Airlean Tales

NOTES:

Updating from a hotel this week, so apologies for any formatting errors! I’ll fix them when I’m back next week :)

When Azalea was six, Azure came down with the fever.

She could still remember every detail in excruciating clarity. The thick weight of fear in the room, the encroaching darkness from the outside night, the rancid smell of sick in a bedside bucket. Sweat-soaked, trembling like a leaf, and wan as a sheet, Azure already looked halfway dead.

Their ma tirelessly stooped over the pestle all day, grinding herbs for a medicinal poultice. Their da roamed the woods beneath the scant moonlight, gathering more clean, cool water from the nearby stream.

And still, despite their efforts, Azure’s health continued to decline until he was motionless beneath that thick pile of blankets, quiet and still.

Azalea was scared that he’d drift away in the middle of the night, that the shadows outside the windows would steal him under the earth. So she stood in the corner and watched. She kept her eyes on Azure for minutes, then hours, then until dawn. She watched as their ma dozed off at the table in exhaustion. She watched as their da returned and scooped cold water over Azure’s forehead, brushing it away with a worn rag. She watched like a statue, nearly unblinking. It had been a certain kind of hell, waiting and watching with nothing she could do. But it would have been worse to fall asleep, only to wake up with the world forever changed.

This was no different.

Azalea watched silently, perched in the corner out of Thom’s way, as Wes underwent treatment. She did not dare to close her eyes or cover her ears. She watched as Thom brought Wes under with a touch, lulling him into a dreamless sleep, and she listened as he flared mana and wrenched Wes’s shoulder with a sickening crackle of bone.

She could not risk distracting Thom or berating him for his harsher methods. It was easy to see that Wes’s condition was still critical, and every second counted. Every move had to be at optimal efficiency. At least Wes was not awake to bear it.

But every noise his body made dug at her chest like a pick, shattered a little corner of her that she hadn’t known was there. Her thoughts ran wild and rampant in the dark, searching fervently for a scapegoat.

If Lady Karis had been faster. If Lord Geppett hadn’t deployed his son. No, Wes only ran out of mana because he had to heal my leg. Because I was weak. If I had listened to Nicolina. If I had told her that Grimwall, not Maple Point, was a critical zone…

Her fault. It was her fault that Wes lay here half-dead. She hadn’t been strong enough, fast enough. Always weak, always scared. Always getting other people to die in her stead.

Azalea, where’s your brother?

A tiny sob rattled from Azalea’s chest. She drew up her knees and linked her arms in a loose ring around her legs.

I’m sorry, Wes, she pleaded. You should have had a better Hunter. A better friend. I’m sorry.

She tried to keep awake, but exhaustion crept on her. She drifted away into the dark night, rain pattering softly on the windows.

A knot was beginning to form at the base of Karis’s neck, but she shook it away. She knew that she would feel much worse before the night was over.

The guild infirmary was an expansive room lined with wooden beds, open windows along one wall ushering some circulation into the stuffy air. Yet it was already overcrowded. Guild physicians scuttled between the beds, jars of poultices and tubs of herbs in hand. Mana economy was always a concern on high-traffic nights, so accelerated regen was reserved for critical wounds or emergency cases. Nicolina had even enlisted extra help this night; there were physicians sporting Second Class regen license pins that Karis did not recognize, likely comprised of the reserve force, medically inclined Supports, and a few individual contractors. This surge had been fast and short, but brutal, requiring every pair of able hands.

Karis tallied again. Five Hunters were still absent. One was the Third Hunter and crown prince, who was likely cleaning up the lingering dregs of any corruptions. But the remaining four…It had been hours since the surge had concluded, and still, there was no sign of them.

And one of the absentees was the illustrious First Hunter.

Karis was just about to slip into Nicolina’s study to make an inquiry when the door to the guild opened. Halcyon Yuden stumbled in a mess of bloodstained robes, leaning heavily on his glaive.

The pressure melted from Karis’s shoulders. She exhaled as she rose to meet him, her steps trim and refined.

He was in a bad way. Blood caked on his brow, limping, the left seam of his tunic shredded. He was plastering a fabric bandage firmly to his side. His blue eyes were stormy and glazed, unfocused.

“Status?” Karis demanded.

Halcyon shook his head. “I’ll live. Focus on the others.”

It had been a long time since she had heard him so bone-deep tired, his voice low and gravelly, lined with pain and raw with exhaustion. He had pushed himself beyond his limits this time. But if his injuries did not require immediate attention, then he would have to bear with them. Resources at the medical ward were too scarce.

Karis’s lips thinned, but she nodded. “Bed rest, then. I’ll see to you later.”

Take your time, he usually said. But not tonight. He slumped wordlessly into the nearest sickbed and stared into nothingness. She knew that look well: the look of somebody doing their damndest not to pass out cold.

It took longer to get to Halcyon than she wanted. Jackal had shattered ribs that pierced her lungs, on death’s door when Loff brought her in. Then a biokey error sent another Hunter into convulsions, and Karis jumped in to calm his system. By the time she reached Halcyon, he looked just about ready to faint—which would have been humorous in any other situation.

“Where?” she asked, snapping the mana inhibitors around his wrists.

He glanced at the silver bangles. “Don’t have to,” he said laboriously. “Poultices will do.”

“Where?” she repeated.

He gave in and told her. Fractured collarbone, gash in his left side, a half-dozen sprains along his limbs. He did not even include his lingering injuries from the encounter with the Whisperer—compounding overburn, fading concussion, and healing ribs.

What an absolute fool.

Karis did not ask for his biokey and Halcyon did not provide it. She knew a few Hunter biokeys by heart, and his was one of them. She closed her eyes and sunk into his plait, targeting the wound in his side first. It was concerningly deep, barely held at bay by the bandage plastered to his skin.

“This missed your spleen by an inch,” she said disapprovingly.

“Fancy that,” he said. “A whole inch.”

She shook her head and returned to her work, knitting together skin and muscle. Technically, Halcyon’s injuries were not critical enough to warrant regen. He would heal naturally with poultices and his recovering manawell. But the process would take a significant amount of time, and with how Nicolina liked to run the top Hunters ragged, he didn’t have time to spare. That was a ripple effect that Nicolina never truly understood: Halcyon had only been wounded because he’d come into the surge already injured. If he had been unhurt, he would still be in top condition. Instead, his injuries would beget mistakes, which would beget more injuries, all until his body could no longer sustain him and he died.

Better to heal him now than bury him later, Karis thought. She should have done so before the surge, but fear of a Class Five appearance had kept her from offering to expend any mana.

Karis moved on and mended Halcyon’s collarbone before she opened her eyes. She blinked for a moment past the disorienting sway, and found Halcyon holding one of the tankards from the taproom, filled with a rich, honey-colored tea.

“What is that?” Karis asked, arching a brow.

Halcyon thrust the tankard toward her. “Take a break,” he said. “You’ve been Threading too long. You’ll scramble your brain.”

She glanced at the tea. It was freshly brewed, the aroma fruity and delicate. “You couldn’t have prepared this,” she said, puzzled. She had been Threading his plait. He would have been immobile.

“Nurse got it for you,” Halcyon said.

“Hm,” Karis said, because that explanation made no sense. Thom’s team of physicians were overloaded with work. They hardly had the time to see to their patients’ every need, much less anticipate the inclinations of their colleagues. More likely, Halcyon had asked for the tea himself.

But she was rather thirsty and her eyelids were feeling heavy, so she did not dispute. She accepted the tankard and sipped. The tea contrasted a mature flavor with mild sweetness and a generous dollop of cream, just the way she liked it.

“Hm,” Karis said again. The nurses definitely did not know her favorite way to take tea.

“Better?” Halcyon asked.

Karis decided not to press the issue. It had been, frankly, just what she needed—a lift of sweetness to bring the slightest spring in her step. For now, no matter how dark the night, she could keep going.

“Yes,” she said. “Thank you.”

Halcyon nodded and looked vaguely satisfied.

Karis went back into Halcyon’s plait. She continued patching his ribs, but decided to leave the lighter injuries for poultices. She retrieved a jar of numbroot salve and fresh bandages while Halcyon stripped his shirt and rolled up the hem of his pants, revealing the bruises and scrapes that mottled the rigid expanse of bronze skin.

“What happened?” Karis asked as she settled behind him.

“What do you mean?” he said.

She dipped her hand in a jar of numbroot salve and lathered it over a bruise on his neck. His skin was hot against her fingers. “You swapped with Fairwen to the Lewis estate. There should have been nothing worse than Twos. Were there complications?”

He eased into her touch. “No. The estate was cleared within the hour.”

He paused.

“So I went somewhere else,” he admitted.

Karis barely withheld the urge to slap him on a very injured shoulder. “Hal.”

“There was a herd of wild boar coming out of the Talebloom,” he said. “Twos and a Three. Would’ve hit an undefended village.”

“A problem that is Nicolina’s, not yours.” She sat back and regarded him with a stern look. “You don’t seem to realize how foolhardy it is to take on assignments with an empty manawell.”

He avoided her gaze. “At least it was easier than Grimwall.”

Karis paused at that. If Halcyon had swapped assignments with Azalea, then he probably felt, in some way, responsible for the state of the young Hunter and her incapacitated Support.

“It’s hardly your fault,” Karis said primly, returning to the numbroot salve. She applied a layer to a swelling bruise on his shoulderblade. “No one could have predicted the critical zone to be Grimwall.”

“She knew.”

“She was worried because her Support was there. That is a key difference.”

Halcyon said nothing for a long moment. He released a tight breath as Karis rubbed salve over irritated teeth marks on his arm.

“I encouraged her to do it,” he finally said. “To take Grimwall.” His fingers pressed at his temples. “I told Nicolina to switch us.”

Karis’s hands paused. Ah. So therein lay the guilt.

“A recruit shouldn’t have to handle a critical zone,” Halcyon said. “Or shoulder the burdens that came after.”

Her lips thinned. “And you should have, thus injured?”

“I might have figured something out.”

Karis slowly pulled back her hands and settled them in her lap. “You would have summoned a flood despite your overburn,” she said softly. “You would have drowned every last corruption. And you would have killed yourself to do it.”

Halcyon avoided her gaze. “No one else would have died.”

“But they would have.” She dipped a rag into water and washed out the blood caking his side. “The bill would come later. In a week, say, with the Storm’s final strike. A Five would arise. Perhaps two. And in the moment when Airlea needed her First Hunter most, he would not be present.”

Halcyon stared at her for a moment.

“What?” Karis said.

He turned his gaze forward again. “Was that meant to comfort me or condemn me?”

“How did you take it?”

He chuckled dryly. “It was comforting. I’m not sure if that’s what you intended.”

She decided not to respond either way. He could interpret her words however he so pleased.

It took a few minutes to salve the remaining wounds, and another few to dress them. When Karis was finished, she wasted no time. She rose to her feet and gathered the salve, rag, and inhibitors.

“Rest for at least two days,” she instructed. “Do not move even a finger out of this sickbed. I will cut it off.”

Halcyon’s mouth turned upward. There was some color back in his face and light back in his eyes.

“Thank you,” he said, meeting her gaze.

They were heartfelt words, but Karis could not accept them, nor could she accept the slight stutter in her pulse, the little unanswered question in her mind.

She cleared her throat and turned to leave. “Then don’t get hurt,” she said. “It expends my mana.”

Azalea’s eyes peeled open to a blurry world of white sheep and blue seas. Then her vision cleared, and the sheep turned into a young woman dressed in medical blue, a white kerchief keeping back her hair. No doubt a reserve physician, hired as an extra hand for the surge.

Azalea took a moment to absorb her surroundings. At some point in the night, Wes had been moved, and her with him. They were now in a small, windowless room, equipped with a single bed, stool, and nightstand. From the wooden flooring to the furniture to the trappings of the bed, everything was a shade of brown, bland and inoffensive. Azalea recognized the room at once: it was one of three small quarantines in the medical ward, intended for patients who were suffering from particularly contagious diseases or bouts of temporary insanity. Hunters called them madrooms.

