The Arcana: Shadow Wars, Codex I

XXXVIII

The Burning Sky

In which Murena appears

Dawn came early. In the Valley of Abris it was nearly the fourth hour after midnight when the sky began to brighten. The sun was nowhere to be seen.

The night sky was lit as with a green flame, trending to violet and crimson at the tips. Vivid lights swirled and shimmered in the firmament, blossoming from teal to violet to crimson to yellow and back to teal again. White sparks arced between stars that glittered as gems nestled on silk of midnight blue.

Not to be outshone were the stars of the Hound, a winter constellation that heralded the coming of the Huntress for the spring equinox. Some observers clung to the idea its blazing radiance was a sign from the Huntress, that they should stand fast and not flinch.

Other observers fastened their fears on the agate moon, for its white clouds had given way to a turbulent red wreath.

On the coasts of the Borealis they were still on the previous side of midnight when the lights came. Ships patrolling the shores stood out starkly against the horizon, striking trepidation in those who had remained in their homes near the coasts.

In Kyanopolis the morning birds trilled at midnight, startling residents out of their slumber … except for the Watches, already on their guards by the emperor’s order.

One hour past midnight, in Karnassus, the people awakened. Upon seeing the sky they clutched their amulets and prayed against Erebossi. In Rasena the street gangs raced back to their hideouts, determined to avoid being out in the open on such a night. In Valentis, Ziri kept watch over Karnassus and the Aerie, eying each city through his scrying mirrors. Halie stood by his side, at the ready.

Emperor Drusus Caecilianus Tarkhana was also ready. Within his palace he had armored himself, and set his Drakon Guard on alert. In his own oraculum he kept a watchful eye over his empire. By his side in this vigil were his wife and Lysimachus, son of the Sea Lord.

Only the Cloudwalkers in the Far North were used to such a show, but they knew this night to be different, and those not on watch took care to shutter their windows.

In Helisius, Lord Senet stood on a hilltop. The gaze he fastened upon the dying moon was not filled with fear, but rather bewilderment, for the moon was mostly full. The giants were to appear during an eclipse of the sun.

But an eclipse was impossible while the moon gave light.

What did this mean?

He looked to the east. Deep in his bones Senet knew Nensela would be there, and he bowed his head, praying to Amyntas and Khratu that she would survive this battle, too.

An eerie calm settled over the nations.

In Silura, Aurelia Cunovendi organized the civilians who sought shelter in the Falcon’s Hollow Watch. She divided them into groups, some to aid the healers, others to aid the staff, and the fastest of the children to deliver what was needed where.

Pegasus Prime Senovara set fire drakes to guard every road and bridge leading into Falcon’s Hollow.

Draco Aether Roswald patrolled the skies on his own dragon. All that could be done to fortify Red Pointe was done. His wife,Verena, grimly reminded him that any building left unfinished in the reconstruction could be used as a weapon if need-be.

Bessa’s maternal grandparents, the Pendrys, coordinated with Draco Aether Saavedra, sending scouts of dragon-teeth men to patrol the shores and the forests. Grandfather Pendry stationed a few to act as sentries on behalf of Two Rivers.

In Sirônasse, the Rhabdomachaeum’s senior teachers kept watch with their students, heeding the words of their own seers.

Young Pippa clutched her staff tighter as she paced the atrium. The staff would amplify her power, which grew stronger everyday, but not enough to keep her terror at bay. She crossed her hand over her heart, feeling it thunder beneath her chiton, where she hid the amulet Lenora had made for her. Constructed from dragon blood resin, it would bind up any wound Pippa received, allowing her time to get to a healer.

Returning the favor, Pippa made Lenora an amulet to protect her from the elements, repelling lightning long enough for her to flee to safety if she were attacked with the thunder maces.

Before the girls took their stations they made offerings in the temple, asking for the safety of their families. As they left, Pippa drew from her purse the catoblepas aegis her cousin Bessa had given them. Lenora had no offensive magic, she pointed out. The aegis might make the difference for her.

In Eitan’s Blue Crescent, Keziah took shelter in a temple. From the moment she arrived in their ancestral land, she made it a priority to spread Edana’s warnings of the giants and the eidolons. The prophets attended to their own visions, and set their watches accordingly. Seth, Keziah’s betrothed, had worked day and night in helping to fortify the temple.

