A Draw of Kings

42

THE COMING OF THE KING





MARTIN STARED AT THE PRIMUS, his mind struggling to think past his abhorrence of Enoch Sten’s observation. “What question are we supposed to ask?”

The primus shook his head. Martin turned to Luis and Willem, found himself clutching their robes in shaking hands though he couldn’t recall moving to close the space between them. “You’ve trained your whole lives for this! What is the question?”

Luis drew a breath. Beads of sweat appeared on his head. “We know Errol is supposed to be in battle and Liam is supposed to be here. We only require the next query.”

“Can you cast for that?” Martin asked.

The three men shook their heads at him. “Too complicated,” Sten said.

“And too time consuming,” Willem echoed.

Luis nodded. “We must choose the best question we are able and hope.”

Martin stared at his friend as if he’d become unrecognizable. “We stand on the edge of destruction and you’re telling me we must guess?”

“No, Your Excellency.” Luis bowed. “You must choose.”

Martin’s lips had already closed from their openmouthed indignation to frame the question “Me?” when he caught himself.

“You are the archbenefice and one of the solis,” Luis continued. “If you cannot discern the question, it cannot be determined.”

Martin stilled. Could it be possible? Until now, he’d waited for those times when he felt the presence of Aurae, waiting for what he’d once considered unknowable to stir the air and tell him the will of Deas. Could he inquire? Who was he to demand an answer from Deas?


But there was more to his hesitation. Honesty compelled him to admit as much. He didn’t want to inquire of Deas or listen for Aurae. Lots didn’t require the personal interaction with something incomprehensible, something whose vastness frightened him. And casting was resolute, the answer absolute, honed to surety by hundreds of years of research by the conclave.

So long as they knew which question to ask.

Benefices and readers filled the hall, no longer milling about, but watching. With a flush of embarrassment, he realized many of them had witnessed their exchange. Liam stood in front of the dais, his hand upon his sword, as if he expected to draw it any moment.

Luis and Willem and Sten waited.

Emma reappeared at his side, sliding through the door at a run, her thick brown hair streaming behind her. She skidded to a stop three feet from him, incorporating a bow into the motion. “That’s all of them, Your Excellency. They’re all here.”

The girl’s interruption served to focus his thoughts. Perhaps it couldn’t be done, but he would not leave it unattempted. In the end, the world was Deas’s, to save or sacrifice as he chose. He mounted the dais and sat in the chair reserved for the archbenefice, his chair, and inquired of the three.

The air in the room stilled.

He looked upon Liam and felt a stir on the back of his neck as if the castle had sighed. At the least, Illustra needed a king and there were formalities to be observed. Yes, he knew what must be done next. “Honored benefices and readers, I will be brief. Battle rages and we must make haste. Illustra needs a king. In the person of Captain Liam of the watch, I believe we have one, but he must be confirmed. I request the conclave to cast the question confirming him. Is Liam to be king?”

He turned to address the Judica. The benefices had found their chairs at last. “Members of the Judica, please stand if you so agree.”

Dozens of red-robed men rose from their seats. The conclave didn’t wait for the order—two hundred readers began their cast.



Their wedge surged forward as the pikes melted into the flanks. Out of the corner of his eye, Errol saw Merakhi soldiers split left and right to attack them from the sides. His forces, concentrating on their forward attack, took grievous losses. The unending rain of arrows exacted horrendous damage on the enemy crossing the river, turning the water a dark russet colored by mud and the blood of all who fell there. Yet scores upon scores of Merakhi soldiers and spawn made their way to Escarion’s side of the river to join the attack.

Only a hundred paces separated Errol from Belaaz, but the sheer number of soldiers separating them seemed insurmountable. As quickly as a soldier from either side died, they were replaced by two or three more. The wedge slowed, its pace crawling. Time crept as the two sides sought advantage.

Without warning, the Merakhi on Illustra’s left flank peeled off to attack the archers, rushing the knoll. Possessed Merakhi drove the soldiers before them in a headlong charge toward the bowmen. Errol watched, the pounding of his heart rocking him back and forth in the saddle, as if the ground moved beneath him.

