Part 5

Pyramids of Alti

When the mirror fogs, I feel

that they are upon me.

I have no escape.

Here, nightmares live freely.

~ from The Room,

Ruminations on Vampirism (1811),

Wilhelm d. Blanc

“I know how one prepares for battle – hunting down those who skirt the law of the modern world is a war of a kind. I am prepared for what is to come in Alti. Even so, I know that no amount of preparation can keep us alive when we ride into battle.”

~ Bek Trent, M.A.S.O

"A black bird tails you at midnight, a white bird tails you at noon.”

Silver looked at Olrier, long used to his cryptic comments. He turned his gaze on her for a moment before staring back at the city, one arm still resting against his knee as he considered the evening to come. It was the night of the new moon, the night the Juran would take the port city. Morning had dawned with the chill, crystal clarity of any other morning in Libertia, and the sun was sinking now, undeterred by Silver’s occasional nervous glare.

The city was impatient. For two weeks, the king’s men had forayed into the outer reaches of the Issurak with increasing regularity, felling the massive trees of the forest and needling the beasts. They found the woods unseasonably quiet. What creatures they happened upon frequently beat a thinly veiled retreat, picking off only those men who strayed too far from safety. This was largely because the Juran were biding their time as the days grew slowly shorter. Winter was indeed almost upon them, though Silver trusted Sori when the woman promised that the snows would not come until after the winter solstice. The first biting days of December, by more modern calendars, nipped at their heels

“It means you are followed by ill luck,” Olrier explained unexpectedly, “In the war with Atlantis, they would send out birds to watch the movements of our armies; white during the day, black after nightfall. Many bore messages between the Atlantian ships.”

Silver nodded, even though he was not looking at her.

“She’s pretty good at fighting bad luck off, usually,” Bek surprised her by saying. He was also staring off into the distance, his gaze turned not to the city of Libertia, but into the trees in the direction of the Grand Castle of Altiannia. He had been somewhat subdued in the last few weeks, saying little to Silver beyond what was absolutely necessary for their day-to-day tasks. It was weird, but except in moments like this, she had no time to worry about it.

Olrier rose with a last glance at the wolf draped across Silver’s legs, ears flicking softly in a dream-laced sleep. Silver’s hands were, as ever, busy mauling the wolf’s thick outer coat.

“Prepare well, both of you. Once night comes, you’ll find we have no time for much of anything,” the vampire warned. Then he strode swiftly away, leaving her to move one hand nervously along her side until it came to rest on the leather hilt of Izathral. Bek saw the motion, and when Silver glanced at him, their eyes met. Green to bronze. For a long moment, neither of them spoke. They averted their gazes instead, anywhere but at each other.

“This might be your last chance to say whatever you’re thinking,” Silver observed then, considering the edge of one of Libertia’s crumbling buildings with more attention than strictly necessary.

“You chose this,” Bek stated in a voice neither angry nor sad. Almost resigned. Silver blinked, unsure what to say.

“What did I choose?” she finally settled for. “We both woke up in this era together. I didn’t choose that.”

“Why did you take the sword, Silver?” he asked quietly. “That’s really all I want to know at this point.”

She glanced at him, but he was not looking at her; he was carefully expressionless. Bek had come close to asking her this question several times already, but it was the first time he had managed it outright. “I told everyone when I took it,” she said, “that I did it for Cevora, and for Alti. For—”

“A place you have no stake in,” Bek interrupted dryly, “a people you know you will never meet again if everything goes our way.”

“Does that make it wrong?” Silver demanded softly. “To protect people because they’re alive in front of you, at that moment? We’re here, Bek, whether we meant to be or not. These people…” she gestured at Libertia, but her hand took in the Issurak as well, the distant mountains of Muritia, the tree wolves, somewhere, preparing for what was to come, “…even for a little while, they are our friends.”

Bek laughed softly.

“Why did you take the sword, Silver?” he repeated, finally looking at her. What she saw in his face, she did not like. “I want you to be completely honest with me, like you haven’t been since the day we met. I want you to be completely honest with yourself.” She fell silent, and he merely nodded slowly, half-smiling, his eyes dark. “You can’t do it.”

Still, the silence stretched. She felt Elorian shift in her lap, glaring at the young man beside her.

“If I’m honest,” he continued after a moment, “I think it’s better if you stay like this. Don’t ask questions. Don’t wonder who you are or why magic found you.”

Seeing her expression waver, he looked away once more.

“I’m dead serious, Silver. And I also don’t think you’re wrong – we do indeed need to fight for the people directly in front of us. Anyway, you heard what Olrier said. I have some things to take care of before tonight.” He stood, following in Olrier’s footsteps. Silver was left to wonder what on earth he was thinking.

Wondering did not make the time pass any more slowly. Hours turned to seconds as she moved through Libertia, muttering to the wolf, oiling her dragon’s crimson scales with a lighter oil than Illian used to preserve the beast’s crimson coloring, and moving automatically through her tasks. The mundane pieces of her day were all that kept her nerves at bay. It did not help that most of Illian’s army had left ahead of the dragon riders to take their positions in the woods at the edge of the city. The beasts left as well. For the first time in Silver’s memory, the Issurak breathed of emptiness. There was no sense of magic or life within its depths. Even the trees seemed to have turned their consciousness elsewhere, and the shadows yawned emptier and more forbidding than ever before.

By the time the sun had fully set, she was half mad with sitting and waiting as the Sacred City of Libertia slowly emptied of its inhabitants. The waiting, somehow, struck her as worse than actually living what was to come, though the cold clench of fear in her gut told her she was lying to herself if she thought that were true.