For a moment, Azalea wondered why the physicians had moved someone as harmless as Wes to a madroom, but the answer came to her just as quickly. Of course the Guild could not keep a noble’s son in an overcrowded infirmary. The aristocracy would be up in arms at the impropriety, the insult. Better for him to have private lodgings, even if it was a madroom.

“You must eat something and take some liquids,” the physician said, shifting closer. She was holding a wooden cup of water and a small plate of salted crackers.

Azalea had no appetite, but she forced the crackers down and drank the full cup of water. Even those few crumbs made her belly feel swollen.

“Thank you,” she rasped. She nodded to where Wes lay in the bed. “How is he?”

The physician glanced over, and a shadow touched her gaze. “He is out of critical condition,” she said.

There was more to the story, and Azalea knew it. But the physician had no time to elaborate. A medical assistant darted into the room and called for her—the Forty-First Hunter was vomiting blood—and in the blink of an eye, the physician was gone.

Azalea shuffled over to Wes’s side and studied his face. His skin was pallid and cold, but washed clean. He was peaceful in sleep, the blankets rising and falling with each deep breath. She ran a finger over his eyelid and traced the line of his jaw.

He is alive. That was what mattered. Complications would follow, but in the end, all she wanted was for him to be safe.

Azalea did not expect Wes to startle awake at her touch, the bedframe rattling as his legs jerked abruptly. She nearly jumped as his eyes feverishly roved the room, still coated with the film of sleep.

“Back,” he gasped. He coughed hard, and flecks of blood dotted Azalea’s hand. “Fall back. We can’t…I can’t…”

Azalea brushed back the sweat-caked strands of hair clinging onto his forehead. “I’m here,” she said, heart in her throat. “Wes, I’m here. You’re safe. It’s alright.”

“’Zalie,” Wes breathed, and he stilled. His body was still taut, but at least he’d stopped moving. “You’re…alive? What…where…”

“Don’t worry about it, Wes. Just rest.”

“The company.” He breathed in, the sound wet and bloody and stuttering, but his eyes were fixed on her. “Jellamie. Lars. Grey. Are they—”

“Later, Wes.” Her eyes stung with tears. “It will be alright. Please, just rest.”

His eyelids fluttered, and she knew he was losing consciousness. He could have asked her any of a thousand things. He could have asked her for the world, and she would have done her best to give it to him.

Instead he said: “Sing something.”

Azalea laughed wetly. She had sung to herself as a child, whether skipping down the forest path with wildflowers in hand, or spinning around with her ma while they waited for bread to rise in the oven. But as she had aged, she’d found less and less reason to sing. Sometimes she had hummed while baking or studying with Wes, and that was the extent of it.

But she wouldn’t deny him anything. She said: “Of course.”

She sang quietly, an old tune, a morbid but beautiful folk song from Lumber’s Hollow. Sleep, my darling, while the big bad wolf prowls. Sleep through its scowls, and every one of its howls. Sleep without a peep, and don’t you dare dream—for a dreamless sleep is the last you will glean.

She expected to find Wes asleep when she finished, but he was watching her intently, half-lidded gaze warm and confident, like he was watching the sun rise on the first day of spring, a promise of a gentler tomorrow.

“There you are.” The breath was gone from his lungs, each word barely there. “A firebolt. Always lighting the way.”

His eyes pulled to a close. Then he was still.

“Wes,” Azalea called hoarsely. She felt for his neck. No pulse. “Wes!”

The door flung open and Thom bolted in, coat flapping around his legs. Azalea scrambled away so he could fasten the mana inhibitors, reach into the plait, do what he did best. She helped him unlock the inhibitors, then dropped back on her heels, staring numbly at the specks of blood on her hands.

A firebolt.

She let Wes’s voice carve a scar in her heart. She let it ache.

Always lighting the way.

What had made him say such a thing after she’d failed at Grimwall? What had he seen while she’d sat there, singing her silly little village song? Had he looked at her tear-stained cheeks and seen a hero? Had he looked at her shabby, disarrayed appearance and seen an angel?

Oh, Wes, Azalea thought miserably. You’ve always thought too highly of me.

An eternity seemed to pass before Thom turned to her and gestured her over. Azalea sprinted to Wes’s side and nearly tripped over his bed.

“Easy,” Thom said, gripping her shoulder. “He’ll be alright.”

“But his pulse…”

“Arrhythmia is a common symptom of overburn,” he explained. “It was only severe because of all the other damage that his plait has sustained.”

Azalea exhaled heavily, her eyes and lungs burning. Alive. Wes would live. Wes would be alright.

“Is there anything I can do?” she pleaded. “Anything.” Mythics, she’d hunt a Class Five at this very moment if he told her to.

Thom smiled gently. “The worst is over. All that’s left is to wait for him.”

“Wait?” Azalea echoed.

Thom nodded. “Mainly, he needs rest. The recovery process can take anywhere from three days to ten months.”

“Ten—” Azalea choked back the strident sound that had torn out of her throat.

“I expect his recovery will be swifter than that,” Thom said. “He’s young, strong, healthy, and highly capable in manacraft. His manawell is probably repairing him as we speak.”

Azalea slumped on the stool at Wes’s bedside. Ten months. He had lived, but at the cost of so much time. Was that why the nurse had hesitated to say more?

Thom’s gaze was soft with pity. “As long as he stays within the capital, he’ll be safe.”

“No,” Azalea murmured.

Thom glanced at her inquiringly, but Azalea said nothing more. She didn’t speak the dreadful knowledge that was bubbling up in her, slowly, a simmering pot finally coming to a full boil.

Mythaven would not be safe. Not with the Storm looming overhead. This surge had struck at the Midsummer Parallel, terrifyingly close to the heart of the nation. The Hunters and the National Garrison and the aristocracy’s private companies had not been enough to defend it. Airlea was not—and could not be—made secure.

And if Azalea could not run from the danger, if she could not take Wes from it, then there was only one thing left to do.

Light the way.

She pressed her lips to Wes’s hand and closed her eyes. Deep inside, her heart hummed, vibrant and waiting.

Even if it means I must burn.

 

The world quieted.

Azalea took a step forward. Her knees buckled beneath her weight and she folded in, her legs hitting the mud-slick road.

There was water in her ears, water in her eyes, water in her throat. Deafening her, choking her, boiling in her lungs.

Wes.

She tried to breathe in and coughed on icy rain. Her chest burned and trembled.

Not Wes.

Her arms raised and her fingers pulled on Bluebell’s trigger. Once, twice, thrice, four times. Too fast. The instability soared until it tore into her temples, a throbbing headache. It boiled before her and threatened to explode.

The coyotes fell. So easily, mockingly so. Where had that ease been a moment ago?

Do not go to him, her training urged. Assist the company. Secure the area. Do not go to him.

Her training be damned. She anchored a foot below her. Burned her manawell. Fired her windsoles.

A drop sent her arcing into the sky like a shooting star, scarlet cloak tearing behind her in a dying tail. She landed softly with the wind whispering at her shoes.

Wes was crumpled in a heap, his limbs at strange angles and his blood running dark over the ground. Azalea dropped beside him. Her fingers trembled, wan as bones as she ran them over his neck. There was a heartbeat loping under his skin. Uneven, terrifyingly quick, clinging to life. But there.

He is dying. He needed immediate attention to have even a sliver of a chance. But no, both of the regeners were dead. There was nobody who could heal him. Nobody who could save his life.

Azalea choked back a helpless noise. Wake up, Wes. I can’t help you. Wes, please.

Behind her, bells tinkled faintly. The town square erupted in white and pale blue, dust shimmering like a sprinkle of rain. The flood of corruptions burst like dolls split at the seams. In the blink of an eye, all fell silent.

Karis surged into view in a ripple of sugar silk.

“Move,” she said sharply. She was already pulling slender silver bangles out of a satchel slung around her waist: mana inhibitors.

Mana inhibitors.

Karis Caelute had a regen license.

Azalea forced herself away from Wes, and Karis knelt, snapping the bangles around Wes’s wrists.

“Lady Karis,” Azalea said numbly. You can regen? When? How? She shook those questions away. “The inhibitors. He has to sync with them.”

“Does Geppett know you?”

For a moment, Azalea was unbalanced by the question. “He’s my—he’s—he’s very precious to me. He’s my Support. But if he’s unconscious, how do we—”

“Hand,” Karis demanded.

Azalea extended her hand. Karis grabbed it, pressed it to Wes’s palm, and waited.

The mana inhibitors clicked and hummed. They’d successfully synced with Wes’s manawell.

Azalea’s jaw slackened. “How?”

Karis ignored her. “Biokey,” she snapped.

Azalea stared blankly.

“I need his biokey,” Karis repeated. “A son of nobility won’t carry it on him. Do you have it memorized?”

His biokey. His unique life signature. Without it, Karis would have to spend precious time carefully Threading her mana through his body, studying the structure of his cells herself. The process could take hours. But if she didn’t, she would risk Threading mana that his body rejected—and in his current state, a manaimmune response would kill him immediately.

“I don’t know,” Azalea fumbled, winding her fingers tightly in her cloak. “He never told me his biokey.”

Karis’s eyes flickered over Azalea. “Your starshooter. It bears the leaves of House Geppett.”

“Y-yes, um…”

“It exudes some passive instability. The firing cartridge has been tampered with.” She arced a brow. “He is an ingeniator?”

“Yes,” said Azalea, amazed.

“Then he is accustomed to contingency plans. And you were able to unlock his inhibitors, so he trusts you with his life. He would have told you his biokey somehow.” Karis’s hands gripped Azalea’s shoulders, digging in tight. “You must remember, little flower. If you don’t remember, he will die.”

Azalea’s breath froze somewhere in her chest, unwilling to move. She could feel every second ticking down, deep as the beat of a drum.

Wes had never told her his biokey. They hadn’t seen a need—Azalea didn’t have a regen license, and Wes would never be on the frontlines. Telling her would just be a potential vulnerability for the son of an influential noble.

But she had to know. She had to know, or he would die.

“He’s performed regen on me,” Azalea said uncertainly. She gripped Karis’s hand tightly like a lifeline. “I know what his manaflow feels like. I know what it’s supposed to feel like. That has to be enough. It has to.”

“That’s not…” Karis cut herself off. “Hm…if Stabilizing hones your distinction, and you are ninety-ninth percentile…yes. It just might be possible.”

Relief spread tentative wings in Azalea’s chest. A chance. At least they had a chance.

“We’ll have to cast a mold,” said Karis, stripping her gloves.

A mold? Azalea almost asked, but quickly held her tongue. The seconds were precious. She couldn’t waste a single one with inane questions.

“Listen closely, Azalea.” Karis’s scarlet eyes bore in Azalea’s soul, burning and bright. “Take his hand and enter his plait. Find the nearest node. Attempt to influence it by…shaping your presence into something it will accept. You will know whether it feels right.”

Azalea had never Threaded into a human body before. She swallowed, her lungs constricting on cold air.

Karis took Wes’s opposite hand. “I will be watching you, copying you. I will know his biokey by how you shape the mold. Are you ready to begin?”

No. “Yes.”

Karis nodded. “Hurry.”

She would lose Wes if she delayed. Azalea gripped his hand tightly and closed her eyes. She burned her manawell low and quiet and reached out, not even knowing what she was looking for.

Entering Wes’s system—his plait—was like submerging underneath the violent waves of the ocean. The physical world was choppy, loud, chaotic. It slowed as she descended, the sounds becoming muffled, the sensations on her skin decaying to nothingness.

And then—like bioluminescence in the water, shining as the sun dipped below the horizon—the new world around her came to life.

The plait was treelike, living and pulsing, ancient yet growing, millions of boughs splitting into branches splitting into sprigs, each blooming with a thousand blossoms. It was terribly beautiful and complex, a puzzle beyond human comprehension. Mana coursed through every node in the intricate web, pouring from a pure, vibrant spring at the tree’s heart that must have been the manawell. At that moment, Azalea knew that she could study his plait for eternity and learn something new each day.

Azalea reached closer and her heart grew heavy. The tree was dying. Several boughs were withered, and others drifted off into nothingness. The blossom-like nodes were trembling, threatening to become dust. Azalea burned her manawell and nudged one, trying to hold it together. It rejected her touch, warding her off like a pane of glass.

