She heard her father beside her let out a breath. ‘Daughter,’ he said quietly. ‘You should go and hide in the villa with your sister and the servants.’ His eyes were moist as he looked at her. ‘I don’t want to regain you only to lose you again.’

Chloe once more scanned the long arc of blue-cloaked Phalesian soldiers on the shore. ‘I came too late.’

Aristocles shook his head. ‘Your warning gives us a chance. The men are equipped and deployed. The fleet guards the harbor. If we survive the day, Phalesia has you to thank.’

She sighed as she looked up at her father. ‘Any news from Xanthos?’

‘All we know is that the city fell. Nikolas departed through the Gates of Annika with the Xanthian army and did not return.’

Aristocles looked every day of his age. His high forehead and balding pate revealed the worry lines on his face.

‘Are you going to find a safer place?’ Chloe asked.

The first consul shook his head. ‘My place is here.’ He indicated the line of consuls, standing along the embankment as if they were the city’s last line of defense, although to a man they were unarmed and too old to fight, even if they had the skill. ‘This is where we will all make our stand. Amos will hold them on the shore, and then if he must he will fall back to this embankment. If the enemy makes it to the agora, then we know the city has fallen.’

‘Then I will stand with you,’ Chloe said, her jaw set.

Suddenly, Aristocles gripped Chloe’s arm and she saw him scanning the sky above and behind them. The sound of heavy wings filled the air. Dozens of dragons and furies in a range of sizes plunged down from overhead, approaching from the city’s landward side. Winged shapes filled the air, arranged in a V-shaped formation behind their leader.

‘Archers!’ roared an officer with a blue crest on his helmet nearby.

The cluster of archers ranged around the consuls on the embankment nocked arrows to bowstrings and drew.

‘Wait!’ Chloe cried. She ran to the officer, waving her arms. ‘Hold your fire!’

Aside from a few abandoned market stalls framing the edges, the agora was completely deserted. The foremost dragon flapped its silver-scaled wings to slow its momentum and Chloe’s eyes widened as she saw a rider on its back. The lean young man with sandy brown hair was hunched forward as he gripped onto the dragon’s neck with an expression as grim as death. Chloe recognized the crescent scar on the side of the angular reptilian head. The archers lowered their bows as she ran forward.

Dion slipped off the dragon’s back, white-faced and staggering as he found his feet. Behind him, clouds of gray smoke enveloped Zachary and the other eldren, shimmering as each changed back to his normal form.