Ev drapes itself over the mouth of the cave, and I duck beneath it to join Lucien again. Our fingers intertwine just near the pearl puddle, waiting. Waiting for maybe-death. For all of us.

The amethyst bracelet on my wrist, the heart locket around my neck. Both of them glimmer.

“Will they write books about us, you think?” Lucien asks softly.

I put my head on his shoulder and laugh. “Gods, I hope not.”

32

32

TOGETHER

In war, there is no grand moment of beginning.

The bards like to sing about it—that still second before the world turns on, the gears of mortals grinding as two armies face each other, and then the horn. Always a horn, announcing the charge, and two glorious lines of steeds and men charging at one another.

But that’s song. Fantasy. Not reality. Maybe it happens in mortal war. In wars between humans, not between humans and witches. Without magic. Maybe, somewhere across the sea from the Mist Continent, war has that grand horn and that majestic charge. But what comes after is nothing poetic.

Be wary always of bards who sing about beautiful war.

Because it’s nothing but pain, and death, and horrible, horrible disfigurement. Because, when the valkerax finally arrive, it’s in secret, through the canyons and from crevices below, and we never see it coming.

Peace one moment, and furious chaos the next.

Varia doesn’t stand on her valkerax valiantly or line them up and charge them in like a mortal might. She doesn’t gloat or pose dramatic before her victory. She fights with her wyrm weapons like a beast fighting for survival, for revenge—ragingly, the bulk of the horde descending on us in what feels like an instant. Fire suddenly everywhere, licking invisible flowers and eating what wood is left in the ruins of Pala Orias, snaking up the corpses of beneathers far too young to die. Beneathers who have only ever known war.

The archers shoot frantically, the white valkerax swarming over the canyon walls and staggering at the tranqs in their scales, passing out dead cold and tripping the others rushing in behind them. Pileups of wyrms writhe around one another, snapping and scrabbling to get their bearings and charge, claws ripping one another apart as much as they rip the beneathers.

Evlorasin immediately ascends, roaring out a vicious battle cry as its mane shines rainbow. Up, and up, and then I lose sight of it.

“Be well,” Ev says to me, but the words fade all too quickly. I watch its pure white feathers drift softly down to the earth with something like regret. Lucien stands, and I stand with him and watch as the fingers of his working hand turn black up to the wrist.

“I put a barrier around the front line,” he clarifies. “A bubble. It won’t stop the valkerax, but it will slow them down marginally. Make them easier targets.”

“Is Varia nearby?” I ask.