The biokey. She realized then what a biokey was. She needed to shape her touch into something the plait would recognize, something it would accept—something that felt like Wes himself.

Slowly, Azalea burned mana and began to shape her presence. There were no dimensions in this realm, no true sense of height or depth, no slant or convexity. Only a vague impression. Threading a plait was like nothing she’d ever known—reaching into air to feel its thickness, looking at a stretch of water to know its taste. She tried to mold herself as best she could, mirroring the feeling of Wes’s manacraft: brickwork and pine fronds, vaulted ceilings, the color green.

A puzzle, she remembered Wes saying once. The plait is like a puzzle. Then she would become one of its pieces.

But the process was not as rigid and manufactured as she expected. It was a soft one, organic. She was a whorl of clay at the potter’s wheel, a bolt of cotton at the weaver’s needle, a ball of dough beneath the baker’s hand.

Unbidden, quiet memories of her childhood surfaced: tiptoeing on a cedar stool, scrunching a ball of floury dough with pudgy fingers as her ma hummed a rustic tune beside her. Ma had loved to bake. Spiced meat pies with a buttery, golden-brown lattice crust. Winter ginger cookies, softened with thick, sweet molasses. Maple-glazed roast boar dressed in onions and carrots, spooned over fragrant barley rice. She had baked unceasingly when Azure had been alive, and Azalea had loved to help her.

But thinking of Ma made Azalea remember the cold, quiet kitchen, the rusted broiling pans, the brick oven covered with a dustcloth. She remembered the silent figure lying among beaten patchwork pillows, eyes glazed and confused, waiting for a son who would never come home.

It nearly broke Azalea’s concentration. She returned to her work.

She focused; she continued shaping. Then, when the reflection was complete, she touched the plait’s blossom again.

I am one with you, she willed. Yield to me.

This time, it fluttered and bloomed, lying open to her touch.

There was no time to celebrate. Around her, entire boughs were rotting, falling, shutting down. Nodes fell from their branches and decayed into dust. Wes’s manawell gurgled as mana surged out to patch and regrow, but its flow was a mere trickle. Too much had been expended in combat, leaving little for healing.

Wes was dying, and Azalea did not know what to do.

A mana presence suddenly brushed past her, cold and sweet, as fluid as it was brittle. Karis Caelute. There was no speech in this strange, symbolic realm, but Azalea understood nevertheless. She was being dismissed. Her job was done.

Azalea pulled out of Wes’s plait and surfaced.

Surfacing was not as pleasant and idyllic as she expected. Coming into reality was brutal, violent, an assault of vivid color and sound. Azalea could feel the scratch of fabric on her skin, the searing heat of fire swirling with the icy spears of rain. Her eyes stung at the blinding rim of flame-lit houses. Her ears pounded as they soaked up every crack of wood, every weighted footstep, every call of the distant horn. The world drowned her in a wave of sensation and kept her down.

A voice cut through the muffled chaos and sounded right next to her ear, so close and so loud that Azalea nearly jumped.

“Breathe in slow,” it murmured. “Count to four.”

Azalea forced air down her throat and into her lungs. It festered and burned inside her.

“Breathe out.”

She exhaled, and the noise reverberated in her skull, too loud.

The second breath was easier, marred with only a bit of stiffness and discomfort. By the third, most of the world had settled into shapes that Azalea recognized. Houses, streets. An endless sea of animal bodies. She swallowed and ran her thumbs over the dirt path beneath her, letting her body slip back into reality. Her frazzled mind slowly began to calm.

“The first Threading is always a jarring experience,” said the voice. She turned to it and saw Grey’s sallow face peering at her from beneath a helmet. “It’s unfortunate that yours had to take place on the battlefield. I cannot imagine a location more overwhelming.”

Azalea blinked. “You know how to Thread?”

“Of course,” Grey sniffed. “A well-rounded introduction to manacraft is a staple for every noble’s education.”

Azalea straightened. “Then…you have a regen license?” The company’s two field medics had died in battle, but if Grey could take their place and treat the wounded—

But Grey shot her a scandalized look. “Do you realize how difficult accelerated regen is?”

The hope in her quailed as quickly as it had risen. “I’ve…heard of it.”

“Hearing of it is nothing like experiencing it. You have been in the plait. Imagine reconstructing those branches, mending the right nodes—all just so, all without a single mistake. One wrong move can throw the system into manaimmune convulsions.”

Azalea looked to where Karis was kneeling by Wes’s broken body, still as stone, her brows knit together in focus.

Grey followed her gaze and nodded. “Lady Caelute is a Sylvester daughter and spent her life training in all combat arts,” he said. “She is more capable at regen than many a physician.”

The knot in Azalea’s shoulders loosened slightly. She did not know what a Sylvester daughter was, but his assured words gave her some comfort. If Wes had any chance at all, then Karis would see it through.

Azalea’s senses had just settled when Karis’s eyes fluttered open. If she was disoriented by Threading, she didn’t show it. She shifted Wes into her arms and rose to her feet without hesitation.

“See to the town,” she said, turning to Azalea. “The young lord Geppett must find immediate care.”

Azalea bit back a plea. It didn’t matter how badly she wanted to follow, how much she wanted to keep Wes in her sight. She was a Hunter. Her royal duties came first.

She was just snapping her feet together, bringing her hand up to a salute, when Grey tapped his lance on the ground.

“Go,” he said. “I can take command.”

That was unexpected. “Are you certain?”

Grey eyed her. “Captain Geppett may have granted you temporary authority over the starshooter unit, but I am the acting commander of the company itself. You have no place here.”

She decided that he was incapable of just letting himself be nice. “Thank you.”

“When Geppett wakes, of course, I shall still inform his father of this inappropriate fraternization. You can no longer convince me of your apathy—”

Azalea didn’t stay to listen. She fired her windsoles and arced after Karis, leaving Grey to gabble about whatever nonsense he so wished.

All of it paled in comparison to Wes’s life.

Azalea expected Karis to turn for the Geppett family estate, a proud manor sitting on countless acres of verdant land, protectively hedged in by groves of trees. There they would find the Geppett family physician, who would already be deeply familiar with Wes’s biosystem.

Instead, Karis turned for the Hunter’s Guild.

Azalea gave no protest as they burst through the door to the main area. Hunters were already trickling in, bloodied and bruised. Some were unconscious, carried in on the backs of comrades. All tables and chairs had been shoved against the walls, leaving a large, clear path straight to the medical ward.

Karis passed a line of injured Hunters waiting in the hall and headed straight into the head physician’s study. Azalea did not protest that either, even though it was another strike against protocol; Thom’s study was never to be disrupted during a surge. He was often operating, and disrupting an operation was a surefire way to kill or maim his patient.

Thankfully, Thom was not operating when Karis stepped through his door. He was changing the sheets on his table, throwing out linens soaked with blood and a trace of something Azalea did not wish to examine closely.

“Thom,” said Karis.

Thom stopped. His eyes fell on Wes’s broken body, and in a rare display of temper, he swore.

“I’m sorry,” Karis said quietly. “There was no time.”

It was harsh to demand emergency care for an extra individual when injured Hunters were already queuing up, but Thom didn’t waste time complaining. He only nodded at the table, pulling on a clean pair of gloves.

Karis laid Wes on the table. Azalea trailed after her like a little lost wisp.

“Status?” Thom asked.

Karis gave a running list of injuries that never seemed to end. The lines in Thom’s face deepened.

“And his biokey?”

Karis slipped a crumpled scrap of paper into his hand. Azalea blinked. When had she possibly had the time to write it?

“Burn it when you’re finished,” Karis said. She nodded briefly in Azalea’s direction. “She can unlock his inhibitors. Were there any other emergency sites?”

“Better you stick to regen if you’ve got mana left,” Thom said. “We could use the reserve. And Lina put His Highness on call.”

Karis nodded. “Then I will see to the injured.” She turned to the door, crooking a finger at Azalea. “Fairwen. With me.”

Azalea shook her head rapidly, panic erupting. “Please, let me stay,” she said breathlessly.

Karis placed a gentle hand on her shoulder. “I understand how you feel, little flower,” she said, “but there is nothing further you can do. Staying in this room will prove a distraction at best, and an obstacle at worst.”

Azalea should listen to Karis, but she looked at Wes lying there, pale and bloodless, and she couldn’t. She couldn’t walk away and leave him there.

“Please,” she begged. “I must. I—please, I just have to.”

Karis looked to Thom, who was already securing the mana inhibitors. He looked up and frowned lightly. He raised a hand, and Azalea stiffened.

But then he beckoned her closer.

“Then help me sync the inhibitors and secure the restraints,” he said. “We’re in for a long night.”

 

Grey Dismas had always wanted to be a hero. But command, he realized, was akin to playing governess for a house of scattered children.

The south gate was close to a breach, the portcullis dented and the mortar crumbling and the limestone bricks falling out of place. Corruptions had started to circle the wall to the east and west sides, looking for another point of entry, and Grimwall had no manpower to secure those gates. Quicklime was running low. So were arrows. Every time a soldier delivered a report, it was nothing but bad news upon more bad news.

“Well! Liking your new command, Dismal?” said Jellamie cheekily, elbowing him in the side. Grey did not like Jellamie. She called him Dismal and liked to put bugs and pinecones in his sleeping cot. She also never listened to what he had to say, even after Hunter Fairwen and young Lord Geppett had clearly designated him as the acting commander. Unfortunately, she was one of two field medics, and that meant she potentially held his life in her hands. She would probably save him out of duty even if he insulted her deeply, but she certainly would not make it enjoyable.

So Grey swallowed his pride. Slightly. He still raised his chin and said, “Isn’t there an injury somewhere that you should be tending, Jelly?”

Unfortunately, the nickname Jelly did not seem to bother her in the slightest. “I’m on break, Dismal,” she said spryly. “Like this whole night was supposed to be. A break. Time to kick back, relax, light it up. You know?”

“Light what up? The signal beacon?”

Jellamie started. “Are you joking? A smoke. The pipe. Hemp. Light it up. Honestly, Dismal, you never have any fun.”

It was idiotic for a doctor to imbibe narcotics, and even more idiotic to do so on the night of a surge, no matter how safe an area was supposed to be. Grey opened his mouth to say just that, but he was interrupted. In the distance, the looming shadow of the final alpha shuddered, then fell with a great lowing sound.

Jellamie cheered, throwing a fist in the air. “Look at that! The alphas are down! I guess a Hunter is good for something once in a while.”

“I doubt it was the Hunter,” Grey snapped. “It was likely the work of the captain.” It didn’t matter that Fairwen was mildly passable at the starshooter. She was still a Hunter, and a Hunter could never be trusted, not truly.

“It could be the work of an old granny for all I care.” Jellamie raced to descend the parapet. “I’m just glad this battle is almost over,” she called. “Mythics know that I could use a—”

What terrible, degenerate recreational activity she had been about to suggest, Grey would never know.

Because she was still six rungs from the ground when the south gate detonated.

The barbican burst apart, shooting chunks of limestone like a deadly ballista, portcullis falling bent and shredded as corruptions surged into the city, a thick, horrifying caravan of rabid eyes and fur and claws.

Jellamie hadn’t the time to utter a single sound. Her body rocketed at the force and crumpled against the limestone tower. She slumped down, blood soaking where her head had struck rock, and Grey knew she had died.

He didn’t bother rushing to her and looking for her pulse. If she was dead, there was nothing he could do. If she wasn’t, then she would be dying fast, and he couldn’t regen, nor could he reach the other medic in time. The south wall had been breached. Corruptions were flooding Grimwall. There were a thousand other things he had to see to, a thousand other fires he had to extinguish.

But as Grey clambered down from the parapets and rushed into the fray, blowing a sequence on his horn, he couldn’t help but think that he wouldn’t have minded more pinecones in his bed. Not if it meant that Jellamie had been alive to plant them there.

As quickly as the tide had turned, it capsized again.

Azalea watched helplessly as the countless sea of beasts trudged toward the city walls, a towering wave sent to choke a lonely flame. She was frozen to the ground, her tongue locked in her mouth. Rain bit at her pounding arm and her useless, trailing leg, reminding her of her mortality, her flaws. Grimwall couldn’t possibly fight off this overwhelming force when they’d been struggling against scraps. It was only a matter of time until they fell, and they would fall brutally and gracelessly.

