be spent in one glorious act of ruination.
The troops before her had no idea an enemy was amongst them. Without exception their sole focus was to get into the siege tower before being found by an arrow or a rock from the great wall looming above them. Nona shouldered armoured men and women aside as if they were small children. The siege tower stank of the pine sap bleeding from its raw timbers, of the uncured hides nailed across its walls, and of the fear of those climbing it. The great wheels lay to either side now that the structure stood tight-pressed to Verity’s wall.
Nona barged inside and began to run up the ridged wooden ramp that formed a square spiral within the tower. Everywhere she stepped a glowing footprint remained to record her passage, scorched into the timber. Rather than fading, each footprint grew brighter and then more bright until on her sixth stride from the print it detonated, a blast powerful enough to blow out the sides of the tower in a cloud of splintered planking and torn hides. The chain of explosions chased Nona up the tower, tearing apart the soldiers she left tumbled behind her, and setting fire to the main beams.
The tower had begun to collapse by the time Nona burst through the curtain of chains screening the doorway just below its roof. She ran across the platform that bridged to the battlements and, with hunska speed, threw herself between the legs of the defending line. At the far edge she snagged the stonework and slid down the interior wall in a shower of sparks as she tamed her descent with her flaw-blades.
She found herself amid a crowd of startled defenders who a moment before had been racing around on various errands to fight fires, reinforce weak spots, or bring supplies like arrows or rocks to the wall.
‘I’m a Bride of the Ancestor!’ Two men levelled spears at Nona and she raised her arms. ‘I’m here to help.’
21
Three Years Earlier
The Escape
‘You’ve been spying on me?’
‘I have been spying on all of you. On the sister of the emperor, on the Red Sisters and the Grey, on the Church of the Ancestor.’ Zole looked as unapologetic as it was possible for a person to be.
‘Why?’ Nona could think of no other question.
Tarkax stepped forward. ‘The Corridor holds millions of people. What will happen when the moon falls?’
‘The Corridor will close and we’ll all die,’ Nona said.
‘Most will.’ Tarkax nodded. ‘But even if just one in every ten makes it to the ice, and if just one in every hundred of those makes it to the hot seas that are all that will be left to sustain us … they will outnumber the tribes.’
Nona blinked and discovered that frost had begun to form on her eyelashes. She had known the ice-tribes were few in number, especially those that spent their time in the deep ice rather than hunting the Corridor seas and the beasts that lived in the margins. It had never occurred to her quite how few they might be. ‘So what is it you plan to do?’
Tarkax shrugged. ‘Being prepared and forewarned is a plan in itself. But there are those among us who think that the Corridor can be saved, at least for a while longer. A few centuries perhaps. Zole has been gathering information. There’s no treachery intended. We want to help you and, by doing so, to help ourselves.’
‘How?’ Nona narrowed her eyes at the warrior. For years she’d imagined him to be some wandering mercenary. It took an effort of imagination to refashion him as Zole’s uncle, watching over his niece and hoping to save all the nations of Abeth.
‘Ah, well, that is the tricky part.’ He twisted a smile. ‘We didn’t send Zole just to watch you.’
‘You sent me because I needed to learn more than the ice-speakers could teach,’ Zole said.
‘We did.’ Tarkax nodded. ‘You may have noticed, Nona, that my brother’s daughter is an exceptional child. Our tribe has access to two Old Stones and no member of our people has ever held both and been fully purged. Not before Zole. And still she has not ascended. The ice-speakers now say that it will take four Old Stones, one attuned to each of the bloods, to forge her fully.’ He glanced at the hand Zole had just unwrapped. In the wind’s bite her flesh looked paler than Nona had ever seen it, but across her palm a scarlet