT.

With the help of rebellious local girl Florence, Jade is determined to prove the house is haunted, and that it won’t rest until it consumed her family completely.

*****

I found this book completely by accident. I was shopping in Gay’s the Word in London (one of my favourite places) and I picked it up. I’ve struggled to find good sapphic horror in the past (especially that isn’t ‘dark romance’ or ‘spicy’), so I was so excited when I read the back of the book. I tore through it on the bus to work in about three days. I would like to apologise (again) for the lack of diacritical marks above the names of the Vietnamese places; I have no idea how to add them on this website. The names will be written with an asterisk after them so you know that this isn’t how they’d normally be written.

‘She Is A Haunting’ follows seventeen year old Jade as she travels to Vietnam for the first time. Both of her parents were born there, but she herself had never been before. She first travels to Saigon with her mother, sister and brother, and then her sister and her fly to visit their estranged father in Da Lat*, where he is renovating a French colonial hotel that he hopes to turn into a hotel.

The reason for the visit is simple: Jade wants her father’s money to pay for college. She has watched her mother struggle to provide for her family for years, and refuses to let her mother pick up more hours at work to pay the fees. Her father has agreed to finance her first year of college if she visits him – the first time she’ll see him since he left his family years ago. And so, Jade finds herself taking up residence in the house (called Nha Hoa*) alongside her father and her younger sister, Lily.

The house was first built by French colonizers, and it is a grand house. Trang Thanh Tran’s descriptions of the house made it easy for me to imagine what it looked like, and I found myself entranced. At first, Nha Hoa* seems like an idyllic house, steeped in potential and nestled within the forests of Da Lat*, but Jade soon learns that looks can be misleading.

When she first enters her room for the next five weeks, she notices a cacophony of dead bugs littering the windowsill. She is disgusted, but she simply explains this by blaming her father; she still hasn’t forgiven him for leaving, and finds any reason to blame him for… well, everything. From the start, the reader is aware of the strained (or non-existent) family dynamic, but that is not what I’m most excited to speak about it this review.

Things pretty much take a turn for the worse very quickly. While there are strange things happening and strange feelings that Jade has, the first real sign of a haunting comes when Jade wakes up in the middle of the night and bumps into a woman in the kitchen. At first, she thinks her father is simply bringing people home, but she soon realizes that this isn’t the case when the woman turns to her. Jade realizes that she’s dreaming, but then the woman speaks to her. Two words: “Dung an*“. Don’t eat. The woman holds her hands out to Jade, revealing a squirming mass of maggots on her palms, and it only gets worse from here. Jade flees back to her room, hoping against hope that it was nothing more than a dream and knowing, somewhere deep down, that she was wide awake.

From here, the plot moves quickly, with the introduction of more characters including local Vietnamese girl Florence, and Alma and Thomas, a white couple who have essentially funded Ba’s (Jade’s father’s) renovation of Nha Hoa*. I personally liked the introduction of Alma, simply because when she was talking about her dissertation topic (the founding of French Indochina), Jade states that she “has a degree in colonization”. This bit made me laugh maybe more than it should have.

‘She Is A Haunting’ is filled to the brim with gross descriptions (I wouldn’t necessarily call it ‘gore’). For me, it was expertly done. I found myself slightly queasy in parts, which is exactly the kind of reaction I want from my horror books. The most disgusting part that had me muttering to myself came when Jade was dreaming.

The ghost she’d seen in the kitchen (who’s name is Cam, as Jade learned) has been showing her memories from her own life. Cam seems as though she wants to help Jade figure out what’s going on in Nha Hoa*, and she shows Jade the former owner of the house, Frenchwoman Marion Dumont. Marion suffered with agoraphobia when she was alive, and is described as evil, cruel, and insanely racist, calling the Vietnamese characters “little rat”. The reader immediately hates her (as they should), but soon learns that Marion’s agoraphobia doesn’t stop when she’s dead. She remains in the house, incensed that her house has been overrun by the people whose country it was built in.