The bowmen refused to be deterred from their assigned targets. He could see them, each man equipped with a longbow and uncountable arrows placed point down in the turf before them, drawing and shooting without slowing, seconds from being butchered.

A long peal of thunder filled the air.

Despair tore at Errol’s throat. “No.”

Rale caught his look, darted a glance toward the archers, and shook his head. “If they change targets, lad, we’ll be washed under. If we don’t reach the malus soon, we won’t reach them at all.”

Errol looked ahead. Their wedge had managed to shrug off the attacks on the flanks so far, but they would never make it to the center of the Merakhi position before the archers were swarmed under.

Rale reached across his horse to grip his shoulder. “Watch, lad, and you’ll see why Cruk is accounted the best tactician in the kingdom.”

A stream of horses, hardly more than ponies, snaked out from behind the rise to fall upon the Merakhi foot soldiers. Sabers rose and fell as Morgols ripped through their ranks. The Merakhi attack ceased to exist. Men tried to flee to the safety of the enemy lines only to be ridden down from behind. The mounted Merakhi wheeled and retreated.

Arrows continued to fill the sky.

Errol’s forces pushed forward on the right, drawing within two dozen paces of the core of the enemy—Belaaz and his council.



Adora stood, watching in disbelief. Impossible. No force so greatly outnumbered could hope to win, yet from her viewpoint, she could see Illustra’s forces exacting a staggering toll on the enemy. Hope, wild and unexpected, raged like a fire within her chest, and she screamed until her face heated and her throat rasped.

She grabbed Rokha by the arm, pointing. “They advance. The malus committed themselves too early.”

Rokha nodded, her full lips pursed, but she refrained from adding her voice to Adora’s. Her shoulder, where Adora’s hand gripped it, tensed as she watched the battle. Adora’s heart switched rhythm. Rokha saw something she did not.

“There.” Rokha pointed. “They’ve lost over half the pikes, and they’ve yet to meet the worst of the Merakhi forces.” Adora followed the gesture, looking past the large flatbed carts shuttling back and forth, carrying supplies and wounded to and from the battle.

Panic made her voice harsh. “What do you mean? They’re over halfway there.”

Rokha shook her head. “There are more malus-possessed than just the council. I can feel them, swarming like hornets around Belaaz, waiting. Look how the circle of soldiers around the nine move and flow. Those aren’t men. They’re not concerned about Errol’s charge because they filled the ranks next to Belaaz with their own kind.”

Adora peered into the depth of the battle, searching the faces of those surrounding the council. Laughter. They didn’t wear the dour expressions of men in battle. Pain and death surrounded them on every side, and they greeted it with grotesque expressions of elation.

Adora struggled to clear the sudden spots in her vision.



Pages shuttled back and forth, bringing Martin news from the battle that twisted his guts with apprehension. Errol and the watch approached the center of the Merakhi vanguard where the malus waited.

In Escarion’s hall, a sea of blue-robed arms thrust skyward, the record of each reader who’d completed his cast in favor of Liam’s crowning. The remainder would finish in the space of heartbeats.

But then what? What is the next question, Deas?

Liam paced the floor like a caged animal, a picture of restrained violence. Martin paused. “Made for this,” Liam had said. Illustra’s next king had been trained by the solis.

A knot of tension, one of many, eased in his gut. He knew the question. Martin beckoned the primus, Luis, and Willem forward. They’d been among the first to finish their cast. “I want to know if Liam is supposed to go to battle once he’s crowned.”

Primus Sten nodded approval. “The next right question.”

Luis demurred. “Perhaps.” His gaze lost focus. “From the beginning, Martin, we’ve been behind the course of events. Liam is supposed to be king, but exactly when are we supposed to crown him?”

His breath left him. “My friend, am I hearing you? If we crown him quickly enough, his coronation may restore the barrier and save Errol.”

Luis nodded, but lines of sorrow etched the corners of his eyes and mouth. “It’s a possibility.”


Grief, sharp and cold, pierced Martin as Sten and Willem signaled their agreement. “But that question—when to crown Liam—is too involved to answer quickly. Yes?” He prayed they would disagree with him as he stood panting with desperation, waiting for their answer.

In the end, they didn’t have to. Emma came running, breathing hard from her trips back and forth from their meeting hall to the outside. “Your Excellency—” she gasped a pair of breaths—“the captains are almost to the giants.”

