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by Sarah Hawke

  “I will never run from you again,” Kaseya said. “You have too much to answer for.”

  Ayrael snorted softly. “I see you’ve finally met the old man. Good. I was hoping the two of you would have the chance to chat. I wanted you to hear someone else explain why the moshalim are not to be trusted.”

  “This isn’t about the moshalim ,” Kaseya said. “It’s not about Matriarch Lysara. It’s not about Nol Krovos at all. This is about you and the despicable person you’ve chosen to follow.”

  Ayrael’s smug grin actually widened. “You don’t understand what you’re talking about, sister. You don’t know anything about the Inquisitrix. You don’t know anything about what we’re trying to accomplish.”

  “I know you want to destroy Nol Krovos. I know you want to poison the Aether at its source.” Kaseya shook her head. “I know that whatever your true intentions, thousands of people will suffer and die because of them.”

  “In the short term, perhaps,” Ayrael conceded. “But in the long run, we are going to build a better world. A world without lies and secrets—a world uncorrupted by wicked men. A world where young amazons are not transformed into chattel without them even knowing it.” Her face twisted into a scowl. “The Inquisitrix understands our suffering better than you can imagine, Kaseya. She has lived it. She has endured it. And now, with me at her side, she finally has the power to break the world that has broken us.”

  “Even now, you do not understand the darkness your mistress will unleash,” Zalheer said. “In time, the shadow will eclipse you as well.”

  Ayrael turned and stared at him as if she had just noticed he was there. “I will make you a deal, sister,” she said. “If you and the old man come with me, your friends are free to go.”

  “Hah!” Valuri snorted. “Yeah, that’s convincing. Jorem is a sorcerer, and I’m a rogue Senosi. There’s nothing in the multiverse that would convince her to ‘let us go.’”

  “You are not nearly as important as you believe,” Ayrael sneered. “And as for your Maskari …I am doing both of you a favor, whether you realize it or not. The choice is yours, sister. Come with me now, or I will kill both of them anyway and drag you back to Vorsalos myself.”

  Kaseya shifted her grip on her sword and settled into an obvious combat stance. “You can’t defeat all three of us. Not even with the aid of your lackeys.”

  Ayrael smiled and opened her palm. I could feel a tangible pull in the Aether as she reached out with her Senosi powers and began siphoning the energy from Zalheer’s wards. Her eyes began to glow so brightly it was almost blinding, and I didn’t even want to imagine how powerful she had just become.

  “Beware the old man—he killed dozens of you last time,” she said, unsheathing her sword. “Leave the rest of them to me.”

  She charged. Valuri immediately fired her crossbows, but Ayrael effortlessly caught the bolts with her shield. Forcing myself not to panic, I focused all of my concentration on bolstering Kaseya in the hopes of giving her a small chance…

  But then the Roskarim were upon us. The warriors charged, axes drawn and thirsting for blood, while their channelers remained behind and hurled spheres of crackling energy towards myself and Zalheer. The old man conjured a protective, dome-shaped barrier around us just in time—the incoming spheres splattered harmlessly against the shield. Unfortunately, the barrier wouldn’t do anything to stop the charging barbarians or their mounts.

  Thrusting out my hands, I repeated the tactic I had used to thwart Ayrael’s ambush just outside of Highwind. A focused burst of Aetheric energy erupted from my fingertips, tearing up the snow-covered dirt and effectively creating a flaming trench directly in front of the riders. At least half of them tripped and fell in—the men’s surprised screams and the wolves’ pained yelps echoed across the village—but the rest managed to leap through the dirt and flames and continue their charge.

  “Uh oh,” I muttered.

  I didn’t even have time to flinch before the wolf slammed into me. My vision became an indecipherable white blur as I soared through the air, then it went completely black when I finally hit the ground and rolled through the upturned dirt. Without my spell armor, I probably would have been crippled; even with it, the air rushed out of my lungs and left me a gasping mess.

