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Toren Daen

It was like a volcano had erupted underground. The far wall screamed its vengeance and fury, a wave of heat making me shift in the air. A hundred streams of lava fifty feet thick spewed like geysers, the glow in the cavern banishing the dark.

Our fight caused this, I realized immediately, sensing how the disturbed ambient mana shifted and changed. The rumbling sound of earthquakes and terrified heartbeats resounded in my ears.

I barely had time to think as I took in the situation. Most of those heartbeats were already far away from the tide of lava, rushing toward the farthest walls. Evacuating.

And on what platforms did remain of Burim, dwarves and my fellow Alacryans were working to conjure steps and bridges to allow an evacuation. Before I’d even arrived, the entire city had been in a full-swing exodus.

Visions of fire and plague flashed in my mind; of innocents overcome by my hubris. I remembered the utter devastation that swept away Fiachra as Mardeth enacted his plans. The scent of the smoke was just the same as it ravaged my nostrils, the gouts of splattering magma gleaming in slow motion.

I remembered the times I’d strolled in the Undercrofts, feeling the sorrow of the downtrodden dwarves. Seeing a struggle reflected across both continents and tore at my heart. And even high above in the Overcrofts where countless men and women worked to extend their lives or fight for what they thought was right.

Soleil’s Bloodtie slammed into my mind like hot coals pressed into a gaping wound. The aftermath of his duel with the Indrath, where those he sought to protect were burned away from the simple clashes of phoenix and dragon. The sheer collateral scale of it–

The world rumbled again, magma flowing in a forty-foot-tall tide along the ground that continued to grow in height. It swept away every stalagmite it crossed in an expanse a mile wide, glowing with a vengeance as those heartbeats sought to escape it. It was loud; far, far louder than I thought it had any right to be. It was like the sound of a thousand train wheels on tracks. Rumbling and roaring and crushing in a way that drowned out even my thoughts. And it couldn’t be stopped, couldn’t be averted by any force of man.

“You must act!” my mother’s voice surged through my mind and aloud, overriding the tumble of crushing stone. “Toren, you must act! Do not freeze in fire!”

I shuddered, snapping back into focus as I looked at the phoenix shade in her automaton. “You read about this, Toren! You know what must be done!”

My eyes snapped to the horrified Chul, then back to the ground. Priorities.

I ground my teeth, then flapped my wings. Aurora was right. I had read about this. There were protocols in place for evacuation of all the folk of the Undercrofts, and–

There.

Through the terrified tremble of the heartbeats all about Burim, there was an anomaly. A group who, despite the clashing dance of white fire embers and melting rock from high above, had been acting.

I blurred down in a streak of light as I noticed them. Rahdeas knelt over Olfred’s body as it bled, surrounded by a dozen people barely past a panic. Distantly, I was aware of Jotilda, Lusul, and a few others as they shied away from my burning aura.

All around us, arks of conjured stone sat ready, many filled with terrified dwarves already. Once the lavatides reached this point, they’d be swept up and carried along toward the sea.

My glimmering wings reflected the light as I stalked forward, the ambient mana flexing and warping around me. I released Soulplume, unwilling to strain myself unnecessarily, but everyone still parted for me as if I were the lavatide.

Before I was even aware of it, I was moving towards Olfred’s broken body. His normally well-trimmed beard was stained with blood, and his eyes were glassy. As my heartfire pierced the smog around us, I found the familiar act of healing someone gave me a place to work from.

“Rahdeas,” I said sharply, forcing my attention to center on the dwarf even as the chaos all around demanded otherwise. “What can I do to help?” What can I do to fix this devastation I caused?

The one-eyed dwarf’s misty eye tracked back to me, seeming impossibly clear. I wondered if this was what people felt when I stared at them in the depths of my Second Phase.

“There are still many who haven’t made it to the arks,” he grunted without preamble. He stayed kneeling, even as Olfred’s body slowly knit back together and burns sealed over. “That’s what you need to do. Clear a path for them, Spellsong.”

I turned around, ready to rise back into the sky as I readied my wings.

“Toren,” Rahdeas said quietly, still cradling the body of his son. His intent—which had always been distant and empty—suddenly felt focused. It was raw like an open wound. “He didn’t foresee this. He didn’t… could never have understood this was what was coming. Not until it was too late.”

I gnashed my teeth. Are you talking about Mordain, or yourself? I thought, but did not say.

