Screams echoed up from the village, but the trees were too thick for Malik to see anything beyond the plumes of flame and smoke.

“Who’s here?” Malik demanded.

Riese held the Attican girl’s cane-blade to her throat.

Ava remained curled up on the ground, but she did not flinch at the threat of the blade.

“Change,” she said.

“Quit playing bloody games.”

Ava’s green eyes flashed. “Don’t you speak to me of games, shaman. You have been playing games with the empire for years, while nations fall and cities burn, and while my people pay the—”

“Pah!” said Riese scathingly. “You’re a damn Attican noble. What have you got to complain about?”

“I am Valucian. A daughter of Flame and the Stone Spirits, no matter who the Atticans forced us to pay service to. No matter what they forced us to lie and forsake. We have remained. You’ve no idea what I’ve suffered. No idea how many thousands have suffered because of what your people provide the Attican empire. Now, you have a choice to make.”

Ava glanced up at the sky, grimacing at the movement. Riese did not take her eyes away from the girl, but Malik dared a glance at the dark heavens.

The moon emerged from behind a dark shadow. It had not been a cloud at all. Strange glowing lights filled the sky above, like golden stars in strange patterns. Drifting across the sky.

They formed a massive familiar shape in the sky. And they drifted overhead toward the harbor.

Malik gasped, struck by what Campos had discussed with his father about the Attican war.

Those lights belonged to one of the Elyan runeships, like the one that had fought in the battle at Siga, that Campos had described. Winged shadows darted from the sides of the floating vessel, flapping hard toward the flames and the screams.

Riese lowered the cane, but she kept her gaze fixed on Ava.

“Do you know what my people could do with dragons again?” Ava asked, slowly easing herself to her knees and then her feet. “With a Flying Armada and Rebelmounts and the wrath of the Stone Spirits? We could rule our own lands again. Just like you do here. You could be part of it, Riese.”

“What?”

“The empire is not the only way to be Dragonmount. I know why you hesitated to accept your egg. You question fighting for the empire. I know you do.”

“Riese, we need to—”

“And you, shaman,” said Ava softly. He could feel the warmth of hish, her magic brushing up against his own spirit. “I may not be well-trained in magic, but I know minds. I sensed the turmoil in your own over the truth of those eggs. The truth of what role your people have played in the state of the world.”

“Enough,” said Malik.

“That’s why I led you out here. You don’t have to—”

Ava’s words were cut off. Riese swung the cane around for a second time. The ebony wood cracked against the girl’s head. Ava crumpled to the ground again, and went still.

Malik gaped at his friend.

Riese shrugged. “Our island is under attack. We don’t have time for some self-righteous speech from a gods-damned mind witch. You deal with the general. I’ll deal with her.”

Malik glanced over at the manservant impaled upon the tree. Only now did Malik realize his hands were shaking. The reality of what they’d done finally ringing true in his spirit. He and Riese both, attacking the man with magic in an instinctive burst. Using magic to kill, it went against everything he’d been taught.

“That bastard murdered an innocent girl,” Riese said. “He deserved it.”

Was that true? Malik had no idea what to believe.

He glanced down at Iriana Thenius’s body, head drawn back at an impossible angle. Dead the instant Campos’s servant released his hold.

Malik didn’t know whether the dead girl had been good or evil. He had no idea about the outside world. About Attica or Valucia or the Elyans across the seas. But he knew he ought to heal when he was able.

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Malik knelt beside General Campos. The tall man was unconscious. But Malik had managed a healing spell, while Ava had been distracted, which had at least staunched the bleeding. Malik’s knees drenched, and he shuddered, realizing how much blood the general had spilled on the ground around him.

Focusing his senses, Malik drew hish into his spirit, and channeled that mighty energy into Campos’s spirit.

Two souls—even though one was unconscious—could manage a stronger healing. The skin of the general’s throat began to close over, threads of magic weaving with tissue like strands of cloth, as Malik aided Campos’s body in the natural force of healing that was always there.

Riese lifted Ava over her shoulder as though she were a stag from a successful hunt. She set the girl down behind the four pillars of the clan shrines, beyond his vision.

By the time Riese returned, Malik had done what he could for the general. Campos’s chest lifted with weak intakes of breath.

“Will he live?” Riese asked.

“I don’t know.”

“Should he?”

Malik sighed. “I don’t know. What about the girl?”

“Not going anywhere anytime soon.” Riese took up the general’s satchel with the eggs safely inside. “They’re here for these. We should hide them over—”

Riese was about to move back toward the pillars, when a voice came from behind them.