Azalea had asked Nicolina for this town, and she hadn’t been strong enough to protect it.

Beside her, Wes shook himself to his senses and spoke quickly, his tone even and unperturbed. “We’ll have to get back to the city, find a medic. See to your leg and your arm.”

“It’s not life-threatening,” Azalea said, unfeeling. “I’ll be fine.”

“You’re our best fighter,” Wes said. “You have to be in perfect health for us to have a chance.”

Azalea bit her tongue and nodded. She didn’t have the heart to tell Wes the truth: they had no chance at all.

“Hey. Look at me.” She felt Wes’s fingers lifting her chin. The waves of corruptions were blocked off by two lovely amber eyes. “Don’t give up, ’Zalie. It’ll work out.”

Azalea’s eyes stung with tears. Of course he could see right through her. “How can you say that?” she blurted. “We barely dispatched two Threes. Now there are six. And all those heralds—”

“This fight isn’t just what you can see,” Wes urged. “How many times do I have to tell you that?”

She blinked, confused.

“Hunters will secure their zones and find us on patrol. My father will receive the critical zone report and send his reserve troops.” Wes squeezed her shoulder. “There will be reinforcements, ’Zalie. We just have to hold out until they get here.”

He looked so courageous and so confident that she wanted to believe him. She truly did.

We’re not alone, she told herself. Not alone.

“Alright,” she said, voice trembling. She drew herself up. “Let’s get back to town.”

She couldn’t springstep on a single leg, so Wes gathered her in his arms and flew back.

Grimwall had been breached. The south barbican lay in ruins, corruptions pouring through its open mouth and rampaging in the streets. The town was in utter chaos—fires roaring and smoke billowing, cries of anger and fear, clanging of metal and bone. Several houses lay collapsed and burning, and Azalea could only hope that the families remained safe in their underground shelters.

Wes landed by Grey, who was running along the rooftops with the other marksmen, issuing commands to the rest of the company. Azalea expected to see the familiar sneer curdle his mouth when he saw her curled up in Wes’s arms. But apparently, command had given Grey more important things to worry about. His eyes shot right to Wes, barely giving her a passing glance.

“Milord,” he said breathlessly. “Jellamie is dead.”

The name did not land with Azalea, but Wes’s face turned cold and pale. “How did—no. What about Lars?”

“Tending the wounded in the safehouse last I saw, but…I must admit, it has been some time since then.”

Wes instinctively grimaced, then quickly wiped it away. “Are the troops routed?”

“From what I can tell, milord, not yet. Many are fighting valiantly to protect their families and homes.”

Wes nodded. “Split the company into subunits of four. Have them divide and skirmish the beasts at a distance. Rely on flanks and ambushes around buildings—we can’t take them in a front-on fight.”

“Yes, milord.”

“I’ll be back after I’ve seen Lars.”

“Yes, milord.”

Wes took off, and Azalea couldn’t help but think that she didn’t mind Grey so much when he was terrified out of his wits.

The safehouse wasn’t far from the breach. Wes would only have to turn down two roads before he’d stop at a large granary, which had been emptied and turned into a makeshift infirmary earlier that night. But as Wes approached the granary, the acrid whiff of smoke trickled into their lungs.

“Oh,” Azalea whispered, her heart sinking.

Wes’s jaw tightened and his steps quickened around the corner. Then his feet ground to a halt, and a small, pained noise escaped his mouth.

Where Azalea expected to see stalwart brick walls and thick oaken doors, she only saw charred, scattered beams of wood and mortar dust. The few soldiers who’d been posted as guards lay scattered around the granary’s remains, lances and shields shattered.

The corruptions must have scented the wounded prey, Azalea realized. They came straight here.

Several feet away from them lay the limp body of a man wrapped in medical blue. Wes set Azalea down and moved quickly, kneeling by the man’s body and pressing two fingers to his neck. It was more of a formality than anything. The medic’s entire back was shredded and soaked in blood.

“Dead,” Wes said hollowly. His gaze was distant as he released the field medic and drew himself to his feet. “I should’ve…It was too close. Why didn’t I…”

A shadow flicked in the debris of the granary. Azalea instinctively threw up her starshooter in its direction.

“Wes!” she screamed.

Her cry roused Wes just as the shadow lunged into dim light, revealing the thin, sly face of a Class One fox. Wes barely drew his sword in time to block a feral bite at his head.

Azalea primed a shot towards the fox, but she couldn’t find a clean angle. Wes was grappling with the animal too close to guarantee his safety. She tried firing at the fox’s large, bushy tail. The firebolt tore through fur and muscle, but the fox only yelped and ignored the pain.

Wes roared, swinging his blade with a blaze of mana. Vines tore out of the ground, shattering the cobblestone. They thrashed in agitation as they tangled and twisted, ignoring the agonized squeals of the animal, whipping it and tearing at it like a piece of raw meat.

Through teary eyes, Azalea fired another shot. The firebolt seared through the fox’s head, and it slumped, silent.

Wes stumbled to the ground, his sword clattering out of his hand. The vines disengaged and slunk slowly back into the ground.

A disconcerting quiet fell over the road to the granary.

Azalea crawled to Wes’s side, dragging her leg behind her. His gaze was empty as it rested on the scattered bodies, soaking in every inch of gore.

“All of them,” Wes said, his voice numb with shock. “All dead.”

“Wes,” Azalea whispered.

“These soldiers…So many of them were young. Their first battle.”

“Wes.” She gripped his shoulders, tried to turn him to her. “Later. It has to be later. I’m sorry.”

Still, Wes was unmoving. And Azalea realized: he hadn’t witnessed death before. Not true, raw death, sudden and brutal. Most of his command had been over training sessions or Academy mock battles. Even during the Battle of Havenport, their company had been deployed near the tail end of the Storm and casualties had slowed. Wes had brought them out with no deaths.

In this tragic area, Azalea was more experienced than him. She’d witnessed the death of her brother at seven. She’d watched her mother wither away with confusion and grief. And she’d seen villagers dragged down by feral beasts during evacuations, villagers she hadn’t been fast enough to save.

Azalea’s hands moved up to cup Wes’s face, her palms scathing on his rain-iced skin. She forced him to look at her, even though his eyes were glassy and distant.

“Wes,” she said. He didn’t respond. “Wes, we will grieve. But right now, they need you. We need you, Wes.”

He surfaced at her voice, even if slowly, the shell over his irises finally cracking and warming. He blinked and squared his shoulders. The grief had faded to a faint cold across his face.

“Of course,” he said. “Of course. I’m sorry.”

She knew that something irretrievable had been taken from him. This night had changed him. Her heart ached to see it.

But for now, they were needed.

Wes rubbed his hand over his face, shaking fingers searching for a foundation. “Alright…first. First. The breach…no. Threes are coming. And the Four.” His gaze cast to Azalea. “We still need you at full health.”

“But the medics—”

Wes knelt and rummaged through the felled medic’s pouches. “I’ll do it.”

“You?”

He found a pair of silver bracers—mana inhibitors. “I’ll patch up your leg. You’ll be able to peel off the Threes and Four. Don’t engage them by any means, but if you can keep them distracted, lead them away until reinforcements—”

“Wes,” Azalea said softly.

Wes fastened the mana inhibitors around her wrists. “Sync with them. We don’t have much time.”

“We don’t have any,” she said. She placed a hand over his. “They’re already at the gate.”

“What?” His head shot up. “That can’t—”

His words faltered. The south wall had been torn apart by the new stampede of beasts, leaving an entire side of the city wide open. In the fields just beyond, the Class Three deer pranced, and the Class Four bear ambled closer, every pawstep sending cracks scuttling across the ground.

Azalea slowly stood. Her injured leg dragged uselessly behind her, but it didn’t matter. She drew her starshooter and looked up into the cold, rainy night.

“Retreat, Lord Geppett,” she said calmly. “Get yourself to safety.”

Wes stood with her. “Wait.”

“If you return, make sure to recover the starshooter. Especially the firing cylinder.”

“No.” Wes gripped her wrist hard enough to bruise her skin and jammed a finger towards the sky. “Wait.”

Azalea followed his gaze.

A streak of diamond-white was tearing from the sky like a heavenly arrow.

She blinked, a flutter of confusion breaking the cold clarity in her mind. What was it? A meteor? A shooting star? A Class Five?

“There it is,” Wes said, the relief palpable in his voice.

“There what is?” Azalea asked.

His mouth lifted. “Reinforcements.”

The light consolidated, and Karis Caelute landed before them in an explosive swirl of sugar petals, the surrounding air charged with a terrifying, crackling power. There was no smile on those rosy lips; her eyes were sharp as cut glass, her brows pressed downward.

Azalea nearly dissolved into tears.

Karis shot down the corruption-thick roads, flitting in and out of sight like a dragonfly, glittering thread weaving and snapping in a dancing tapestry around her. In the blink of an eye, dozens of animal corpses fell hard, decapitated or neatly diced, filling the roads with the stench of rotting flesh. She was impossibly quick—quicker than when they’d first met, quicker than anything Azalea had ever seen.

Ones and Twos were barely pests to Karis. They snapped and swiped at her with jagged teeth and claws, only to fall to meaty pieces in the next blink. Such power, such precision. Azalea could not imagine possessing that level of strength.

“She’s forcing a death route,” Wes murmured.

Azalea glanced at him. “What?”

“Look.” He pointed. “She’s using corpses to block off certain roads. Everything will funnel through a choke to the central square.”

He was right. Karis’s strikes were strategic. The dull-witted corruptions would always take open paths over obstacles, and she had distributed corpses to sequester off everything but a single winding road to Grimwall’s town square. Wes could organize his company around the resulting kill zone, shooting and stabbing anything that dared to pass through.

Another minute passed when Karis apparently finished her work. She vaulted through the sky and landed effortlessly before them, her cloak fluttering around her like silken wings.

“I will see to the Threes and Fours,” she said, her melodic voice honed and sharp. “Fairwen. Geppett. I’ve set up a funnel. Are you able to dispel the Ones and Twos?”

“Yes ma’am,” Wes said immediately. Azalea tried to respond likewise, but it took all her active effort not to bawl like a child.

“Then I shall leave you to it.” Karis turned. “Keep vigilant. Even the lower Classes can prove deadly.”

And she shot into the night, her silhouette twinkling like diamond dust.

Six Threes and a Four, all at the same time. How could she possibly manage it? I’ll learn, Azalea decided. I’ll get that strong. I have to.

Wes reformed his company at the central square with a few blasts of the horn. Soldiers slowly trickled in, stationing themselves at the kill zone. Ten, fifteen, twenty…twenty-four. Less than half the original number.

It was sobering to see how the ranks had thinned, and even more sobering to see the weight on Wes’s face. He would take the losses as a personal failure, Azalea knew—even though it was a miracle that any of them were alive at all. Brand new troops, untested, none of them licensed manacrafters. As far as she was concerned, they had all cheated death.

Wes ordered the pikemen to flank the mouth of the funnel, striking as the corruptions emerged, while the archers and marksmen were given a clear line of sight down the entire road. The stream of beasts was constant, but Karis had pinned them down to a single point of entry, making them more than manageable. Between the sea of lances and volleys of arrows and firebolts, the creatures were unable to advance past the choke.

“Shake me if anything goes awry,” Wes told Azalea, sheathing his sword and kneeling next to her.

“What are you doing?” Azalea asked with a frown.

“Your leg is still injured,” he reminded. “I can’t have you debilitated in any way, just in case.”

He secured the mana inhibitors around her wrists. Azalea caught her snipers eyeing her curiously and blushed. “You don’t have to do this. Lady Karis is here. The battle is basically over.”

“It’s not over until the final beast is dead,” Wes said sternly. “Now let me heal you.”

She let him heal her. She set her mind on the funnel, firing volley after volley through the unending swarm of ravenous beasts. She ignored the warm tingle in her leg as Wes carefully ran through her system, mending things in his thorough, gentle way.

He had just stepped away, finished with soothing her sprains and bruises, when Grey pointed frantically into the sky and cried out in alarm.