  But I refused to give up. Rolling back to my feet, I desperately tried to maintain my bolstering spell on Kaseya while I simultaneously launched a sphere of flame from my hand. The fireball detonated in between two of the riders, throwing them from their saddles and igniting the white fur of their mounts. The animals’ agonized shrieks wrenched at my soul, but I couldn’t afford to feel sympathy—not when we were quite literally fighting for our lives.

  Gasping for breath, I took a split second to survey the battlefield. Zalheer was hovering in the air, his hands crackling with lightning as he assaulted the Roskarim channelers. He was like a living conduit of Aetheric power—it would have been awe-inspiring if we weren’t so badly outnumbered. A few hundred feet away, Kaseya and Valuri were still busy battling with Ayrael. As usual, the Hand of the Inquisitrix seemed like she was toying with them. She fended off their attacks one after another while she continuously flipped back and forth between snow drifts, never allowing herself to be pinned down or cornered.

  But to their credit, the girls weren’t making it easy. Valuri moved in for a strike, matching Senosi strength with Senosi strength, while Kaseya spun around and attempted to flank her sister. When it didn’t quite work, they tried again a few seconds later. They had truly become a synchronized fighting team these past few weeks…

  Still, it wasn’t enough. Just when the girls looked like they finally had Ayrael cornered, the exiled amazon lashed out with a surprise attack, bashing her shield into Valuri and then striking her with a powerful kick. The Huntress soared at least ten feet through the air before she smashed into one of the nearby houses and disappeared in a pile of snow and splintered wood.

  “Defend the Tal’Shira!” Zalheer shouted as he blasted another of the barbarians crawling out of the flaming trench.

  I didn’t need any further encouragement. Dragging myself back to my feet, I trudged past the incinerated corpses of the nearby riders and focused all my power on Kaseya. The sisterly duel was downright mesmerizing. They flitted across the snow in a graceful, deadly dance as the high-pitched clash of their sword rang out across the village. Kaseya was clearly putting up more of a fight than her sister expected—I actually saw visible strain on Ayrael’s face for the first time. But even my untrained eyes could tell she was still going to win unless I did something drastic.

  Taking another deep breath, I summoned the Aether to my hands. I might not have been able to strike Ayrael directly, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t help. I pointed at the house just behind the two women, and a scintillating bolt of energy arced from my fingertips and struck the awning, blasting it free of its frame and sending the whole thing crashing down right atop Ayrael. She glanced up just in time to watch the frame collapsing on top of her, and I saw her sword hack upwards at the falling wood before she also vanished in a cloud of debris.

  Kaseya, embracing her moment of respite, glanced back over at her shoulder at me between breaths. “You have to blast her, Jorem,” she said. “You have to strike her with everything you have.”

  I froze in place. “What? But that will just—”

  Before I could finish, Ayrael burst out of debris and flipped back to her feet. Her eyes were still glowing bright green, and I watched in horror as the lacerations on her arms and cheeks healed before my eyes.

  “Your Maskari is truly clever, sister,” she said, casting aside her shield and shifting to a two-handed grip. “But we both know he cannot stop me. No one can.”

  “Do it, Jorem,” Kaseya said. “You have to trust me.”

  He lunged forward and met her sister blade-to-blade. I genuinely had no idea what she was thinking, and there wasn’t time to activate the ring and find out. All I knew was that the moment
I blasted Ayrael, she would feed off my magic and become even more powerful. What possible purpose would that serve?

  Trust me, Jorem. I know what I’m doing.

  As her words rippled through our bond, I bit down on my lip and summoned all the power I could muster. The Aether burned in my veins and seared through my muscles; I could feel its power strengthening me and crippling me at the same time. Overchanneling would almost certainly leave me broken, but Kaseya must have had a good reason…

  I screamed as I unleashed another surge of pure Aetheric energy. The coruscating bolts struck Ayrael, briefly knocking her backwards. Any normal person would have been completely vaporized, but the vatari crystals in her flesh drank greedily, siphoning away the magic before it could harm her. I felt my strength waning even as hers waxed.