In the Valley of Abris, everyone was in place, and the watches were kept as Lysander’s centurions set them.

And suddenly, they were not alone.

Hidden away in the mountains and on secret ridges, the infantry kept watch. Battle scryers assigned to each centurion surveyed the floor of the valley, via crystal globes. Where before their eyes beheld only frosted meadow, there now appeared three hundred giants.

The legions of Rasena Valentis were ready.

Glowlights did not aid them, and on this night their use was not required: the eldritch display in the sky let them see well enough.

The venatori moved first, enveloping whole units of giants in shield domes, trapping them in place. Below the shields, the ground shook and shifted, breaking the giants’ formations.

Those not trapped by shields were not left unscathed, however. Vines and brambles shot up from the ground, snaking around the giants’ massive legs and pinning them into place. Winds gusted, pelting their helmets with dirt, dust, and ground up glass. Slowing them enough to ensure they could not flee when the boulders tumbled from the mountains, crushing them.

The venatori broke off their attack. The first move made, they waited to see how the giants would respond.

The giants did not keep them in suspense. Immediately, their sorcerers destroyed the shields and vaporized the vines. Scattering to and fro, the giants broke their orderly formations.

Muscles locked in tension for every soldier of Rasena Valentis observing the battlefield: scattered troops usually signaled defeat.

Lightning flashed. Lightning which heralded a weapon previously concealed amongst the columns of giants: three platforms, each bearing a titanic thunder mace.

An extraordinary clap of thunder echoed through the valley. Over two miles away, the basilica dome covering the fortress headquarters shattered in an explosion of glass and metal.

On a hidden ridge beyond the fortress, the awestruck men of Lysander’s wing unit swore. Inside his cloak Lysander shuddered. Silently he thanked the gods for the reports he’d studied from Red Pointe. Because of them, he had already evacuated everyone from the fortress.

The probes at the ends of the thunder maces closed after firing the first round. Now they again spread apart, signaling their next volley.

This time, the venatori denied them success, as a shield blossomed around the fortress and absorbed the lightning.

A cheer went up from the observation deck of the mountainside aerie where Lady Nensela, Bessa, and Edana watched the battle. Ancient stone arcades lined the face of the aerie, which opened to the valley below. The women took up posts beneath one arch. To their left, Pegasus Prime Arrianus commanded the aerie from the central arcade. To his left awaited the dragon-teeth men, sitting astride on fire drakes as they awaited his orders.

Seeing the shield hold against lightning strikes made Arrianus smile in satisfaction.

“Let the headmasters at the Rhabdo know their spell worked,” he murmured to a messenger beside him, a junior scryer bearing a globe attuned to the school. Then he turned to look back at the hive of activity behind him, where seers, sorcerers, beastmasters, and soldiers kept busy at assorted tasks. His eyes fell on his seasoned battle scryers, who were clustered about a bronze fountain of water in the center of the aerie. “Time to take their toys away.”

The senior scryers were ready, speaking into their globes to their counterparts on the battlefield.

Quickly enough, the ground beneath the thunder mace platforms opened, swallowing the gigantic weapons utterly, along with the giants who stood within a fifty foot radius.

The giants reacted. Scattered though they were, they still marched straight for the fortress. But so far everything happened as though choreographed in a play. Someone would have to break the dance.

The giants obliged.

Again lightning flashed in the sky. In a flash of fury the lightning snaked all the way to the ground, before radiating outward and setting the terrain ablaze. Leaving the Rasena Valentians no time to react, for as soon as the blaze caught it vanished. A strange haze shimmered in its wake, red and thick.

Edana tensed.

Arrianus turned, his eyes scanning the bird cages and perches along the back wall. Raptors, all of them hooded, were attended to by the falconers—beastmasters who controlled birds of prey.

“Luxius,” he called to the falconer prime.

The falconer prime slipped a hood from one of the falcons and indicated the bird should come to his armored wrist. Luxius brought the bird to Arrianus, stroking its feathers and prattling to it all the while.

“I trust this one is not your favorite?” Arrianus asked.