Finally, near midnight, the remaining dragons gathered, spilling out into a clearing at the edge of Libertia. There, it would be easy to launch themselves skyward when the time came. Silver paced between Seijelar and Skourett, ignoring the sparks that spat from her dragon’s slit nostrils and the green-eyed stare of the wolf. Moving was all she could do to keep from fidgeting with her armor, her fingers traveling again and again to the magicked circlet at her brow. Both would protect her from physical blows to some extent, deflecting small injuries or cushioning her from the impact of a minor blow. Neither would save her life more than once or twice. Not long ago, she had been excited to see the Juran’s emblem sewn into the stiff hide that stretched across her chest, dyed a deep green to signify who she fought for. Now, she wished she could vanish into anonymity, or better yet, turn invisible like the dragons.

“It’s time.”

She jumped at the sound of Bek’s voice. Like the wolf, he watched her silently, eyes wary. She said nothing as she patted Elorian’s head one last time, adjusted Cara’s rope around her hips, and then clambered onto Seijelar’s bony spine. As she settled so that she could easily reach the narrow saddlebags across the dragons’ back, the beast’s wings brushed against her reassuringly.

“Are you ready?”

“Yes.”

The murmured growls and chirps of the dragons, the rustle of wing membranes and scales, the tinkle of their armor and the rasp of steel weaponry – all of these echoed around them. Silver could smell the sulfurous smoke that rose with the dragons’ agitation, as well as the sour scents of fear and sweat that had settled over them all. She felt herself shaking with anticipation. There was no way she could hide it but by fiddling with the clasps on her saddlebags, taking mental stock to be sure she had not left anything she needed behind.

“I will not be far,” Elorian rumbled. Silver looked down, finding it harder to leave the wolf now than she had ever imagined.

“I know,” she choked out. Elorian sat slowly then, staring up at the hatchling dragon. Whatever words passed between them, Silver could not hear. Smoke continued to curl from the crimson dragon’s flared nostrils as it bared its teeth in a scathing grimace. The wolf snarled back.

Perhaps they wished each other luck.

“Urias, with Bek,” Olrier ordered, coming to join them. Vespar stood behind him, and bowed to Seijelar before coming to settle behind Silver on the dragon’s broad back with Olrier. Urias, as commanded, joined Bek on Skourett as well. The hatchlings had practiced carrying multiple riders several times in the past few weeks, and Silver hoped that would be enough tonight.

With everyone settled, she looked around them. In the moonlight, the other dragons shone magnificently, jaws clacking, tails lashing at the empty air. They all carried two or three passengers, and they all knew precisely where they were headed.

Then the signal came to them. It was a whisper from Cevora’s dragon, far ahead of them in the trees. Silver felt Seijelar’s muscles tense and coil beneath her. Like massive sails, the hatchling’s wings rose over their heads, cocked slightly, talons curved towards the sky. She saw the beast’s eyes lift towards the darkened moon, gleaming eerily in the night, gold and then emerald green, snake-slit pupils that dilated when the dragon sought out prey from far above the earth. Black-oil smoke was now curling from its half open mouth, sloughing across its fangs in the dark.

Silver tightened her grip on the simple leather strap around the dragon’s neck.

Then the hatchling’s muscles released beneath her, and Silver rocked backwards so quickly she hardly dared take a breath of the frigid night air. If she or Vespar made some sound, it was whipped away from them too quickly for anyone to hear. They climbed until Silver could see the inky shadows that were the trees spread wide beneath the sky, until the scents of forest and smoke and metal all melded together and she could taste them all at once against her tongue. The wind pressed against them, fierce with winter, until her cheeks burned despite her magic.

Then they split. The others peeled away, destined for points far from her and Bek. Even knowing where they were headed, Silver’s eyes could not follow them away into the night; the dragon’s vanishing magic was too powerful, and the night too dark without the moon. Instead, her gaze turned earthward, riveted to the towers of the castle as it grew ever larger and more intimidating. Eventually, they banked north, and Silver found the eerily straight line that rode the edge of the trees far beneath them – Nersifral, the king’s wall.

“It does not look equal to any dragon,” Seijelar hissed into her mind. Silver agreed, but she did not know what strange magics the Altians might have built into its stone. She could guess.

“Let’s not test it, Seijelar,” she said, using her tongue to warm her teeth when the chill made them ache.

“Not yet, perhaps,” the hatchling responded, “Relios and Avalone have reached their destination.” Silver was glad when the beast remained close to Skourett, setting them down in the woods a little more than half a mile from the wall. They waited in silence, listening for any sign that they had been spotted. None came. The night remained strangely still, as if it waited with them.

“Gilgrech and Sarazar have reached their destination. Visratt tells us the ship is within sight of shore. We wait only for Kestria’s word,” Seijelar rumbled, leaning her head close to Silver. She set her palm on the beast’s bony brow, feeling its hot breath warm the air around them. The others all ranged around the dragons, waiting for either her or Bek to give them the signal.

“Go.”

Both she and Bek motioned at the same instant. The five of them did not hesitate. It had been decided long ago that Olrier would lead. Urias and Vespar would take the rear, while she and Bek remained in the center, where they were least likely to be endangered due to their relative blindness. The forest was pitch black on the night of the new moon, and no one dared use magic or fire to light their path. Luckily, there was sound and, soon enough, a faint light to guide them through the woods. Both were dampened by the king’s wall, and Silver was glad Olrier was in front of her when they finally found it. If he had not been, she would have run straight into the wall in the dark.

Nersifral towered over her head, more than twice her height, and as pitch black as the night around them. A chill radiated off of the stone in waves. As Meian had warned, Silver had the distinct sense it was something she did not want to touch if she could help it. Even so, their destination lay, most likely, on the other side of this wall. She would be counting on Olrier and Urias to find it as quickly as possible.