I bent my knees, gathering my power as I flared my wings. My muscles burned as mana coursed through their cells, my fullest intent gathered into ascension.

And then I leapt, shooting into the smog-filled and suffocating air.

Aurora, I thought, my mind finally cementing into something more analytical as I swept my gaze across the caverns, get that wretch moving! We don’t have much time!

“Do not insult him!” my bond hissed back. “And he will act! Just do your part!”

Distantly, I was aware that Chul’s weakening mana signature was dipping down to the northern parts of the Undercrofts.

“He is not a monster, Toren!” Aurora replied in anguish, her Vessel Form flying after Chul. Presumably to direct him and instruct him. “Stop calling your brother–”

He isn’t my brother! I snapped, feeling the lingering soulpain that had made my very Sea sizzle and burn. He’s a murderer.

I gnashed my teeth as I observed the distance between the lavatide and the majority of the Undercrofts’ people. Now that the blood in my veins had cooled somewhat, it was easier to see that this entire place had been undergoing evacuation and preparation for some time.

It…. It wasn’t as bad as it could have been. I needed to remember that, didn’t I?

Rahdeas’ words seeped through my mind. He couldn’t have understood this was coming until it was too late?

Hypocrite.

I shut away my connection with Aurora for a moment, ignoring the surging pain as I used my rising anger as a focus. I needed to listen, to be able to hear the people I needed to save.

For an everlasting moment, I let my senses expand. I felt every drop of crumbling dust as the caverns rumbled; felt every bead of sweat and blood along my temples as the cloying smoke and darkness of Burim focused in on me. The endless slew of death and dying heartfires clogged my ears, but I couldn’t focus on those. I fell into my Acquire Phase, feeling my sense for lifeforce surge and–

There.

My attention oriented toward the south as I sensed a larger gathering of fleeing dwarves. With a simple flap of my wings, I was already a streak of white light.

I skidded to a halt in front of the group, noting their terrified and haunted eyes. In every gaze and trembling heartbeat, I saw another East Fiachran devastated by the plague, another innocent dying in that initial attack on Burim.

“I’m going to clear a path,” I grunted, making sure my voice could be heard with my sound magic. “There are arks to the north. Just run in a straight line.”

I didn’t have time to say anything else. I whirled on my feet, gathering my magic as my Regalia fed information to me. With a wave of my hand, a thick beam of red plasma burned holes through the stalagmites before us, clearing a path most of the way to the arks.

I didn’t stay. Already, I was in the air again as I searched for more heartbeats.

I felt like overstretched putty as I blurred across Burim at hypersonic speeds, darting from one group of terrified dwarves to another. Sometimes I needed to tear apart rubble to free those unexpectedly trapped. Sometimes I needed to apply a quick healing. Sometimes I had to tell grieving loved ones to save themselves, because that was all that was left.

Through it all, I felt something in me slowly seep away like a lost word in a heat haze. I thought I’d lost my innocence after my first battle in this war as I’d fought with the dwarven rebellion to take this city. But the smoke of burned bodies and lifeforce seeping into the ground smelt the same as those in Soleil’s Bloodtie.

Time became a blur as I zipped all across Burim, doing my damndest to save all I could. High above, Seris’ magic flared here and there as she organized the Overcrofts in relief efforts.

But only the asura could battle the mountains themselves and emerge victorious. Eventually, the crawl of the lava reached the arks, lifting them up and carrying them towards the exit. In contrast to how monstrous and devastating the molten stone had been in tearing apart the stalagmites, the boats rose along the tide in an almost gentle way, like a mother lifting up her child.

I heaved for breath high above from where I watched, feeling half-delirious. My mana regenerated at an absurd rate between Aurora’s feather and my constant use of mana rotation, but I was still running low.

I inhaled deeply, taking in the scent of burned flesh and sulfur. I exhaled anger and despair.

“Help, please!” Aurora’s voice shattered the mental barrier I’d constructed between us. “Please! I need your help, Toren!”

I blinked away my exhaustion, sensing my bond’s distress. I immediately traced her to the northern parts of the city, right where the lavatide was strongest.

I immediately set off again, the ambient mana hauling me forward. I was starting to feel the charred stump of my left arm at last as my heartbeat rose, fear and dread taking hold once more as I surged toward my mother’s call.

I saw them. Aurora’s Vessel Form was burnt and charred, the bronze soulmetal drooping as it sheltered Chul. The half-phoenix was shaking from backlash as he covered someone from falling rubble, working in tandem with Lady Dawn’s avian form to hold off a hundred tons of stone.

