The kraikon ceased. Josiri, caught mid-flinch from a sword-blow he’d thought certain to take his head, stared up at the motionless construct in disbelief.

“I don’t believe it,” breathed Izack. “Praise Lumestra, but it’s a bloody miracle.”

Josiri glanced about. The remaining kraikons were every bit as immobilised; battered statuary looming large beneath alabaster trees. And beyond, advancing in the pyre-light, Ebigail’s loyal knights, coming to finish what the kraikons had begun.

“We’re not done yet.”

Izack laughed. “That lot? I’d take those preening Sartorovs alone after what we’ve just lived through.”

“Not alone,” croaked a familiar voice.

With Elzar’s assistance, Viktor groaned and clambered to one knee. Josiri hauled him the rest of the way upright. Izack was halfway right. A bloody miracle it was, but not of Lumestra’s doing. What would Izack say if he knew? What would any of them say?

“I thought you’d gone to the Raven,” said Josiri.

“Not yet.” Viktor stared across the grove, at the dancing flame of the pyre. Dark rings beneath his eyes spoke to flagging reserves. “One last bout. Then I can rest. Then we can all rest. Essamere! Until Death!”

“Until Death!”

Shields came forward to form a ragged line beneath the trees, their wielders bloody and wearied, but unbowed.

Josiri’s heart swelled. This was not the Republic he’d hated all his life. Across the grove, sheltering in a ring of Freemont hearthguard while good men and women died for her ambition? That was where his hate belonged, with Ebigail Kiradin and those like her. There were worse causes to die for, and worse comrades to die alongside.

The scarlet and blue line picked up speed. Josiri counted six hundred, at least. And every blade fresh for battle.

“Well,” he said softly. “At least we made a fight of it.”

Buccinas sounded. Boots thundered across the hilltop. Josiri’s fingers tightened about his sword. He wondered at Anastacia’s fate. If she’d understand why he’d died so far from home in a battle not his own.

A rider galloped out of the west, jolted around like a miller’s sack tied to the saddle more than a man sat upon it. Sawing on his reins, he skidded to a halt between the battle lines. Josiri at last saw that what he’d taken for one rider was actually two. A white-haired woman whose expensive dress offered stark contrast to her filthy appearance, and . . .

“Malachi?” Viktor’s consternation matched Josiri’s own.

Oblivious to the oncoming knights, Malachi swung from the saddle and helped his fellow rider down. At the very centre of the Sartorov front rank, a man in golden breastplate and blue velvet cloak silenced the buccinas with an agitated wave. The line stuttered and slowed. Not so the woman, who stalked onward with all the furious certainty of a serathi in a pit of sinners, fraying plaits bobbing behind her like serpents.