Olrier glanced at her then, an action visible by the gleam of his eyes in the night, then pointed upward and to their right. It took Silver a few seconds to get her eyes on the sturdy oak he had spotted. Once she had, she tapped Cara’s rope, her command given. It uncoiled from her waist, the hooked end remaining with her while the other looped itself several times around a thick limb several yards higher than the wall. Vespar vanished up the rope so fast she was almost unprepared when he tugged three times. That meant all clear.

Silver gestured to Olrier, letting go of the rope. It swung back behind them as Vespar kicked off the tree, throwing himself over the wall.

There was no time after that. Everyone climbed ahead of her, so fast she felt like the slow kid on the playground by the time she got to the top herself, peering over the cold stone. If she gave herself time to think what about what she was about to do, Silver knew she would never make it over the wall. Luckily, she was too shocked by the sight of Bek wrestling with someone in the flickering light of the guards’ watch stones to think. Tiny arcs of blue-white electricity flashed in the night between them. Like Vespar had done, she kicked off the tree, swung, grunted frustratedly when she realized she did not have enough momentum, and then kicked off the tree again. Letting go at the last minute, she felt herself drop like a stone over the wall.

The ground rushed up at her, and she thanked half a year of Holtson and Olrier’s drills that when she landed and rolled, the only thing she did was slam her shoulder into the ground a little harder than she would have liked. Magic helped. It probably helped more than she could ever quantify, if her earliest introduction to the MASO’s training exercises was anything to go by. Silver came up with her sword drawn and Cara’s rope wrapped around one arm, taking stock of the chaos.

Urias and Bek stood over the man he had been wrestling a moment ago. Olrier was tracing a series of pale, gleaming stones on the inside of the wall, mouth moving as if he read something aloud. Just as her eyes found him, Vespar kicked over the brazier filled with watch stones. They spilled like fire across the hard-packed earth, their blue glow muted considerably. Even so, the light caught on several dark shapes splayed unnaturally in their path. People, she realized. Guards. And a hyena-like creature with a row of hooked spikes down its spine.

“One got away,” the vampire barked, looking at Olrier. “We didn’t expect them to have dogs.” Silver realized for the first time that every one of them except Olrier had their weapons drawn. She felt her heart in her throat, throbbing painfully.

“They’ll be back with reinforcements soon,” Bek observed.

“Urias,” Olrier snarled, turning to look at the pale-haired vampire. Urias went to him. Silver looked between Vespar and Bek, who had both shifted closer to the wall, out of sight around the curve of what she suspected was the path the escaped guard must have run down.

“I hear them,” Vespar muttered, casting a glance in her direction, and then looking once more at Olrier. There was no response from the two vampires, but Vespar caught her gaze and jerked his head in their direction regardless. Silver went, realizing as she did that her legs were shaking. So were her arms. Even her fingers, wrapped tight around Izathral. She gulped, hoping no one else could see.

“Five hundred paces,” Vespar warned.

“Relios and Avalone say the pillar is down.”

“Sori’s group is done,” Silver said urgently.

“Any of these could be the core,” Urias hissed under his breath, “the architects did this on purpose.”

“It has to be somewhere within reach,” Olrier said calmly, apparently unfazed by their impending doom, “somewhere it could be replenished.”

“What did Sori and the others do, Seijelar? There’s more than one stone that could be the core,” Silver demanded softly, knowing the dragon would hear.

“I have asked. They’ve run into trouble, and the dragons are not answering.”

“We could just destroy them all,” Silver said, glancing in Vespar’s direction as shouts and the sound of voices filled the night. She could see people approaching now, the watch fires farther down the wall flickering against their armor. Magic shot through her like adrenaline when she heard the twang of a bowstring, and her barrier came up seconds before an arrow whizzed past her ear. Too close. She had almost died already.

The next arrow clattered against Silver’s barrier, and she remembered clearly what Jin and Ibald had told her about magic arrows that pierced even the strongest of barriers. It seemed all too certain to her that the next arrow to come her way would be one of those.

“Guys?” she asked, twisting to stare desperately at Olrier and Urias.

“Is that suggestion coming from Seijelar, or you?” Olrier said, not turning to look at her. “It won’t help us, unless you plan to die here today. There must be…ah, I see,” he reached for something overhead as Silver watched Vespar disengage from the wall, slashing at the first guard to come within range. Bek’s airborne weapons flew past him, slicing through the oncoming group. There must have been twenty of them.

“Avalone tells me the core is enclosed. There is a channel to open it. Visratt tells us the fish people have felled the pillar to the north.”

Urias rushed past Silver then, and she dropped her barrier as she whirled towards Olrier. They had found whatever Seijelar had been describing, causing the stone of the wall to slide back and reveal a massive sapphire as big around as her fist. It glowed with an eerie pinkish hue. There was no need for anyone to tell her what to do; their plan was back on track. She rushed to Olrier’s side as he turned towards the violence behind her.

“Don’t look back,” the vampire warned, “just do what you must.”

“Seijelar, the last pillar — is it down?” Silver demanded, wincing as someone screamed behind her. It did not sound like someone she knew, and it did not sound like Olrier; since he was the one in charge of shielding her now, that was important.

“All the pillars are down,” the dragon roared in her mind.

Without one more second of hesitation, Silver raised Izathral over her head, thrusting it sharply into the sapphire. She expected it to crack or fracture, and that it did. Her blade sank into the gemstone with a sound like a gunshot. She did not expect that she would feel a jolt like electricity through her body, a heat that shot straight down her spine. Izathral vibrated with the magic from the spell she was trying to break, and her magic echoed that power as well, bubbling up like magma in her bones. There were more screams behind her. Something hissed past her, inches from her shoulder blades.

