Authors: Rachel Aaron
“Captain!” the Empress shouted, looking over her shoulder. Sure enough, the captain was there, kneeling at the end of the makeshift plank. “Tell the wizards to prepare another volley and signal the fleet to ready the assault boats. We conquer this island within the hour.”
“But, Empress.” The man’s voice was shaking. “The wizards on the shore—”
“Will mean nothing in a moment,” the Empress finished for him, turning back to the front. “I am about to teach this land what it means to defy the Immortal Empress.”
She heard the soft thunk of the captain’s head on the deck as he bowed deeper still and assured her that her orders would be followed. Nara barely listened. Instead, she closed her eyes, reaching down into the well of her soul and giving her spirit a hard, sudden twist.
A ripple of power flew out of her, soaring silently over the dark sea, over the new-grown trees blocking the bay, over the bloody water and the forgotten bodies of her soldiers. Her will struck the
island like a tidal wave, suffusing the land. All at once, the air was thick with the proof of who she was,
what
she was.
On the shore, the effect was immediate.
In the minutes before the Empress struck, the storm wall was still in chaos.
Miranda crouched panting against Durn’s solid wall, Mellinor coiled around her in a rope of glowing water. Banage had his own stone spirit out and was holding the war spirit down with three granite shackles. The war spirit strained against his hold, its sharp claws rending enormous gouges in the road, but Banage’s spirit held it firm. Now, it was Miranda’s turn.
“Hit it high and hard!” Banage shouted, his voice straining. “We may not get another shot!”
Miranda closed her eyes, focusing on what she was about to do next. “Durn?” she whispered, accompanying the whisper with a surge of power. “Mellinor?”
“Ready,” Durn said behind her.
Mellinor just tightened the spinning of his water, forcing it to race faster and faster.
That was all Miranda needed. She shot up, pushing off the dirt as she threw out her arm, throwing all her power along with it. At the same time, Durn surged forward, joining her power and riding with it. Mellinor joined a moment later, sharpening his water to a swirling point at the end of Durn’s sharpened fist.
The power from the three of them, Durn, Mellinor, and Miranda, hit the trapped war spirit at the same time, and it screamed as Durn’s fist, sluiced with Mellinor’s water, dug into the tangle of metal and stone at its center. The spirit’s body flashed red hot, boiling Mellinor’s water away, but this just made the attack worse. Water, stone, and steam now forced their way into the Empress’s
war spirit like a drill, tearing everything in their path until, with a deafening shriek, the war spirit’s head and front left leg fell to the ground, ripped from its body by the sheer force of her blow.
Miranda flopped to the ground, gasping with relief. Durn and Mellinor fled back to her, and she welcomed them with open arms. She was beaming with pride, but as she opened her mouth to shout her joy, the ground shook.
She scrambled back, raising her hands against the blast of heat as the war spirit tore itself to its feet, breaking through the granite rings of Banage’s stone spirit. She heard Banage cry out somewhere in the dark, but she didn’t have time to look for him. Her eyes were on the war spirit as it teetered on its three remaining legs, its headless torso listing sideways as its metal began to glow red hot yet again.
“These things are impossible to kill.”
Miranda glanced to see Gin beside her with Banage on his back. The Rector Spiritualis hopped down and moved to Miranda’s side, clutching the cloudy-gray gem that had been his stone spirit’s black ring.
“He’ll be fine with time,” he said before Miranda could ask. “Dunerik is nothing if not resilient.”
“None of us will be fine if we don’t find a way to make these things stay down,” Gin growled. “Even that pigheaded idiot’s still fighting.”
Miranda could only guess the dog was referring to Josef. She didn’t have a look to spare for the swordsman, but the constant clang of metal on stone from the walk in front of the tower told her everything she needed to know. If the Heart of War couldn’t carve these monsters… She clenched her teeth, forcing the thought from her head before it could finish. No point in going down that path. She’d do better to stay focused on the spirit in front of her.
The war spirit was burning full tilt now, and the heat pouring off
it was enough to make Miranda’s hair crackle. It moved slowly backward, its three feet taking small, careful steps toward the pulverized remains of its head and fourth leg.