Martin surveyed the hall filled with blue-robed readers standing against the backdrop of red-robed benefices, his to command. The air in the room felt thin. The conclave had failed. No cast could be done in time. He would have to crown Liam and hope.

He lifted his arms for quiet. “Members of the Judica, you have witnessed the cast of the conclave in its unanimity. Three-fourths of sitting benefices must confirm him as king. Please rise if you consent to Liam’s kingship and authority.” He swallowed. “You are adjured by Deas, Eleison, and Aurae.”

As one, the entire Judica rose, a surge of red that swelled upward. Martin met Liam’s eyes and gestured toward the chair he had held moments before. Rodran’s throne had been left in Erinon, but protocol only required the crown, not the seat.

He beckoned Breun forward with the burnished wooden box that held Rodran’s crown, a simple affair, passed down from Magnus. Martin held the thick gold circle with three points in his hand, noting the nicks and scratches in the metal, a diadem of strife, a war crown.

Haste impelled him up the steps of the dais to stand next to Liam where he sat in the high-backed chair, his shoulders and head erect, waiting, the hand still on the sword hilt. Martin lowered the crown toward the blond mane of hair.

“By the manifest will of Deas, Eleison, and Aurae, confirmed by their servants, benefices of the Judica, and readers of the conclave, I, Archbenefice Martin Arwitten of the kingdom of Illustra, crown you, Liam the first, rightful king.”

He moved to lower the crown onto Liam’s head.

And stopped.





43

AVENGED





SWORDS!” CRUK’S SCREAM cut across the din of battle, and five hundred soldiers in black drew weapons with a long hiss of steel. The heavy concentration of pikes had vanished, leaving holes in the attack. Ablajin’s men thundered past on the flanks but could do little against the concentrated fire of the Merakhi short bows.

But they were within reach of Belaaz.

A pair of watchmen engaged one of the soldiers of the enemy’s cordon. The Merakhi laughed as they advanced, his eyes dancing, unfocused.

No. “Wait,” Errol cried. “That’s a . . .”

The rest of his sentence faltered as the Merakhi parried their strokes before cutting the horses at the legs. Before either of the watchmen could recover, the Merakhi was upon them. Errol looked on in horror at the soldiers surrounding Belaaz and the rest of the nine. Each wore the savage look of glee and the vibrating eyes of the malus-possessed.

“They’re all malus.”

Cruk nodded, but instead of answering, he shouted another order to the lieutenant at his side, who hoisted a flag of yellow. The swords and pikes wheeled to hold the left and right flanks, pinning the enemy lines in place. It wouldn’t last long. Already the ranks of Illustra thinned as men went down beneath greater numbers.

Cruk stood in his saddle. “Watch, dismount! Capture and hold!”

Rale and all the watch slipped from their saddles, pushing their horses to the rear. Errol copied the motion without understanding, moving forward with his staff. Rale caught his arm, forced him behind. “Wait for your chance, Errol. It may not last long, but we have the numbers to get you to Belaaz. After that”—his shoulders curled—“you’ll need to trust in Deas.”

He shook his head in incomprehension. Two of the watch had been taken as if they were the weakest swordsmen in the kingdom. How could they hope to get him to Belaaz?

The wedge of black split as pairs of watchmen moved forward to engage each of the Merakhi. Errol watched as the first pair stepped forward. Faster than thought, the Merakhi sent a sword stroke toward the soldier on the left.

Instead of parrying, he lifted his arm to take the blow, the stroke biting deep into the mail with a crunch of metal and bone. The watchman screamed but clamped his arm over the sword. The Merakhi tried to withdraw, but in that moment the other watchman took the Merakhi’s head. A pair of bodies slumped to the ground. Another soldier in black rushed forward to take the place of the one who had fallen.

All around, the same scene repeated itself as over and over again watchmen accepted killing strokes in exchange for a chance to strike back.

“This is your plan?” Errol cried.

Rale and Cruk, their faces hard and unyielding, nodded.

“Magis is avenged.”

The Merakhi cordon evaporated. No longer laughing, the malus-filled soldiers sought to escape the pairs of watchmen who pursued them, always sacrificing one of their own in exchange. And then there was only the council.