With a sigh, Luxius nodded. One word from him and the bird flew to the valley below, into the mist.

There it met its doom.

First its feathers curled, a scant three heartbeats before the bird itself burst into flame. Within five heartbeats the falcon perished, with nothing left but ash. Bessa recoiled, horrified; several other witnesses swore. Luxius let out a long sigh.

“Banish the shield,” was all Arrianus said in response.

The fell haze surrounded the fortress, burning a thirty-foot chasm in the ground. Isolated on this makeshift island, only the main path to the fortress remained remained intact. Soldiers attacking on foot must now approach the giants from the front.

Bessa and Edana looked to Arrianus, who did not appear alarmed at all by the turn of events. Calmly he watched the giants approach the fortress proper. Just as the giants came within two miles of the walls, Arrianus’s battle scryer relayed another message.

“Sejanus requests a warm greeting for the giants.”

Archers, stationed on an artificial earthen ridge concealed by illusion—not the high points—loosed their volley. Adamantine arrowheads, barbed in the Ta-Setian style and tipped with Salamandran acid, made short work of any giant they struck.

Prompted by the arrowheads, the giants hurriedly resumed their tight formations. Almost instantly their sorcerers shielded them in domes impenetrable by the arrowheads.

Leaving the giants free to continue their progress.

And still they found no sign of Murena.

Lady Nensela’s globe glowed red. Quietly, she answered the call.

Knowing that Lysander’s battle scryers were on the other side of the call, Bessa subtly attempted to overhear. Separate colors designated each unit of battle scryers. The seers’ globes turned red when they were speaking to command officers, blue for the sorcerers, and green for auxiliary units.

Lady Nensela looked up, and caught Arrianus’s eye.

“The truth-seers believe they’ve located Murena,” she said.

Silence, from everyone in the room.

After a moment Arrianus asked, “I thought Erebossi can’t be scryed?”

She nodded. “That’s why I assigned the truth-seers this task.”

“Say again?”

“A battlefield is no place to summon an Erebossi, so I thought it logical Murena might be here already, but hidden. Truth-seers can penetrate illusions, or at least detect them, so I asked yours to test my hypothesis. Now they have verified my suspicions. See yonder.”

All eyes turned to where she pointed, a particularly tight cluster of giants in the central column of the formations.

By command of Arrianus, the venatori caused stalagmites to shoot from the ground, impaling the giants. Waves of giants fell, but the tight cluster remained intact, even as the shield barrier failed.

“Spartoi! Bite!” commanded Arrianus.

Awaiting this very moment, one hundred dragon-teeth men had sat restlessly upon a fleet fire drakes. Swiftly they flew to their prey, with the drakes raining fire, and the dragon-teeth men raining swords. Their adamantine blades sliced through the giants’ armor with ease. The Salamandran acid coating their swords ensured no giant they felled would arise again. Shielded, the sown men moved with impunity through the midst of the painfully slow giants.

Bessa held her breath. The Pendry magic showed its worth, for the sworn men never gave way to mindless frenzy. Seeing their enemy driven before them, the sown men restrained their speed, cutting off only those nearest to them. Toying with them.

But the giants refused to play. Coppery light swirled about them, obscuring them so utterly that it took several minutes to realize what they’d done.

The giants vanished.

“So they teleport without portals,” Edana said, voicing everyone’s amazement. Ziri needed water to teleport. What element did the giants require?

Barely a moment after she spoke the giants reappeared, behind the walls of the fortress. Ordinarily their presence there would deny the Rasena Valentians the tactics they were using thus far.

Ordinarily.

“Whew,” Arrianus exclaimed. “I thought they’d never get there. Those dragon-teeth fellows lit a nice fire under them.”

Their task accomplished, the dragon-teeth men moved into their next designated position, at the mountain peak opposite the aerie. In the meantime, Arrianus rushed over to a set of floor-length scrying mirrors arranged in a semi circle around the bronze fountain. From there he watched what was happening inside the fortress grounds.

Once again came a crimson glow from the battle scryer’s globe. “The Old Man requests the welcoming party. Deploy the welcoming party, please.”