She appears before Jade in the middle of the night, disguising herself as Cam (who Jade has a strange kind of crush on) before revealing herself. She presses her hand down on Jade’s neck, and Jade realizes that she’s awake. She begins to panic as Marion’s body moves away. The only thing is… Marion’s head doesn’t move. Instead, her neck elongates, taking on the same kind of texture as taffy (the author’s choice of words). While the book is chock full of unsettling descriptions, this is by far my favourite. It is so visceral and easy to imagine that I found myself recoiling, but yet unable to stop reading.

Another part of the book that I really enjoyed comes in the form of small ‘mini-chapters’. Each couple of chapters, there is a small half page of writing, titled with the name of an organ/part of the body. These are: Mouth, kidney, appendix, eye, brain, dermis, liver, larynx, marrow, tendon, tongue, stomach, and heart. These sections kept me reading; I wanted to know what the next body part would be. These sections are written in a completely different way from the rest of the book, and I found it intriguing, although it took me entirely too long to realize that these parts were written from the POV of the house itself.

If I had one issue with this book, it would be that the ‘finale’ seems a little rushed. We spend so much time learning about the history of the house for the finale to last two (short) chapters and then culminate in the characters leaving the house to rot. While I did enjoy the ending, it could have done with a little more.

I know that ‘She Is A Haunting’ only has a 3.41 rating on Goodreads, but for me, this book is awarded 5 stars. The horror elements of the book are very well done, and I found the plot captivating and genuinely well written. I recommend picking up a copy if you also like creepy, gross, sapphic books.

If you have any recommendations for books, please get in touch with me on Instagram (@thetaysmitheffect) or Twitter (@taysmitheffect). I should probably be reading my physical TBR, but I’m always in search of new and exciting books to add to my growing list of 5 star reads. I’m looking for horror, and preferably sapphic books, but this isn’t a necessity.

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Gideon the Ninth

The Emperor needs Necromancers.
The Ninth Necromancer needs a swordswoman.
Gideon has a sword, some dirty magazines, and no more time for undead nonsense.

Brought up by unfriendly, ossifying nuns, ancient retainers, and countless skeletons, Gideon is ready to abandon a life of servitude and an afterlife as a reanimated corpse. She packs up her sword, her shoes, and her dirty magazines, and prepares to launch her daring escape.

Harrowhark Nonagesimus, Reverend Daughter of the Ninth House and bone witch extraordinaire, has been summoned into action. The Emperor has invited the heirs to each of his loyal Houses to a deadly trial of wits and skill. If Harrowhark succeeds she will become an immortal, all-powerful servant of the Resurrection, but no necromancer can ascend without their cavalier. Without Gideon’s sword, Harrow will fail, and the Ninth House will die.

Of course, some things are better left dead.

*****

This isn’t going to have a happy ending, is it?

I’ve had my copy of ‘Gideon the Ninth’ for years, but I always put off reading it. I’m not entirely sure why. Perhaps I just wasn’t ready for lesbian necromancers exploring a haunted gothic castle in space. Or perhaps I knew that this book (and probably series) would completely break me. Now that I’ve finally read it, I think it might have been the latter.

When we first meet Gideon Nav and Harrowhark Nonagesimus, they hate each other. Gideon is trying to escape from the Ninth House, and Harrow is intent on stopping her. It’s unclear at first why they hate each other, but as readers, we get to see their relationship progress in a beautiful, artful way. For me, this book is the epitome of “enemies to lovers”. The two women go from being willing to kill each other to get what they want, to Harrow telling Gideon: “I am undone without you.” I have to confess that that one line broke me a little. But what broke me even more was the pool scene (I’ll speak about this later).
Gideon is trying to escape, to reach the Cohort and fight on the front lines. Even after reading the book, I’m still not sure what the Cohort is fighting, but that doesn’t matter in relation to the plot and I’m sure that at some point, the rest of the books will delve into this. Gideon is waiting for a shuttle that will take her far away from the Ninth House when she’s accosted by Harrow, who refuses to let her leave. Instead, she dangles Gideon’s freedom in front of her, telling the other woman that if she truly wants to leave, Harrow will let her, as long as Gideon does something for her first.
The Emperor has invited the heirs of the Nine Houses to undertake a series of tasks. The ‘winner’ will be granted immortality and power as one of his Lyctors, but the heirs cannot compete without their cavaliers. For Harrow, this is a problem; her cavalier, Ortus, has fled from the Ninth House, and she has no choice but to turn to Gideon, a skilled swordswoman. She tells Gideon that, if she accompanies Harrow, Gideon can have her freedom. She can go wherever she wants. Do whatever she wants. But Gideon doesn’t trust her. After a lot of thought, however, she sees no choice but to do what Harrow asks.