A hush settled into Adora’s chest, not peace, but acceptance, as she watched the desperate strategy unfold. The watchmen, those few that remained, moved to attack Belaaz and his monstrous council. She wanted to ask why, but she knew the answer already. Illustra’s mistakes required blood and sacrifice to correct. Somewhere in the mass of people stood the one she loved, but distance obscured faces, and she couldn’t find him.

Rokha moved to stand at her side. When Adora turned and met her gaze, Rokha stared back, her eyes flashing as she drew and brandished her sword. “My love fights down there as well. Do you want to live without him?”

Adora’s lips moved in response, as though the answer resided in the beat of her heart, the rise and fall of her chest, the thrum of blood through her veins, instead of in her mind. “No.”

Rokha’s eyes flared with sudden heat, and she bared her teeth in a savage smile.

Drawing her sword, Adora followed Rokha down the hill, her strides steady. Chaos reached for her as she passed through the rearmost portion of Illustra’s lines. Men and horses and carts dashed everywhere, testimony of their struggle to keep from being surrounded. Next to her Rokha stiffened, her eyes wide with shock, and she clutched at Adora’s arm.

“They’re behind us!”

Fifty paces away, shapes boiled out of the back of one of the wagons, figures too tall to be men. They raced away from her toward the castle, except one.

Sevra.

The call from Duke Weir’s misshapen daughter ravaged her hearing, tearing through her courage like a dagger ripping cloth. “Well met, strumpet.” The giant drew her long blade and advanced.



Martin’s hands moved to lower the heavy gold circlet onto Liam’s head, but reticence filled him. Almost he gave the order for a final cast, for some question that could tell him what to do. Liam waited before him, still, like the sky before lightning, like the air before thunder.

“Archbenefice,” one of the benefices called, “why do you wait?”

Why did he? He faced four hundred men. “Perhaps I am weak or old, but I desire a sign. The cast of stones failed us because we did not know the question to ask. Do we ever? If Aurae is knowable, how do we begin knowing Him?”

He turned to regard Liam, who faced him now. “I hold this crown, and some misgiving tells me that the time is not yet. Something restrains me. Is this Aurae?” He shifted, uncomfortable in robes that suddenly felt too tight. No one answered. Martin waited.


A distant clash of steel sounded.



Lightning arced across the sky and the crack of scorched air drowned the sounds of battle. Merodach, Cruk, and Rale stepped forward, leaving him. Five of the council were down, their bodies stretched upon the grass and rock, their faces hideous and surprised in death. A dozen of the watch were all that remained. To the right and left, the ranks of their soldiers thinned, their cries becoming frantic as spawn and Merakhi struggled to break through.

With each death of the malus-possessed, Belaaz shuddered and laughed. Distortions grew on his face and skin. The Merakhi, grown monstrous under the influence of uncounted malus within him, screamed orders in his strange tongue, directing his forces away from Errol. Spawn scented the air and withdrew, leaving him to face the giant alone.

Belaaz saw him and laughed with the sound of a dozen voices. “You think to try me, little one?” He peered down at Errol from his height, his face twisted with derision, but he made no move to attack. Instead he planted his shirra point down into the ground and rested one arm upon it. As one, the remaining malus raised their arms, and the wind stilled.

Errol’s shock robbed him of breath.

“Do you think I’ve come to kill you?” Belaaz laughed, lifting his head to the sky. “How like him, to take someone defenseless and demand his blood.” His gaze lanced through Errol, his eyes boring through his pretense of bravery, laying him bare. “I have not come to kill you, Errol, but to offer you life.”

He clenched his fists around the staff, unwilling to credit the malus’s promise. He gestured at the misshapen face, the knots moving like living things beneath the skin. “Sarin Valon already made the same offer. Do you think I would ever consent to live as a prisoner in my own skin, forced to watch while your corruption twisted my body from the inside?”

Belaaz’s mirth washed over him. “This? You misunderstand, little one. Flesh serves us. We have made ourselves hideous to hinder you in battle.” He waved his hand. “If you do not wish to appear so, do not.” A shimmer washed over Belaaz, cleansing the malus of his disfigurement, and when it faded, Errol found himself looking upon a figure such as he’d never seen before, had never imagined.

