With great ceremony, as though she’d been attended by dozens of caretakers, Nightrender ascended to the top of the tower once more, where her chambers waited in snowy silence. Only the windows admitted light, but even that was waning as the day began to pinch off at the horizon, casting a golden shadow across the land.
She donned her armor, a heavy black material that mortals mistook for leather but was much more than that. This armor had seen countless battles, mending itself when torn, cleaning itself when filthy. The numinous fabric slid smoothly over her skin, fitting itself to the lines of her muscles. Her boots and gauntlets came next, as old and powerful as the rest.
Then, she gathered up her sword and slung the baldric over her body, the straps and buckles making an X over her chest. Briefly, she touched the sword hilt over the back of her shoulder—Beloved had not abandoned her, at least—and then stepped out onto the balcony, tall and black-winged and dressed only in her ancient armor. Wind caught her hair, promising freedom.
As stars pierced the darkness, a great spiral of light above, Nightrender stretched out her arms to the world beyond Winterfast. This should have been a holy moment, when she took on her duties, but if there was no one here to chant the ancient litanies, she would do it herself.
Glory to the dawn. Glory to the night. Glory to the Numina of the dark and the light.
These were her creators, the beings of the Bright Land. They were strangers to her, as the aperture between their realm and the laic plane had closed eons ago, but never had she failed to honor them for her life. Their names puffed white on the cold air, catching on snow and stars and the shivering lonesomeness.
Name after name spun into the sky, hundreds of them, as none were unknown to her. And when she finished, she threw herself over the edge of the balcony. Wings caught crisp night air and carried her upward.
Nightrender flew a circuit around the tower, noting the places where stone had fallen and snow had drifted as high as the upper windows, and all the other signs that she had lost favor with mortals.
And yet, she would save them.
She stretched her black wings wide and soared over the narrow sea that separated her island from the mainland, following the pull of the summoning to the ancient city of Brink.
Always, every awakening, she could feel her way to where she’d been summoned, and though she showed no favoritism between the three kingdoms, her first destination was always to those who’d sought her aid. Usually, it was the kingdom in most need of her help, the kingdom that most desperately wanted her protection.
Although…perhaps not anymore.
How unsettling, this uncertainty. What had she done to offend them? She had been sleeping.
Nightrender veered upward, flying vertically as she reached steep cliffs looming over the thrashing waves. From there, long northern plains stretched out, unfurling under a perfect night sky.
It was late summer on the mainland, and the air smelled of green plants and distant lightning storms. She had always liked summer.
For hours, she flew for Brink, passing over forests and roads and towns. So much had changed during her sleep: the roads had grown wider and more worn, and lights glowed in golden knots where new towns had cropped up along the banks of rivers and lakes. Even so, a sense of familiarity and homecoming strengthened her, and every wingbeat brought her closer to destiny.
* * *
It was not quite dawn when she reached Brink.
The city stood midway up a mountain, between two steep cliffs: one above and one below. Only a few roads led up to the main gates, all switchbacks with stretches under waterfalls and over rivers. Mountains extended along either side of the city, their jagged peaks black against the plum-colored sky.
Brink was a defensible city, many of its buildings carved straight out of the mountain’s warm gray stone. Even the castle—Honor’s Keep, they called it—was built into the mountainside. Towers rose over the main keep: the observatory, the ruler’s walk, others. The Grand Temple stood directly beside the castle, also hewn of stone. This view always made Nightrender imagine that they were natural pieces of the mountain, exposed by the relentless winds. Even the walkways that connected different floors and towers of the buildings were cut from the stone, like shelves.
It was not a sparkling city built from wealth, but Nightrender had always found Brink beautiful, all strength and stubborn endurance. And far below it, where the land leveled off and people could live away from the bustle, farms spread out as far as the eye could see. They sent half of their yields up a series of lifts inside the mountain: some filling tables, but most filling caches reserved for Incursions.
At least, they should have been doing that.
Because the Malstop was visible from here, south and west of the city, and even from this distance it was clear that the barrier was weakening. Huge sections were translucent and dull—a sign of danger that anyone should be able to read. An Incursion was imminent. All it would take was a rancor pushing against one of those veil-thin spaces and chaos would spill across Salvation.
What had humans done this time? The Malstop hadn’t looked so faded in a thousand years.
With a heavy sigh, Nightrender took to the balcony that led into her tower. (Caberwillines, believing she had a special fondness for towers, had built this one onto Honor’s Keep just for her.) In the past, gardens had been planted up here, lilies and roses and other decorative flowers, which, admittedly, she enjoyed looking at. And for her arrival, the kingdom’s best chefs would offer their latest delicacies, in case the flight from Winterfast taxed her. It never did, but she always ate and admired the display; it set humans at ease.
But now the balcony was bare, the boxes of plants so long ago removed that there weren’t even marks along the weathered stone. Time had erased all traces of their adulation.
Unease worked through her. Someone had summoned her. But where were they?
Nightrender crossed the balcony and tried the door. Locked.
Alarm tightened in her chest as she pushed the lock through the wood, ripping out the bolt. It thunked on the other side of the door, and she kicked it away when she strode into her room.
But it wasn’t her room.
It occupied the same space as the place where she used to arrive to be fed and greeted, but gone were the grand pieces of furniture, the heavy tapestries depicting her victories, the gold candelabras, and the shining displays of weaponry. Instead, the room was dark and empty, and her shrine—the one they used to summon her—had been defaced and shrouded with dust.
Before it, a young man lay sprawled out on his back.
Dead? No. She could hear his heartbeat, a steady thump-thump in his chest.
Summoning was said to be overwhelming—the shrines were Relics, after all, powerful artifacts built by the Numina themselves—but typically there were people here to help and revive the summoner. She’d never seen a summoner abandoned on the floor like this.