In response, Arrianus returned to his post in the arcade. Working with the other venatori he instantly re-covered the fortress in a shield, trapping the giants inside. Beneath the shield the giants’ fire mist was of no use, for they alone would be harmed. Quickly the giants formed ranks, each line protecting the other. Neither right nor left were vulnerable.

Watching the events now through the scrying mirrors, Bessa unconsciously grabbed Edana’s arm. If the giants were somehow aware of what happened at Red Pointe they would know not to bring down the walls. Post-battle, Roswald and Saavedra had speculated the giants had intended to kill them all at once by reducing Red Pointe to rubble, just as Edana had sought to kill all the giants massed in one place.

With a roar the giants aimed their thunder maces at the shields above them.

The shields did not yield.

But all was not still. Like a flood of lava upon a village, the walls moved as one, contracting the space surrounding the fortress. Buildings were not spared, devoured into the walls so that the walls thickened, leaving even less space for the giants.

However, when it must have seemed to the invaders that all was lost, the great walls stopped. The barracks, workshops, granaries, the armory—these inner buildings lined the courtyard, and remained unscathed.

Whether they willed it or not, the giants were now obliged to herd themselves into the courtyards. Yet instead, they squeezed into the spaces between the remaining buildings, carefully avoiding the inner squares.

Now all was still, for the defenders of Rasena Valentis and her would-be conquerors both: no intelligent being would fail to recognize the courtyards were meant as killing floors.

“What do you think they’ll do?” Arrianus asked, addressing the room in general. “Destroy the walls, or herd themselves into the courtyard? Or a third option?”

“Don’t you and the Old Man have a bet riding on this?” a battle scryer asked, not looking up from his globe.

“You want in?” The pegasus prime eyed Bessa and Edana. “Do imperial agents take bets? Would you stake your purple cloaks?”

Sternly Bessa replied, “I will not wager at all, and certainly not against your commander. Although, if I were a giant, I would want a third option.”

Arrianus smiled wolfishly. Edana nodded her agreement with Bessa.

The giants took the third option.

A singular giant stepped forward. Golden armor distinguished him from all his kind. Was he their king? Legate? Whatever he might be, he thrust out his right arm, holding aloft a staff surmounted by a crystal. The ground shook when he struck his staff upon it. Suddenly the crystal glowed, with such brightness that Bessa and Edana wondered anew if the giants possessed eyes.

The sorcerer-king aimed the crystal staff at the walls.

At first the walls cracked. Trembling and buckling, the stones burst apart all at once, then vanished into a vortex, which unfurled like smoke from the crystal. Everything in its path was swallowed into it. The leader swung his arm, encompassing every inch of the walls in front of them. Soon enough, only pebbles were left of the once-mighty walls of Abris.

Other sorcerer-giants followed his example, using their own staffs to destroy the remaining parts of the perimeter wall.

The shield narrowed. Where before it clearly encompassed the surrounding grounds of the fortress, it now overflowed. Like liquid moved to a new container, it filled the space once occupied by the walls, constricting the giants just as surely as they were before they destroyed the walls.

Mercy was not on offer now. Relentless, implacable, the sorcerers of Rasena Valentis willed the shield dome to contract, forcing the giants onto the killing floors.

Via the fountain, the truth-seers were still tracking the illusory mass of giants. As one they shouted, pointing to the space where they knew Murena to be.

Warning that came not a moment too soon.

The too-tight cluster of giants vanished in a flash of smoke. One giant stood where five once did. Standing heads above even the sorcerer-king, this giant could not be missed.

The lone giant dissolved in a cloud of smoke, which swirled up in the center of the courtyard. Bessa and Edana held their breaths, remembering the colossal gigalion of Red Pointe.

Matted hair brushed against the tip of the shield’s apex, threatening to go higher. Swirling ever down, the smoke next revealed long ears terminating in sharp tips. Unable to look away, none missed the revelation of the horrible visage emerging into view.

Flames sparked from twin red orbs in his face. Long arms ended not in hands, but in a writhing mass of fifty eels each.

The eel!

Outstretched wings strained against the shield barrier. Scaly human legs turned into coiled viper tails, where Murena’s calves and feet should be.

The son of the Abyssal Serpent threw back his head back and opened his maw, revealing the volcanic cavern of his throat. With a roar he loosed a gale that knocked over the central tower that housed the fortress’ headquarters.