The Merakhi’s beauty stunned him, the flawless perfection of his skin and limbs triumphed only by the stunning glow of his visage. He had thought Adora beautiful beyond compare, but human beauty only hinted at what stood before him.



Sevra was still thirty paces distant when Rokha pointed toward a cluster of wounded soldiers limping their way up the hill. “We could run.”

Rage at the colossal injustice and her own helplessness poured through Adora. Her skin burned at the sight of Sevra, and the outraged beat of her heart roared in her ears. “No! I will not show my back to her again.”

Rokha laughed, throwing her head back to crow at the sky. “Well spoken, sister.”

They drew, spreading to come at the malus from opposite sides. Adora looked for hope in her friend’s face but found only resolve. They were going to die. Sevra closed the distance and darted toward Rokha. Adora stood rooted to the ground in surprise before forcing her legs into motion. Stupid fool. Of course the malus would attack Ru’s daughter first. Adora was no real threat.

Rokha fell back beneath vicious sweeps of Sevra’s blade, throwing frantic parries at the onslaught. Adora leapt, swinging for Sevra’s unprotected back.

Sevra pivoted to knock her attack aside. Adora rolled across the wet grass, fighting to keep a grip on her sword. She gained her feet a few paces from Rokha to face the twisted form of Weir’s daughter again.

The two of them parted once more, staying closer this time, but Sevra only watched them. Though every line of Weir’s daughter strained, and froth gathered at her lips, Adora’s tormentor made no move to attack.



Belaaz’s voice came to Errol, no longer harsh or belittling, but warm, encouraging, the voice of a friend of long acquaintance. “What kind of god demands blood, Errol? Give up this hopeless fight. There is no need to die, not for you or your friends.” With a casual gesture, Belaaz signaled his forces, who promptly withdrew a dozen paces and stilled. Illustra’s forces looked upon the Merakhi army as if suspicious of sorcery, holding their ground, their lungs heaving in the silence.

The panting of men and beasts filled the silence of Belaaz’s impromptu truce. “Oh, Errol, there is so much I can give you.” The malus stepped forward, pushed Errol’s staff aside, and placed a hand on Errol’s shoulder. A chill went through him. “Are you hurt?” Belaaz asked. “Your pains can be washed away as easily as the dust of the road.”

Errol gasped as if he’d plunged into the iciest pool in the Sprata. Each of the nagging pains and injuries he’d collected in the last year left him. The scar in his side no longer burned. He rolled his shoulders in shock, then reached behind with one hand to feel for the scars that laced his back. “They’re all gone.”

Belaaz nodded, his eyes glinting. “Didn’t I say flesh serves us? There is no suffering among the exalted ones, Errol. It’s only your god who requires it.”

Errol turned, his muscles responding in a way they had not since he’d first come to himself on Rale’s farm, but thousands of dead lay before him on the fields of Escarion, images of death and suffering wrought by Belaaz, giving the lie to his words.

The malus must have sensed his mood, though Errol tried to keep revulsion from showing on his face. “If healing is not enough for you, then content yourself with other gifts I have to offer. The crown could be yours.” Encouragement filled Belaaz’s face. “No longer would you be subservient to the whims of churchmen who would use you for their own ends.”

Almost, the offer tempted him, reviving bitterness he’d harbored at being a tool the church used in its struggle. Could he deny they had used him? No, but neither could he deny the reasons behind their desperation. Caught in their circumstances, the benefices had grasped for any chance they could. Was it their fault Errol had been a weapon, one of many Deas offered?

He met Belaaz’s gaze, but the mask of unearthly beauty no longer awed him. If it had not been for the malus and their evil, no sacrifice would have been required. If Deas had not chosen Errol, he would have chosen someone else. Errol’s resentment and cries of “Why me?” would only be answered by Deas with “Why not you?”

Belaaz’s temptation slipped from him like ice slipping from the walls of a cliff beneath a spring sun. Errol clung to the truth of Magis’s book: Deas hadn’t even exempted himself from the necessity of sacrifice.

Errol stepped back, breaking contact, shaking Belaaz’s offer from his mind.

