A blistering heat shone behind her.
Venli braced herself. She usually only saw him during the storms. But … this was a storm. It hovered behind, immobile, churning the seas.
Light crystallized beside her, forming an ancient parshman with a face marbled gold and white, and a regal scepter he carried like a cane. For once, his presence didn’t vaporize her immediately.
Venli released a relieved breath. This was more an impression than his true being. Still, power streamed from him like the tendrils of a vinebud waving in the wind, vanishing into infinity.
Odium had come to personally supervise this battle.
* * *
Teft hid.
He couldn’t face the others. Not after … after what he’d done.
Rock and Bisig bleeding. Eth dead. The room destroyed. The Honorblade stolen.
He had … he had on a Bridge Four … uniform.…
Teft scrambled through the rock hallways, passing shamespren in bursts, looking for a place where nobody could see him. He’d done it again, to yet another group that trusted him. Just like with his family, whom he’d sold out in a misguided attempt at righteousness. Just like with his squad in Sadeas’s army, whom he’d abandoned for his addiction. And now … and now Bridge Four?
He tripped on an uneven bit of stone in the dark hallway and fell, grunting, scraping his hand against the floor. He groaned, then lay there, knocking his head against the stone.
Would that he could find someplace hidden, and squeeze inside, never ever to be found again.
When he looked up, she was standing there. The woman made of light and air, with curls of hair that vanished into mist.
“Why are you following me?” Teft growled. “Go pick one of the others. Kelek! Pick anyone but me.”
He rose and pushed past her—she had barely any substance—and continued down the hallway. Light from ahead showed that he’d accidentally made his way to the outer ring of the tower, where windows and balconies overlooked the Oathgate platforms.
He stopped by a stone doorway, puffing, holding on with a hand that bled from the knuckles.
“Teft.”
“You don’t want me. I’m broken. Pick Lopen. Rock. Sigzil. Damnation, woman. I…”
What was that?
Drawn by faint sounds, Teft walked into the empty room. Those sounds … Shouts?
He walked out onto the balcony. Below, figures with marbled skin flooded across one of the Oathgate platforms, the one that led to Kholinar. That was supposed to be locked, unusable.
Scouts and soldiers began to shout in panic down below. Urithiru was under attack.
* * *
Puffing from her run, Navani scrambled up the last few steps onto the wall of Thaylen City. Here, she found Queen Fen’s retinue. Finally.
She checked her arm clock. If only she could find a fabrial that would manipulate exhaustion, not just pain. Wouldn’t that be something. There were exhaustionspren, after all …
Navani strode along the wall walk toward Fen. Below, Amaram’s troops flew the new Sadeas banner: the axe and the tower, white on forest green. Anticipationspren and fearspren—the eternal attendants of the battlefield—grew up around them. Sadeas’s men were still streaming through the gates, but already blocks of archers moved forward. They’d soon start pelting the disorganized parshman army.
That storm though …
“The enemy only keeps coming,” Fen said as Navani approached, her admirals making room. “I’ll soon get to judge your famed Alethi troops firsthand—as they fight an impossible battle.”
“Actually,” Navani said, “we’re better off than it looks. The new Sadeas is a renowned tactician. His soldiers are well rested and—if lacking in discipline—known for their tenacity. We can attack the enemy before it finishes deploying. Then, if they rebound and overwhelm us with numbers, we can pull back into the city until we get reinforcements.”
Kmakl, Fen’s consort, nodded. “This is winnable, Fen. We might even be able to capture some of our ships back.”
The ground shook. For a moment, Navani felt that she was on a swaying ship. She cried out, grabbing the battlement to keep from falling.
Out in the field, between the enemy troops and the Alethi ones, the ground shattered. Lines and cracks split the stone, and then an enormous stone arm pulled itself from the ground—the fractures having outlined its hand, forearm, elbow, and upper arm.
A monster easily thirty feet tall pulled itself from the stone, dropping chips and dust on the army below. Like a skeleton made of rock, it had a wedge-shaped head with deep, molten red eyes.
* * *
Venli got to watch the thunderclasts awaken.
Among the waiting spirits were two larger masses of energy—souls so warped, so mangled, they didn’t seem singer at all. One crawled into the stone ground, somehow inhabiting it like a spren taking residence in a gemheart. The stone became its form.
Then it ripped itself free of the rock. Around her, the parshmen stumbled back in awe, so surprised that they actually drew spren. The thing loomed over the human forces, while its companion climbed into the stone ground, but didn’t rip out immediately.
There was one other, mightier than even these. It was out in the water of the bay, but when she looked into the other world, she couldn’t help but glance toward it. If those two lesser souls had created such daunting stone monsters, then what was that mountain of power?
In the Physical Realm, the Fused knelt and bowed their heads toward Odium. So they could see him too. Venli knelt quickly, knocking her knees against the stone. Timbre pulsed to Anxiety, and Venli put her hand on the pouch, squeezing it. Quiet. We can’t fight him.
“Turash,” Odium said, resting fingers upon the shoulder of the Fused she had been following. “Old friend, you look well in this new body.”
“Thank you, master,” Turash said.
“Your mind holds firm, Turash. I am proud of you.” Odium waved toward Thaylen City. “I have prepared a grand army for our victory today. What do you think of our prize?”
“An excellent position of great import, even without the Oathgate,” Turash said. “But I fear for our armies, master.”
“Oh?” Odium asked.
“They are weak, untrained, and frightened. Many may refuse to fight. They don’t crave vengeance, master. Even with the thunderclast, we may be outmatched.”
“These?” Odium asked, looking over his shoulder at the gathered singers. “Oh, Turash. You think too small, my friend! These are not my army. I brought them here to watch.”
“Watch what?” Venli asked, looking up. She cringed, but Odium paid her no mind. Odium held his hands to the sides, yellow-gold power streaming behind his figure like a wind made visible. Beyond him, in the other place, that red churning power became more real. It was pulled into this realm completely, and the ocean boiled.
Something came surging out. Something primeval, something Venli had felt but never truly known. Red mist. Ephemeral, like a shadow you see on a dark day and mistake for something real. Charging red horses, angry and galloping. The forms of men, killing and dying, shedding blood and reveling in it. Bones piled atop one another, making a hill upon which men struggled.
The red mist climbed up from the surging waves, rolling out onto an empty section of rock, northward along the rim of the water. It brought to her a lust for the battlefield. A beautiful focus, a Thrill for the fight.