Silver leaned back, trying to pull the sword loose, only to find it lodged in place. She had not expected that, either. Goosebumps sprang up along her flesh as she sucked in a sharp breath, trying to tug at the blade, but feeling like all the strength had gone out of her.

“Is it done?” Olrier demanded of her.

Silver wanted to turn and answer him, but suddenly, she was frozen. Dread crept down her spine, turning her flesh to ice. This was just like the Zara. The same fear. The same unnatural panic. The same sense that there were eyes on her back, penetrating her very soul. She was shaking harder than before, sweat dripping slowly down the side of her face.

Watch out.

“Silver,” the vampire grabbed her shoulder roughly as he leaned against the pillar, “we have to—” Something made him pause, and their eyes met. Her momentary paralysis was gone.

“Seijelar!” she shouted, drawing on all of her magical strength to pull the sword from the wall and drag Olrier back with her. In that instant, something plummeted from the sky to snap at the space where they had stood seconds before. Silver was too slow to avoid the thing’s head when it realized it had missed – its skull swung and slammed into them both with the force of a small car. Thrown off her feet, she landed hard several feet from Olrier, momentarily too stunned to rise.

She was, of course, not too stunned to see what had attacked them. A dragon. One of the king’s dragons. It leered down at them, sapphire eyes glinting in the light of the watch stones.

And then something slammed into its other side. The dragon tumbled sideways, snapping like a dog at the air above it. A second dragon’s angry trumpeting filled the night, momentarily drawing movement on the ground to a halt. Silver thought it must be Skourett who had come to their rescue. There were two dozen guards now, either actively fighting with Bek, Urias, and Vespar, who had their backs to the wall, or trying to avoid being crushed by the writhing dragons. Being crushed seemed like the most likely way any of them would be killed at the moment.

Silver had never been so happy to see her crimson dragon as she was in the moment that the beast’s head rose above the wall behind the other dragons, green eyes alight in the night. The hatchling’s jaws gaped, flames licking from between its parted jaws. Silver had a better vantage point than anyone else from which to watch her dragon breathe fire for the first time, releasing a great gout of flame that filled the night with the scents of burning hair and flesh, and with screams she knew would chase her into her nightmares for years to come. Silver had never heard that sort of agony. Never seen it. Never watched people’s flesh melt from their bones as they turned to run and their lungs boiled.

Her relief turned to horror. But even then, there was no time to be horrified. Olrier was dragging her to her feet, trying to get her out of the way as Skourett was finally dislodged from the other dragon. Bek’s hatchling hit the ground and immediately rose again, fangs bared and eyes flashing. The other dragon was larger and heavier, but slower to rise.

“Come, brother,” Seijelar hissed, “there’s no time.”

Silver understood what her dragon wanted when Skourett dove to a halt in front of her and Olrier. The vampire leapt up without hesitation. Silver sheathed her sword and followed, in one motion. Somehow, Vespar was right behind her. Skourett shot skyward at nearly the same time as the king’s dragon, barely avoiding being knocked from the air. Flames spat from the hatchling’s jaws, an angry burst of crimson and gold. The other dragon was undeterred.

“It is done. The others march on the city,” Seijelar’s voice still came to Silver as Seijelar swept past, snapping at the fragile wing membranes of the dragon that chased them. “Kestria would have us go to them.”

“If we can get away from this dragon!” Silver shouted, wondering if her dragon would be able to read her thoughts well enough in the tumult. Seijelar roared something, and Skourett suddenly pinned both wings, dropping them several hundred feet. Something shot by them, filling the space they had filled seconds before. The enemy dragon roared, climbing higher. Meanwhile, Silver had a clear view of who had come to help them, silhouetted against a sky rapidly growing lighter with dawn.

The nightwings.

“They will distract him,” Skourett was the one who spoke to her, glancing back with one great, bronze eye. Silver did not know what to do but nod. That seemed to be enough. They sped away as more nightwings filled the skies, coming from the north. In this era, Silver had not spoken much with the great bats, and they paid the dragons no heed as they passed. The enemy dragon’s enraged roar followed them as Skourett and Seijelar raced towards the port city, pressed back by the wind. Silver’s face felt as numb as the rest of her. What could she even say? What horrors still lay ahead of them?

She received her answer when the trees dropped away at the edge of the Grand Castle. In a lifetime, Silver could have never imagined what she saw in that moment. It was an image she knew would burn itself forever into her mind.

Fire twisted to the skies. Billows of dark smoke rose to coat the horizon, alight with flashes of magic. Near the edge of the Issurak, the great trees clawed forward, carving jagged chunks from the king’s wall and sweeping bodies aside like ants. Soldiers in the Juran silver and green hugged the tree line, pressed back for the moment by men in resplendent black and crimson – the king’s men. Arrows darkened the sky above the wall, and magics gathered like storm clouds overhead.

And yet…

Most likely, no one saw from the ground what she and the others saw from the sky. Already, the king’s men receded, drawing back behind Nersifral. They were reforming their ranks, making way for what looked like great stone monoliths, tottering on four rocky legs. A dark tide of men spewed from the gates of Altiannia, many of them mounted on the feathered, reptilian steeds of the island. Some had bows as tall as they were, something Silver had not seen in all her months of training. Broken bridges spanned waterways that ran fast and dark among the ruins, carrying refuse and wood and dust back to the ocean – Meian had promised that the western perimeter of the city had been razed, but she doubted he had seen the barricades that filled the streets, the great circles that blazed in places, magics doubtless dangerous and horrific.

