And there stood Melisse of the Nadirii Sisterhood.

“Why did you bring me here?” Melisse straightaway snapped, and she did this angrily. “My sisters are—”

“There is something very wrong with the veil,” Rebecca stated, openly concerned. “You must have felt it.”

“Nadirii and Airenzian ride on the revolutionaries as we speak,” Melisse returned irately. “Ophelia is lost. Of course, there’s something very wrong with the veil.”

“It is not that,” Rebecca replied.

“It cannot be the Beast,” Lena murmured, and Melisse’s body shot straight at her words. “His ascendency would be more…dramatic. Don’t you think?”

“It’s something,” Rebecca said.

“It is something,” Nandra agreed.

“I must get back to the mountain,” Melisse decreed.

“You are of the Great Coven now,” Rebecca told her quietly.

“It should be Elena, though I am glad you did not pull her here at this time, for she is needed. And I might not be at my greatest strength, but I can still string a bloody bow with an arrow and that’s needed as well.”

“It is you,” Nandra shared.

“Right. Fine,” Melisse clipped. “Now release me, I must return.”

“We must hold the ceremony,” Lena said.

“Later,” Melisse gritted.

“You are of the Great Coven now. In this time as in any time, but particularly in this time, we must be at our full strength. Thus, we must hold the ceremony.”

“Later!” Melisse shouted, turned, rushed to her standing stone, touched it…

And she was gone.

120

The Miracle

King True

One Hundred and Fifteen Miles over the Border

AIREN

They were riding east, rain streaming down, hell bent for leather in order to get as many miles under their horse’s hooves before the necessity came to allow the steeds, and the men, rest.

And the next day they would do it again.

But as they rode, True was assessing the distance they had to cover, and the days that would take, and coming to unhappy outcomes.

Unless the allied militia was thoughtful enough to give Elena time for mourning, and Elena elected to do that mourning on the side of a mountain three hundred miles away from Sky Bay— both of these unlikely—the ambush could happen in the Night Heights any day.

Thus, True was coming to terms with the fact that the best-case but entirely impossible scenario was that somehow, Cassius with five hundred soldiers, Elena with the same, could defeat twelve thousand militia, and True and Farah would meet them on their victorious return to Sky Bay.

However, what was far more likely to happen was that he would lead his men, and his wife, to the sight of a massacre, deep in enemy territory, in five days’ time.

To be of any assistance to his friends, he needed magic he did not have.

But even knowing this, he did not turn back.