So I pushed myself harder, faster. I ran downslope, Thrana on my heels, catching a war construct before it could rejoin the fray. The light from the lamps Urame had planted into the ground barely reached me; they swung with the wind, flickering. I caught a faint flash of teeth in the darkness before I plunged my hand into wet, stinking fur. The beast froze. Thrana’s sturdy, clawed forelegs planted behind me as I knelt in the mud, feeling the indentations on the shard and carving the modifications I knew by heart. At my back, I felt the warmth of my ossalen, the vibration of a growl deep in her throat. I thrust the shard back into the construct, not waiting for it to awaken again and recover.

Some Emperor I was, covered in blood and dirt and cold, wet rain. My father never would have waded into battle alongside soldiers, but perhaps that was the point. He’d never have put himself in harm’s way to protect his people. I hauled myself onto Thrana’s back and she hurtled toward a war beast on the switchback. I glanced up at the gate and found it still holding, the soldiers there steady. Some of the constructs had broken through the front lines. Hastily, I modified the construct on the switchback, narrowly avoiding its claws.

“Be more careful,” Thrana said.

“A bit difficult in a battle,” I shouted above the din. She only snorted and dodged the blade of a shambler. “Go to the gates,” I told her. “They need our help.”

She surged forward, darting around constructs and knocking them aside with her shoulders and the nubs of her horns. Pride filled my heart as I wound my fingers around the fur at her neck. Beneath the coarse outer layer, it was soft, dry and warm. She was at least as formidable as any of my father’s war constructs. And she was mine.

The first line of soldiers was beginning to falter, war constructs charging and breaking through. Men and women screamed on either side of me as teeth and claws tore into their flesh. Lamps at the walls cast the scene in stark orange and black. Thrana leapt through a gap in the lines and jostled one of the war constructs – a beast with the body of a bear and the face of a tiger – before it could bite into the face of a soldier it had trapped beneath its paw. In one smooth movement, I slid from Thrana’s back and reached into the construct.