“Fliers!” he called.

Azalea’s gaze snapped upward. Winged silhouettes were descending fast from the sky, bolting right towards the ragtag remnants of their company.

Not over until the final beast is dead, she thought ruefully. Indeed.

A giant hawk swooped from behind and snapped up Grey in its vicious talons. Azalea swiftly tilted her starshooter up and fired. The firebolt struck cleanly through the hawk’s tarsi, severing the talons from its legs. Grey dropped with a wild scream.

He would be fine. He’d only fallen four feet.

Unfortunately, Azalea couldn’t say the same for the rest of the company. The arrival of the fliers, the introduction of another dimension, had thrown the kill zone into chaos. The pikemen were swerving away from the choke to protect the backline—an admirable decision, if it had not opened up the entire funnel, allowing beasts to pour unchecked into the kill zone. Field and forest animals, twisted beyond recognition by the corruption, swarmed their tiny force and overwhelmed them in the blink of an eye.

Frantically, Azalea searched for Wes, firing blind shots into masses of fur and feathers. She found him cornered by five circling coyotes—four Ones and a Two.

“Pikemen, back to the choke!” he was yelling, his voice hoarse from exertion. “Hold the line! Hold the line!” But his voice was lost in the chaos, and his company continued to flail, panicked and disjointed.

Heart in her throat, Azalea swiftly raised her starshooter and fired at the coyotes around Wes. She managed to catch one, a clean shot through its skull, but two others leapt at him and avoided her rounds entirely. Wes fired his windsoles and shoot upward to dodge, but another coyotes leapt up, dug its teeth into his boot, and pulled him down. Wes cried out, and a bed of Formed clovers quickly bloomed beneath him to cushion his fall.

No. Azalea fired her windsoles, trying to get to his side. One of the coyotes peeled off and tackled her, teeth lashing right for her face. She jammed her starshooter in its maw and headbutted its nose, but it refused to move.

Beyond her, Wes was quickly becoming overwhelmed. The coyotes were synchronized enough to strike in unison, swiping their paws and biting viciously at his limbs as one. He swept his hand, Forming bramble walls to cover his back and flanks as his sword snapped out to counterattack, drawing blood from the coyotes’ legs and chests. But his pace was slowing, and an unwelcome thought dawned on Azalea in a cold baptism.

He’s running out of mana.

Wes did not specialize in Forming. He was an inventor, a Threader. Someone focused on keen, precise, detail-driven work. He was a decent Former and assisted by the mana quartz in his sword, but he had not trained in spellweaving efficiency or combat techniques. His Forming was nothing close to a Hunter’s.

The largest coyote, the Class Two, reared and leapt at him. Azalea watched as Wes raised his hand, and a bramble thicket pushed out of the ground, rising to block the coyote’s strike.

No.

She wrenched away from the coyote on her and shot out its brain at point-blank. The mana quartz in Wes’s sword gleamed blindingly bright, a supernova about to extinguish.

He’s overburning.

Azalea leapt over the dying coyote, yanking the instability away from her starshooter. She was slow, too slow. Exhaustion was taking its toll.

No. Please.

She knew the moment Wes’s manawell ran dry. There was a cold snap in the air, the feeling of something disappearing, like sliding ice under her fingertips.

Then the protective bramble thicket disintegrated into nothingness.

Azalea screamed and raised her starshooter—

—too little, too late.

Wes’s eyes widened right as the coyote struck him full-force in the chest.

His body pinwheeled in the air, silent and limp like a ragdoll.

He crashed right into a stretch of limestone wall and landed hard on the road, blood trailing behind him. The impact echoed like a dull drum.

He did not rise again.

 

Echo shoved his hands in his pockets and whistled a dry tune as he strolled through Mythaven’s streets. They were, of course, completely desolate, the houses dark, the cobbled roads picked clean by wretched poor and fat alley rats alike. No insistent hawkers, no tittering flirts, no screeching infants. He could get used to this. Except silence often meant that business was dead, which he couldn’t get used to.

He stiffened at the sound of clanking metal, but it was far too loud and careless to come from a threat. Sure enough, a youth draped in plate armor far too big for him barreled down the road, lance in hand. No doubt an emergency reserve on his way to claim his share of the glory.

The lad drew to a sudden halt when he saw Echo and straightened, tapping the butt of his lance on the cobblestone.

“Sir,” he said, dead serious, “get inside at once, please. For your own safety.”

For your own safety. Oh, the righteousness of youth. Now where had he heard that one before?

Echo grinned slowly and creepily. “But this is my favorite weather,” he drawled.

The lad visibly recoiled. Then he turned away and strode on.

“Crazy drunks,” he muttered. “Mad, the lot of them.”

And off he went to give up his life for a nation with more holes than fabric, a nation that would burn itself dry using vain hope as a fuel. The blood of children would paint the field scarlet.

Echo thought of another youth fighting a war too old for her, vibrant with innocence and idealism. He turned and kept walking, kept sauntering, unaffected. He didn’t whistle anymore, but only because he didn’t feel like it.

It wasn’t his problem. He’d already done his part, told her what his instincts had provided.

It wasn’t his problem at all.

The first strike of lightning raised an army of field mice.

Azalea watched as their bodies swelled, shaggy hides wobbling like jelly, unable to support the sudden flood of mana into their bodies. The once fist-sized critters ballooned to the size of squealing pigs. She swallowed the bile that rose to her throat and fired, striking one right between its beady, hungry eyes. Her unit followed suit.

Firebolts seared into the fields like falling stars, incinerating the mice and setting grass ablaze.

“Keep aiming,” Azalea commanded as her snipers began to lower their guns, reaching for short bows.

“Lady Hunter, it will be forty seconds before we can fire again,” Grey said. “We should use arrows to fill the gap.”

“Keep aiming,” Azalea repeated. She burned her mana and reached out. The knots of destabilized mana were thick and unruly, hanging over each of the five starshooters in a tangled web. She hadn’t tried to Stabilize multiple instances simultaneously, ever, in her life. Maybe it couldn’t be done.

Confidence, Fairwen, whispered Halcyon’s voice.

She took a deep breath. She could Stabilize in her sleep ever since she’d been born—if not just because Azure’s swords would have exploded and incinerated her crib otherwise. If anyone could do this, it would be her.

She found those five knots of instability and, like a hand spreading its fingers, branched out her mana over all of them. She flared her manawell and pulled.

The knots shuddered and—after a moment of resistance—fell away.

Four starshooters hummed. Four regulators clicked as they registered the stable environment, and four triggers were freed.

The snipers stared down at their weapons, jaws slack, mouths open.

“That’s not possible,” one of them said numbly. Even Grey was silent.

“Fire,” Azalea commanded.

They fired. No more questions this time. Azalea continued to Stabilize, leaving about five seconds of breathing room between volleys. Easier than burst firing, but still demanding on her manawell. She would have to monitor herself carefully to prevent early overburn.

Swollen sparrows and misshapen garden snakes barreled for the southern barbican and threw themselves at the gate, eyes dim with primal rage. As the portcullis groaned beneath their weight, the archers loosed waves of arrows and the local militia poured molten quicklime over the wall. Animal corpses littered the fields with seared flesh and black blood.

Just as the situation was looking hopeful, the small military force seeming well-equipped to handle the invasion—

—there was a low, keening moan from the distance, the kind that shook Azalea’s bones and made them ache.

She cast her gaze onto the horizon.

A shadow swallowed up the fields. Or so it seemed, until a flash of prismatic lightning underlit its figure: a sinewy body with a tawny speckled hide, four powerful legs upon four sharp hooves, and two gleaming antlers, wrapped with putrid growths of corrupted mana. It had to be a king stag from the Talebloom, beautiful and terrible, twisted beyond recognition. Swarms of woodland Ones and Twos—raccoons and hares and foxes—flooded around its hooves with a skittering cacophony of screeching and rasping.

Heralds and the alpha.

Azalea shoved down the cold knot of fear in her belly and seized her starshooter. If she let that Three approach town, it would tear apart the gates with a single charge of its antlered skull. She had to stop it while it was still at a distance, while she still had room to maneuver.

“Stay here and cover the gate,” she commanded her unit. “I’m going to engage the Three.”

“I’ll go with you,” Grey said readily, which surprised her. But then she supposed that courage had never been his problem.

She glanced down at his feet, which were covered in ordinary boots. “No windsoles,” she noted. “You’ll only get yourself killed.” When he opened his mouth to complain, she barreled on. “You’re in command of the marksman unit until I return. Lead them well.”

Grey’s mouth closed, then opened again, a flush of pleasure spreading over his thin face. Azalea didn’t stay to listen to what he had to say. She fired her windsoles and arced off into the night.

The stag was a worse sight up close. Horrifying, but also tragic. Azalea hated to see how mana corruption had taken this majestic creature and made it bow to anguish and misery. The painful red cysts constricting its head and legs, the black spines erupting from beneath its hide. By the time she was within firing range, she felt no fear, only pity.

I’m sorry, gentle thing, she thought. I will put you to rest.

Azalea slung her starshooter forward and raised the barrel. Just weeks ago, she’d lacked the confidence to kill a Class Three. It was time to see if she’d grown.

She waited a minute for the Ones to bolt past their alpha, enticed by the light and fire and smell of flesh from Grimwall. Engaging a Three would be difficult enough without other distractions.

Then she took her first shot. A solid one, right through the front leg. The firebolt tore through flesh easily and mangled the giant limb.

The stag roared, knocking together Azalea’s teeth with the deafening sound. She fired her windsoles and barely avoided a blind swipe of its head in her direction, antlers churning up the earth and whisking just past her.

It was fast. Faster than it had any right to be with its hulking size.

Azalea kept light on her toes, never stopping for more than one shot. She darted away as it reared its hooves at her, then shot out a hind leg. Big square teeth snapped down to take off her head, and she leapt spryly between its antlers, shooting through its eye and into its brain.

None of it was enough to kill a Three, but the stag was definitely slowing. With an eyeball ruptured and two legs crippled, its movements became withdrawn, more cautious. Still, Azalea didn’t rejoice. She couldn’t shake the feeling that something wasn’t quite right. There was something she was missing.

Instincts prickling, she turned around.

Just in time to see a giant shadow barreling for her like a cannonball.

Azalea throttled her windsoles at full speed, but the shadow still clipped on the edge of her boot. She spun violently, the force wrenching her foot to an awkward angle, and cried out at the sharp pain that blazed from her ankle to her knee.

Not good.

She had a feeling that her foot was no longer load-bearing, so she twisted around, trying to land with one windsole. The flared momentum was fast, too fast. She crashed hard into the ground, chunks of grass and earth spewing up at the impact. Dirt stung her eyes and lungs as she spat up a mouthful of mud, her body aching all over.

Before her, the shadow dashed up to the king stag, then slowed to a gentle prance, taking shape beneath flashes of lightning.

A Class Three doe. Probably the stag’s mate.

Gingerly, Azalea dragged herself up and tested her leg. She was rewarded with a blistering pain in her ankle and a dull throb in her knee. Something, or multiple somethings, had been badly sprained.

Very not good.

She’d stood a chance as a healthy Hunter against one Three. Now she was injured, and her opponents had doubled.

The stag and doe charged as one. The uninjured doe leapt high, while the stag struck low with its antlers. Azalea threw herself to the side, but she knew. She just knew that she wasn’t fast enough, and the antlers were going to tear off her arm into a bloody stump. If shock didn’t kill her, then blood loss would.

The mutilated crown of bones surged towards her, and—

—suddenly, a thicket of brambles clawed out of the earth, weaving together in a lattice, and caught the antlers.

Not for long. The stag thrust its neck and the brambles were shredded and uprooted, but the collision had bought Azalea one precious second. She tumbled into the grass out of harm’s way, her arm hale and whole.

Those brambles had been Formed by a manawell that Azalea very much recognized. She turned to meet it.

A brilliant green cape fluttered beneath the silver moonlight like a rolling meadow, and Wes grinned boyishly at her. The verdant mana quartz embedded in his beautiful sword was glowing faintly from recent use. Because it wasn’t enough that he was a noble’s son, a master Threader, good at tactics, charismatic in leadership, and decent with a sword. He also had to be a respectable Former of plant mana.

