flame. Its light drew shadows from the earth—wolves and hawks, prowling mountain cats with raised hackles.
Miren’s ax flashed in Illumenor’s light, and the two hundred metalmaster acolytes she commanded punched their castings into the air.
Princess Kamayin held up her fists as if preparing to engage an attacker, her castings glinting at her wrists.
Queen Bazati drew her long, curved sabre, whipping the air into a cyclone.
The Sun Guard, standing below the wall, turned their horses toward the mountains. Evyline’s yells thundered like an anvil’s blows.
Magister Duval and his regiment of windsingers, the city guard, the Sauvillier soldiers who had declared their loyalty to the throne. Odo’s private army of paid knife fighters and archers, all of them now proudly sporting the livery of House Courverie.
Every soldier gathered raised their voice in a furious chorus.
“We are the light!”
Their shouts roared like waves.
“We are the light!”
Audric climbed swiftly onto Atheria’s back. She launched into the air, and the archers on the wall knelt at his departure. They touched their lips, then their eyelids. The prayer of the House of Light.
“We are the light!”
The Sun Guard a gleaming V below him, Audric flew low and fast over the deafening cries of his army. He lifted Illumenor high, cast its light in bright beams through the night. Beneath the steady pound of his heartbeat came a roll of thunder as his army began to charge, following Illumenor’s light. The sharp neighs of eager warhorses, their huffing breaths. The clang of armor, the zip and crackle of elemental magic gathering to strike.
Power raced through Audric’s every vein, warming the plates of his armor. White light shot from his fingers like sparks from a fire.
“We are the light!”
His words broke into screams of fury. Below and behind him, the ocean of his army crested, their war cries splitting open the air. They had reached the wide stretch of the open Flats. A broad field, miles long and miles wide, slightly damp from recent rains. The horses tore up mud with their hooves. Waterworkers pulled rainwater from the ground and spun foaming spirals in the air.
Audric watched the horizon. The angelic front lines had breached the mountains at last and were charging toward them. Beasts plunged across the Flats on grotesquely large forearms, blunt paws, splintered hooves. One—bear-like, enormous, with a mottled hide that looked tough as rocks—whipped its armored tail and shot ribbons of fire. Eerie light flashed—bright and liquid, like moonlit rivers bleached of color. Angelic wings, approaching fast.
But Audric did not falter. In his hand, Illumenor was an inferno. It would dazzle them. He heard the shrieks of the monsters below and saw angels veer quickly away, as if they had been pummeled.
He stared them down. Beyond the mountains, night reigned. But Illumenor turned the battlefield to a scorching, merciless dawn. He heard the awful sounds of two armies crashing together. The ring of swords, the wild cries of felled soldiers.
“We are the light!”
And still they shouted his words.
Audric’s breaths matched the urgent beat of Atheria’s wings as she plunged ahead toward the mountains. Illumenor cut a broad line of white fire through the angelic army. He heard the whistle of arrows, the hissed curses of angels lashing the air, but nothing and no one could approach the blinding brilliance of his casting.
He would not be able to hold such power steady for long.
He turned his thoughts to the battle raging below and searched the chaos for Rielle.
39
Eliana
“‘Tell me,’ said Morgaine to her love, ‘will you think of me when I am gone? So far from you I must go, such a journey lies before me.’ And Morgaine wept furious tears, ashamed for him to see her, but Gilduin held her hands and kissed them, and looked upon her anguished face, and suddenly Morgaine felt at peace, for in Gilduin’s eyes was naught but love. ‘There is nothing in this world that I could look upon and not then think of you,’ he said, ‘for in you lies everything I have known, everything I am, everything I will be.’”
—“The Ballad of Gilduin and Morgaine,” ancient Celdarian epic, author unknown
In the room Ludivine had set aside for her, Eliana lay beside Navi, arms tight around her, cheek pressed against her arm. She listened to Navi breathe and waited for her to reply. With a twinge of nerves, she remembered that she would not be able to wait for long.
Corien would not stay weakened by Simon’s blightblade forever. Ludivine had shut herself away in her room to