“Baingarde,” Remy whispered. In his voice, she heard the same reverent awe that had kept him reading about the Old World night after night, year after year.

Something exploded nearby. Fire bloomed and grew. A soldier flew—flew—away from the inferno, carried swiftly away on spears of white light tipped in shadow.

For a moment, Eliana could only stare. She had spent a dark lifetime in the palace of an angel, but never before had she seen one with wings.

Remy tugged on her arm, drawing her down. They flattened themselves behind the rock. Eliana’s castings trembled against her palms. Breathless, face pressed into the dirt, she tasted magic on her tongue. It choked the wind, sparked cold and metallic in her mouth, as if she’d kissed a bolt of lightning. Her vision was sharp as glass. Her blood roared, jubilant. Words floated to her mind on currents of gold.

Rielle was alive. The empirium had not yet been broken. Eliana dug her fingers into the mud, resisting the upward pull of the magic-ripe air. Was it possible to fly without wings?

“This isn’t the night Ludivine spoke of,” she said.

“No,” Remy agreed. In the shifting, bursting light, his eyes were glittering jewels. “This is spring, the last year of the Second Age. It’s the Battle of Âme de la Terre. The battle that ended the world.”

42

   Audric

“We will ride for you as fast as we can, but Audric—it is many miles between Styrdalleen and Âme de la Terre, and my people have been ravaged by a hard winter of blizzards, constant quakes and avalanches, and continued attacks in our villages. Thousands are dead. The capital is overflowing with civilians who have lost their homes, their children, their parents. And we are running out of food. My brother has written to me that he comes with aid, but he has yet to arrive, and I worry he never will. You are the best hope we have to survive this, Audric. Stand fast against the enemy, and keep an eye on the northeast horizon.”

—Encoded letter from Ingrid Lysleva, Lord Commander of the Borsvallic army, to King Audric Courverie of Celdaria, dated April 19, Year 1000 of the Second Age

He could not find her.

Audric had imagined it would happen immediately, that some incredible burst of power would erupt within minutes. The rest of the battlefield would pale in comparison to her. She would stand at the heart of it, arms flung wide, power streaming like lightning from her fingers.

And Audric would dive toward her, throw such blinding sunlight at her that even she would stagger. He would jump from Atheria before the godsbeast hit the ground, raise Illumenor to strike. Maybe he would say Rielle’s name. Maybe she would not allow him even this.

But he could not find her.

And they were losing.

He watched the battle below as if it had seized him in his sleep, some horrible feverish nightmare rolling on and on before his disbelieving eyes. Angels fell by the dozens—speared by castings of fire, sliced in two by spinning shields flung hard by their elemental masters—but seconds later, they were whole again. The ruined pieces of their bodies simply crawled toward each other and reassembled. They found their dropped weapons and stormed back into battle.

Some left their bodies to be trampled and forgotten and instead fought unseen. Celdarian soldiers dropped in silence. No wounds, no blood. Only contorted pale faces, mouths frozen in the beginnings of screams. A windsinger lashed her whip through the air, summoning sharp gusts that knocked angel after angel to the ground. A moment later, the light of her casting went out. Her body jerked, her face shifted, and she slipped off her horse and was gone, trampled beneath a sea of hooves and claws.

Audric’s hand shook around Illumenor. The sunlight streaming from the blade was dimming, and angels teemed just beyond the reach of his light. They hissed in Lissar, shouted for him to drop his sword, crashed their blades against Illumenor’s bright beams until his ears rang with the sound of fists against glass.

He could not drop his light. They would swarm him in seconds.

But he had to do something for the dozens, the hundreds of soldiers being cut down around him. He searched frantically for even the smallest triumph. The zipping blue-white of Sloane’s casting, the spark and spin of metalmaster hammers hitting their targets.

It wasn’t enough.

A dark tide of beasts churned relentlessly toward the city wall, abominations with castings sewn into their skin and mighty roars like rocks falling. Gray-eyed children rode atop them, their wrists blazing with fire, shadows flying from them like arrows. A flock of avian beasts streaked across the lake on naked wings and dove at the wall. They plucked archers from their posts and tossed the bodies between them, tearing at flesh and bone until only scraps remained.

Audric lay flat against Atheria and closed his eyes. At once, she dove fast for the battlefield. Angels followed on either side, their wings flashing. Their war cries were the howls of wolves.

Before hitting the ground, Atheria pulled up sharply, then wheeled around and cut across the battlefield like a sleek ship through dark waters. Illumenor burned a flickering path through the angelic ranks, scattering them. Audric gulped down air. The wind streaming past him was knife-sharp, black with smoke. He looked back over his shoulder, saw the destruction left behind in their blazing wake, and felt a small burst of hope.

Then a huge weight slammed into Atheria and knocked her hard from the air. Audric fell, lost Illumenor, went tumbling. Hands grabbed at him. Someone thrust a spear into the dirt beside his shoulder. He twisted, dodged another, then scrabbled through the mud for his sword. Something shrieked, a terrible snarling scream. His hand landed on metal. A familiar rope of power snapped into his palm.

He grabbed Illumenor and spun back toward his attacker—a towering angel in gold armor. He thrust his spear once more. Audric dodged it, and Illumenor burst into brilliant light. The angel dropped his weapon, shrank back, shielded his eyes. Their blades crashed together. Other angels converged on them, swords raised. He felt their minds groping for his, fingers digging into the edges of his thoughts, but something was shielding him—a familiar, supple barrier that repelled their attacks.

Ludivine. He hoped it was her. A sickening flash of terror swept through him as he imagined someone else keeping him alive, drawing him on through this battle toward some end he could not see.

He spun to meet the angel’s swords, Illumenor sparking brighter with every metallic crash. He dodged their blows, stabbed one angel in the groin, carved a streak of white light across another’s plated chest. He looked for Ludivine in the chaos, but she was keeping herself hidden. Was she watching the fight unfold from some sheltered mountain cave? Had she truly left them all to die?

A furious scream drew his eye. Atheria was locked in battle with one of the beasts—shoulders high off the ground, back ridged with fur and bone. Atheria reared up, ears flat and wings snapping. Red gashes striped her stomach. She kicked out with her forelegs, clobbered the beast with her hooves.