He’d seared his wounds shut, considering the bulky son of Dawn had been unable to truly heal them. But their existence had clearly taken their toll on him. As the young dwarven child raced out from under the rubble, stumbling away, I knew instantly that neither Aurora’s relic nor Chul had been able to brace for what was coming.

Because behind them, the lavatide was a tsunami of molten rock as it splashed down, swallowing both in its massive gullet. The last thing I saw before those teeth snapped shut was Aurora’s begging, begging eyes.

And Chul’s? They were Norgan’s as they looked up at me.

Then they were gone, subsumed and drowned in the stone. I could sense Aurora’s relic curling around her son, desperately trying to protect him despite the burning of her brand. But that weight, that power would crash back in eventually.

I screamed in rage and fury, the air warping as I slammed into the earth a hundred feet away like a comet. I focused on my core, energy flowing around me. My heartfire revved in my chest, my body coiling like a spring as I focused on all the insight I’d absorbed these past few months, on all the power inherent in my body and soul. I fell into Soulplume, the world around me slowing as I faced off with this calamity.

Give me power, Aurora! I demanded, blood streaming down my face as I gathered every inch of mana I could. Give me power!

“Toren,” she whispered, something broken in that voice as it traveled to me. I could almost feel her relic slowly melting as she struggled to protect her son from death. “I–”

“Give me power!” I screamed, settling into a wide stance. I pulled on that feather in my core, sensing somewhere in this fugue state how it granted me mana. “That’s what you promised me, isn’t it?! So give it to me!”

And mana began to flow from that feather in my core. A torrent surged under my pull, finally able to move as this fraction of insight granted me more understanding.

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All of Aurora’s potential and insight, all of her mana? It was there, compressed in her soul in some way. Bottled up like a star that I could never exhaust. That constant energy had pushed me from the dark orange stage all the way to white, but still, it was not exhausted. Barely a fraction of that solar mass of mana had ever been touched.

But I had a direct conduit to her spirit deep in my core. The feather pulsed, burning brightly from my demands. As more and more mana flowed through my core, my body ached and burned as the buildup of telekinetic force around me made the very air warp. But it built, just like my rage throughout this entire tragedy.

White fire and shuddering sound joined the growing spell, but did not become plasma. No, that was not my intent. That wall of molten rock approached, undaunted as it mocked me. Every sparking ember and extinguished heartfire told me that everything I’d ever done was for naught. That it was all a failure.

I remembered failing to stand in the Hearth as I burned like a star, the rock around me drooping and melting from the sheer proximity. I remembered Norgan’s death, of failing a brother once.

I engaged Resonant Flow, then snapped my fist forward.

The cavern seemed to quiet for a moment as the world forgot what should be happening. Colossal amounts of mana heaved like the scream of a god. Fire, shuddering sound, and interlaced pure force silently thrust forward like a spear.

The lavatide split. Like Moses parting the sea, the very expanse of molten rock was cleaved clean in two as the power thrust through it. Each side rose eighty feet in the air in defiance of natural law as my surge of pure power screamed, obliterating anything that didn’t dare bow. A sound like the detonation of a bomb interlaced with my rabid scream echoed through all of Burim.

And then, the natural laws reasserted themselves. A catastrophic rumble and splashing slammed into my eardrums as my vision swam.

Because it wasn’t just the lavatide that split. My core had, too, with a nauseating fracture that seemed to reverberate through my body like a sound spell. My senses flashed in and out. Mana, sound, sight–

Aurora screamed in terror. Terror for me.

But I wasn’t done.

Blood dripped from my teeth and my core burned as I engaged my Regalia again. I blocked out the pain as fracture marks raced along the surface of my core, my pained heartfire working to seal them over even as I used more mana.

Chul’s body surged from the smoking earth, outlined in white alongside the molten remains of Aurora’s relic. My control flickered out like the flashing light of a bulb as the cracks in my core spread. I winced, blood streaming from my mouth.

Chul fell as my grip on my Regalia flickered in and out, dropping toward that lava again.

No, I thought, forcing my aching heart to seal over the fractures in the snow-white expanse of my magical nexus. I won’t let him die.

I reasserted control before he hit the ground. I fell to my hands and knees as the lava began to crash back in like the jaws of a titan. Nausea wracked every inch of my soul as I laid Chul’s body across a floating platform of rock coasting over the tide.