He raised his arms, and the sky answered him. A magnificent bolt of lightning shot from the sky, brightening the valley as though the sun had come. Striking the shield, the lightning kept going, falling into Murena’s eel hands as though thrown to him.

Light radiated outward from Murena, up and around him. In the blink of an eye the shield vanished. The ground shook, quaking with such force the remaining structures in the fortress collapsed: the giants had fallen.

Arrianus laughed, clutching his stomach and shaking his head. Catching Bessa’s eye, he said, “You were right not to bet against the Old Man.”

“What just happened?” Edana demanded. “Murena destroyed the shield, he’s not contained—”

Arrianus held up a hand, quelling her as he resumed glaring into the scrying fountain. “One component of the shield is sea water.”

Edana gasped. “Brilliant! Thunderbolts spread their power when they hit the ocean. Anyone standing on the shore might be killed by a thunder-strike on the sea.”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“My mother was a pearl diver when she was growing up. She warned us never to be in the water if it even looked like it might rain. If we heard thunder we weren’t to go to the coast at all.”

The old sorcerer’s voice trembled with laughter. “And now you see the Old Man’s plan. Get the giants as close together as possible, and let them use their lightning weapons. Kill them dead with their own toys. But Murena did it for us! Oh, the gods must be with us today.”

Were they?

Though Murena just destroyed his own allies, he himself remained unscathed. Raising himself erect, he spread his wings.

Nothing stood between him and them.

Nothing at all.

“Clip his wings,” Lysander commanded. Part of him exulted—so far, not one soul in his care had been lost. But on the other hand, Abris had stood for a thousand years. Stone, by stone, brick by brick, the legendary builders of days gone past built the fortress to last.

Only an hour. Within an hour of the giants’ onslaught, Abris had fallen.

Expecting it would happen, after the giants brought down Red Pointe with a mere sound, was one thing. Seeing it was another.

A feral smile came to him then. The shield Murena just destroyed included Salamandran acid in its constituent parts. With no giants to contend with, his men could concentrate all their efforts on the arsh’atûm looming before them.

Before it flew away to Valentis.

Lysander could not let that happen.

Several heartbeats passed between his order and the sub pegasus prime’s response.

Without warning, the ground shook and shifted. Cracks opened in the valley floor. Boulders tumbled from the mountains. Beside him, Lysander’s gryphon ruffled its feathers and pawed at the ground. The pegasi whinnied.

Below Murena, the courtyards’ paving stones reshaped themselves into gigantic lances. Sharp as adamantine, the lances severed the vipers that formed Murena’s calves.

The Erebossan screamed. A yawning abyss opened beneath him. Furiously, he flapped his wings. Gales of wind uprooted trees, and pelted stones in every direction.

Amongst the infantry, ballistas had been loaded with acid arrows, and lit with Salamandran flames on the tips. Only the sub prime’s quick reflexes kept the flames from blowing back on them. He put up a shield in the nick of time.

Pyralis ordered the repositioning of the ballistas, this time to take advantage of the wind’s direction. The ordnance struck Murena’s wings, setting them ablaze.

“Yesss,” Pyralis hissed.

Writhing and roaring, Murena struggled to stay afloat.

“Move your men out, Pyralis,” Lysander conveyed through his battle scryer. Undoubtedly Murena would retaliate against the siege units first thing, and who knew what horrible power he might unleash to do so?

Time, then, to draw Murena’s attention. Flying low to the ground, Lysander and his wingmen maintained a perimeter of three miles around Murena. Lysander’s scryer stuck close to him.

“Murena needs a bath,” Lysander said. “I need direct channels to him.”

His scryer relayed the order. Lysander watched as trenches formed in the perimeter chasm the giants had made. Like spokes in an axis, the trenches led straight to Murena’s chasm.

Now for the bath. Skirmishers took to their gryphons. Flying low to the ground, they spread their arms and formed an arc of light.

For this phase, the aethers took the lead. Each bore either a Marinite priest or a venatori behind themselves on their dragons. Sylphs rode alongside their venatori companions. When the aethers gave the signal, the sylphs raced ahead, charcoal clouds puffing out behind them. A nimbus coalesced over the ruins of the fortress, forming a perfect circle, the clouds silvering for brief moments as lightning flashed. After a moment, water burst from the sky, filling the trenches.