“Sorry,” he called. He sounded surprisingly upbeat, like he’d just popped into a game of kickball. “Am I late?”

“Wes!” Azalea screamed. She rocketed to her feet, forgetting about her injured leg. It buckled beneath her and sent her back to the grass. “What are you doing?”

“Helping, I hope,” said Wes. The stag bucked towards him. He vaulted over it with his windsoles and chopped at a corrupted spine growing from its antlers.

“You’re supposed to be behind walls!” Azalea said desperately. It was hard to breathe past her sudden surge of panic. Many will die, many will die. “You’re the—you’re in command, how could you leave your unit?”

“Grey has it under control,” Wes said. The doe struck at him with her hooves, but he sprung away again. “More or less. I’m the only other person with windsoles, ’Zalie, and I told you.”

Azalea raised her starshooter and fired, clipping the doe’s hoof. “Told me what?”

“I’m not letting you fight alone.” Wes sliced at the doe’s hind leg as it reared up. He drew a cut, but not deep enough to faze it.

“You should have,” Azalea said, fighting off the surge of warmth at his simple words. He was being naive and it shouldn’t please her. “I mean—thank you, for saving my life. But you really must go back.”

Wes waved his sword. The mana quartz in the crossguard bloomed a vivid green, attracting the stag’s attention. “Then come back with me and get healed up,” he said. “You’re the Hunter, the ace. Things will be very bad if you die.”

“I can’t,” Azalea said. “The Threes will follow me and charge down the walls.”

The stag lowered its head and charged Wes, a slight limp to its gait. “Well, then, sounds like we’re winging it anyway,” Wes said. “So I might as well be here.”

Oh, he could be so stubborn sometimes. “Fine,” Azalea snapped. “Fine. But don’t you dare get hurt, or I’ll—I’ll really have it.”

“Barnam’s Cross!” Wes suddenly called, and Azalea’s body instinctively reacted. Years of Academy drills seized her limbs, and before she knew it, she was springing on her good leg, starshooter slung back and short sword in hand.

Barnam’s Cross was one of many partner windsole maneuvers drilled into the Academy students—a double helix swerve into a charging strike, where one partner struck high and plunged low, and the other struck low and rose in an uppercut. It was an agile slash that countered charging animals, using their own momentum to drive the blades in a wicked cross.

And it was perfect for the stag charging right at them.

Azalea fired her windsole and dashed low, while Wes leapt high in the air, crossing over her. This part, the double helix swerve, could disorient animals who watched their prey while they charged.

As the stag blazed by, Azalea dug her sword deep into its chest and flared her windsole, dragging the blade upward. The stag sliced itself open as Wes mirrored her from up top. The blades tore through its flesh and emerged with a sickly pop. Blood and innards sloshed over the wet earth as the stag keeled and fell heavily. If it wasn’t dead, it would be presently.

Pity for the creature stirred, and Azalea fired once, twice, thrice in the center of its skull, until the light in its mad, roving eyes finally deadened.

Be at rest, she prayed.

Despite the heaviness of the moment, she sought Wes’s gaze. He was watching her, rueful pride written freely across his face. At least it had been a victory, and one they would gladly take. It had been so long since Azalea had fought with a partner that she’d forgotten how addicting the feeling was—to be side-by-side, moving as one, ready to take on the world. Despite her injured leg, she felt renewed and ready to fight.

A good thing, too, as a shrill, rattling scream had Azalea dropping her sword and clapping her hands over her ears.

It took her a moment to register that it was coming from the doe, and another moment to register the sound as pain. Pain of loss, pain of love. A sound as ancient as time.

For a moment, Azalea’s heart twisted in her chest. The doe had lost its mate, the love of its life. There was no feeling more universal or more sympathetic. She couldn’t imagine the hole that it would leave, the emptiness. It must be all-consuming.

Then the doe rose, a frenzied light in its eyes, and pounded a hoof into the mud.

“It’s enraged,” Wes said grimly. “At least it’s a Three. Can’t burn mana.”

But enragement meant nothing good, even for a Class Three. As far as Azalea recalled, enraged corruptions were numb to pain and injury. They would fight until their very last breath, never stymied and never staggered.

“Let’s kill it quickly,” she said.

They tried their best. The doe lashed out with all limbs and snapped impossibly fast with its teeth. They managed to avoid dying, but a hoof swiped at Azalea’s off-hand and Wes had a chunk bitten out of his lovely cloak. Wes called for more moves—Farloop, Mortar and Pestle, Acquister Slash—but even as they carved liberally into its hide, the doe never faltered.

“It has to die soon,” Wes said. He was breathing heavily, a sheen of sweat coating his face. “It’s lost too much blood.”

Azalea wanted to believe the same. Her leg had long grown numb and concerningly unresponsive, and her off-hand was pounding with a new sprain. Slowly, they were tiring out, while the doe was fighting with just as much vigor as when it had entered the battlefield. Azalea hated to admit it, but she would have died a long time ago without Wes.

The doe lowered its head, readying another charge, ignoring the fact that two of its legs were shredded, white bone peeking through torn flesh and hide.

“If I get you high,” Wes said, “can you burst shot its head as it passes?”

“I’ve been trying not to burst,” Azalea said, “in case I need the mana.”

Wes shook his head. “This is the alpha. No more holding back.”

Azalea swallowed and hefted her starshooter, nodding. “Get me up there.”

The doe charged, its pace slowed by two defunct limbs. Wes closed his eyes and exhaled. The mana quartz in his sword gleamed, and a current of power roared around Azalea—mana threads pulling from the surrounding grass, the fertile soil, chips of bark and pounded mulch, all weaving into a lush tapestry given Form. She burned her own manawell and reached for the knots and tangles, pulling them free, not knowing what she was helping with and not caring. It was Wes’s creation, and that was all that mattered.

The doe barreled closer. Wes’s shoulders tightened, but his eyes remained shut.

“Ready your windsoles,” he said.

Azalea glanced at her feet. Vines had woven into a loose, springy net beneath her, pulled taut with an anchoring bramble that kept it rooted to the earth. The net’s two endpoints were held up by sprouting wooden boughs that clambered skyward.

Wes was Forming an oversized slingshot from leaf and wood.

Before Azalea could say oh dear, his eyes snapped open. “Now!” he barked.

The net’s anchor snapped apart. The net pushed hard just as Azalea fired her windsoles, and she was flung high into the air.

Azalea fired as she came level with the doe’s head. The first firebolt seared right through its muzzle, burning flesh as it exited.

She kept soaring upward as the doe passed beneath her. She fired again. The second firebolt pierced the doe’s skull from above, blistered down the roof of its mouth, through its tongue, out the bottom of its jaw.

She twisted as she began to fall and fired one last shot. The last firebolt punched through the back of the doe’s head and spewed out between its eyes.

The doe’s charge faltered and it crashed into the ground. Its limbs thrashed senselessly, but it could no longer right itself.

Azalea fell.

Her gut wrenched as gravity yanked her down. She was spinning wildly, too far, too fast, with only one windsole—

A solid weight collided into her, encasing her with warmth.

“I’ve got you,” Wes said. His arms cradled her, careful of her injured leg, and he smiled with his face alight. “That was some brilliant shooting.”

Azalea flushed and almost said a dozen things—was it really, it wasn’t much, I have to train more. But Halcyon’s words drifted to her again: Confidence, Fairwen. Confidence.

She smiled back at him. “Thank you,” she said.

His ears flushed red and he quickly looked away. She felt a burst from his windsoles, and they landed with a soft splash in the mud.

“That’s the alphas down,” Wes said. He glanced at the thrashing doe with a tinge of sorrow, but then he turned back to Grimwall. “We have to get back to town. See how Grey’s holding up.”

“The poor thing,” Azalea mumbled. But if three firebolts through the skull hadn’t killed the doe instantly, she had no better ideas.

Wes turned, ready to take to the skies again. He had just fired his windsoles when an earsplitting roar nearly blasted them to the ground.

“What was that?” Azalea rasped.

“I don’t know,” Wes said, staggering to his feet. He glanced around wildly, then nodded to the distance. “There.”

Azalea craned her neck. She didn’t have to. The danger wasn’t far.

Past the flatlands, a swarm of corruptions poured over the crest of a hill like insects, darting towards Grimwall in a sea of chittering and barking and squeaking—jackrabbits and field mice and wild turkeys, all surging forward in a frenzy of bloodlust.

Just past them, more Class Three deer bounded close. One stag. Then two. Then two does, and one more stag. Six Class Threes, all in perfect health.

And finally, as the crown of the cavalcade—

—a towering silhouette blotted out the sky. Flashes of lightning gave it vague shape: a blunt muzzle, enormous clawed paws, a thick and bulky frame arced with a dorsal hump. It loomed high above the fields, immense and impervious.

A Class Four bear.

Azalea turned to look at Wes, and she saw her own horror reflected in his eyes.

The Threes hadn’t been the alphas at all.

They had been heralds.

 

The rain was falling hard.

The weight of it dragged at Azalea’s cloak, drummed on her shoulders, tightened around her neck. She ignored it and swooped into Grimwall with a brush of her windsoles, adrenaline building a quiet tickle in her veins.

Despite its somber name, Grimwall had overcome its tumultuous and violent past as a war outpost, blossoming into one of the larger towns of Airlea. Mana-rich soil from its close proximity to a leyline vastly accelerated its luxury crops, like sugar and cocoa and wheat. Had Azalea visited during a peaceful harvest season, she would have found the streets bustling with endless stalls of pastry chefs in the town’s annual Baking Fest.

But on this day, the town was dark and quiet, save for a few lit braziers by a small encampment just within chipped limestone walls.

Soldiers in armored livery, the Geppett leaf crest emblazoned on their tabards, were gathered in orderly rank and file. At their head stood Wes, dressed in ceremonial armor with an elaborate cloak denoting him as a leader—a target. Out in the open, distinct and vulnerable.

He had to get to safety, no matter the cost.

Azalea landed decisively before Wes’s company. Their number was smaller than she was expecting. Thirty pikemen, fourteen archers, four gunmen with starshooters. The two final soldiers had rich blue cloaks that set them apart as field doctors; they would use mana inhibitors and regen to quickly mend their company.

Lastly, Azalea looked to the commander. If Wesley Geppett was surprised to see her, he hid it well. His eyes fell on her with a measured and distant chill, his face unreadable. He was handsome and untouchable, adorned in exquisite armor and his gallant suit.

“Lady Fairwen,” he said with a polite nod. “I was not expecting a Hunter.”

Azalea wanted to grip his hands and pull him away, to the workshop, to safety. But she stood straight-backed and aloof, careful not to betray any connection to the heir apparent of the Geppett estate.

“Lord Geppett,” she greeted. She cast her eyes over the small ranks of soldiers. “And your company, I presume.”

There was no awe or adoration written over their faces. Instead, the soldiers eyed her warily, a hostile tint in their sharp eyes.

“Look, a Hunter,” one of them muttered. “We’re saved. Glory be.”

Wes looked at him silently, and he quieted. Then Wes turned back to Azalea.

“To what do we owe the pleasure of your visit?” he asked mildly.

“I bring urgent tidings regarding the surge,” Azalea said. She subtly glanced at a square tent—the tactics tent, small, but with a hide thick enough to offer some privacy.

Wes’s expression did not change, but she knew he understood. He nodded brusquely at his company. “At ease. I will return shortly.”

“Take your time, captain,” said one of the soldiers, his voice touched with mockery.

Such insolence. Azalea’s fingers fluttered instinctively to her sword, even as she sternly told her arm to keep still. This was Wes’s unit, and he would manage it in his own way.

Wes did not acknowledge the slight. He only turned and strode into the tactics tent as if nothing had been said at all. Azalea stifled the urge to shoot a petty glare at the offending soldier and followed him inside.

The flap swished shut behind her, and the air changed.

When Wes turned to her, the brown in his eyes had melted back to that familiar gentle amber. He reached out and touched her cheek, worry drawing a line between his brows. Azalea exhaled to see it, the tightness in her ribs easing.