I slammed my eyes shut as Aurora’s panicked terror and worry washed over me. My senses swam as my core finally healed back over in motes of orange-purple. I heaved, vomiting blood onto the sizzling ground.

I could feel it. All of it. All the death today tainted the very world in a smog of mourning heartfire. In that brief instant where all my mana senses had wavered like a flickering lightbulb, I’d been able to taste it all the more.

“You foolish, foolish child!” Aurora yelled, her phantom arms hauling me up to my feet. “I should have never let you leave! I should have never let you use such arts!”

Norgan is safe, I thought back to her, barely conscious. My soul felt like the head of a flail, slammed against metal over and over and whipped about without care.

The rumbling curtain approached us as Aurora’s shade pushed me up. She was covered in burns. Why was she burned? “Fly, my son, fly!” she demanded, forcing me to stand with her strong arms.

“There,” Aurora said, forcing me to turn. Her arms were so warm as they held me. So strong, even through her pain. “There is a platform atop the magma! Go to it now, Toren. Now!”

I didn’t have the energy to argue. My thoughts were a slurry as I lurched toward that waiting platform where Chul’s body rested as well, noting the many boats of refugees further away as they coasted along the magma.

They were safe. I’d done it. And now I wanted…

I wanted to rest. I wanted to just… lie down on that platform. To give up and let it all continue without me. I’d done my part, hadn’t I? Everything, I…

I fell to my knees with a groan as I hit the rock, before immediately collapsing forward. The last thing I heard before I finally lost consciousness was Aurora’s choked voice as her strength ran out.

Seris Vritra

“Secure the teleportation gate!” I snapped, flying past a few divisions of soldiers as they worked to extract victims from the rubble of the Overcrofts. The ambient mana burned all around us as people screamed, but this wasn’t enough to sway my course. “It cannot be broken!”

I whirled in the air, my eyes searching as I quested for the next place that needed my guidance. In times of war and catastrophe, people flocked to the closest pillar of support and stability. So as Toren and that wretch clashed about the skies, I reorganized and stamped discipline into those still struggling in the Overcrofts.

I felt Toren’s mana as he blurred about the cavern, but not that of the other one. That was good. That meant my Spellsong was victorious.

I found my next target quickly. Another stalactite was cracking and unstable, the looming spear close to falling into the ocean of fire below. There were mages on either side, but they weren’t organized enough to save themselves.

I flew forward, wincing at my abnormal heartbeat. My mana core pulsed as I siphoned energy across my limbs, flying through the dust and debris to the cracking stalactite.

Then I lurched in the sky as that white, inverted energy spread from my heart. I gasped from the pain, barely adjusting my flight as it danced across my veins like poison. I crashed into a spire of earth instead of the lavatide as I clutched at my chest, heaving for breath. My fingers clenched as they dug into the stone, anchoring me there as dust caked my once-pristine dress.

Like an insidious virus injected via a syringe, my very heart delivered that strange anti-decay all across my limbs.

Every time, it comes back stronger, I thought with growing fear. That inverted decay has taken root.

And I was running out of mana. I needed it now. I could not afford to run dry.

Instinctively, I reached out with my mind, grasping at the ambient mana as I huddled in that crater. It was difficult. No, nigh impossible. The act of hovering slightly made it all the more difficult to draw in the energy, seeing as I was engaging my mana veins.

I gnashed my teeth. It doesn’t matter, I thought, pushing onward. I’ve contemplated the theory of this for years. It should be possible.

Something shifted in the back of my mind as my heart beat painfully. Finally, the mana flowed into me, rushing toward my core. And blessedly, the energy began to purify.

It was difficult. My exhausted psyche ached with the trifold act of drawing in the mana, purifying it, and using it to suppress the infection in my heart.

But I forced the mana to flow into me and toward my core, purifying it as I hovered in the crater. I held it, commanded it.

Sweat beaded on my skin as I called on my healing factor. Soulfire sputtered around me, my skin sizzling with dark steam as I meticulously suppressed that spread.

I compressed it back and back, battling it as a battalion of soldiers threw themselves at another. And finally, my blood was tainted no longer.

I looked up, heaving for breath as I stared at the stalactite I’d sought to save. Those cracks had spread even further, nearly all the way through. Only a few seconds were left until it finally fell. Maybe thirty, at most?

I quickly ran the calculations as I watched a young dwarven child scream for their mother across the gap. My heart fell as I recognized the truth.

Not enough time.

