A second passed by him. And a third.

They were all heading in the same direction—toward the command tent, the center of the camp.

“. . . if I have to crack every skull in the Senate to...” Octavian frowned. “Marcus?”

Fidelias’s hand went to his side, where his sword would normally be. It was, of course, gone. “Sir,” he said, his voice tight, “there are earthcrafters passing beneath us at this very moment.”

Octavian blinked. Powerful the young man might be, but he didn’t have the subtlety, the awareness, that could only come from decades of experience. He hadn’t sensed a thing. But once he closed his own eyes for a moment, frowning, he let out a blistering curse. “Friendlies would never attempt to enter the camp like that. The vord had a number of Citizens in their control.”

“Aye.”

“Then we can’t send legionares against them. It will be a bloodbath.” He “listened” for a moment more, then opened his eyes. “They’re heading for command,” Octavian said shortly. Only his eyes showed strain. “Kitai’s there.”

“Go,” Fidelias said. “I’ll bring the Pisces after you.”

“Do it,” Octavian snapped, and before he was finished speaking, he took a single bounding step and leapt into the air on a roaring gale of wind. Within another heartbeat, he had drawn his sword, and white-hot, furious fire burned forth from the blade.

Fidelias turned to sprint toward the center of the camp. As he went, he began bellowing orders that carried even over the hollow roar of Octavian’s monstrous windstream.

He did not need to be doing such things at his age, but he tried to focus on the positive: At least he wasn’t running in full armor. And, thank the great furies, the Princeps hadn’t taken Fidelias flying alongside him. Even so, some part of Fidelias noted with amusement that he wasn’t simply following Gaius Octavian, unarmed and unarmored, into the leviathan’s mouth.

He was sprinting.

CHAPTER 43

CHAPTER 42

Tavi didn’t know how many earthcrafters the vord had collared and enslaved, but given how quickly Alera said that they had affected repairs upon the causeways, it was either a great many Citizens with lesser gifts or a few very powerful ones. Either way, Kitai was in the command tent, averting friction between the Antillan brothers and the Canim, and between the command staff of the Free Aleran and Maestro Magnus, and unaware of what was coming.