The two journey across space to the First House, home of the King Undying and the Necrolord Prime. There, they meet the heirs and cavaliers of the other Eight Houses, including Palamedes Sextus and Camilla Hect from the Sixth House, and Coronabeth and Ianthe Tridentarius from the Third House. They’re welcomed by a strange little man known only as Teacher, and the cavaliers are all gifted a key ring, the purpose of which is at first unknown.
For a lot of the first half of the book, Harrowhark is not there. She leaves Gideon to her own devices, and Gideon loves this. The only catch: Gideon cannot talk to anyone. Harrow has ordered her to fake a vow of silence. This, however, does not stop her from making friends… and enemies. The heir of the Seventh House, Dulcinea Septimus, takes a shine to Gideon, while the cavalier of the Third House, Naberius Tern, hates her. At first, I was enjoying the relationships that were being formed between the Houses, but I wasn’t prepared for what was going to happen.

Gideon finds Harrowhark’s body in a facility under the tower of the First House. Of course, Harrowhark isn’t dead; she’s a necromancer, after all. But Gideon slowly learns from her that the trials of the Emperor are more dangerous than any of them originally thought, and things get even more dangerous when Magnus Quinn and his necromancer, Abigail Pent, are found dead within the facility. Here, the book takes on a darker tone, which I really enjoyed. Honestly, after I’d reached this point in the book, I found it very easy to read. The prose that Muir uses is enthralling and simply fantastic, and I found it easy to visualise the characters surrounding the bodies of the Fifth House.

After more murders, secrets, lies and horrible puns from Gideon, Harrow thinks that the time has come to tell Gideon the truth of the Ninth House. I won’t be giving away many spoilers, but I will share one quote that still sits with me, even after finishing the book.

“I am a war crime.”

These are the words Harrowhark says to Gideon in the pool, a scene filled with so much homoeroticism that I found myself genuinely upset that they didn’t kiss here. Without even realising it, the two have apparently fallen in love (that’s my interpretation, at least). They have begun to understand each other more than they ever have, and in the end, this talk in the pool helps them to cast aside their childhood hatred of each other. I found myself rooting for the two of them. I found myself loving the way they spoke to each other, refusing to put up with each other’s nonsense. The relationship between them grows in such a natural way, their hatred not completely disappearing, even at the end of the book.

This is where the plot gets both better and more confusing. Honestly, I still don’t understand some parts of what I read, I just know that I loved it. The ending broke me (but I’m not going to spoil it here).
If I had one issue with this book, it would be the beginning. The first 100 pages or so were really difficult for me to get into. It felt like nothing was happening, and while I understand that this was necessary, I did take a break from reading for a couple of months until I felt ready to try again. Even then, it took me a while to get into it, but I’m very happy that I did get into it. Overall, I give this book a 4.5 star rating (I’ve apparently lost my USB stick so there’s no visual 4.5 star at the bottom by the book cover today).

Overall, I truly enjoyed this book. I cannot wait to read Harrow the Ninth, Nona the Ninth and Alecto the Ninth (even if I have no idea who Alecto is yet). I would highly recommend picking up a copy of this book from your local bookshop or your local library.

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Foyles

Youngblood

*****

High school sucks. Especially for the undead.

When Kat Finn arrives at Harcote, she’s in uncharted territory. She is suddenly thrust into the alluring world of elite vampires – and her fortune is about to change.

Taylor Sanger is tired of the vampire world’s out-of-touch views, especially as an out-and-proud lesbian. She’s willing to fly under the radar for two more years at Harcote, but Kat’s arrival changes everything.

Kat and Taylor were once best friends. It didn’t end well.