I separated from the stone, turning my mind and heart away from those along the platforms. I needed to prioritize who I could save logically. This was another puzzle I needed to complete.

Behind me, the sound of the rock shearing and breaking echoed. Screams begged for salvation, then went silent in a crash as the lava absorbed them.

I moved as I could, directing people and acting as a guiding light. Even as Toren blurred about far below in streaks of orange light, saving all he could amidst the Undercrofts, I was already preparing for the aftermath of this.

Burim will not be able to support our station after this, I thought as Captain Dromorth delivered a hasty report about the teleportation gate’s destruction. The infrastructure is too damaged, but we do need the teleportation gates. We’ll have to restation in Vildorial.

“What are we to do next, Scythe Seris Vritra?” Captain Dromorth asked, kneeling before me. His small glasses were askew and cracked. “Casualties are still being assessed, but a sizable portion of our mages are still at the ready.”

I gave it a millisecond of calculating thought. “Secure the docks,” I replied. “We will need the mobility of the sea soon, and I suspect our steamships are what will see us through this devastation.”

If aid and relief were to be delivered to this city, it wouldn’t be by teleportation gate, but by our expansive network across the ocean. Cylrit should be able to–

The phoenix’s madly determined eyes flashed in my skull again. He’d mocked me, claiming he’d slain Cylrit.

Cylrit. My Retainer, ever stalwart and… always there. It had been seven hours and forty-three minutes since I’d last heard from him. He should have reached out to me in case something had gone wrong in his meeting with King Arthur. I should have heard something.

I should have heard something. He always spoke to me. Was always there. He’d never just… ignore me or let my requests for communication go distant.

“Scythe Seris?” Dromorth asked again, still kneeling. “Are we to–”

A rumble went through the ambient mana. Like a heartbeat. Once. Twice. I stumbled from the sheer force of it as my eyes went wide. Toren?!

It was like a hammer striking a gong. A sudden, impossible flow of mana made my teeth ache as it erupted like a popping balloon. I opened my mouth, trying to say something, but the sound didn’t travel. My vision fuzzed for a moment as worry took over my mind.

I stumbled to the side, only vaguely aware that, far away, the lavatide itself had split. Like a butcher’s cleaver slicing into waiting flesh, something had scythed through the magma itself. I stared in awe for a moment, mutely fascinated by the display of scintillating power.

Toren, I thought, nearly toppling as the wave passed and sound slammed into my skull. Toren’s still fighting that monster.

I stumbled off the platform I was on, determination raw in my veins as my heartbeat pounded in my ears. I knew not what I could do to help my Spellsong, but I could assist in some small way. My shields could halt Chul’s advance for an instant of time, and he no longer had access to Inversion to so easily pierce them. Together, Toren and I would not fall.

But as I hovered over the lavatide, my eyes roaming for the man I called my own, I felt panic rise deep from my stomach. I couldn’t see him. Just dozens of stone boats as they floated over the tides, gradually exiting the cavern’s massive teeth.

“Toren!” I called, my voice raw and desperate as I spun in the sky. “Toren, where are you! Speak to me!”

Nothing. Only the rumbling of the magma as it slowly exited the cavern’s mouth. He didn’t fly up to me and smile, brushing this off as just another time he’d risked his life. His last smirk burned in my skull as I clenched and unclenched my fists, anger warring with terror as I fought to keep my masks in place.

He cannot be dead, I reasoned. His bond would not allow it. He lives, Seris, just as Cylrit does. He is somewhere here. You must reassert yourself and your control.

I took deep breaths, forcing my panic into a small, tiny box as I methodically swept my eyes across the magma. My heartbeat evened out as I assured myself of my goal.

And I saw him. A floating platform of rock—slowly melting as it drifted lazily toward the exit—stood starkly against all the others.

He wasn’t moving, and from this distance, I couldn’t tell if he was alive. But that didn’t matter. As the platform slowly drifted outside of Burim’s cavern, I surged forward, hoping against hope.

I need to get him before it falls! I thought quickly, feeling the wind as it tore away my tears.

All the other boats had measures in place to protect themselves from the transition from magma to water. They would float well enough, denying the waves their due. But as that platform slipped down towards the water, I knew that if I were not fast enough, my Spellsong would drown.

I blurred out from Burim, ignoring the open sky and the hateful sun as it beat down on me from above. A wall of steam rose from the dance of magma and water, obscuring my desperate sight for a moment and costing me precious time.

