Once he’d seen enough, Arn backed away from the cliff’s edge and gestured for the others to gather around.

“We cannot let them complete the ritual,” he whispered once sufficiently far away. “The gifted strength is always greatest at the moment of sacrifice. If they succeed, Gordian will be close to untouchable.”

Cyrus thought of the rope ladders lining the edges, and of trying to descend unnoticed.

“How do we crash their party without raising alarm?” he asked.

Rayan grinned at them, the years falling off his face until he looked like a mischievous kid.

“Didn’t I tell you I had a plan?”

While most visitors to the Solemn Sands descended to the holy site via the multiple rope ladders, the Church of Lycaena had constructed a wide platform connected to pulleys to be used by the elderly and the infirm for whom ladders were not feasible. It hung suspended over the edge overlooking the beach, and at Rayan’s insistence, four of them climbed atop. Down below, the chanting continued, steadily rising in volume.

“You are certain you can manage?” Rayan asked Mari, the only one to remain on the cliff. She closed her jaws about one of the ropes. The word-lace flared blue as she let out a soft growl.

“Have faith, Paladin.”

The platform was meant to descend by the steady, gentle turning of a wooden crank. Mari, however, bashed it with her front paw, her inhuman strength twirling it wildly so that it rocked side to side. The platform immediately dropped. Wind whipped through their hair. The wood groaned beneath their feet.

Might as well have leaped off, Cyrus had the briefest moment to think before the platform hit the sand. His knees buckled, and the rattle of their gear and the rope-bound wood was more than enough to announce their presence to the imperials. Cyrus vaulted off the platform, swords out, cloak trailing in the air behind him. Soldiers formed a ring around the sacrifice, and they shouted out confused orders and reached for weapons in response. Cyrus’s grin matched that of his mask, far too wide and amused. They weren’t ready. By the time they were, they’d be dead.

Together, the four were an overwhelming ambush of steel. Cyrus easily countered a panicked thrust, the curled end of his sword smashing aside the man’s shield that he’d kept back, thinking it would protect his other half. A shift of Cyrus’s hips, a turn of his shoulders, and the sword came slicing around with such strength, it decapitated the man. A woman next to him shouted something frightened and mindless as she chopped at him with her sword. He ended that cry with a spin. His sword cut across her face, meant to open up her throat but instead slicing off her jaw. She staggered, clutching her face and howling as her tongue hung limp in an image that would haunt him for days.