A horrifying discovery means they have to set their differences aside and investigate the deep secrets at Harcote and the conspiracy underpinning all of Vampiredom.

As they investigate, will their old friendship be rekindled into something more?

*****

I’ve always had a soft spot for vampire fiction. I fell in love with the concept when I first watched the Carmilla webseries on Youtube as a teenager (I highly recommend this). My love of vampires is why I picked this book up, and unfortunately, I regretted it. I should have looked at the reviews before I bought it, because I feel like I wasted money on a book I heavily disliked.

Kat Finn is a vampire. This is pretty much the first thing we learn about her. She lives separately to vampires except for her mother. Their finances are strained, which makes feeding difficult for them. The reader soon learns that a horrible disease, CFaD has broken out within humanity and will kill any vampire that drinks from an infected human in a matter of minutes. The enigmatic Victor Castel – founder of CasTech – has developed a blood substitute called hema, which means that vampires can survive without the threat of drinking infected blood.
Kat has dreamed about attending Harcote, a boarding school for the elite vampire youngbloods – vampires who were born after the CFaD outbreak rather than turned. When Kat receives her acceptance email, she is overjoyed, and she is also shocked when she learns that an anonymous benefactor has funded the two years she’ll spend at Harcote.
She soon arrives and integrates herself into the culture of Harcote, making new friends and meeting old friends. Her ex-best friend, Taylor, is also attending Harcote, and the two end up sharing a room. Slowly, they begin to repair their broken relationship, but a death, a conspiracy, and the mysterious Victor Castel seem hellbent on getting in their way.

‘Youngblood’ is 405 pages long (my copy is, at least), and I don’t think it should have been that long. The first 250 pages follows life at the Harcote boarding school and, while the reader gets hints at the main plot during this, the plot doesn’t actually seem to begin until over the halfway mark when a secondary character’s body is found by Taylor. This still does nothing to fully begin the plot. Instead, we spend (in my opinion) far too long learning about the relationship between Kat, and Galen, her boyfriend. I am not against reading books which feature straight people or straight couples, but when a book claims to be sapphic, I have no desire to read about men. Their relationship – to me – was unnecessary, and seems only to have been included to try and make the reader wonder who Kat will choose by the end of the book (it was obviously going to be Taylor).

The pacing problems continue throughout the book, with the plot reaching a head and concluding within the space of maybe 20, 25 pages. For a book of this length, it felt as though it was rushed. We find out with only about forty pages left that CFaD was created in a lab by Victor Castel in an effort to force vampires to live together in Vampiredom and rely on him to feed – he did, after all, create the blood substitute vampires use to sustain themselves. From here on out, things happen quickly, but the plot seems half fleshed out. Kat manages to manipulate Victor into admitting everything and records it on her phone, although the reader learnt only a couple of chapters ago that Victor has been a master manipulator since before Kat was born. How is it possible that this intelligent man could be tricked so easily by a teenager? Things only get worse when Kat and Taylor play his confession to an auditorium filled with vampires who have been directly affected by Castel’s actions. Despite the 400 pages of build up, we never actually get to know what happens to him. The last time we see him, he has his hands pinned behind his back and an army of angry vampires surrounding him, but we don’t see what happens to him. Do they kill him? Do they put him on trial? We don’t know. We don’t even get an explanation from Kat in the last chapter. His fate is an unsatisfying mystery.

The characters are deeply unlikeable, and I doubt I will be reading anything else from this author. She insists on making Kat – a white, straight(ish) girl – the only person who cares about the lack of diversity at the school, and the only one who cares when Taylor’s identity as the only queer student at Harcote is used as an insult. Both of these things could have easily been left out of the book and not changed anything about the plot or the characters. One of the teachers at the school tells Taylor: “I have lived ten times the years you have. Do you really think I cannot comprehend homosexuality?” My only question is this. If that’s the case, then why is queerphobia such a big part of this book? If the vampires are well aware of the existence of homosexuality, then why is this not shown anywhere in the book? Even Kat – who calls herself the Token Ally – freaks out when she first starts to question her sexuality. There is so much queerphobia and bigotry that it made me feel sick.