“What in the Abyss happened here?”

They turned to find an Attican boy gaping at Campos’s bloody form in horror.

***

Urla and Joren encountered only one more shapeshifter, which they dispatched easily enough, working together. Urla was impressed with the shaman’s skill with a spear. He struck with the precision of a trained lancer. If anyone ought to have been given pause at the gruesome demands of combat, she would have guessed it would be a shaman from a remote and peaceful island. But when the shapeshifter morphed back to its human form, Joren did not hesitate.

He launched his spear masterfully, impaling the man through the chest. A better shot than many Attican warriors might have managed.

Joren wrenched the bonespear from the creature’s chest, and they continued on, down one last lane, and through the gates to the wide village square at the edge of the waterfront.

Urla’s heart shuddered at the sight of the Attican vessel. Flames lashed at the skies from each mast, tattered bits of sail floating down to the water like fiery bits of parchment.

The deck was already half-submerged in the harbor, and though Urla was no naval officer, she knew it was doomed.

Shadows streaked overhead, and the looming form of the mysterious runeship drifted out over the edge of the village behind them. Only now, in the openness of the square did Urla realize there were flames filling the skies on the other end of the village too.

Unintelligible shouts filled the night. Echoing across the island from the skies, from the longboats out in the harbor where Attican guards were desperately trying to save their ship with buckets drawn from the sea.

Urla scanned the square, searching for signs of Ruan or the general. Traders frantically loaded goods onto longboats. Many had abandoned their goods entirely and were making for their ships to flee before the enemy came for their vessel next.

The enemy. Who is it?

Joren gazed back at the flames and shook his head. “Decoys,” he muttered.

Urla nodded. “We know what they seek.”

She spotted Captain Rykus near the edge of the square. Lady Thenius was in hysterics, beside him, standing over a body on the ground. The Knight of Caaadron stood a short distance away, eyes on the skies, her glowing godblade in her hands.

Urla and Joren hurried to them. Relief swept over her as she realized the body did not belong to her son, but to Marcus Tindarius, the boy from Skymount.

“What happened?” Urla demanded.

Rykus answered, his voice like ice. “Half a dozen of those monstrosities bore down on us at once. We all would be dead if not for the Lady Knight.”

The woman wore no armor, and she was drenched, head to foot. She nodded only momentarily at Urla, before returning her gaze to the skies.

“Where are the others?” Urla demanded.

Without removing her gaze from the skies, the Lady Knight gestured toward a small path at the edge of the woods. “Campos took the Rykus girl up there before the attack, along with the younger shaman and Faltari girl.”

The shaman cursed softly.

“The Thenius girl was meant to meet them there,” the Lady Knight finished.

“And my son?” Urla demanded, unable to mask the desperation in her voice. “Where is Ruan?”

“I’ve not seen your son since the attack.”

Urla’s heart wrenched in her chest. Images flashed. Her son sinking beneath the surface of the flaming sea on the ship. Or snatched up into the heavens by one of those venomous creatures.

Prayers came unbidden to the All Mother. Please, please, not my son as well.

Joren placed a hand on her shoulder, warmth coursing from his spirit, calming her mind.

“They’re searching for the riders,” the shaman said. “We must find them first.”

“We don’t want to draw all these creatures to them with us,” said the Lady Knight.

Two winged monsters emerged from the clouds above, and soared over the harbor, banking over the flaming Attican ship, scanning the harbor.

Urla’s fingers closed tight around the handle of the axe the shaman had given her. “What are those things?” she whispered. “I’ve never seen anything like them.”

“Whatever they are, they’re well-trained,” said the Lady Knight. “Look at their formation.”

Two more creatures joined then, circling the water. All four flew as one mechanism. Banking on dark wings, flapping in unison, as though they shared one mind.

“They bleed like any other creature,” said Urla.

“Yes, and they’ll happily sacrifice their blood to get what they’ve come for,” said the Knight. “They’ve been watching us ever since they killed Marcus.”

“We have to find Iriana,” Lady Thenius whimpered. “We have to go. Now.” She began to move toward the forest path, but Rykus held her back.

“What if we go one by one?” Rykus asked.

“No,” said Urla. “We must all go at once. Split in separate directions.”

“And who will go the right way?” Thenius demanded. “You?”

“I don’t even know what’s happened to my son,” Urla said. “The Knight should go.”

She shook her head. “I am best suited to fighting them here in the open.”

“The shaman,” said Urla.