I catch the sound of someone running in the forest behind me. Dogs bark in the distance, eager to hunt us down. I hesitate, torn between needing to hurry and hoping …

Relief sweeps over me as Rowan emerges from the brush. She sees me and lets out a small sob.

“Callen,” she gasps. Not too far in the distance, the sound of humans shouting carries over the mine. She pushes me back, as if remembering something horrible.

“Rowan—”

“We have to go.”

We run. My body protests every move, desperate for rest and food, but the sunlight filtering through the trees spurs me on, as does the blind determination in Rowan’s eyes.

I don’t have to ask her where Ox is. She has two bags of the panacea looped around her chest, and tears have cleaned her cheeks on an otherwise dirt-smeared face. Racing through the trees with a wounded body and grieving mind, she is just as much a warrior as everyone else who’s taken the oath. I don’t know how far we run, or for how long, but when I spare a look over my shoulder and see the first flash of a dog’s teeth, I know we’re nearly out of time.

“Rowan, the dogs!” I yell just as she yells, “Sethran!”

We burst from the trees. Skies alive, we’ve made it to the Cliffs—and we’re not alone. Sethran and Io fight a few dozen feet from us, each with three humans lunging at them with swords. Two already lie dead on the ground, their skills no match for the pair of warriors.

I look past them to the sea. My limbs shudder with an unholy mix of the pure relief and the pure terror as the Golden City comes into view.

“No,” I gasp.

The Heliana has fallen completely. She floats—an uneven island, but an island nonetheless. General Marchess’s ships bear toward her. Smoke rises from some of them as Leonodai and sea-folk fight back.

Rowan lets out a war cry as she unsheathes her shortsword, and my attention is pulled back. The first human to spot us has some weight on me, but I am stronger and fueled by something beyond their reason. Rage. Anguish. With every swing of my axe, I can feel my limbs loosening, heart lifting, and lightness returning to me as I revel in the golden glow of the sun cresting over the trees.

Io and Sethran fight like one soul—Io charges, bashes an attacker with stone from the ground as Sethran follows right behind her, sword drawn, to catch the human as he scrambles to get up.

Then the dogs are on us.