The worst part is when Kat and Galen are researching CasTech in the school’s underground library. Galen, who is half-Indian, tells Kat how his parents met. His mother is from a Gujarati merchant family, and his father was ‘involved’ in the East India Company. When Kat brings up the colonization of India (which was very white savior of her), Galen says that his parents relationship isn’t as “messed up as it sounds”. He explains that his father didn’t kidnap his mother, and that his father pursued her for years until she agreed to marry him (which is horrific behavior).
This whole paragraph made me (a white person) deeply uncomfortable, and I have read many reviews of South Asian readers saying the same. It was not necessary to the story, and Galen being biracial is never mentioned again. It should not have been put into the book. The author tries to romanticize the colonization of India, and this is not OK. What Britain and the East India Company did to the country and people of India was nothing short of abhorrent, and it should not be spoken of in this way. If you’re going to put POC characters into your books, at least do them the courtesy of speaking the truth and not romanticize the horrors their countries and cultures have been subjected to.

I could go on and on about how much I disliked this book, but this review already feels too long (it’s also enraging me that this was even written or published). To cut it short, I do not recommend this book. There is so much vampire literature out there, and I will do my best to find the books with actual good representation, instead of whatever the hell this book was.

Iron Widow

I would like to preface this review by saying only this: I should have waited to read this book until the sequel, “Heavenly Tyrant” was out. I finished it and immediately longed for more.

Xiran Jay Zhao’s (they/them) debut novel exceeded all of my expectations. The world building was fantastic, the characters were flawed but still likeable, and I loved the story more than I thought I would. I tore through the book in three days, and I desperately wish I’d managed to read it in one sitting. “Iron Widow” is a book that I didn’t want to put down, and I stayed up late to finish it. The mix of fantasy, sci-fi and Chinese mythology made the book one that I couldn’t bring myself to put down.

Set against the backdrop of a medieval China, humanity must battle the bug-like alien Hunduns who threaten the humans way of life and safety. Using husks of dead Hunduns, the humans create Chrysalises, giant, formidable beings made of spirit metal. The Chrysalises must have two pilots – a boy and a girl. The pair join their qi (the vital life force of any living being) to battle the invaders. The male pilots are turned into celebrities by the dystopian public, while the girls are mere sacrifices for the boys, rarely surviving the battles they face unless them and their male counterpart are a Balanced Match.

That is, until Wu Zetian, a young girl who wants nothing more than to avenge the death of her sister at the hands at one of the government’s star pilots, Yang Guang. When inside the Chrysalis in her first battle with him, she unintentionally kills him, becoming the titular Iron Widow.

As punishment for the murder of their star pilot, Wu Zetian is forced to work with Li Shimin, a fellow murderer and the man who holds the highest spirit pressure in over 200 years. The two must learn to work together to pilot their Chrysalis, the Vermilion Bird, to secure victory for humanity. They face many challenges – pilots who hate them both for their murders, a corrupt government, and the appearance of Gao Yizhi, Wu Zetian’s ‘friend’.

In so many YA novels, the main romance turns out to be a love triangle in which the female main character must choose between two boys, each with their own flaws and merits. Xiran Jay Zhao ignores this completely, choosing to incorporate polyamory into the novel in an expert way. Wu Zetian finds herself in love with both Li Shimin and Gao Yizhi, but doesn’t choose between them, instead choosing both of them. The men’s bisexuality helps with this, and I loved the line where they first kiss and Wu Zetian is wondering if “this is finally happening”. If I had one complaint, it would be that the romance between the three needs to be developed a tiny bit more (but I guess I’ll have to wait until “Heavenly Tyrant” for this).

“Iron Widow” is the epitome of ‘female rage’. Wu Zetian’s hatred of the patriarchal society she is forced to live in makes the story seem to come alive, and the feminism in the novel was immaculate. I found myself relating to Wu Zetian, and found myself almost cheering when she finally broke, letting all of her rage out freely.

The plot twist at the end of the book had me staring at the ceiling long after I’d finished reading. After the final battle, Gao Yizhi finds documents which tell him that the Hunduns aren’t the invaders. Humanity is. As this is revealed, Wu Zetian is faced with a choice from the Heavenly Court: keep the truth to herself and do the bidding of the gods, or die.