As Silver looked on, a blast lit up the earth, bright as if stardust had rained down from the skies, and nothing but a smoldering crater was left in its wake. The Juran had done something; a great chunk of the wall was gone.

“Drop,” Skourett growled, the sound vibrating through Silver’s legs. She knew what the dragon meant. Gunpowder had been, until a few months ago, something the Altians knew little about. Now they had clay disks, just large enough to fill her hand, filled with a mixture of gunpowder, iron, and silver. They were inscribed with a circle to make them into deadly shrapnel bombs. All of the dragon riders had them, no matter how little magic they could use…and she could use a lot, if she allowed herself to. If only she could stop shaking. If only she had not been reminded only moments ago of that terrible, searing power…

“Ahead of the break in the wall?” she verified.

Skourett turned sharply, banking to bring them closer to the wall. That was answer enough.

Silver reached into the saddlebags, pulling out one of the disks. This, too, they had practiced.

“Eight,” she declared, counting Skourett’s wing beats.

“Five.”

Bek dropped one of the bombs ahead of them, from aboard Seijelar. The air around them warmed and she felt her stomach drop as they rose sharply. A plume of fire and smoke filled the air less than a quarter mile ahead of them, obscuring her vision.

“Two.”

She gritted her teeth, letting her magic fill the disk. Her magic felt entirely normal, and she felt herself relax despite the fact that she was now holding an activated bomb.

“Drop!” she shouted.

Silver flicked the disk outward, carefully avoiding the down sweep of Skourett’s wings as the dragon bore them abruptly upward. She heard the sound of the bomb blast as the air warmed again. After a moment, she realized she could smell it as well.

“Pass.”

Before Silver could say anything, Skourett curled both great wings forward, shooting earthward. Flames lit up her vision, temporarily blinding her, as the dragon breathed fire down over the enemy army. They left a flaming trail in their wake, and one of the great monoliths turned to follow them across the sky with painted eyes. Flames coiled from its stone flesh, charred black. It did not slow.

“Dragonfire won’t work on them,” Olrier observed, seeing the direction of her gaze, “but they can’t reach us here. Keep your eyes on the archers instead.”

Silver sincerely hoped he was right. She was still hoping when her eyes found another of the king’s dragons, hovering some three hundred feet over the battlefield. There was a moment where she wondered why it had stopped there, wings splayed and neck curled downward. Green eyes narrowing, she began to ask Skourett what he thought the beast and its rider had planned.

And then it turned its serpentine body, sliding into a dive more smoothly than any of the hatchlings could dream of doing. That was when she understood, and understood too late.

“Seijelar!” she screamed, half-standing as she apparently forgot she was riding a dragon flying more than a hundred feet off the ground. Hands pulled her back as Skourett struggled not to drop her. She wondered if any of them saw when the king’s dragon collided with hers, both writhing bodies plummeting towards the earth.

Skourett did.

She heard it in his scream of rage, though she knew that sound was not meant for Seijelar.

It was meant for Bek.

And with one sweep of his wings, Skourett followed in the path of the other dragons.

“We can’t go down there!” Olrier shouted urgently, leaning closer behind her. Silver could feel Vespar’s hands on her arm as well, both of them keeping her rooted to the dragon’s back.

“It’s not me!” she cried, looking back at them. She jerked her head forward. “Skourett! Skourett, stop!”

The crimson-streaked dragon trumpeted, fire spewing into the ranks of soldiers below, pressing them back. They were already trying to escape the dragons that writhed in the dirt ahead of them, so most of them never saw Skourett coming.

Blinded once more, Silver snapped her teeth shut on her tongue when they jerked to a halt, filling her mouth with the salty taste of blood. When she realized they were on the ground, however, she immediately shook herself free of Olrier and Vespar, hurling herself from Skourett’s back. The dragon hardly noticed. It was raging, snapping at anything that drew near, looking for some opening.

There was no need for one.

Clearly, the king’s dragon and rider had seen them arrive, and did not feel the need to do battle with two dragons and however many of their riders; the enemy dragon hardly glanced at Silver as it launched itself skyward, leaving her out of breath and unsure what to do. Seijelar was alive, certainly. The great beast was struggling to twist onto all four feet, tail thrashing and jaws catching two armored men as they drew too near.

“Seijelar!” Silver screamed, trying to get close, but to no avail. They only had seconds to get away, and those seconds slipped through her fingers like sand. It was in those precious seconds that Silver realized what she had done, and where exactly she now stood - surrounded, on every side, by soldiers in black and crimson. Those soldiers were struggling back to their feet, leveling their weapons at the enemies in their ranks.

There must have been a hundred weapons leveled at her alone.

Is this where—

She clenched her teeth, clamping down on the thought. Whether they would live or die had not been decided yet. They would fight for that sliver of a chance. They would fight…

Her fingers lingered over Izathral. Her nose burned with the scents of dirt and sweat and blood, so thick it was difficult to breathe, and her ears rang with such a deafening racket that she could not hear much over the hammering of her own heart. None of that mattered. Just a moment ago, she had not been alone. Now she was. Every single one of them was fighting for their lives.

The next few seconds blurred together. A barrier she raised in a flash saved her from a blast of magic that took a chunk out of the dirt beside her. Cara’s rope saved her from the swing of a weapon she never saw coming, and she was grateful for that even as she unwound it from her hips – she needed a weapon with some reach, and the chain and sickle fighting style Olrier had taught her would do better than any sword. It was all she could do to react, finding purchase with the narrow sickle at the end of the rope, or with her foot, even once with her elbow. She was desperate and overwhelmed, alive only because she had been those things a thousand times. Under better circumstances, of course.

