She remembered the feel of riding on Tavry with Helly into battle. But nothing compared to this. She understood the year of training better than ever. The shielding and fighting and flying and formations were second nature once she was in the thick of it. If it hadn’t been, she would have been lost. The world was chaos, and all she had to follow were the commands ingrained in her head. Fordham was her lead; she was his wing.

A powerful boom tore through the normal buzz of war. They circled around and found March’s soldiers had a battering ram thunking against the doors of Lethbridge. It hit again and again against the seemingly impenetrable doors. Then, the wood cracked, the doors caved inward, and the war shifted.

They were in.

Soldiers pushed through the giant doors, trampling over the enemy and flooding the upper tier of the city. They’d taken out most of the archers, which left the dragons free rein to fly inside. Trulian veered inward, his eyes forward, and they followed in his wake.

Kerrigan could feel the tide of the battle turn. Before the reinforcements had shown up, they hadn’t been able to get past the battlement. It was too early to say, but it already felt like it was only a matter of time. And with the boats burned yesterday, there was no escape for those inside.

Trulian vaulted from his dragon, landing heavily in the central square with his blade extended. “Samael!” he taunted. “Come fight me, you coward!”

The rest of the riders dropped into the square with him and immediately engaged the soldiers. Trulian hacked aside soldiers as if they were made of paper instead of flesh and blood. His magic flowed like a living, breathing thing. Kerrigan had never seen anything like it. Over a thousand years of carefully honed magic. A man so powerful that he’d fought against the abyss all these long years after his beloved’s death.

“Samael!” he roared again. “Your soldiers die for you.” He hacked down another Fae. “They die, and you hide! Your father would be ashamed of you. At least Braidien fought his own battles.”

And then, from the far opening to the market, King Samael Ollivier stepped from the shadows and materialized out of thin air. The same trick both of his children had inherited but that he alone had truly mastered.

“You dare decry my father’s name,” the king jeered. He removed a blade as black as night from a sheath at his waist.

Trulian knocked aside the Fae before him and stepped into the center of the madness that had cleared for them. “Oh, I dare!”

“Who are you but some lowly Society bastard?”

“I might be lowly,” Trulian said, leveling his sword at Samael, “but I am your doom.”