“It’s trying to put itself back together,” Miranda said, sending a pulse of power to Durn. “I want a pillar underneath it. Shoot it up, we’re going to knock the head and the leg into the bay.”
But as she gave the order, she realized something was wrong. The surge of power she’d sent down the thread that connected her stone’s spirit to her own had reached its destination, but Durn had not answered. A cold cringe of fear curled in her stomach, and Miranda looked to see Durn standing behind her, still as the ground under their feet.
“Durn,” she said again, adding a little force to her voice.
“I can’t,” the stone whispered, his voice full of fear. “We’re too late.”
“Too late?” Miranda asked, but even as the question left her lips, the wall of power crashed into her. Miranda gasped as the enormous weight forced her to her knees, and she wasn’t alone. Every one of her spirits had gone perfectly still. Even Gin was on the ground, facing the bay with his head on his paws, almost like he was bowing.
“Durn’s right,” her hound whined, pressing his nose into the dirt. “We took too long. She’s here.”
Miranda didn’t have to ask whom they meant. Straining against the power, she lifted her head just enough to see the palace ships. She didn’t know what she was looking for, what to expect, but she knew the Empress the moment she saw her.
She was smaller than Miranda would have thought, narrow boned and pale, her black hair piled in an elaborate knot on top of her head. Her golden armor shone brighter than her war spirits, but it was not the brightness that drew Miranda’s gaze, nor was it the fact that the woman was standing on a seemingly impossible line of
wooden boards stretching out from the palace ship’s destroyed prow. What drew Miranda’s attention was the same thing that drew the attention of everything in the bay, large and small, awakened or asleep. It was power. Pure, unadulterated, undeniable power radiated from the woman like light from a lamp. Even as a blind human, Miranda could almost see it burning, and her heart began to sink.
“That’s it then?” she said, almost laughing at the absurdity. “We’ve lost.”
“We never had much chance to begin with,” Banage replied. “We set ourselves against a star, after all.”
Miranda did laugh then, a dry, humorless sound of utter disbelief. Across the bay, those palace ships that still had prows began to lower them. The moment the ramps hit the water, ships laden with troops began to pour out. Hundreds of ships, thousands, more ships than Miranda could count, all rowing toward the bay.
The Empress watched her ships with haughty pride. Miranda was too far to see her expression, but she didn’t have to. The woman radiated triumph as a fire gives off heat. With a great sweeping motion, the Empress swung her hand down and the wall Durn had raised across the bay tore itself apart. Trees and ship hulls flew in every direction as the seafloor rent itself to let the Empress’s boats pass.
For one endless moment, Miranda could only watch as the Empress, with one motion, undid all the ground they’d gained that day. Despair like she’d never felt filled her mind as the boats began to pour into the bay. Despair so thick, so overwhelming, she didn’t hear Mellinor the first time he spoke.
“I said let’s go,” he said again, his voice surging through her mind like a deep current.
“But she’s a star,” Miranda whispered. “She has the will of the
Shepherdess. We can’t stand against her. Nothing in the world can. That’s what the Shaper Mountain said.”
“No,” Mellinor said. “Nothing in the world
will
. There’s a difference between can’t and won’t.” As he spoke, Mellinor’s voice shifted, and Miranda could hear the echo of the enormous sea who’d spoken to her in the dark throne room so long ago. “I am the Great Spirit of the inland sea,” he boomed in her mind. “I am still myself, with my own mind and my own soul, and I have no love for the stars or their White Lady. Any one of them could have freed me from Gregorn’s prison, but they didn’t. They left me to rot and madness in a pillar of salt for
four hundred years
.” Mellinor’s voice was racing with rage now, and Miranda could feel his power flowing through her, filling her.
“You have shown me more care and protection in the last year than my Shepherdess ever did,” Mellinor said finally. “If you’re not ready to roll over and give up like the rest, then I am with you, mistress.”
Miranda put her hands to her face to stop the tears flowing down her cheeks. “Thank you,” she whispered. “If we can try, we must. But how?”
Mellinor told her, and Miranda fell still. It was dangerous, very dangerous. It also went against everything she stood for as a Spiritualist, sworn to keep her spirits from harm. But as she turned it over in her mind, something flinched inside her, snapped like a bone being set into place, and she knew what she had to do.
