“Sylmire.” The girl throws it out like a challenge, and Valasca is doubly pleased by her confrontational response.

“Where were you running to, Sylmire? And where is everyone?” Valasca prays the answer isn’t “murdered.”

The teen glances in the direction of Cyme’s Central Plaza. “Queenhall Cavern. The Amaz Guard told us to go there.”

Understanding crystallizes inside Valasca. The action of last resort—the emergency military portals to the East. Portals sheltered in the subland cavern under the Queenhall, where an Amazakaraan military base is located.

Valasca’s heart twists as she realizes the likely fate of any Amaz who remained in their sister villages throughout the Caledonian Mountains—villages without portals of their own.

Please, Blessed Goddess, Valasca prays, please let the bulk of my people be safely en route to the Eastern Realm.

A wave of devastation hits with choking intensity as she glances up at the Shadow-slathered sky, the demonic forest thickening.

It’s over.

Her beloved Amazakaraan, fallen to the Mages.

Valasca grits her teeth against the pain. Because there is no time for overwhelming grief.

Not when there are Amaz to get to the East.

“Come with me,” Valasca says to Sylmire, her voice shot through with warrior resolve as Inge sobs for her mother. “I’ll kill any Mage or dragon that gets in our path. We’re going to Noilaan.”

CHAPTER ELEVEN

SURRENDER TO OBLIVION

Wynter Eirllyn

City of Cyme, Amazakaraan
Two days prior to Xishlon

Amaz soldiers bracket a kneeling Wynter Eirllyn, weapons drawn at her head. Her threadbare wings flap chaotically, stinging veins of Shadow burrowing under her skin as she struggles against the Zalyn’or’s choke hold on her throat.

She sets her devastated gaze on the bottleneck of Amaz women and children waiting to enter the passage to the Queenhall’s subland cavern, its Smaragdalfar rune-marked doors near the hall’s central entrance thrown open, a frantic energy on the air as families rush to get to the underground military portals.

Just beyond the crowd of Amaz civilians, a thick band of Amaz soldiers surround the entire Queenhall, Queen Alkaia amongst them astride a black steed. Freyja Zyrr and the huge warrior Alcippe stand beside the monarch, axes in hand, expressions fierce. The outer ring of soldiers are down on one knee, bows in hand, arrows nocked, all of their weapons pointed toward the incoming Mage and Alfsigr Marfoir invaders.

Wynter notes that their weapons are almost uniformly stripped of power, save a smattering of glowing emerald runes that mark a few arrows, bows, and blades.

Smaragdalfar varg runes. The thought pings through Wynter’s despair. They’ve survived the Shadow’s onslaught.

A glassy green-tinted protective shield hangs over the archers, the civilians, and the entire Queenhall, tenuously held in place by Wynter’s part-Dryad friend Alder Xanthos and the Amaz’s sole Smaragdalfar rune sorceress, Vestylle Oona’rin.