Nightrender stepped around him, the sense of wrongness blooming blacker as she opened the inner door and gazed down into the darkness of the stairwell. Her eyes adjusted instantly, and she saw the thick layer of dust coating each step, broken only by a single set of boot prints.
Voices floated from farther below, servants moving through the castle as they prepared breakfast for the nobility. None of them were nearby or coming into her tower. No one even spoke of her. It was all porridge and princesses and wars, the same things mortals always talked about.
At once, Nightrender understood the truth: she had been summoned in secret.
Never, not in the hundreds of times she’d been called, had it been done with such furtiveness. Like rousing her was something shameful. Her lip curled as she turned back to the unconscious figure by her shrine.
“Wake up,” she commanded.
The young man did not wake.
Nightrender walked over to him and knelt, her wings fanning out. He was tall and broad of shoulder, and his clothes were fine: well-tailored leathers and silks, all in the typical Caberwilline grays and blacks. After all these centuries, the cut of the cloth had evolved into something sharper, but the color preferences remained. In spite of his clear status and wealth, he was covered in dried sweat and muck. He had prepared nothing for her summoning, not even himself.
“Wake up,” she repeated, and raised two fingers with which to send a small spark of numinous power into him.
But she didn’t have to, because his breathing changed, and his eyes—deep brown and framed with long black lashes—opened to find hers. His gaze was warm and gentle. Kind.
His lips moved as he started to speak, and a faint jolt of recognition ran through Nightrender. Feathers rustled, and morning sunlight hit the far wall, illuminating Nightrender and her summoner.
But the moment shattered as suddenly as it had come together. His eyes widened as he seemed to notice her sword and wings, and then he went very, very still. Even his breath seemed tied up in his chest as he registered who she was. What she was.
Nightrender stood and stepped away in one motion, tucking in her wings. “You summoned me.” The words came out shorter than she’d intended.
He scrambled to his feet, boots crunching broken pieces of wood and stone. “Please—” But he bit off whatever he was going to say after that.
She waited.
“I did. Yes.” His eyes darted to the shrine, the door, and back to her. “I summoned you.”
“It wasn’t a question.”
“Oh.” He looked her over again, as though making sure he saw what he thought he saw, but he didn’t bow or genuflect, like people used to. “Are you going to hurt me?”
Hurt him? Mortals were paranoid about all the wrong things. “I came to prevent an Incursion.”
Her summoner’s shoulders dropped just a fraction. “And the king and queen? The princesses? Do you intend to hurt them?”
“No.”
He gave a little half laugh, the sort people did out of nervousness or anxious relief. “Good,” he said. “That’s good.”
“You know the royal family personally.” That was the only reason she could imagine he’d wanted to ensure their safety immediately after his own.
He nodded warily.
“Inform them of my arrival. Have my Dawnbreakers prepared. Unless there is an urgent need on Salvation, I will march into the Malice without delay.” Her wings flexed, as though they, too, were anxious to fly into battle.
Her summoner paled, his eyes straying to the stairwell door like he couldn’t wait to escape. “I—I’m sorry, Nightrender. There are no Dawnbreakers.”
She just looked at him. “Explain.”
“No one has held Dawnbreaker trials in centuries.”
No Dawnbreaker trials? Those were meant to be held every decade, so that at the first hint of an Incursion, her elite guard could be ready to follow her into battle. Without them, she was alone.
“Trials must be held immediately,” she said. “Inform your monarchs. Wait”—because she’d just remembered monarchs did not like to be ordered about by their subordinates—”I will inform them. Tell me their names.”
He looked uncertain, but he said, “The king is Opus Highcrown the Third, and the queen is Grace Highcrown.”
Nightrender scowled. The ruling family of Caberwill had been named Skyreach during the last three Incursions, and while she didn’t care who ruled what kingdom—the squabbles of mortals were nothing to her—the change troubled her. Like she should have known about it.
It didn’t matter. Nightrender served humanity, not dynasties.
“Tell me your name,” she said.
“Rune,” he said softly. “And yours?”
“You may call me Nightrender.”
“No, I meant—” He drew a deep breath, suffocating an edge of frustration in his tone. “Is Nightrender your name?”
“No.”
“Oh. All right.” The tension wound up in his shoulders again.
It was a kind gesture, wanting to call her by her name. People had done that before, and it was always a little…sad. They wanted to humanize her, to make her more like them. She wasn’t, though. She was different. Apart.
The only person she had ever given her name to was her soul shard, and when she and they were reunited, they wouldn’t need to ask her name. They would know it. Remember it.
“You summoned me in secret,” Nightrender said. “I do not like that.”
He flinched, as though she’d hit him—or hurt his feelings. “Things have changed, Nightrender. If you’ll allow me to explain—”
“No,” she said, even though she did want answers. Those could be had later, after she’d met with the king and queen, after the Dawnbreaker trials had resumed, and after they’d all formed a strategy to end the Incursion. Her personal curiosity and irritation could wait. “Collect the court for me. I will go to my gallery in the throne room, unless it, too, has been turned into a slack heap.”
“I’ll have everything ready for you,” he said, then glanced around the room and seemed to realize that he had already failed in that task. “I’m sorry about all of this. I should have—”
“You have your instructions, summoner.”
Another flinch, and his breaths came short and fast. He was terrified. Of her. But then he turned and went to the door, leaving without another word.
Nightrender listened to the sound of his retreating footfalls for a moment, and when it didn’t seem he would turn back, she relaxed her shoulders and wings and let her gaze fall on the shaft of morning light that streamed through the balcony door.