The sky was cloudless, the streets full of chatter and life.
Cassian kept scanning, a slow rotation over Velaris.
The river beneath me remained steady, but I could feel it roiling, as if trying to flee from— “From the sea,” I breathed. Cassian’s gaze shot straight ahead, to the river before us, to the towering cliffs in the distance that marked the raging waves where it met the ocean.
And there, on the horizon, a smear of black. Swift-moving—spreading wider as it grew closer.
“Tell me those are birds,” I said. My power flooded my veins, and I curled my fingers into fists, willing it to calm, to steady—
“There’s no Illyrian patrol that’s supposed to know about this place … ,” he said, as if it were an answer. His gaze cut to me. “We’re going back to the town house right now.”
The smear of black separated, fracturing into countless figures. Too big for birds. Far too big. I said, “You have to sound the alarm—”
But people were. Some were pointing, some were shouting.
Cassian reached for me, but I jumped back. Ice danced at my fingertips, wind howled in my blood. I’d pick them off one by one— “Get Azriel and Amren—”
They’d reached the sea cliffs. Countless, long-limbed flying creatures, some bearing soldiers in their arms … An invading host. “Cassian.”
But an Illyrian blade had appeared in Cassian’s hand, twin to the one across his back. A fighting knife now shone in the other. He held them both out to me. “Get back to the town house—right now.”
I most certainly would not go. If they were flying, I could use my power to my advantage: freeze their wings, burn them, break them. Even if there were so many, even if—
So fast, as if they were carried on a fell wind, the force reached the outer edges of the city. And unleashed arrows upon the shrieking people rushing for cover in the streets. I grabbed his outstretched weapons, the cool metal hilts hissing beneath my forge-hot palms.
Cassian lifted his hand into the air. Red light exploded from his Siphon, blasting up and away—forming a hard wall in the sky above the city, directly in the path of that oncoming force.
He ground his teeth, grunting as the winged legion slammed into his shield. As if he felt every impact.
The translucent red shield shoved out farther, knocking them back—
We both watched in mute horror as the creatures lunged for the shield, arms out—
They were not just any manner of faerie. Any rising magic in me sputtered and went out at the sight of them.
They were all like the Attor.
All long-limbed, gray-skinned, with serpentine snouts and razor-sharp teeth. And as the legion of its ilk punched through Cassian’s shield as if it were a cobweb, I beheld on their spindly gray arms gauntlets of that bluish stone I’d seen on Rhys, glimmering in the sun.
Stone that broke and repelled magic. Straight from the unholy trove of the King of Hybern.
One after one after one, they punched through his shield.
Cassian sent another wall barreling for them. Some of the creatures peeled away and launched themselves upon the outskirts of the city, vulnerable outside of his shield. The heat that had been building in my palms faded to clammy sweat.
People were shrieking, fleeing. And I knew his shields would not hold—
“GO!” Cassian roared. I lurched into motion, knowing he likely lingered because I stayed, that he needed Azriel and Amren and—
High above us, three of them slammed into the dome of the red shield. Clawing at it, ripping through layer after layer with those stone gauntlets.
That’s what had delayed the king these months: gathering his arsenal. Weapons to fight magic, to fight High Fae who would rely on it—
A hole ripped open, and Cassian threw me to the ground, shoving me against the marble railing, his wings spreading wide over me, his legs as solid as the bands of carved rock at my back—
Screams on the bridge, hissing laughter, and then—
A wet, crunching thud.
“Shit,” Cassian said. “Shit—”
He moved a step, and I lunged from under him to see what it was, who it was—
Blood shone on the white marble bridge, sparkling like rubies in the sun.
There, on one of those towering, elegant lampposts flanking the bridge …
Her body was bent, her back arched on the impact, as if she were in the throes of passion.
Her golden hair had been shorn to the skull. Her golden eyes had been plucked out.
She was twitching where she had been impaled on the post, the metal pole straight through her slim torso, gore clinging to the metal above her.
Someone on the bridge vomited, then kept running.
But I could not break my stare from the golden queen. Or from the Attor, who swept through the hole it had made and alighted atop the blood-soaked lamppost.
