“I have no need for courtesies, Forger.” The Faceless was clearly struggling, but she had enough strength to sketch a new symbol in the air. With low groans, the fallen warriors rose, staggered to their feet, sunken eyes fixed on us.

“Not today!” The Dark asha whipped out her own sword. Her heels dug into the rising sands as she fought her way toward the Faceless. The other woman raised both arms as if to ward herself, and several corpses rushed to her side. But the Dark asha was almost as quick as her familiars, and she mowed them down easily, driven by her anger. She employed a combination of blade and spells, chopping her way through the crowd as some of those corpses turned on each other without warning, egged on by her compulsion. She sliced a path through the masses of bodies and swung her sword at the Faceless before the other could muster more of the undead to shield herself.

Lord Fox’s blade sank into Aadil’s hollowed chest. Lord Kalen’s sword whirred through the air and neatly sliced off the blighted’s head. Lady Zoya kept the other fiends at bay, grunting as runes tore into them, one after another.

Druj was gasping for breath, her hand clasped over her now-bloody stomach. The Dark asha stood over her. “You will regret killing me, Tea,” she snarled, though the fear in her eyes was clear to all.

“I do not have the strength to engage you in direct confrontation.” Sweat beaded at the bone witch’s upper lip, and she was panting. “I presumed that you were sent word of my bard when I was still in Daanoris. You knew I planned to tell my story. How quickly did you meet my brother at Ankyo’s port, wondering if it was already too late—if I had told all? What relief that must have been to discover they had not yet read my letters. Did you perhaps compel some of them from reading the final pages, to keep your secret a little longer? Even from across a sea, you’ve always had a long reach.”

I gasped, remembering.

“You were meant to read them,” Tea of the Embers declared. “Even with my shadowglass, you are cleverer, craftier in the Dark. You will wreak havoc with or without magic. You will never again have the opportunity.”

She brought her sword down in a swift gesture.

The Faceless screamed, and her fingers moved one final time.

The blow should have killed her. It did not.