Toren’s platform finally reached the water, sinking and letting its contents drift into the boiling ocean.

I snarled, my fingers rigid as my masks fell. I shot down toward the water, emboldened and suddenly furious for a reason I could not understand.

I barely had time to brace before I slammed into the ocean. It was hot, boiling hot. I felt my skin redden and heat from the contact as I blurred for Toren’s body. My dress flared about me like a dark shroud as I surged down, ignoring the pain.

And I finally grasped his limp form. Finally, finally, I wrapped my arms around his broken and beaten body. I surged upward, clutching him close as I breached the water.

I heaved for breath as water streamed off us, my silver hair clinging to my neck. Toren’s right arm hung like the bough of a willow tree as I held him close, his shallow breathing brushing against my neck. Weak as it was, it soothed the tremble of my heart.

He was alive.

My attention drifted downward as I saw another figure in the boiling water, desperately trying to swim toward a nearby shelf of rock. The one who had caused this entire tragedy desperately pinwheeled his arms as he pushed himself, his mana signature not even detectable from how weak the asura must have been.

As the sound of sizzling steam echoed around us, I savored Chul Asclepius’ struggle to reach the docks as he fought against the current.

He did finally pull himself up onto the earthen docks, though. Sopping wet, heaving for breath and coughing to push the water from his lungs, he looked like a wet dog rather than a terrifying warrior as steam rose off his muscled body. His orange-red hair clung to his face as he blinked, seeming confused and disoriented.

Then he finally raised his head, blinking blearily up at me on his hands and knees. I hovered above him, feeling like much of a drowned beast myself. But as I raised my chin in utter disdain, I knew myself to be the one in power.

The phoenix trembled, coughing blood. I felt a cruel smirk stretch across my face as I clutched Toren tighter, watching Chul suffer.

Twenty. Nineteen.

The phoenix glared up at me with undisguised hate, each of his eyes burning with the heat of the lavatide just behind us. I knew that if he could still move past the innumerable wounds across his body, he’d happily tear my skull from my shoulders.

“Release… Release the human,” Chul wheezed, trying and failing to move. “And I will… spare your life.”

Fifteen. Fourteen.

I didn’t respond immediately. I simply watched, counting down the time inside my head as my heartbeat evened out. “You will spare me?” I asked, tilting my head. Those words of his were vain and filled with useless pride. Such an asuran thing to think. “I don’t think you understand, Chul Asclepius.”

I slowly lowered in the sky, just out of Chul’s reach as he groaned. He tried to push himself, tried to lash out with an arm. But he failed, only winding up scratching his hands against the stone.

Seven. Six. Five.

I counted down the seconds more as I watched the beast struggle, enjoying it in my own way. After all, the dead of Burim would never get to savor it. It wasn’t a sin to indulge once in a while. “The only one who will beg to be spared is you, asura.”

One.

The timer in my head rang. And just as predicted, Chul Asclepius’ movements slowed. His core—barely skirting around backlash—gave one, final heave. And as if a coup de grace, the bastard’s eyes rolled into the back of his skull.

His head finally crashed against the stones as he fell unconscious. My vindictive grin slowly fell away as the world around me rushed back in.

I exhaled a deep breath as I observed the defeated phoenix, trying to slot this into my understanding. Why had he attacked us? Toren was supposed to be endearing us to the Hearth. Was there some sort of–

Toren’s body trembled, shaking slightly in some sort of seizure. My attention refocused as I remembered his state. I needed to get him to emitters and see to his medical attention. He was clearly in a state of backlash, and from the heat of his skin, I worried that a fever had taken him, too.

I turned on my feet, preparing to fly to the other end of the docks. There would be healers waiting on the ships to tend to the refugees, I knew. They would take Toren as their top priority, and we could twist this disaster somehow to support our cause.

But I froze as my eyes trailed along the glimmering sea. It sparkled and shone in the late afternoon sun, dazzling in its beauty at any other time. White, misty steam rose into the sky like the breath of the clouds where water met magma, creating a screen of white.

But something else mingled with that white. Far away, dark smokestacks thrust up into the sky from an approaching fleet of Alacryan steamships. They stretched nearly as far as the eye could see, and I found myself astonished at how I’d missed them before. Agrona’s war machine had finally reached Dicathen as he prepared to deliver the final blow.

And at the head of the fleet—his mana signature blazing like a dark bonfire, sensible even from here—was Scythe Nico Sever.