Isana’s eyes went back to the alcove, where the three Citizens had trapped the vord Queen between them. Blades darted and bodies moved, all almost too quickly to be seen. Each combatant was little more than a blur—the result of windcrafting, it had to be. Sparks raged in blinding clouds. Isana had no idea how the participants could even see through them, much less continue the battle. She tried to scream to them over the chorus of miniature explosions and vord shrieks coming from outside, but to no avail.

Then there was a brassy, metallic scream that cut over everything, shocking the world into an abrupt silence.

Isana’s eyes widened as the battle in the alcove froze in place. The vord Queen stood pinned against one wall, with the hilt of Antillus’s sword standing out from her heart. She let out another scream and swept her sword in a futile slash at the unarmed man, but Aria caught the blow on her own sword in a last, feeble cascade of sparks, and as she did, the cold fire of Phrygius’s sword struck the Queen’s head from her neck.

“No!” Isana screamed. “That—”

Invidia was moving, after having hovered in the background during the whole of the battle. She reached out with one hand, and the scattered bits of steely blade-beast, all around the hive, abruptly rose up from the floor.

“—is not—”

The former High Lady of Aquitaine flicked her hand—and a cloud of broken, deadly blades hurtled toward the alcove, a lethal storm of steel.

“—the true vord Queen!” Isana screamed.

Aria’s head whipped around just as hundreds of bits of razor-sharp flying metal hurtled into the alcove. Her sword flashed up and steel chimed, but no one could have defeated every single threatening blade with nothing more than a sword in hand. Their armor offered some protection, but it was far from perfect.

Antillus managed to lift an arm to shield his face and neck, but Phrygius was too slow. Metal fragments slashed into his face, and Isana saw, with sickening clarity, the way his eyes were sliced from his head. Antillus reeled against the wall, his face bloodied. Scarlet droplets scattered the wall.

The true vord Queen, naked but for her dark cloak, plummeted from the roof of the alcove. The first stroke of her blazing green sword echoed Phrygius’s own strike with sinister irony, and the High Lord’s head flew from his neck. Raucus reached for his sword, trapped in the wall, but the second motion of the Queen’s attack struck his arm from his body at the shoulder. The third strike shattered his armor in a burst of ugly fire, slicing through his body just below his ribs and sweeping almost all the way to his spine. Never stopping, the Queen whirled, her sword describing a deadly arc aimed at Aria’s neck as Raucus crumpled to the floor.