“I wasn’t expecting you,” Wes said. The tent’s dim candlelight cast a warm glow on his face. “Is everything alright?”

Yes, Azalea thought dazedly, feeling his tender thumb on her cheek. Then sharply: No, no. Nothing is alright.

The next is Grimwall, and many will die, sang Echo’s voice in her head. Die, die. Many will die.

“Wes,” she said urgently, reaching up and clasping his extended hand. “The epicenter of this surge—it’s on the Midsummer Parallel.”

Wes’s expression shifted. “What?”

She pulled him towards the tent flap, as if that would usher him to safety. “You have to leave. Leave, now. Take your company, evacuate as many people as you can—just get out.”

Wes stood for a moment, stunned. His gaze turned distant as he extracted his hand from her grasp.

“The Midsummer Parallel,” he breathed. He turned to the map. “They’ll be coming primarily from the southwest, then.”

“Yes,” said Azalea. “I recommend you leave out the east gate.”

Wes shook his head. “It’s too late for that. We won’t get to Mythaven in time, and my company is too small to defend that kind of convoy. We’d be sitting ducks lining up on the road.”

“Then—to Maple Point,” Azalea provided. “Lady Karis is overseeing that area.”

“Maple Point…to the northwest.” He looked at the map again. “Then we can expect the northwest to be mostly secure.”

“Yes.”

He began to pace slowly. “Forces can concentrate at the southern gate. We can call the militia, get them crossbows and…yes, quicklime. Grimwall should have plenty of fuel with such a large deposit of limestone nearby. And those with spears—they can serve as the parapet guard against fliers and climbers.”

Those were not the words of someone preparing to flee. Azalea’s fingers went stiff and her throat went cold.

“You’re staying,” she whispered disbelievingly.

Wes glanced at her, his mind still halfway in planning. “Of course,” he said absently.

Azalea gripped his face and forced him to look at her. She saw the spark of surprise in his gaze, and all his attention swiveled to her.

“Wes.” She struggled to suck in a breath. “Please, don’t. Please. You could die.”

For a moment, Wes was silent. He leaned so slightly into her palm, his cheek a velvet heat in her hand, eyelids sliding shut, like he wanted to stay there forever. But when his eyes opened again, the amber flecks in them were immovable, ancient roots.

“I won’t leave the townspeople in their shelters,” Wes said. “And I won’t leave you to fight alone.”

The next would be Grimwall, many would die, Wes could die, but somehow, it felt like everything would be alright. Azalea fell into his gaze and her heartbeat slowed like the languid tempo of the deep forest. The scent of sweet grass swelled in her lungs.

“We’re going to do this together.” Wes reached up and squeezed her hand. “Watch my back, ’Zalie?”

She would never deny him anything. “Of course.”

He gave a ragged little smile and pulled away. “Good. Then I guess we’d better get moving.”

“What will you do?”

“Prepare what little we can,” he said, pushing out of the tent, “and brief my men. I guess they’ll finally have something to do.”

Azalea had been here before. At Wes’s side, beneath a thundering sky, facing death’s advance with nothing but a sliver of hope.

She remembered gathering in central Mythaven with a few other handpicked students from the Academy: winners of the school-wide sparring tournaments and top scorers of the exams and manacrafters in the ninety-ninth percentile. Sending students was dangerous enough; the Academy had made certain that the junior unit would suffer as few casualties as possible by compiling only the best of the best.

The rain had been heavy then, too. Fat, cold droplets of water thundered down from the sky, pounding the cobbled roads like war drums. The standard-issue Academy uniform did nothing to shield Azalea from the weather. She fought back a shudder, but it was hard to stay still with the adrenaline racing in her blood. And there was also the low rumble of collapsing buildings and the sharp snap of flinging spells in the distance—a dirge promising chaos and misery to come.

Is this the night I die? A foolish, useless thought, but it tumbled over and over in her mind like a loose wheel. Is this the night I die? Is this the night? Will I die?

Before her, Wes turned to face the band of students. His mouth was set in a hard line that didn’t fit with the rest of his gentle features. The icy rain was coming down in sleets, pelting his face in an unforgiving current, but he held his gaze, upright and firm and nearly unblinking.

“We have one job,” he said grimly. “Hold the line. The Hunters are running dry, and they need rest. We’re reserve troops to fill the gaps until they come back.”

His grip tightened on his sword—handsome silver, crossguard twining like leaves, blade engraved with pale blossoms. It seemed to glow in the stark, stormy night, a lone star among thunderclouds.

“Mythaven doesn’t need heroes tonight,” Wes said. “She needs a wall. So stay alive. If one inch of the wall falls, then the whole thing is breached. Don’t go out there, don’t do anything crazy. Hold the line. Understood?”

“Yes sir,” said Azalea, and the rest of the company with her in sharp chorus. It was easier to focus when he displayed so much courage.

“Good,” said Wes. There was a crack of colored lightning, a smattering of iridescent sparks. He turned to the harbor and drew his sword. “We’ll be standing side by side, but think in pairs. There will be fliers, so one should take frontline, the other ranged.”

His eyes turned on Azalea, and—perhaps by trick of the light—she saw the colors of his irises flicker.

“Cadet Fairwen, you’re with me,” he said briskly. “We’re taking point.”

Azalea started. She couldn’t fathom a captain heading up the frontlines. No, more than that: Wes was a Geppett, a precious son of one of the highest ranking noble families in Airlea.

“That makes no sense,” she said, then quickly, “sir. As the commanding officer and the point of morale, it’s imperative for you to keep distance. You have the starshooter, sir, and—I think it should be put to use.”

“That it should,” Wes said softly.

And he unslung the beautiful starshooter from his back, pressing its body of gold-plated alloy into Azalea’s hands.

“You’re twice the shot I’ll ever be,” he said. “This belongs to you.”

Azalea gasped. The weight of the starshooter bore down on her hands, thick and heavy as if he’d just handed her a brick of gold. It probably had cost a brick of gold, and was a personal possession of the Geppett family besides.

“I couldn’t, sir, please, I can’t,” she fumbled. “This doesn’t—it’s yours, I don’t deserve—”

“There’s no one I trust more.” Wes’s voice was sure and steady as an oaken tree. Then it softened. “Watch my back, ’Zalie?”

Azalea gripped the precious starshooter to her chest, swallowing.

“Of course,” she said quietly.

Stationed on the parapets of Grimwall two years later, it was difficult not to draw parallels. Azalea looked over the colorful slats of the town’s gabled roofs to the horizon, where the leyline glowed as a faint thread in the distance. Perhaps on another day, she would have seen flower wreaths tossed over roofs or hung over doors for the Petal Waltz, or embroidered snowdrop flags rippling in the winter wind for Bell Day. But not this night. All was cold and empty, a moment of bated breath before the plunge, an eye of the storm.

Azalea heard footsteps from behind and turned from her lonesome perch. Four company soldiers had ascended the parapets, each one bearing the golden glint of a starshooter. Leading them was Wes in his grand cloak and perfect stride.

She thought she saw his lips twitch upward as he looked up, regarding her perch on the merlon of the tallest parapet. Azalea jumped down from her seat, landing softly on the limestone battlements to meet him.

“Lady Fairwen,” Wes said, gesturing to the soldiers. “Might I present our marksman subunit?”

Azalea nodded respectfully.

Wes turned to the marksmen. “For tonight, you are under Lady Fairwen’s command. Listen to her as you would my own father.”

“As if a Hunter could teach us how to shoot,” muttered one of the soldiers.

Wes’s eyes snapped to Azalea, but she minutely shook her head. She would rather not start the battle with low morale by scolding her unit. They would find out just how much she could teach them about shooting before long.

So Wes only said, “At your leisure, Lady Hunter,” and descended the parapet. He would join later with his pikemen and archers, no doubt—but for now, they were spread throughout town, gathering what quicklime and enlisting what militia they could.

Azalea crossed her arms as she regarded the snipers before her. Three men, one woman. All of them looked at her with simmering resentment, which was unsurprising. Nobles and their workers did not think highly of the Airlean government—neither the crown nor the magistracies. In their eyes, the government was an obstacle at best, a threat to their power at worst. Well, so long as these marksmen listened to her orders, they could glare at her however much they wanted.

“You,” said one of the soldiers suddenly, his brows lifting in surprise.

It took Azalea a moment to recognize him—to place the sharp and rigid features, the sour face, the cutting eyes. She was looking at none other than Grey, the nosy, bothersome soldier always trying to belittle and undermine Wes. She did not like him one bit.

Of course he would be in this unit, Azalea fumed. Fate is so unkind.

“You,” Grey repeated, eyes narrowing. “You’re a Hunter? You, a tiny slip of a girl?”

The other marksmen exchanged glances. Azalea lifted her chin and tried to summon as much authority as possible. “Watch your tongue. You speak to a Royal Hunter.”

Grey’s brow twitched, but his tone smoothed out at the ends. He was nothing if not a proficient pretender. “Forgive me, Lady Hunter. I simply did not expect a repeat encounter with the young Lord Geppett’s pretty little…client.”

She did not like how he said that word. “What are you implying?”

“A mere curiosity,” said Grey, tilting his head. “You are no client at all. Then are you his lover?”

“Grey,” said one of the other marksmen warningly, but he did not move to stop him.

“Don’t be a fool,” said Azalea, gesturing to her starshooter. “I am a client. The young lord Geppett has made some critical modifications to my weapon.”

Grey shook his head, sharp gaze glinting. “The leaf motifs on the receiver. That is a Geppett family starshooter. He gave you his personal weapon.”

Azalea opened her mouth. Then closed it. At the most important moment, words evaded her. Curse the man for having eyes. She’d hoped that he was as dull as he was odious.

Grey took in the look on her face and grinned. “Lord Geppett would be livid to know this. His son, in love with a king’s lapdog.”

“Then Lord Geppett would be livid over a lie,” Azalea said stiffly. “His son feels nothing more than respect—”

Grey barked out a laugh. “What amorous respect. Husbands have felt less for their wives—”

“A noblewoman has already caught his attention,” Azalea said angrily, “so you would do well to shut your mouth.”

That seemed to throw Grey for a loop. He was quiet for all of three seconds.

“A noblewoman?” he repeated.

Azalea stifled a huff and turned away. Yes, Wes had fallen for some dense noblewoman with awful taste who had rejected him three times, but no matter. That was not for Grey to know.

“As for the starshooter,” she continued coldly, “it was part of a valuable transaction to which you are not privy, so do watch your mouth. I doubt Lord Geppett would look kindly upon somebody defaming his son and heir.”

Grey blanched slightly and stepped away. Good. Nothing like a little dose of fear to keep his nose out of Wes’s business. It hadn’t even been a lie; although Wes had intended the prize firearm as a gift, Azalea would always see it as an exchange. The weight and privilege of his unwavering trust was something she would spend a lifetime repaying.

The archers and local militia began to ascend the battlements, readying their arrows and quicklime, while the pikemen gathered at ground level, preparing for the breach. Wes pulled Azalea aside for one final word, and she followed him to a patch of poplar trees where the moonlight slotted through crisp leaves and waved over stocky roots.

“What is it, Lord Geppett?” she asked. She began to salute out of habit before she remembered that technically, her rank surpassed his.

“Nothing important, ’Zalie,” Wes said gently. “There’s just something I wanted to say.”

Azalea relaxed. Then this exchange would be between friends, not commanding officers.

“This battle will be a tough one,” Wes admitted. “I haven’t had the time to build trust yet. I don’t know how this unit will hold together. Maybe they’ll rout at the first sign of trouble.”

Her brow knitted down. “Is that why they’re so lacking in courtesy?”

“Basically. Not that I blame them. My brothers have already built a reputation.” Wes’s gaze turned distant, settling somewhere invisible among the poplars. “Men who prefer taverns and brothels to strategic study, who’ve doomed their units to foolish deaths. They probably expect me to be the same.”

“That’s not fair. You’re nothing like your brothers.”

“I don’t know. Maybe I am.” He shook his head. “But not in this regard.”

“You’ll lead them well.”

“I’ll be a damn good captain,” he said firmly. Then his voice hollowed out. “I have to.”

“You already are one,” Azalea said, nudging his shoulder. “Just let them see it.”