  And then suddenly, for seemingly no reason at all, I could feel her presence in the Aether. It was faint and cloudy, almost like looking through a smudged window, but the more I concentrated the more vivid the sensations became. Soon I could see the ripples of her life force, the pounding of her heart…and the impossibly tiny gaps in her Senosi armor.

  Ayrael screamed in pain. For the first few seconds I didn’t believe what my ears were telling me, but then I felt an unexpected rush of power shudder through me. The bolts of energy crackling from my fingertips became a torrent, and I watched as Ayrael dropped her sword and flew backwards like she had just been struck by a gale force wind. She skidded across the snow and didn’t stop until she reached the rocky plateau on the southern cliff of the village.

  An awed silence descended across the battlefield, and I glanced down at my hands in bewilderment. I had never channeled that much power before; I didn’t even think it was possible to channel that much power before. My forearms tingled like they had fallen asleep, but there didn’t seem to be any other consequence from overchanneling.

  I didn’t understand what the hell had just happened until I glanced up at Kaseya. She was crouched in the snow, her brow creased in concentration. It was only then that I felt the surge of power still rippling through our magical bond…and I finally understood.

  “Unbelievable,” I whispered. While I had spent most of the battle bolstering her, she had finally discovered a way to bolster me . Through the power of our bond, she had absorbed half the backlash from overchanneling, effectively allowing me to channel twice as much power. And her keen Aetheric senses had enabled me to pinpoint and target Ayrael’s weaknesses…

  “Jorem,” Kaseya breathed through clenched teeth. “Zalheer…”

  I turned back to the old man. He was barely visible through the field of smoldering bodies and the clouds of smoke, but apparently the barbarians had finally overwhelmed him. One of the riders had slung the insensate sorcerer onto the back of his mount, and the surviving Roskarim appeared ready to retreat.

  “No,” I growled, stretching out my hands again and letting the Aether flow through me. “You can’t—argh !”

  I collapsed face-first into the snow as a jolt of pain shot through my whole body. My muscles seized up, and my breaths came in shallow rasps. Kaseya staggered to my side, but by the time she touched my arm the worst had already passed. Apparently I hadn’t completely avoided an overchanneling backlash after all.

  “Dammit,” I hissed, clawing back to a crouch. The Roskarim had already made it back to the pass, and we had no way to pursue them. “We need to find Val.”

  The words had just left my mouth when she dragged herself out of the nearby rubble and snarled. She was covered in soot, and her face was streaked with tiny cuts. The splotches of blood on her legs were thick and disturbing; I would have been mortified if not for the fact she could regenerate almost any wound even faster than I could magically heal them.

  “What the hell happened?” Val asked. “Where is she?”

  I pointed over to the cliff as Kaseya and I helped each other to our feet. I could hear Ayrael’s body sizzling long before I spotted her, and the acrid stench of flesh flooded my nostrils even before that. I could barely believe she was still alive—my attack had practically seared off the left side of her face.

  “No,” she blurted out. “No, this isn’t possible! I am Senosi. I am an amazon. You are nothing!”

  “It’s over, sister,” Kaseya said, raising her sword. “Even your mistress can’t protect you from us.”

  Ayrael’s head whipped around, and she shot her sister a baleful glare. I could already see the melted flesh on her cheeks healing itself. “You don’t know what you’re doing. You don’t know the truth!”

  Kaseya sighed. “Order your men to return with Zalheer, and we’ll show you mercy.”

  Ayrael glanced up to the mountain pass, a bitter sneer tugging at her lips. “This isn’t over. Tell Matriarch Lysara I’ll be seeing her soon.”

  With that, she braced herself against the rocks, dragged herself to her feet…and dove off the edge of the mountain.

  She had already vanished from sight by the time we raced forward to look. The drop was more of a jagged slope than a true cliff, though the odds of anyone surviving the tumble were practically zero—unless that person happened to be a regenerating Senosi.

  “Dammit,” I hissed.

  Valuri shook her head. “I don’t understand. How the hell did you burn her?”

  “It’s a long story,” I murmured, craning my neck back towards the pass. “I’ll explain on the way.”