Lysander held back a smile. When Murena destroyed the shield, the sea water composing it evaporated … leaving behind salt. Loads of glittering, glorious salt which filled the perimeter chasm where the shields had been.

Speaking their holy language the Marinites activated the Sea Lord’s power, igniting the sea salt. An avalanche of water from the trenches rushed into the chasm surrounding Murena.

Murena growled. Three great bolts of lightning raced down from the sky, shattering the mountain tops. Fire blazed in the valley floor.

Lysander’s eyes narrowed. If he were Murena, he would retreat to Erebossa, to the bowels of the Abyssal Serpent. The annihilation of his body was imminent, which could only curtail his power in this moment. But a retreat would give him the opportunity to return and usurp someone else.

After turning the valley into a desolation, which he might still do.

Losing Abris was one thing, but losing the Chrysanthemum Road? Even the greatest of reapers couldn’t restore the land overnight.

Lysander snapped orders for the venatori to put up another shield. The reserve units stepped to the fore here. By strict orders, none of the sorcerers were to exhaust themselves. Not now, when no spirits could aid them.

By Khratu this must work!

The metal next to his heart warmed—the moonbow amulet Bessa had given him long ago for a betrothal gift. Now he wore it with his conscience eased, determined to tip the scales in favor of victory.

Once again, a shield encased Murena. Enraged, he hurled rubble and earth at it.

To no avail: a vortex swirled below him. Every time they blinked he sank deeper and deeper into the whirlpool, until he was no more.

“Thank you, Khratu!” Lysander exhaled.

Did they just win? He started forward, closer to Murena’s former prison, when something caught his attention.

The aerie was burning.

“What’s going on there?” Lysander demanded. He glanced at his scryer. “Get me Arrianus. Immediately!”

Demetrios barked into his globe. He shouted twice more, then looked up, his face ashen.

No answer.

Flames as high as the ceiling gated the arcades. Cutting off both escape, and rescue.

“No one move!” A man in a blood-soaked tunic stood before them. On account of his blue chalcedony amulet they might have taken him for a scryer, but for the red fireball floating above his palm.

He was not a Salamandran.

“Marcus?” Arrianus asked, his face eloquently expressing their shock and horror.

“Don’t move. I will render you all to fat and ash, and none of you can stop me.”

His shirt was soaked with blood, and he pulled a dagger from his chest. He pointed it at them.

“Archelaos,” Lady Nensela said, that the others would know the Erebossan had usurped a second body.

A coldness washed over her. Paradoxically, her blood surged in her veins.

Her perceptions accelerated, as they always did when a vision was coming to pass. As always, she forced herself to bring the full weight of her attention on the now. For now she had to let everything unfold in its time, in its place, in its order. In this moment she would not dare to get ahead of events now.

Instinctively, she put one foot forward.

The path is before me. By the Seeker I will walk it still. I will not flinch or flee. I will remain, I will—

‘Marcus’ bowed low, sweeping his arms wide. He stood up straight and smiled. “I congratulate you, Highness. Staying a step ahead of you has been a challenge, a most pleasurable one. Do you know we stopped trying to plan around you? I stopped. Murena kept thinking we could capture you, but you’re like us: So long-lived through intrigues and battles and enemies to be nothing less than dangerous. You have my gratitude of making the game so exciting.”

“Let these people go,” Lady Nensela said. Her voice sounded far away even to herself. They were closer to It. The moment she foresaw. Inhale, exhale in her own rhythm, a breathing exercise as familiar as an old friend. In her mind’s eye she saw the frothy, roiling spring in the garden of the Seeker’s temple. As she inhaled the waters calmed, and when she exhaled all ripples faded away.

She smiled coldly.

Marcus-Archelaos smiled in return, sharklike. “Do you know how long I waited up here, waiting, waiting, waiting for you to come to me? I did everything I could to lure you here. At first I was going to infiltrate the fortress and take the commander, or one of his trusted seconds. But I knew you would anticipate that move. I smell the salt you carry. Toss it there.”

He indicated the fires.