She turned on her heel and started to run. Gin, still bowing, didn’t follow. Banage called her name, but Miranda didn’t look back. She kept running, feet pounding across the ruined paving as she ran along the storm wall’s edge, straight toward Josef.
J
osef clutched the Heart of War, blinking against the sweat that dripped into his eyes. In front of him, the metal-and-stone creature hovered over its two severed legs, still not dead. Josef lifted his wrist to his face, rubbing the sweat and dirt away as best he could. This was taking too long. Cutting the Empress’s war monster was easy, but keeping it down was another story, and he was getting tired.
Tired was, as Eli would say, the bedrock of understatement. He was exhausted. His fight with Adela, becoming king, sinking the ships, defending the beach, and—his mind grew dark—the death of his mother, it was all adding up. He’d been fighting in one way or another since midmorning, and now this. He watched as the war creature rolled back to a defensive position, its severed legs already crawling back toward its body. He had to finish this quickly and go help the Spiritualists with the others before the whole island was overrun. Assuming, of course, it wasn’t already.
He glanced up at the city. The mountain above him glowed like a sunset. Everywhere he looked things were burning and falling. Even at this distance he could hear the screams of the people, now
his people, as they tried to fight the fiery monsters destroying their homes. Rage built up in his chest, but before he could give in to it, the Heart grew heavy, calling his attention back to the fight at hand. Josef obeyed, letting everything else fall aside as he focused on the war spirit, which was nearly finished pulling itself back together. The Heart’s hilt pressed against his sweaty palms, pulling him forward, urging him to finish it now, while they still could.
Josef obeyed. He lunged forward, letting the sword’s weight pull him into a low sweep. The Heart caught the war spirit’s left front leg just as it reattached, and the war spirit opened its great, steel-toothed mouth in what Josef could only guess was a scream of pain. Sometimes being spirit deaf had its advantages.
The Heart jerked in his hands, and Josef refocused. He was beneath the creature now. The blasting heat dried his sweat instantly, baking his skin hard. Josef coughed at the reek of smelted metal, but before he could flee between the creature’s legs to cool, dark safety, the Heart jerked again. Josef nodded and shifted his stance, turning with the Heart as the sword flew up to strike the monster’s exposed, red-hot belly.
The black blade cut upward, slicing through the glowing metal like a razor through snow. The war spirit jerked above him, a belated dodge, but it was no use. The Heart was lodged at the center of its great, lumbering torso. But Josef was now at the limit of his reach. He stood on his toes, fully extended below the writhing creature with the Heart buried to the hilt in its body. He had no leverage to continue the blow up or strength to knock the spirit over. So he did the only thing he could. He planted his feet and brought the sword down in an arc in front of him.
The Heart cut cleanly down and burst free with an explosion of heat as the war spirit’s torso tore open. The spirit was thrashing now, and Josef rolled away before one of those writhing legs could skewer him by accident. The second he was clear, Josef spun to face
the monster again. The war spirit was on the ground now, rolling and thrashing as it tried to pull its split torso back together. The Heart of War shook in Josef’s hands, but Josef didn’t need to be told twice. He darted forward, dodging the spirit’s thrashing metal legs as he swung the Heart over his head with both hands. Then, gritting his teeth, he swung it down.
The first blow slammed the spirit to the ground. The next drove it into the stone. Josef swung the Heart as hard as he could, shivering with power as the black blade came alive in his hands, hammering the war spirit into the stone of the storm wall with the weight of a mountain. Finally, on the tenth stroke, the war spirit lay still.
Josef fell backward, nearly dropping the Heart as he gasped for air. In front of him, the Empress’s monster lay at the bottom of the crater left by the Heart’s rage, beaten beyond any recognition. Stumbling, Josef pushed himself up, ears still ringing with the fading power of his sword. Because of this, he didn’t hear the woman yelling until she standing right beside him.
“What?” he shouted, turning to see Miranda. She looked terrible, clothes ripped and stained, hair bedraggled and clinging to her sweaty, soot-streaked face. She also looked determined, and that worried him. In his experience, Miranda looking like that meant something terrible was about to happen.