Lady Placida’s hug was nearly as strong as Bernard’s. Amara tried not to wheeze.

Lord Placida had approached as they spoke, and he smiled briefly as they both turned to him. “In point of fact, dear, all of us owe her our lives.”

Aria arched an imperious eyebrow. “You are not going to hug the pretty little Parcian girl, you goat.”

Placida nodded gravely. “Foiled again.”

From perhaps twenty feet down the battlements, a legionare pointed to the southwest, and cried, “Signal arrow!”

Amara turned to see a tiny, blazing sphere of light reaching the top of its arc and beginning to fall. Thousands of eyes turned to follow the firecrafting on the arrow, blazing so bright that it could be seen clearly even under the morning sun. No one spoke, but sudden tension and controlled fear lanced up and down the length of the wall like a lightning bolt.

“Well,” Antillus Raucus said. “There it is.”

“Brilliant last words,” Phrygius said beside him. “We’ll put them on your memorium. Right next to, ‘He died stating the obvious.’ ”

“Ah,” Lord Placida said. “It begins.”

“See?” Phrygius said. “Sandos knows how to go out with style.”

“You want to go out with style, I’ll strangle you with your best silk tunic,” growled Antillus.

Amara found herself letting out a breathless laugh, very nearly a giggle, despite the fear running through her. The fear didn’t go away, but it became easier to accept. Her husband, his holders, the legionares assigned to him and, over the last months, some of the most powerful members of the Dianic League had been working to prepare this place for this very morning.

Time, then, to make it all worthwhile.

“I must join my husband,” Amara said firmly. “Good luck, Aria.”

“Of course,” Aria replied. “I’ll try to keep the children here from fighting each other instead of the vord. Good luck, Amara.”

Amara called upon Cirrus, stepped off the wall, and rose into the air. She glided a swift mile down the wall, over a river of men clad in steel, morning light flashing off the polished metal as surely and brightly as if from water. Drums below began rattling the signal to stand ready, so many of them that it sounded to Amara like the rumble of a distant thunder.

Other couriers and messengers were darting up and down the wall, in the air and mounted upon swift horses. Amara narrowly avoided a collision with another flier, a panicked-looking young Citizen in armor too large for him, who called a hasty apology over his shoulder as he struggled to maintain his own windstream. She did not think he looked old enough to attend the Academy, much less serve as a courier in a war.