And then someone caught her under the chin with their fist and Silver felt her eyes tear up. Again, her magic saved her when something heavy slammed into the side of her ribs. She wanted to be thankful whatever it was had been blunt, but instead she hit the ground, hard, every ounce of breath knocked out of her lungs. Those ribs were broken. She had zero doubts, and not only because Urias had broken one of her ribs only a few weeks ago. Boots trampled the dirt around her as she rolled, catching someone behind the knee with her sickle. They made a sound she would have rather not heard, but for the moment she did not care; she was too busy gritting her teeth as her broken ribs ground against the uneven earth.

Then Seijelar’s fire blazed through the space ahead of her, buying her precious seconds to drag herself to her feet. When something moved behind her, Silver spun, glaring as her magic threw her would-be attacker back.

And she was back in the fray.

A barrier here, deflection there, fire where she could focus long enough to bring it to the fore. She could feel herself creeping ever closer to the edge of her own abilities, and her magic seemed to respond to that. It filled her up, fiery like rage, slipping between the cracks of her control. Exhaustion did not help. Her time was running out with every ragged breath, but she had no chance to look back and figure out what was happening with Seijelar or Bek or anyone else.

Everything changed when something flashed into her vision, an arc of golden light over her head. Silver stumbled under the weight of a blow to her left, feeling the blood well instantly across her bicep. Tingling numbness followed the pain, sweeping from her fingers to her shoulder. Cara’s rope slipped from her fingers.

Somehow, in the space of a breath, she had Izathral in her other hand, sliding up the blade of a stranger with eyes like the sky. Electric blue. Icy cold. Her defense gave her time to jump back, reaching behind her with her magic and lashing out to gain space. She half expected that someone would attack her, but surprisingly, no one did. The king’s men, all around her, had stopped moving. It took her longer than it should have to figure out why.

“That’s quite a sword you have there,” the stranger in front of her said, drawing her eyes. His face was familiar, too like Illian’s to be coincidence. Sandy brown hair, a scornful frown, and that expression…she had seen something like it on Illian’s face only once, when he scolded one of Holtson’s trainees for showing up to training drunk out of his mind. This man was also, Silver realized sharply, one of the general’s in the king’s army; the gold in his sleeves and belt gave him away. “You’re not the one I expected to be wielding it. Who are you?”

Silver was at a loss for words, and the general seemed to see as much. He took a sharp step forward. Again, she saw the golden light around her, coming from five or six different angles. Two she deflected, a third Cara’s rope caught, and that was a bad idea. Sharp pain traveled down both her legs, come and gone just long enough to sap the strength from her limbs and throw her to the ground. For half a second, Silver was too dazed to do more than get Izathral out in front of her, eyeing the stranger as he glared down at her.

What had happened? She had no idea. The general caught her blade with his a second time. As Silver’s fingers went numb and Izathral was wrenched from her grasp, she understood too late to do anything.

Electricity.

Seijelar’s roar shattered the heavens, but in the chaos, Silver had moved too far from her dragon for the beast to help her now. She looked up into the face of the blue-eyed man, seeing that he was looking past her already. There was no recognition in that gaze. No regret. None of her desperation. There was simply no space for her in his eyes. She was already dead. The golden light of the sun lapped against his blade as he raised it over his head, and then sharply brought it down in a blow intended to end her life.

Instead, it landed on Illian’s blade.

Silver blinked, feeling tears rolling slowly down her face. How? One moment, she had faced her death. Now she faced Illian’s armored back, unable to do more than stare. There was no pause. Illian twisted, aiming a swift kick at the general’s groin. They disengaged as the other man escaped, barely moving outside the radius of Illian’s longer, thinner sword. There was a pause where Silver forgot to move, maybe even forgot to breathe, but a part of her remembered she had to get up and get out of the way.

She had to get to Seijelar.

Her eyes flew across the battlefield, past the soldiers that had somehow come between her and her dragon. They were needling Seijelar and Skourett with magic and arrows and spears. For every weapon the dragons crumbled or burned, for every man they snapped in half with jaws like steel clamps, another exposed the weaknesses in their shimmering scales. Even from a distance, Silver could see the blood that seeped from Seijelar’s flanks, oily in the light of dawn. And as the men parted, a massive stone monolith approached across the packed earth. Illian’s dragon, Zarius, had ahold of it with both rear paws, wings spread wide and fire spewing from both gaping jaws.

“Go, Seijelar!” she shouted, feeling her dragon’s eyes turn towards her.

“We go together.”

“Take the others and get into the air. I’ll go with Illian!”

Even across the distance, she felt her dragon’s refusal. Skourett snapped at the crimson hatchling before turning and leaping into the air. Silver did not have a chance to see if Seijelar followed or if Bek was on the dragon’s back – her sword’s name brought her back to the two men in front of her.

“She seems to have an awful lot of faith in you, Illian,” the general was saying. Silver felt his gaze on her, hard and unforgiving.

“With good reason,” Illian stated flatly.

“Who is she that you came to save her? How can someone other than our srinn carry Izathral?”

A cold wind was licking at the back of Silver’s ankles, growing steadily more insistent. It was enough to make her sway as she stood, clutching at her wounded arm. The movement made her aware of a gash in her thigh, slowly staining her thick pants red.

Illian had no intention of answering. Even if the other man – his brother, Cifa, or so she suspected from the descriptions she had heard in the previous weeks – could not see that, she could. There were visible eddies of wind swirling around Illian’s narrow blade, obscuring the fragile steel in a shifting haze. Power emanated from him, so overwhelming and terrible that it was suffocating. Cifa seemed unconcerned.

