“Father?”
Garreth caught him as he fell. Torin’s hand came up, holding Garreth’s face, gazing at him with nothing but love and pride. “Forgive me, Son.”
Garreth took a shuddering breath. “I already have.”
Blood surged around the blade in Torin’s chest. I looked to Mabyn, but she shook her head. Her gift had been drained, and she lacked the strength to heal such a severe wound. As Garreth laid Torin on his back, I went to them—my father, my brother.
“Lira?” Father’s smile was brighter than it had been since Mother died. “You’re here.”
“Of course I am, Father.” I squeezed his fingers in mine.
He was fading, the flow of blood slowing, his eyes growing dim, just as Rhys’s had. It was this thought that caught in my throat, a sob I couldn’t swallow.
Father understood. “I’ll tell them . . .”
Rhys. Mother. If the world was just, if Gwylor was just, Torin would see them soon. But my trust in such things had waned. Father’s gaze flickered between me and Garreth, trying to remember us, to take a piece of us with him, wherever he was headed.
“We’ll take you home,” I promised him. To entomb him in what was left of Stony Harbor, with his father and the other chieftains. He deserved that much, for who he’d been before the Culling.
Even though I was watching, I missed the precise moment he was gone, the lines blurring into obscurity. He was there, and then he wasn’t. He was my father, and then he was a shell. I let go of his hand and took Garreth’s instead, the two of us holding tightly to each other.
It was then we noticed the silence around us.
The battle was over. Every warrior still standing, nomad and Dragonman, was frozen, staring at the army marching up from the direction of the bay—a hundred of them at least. At first, I thought they were all disfigured, but as they drew closer I realized it was just the helms they wore, monstrosities with the curling horns of rams jutting up from either side. At the back of their procession was a massive, wheeled crate that took ten men hauling thick ropes to drag forward, one inch at a time.
The voice that rang out from beneath the helm of the foremost warrior was feminine and it spoke in Iseneldish. “Where is the usurper who calls himself the Dragon?”
No one answered. The remaining Dragonmen snarled at the horned warriors but made no move to attack.
“Draki!” The woman spun in a circle, head angling toward the windows of cottages, then up at the watchtowers. They looked empty. I couldn’t feel him, but Draki had to be here somewhere, watching, listening. “Are you too afraid to show yourself?”
Words writhed across my mind. What do you think, little warrior? Do you want me to come save you? You need only agree to my terms.
I will make no deals with you, I replied, shoving at that invading essence, trying to slam shut whatever door he used to slip into my head.
When the woman spoke again, it was in crisp Glasnithian. “Natives of the Green Isle, I am Solvei Snorrisdottir of Iseneld, jarl of the Fjordlands and leader of the Mountain Renegades. This village and its bay now belong to me. Surrender, and I will consider letting you live. Refuse, and you will die with the bastard warlord’s soldiers.”
Garreth slid his legs from under our father’s head and stood. “This village belongs to the clans of Glasnith, not a tribe of the Frozen Sun. If you want it, you must take it.”
Solvei smiled, a wicked flash of teeth. “I was hoping you’d say that.”
One of her warriors started to open the crate. I tried to sense what was inside it, but the tendrils of awareness I sent toward it were immediately repelled, bouncing off an impenetrable wall. Whatever it was, I couldn’t let it be set free.
Instinct pushed me to my feet, arms outstretched, doing the only thing I could—sending out a call to those loyal to Veronis and his blood. Come to me.
The response didn’t come from moorland wildlife, or horses, or even birds. This call had been unfocused, born from a place of exhaustion and grief. I felt cornered in the dark, and it was creatures who lived in dark corners that answered, scurrying from the walls and floors and thatched roofs of every building, scuttling out of the ground itself. Rats and mice, spiders and roaches and maggots.
I gave the command: Attack.
And they did, climbing the legs of these Mountain Renegades, biting and clawing, slipping beneath clothing and armor, tangling into hair. Warriors yelped, swatting at the vermin, trying to shake them off.
Garreth didn’t waste the chance I’d given him. He ran forward, with Quinlan and what was left of the nomad forces right behind him. The Daughters of Aillira were drained from the battle, but they pushed the last reserves of their power at the jarl’s army.
Eathalin wrapped a veil around Garreth so his opponents couldn’t see him coming.
The crate the Renegades brought had been loosened, and the thing inside wanted out. Hammering sounded from within, and the wood shook and splintered until the lid gave way. A monster stepped from the crate into the light, and I saw red eyes, curled horns—the same as the ones the warriors wore, but five times larger—and fangs like a wolf. A demon of mountains and ice. Slaver dripped from its mouth, soaking its muzzle. It slunk forward, surveying the scene, waiting for something.
Solvei snapped her fingers. “Now, Skrim!”
Jaws stretching, neck arching, the beast threw its head back and roared.
The sound of it nearly split my skull. The earth shook beneath me and the buildings of Stalwart Bay groaned, cracks spiderwebbing through the stone. They began to crumble, one after another, into piles of rock and rubble that crashed down on nomads and the Renegades who’d not retreated fast enough at Solvei’s signal, dust and debris eddying through the air.
There was a scream, and I saw Zabelle falling from the drawbridge as it dissolved beneath her. I watched in horror, but I had to turn away as Solvei ran at Eathalin—the spell-caster’s hands stretched toward the invisible force cutting down Renegades left and right in the center of the field. The Ghost Prince.
I moved between Eathalin and the jarl, both our swords poised to strike. “Stay back,” I said in Iseneldish, my ears still ringing, muffling every sound. Ash swirled around us, the remnants of what had been Stalwart Bay only moments ago.
“You’re another of the warlord’s precious magiskas,” the jarl said. “A powerful one at that. How the Dragon must covet you.” A roach crawled across Solvei’s cheek, a spider nested in her hair, but she didn’t flinch. “Call off your swarms or I will tell my pet to eat your people.”
This was not a woman to be trifled with. I released the tether I’d put on the vermin, severing the bond, and they reverted from soldiers to animals, fleeing in fright, scattering into the toppled cottages and towers.