The gates of the castle rose up huge in front of them, and Jason tried to wrap his mind around the path that brought them to this moment.

The moment that turned his sweet witch of a wife into the terrible Lightning Witch that was so dreaded.

“we don’t have the resources for a siege.”

Kellen was at his side as always, ready to advise him and, more importantly, Daramethe.

After all, she was the reason they stood before the gates of the Golden City, capitol of their kingdom and home to the king who, only weeks earlier, tried to have them killed for the crime of existing.

“we don’t need to hold a siege,” Dara said in the terrible, cold voice that sent a shiver down Jason’s spine. Lightning crackled over her hands and down her cascade of hair. “Stand back.”

Kellen’s men, called up from his duchy and those of his allies, scattered away as the hair rose on their arms and the blue sky clouded over.

Jason, didn’t move, even when Kellen tugged at him.

He was the Hammer of the Sun, and more importantly, he refused to believe that his Dara would ever allow her magic to harm him.

Thunder roared overhead as Dara lifted her hands to the sky, and a bold blasted down into her. The hard dirt under her feet fused into glass, and she turned the force of nature against the barred gates. Metal liquified as lightning blasted along it, and the wood exploded to fall in burning chunks around them.

The wall of men behind the gate caught the next blast, and purple sparks leapt from metal breastplate to metal breastplate and left glowing almost-trails behind them.

No one ever thought about how much metal there really was on an average soldier.

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Well, Jason did, but he was a blacksmith. It was his job to think about metal.

Dara was the wife of a blacksmith, and she thought about it too.

Lightning crashed down from the sky over and over as their small, determined army pressed forward with their Witch at the head. They were good fighters to a man, and there was no motivation like seeing their leader blast through gates that had held against countless armies before theirs.

Jason stood beside her through every bolt, used to the heat and armored in absolute trust for his beloved wife. When one enemy soldier got brave enough to shoot at them, he lifted his shield and felt the bolt bury itself deep in the wood.

Daramethe saw it too, and her scram of rage was almost lost in the thunder of a nearly-black bolt that vaporized the unlucky archer.

Jason bent to kiss her because battle or no, he would be at her side until they died. She managed a tremulous smile that told him there would be nightmares to weather tonight.

That was alright. They weren’t the first.

“Move forward!” Kellen bellowed, a capable commander and one of the few Jason really trusted. “To the castle!”

Troops cheered around them and Jason just fought to stay close to his wife. Dara was starting to get tired, and it would be easy to lose her in the crowd. Battle mages trained for war, but Dara hadn’t been anything but a green-witch until that fateful Second Strike that woke her real power.

“Are you alright?” Jason yelled over the cheer, and got an arm around Dara’s shoulders. She leaned into him gratefully and twined their fingers together like she never wanted to let go. “Dara?”

“Ready to be done,” she admitted when he pulled her into a protected doorway. The fighting could go on without them for a minute. Kellen saw them pull aside and got their small command group to form a protective circle. After all, if Daramethe went down, so did their best chances at victory. “Jason, I’m so tired.”

“I know,” Jason murmured and kissed her tenderly. “Just a little longer. When we take the castle, I’ll find you a hot bath and feed you berries until sundown.”

“You say the sweetest things,” she teased back, smiling for real despite herself. The lightning took a lot out of her, and he was doing his best to keep her spirits up. “I’ve never had a bath in a real copper tub before.”

“Maybe they’ll even have a stone one big enough for us both,” Jason suggested, and peppered her face with kisses. “Ready to go find that bath?”

“Show me the way,” she replied and straightened. Jason felt a welling of pride fill his chest at her determined face. “The time has come to make this kingdom a good place to live."