The malus peered down at him, the chiseled perfection of his face filled with regret. “I can see I have failed to persuade you, but I have one thing more to offer, Errol.” The malus smiled, closed his eyes, and shrank, diminishing until he matched Errol’s size. His shirra, now woefully oversized, fell from his open hand, and he stepped forward, his face still handsome but without the unearthly beauty it had possessed before.

“I know what you truly want, Errol, what you’ve desired for months. Deas cannot give it to you. He requires your death. But if I refuse to kill you . . . what then? Will you consent to live the rest of your life as my prisoner?

“Look at your men. They are outmatched and overwhelmed, and my allies to the north have yet to take the field. Stop this senseless bloodshed. If you choose, I will allow you to serve me, Errol, without becoming one with us. You may take Adora to some remote part of the kingdom and live your life undisturbed.” Belaaz extended his hand. “Choose peace, Errol.”


Deep in his mind, Errol’s thoughts labored beneath the assault. The fear of dying he’d managed to keep submerged surfaced, rampaged through him, and he panted with the effort of keeping it at bay.

The kernel of his identity struggled to shake the terror of death, but the wind had died, and in the unnatural silence, he couldn’t summon the will to defy the malus.

A weight crashed into him from behind, sent him sprawling. He tumbled, caught a glimpse of Cruk attacking Belaaz with a storm of sword strokes. The watchman conjured blows, striking with his blade, his legs, his fists, blows that never landed.

Belaaz’s laughter sent shards into Errol as the malus slipped each blow with contempt. “Human. You’ve hardly crawled from the mud and you think to challenge me? Come then, see what your folly has brought you.”

Belaaz twisted, wrenching himself from one spot to the next, seemingly without transition, snatching up his sword and sending Cruk’s attacks into empty air. The shirra whistled as the malus whirled it behind his head and sent it screeching in a horizontal arc toward Cruk’s unprotected side. The blade crunched through the chain mail like a knife parting cloth, and blood fountained from the wound. The malus wrenched the sword away, twisting, leaving Cruk to fall backward.

The watchman’s head bounced as he hit the ground, his eyes dimming. Errol knelt, looking into Cruk’s plain face, waiting for some word. The watchman’s arms hung useless as blood soaked the ground, but the captain’s eyes beckoned him.

Errol’s nose came within inches of Cruk’s and he strove to hear, but the captain didn’t speak. As life faded from his eyes he inhaled a wet sucking breath into his lungs, thrust his face forward, and breathed, “It’s just a door, boy.”

The captain’s dying breath, warm and smelling of blood, held nothing in common with the wind, but though it lacked the power to stir his hair, it tore through the temptations of the malus’s spell, rendering it useless. Errol struggled to his feet.

“No.”

Belaaz flung his mirth at the sky. “Do you think your denial will avail you? I will deny Deas your death and break his power over me.” He pointed toward the coruscating flashes in the sky above. “Do you think he will save you? Look around, manling. Your forces are dying. Your watch is gone. I am many, and your kingdom has no king.”

Errol pulled breath into his lungs, willing himself to play his last desperate gamble. Wind swept across the field to accompany his cry of triumph. “But we do. You arrived too late. Liam is king.”

He turned to point to Escarion’s fortress behind him. “You’ve failed. For all your age and knowledge, you have erred, Belaaz. The son of Prince Jaclin is being crowned even now. Do you really believe I came to die? Did you never question why the man who killed one of your council was absent from this fight? It is because he is being crowned king! You and your army will never get there in time to stop it.”

The malus screamed, his mouth stretching, showing twin rows of pointed teeth as he sent his gaze toward the castle. He spun back to face Errol, growing and distorting until he towered over him once more. “You think to surprise me, worm? My brothers are within the castle, on their way to kill that childless heir.” His face stretched into a parody of a smile. “If Deas does not require your sacrifice, I will.”

Errol reeled as if the earth canted under his feet. If the malus managed to kill Liam, Illustra was lost. Rale’s voice crackled in his ears.

“Strike! Belaaz controls them.”

Errol spun his staff, readying himself to attack, leaping for the malus. Sparks danced as the weapons collided.

Scorn filled Belaaz’s twisted face. “You think to touch me, insect? I will take you piece by piece until your ability to fight is gone. Then I will eat your heart.”



