A flash lit the air, blinding him. He heard shouts and then screams, and then his horse was tumbling, and he was spinning through the air, landing hard on the flattened mat of the grasses. Skidding, feeling countless blades slicing through his leather armour as if they were sharp iron, Spinnock kept his forearms against his face. He rolled and came to a stop.

He was facing the way he had come, and he stared in disbelief.

The Vitr thrashed against an invisible wall, delineated by the edge of Glimmer Fate, and there the silver water climbed and lunged, only to be flung back. Wave after wave hammered against this unseen barrier, and each spent its power in raging futility. In moments the sea began its foaming, churning retreat.

Spinnock sat up, surprised that no bones had broken. But he was slick with blood. He saw his horse stagger upright a dozen paces away, to stand trembling and streaming red from its wounds. On either side other Wardens were appearing, stumbling over the flattened grasses. He saw Calat Hustain, cradling an arm that was clearly broken between shoulder and elbow, his face cut open as if by talons.

Dazed, Spinnock looked skyward. He saw a distant spot, far to the south now, marking the last dragon visible in the sky.

Nine. He counted nine.

* * *

Hearing a horse upon the road behind him, Endest Silann moved to the shallow ditch to let the rider past. He drew his cloak tighter about him and pulled up the hood to send a veil of shadow over his eyes. Three days past, he had awakened alone in the historian’s room to find his hands bound with bandages, to take up the blood that had wept from them.

There had been a faint sense of betrayal in this, given Rise Herat’s promise to abide, but upon leaving the chamber and finding himself in a corridor crowded with half-panicked denizens, and learning of the frightening manifestation of darkness in the courtyard, Endest pushed away his disappointment.

The Consort’s dramatic return had reverberated throughout the Citadel, and it seemed that the conjurations of that day were far from done. He had felt Night’s awakening, and then had fled, like a child, the flood of darkness that took first the Citadel, and then all of Kharkanas.

Carrying nothing, he had set out upon the river road, sleeping in whatever remaining hovels he could find amidst the grim wreckage of the pogrom. He saw no one for long stretches at a time, and those he did come upon shied from his attention. Nor was he inclined to accost any of them, hungry as he was. They had the furtiveness of wild dogs and looked half starved themselves. It was difficult to comprehend how quickly Kurald Galain had surrendered to dissolution. Time and again, as he walked, he had felt tears streaming down his cheeks.