  ***

  Realistically, there was no way in hell we could possibly catch up to the Roskarim riders. We all knew that, but we pushed forward anyway for some reason. Maybe we were banking on the barbarians making a wrong turn and getting stuck in a snow drift. Maybe we were just holding out hope that Zalheer would wake up and break himself free.

  Or maybe we just didn’t know what else to do.

  “We might be able to reach Icewatch by nightfall if we push it,” I said as we circled around the Peak. “It’s all downhill from here.”

  “Yeah, and then what?” Valuri muttered, shivering beneath her furs. Her wounds had healed some time ago, but her Senosi powers still had no answer for the cold. “The Roskarim are probably heading north to rejoin their war bands in the White Ridge.”

  “Or they will head west and try to bring Zalheer to Vorsalos,” Kaseya said.

  “Actually, yeah, that’s almost certainly it. I still can’t believe the Inquisitrix would ally with the barbarians, but even if she did it’s not like she’d trust them with an important prisoner.” Valuri swore under her breath. “He’ll be strapped down on one of her torture racks by the end of the week, and there isn’t a damn thing we can do about it.”

  I wanted to argue with her, but my arms were still tingling and I couldn’t muster the energy. She was right: barring a miracle, there was absolutely nothing we could do. I had finally met a master sorcerer willing to train us, and less than a day later I had managed to get him captured by the Inquisitrix.

  “Silhouette has spies all over the region,” I said. “I’ll bet she has people in Vorsalos, too. Maybe they’ll be able to help him.”

  “Maybe,” Valuri replied, her voice suddenly tight. “But what do you think she’s going to do about that?”

  She pointed north as we curled around the Peak. From here, we could see for dozens and dozens of miles in every direction, including deep into the White Ridge. On the way up we hadn’t noticed much of anything aside from a few campfires and the occasional beast, but now there was an enormous, undulating black wall gathering on the horizon. If the sky had been any murkier, I might have mistaken it for an immense cloud of fog…at least until the pounding of the war drums began echoing off the mountains.

  “Gods have mercy,” Kaseya breathed. “Are they…”

  I nodded silently. I had never actually seen a fully mobilized army with my own eyes. Vorsalos only had a few thousand soldiers activated at a time, and they were almost never stationed inside or around the actual city. I had only seen paintings and illustrations depicting massive bat
tles, and I’d always assumed they exaggerated most of the details—particularly when orcs and barbarians were involved.

  Obviously, I had been mistaken.

  “My instructors used to insist that the Roskarim were a bigger threat than the Highwind Council wanted to admit,” Valuri said. “The only thing keeping them in check was chaos—the tribes couldn’t organize under a single leader. After the Winter War, everyone assumed that would remain the case for a generation.”

  I swallowed and nearly choked. It was impossible to get an accurate count from this distance, but there had to be at least twenty thousand barbarians out there, far more than any other standing army in the Northern Reaches. From the looks of it, they were already marching towards Icewatch.

  “Escar’s mercy,” I breathed. “They’ll outnumber the Silver Fist twenty to one.”

  “Remember when we were convinced that the Inquisitrix was playing the long game?” Valuri asked. “Remember when we thought she would be willing to wait years and years to slowly undermine the Highwind Council and throw the city into chaos?”

  “The Duskwatch scouts will have surely spotted them by now. They’ll have already put out a call for reinforcements.”

  “And what difference do you think that’s going to make?” Valuri shook her head. “My plan to run south and leave all this shit behind is looking better and better.”

  “For once,” I rasped, “I think you may be right.”

  To Be Continued

  LEGACY OF WINTER

  1

  Nearly every man I’d ever met, from the wealthiest noble scion to the most downtrodden orphan, had spent at least part of his youth dreaming about one day becoming a soldier. As boys, we all imagined wearing polished armor and brandishing enormous swords; as adolescents, we imagined fucking all the women who would inevitably swoon over our glorious conquests. And then finally as men, we realized that war was actually hell, and no sword or armor or cunt in the world was worth having your guts ripped out.