Sevra sprang into motion as if released from some compulsion, her sword coming for Adora in a vast cut. A shower of sparks glittered in her vision as Weir’s daughter snapped her smaller blade in half. Rokha dove, slicing into Sevra’s calf and rolling away. Sevra spun, her shirra whistling in the air in a wild swing that plowed a furrow across Rokha’s shoulder. Ru’s daughter stumbled back, too far away now to engage. Sevra spun, looming over Adora, her mouth stretched in a rictus of hate and glee.

“Now, strumpet, you will die.”

Half a dozen paces away, Rokha fought to her feet, blood soaking her left arm, her lips stark against her pale face. She stabbed her sword into the ground, using it as a crutch to force herself to her feet, fighting to reach Adora in time. She was only half a dozen paces away, but it might as well have been a hundred.

Adora struggled to get her feet beneath her as Sevra lifted the long blade with the finality of an executioner. Adora’s feet scrabbled against the wet ground, refusing to find purchase. Thrusting against the turf with her hands, she came to her knees.

Rokha slipped to one knee, her eyes searching Adora’s, eyes filled with apology and sorrow. With a cry of rage, Ru’s daughter pulled her sword from the ground to grip the blade with one hand just in front of the pommel and threw.

The sword came for Sevra’s unprotected back like a spear. In the space between heartbeats Adora watched its flight, finding impossible hope. Sevra, seeing her eyes, ducked and wheeled, swinging her sword blindly against the threat she sensed behind her.

Three inches of steel buried itself in her chest before her riposte found its mark, and Rokha’s sword fell to the grass, out of reach, useless.

Sevra brought her free hand up to touch the wound, smiling at the blood on her hands as she raised her sword once more. Her eyes vibrated with insane delight. “So close, strumpet, but not enough.”

She watched Sevra slowly raise her sword, savoring her victim’s helplessness. When it began its descent, Adora refused to close her eyes. She looked through the malus, willing her last memory to be of Errol.



Belaaz leapt toward Errol, his shirra blurring and then disappearing. Errol leapt, throwing himself from its path. He should have died in that moment, but the massive sword found only air. The stroke missed, impossibly anticipated. Wind swirled around them and Errol found himself moving before each attack, laboring to get close enough to the giant to strike.

Again and again he twisted, jumped, and rolled, flowing with each strike, the deadly shirra missing him by the barest margin. The sounds of battle faded to stillness until only the roll of thunder sounded. Errol’s mind split, and he watched himself moving with the attacks. He gathered his legs as Belaaz attacked his mind once more. The two-pronged assault threw him off balance, and the shirra sliced through the meat of his shoulder. Again the weapon whistled toward him, changed direction at the last instant to furrow a gouge through his thigh. Errol faltered, slowing despite the urging of the wind. Blood oozed down his arm, betraying his grip. More flowed down his leg to wet the ground beneath his feet.

Belaaz struck again, and Errol threw himself to one side, his feet slipping. He rolled by instinct, bringing his staff up in a desperate parry as he struggled once more to stand. Blows from Belaaz’s shirra came like a storm of strokes. Spots danced in his vision, and his sight narrowed to a tunnel filled by the malus’s laughter as he sent his blade in a whistling stroke toward Errol’s neck.

A breeze, so soft he couldn’t be sure of it, caressed his face, and in the whisper of its passing Errol heard a single word.


“Now.”

The wind stopped, halted as if hitting a wall. Belaaz screamed, swinging as Errol gathered himself, leaping as his hair lifted, standing on end. He swung his staff as he passed over the sword, striking the malus.



The sounds of fighting erupted in the hallway.

“Martin,” Luis screamed. “Now.”

He pushed, striving to place the crown on Liam’s head, but his arms refused to move. The door to the makeshift throne room burst, throwing splinters and chunks of wood into the hall. Men, hideously large and swollen, spilled into the hall, pushing Waterson and the last of Escarion’s defenders before them.

Lightning, white hot and savage, flashed beyond the window, the sharp sound of thunder deafening. Martin gasped as the pressure on his arms changed. He thrust the crown onto Liam’s head. The malus dropped, twitching, to the floor, lifeless before the echoes of thunder faded.

