Isana straightened her spine slowly and made sure her emotions and expression were under control as she turned back to face Invidia and the vord Queen.

Invidia was smiling at the Queen, her expression, beneath its chill veneer, balanced between terror and glee. Then she inclined her head and swept out of the chamber.

The vord Queen said, to Isana, “This will only cause more pain.” Then she lifted her face again, and the walls and ceiling of the chamber began to glow once more. “In the end it will change nothing. I will kill Octavian. I will kill you all.”

In the silence that followed, Isana suppressed a surge of fury. How dare she? How dare this creature threaten her son?

No, Isana thought to herself, grimly. No, you won’t.

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 20

Riva burned, illuminating the moonless night.

“There’s always a fire,” Amara said, her tone dull. “Why is there always a fire?”

“Fire’s a living thing,” Sir Ehren replied. He stared at the city as Amara did, looking up at it from the plain on its northern side. Refugees streamed past them in a dazed, shambling river, directed by elements of the Rivan civic legion, and flanked by the legionares of Riva. “If you don’t control it, it looks for food, eats, and grows. It’s in every house in the city, and it just takes a moment’s carelessness to set it loose.” He shrugged. “Though I imagine all the feral furies had something to do with it, too.”

A windmane swept out of the night, letting out a whistling shriek as it dived toward the pair of Cursors speaking at the side of the causeway. Amara idly lifted a hand and made an effort of will. Cirrus flung himself at the hostile fury in a rush of wind, and as the two met, Amara’s fury was outlined in ghostly white light, a specter of a long-legged horse. Like a dozen others in the past hour, the clash was brief. Cirrus’s lashing hooves rapidly drove the windmane away.

“Countess,” Ehren said. “I understand that you were in the city.”

Amara nodded. She felt oddly detached from the events of the night, smooth and unruffled. She wasn’t calm, of course. After what she had seen, only a madwoman would be calm. She suspected it was more like going numb. The terrified, wounded flood of humanity in front of her would have been heart-wrenching if she hadn’t seen so much worse within Riva’s walls as the feral furies overran them. “For a while. I was bearing messages back and forth between Riva and Aquitaine.”

Ehren studied her intently for a moment. Then he said, “That bad?”