A deep, almost calming sense of purpose flows through me.
No demon or god gave my eyes’ golden tone to me—my parents did. My plain, Paper parents. And everything I am, everything I have been and done, is because of them. Before Wren, it was they who taught me about bravery, and fairness, and kindness, and love.
They would understand what I’m about to do.
They would be proud of their daughter.
Baba will be proud.
To our right, Ketai thrusts his fist high. We’re almost upon the royal soldiers now, the palace walls close enough to make out the individual characters spinning under their stone skin.
“CANNONS!” he hollers, throwing his arm forward. “ATTACK!”
A series of colossal booms rip out.
Smoldering objects shoot over our heads, almost too fast to track. There’s just enough time for a few warning cries before they crash into the wall, exploding in shocks of white.
“Lei!” Wren cries, as the air is suddenly alive with flame and screaming. Something that resembles an arm still clutching a spear flies past me. “Now!”
Together, we jump.
Air whips my skin. There’s a rush of cold. I brace for an impact—
Which doesn’t come.
My hair flaps about my cheeks, caught in a whirling ball of arctic air: Wren’s magic. It lowers us gently to the ground. I’m on my hands and knees, dagger still in one fist. Wren is already fighting, twin swords swishing in a graceful dance. Her clothes flow around her in an underwater sway. As she spins, I catch the eerie white stare of her Xia state.
Battle has broken out. Wren’s swords create a pocket around us, keeping soldiers at bay, but beyond, Hanno and royal forces fight in intense clashes.
I flinch as another round of projectiles fly overhead.
Figures are flung from the parapet as the wall is rocked, smoke unfurling with each strike. Yet though the wall is scarred, given the power of our cannon fire it should be far more damaged than it is.
I think of Temple Court, the rows of shamans chained within the walls, forced to cast endless daos of defense. They’re what’s keeping the wall standing—but if it falls, they will be killed. Shamans like Ruza. Shamans that helped me. Helped all of us.
I should warn them, try to help. But I can’t leave Wren.
Knife, blood, magic.
I have a job to do.
I clamber to my feet. In the flickering firelight, my blade seems to wink at me, urging me on.
Wren keeps the demons at bay, but more soldiers arrive every second, rappelling over the palace walls or transported by bird demons.
That’s when I hear it.
The palace gates. As Ketai predicted, the towering doors groan slowly open. For a second, I’m relieved. Not only can we get into the palace, but it means we won’t have to destroy the walls and risk killing the shamans within.
When I see what waits beyond the gate, my body goes numb.
The vast square of Ceremony Court is packed with demons and shamans. They stand eerily still, stormlight and flames flashing off their armor. The soldiers are dressed in red, while the shamans wear midnight robes, the hems swirling at their feet like smoke. They’re standing in pairs, creating a patchwork of the court’s colors: crimson and black, like fire and smoke, blood and decay.
“THE SHADOW SECT!” roars Ketai from where he’s fighting side by side with Kenzo a few feet away.
My heart flies into my throat. After all this time, all the rumors and slithers of gossip, I’m finally face-to-face with the King’s secret weapon. The power that generations of his ancestors have been cultivating all this time based on information they stole from the Xia. The root of the Sickness. The mirror of Wren’s power.
Pain. Death.
Sacrifice.
The doors of the gate come to a stop, fully open, and the Shadow Sect begin a slow march forward.
“Wren!” Ketai commands. “Now!”
But whether she’s too occupied by the onslaught of demons, or too deep in her Xia state to hear him, she doesn’t slow.
“WREN!” Ketai shouts again.
I watch, frozen in place, as the Shadow Sect shamans all take a single step forward.
“CANNONS!” Ketai bellows, giving up on Wren. “AIM FOR THE SHAMANS!”
There’s the boom of gunpowder. The ground rumbles beneath us.
The shamans throw their hands forward.
A flare of magic strikes, so powerful it snatches the breath from my lungs. The air crackles. Time seems to slow, everything moving in a dreamlike flow as a series of cannonballs arc low over our heads, straight for the Shadow Sect—
And then pause.
For one incredulous moment, they hover in the air. Then the cannonballs are thrust back, flying fast the way they came.
I dive at Wren, flinging us down—before the impact launches us high then slams us into the ground. Pain judders me. My body groans in protest as I list to my knees, Wren and I crawling to each other.
The night is rent with screams and the crackle of fire. Whole swaths of dead trees and earth are wreathed in flames. Pits where the projectiles landed smolder, spewing palls of gray. Most of our carriages lie on their sides. Bodies litter the ground. One has fallen close, staring up with vacant eyes. I don’t recognize her, but she’s wearing Hanno blue. Wren closes the girl’s eyes and makes the sky salute over her body. When she turns back to face the Shadow Sect, the focused expression I’ve come to know so well closes over her face.
Her hair lifts as she recites a dao. She gets to her feet, hands curling into fists. White crawls over her irises as she moves into her Xia state—only to drop to her knees.
I lurch to her side. “Wren!”
She rakes in ragged breaths. Lifting her head with a grimace, she starts to chant again, the warm brown of her eyes icing over before she slumps back down.
Around us, bodies wrestle in the firelight. Members of our army rush about, helping up friends and dragging the wounded away. The Shadow Sect hasn’t moved from their position. Its shamans stand with their arms outstretched like eerie statues, their power forcing back anyone who gets too close.
I scan the vicinity. To our right, Ketai and Kenzo are locked in a fight with four demons. Nearby, Khuen sends volleys of arrows into the air, keeping the diving bird demons at bay. At our backs, our own shamans are occupied with countering the magic of the Shadow Sect, enchantments clashing in the charged air. For now, they seem evenly matched—but many of our shamans have been injured or killed, and the ones remaining look exhausted, pale-faced and racked with tremors like Wren.
They won’t last much longer—and we haven’t even made it into the palace yet. We need Wren’s power, or every one of us is going to die here at the palace gates.