I cannot wait for “Heavenly Tyrant” to be published. I truly loved this book. Everything about it spoke to me in a way I wasn’t expecting, and I highly, highly recommend picking up a copy if you have a chance.

Buy it here!

Gay’s the Word

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Our Wives Under the Sea

I have to admit that when I heard of this book, I had no idea what it was about. I saw it in my favourite bookstore (Gay’s the Word in London), and I immediately knew that I wanted it. I didn’t look online to see what it was about; I prefer to be surprised. Of course I heard good things about it, and I was excited to start it. Long story short: it lives up to the hype.

I think the thing that drew me to the book was originally the cover, and then the premise of ‘came back wrong’ that is so prevalent in this book. That particular trope has always intrigued me, and I was excited to see it in a sapphic book.

The story follows Miri and her wife, Leah. Leah, a marine scientist, has recently returned from a disastrous submarine expedition. She was originally supposed to be gone for only three weeks. Something went wrong, and Leah was gone, trapped at the bottom of the ocean, for six months. Miri had given up hope of her wife ever returning, so when the mysterious Centre, Leah’s employer, tells her that Leah has returned, she’s ecstatic at the thought of having her love back with her.

But Leah came back… wrong. Whatever Miri was expecting to find, it was not what greeted her. Leah no longer has any interest in movies, one of their favourite things to do together, and rarely speaks. When she does, her words are always about the sea, while giving nothing away about what happened, and Miri doesn’t want to ask. As the story progresses, we see the extent to which their relationship has changed from the early days of their love story, with small tidbits of information given to us as Miri reminisces on how the two met.

The dual POVs of Miri and Leah tell the story in an artful way which I loved. Julia Armfield switches between the two for the entirety of the book, and we slowly begin to learn more about the couple and what exactly happened to Leah on the expedition.

While Miri’s chapters tell us of the aftermath and the changes she sees in Leah, Leah’s chapters slowly tell us about the way the submarine simply… stopped working, sinking into the ocean before coming to rest on the bottom. Leah and her crew members have no way of knowing what went wrong or how long they’ve been down there, and she tells us how it affects them in such a way that I couldn’t put the book down. I desperately wanted to know what happened.

By the end of the book, I still wasn’t entirely sure what happened. Was it cabin fever? Was it a strange form of evolution which made Leah unable to survive outside of the sea? Or was it something more sinister; she tells us how her crewmate begins to hear a voice down in the dark of the ocean. The not knowing exactly what happened enthralls me, and I truly believe that I will re-read this book in the future.

Our Wives Under the Sea is unlike any horror book I have ever read (and I’ve read a lot). It is both a horror and a love story, the ending bittersweet as Miri releases Leah back into the sea. The book made me laugh as Miri tells us of the early days of their relationship, and made me cry as she realised that saving – or fixing – Leah, was an impossible task.

Ultimately, this is a book I’m happy I bought, and has secured it’s place as my first 5 star read of 2024. I highly recommend picking up a copy of this masterpiece.

Buy it here:

