She flinched a little at that. A small part of me hoped that perhaps she still felt something for me. But I had better things to do than to moon over the Emperor like a lovesick teenager. Like keeping myself alive. Like keeping us all alive. Everything else could wait.

My bones thrummed, a low note that only I could hear. I’d acted out of desperation when I’d seen Ragan about to attack Lin. He’d managed much better control than I had; I could learn to do the same. If the great Dione could drown an entire city while saving one fly, I could send my quake out in one direction.

My staff was covered in mud and water; I tried in vain to wipe it down with my cloak. I tapped a foot to the ground, felt the vibration run through the earth. Next to me, Mephi bared his teeth.

“Stay out of trouble,” I said to him.

He snorted.

Lin clung to Thrana’s neck, whispering in her ear. The constructs crested the last switchback. They wound around the hill like a luminous sea serpent, its body sinuous and never-ending.

My stomach tightened. I might be a fighter now, but I’d never get used to this. I’d much rather be in my mother’s kitchen, helping her with her day’s work as she scolded me over my studies. And that was saying something; she had quite the capacity for scolding.

I focused on the magic in my bones, the feel of my breathing. Now I could see the blank expressions of the constructs, their tangled hair, the killing wounds they’d received, stitched partially closed.

“Jovis, now might—” Lin said, a note of panic in her voice.

I stamped a foot into the earth.

The tremor rippled toward the constructs, the muddy ground turning into a wave of dirt and rock. None of the constructs tried to avoid it. They fell to the ground, some of them tumbling onto their fellows behind them.

Arrows whipped into the air behind us, metal tips glinting by lamplight as they arced toward the constructs. Another several lines of constructs died. I sent another quake toward the ones that followed. Some managed to hang on and to advance, but arrows, my staff and the teeth of our ossalen picked them off.

We could do this. We could manage to hold them off.

A howl sounded from somewhere behind me. I felt, more than saw, everyone go still. And then the beasts attacked.

They surged up from the surrounding slopes, teeth bared. This was no haphazard attack borne out of panic. Nisong had already laid out her strategy. The shambling constructs were a distraction, meant to pull our attention away. The war constructs were the true threat.

Bears, wolves, cats, giant crabs and spiders. I could only make out pieces in the flashes of lamplight.