A chorus of answering bellows came from ahead of them, and a moment later a long line of gargants came lumbering toward them out of the dark—Doroga’s tribesmen. Gargants, moving in trios and pairs, went smashing into the vord that had leaked through the gargoyles, crushing them before they could mount an effective pursuit of the fleeing Aleran Legions. The sound of battle began to recede behind them, and Amara felt herself shivering in reaction.

She wasn’t cold. She wasn’t even reacting to the fear though she’d certainly been afraid.

The chill that went through her did so because of what had happened.

Invidia had told them the truth. They hadn’t expected the sheer size of the vordbulks, but Invidia had certainly tried to tell them they were larger than gargants.

She’d been telling the truth.

If there was even a chance that she might actually be able to deliver on her promise of taking them to the vord Queen, of ending the war, they would have no choice but to take her up on the offer.

Amara looked overhead. The battle was winding down up there, and the fliers were coming down to support the Marat in holding off the oncoming vord. They would be the last troops to leave the battlefield—their speed meant that even if they kept fighting for two or three hours, they could potentially reach Garrison before some of the Legions.

Invidia had told the truth.

The one thing Amara did not need was to lose perspective on the situation, but she couldn’t help it. Hope fluttered in her chest: hope that perhaps Invidia really was sincere. That perhaps all the horrors she had seen and committed had changed who she was. Though every reasoning fiber in Amara’s brain told her otherwise, foolish hope continued to dance in and out of her thoughts.

A dangerous emotion, hope. Very, very dangerous.

She felt her smile bare her teeth. The real question was this: Whose hope was the more foolish? Her own?

Or Invidia’s?

CHAPTER 47

CHAPTER 46

“You realize, of course,” Attis said weakly, “that she’s going to betray you.”

The Princeps lay in the bed in the quarters normally reserved for Amara and Bernard, and he was dying. Attis had forbidden anyone to enter the room, apart from Aria or Veradis, his physicians—or Amara.

With good reason. He looked horrible, wasted from a magnificent specimen of masculinity to a starving scarecrow within days. His hair was beginning to fall out. There was a yellow tinge to his skin, and a horrible stench surrounded him. No amount of incense could conceal the smell. It could only dull its edge. It even defeated the room’s gargant scent.

“Is it not possible,” Amara asked, “that Invidia has had a change of heart?”

“No,” Attis said calmly. “A heart would be prerequisite. As would the ability to admit her mistakes.”