Gay’s The Word

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Experience

Alina let out a breath as she skidded to a stop, her arm reaching up to grab her sword from the scabbard on her back. The hiss of metal against leather was familiar now. It reminded her of the fights she’d had to go through to get here. It reminded her of the friends she’d lost. It reminded her of everyone who had left.
She hadn’t meant to push them away. She’d been so wrapped up in her fate and her struggles that she hadn’t even stopped to think of asking for help. By the time she realised she needed her friends, they were already gone. They’d given up trying to get her to see she needed them, and now she was alone.
She gripped her sword tightly, her other hand on the dagger at her hip. She looked across the field to the army in front of her. At the front, in the vanguard, stood Chesca, her eyes trained on Alina, the hint of a smirk on her lips. The sight of Chesca used to make the hair on Alina’s arms stand on end, but they had battled enough now that Alina was no longer scared. She was just… tired. She wanted to be done with all of this. She wanted her friends back. She wanted her life back. And she wanted the chance to grow old with Tamzin without the fear of someone hunting them.
“On your own, Alina?” Chesca called coyly, her smirk growing as she held her arms out to her sides, “You expect to defeat us?” Alina sucked in a breath, her fingers tightening around the sword at her side. She gave a small nod, her face blank with steely determination as she adjusted her stance. Chesca rolled her eyes, almost seeming bored, and raised her arm. Her army rippled around her, waiting for her command. They were restless, it seemed. Alina recognised a few of them. Not by name, but by faces. She remembered their faces smiling down at her while they killed her friends. Rage began to build in her chest, and a muscle in her jaw twitched as she prepared for the onslaught.
She knew there was no way she could win. Not on her own. But if she could somehow get close to Chesca, she hoped she could get rid of her enemy once and for all. One quick blow and she could die happily, knowing that she had defeated her foe.
A movement caught her eye, and Alina turned her head slightly, her eyes straining in the waning sunlight. On the outskirts of the army, where the field gave way to forest, there was someone hiding in a tree. It almost looked like… Malthus. Alina sucked in a breath as his eyes caught hers. He bowed his head, and she bowed hers, thankful that, even as she prepared for death, she had one friend with her. Slowly, more movement stirred, unseen by the enemy army. It surrounded them on all sides, and Alina felt herself choke on unshed tears as she saw her friends. Damon, Rina, Clerk, Mage, Tamzin. The tears fell as she saw her friends and the woman she loved. They were here. They had come back. She bowed her head to hide her tears, and once she had calmed herself, she raised it, meeting Chesca’s eyes with a hopeful stare. If Chesca knew Alina was crying, she didn’t mention it. Instead, she brought her arm down, and the army let out a roar, almost as if it was one large creature. They charged, running towards Alina. She drew her sword up and unsheathed her dagger, determined to cut through as many of them as she possibly could. Her feet began to move, faster and faster, until she was running towards the army, a lone warrior against a massive horde. They met in the middle of the field, and Alina gave a wordless yell as she began to attack, feeling the blade of her sword sink into the flesh of the closest enemy even as her dagger embedded itself into the eye of another. Ripping her weapons away from the dead, she continued on, slashing at everything that moved. It was easier than she thought it would be, and it was only when she heard the sound of arrows above her that she realised that she wasn’t alone in fighting.
The army was drawn in all directions as the attacks came from the sides. Turning to where she’d seen Malthus in the tree, she saw the army of Kraznok leap from the treeline, racing towards the field, and when she turned to the other side, she saw Tamzin leading the Ghamchain into the battle. Her heart soared even as she cut down another enemy, thankful that she had not been so stubborn that her friends had forsaken her completely. A slurry of screams sounded from the back of the enemy army, and she could only assume that Mage had managed to persuade the Treplan army to join the cause. She ducked under the swing of an axe, slicing at a nearby foe as she tried to find Chesca in the horde. Chesca was hers to kill, and she intended to let the woman meet the friends she had ordered killed. On she fought, ducking and killing her way through the onslaught. Chesca’s army had seemed big, but now that there were three armies against one, it didn’t seem that large. A pile of bodies was beginning to grow, and as Alina watched more and more vanquished foes join the pile, she saw Chesca climb to the top, spear in hand, her flaming red hair making her stand out. Alina began to run faster, her legs screaming with effort.