Lady Nensela tossed it, casually. In her youth she would have thrown caution to the wind along with the salt, and laughed in the abyssal’s face. Experience checked her. That—and from the corner of her eye she saw Edana maneuver Bessa behind her.

Child of my heart. You have saved me more than you know. And because you saved me I can save you.

The Marcus-thing focused only on Nensela. He must have read something in her face, for he drew back slightly, then rallied.

“Decide.”

I must take my time. And I must be quick.

Lady Nensela’s voice was steady as she answered him. “Decide?”

Marcus held out his free hand. “Come with me.” He held out his fireball-hand. “Or I turn your friends to ash.” A flick of his fingers, and a nearby sorcerer became a human torch.

Moving fast than the blink of an eye, Arrianus levitated the sorcerer into the bronze fountain, barely quenching the man’s cries of pain.

“Enough,” Lady Nensela snapped. Inwardly she sighed, relieved to come to It at last. She chanced a backward glance at Edana. “I told a man to choose sacrifice over fear. I have accepted the same for myself.”

Marcus showed all of his teeth.

Smile now. You never shall again.

Lady Nensela’s reflexes were as lightning. Prepared for this moment, she kept a quiver at her hip. Before anyone could stop her she whipped out an arrow, and plunged it in her heart.

Edana screamed.

Again Arrianus acted. With a flick of his wrist he flung the startled Marcus-thing into the flames and beyond.

Exultant, Lady Nensela’s laugh came in fits and starts, even as she sank to her knees. To her eyes the room had become a whirlpool, swirling about her too powerfully for her to right her perceptions. Time was rushing forward now.

As was her blood.

Bessa watched in horror as Lady Nensela collapsed. The seer opened her mouth as if to speak, but no sound came out. Trembling, she managed to prop herself up on hand. Then her arm buckled, and she lay still upon the floor.

Edana rushed over. With shaking hands and ferocious strength she lifted Nensela, holding her upright in her arms.

Lady Nensela smiled. Blood trickled from her mouth. “The abyssal was a poor strategist,” she rasped, putting every ounce of royal disdain in her voice as she could manage. “What I said to you, of Amathus, do you remember? Influence requires understanding how others think. Eternal, is Archelaos? Bah. Yet without wisdom or insight.” Her face was still, her terror evident in her eyes.

“What have you done?” Edana cried. She gripped the arrow shaft, then stopped. Ta-Setian arrows were always barbed. She frantically looked around the room. “Where’s a healer? Hurry!”

Bessa froze in place, tears streaming down her cheeks. “This can’t be happening,” she whispered. “Amyntas…”

A Restorite sorcerer was already reciting a spell, his words tumbling from his lips. An indigo light enveloped the seer, covering her from head to toe.

“Find her,” Lady Nensela struggled to say. “Lord Senet knows…Selana…Selana will save you all.”

“Don’t leave,” Edana managed.

Lady Nensela’s lashes fluttered. “Have faith…”

She went limp just as the Restorite knelt beside Edana.

“Leave her; let the spell do its job,” he barked.

As if in a trance Edana lowered Lady Nensela gently to the floor, but she held her tight, cradling her face. Someone grabbed Edana from behind, prompting her to lash out in a blind rage. Yet the other persisted, binding her arms at her sides in a powerful embrace. Water droplets fell onto her neck.

Bessa’s tears. “Let her go, Edana. Y-you have to let them help her.”

Defeated, Edana sagged into Bessa’s arms, clasping her as if she were driftwood in the sea.

Arrianus was shouting something, but Edana could not focus, could not concentrate. She watched the physician, who had out his bag with his surgical knives.

Blood pooled over Lady Nensela’s heart, staining her violet gown. Edana’s breath caught. That gown was so quintessentially Lady Nensela, a statement of her defiance and independence and courage.

Hold out for the winter solstice, when all the dead must remain so.

The solstice was barely two weeks away. Despair would not be held at bay; Edana’s chest tightened as one certainty took root in her mind: no healer would be strong enough now to overcome the poison working its way in Lady Nensela’s heart, pumping into her veins and speeding through her body.

And the Interceptor had cut off the healers from the celestials.

A maelstrom whirled in Edana’s mind. She cried out to the Sower.

“Save her!”