The vord Queen answered, but Isana had realized what Amara was doing. She bit her lip and placed her hand on Aria’s calf, her fingers clutching hard. Without the waters of a healing pool to work with, she couldn’t tell precisely what shape Aria was in. It was like trying to read a book underwater, with her vision blurred and the ink running—but she could feel it well enough to know that Aria knew precisely what was injured, and that she was, in fact, making an effort to heal it. Silently, Isana threw her support behind Lady Placida’s efforts, and she could feel it as the other woman’s pains began to recede, as her wounds began to close.

“She was... uniquely useful to me,” the Queen said.

Amara flicked some of the blood off the tip of the spear with one finger, and said, “She’s still useful. You can eat her.”

“Her,” said the Queen, her eyes narrowing. “And you.”

Amara lifted her spear in silent invitation and gave the Queen a mocking bow.

Isana clutched Aria’s leg even harder, pouring all her energy into assisting her.

The Queen and the Cursor both called upon windcrafting to give them speed and abruptly rushed toward one another, streaks of motion. At the last instant, Amara flung the stone knife, and the vord Queen had to intercept it with her blade. Amara dropped into a slide and went by her, barely avoiding the sword’s backswing. The Cursor came up onto her feet, rolled beneath another blow as the Queen pursued her, then reversed her facing in midleap and flung the bone spear at the Queen with unearthly speed.

The Queen’s blade snapped out and shattered the bone weapon into hundreds of shards, and the frantic pace stilled again. Amara came to her feet weap onless, wearing only light clothing, not even a plated coat. The vord Queen stared at her with glittering black eyes, and said, “I had a bond with her. Why was such a thing so difficult to notice until it was gone?”

She tilted her head, still staring at Amara, and said, “This isn’t fun any more.”

She flicked her wrist, a distracted motion, and there was a sudden high-pitched, hissing hum. Amara gasped, jerked, and twisted several times, driven back half a pace by some kind of impact.

Isana wasn’t sure what had happened until she saw half a dozen creatures, like unthinkably large wasps, writhing on Amara’s chest, belly, shoulders, arms, and legs. Each of them sported a stinger as long as a woman’s finger, made of serrated and gleaming vord chitin.

Amara looked down at herself, at the enormous wasps, shocked. And then her eyes rolled back in her head, and she toppled to the ground, her back arched into a rigid bow, her limbs thrashing.