“Regards,” it hissed, “of the mortal queens. And Jurian.” Then the Attor leaped into flight, fast and sleek—heading right for the theater district we’d left.
Cassian had pressed me back down against the bridge—and he surged toward the Attor. He halted, remembering me, but I rasped, “Go.”
“Run home. Now.”
That was the final order—and his good-bye as he shot into the sky after the Attor, who had already disappeared into the screaming streets.
Around me, hole after hole was punched through that red shield, those winged creatures pouring in, dumping the Hybern soldiers they had carried across the sea.
Soldiers of every shape and size—lesser faeries.
The golden queen’s gaping mouth was opening and closing like a fish on land. Save her, help her—
My blood. I could—
I took a step. Her body slumped.
And from wherever in me that power originated, I felt her death whisper past.
The screams, the beating wings, the whoosh and thud of arrows erupted in the sudden silence.
I ran. I ran for my side of the Sidra, for the town house. I didn’t trust myself to winnow—could barely think around the panic barking through my head. I had minutes, perhaps, before they hit my street. Minutes to get there and bring as many inside with me as I could. The house was warded. No one would get in, not even these things.
Faeries were rushing past, racing for shelter, for friends and family. I hit the end of the bridge, the steep hills rising up—
Hybern soldiers were already atop the hill, at the two Palaces, laughing at the screams, the pleading as they broke into buildings, dragging people out. Blood dribbled down the cobblestones in little rivers.
They had done this. Those queens had … had given this city of art and music and food over to these … monsters. The king must have used the Cauldron to break its wards.
A thunderous boom rocked the other side of the city, and I went down at the impact, blades flying, hands ripping open on the cobblestones. I whirled toward the river, scrambling up, lunging for my weapons.
Cassian and Azriel were both in the skies now. And where they flew, those winged creatures died. Arrows of red and blue light shot from them, and those shields—
Twin shields of red and blue merged, sizzling, and slammed into the rest of the aerial forces. Flesh and wings tore, bone melted—
Until hands encased in stone tumbled from the sky. Only hands. Clattering on rooftops, splashing into the river. All that was left of them—what two Illyrian warriors had worked their way around.
But there were countless more who had already landed. Too many. Roofs were wrenched apart, doors shattered, screaming rising and then silenced—
This was not an attack to sack the city. It was an extermination.
And rising up before me, merely a few blocks down, the Rainbow of Velaris was bathed in blood.
The Attor and his ilk had converged there.
As if the queens had told him where to strike; where in Velaris would be the most defenseless. The beating heart of the city.
/> Fire was rippling, black smoke staining the sky—
Where was Rhys, where was my mate—
Across the river, thunder boomed again.
And it was not Cassian, or Azriel, who held the other side of the river. But Amren.
Her slim hands had only to point, and soldiers would fall—fall as if their own wings failed them. They slammed into the streets, thrashing, choking, clawing, shrieking, just as the people of Velaris had shrieked.
I whipped my head to the Rainbow a few blocks away—left unprotected. Defenseless.
The street before me was clear, the lone safe passage through hell.
A female screamed inside the artists’ quarter. And I knew my path.
I flipped my Illyrian blade in my hand and winnowed into the burning and bloody Rainbow.
This was my home. These were my people.
If I died defending them, defending that small place in the world where art thrived …
Then so be it.
And I became darkness, and shadow, and wind.
I winnowed into the edge of the Rainbow as the first of the Hybern soldiers rounded its farthest corner, spilling onto the river avenue, shredding the cafés where I had lounged and laughed. They did not see me until I was upon them.
Until my Illyrian blade cleaved through their heads, one after another.
Six went down in my wake, and as I halted at the foot of the Rainbow, staring up into the fire and blood and death … Too many. Too many soldiers.
I’d never make it, never kill them all—
But there was a young female, green-skinned and lithe, an ancient, rusted bit of pipe raised above her shoulder. Standing her ground in front of her storefront—a gallery. People crouched inside the shop were sobbing.
Before them, laughing at the faerie, at her raised scrap of metal, circled five winged soldiers. Playing with her, taunting her.
Still she held the line. Still her face did not crumple. Paintings and pottery were shattered around her. And more soldiers were landing, spilling down, butchering—