“Illian, you are a traitor to our srinn. By the laws that govern this kingdom, your head is his. Regrettably, the same can be said of our kuirsrinn. I am doing you an honor, brother, rarely reserved for the battlefield. This is your execution.”

“There is no honor in war, Cifa. Today least of all,” Illian responded.

Illian’s brother narrowed his blue eyes, taking a slow breath. There was a hint of frustration in his features, but that was all.

“Very well,” Cifa growled, raising his blade and angling it at Illian’s neck. “Estilo. Ruv shivatju.”

Silver understood now why Cevora had been upset that she had used that phrase; it was meant for moments like this. An old custom. A final farewell.

For a moment, all was silent. Both men might as well have been carved from stone, no different from the great monolith that tried to drag the dragons from the sky as Skourett finally drew Seijelar away from the ground. Illian’s dragon was with them, its heart stopping eyes raking her from high above. Zarius’s gaze was so like the Zara’s that for an instant Silver could not imagine that the beast had ever been anything else. Out of the corners of her eyes, she could see the general’s soldiers shifting into position behind her, their weapons ready.

And then the eternal second ended.

Illian lunged forward and feinted to the side so quickly that her eyes could barely follow more than his shadow. Cifa parried and their blades sent up silvery sparks…again, and again. Illian had taken the offensive and he was unwilling to stop, relentlessly hacking away at the opposing man’s every exposed feature. His dangerously thin blade jabbed in and out of Cifa’s reach so quickly that it seemed impossible his brother could possibly evade every strike. Yet evade them all he did, refusing to give Illian distance, pressing himself into the dangerous space between them.

Meanwhile, the wind rose and fell, seeming to shake and moan as Illian’s blade cleaved the air and it shuddered back into place with a whistling crash. His blade left a trail with every strike – a shimmering afterimage of wind, magic, and dust. From everything Silver had learned, Cifa’s style made sense. Left with a short blade curved for slashing rather than stabbing, he had little advantage in keeping Illian’s distance. His magic, too, was more difficult to dodge closer at hand; golden arcs of electricity danced around the two of them, filling the air with the scent of ozone. If it was incredible that Cifa dodged Illian’s sword-strikes, it was equally incredible that Illian evaded his magic.

Silver’s eyes found Izathral, still on the ground several feet away from her. Before she could even move, she saw the glimmer of a glaive less than a foot from her neck.

Cifa and Illian were again charging at each other. This time, their blades met and crossed before them. There was a moment where the air around them surged with magic. Illian’s blade shattered.

Silver felt herself tense, eyes widening.

Cifa lost no time in his attempt to deliver a finishing blow, and Illian equally lost no time in forcing himself out of the way. Silver had never seen anyone use the air to propel themselves like that, and his brother’s scowl said Cifa had not either.

“There’s the second blade,” Cifa roared, his lightning following Illian to char the earth around his brother’s magical barrier. It was a long moment before Silver saw what he meant; the shards of Illian’s sword, scattered in the dirt, rose suddenly in a deadly rain. The sun reflected off of them like a thousand glimmering golden leaves. Those shards drifted lazily for a moment before whirring into motion. They formed two blades that hovered, one above Illian’s left hand, and one above his right.

Cifa’s sword spat sparks as it cleaved towards his brother’s skull, but he was at a disadvantage now in more ways than one. Illian’s weapons were unpredictable, lightning fast, and difficult to see.

As Silver watched, the earth unexpectedly rocked underneath her. She narrowly avoided taking the glaive through her throat as she was thrown to the ground. Shouts filled the air around her, drawing her eyes back, up and up into the golden stare of Zarius. The monolith was right next to the dragon, its stone charred and misshapen, gemstone eyes worn smooth to glitter bewitchingly in the painted channels that circled its rocky flesh. Again, the ground vibrated and shook as it swung one massive arm, buckling the earth where the dragon had been only a moment before.

Zarius belched fire in response. Silver could feel the dragon’s magic at work, breaking down the spells that kept the monolith in motion, and simultaneously turning the earth around its arm to glass. Silent in its frustrations, the monolith attempted to wrench its arm free of the ground, finding itself stuck. All of this was happening barely twenty feet away from Illian’s battle for his life.

And then crimson scales rained from the sky as Seijelar plummeted into the creature’s rocky spine, crumbling its core. Charred rock scattered. Seijelar’s eyes met Silver’s, blazing emeralds hot with fury.

“Now we go.”

Silver scrambled to her feet. She started to take a step forward…

And Zarius screamed.

Already, that day, she had heard too many heart wrenching cries. But the cry of a dragon, half roar, half a terrible keening…it made her heart ache. Silver clapped her hands to her ears, staring in bewilderment as the great black dragon dove forward, nearly crushing her.

She turned with him.

And she saw Cifa’s sword in the dirt, several feet away from him and his brother. She saw a second blade, protruding from between Illian’s shoulder blades. It should have taken her longer to understand that they had used the same trick, but right then, there was no question in her mind. Both of them had a hidden sword. Cifa had known from the beginning what Illian had up his sleeve.

Seijelar roared after her as Silver also dove in Illian’s direction. Sara had trained her for a moment like this. She could save Illian. She had to.

Zarius never reached Cifa, though the man did take several hurried steps back, ripping his sword from Illian’s chest and squaring off against the beast. The earth rose up in a crumbling wall in front of the dragon instead, driving him back as two of the king’s dragons landed around them. Silver had no idea how she got past them and the wall. Most likely, they ignored her. She did not even have a weapon, and there were two dragons in the vicinity, wreaking havoc.

