“Drop the wall and fight,” Tips roared, and the half-bloods fell into teams, sprinting down stairs and leaping off the walkway into the fray. Some threw themselves at the full-blooded trolls with no regard for their own lives, while others defended the human soldiers as they withdrew or regrouped. Some of the trolls fell, but only at incredible cost of life. We could not win this.

My voice was the only thing keeping the islanders out of the battle, but it felt like I was doing nothing. Pulling out one of my pistols, I leveled it at a troll wielding twin maces formed of magic that shattered bodies with each swing. If he was fighting like that, his shields were down. Finishing a verse, I aimed and fired, the bullet passing straight through his shoulder. He bellowed and spun around, eyes searching for the culprit.

And landing on me.

I fired with my other pistol, but he brushed the bullet aside, expression feral as he slashed an arm sideways. Half-bloods and human soldiers flung themselves at him, but it was too late, the air was already rippling with magic. Turning to the wall, I lunged toward a break in the parapet, and toppled over the edge.

I clenched my teeth for the impact, ready to start singing no matter how many bones I broke, because if I didn’t, the resurgence of the mob would trample me to death.

But the impact never came.

Instead, arms broke my fall, a familiar face appearing in my line of sight.

“I’ve been looking for you,” Martin said, winding his way through the islanders as they stirred. He started to say something else, but his voice was drowned out by the blare of a horn. Not the horn Angoulême’s followers had used in their attack, but the great horn of Trollus. It blared again, then I caught sight of movement in the trees and trolls broke into the open, sprinting our direction. Hundreds of them.

“I brought reinforcements,” Martin said. “Now let’s get out of the way.”

The citizens of Trollus descended on Trianon, some stopping to pluck the oath-sworn islanders up, drawing them back and holding them steady, while others leapt though the breaches in the wall, attacking Angoulême’s followers. They showed them no mercy, ripping them to pieces, and once the soldiers and half-bloods realized they were allies, not enemies, they roared a rallying cry. Not long after, it turned to cheers of victory.

The battle was over, and against all the odds, we had won.

But not without cost.

Chapter 58

Cécile

The rows of bodies seemed to go on forever.

A drop of sweat dripped into my eye, and I wiped a grimy hand across my forehead, not caring that I’d probably left a streak of blood, dirt, and worse behind. The soldier before me was breathing steadily, his chest now a network of scars rather than open wounds, but what was saving one compared to the hundreds who’d died because of my choices, my actions?