Liam ran from the room, the crown falling from him as he drew his sword, gathering men as he went. Martin moved to follow, not hurrying, his heart strangely empty.



Sevra’s sword began its descent as light and sound filled the sky. Incandescence flashed into the middle of battle accompanied by deafening cracks of sound that rolled over them, booming over and over again as lightning flickered back and forth between the ground and the cloud bank.

Weir’s daughter collapsed, the cords of her unnatural life severed at last. Deprived of strength, her sword fell against Adora’s side, but without the force to wound.

Adora forced her feet to serve her at last, racing toward the blackened circle of earth, fighting to see past the afterimages of the strike. When her vision cleared, a circle of dead surrounded the charred, smoking remains of Belaaz. Men in black raced toward the castle, marshaling forces to pursue a fleeing enemy.

She didn’t see him. Sobs choked her as she hopped over Belaaz’s twisted and blackened form, the metal staff lodged in his chest. A few paces away she found him, lying in the grass as if he’d been discarded. Kneeling, she pulled Errol’s head into her lap, his skin so very pale, hardly more than the face of a boy. Men and horses thundered past her, heading south.



Martin walked—there would be no point to running now—down the hill toward the river. Luis followed, the rest of the Judica and the conclave coming with him. The dead lay everywhere. They would say the panikhida later, after they found him. Liam and the remnant of their forces disappeared into the distance as they chased down the Merakhi army. Only men fled. Every malus and spawn lay dead on the field, with or without wounds, lifeless. The barrier was restored.

“He might have survived,” Luis said. “Perhaps you crowned Liam in time.”

Oh, how he wanted to believe that was true. “No. He died. Deas took the last measure of sacrifice from him.”

“He will be a legend, Martin. Before a year has gone by, he will be seven feet tall and the mightiest man who ever lived.”

Martin stopped, his feet skidding a little on grass slickened by water and blood as he grabbed Luis’s sleeve. “We must ensure that doesn’t happen. I will not permit his sacrifice to be diminished in such a way.”

He saw Rokha first, then Adora a few paces away with Errol’s head on her lap. He held out a hand to pull Luis to a stop. They stood for a moment, silent, and then he turned to Luis. “Come, friend, let us return. She will see to him.”



Rokha sat cross-legged on the ground holding vigil with her, but removed enough to provide some impression of privacy. Adora bent over him, hovering as grief emptied her of the ability to speak, weep, or breathe. She searched him for injuries, her fingers brushing first the skin of his face, now his hair, and then the lips that had kissed hers. She found the cuts, serious but hardly fatal, before noting the burns on the palms of his hands.

Bending low, she held him close, the skin of his face already cold against hers. A wordless cry of loss and longing built somewhere within her, a prayer of pleading sorrow. She stayed, her tears bathing his face, unwilling to move, the passage of time noted only by the growing quiet as the fields of Escarion emptied of the living. The sun touched the horizon to the west, casting ruddy light across Errol’s pale face.

She pressed her head to his, fresh anguish tearing through her at the touch of his face against hers. “Deas, is this all there is for him, to have everything taken? Where are you?”

A breeze from the west broke the stillness, swirled around her to lift a strand of hair and send it fluttering behind her before it gathered, growing. A gust from the south joined it moments later, ruffling the grass where she sat as it combined with the west wind. When a push of air from the north, the direction of Escarion’s fortress, came to merge with its brothers, the winds became visible, lifting water and blood from the blanket of grass to sparkle in the dying light.

Adora gasped, her lungs struggling for air, as if the winds had stolen her breath. The glittering swirl of air covered Errol, but no color or animation showed in his flesh. Some instinct or intuition drew her gaze east. In the last light of day, the grass flattened before the racing approach of a column of air. It swept the others into its embrace, and her vision of the world shrank to the swirling column of luminous dew that enveloped the two of them.

The whorl of light, wind, and water tightened, growing in intensity even as it shrank, until it covered Adora and Errol like a shroud. It remained so while the last of the sun drifted below the horizon to the west. But as the final crimson rays fled the fields of Escarion, the whirlwind shrank to cover only Errol, leaving Adora gasping, watching in wonder as the coruscation melded with his flesh, disappearing.