Ignoring Cifa, who was throwing his magic against the dragon, she ran to Illian, collapsing into a kneel. Blood was bubbling up over his armor, but the wound was so small…surely…

Heedless of the blood or the din around her, Silver leaned forward and tried with frustration to keep her hair out of her eyes as she placed her hand over Illian’s wound. She willed it to heal. Sara had not trained this, exactly. The witch had no magic, and she had never even indicated that she knew Silver could heal anyone with her power. But Sara had taught her that she needed to cover the wound, that it must have pierced a lung, that she had everything she needed to keep infection at bay in Seijelar’s saddlebags…if only she could save Illian’s life now.

After all of her training, Silver’s magic came easily to her, rushing like water through her palms. The flesh healed beneath her fingers, yet the sinister wound remained beneath. And she already knew that she could not heal it. Not without doing as she had done for Biarn months before – drawing from the wellspring of the magic that she had feared to touch since the plague took her, and drawing the man before her back from the brink of death. It could kill her, too. She knew that now. It would certainly leave her vulnerable. But she could not hesitate, not if she wanted to succeed.

Tightening her focus, she reached to the darkest depths of her heart. The magic was there. It was always there. Bewitching. Terrible.

Fear drained the blood from her face.

Without even touching that power, she could feel its heat. It paralyzed her. How had she saved Biarn? It had come to her so naturally then that she had never stopped to wonder.

How had she never been afraid?

There were tears, she realized, streaming hot and bitter down her neck. No matter how hard I try, I fail. She leaned forward, crying out in her mind for someone to save Illian, and to save her. I can’t protect anyone. Who else has to pay the price? Friends? Family? This cannot be the world I came here to find. A world like this...

A cold hand encompassed her own over Illian’s wound, and she nearly looked up with the expectation that someone had come to help her. But this hand was streaked with blood, and she realized after only a second more that it was Illian slowly prying her fingers from his wound. He was staring up into her face, pleading her to look at him.

How many more people will I have to watch die?

“Don’t, Silver. Whatever it is…you are, you are the only hope…I have for us. Whatever power…brought you here…I had to protect you this time…so, for me…” he took a labored breath and gripped her hand more tightly, “for me…run away…run now…and to Cevora, tell…I did…because of the curse…” Silver stared at him expectantly, grasping to the fact that he was still speaking to her, wondering how it was possible to lose someone so fast.

“Illian, I’ll take you to her. Illian!” she begged, staring at him as he stared up at her.

Silence.

Cold and empty.

Somehow, she knew he was gone.

Darkness momentarily engulfed her vision. Icy fingers clutched at her heart, ate at her soul. Her breathing was fast and shallow, and she sensed her magic straining to be free. What would it do? Could it save him? Or would it threaten to kill her again? She was too terrified of feeling it beneath her skin, burning the life from her bones, to let it do its work.

Her expression hardened. This was her fault. She had hesitated when she could have saved him.

Zarius’s screams still filled the air, joined now by the cries of the other dragons, and the shouts of the king’s soldiers. The Zara’s lament really had been her, the person his rider had died to protect, and the person who could have saved him if she had tried. Of course Zarius would hate her, and of course he could not kill her easily; saving her life had been Illian’s final act. His final will. Now, Zarius would follow her shadow for seven hundred years, suffering and tormented.

“Silver, in front of you! Silver!”

She was momentarily so relieved to hear Bek’s voice – she had not known whether he was even alive after Seijelar plummeted to the earth with him on her back – that she did not comprehend the message in his words.

“Raise your eyes!”

She looked up sharply, startled by the urgency in her dragons’ voice. Cifa stood looking down at her, eyes immeasurably terrifying when they found hers. He looked awful, pale and bloodied, his armor riddled with hairline cracks. That did not stop him from stabbing her.

There was an instant of shock, a flash of discomfort, and then a peace that swallowed everything but her mind. Silver was still screaming inside when her body gave in, still fighting as black crept in from the edges of her vision. There was no breath to breathe. She drowned without understanding what it was to drown, feeling only the insidious warmth that expanded from her core, horrifyingly comfortable at a time when her mind knew she should not be comfortable.

Silver looked up again into Cifa’s face as she collapsed to the ground.

No.

There were so many voices around her, all fading slowly. They were a thousand miles away, at the surface of the world, and she was at the bottom of the darkest waters she had ever known.

I can’t die yet.

Death was oblivion. The end.

She was terrified, and angry. So angry that her wrath eclipsed every iota of fear. So angry that, at the bottom of those dark waters, with the black of death all around her, she turned her head towards the surface. There was light, filtering hazily down from above.

The lake…

Twisting, she reached, prepared to drag herself up out of that dark pit…

And then she stood, her hand halfway out the window of the white room. Snowflakes settled on her fingers, icy cold. They did not melt anymore. Her flesh was cold as well; cold as ice.

For a long moment, Silver did not move. She had no wish to. Her heart felt empty, her head heavy, as if she was only just waking from a deep slumber. Once more, she was within the castle, staring down over Alti. Alone. The world slept. Alti slept.

It only waited for her.

Finally, she dropped her arm. Every action felt so deliberate. She knew what she needed to do. Silver turned towards the mirror, eyeing it with a gaze still and dark. Cracks snaked across its gleaming surface. They had never been there before. She stared back at herself, hair dark, intermixed with flecks of copper, freckles sharp against her pale skin. They did not stand out so sharply as her eyes.

Bloody crimson.

Just like that day at the outpost.

Under her gaze, the glass buckled with a sharp crack. Pieces began to fall away, tinkling to the hard floor beneath the mirror. It was all her doing. She had no choice.

Not now.