She let out a yell as she felt sharp pain sprout in her right shoulder as she was thrown to the ground. Before she could tell what was happening, a man was on top of her, slashing at her with a curved dagger she quickly recognised. She raised her hand and gripped his wrist, putting all of her strength into keeping the dagger raised. She knew the man, she realised. He had been the one who had snapped Halda’s neck in the forest. She felt a pang of rage as she mourned her dead friend. The girl had been young, and she didn’t deserve to die at the hands of this man. Alina’s mind became flooded with memories of the girl as she fought, struggling underneath the man. He was bigger and stronger than she was, and her strength began to falter, the dagger drawing ever closer to her face. She gritted her teeth, praying that she wouldn’t die this way. Her prayers were quickly answered as an arrow struck the man in the temple, driving into his brain. He toppled over, and Alina sat up, gasping for air as she pushed him off her legs. She didn’t waste any time before continuing her journey to Chesca, weaving her way through the fighting.
She soon reached the bottom of the pile of bodies, stacked high, the grass below soaked with the blood of hundreds of fallen soldiers. Staring up, she saw Chesca atop the pile, ordering her army. Alina sheathed her sword and began to climb, using the dead’s limbs to make her way up to her nemesis. Chesca saw her climbing, and for a moment, just a moment, Alina could have sworn she saw a hint of fear in the other woman’s eyes. It was gone quickly, and Chesca began to jab at her with her spear. Alina hissed in pain as it grazed her forehead, and when she next brought her arm up to climb, she grabbed the end of the spear, pulling it downward. The force of the tug made Chesca lose her balance, and both spear and woman toppled over the edge, landing on the blood-soaked ground below. Alina wanted nothing more than to climb back down and finish the job, but others were climbing the tower now, and not all of them were friendly. She hoisted herself to the top and stood, drawing her sword once more. The pain in her shoulder had settled to a dull throb, but she could still feel the warm blood spilling out of it slowly.
As the enemy soldiers reached the top of the pile, Alina readied herself, raising her sword. A hand touched hers, and she wheeled round, ready to strike. She froze as she saw Tamzin, a shy smile on her face. The blonde was bloody, with cuts on her face and arms, but she looked mostly unhurt. Alina felt her heart soar as she looked into the face of the woman she loved; they had been separated for over a month now, and Alina didn’t think she could bear to be away from the other woman for much longer.
“Hi,” she croaked, her voice catching in her throat. Tamzin smiled softly for a moment before the look fell from her face. She tugged Alina behind her, swinging her sword at the enemy who had been stood behind the brunette, ready to strike. He fell, falling backwards to the ground. Alina looked around. The enemy was climbing the pile from all directions, and she turned so that she and Tamzin were back-to-back. Together, they fought, their blades shining in the faint light of the sunset. They cut down enemy after enemy, and soon, others joined them as they managed to climb. Mage and Rina fought side by side with the women, and soon all four directions were clear. The battleground was suddenly quiet, and Alina felt warmth in her hand. She looked down, not even noticing that Tamzin’s hand had intertwined with her own at some point during the fighting. She turned to face her love, and the two stared at each other for a moment, swords lowered. Next to them, Mage and Rina celebrated the victory, but the women didn’t notice them. They only saw each other. Tamzin raised her hand and rested it on Alina’s cheek, bringing their foreheads together, and Alina closed her eyes.
“I missed you,” she murmured, her voice low, “I didn’t know if I’d ever see you again.” Tamzin let out a soft chuckle.
“I will never leave you,” she whispered, bringing their heads closer. Their lips touched, and Alina felt herself melting into Tamzin’s embrace. She hadn’t noticed how tired she was, but now that the fighting was done, she could barely stand. The two pulled apart, and Alina opened her eyes, smiling widely at her love. All thoughts of Chesca and the battle had been leeched from her mind, and all she could think about was the woman who stood in front of her, resplendent in blood covered and scratched armor.
“Alina!” Tamzin screamed at the same moment Alina felt pain blooming through her. She let out a gasp and wheeled around, grabbing her dagger from the scabbard on her hip, driving it upward into Chesca’s throat. The redhead stumbled backward, clawing at her throat as crimson blood began to pour out. Her eyes were wild and scared, and for a second, Alina almost felt sorry for her. Almost. She watched Chesca as she fell to her knees, still clawing at her throat, and she watched as the woman fell, one more body on the immense pile.
“Alina,” Tamzin cried, her voice urgent, “Alina please…” Alina looked down at her body, surprised to see the tip of Chesca’s spear sticking out of her chest, covered in fresh blood. Her blood, she realised. Her vision began to blur, and she felt herself falling. Tamzin caught her as she fell, wrapping the brunette in her arms as tears streamed down her cheeks. Everything was beginning to darken, and Alina forced herself to raise her head to look at the blonde. Their eyes met, and she smiled.
“I’m glad I got to see you one last time.” she whispered, reaching out with a shaky hand to tuck a strand of hair behind Tamzin’s ear. She drew in a deep breath, a smile on her lips, and then everything went black.