She was rewarded with a smile, warm and real, that bloomed over his face like sunlight. For a treacherous moment, her heart wavered. She loved his eyes, caramel-warm and always so earnest, so tender, devouring every trinket and its inner workings like a feast. She loved his hair, springy and fluffy, soft as grass between her fingers. She loved the steady slope of his shoulders and the calluses of hard work on his hands. He wasn’t hers to love, but she did anyway.

“I’ll bring you home safe,” she said softly. “I swear it.”

Wes’s thumb swiped a raindrop from her cheek. Azalea breathed in and tasted poplar on the tip of her tongue.

“Then keep yourself safe,” he murmured. “It wouldn’t be home without you.”

Iridescent lightning rattled above them. For a moment, it seemed like Wes had disappeared into the darkness. Then Azalea’s eyes adjusted and she saw his silhouette emerge again. From the battlements, a horn gave a lowing call.

Nothing more had to be said. In unison, Azalea and Wes fired their windsoles, and they were shooting into the sky, racing to meet an unknown future.

 

For the first time, the guild was not bustling and alight with activity, despite being crammed to the eaves. Rows of silent Hunters flanked a long table bearing an unfurled map, flag pins, and colored tokens. Nicolina stood at the head, clasping a wooden baton. She nodded at the last batch of Hunters filtering through the door, then returned her attention to the map.

Azalea slid into a far seat along the wall, every muscle tense and ready to spring as she listened for Grimwall’s fate.

You want to save your Support, you send yourself.

She waved away Echo’s sultry, taunting words, willing herself to focus. She could not afford to miss a single word tonight.

“Ah, little cub,” said a giant mass of furs as it plopped next to her.

Azalea turned, wide-eyed, and met the ice-blue gaze of the hulking bear-man. He was even larger up close, towering up until his head touched the roof. Her neck hurt as she craned up to look at him.

Oh no, she thought miserably. He’d sat next to her. It would be too rude to avoid him now.

“Your first roundtable!” the bear-man said. His resounding voice erupted in the silence, and every head swung in his direction, but he didn’t seem to care. “How do you find it?”

Azalea cringed and tried to slink further into the corner, but it was no use. “Um, well, I’m not sure,” she whispered. “It hasn’t started yet.”

The bear-man laughed, booming and lively. “That is fair. Then I will tell you something, little cub. There is no need to be silent before the roundtable. You can talk as much as you like! But most do not, because they are scared.”

A Hunter seated next to them scoffed, flipping a throwing knife with deft fingers. “Speak for yourself, Loff,” she said.

Loff’s eyes twinkled. “Aye, Jackal. The most scared of us all.”

The woman named Jackal turned away as if Loff had lost the right to exist. Loff turned to Azalea and lowered his voice to a murmur.

“You see, little cub,” he said, “the guildmaster only calls a roundtable when the situation is dire.”

Azalea paled. “Oh.”

“As in, very dire. Capital razed. Everybody dead. World ended. That level of dire.”

“I…I see…”

“Aye. But this is the first time the roundtable is called for surge and not the final strike. That is very bad!” He laughed again and slapped a hand on her back, as if making some great joke. Azalea nearly doubled over. “Imagine how bad the final strike will be!”

Azalea surreptitiously rubbed her aching back. She searched for words to say, but found none. There was no wisdom she could contribute, no encouragement. So she kept her mouth shut and instead glanced around the room, cataloguing the other Hunters and trying to put Loff’s omen out of her mind.

Most of the Hunters seemed unbothered, their features veiled and impassive. They certainly did not look scared. Azalea caught Halcyon Yuden leaning against the far window, arms crossed, face expressionless. His clothes had somehow been cleaned and his hair was back in order. No sign of injury, no sign of weakness. Airlea could not afford its First Hunter to show anything less than perfection.

It was, in a way, heartbreaking. Azalea wished that she was better. Good enough for Halcyon to sit out, rest in bed, sleep off whatever had been damaged by the Whisperer. But she could not replace the First Hunter. Nobody could.

Azalea’s eyes trailed to the opposite side of the room, where Karis stood, silk scarf flowing over her shoulder in a glittering river. She expected the Second Hunter to be immersed in the proceedings. But Karis’s crimson eyes were not pointed at Nicolina, nor the map on the table. Her gaze was adrift, resting quietly on Halcyon. A light frown crossed her scarlet lips, the slightest furrow digging into her brow.

Azalea blinked and rubbed her eyes, then looked again.

Karis was pointed back to the head of the table, watching Nicolina.

I’m seeing things, Azalea thought. I really must rest after this.

Nicolina promptly rapped her baton on the table with a sharp sound, and all Hunters stood at attention. It appeared that the time for pleasantries was over. Not that anybody had been doing much talking.

“Seems that most of us are present,” Nicolina said. “Any word on the Third Hunter?”

“Probably shut up in his royal cradle, soiling his smalls,” Jackal said.

Nicolina cast her a sharp glance, and she quieted.

“Then let’s get started,” the guildmaster said.

The overview was brief and to the point. Epicenter on the Midsummer Parallel. Critical zones at the inland roads. Most of the Hunters were assigned to the leyline to blockade the larger flow of beasts, while a few individuals were assigned to defend townships and the estates of taxpaying nobles. Azalea nearly jumped when Maple Point was announced as a critical zone, but relaxed when Nicolina dispatched Karis Caelute. Ma and Da could not be in better hands.

Azalea was tasked with overseeing the Lewis estate, known to cultivate medicinal herbs and train up physicians. An out-of-the-way location, unlikely to see much pressure. At the very worst, she would be facing Class Twos.

Azalea wove her fingers together tightly and waited for Grimwall’s assignment. Karis had already been dispatched to Maple Point, so the best she could hope for was another powerful Hunter. Perhaps Loff; she didn’t know his mana capabilities, but he seemed strong and sturdy. Or Jackal, the knife-wielding woman who seemed like she could take down anything.

“Next, Grimwall.” Nicolina glanced down at the map. Azalea sat up straighter. “Decent distance from the leyline. Still, I expect a bunch of heralds, maybe a few Threes.”

Loff, Azalea prayed under her breath. Loff, please, or Jackal.

Nicolina looked up. “Yuden, you’ll take this one.”

Azalea’s gut plummeted. Her gaze whipped to the First Hunter leaning by the window.

He only nodded.

No dismay, no consternation. If Azalea didn’t know better, she would have thought that he was in peak condition, ready to take on a critical zone without reservations.

Azalea looked around the guild. Surely somebody would raise an issue. They all knew that Halcyon had returned from an encounter with the Dragon Whisperer. They all knew that he was injured.

None of the Hunters raised a hand. Not even Karis Caelute, who was looking impassively upon the map.

Apparently, they didn’t think he was injured enough.

Azalea nearly raised her hand, but held back. Perhaps there was something else at play. She was new and she was young; there could very well be a nuance to this meeting that she did not understand. She fidgeted in her seat as Nicolina called the final assignments, then dismissed the Hunters.

Most of them tore out the door and soared into the sky, eager to get into position—for bloodshed, for glory, whatever their vice was. The only one who lingered was Halcyon, still leaning against the window. Like it was the only thing that could keep him upright. Something pricked at Azalea’s senses, and she squatted behind the attendant’s desk, where she would certainly be missed among the chaos.

She was rewarded almost immediately. Nicolina spoke as soon as the door swung shut.

“I couldn’t let them know how bad it is,” she said.

Tired. She sounded so tired.

“I know,” Halcyon said. He sounded tired, too.

“The Hunters won’t care. But the news will spread to the people, and they need to feel safe. They need their First Hunter.”

Halcyon didn’t respond.

“I have to know, Yuden. Can you take this?”

He chuckled softly. “Do we have a choice?”

“There’s always a choice.”

“There’s never a choice.”

Nicolina was quiet for a long moment. Azalea strained to hear.

“I’m hoping that it’s manageable. With the current estimate, the critical zone should be the leyline, with off-shoots on Maple Point and the Regale estate. Grimwall’s not far, but it should be well away from immediate danger.”

“You seem worried about it regardless.”

“The Geppett heir was dispatched to Grimwall. It cannot fall.”

Azalea stiffened.

“Geppett?” Halcyon’s tone rose at the end in surprise. “They say his heir is a coward.”

Azalea nearly leapt out right then and there. Just because Wes wasn’t always champing at the bit to shed blood—

“On the contrary,” said Nicolina. “Once he knows Grimwall is in danger, nothing could get him to leave.”

“Liability or boon?”

“Boon. One of the top students at the Academy. Led the junior unit at Havenport. Weapons ingeniator and passable with a sword.”

Halcyon fell silent. Not the calm, calculating sort of silence that Azalea had grown to expect from him, but a simmering one, uneasy and off-kilter.

“Yuden,” Nicolina said softly, “if you’re not sure, I can ask someone else.”

“Who?” he said with equal quiet. “The Third, whose head is worth half the royal treasury? The Seventh, who needs graveyard access? The Eighteenth, who needs to wall off the leyline?”

“I’ll find someone.”

“Everyone’s needed somewhere else, Guildmaster.”

Azalea’s legs pushed her to her feet. Azalea’s hand rose. Azalea’s mouth spoke.

“Let me.”

Nicolina and Halcyon turned in unison as Azalea stepped out from behind the attendant’s desk. Her voice rolled from her lips in a rush, one wave spilling over the next.

“Please. Send me to Grimwall.” Her head was spinning and her words were tangling and she wasn’t quite sure what she was saying. All she could think of was Wes in that juniper suit he hated so, sword slung across his hip, battle standard at his back, surrounded by bloodshed and mortal peril.

Halcyon glanced at Nicolina. The guildmaster’s gaze was terribly, hatefully even.

“There could be Fours, Fairwen,” she said. “You’re not ready.”

“I have to watch his back.” Azalea dropped to one knee and bowed her head. Outside, thunder bellowed and rattled the walls. “I have to be there.”

“He’s safer under the supervision of the First Hunter.”

“I can’t leave him.”

“You must.”

Azalea looked up, the rare liquid fire of rage welling up in her chest. Nicolina was unmoving, her gaze cold behind gold-rimmed spectacles. “Why?”

“Can you kill a Class Four, Fairwen?”

“Yes.” She had to.

“Then kill at least five of them.” Nicolina sighed. “I’ll reassign you as soon as you prove you can be consistent. That’s a promise. But tonight? No.”

“Guildmaster—”

“Wesley Geppett belongs to one of the most prestigious noble families in the entire kingdom. I can’t risk the safety of the young lord just for sentiment’s sake.” There was a weight to Nicolina’s gaze that crushed Azalea. “You may not believe me, Fairwen, but these decisions are in everyone’s interests.”

“It’s not a matter of sentiment.” Azalea stood sharply and turned to Halcyon. “You’re injured, Lord Halcyon. Badly injured. And your mana…you can’t have much of it after fighting the Whisperer.”

Halcyon met her gaze, but said nothing.

“He’s fought through worse,” Nicolina said. “Everyone at the Guild has.”

“Not with my Support on the line,” Azalea said firmly. “For that reason alone, this should be my responsibility.”

Halcyon blinked. “Your…Support?”

Nicolina’s brow furrowed. For the first time, she looked uncertain.

Azalea seized the chance and bowed her head again. “Please, Guildmaster. I beg you. Please.”

Silence fell over the room, broken by a low rattle of lightning outside. Finally, Halcyon spoke.

“It’s not a bad idea.”

Nicolina looked sharply at him. “Yuden.”

“Really, it’s not.” He gestured to the map on the table, wincing at the movement in his arm. “Grimwall has towers. Defensible layouts. Put Fairwen on a vantage point, and she’ll have free range over the entire town.”

“I don’t know…”

“She’s more suited to city combat than other Hunters. Infinite range. Lots of cover. Low impact and precision weaponry. I could see it working.”

“Gunfire doesn’t have the same scalability as Forming. If the horde is large, she’ll be overwhelmed in seconds.”

“Fairwen,” Halcyon said, so sharply that Azalea instinctively sprung to her feet in a salute. “Can you Stabilize multiple starshooters at once?”

“I, well, maybe. I’ve never tried—”

“Confidence.”

Azalea straightened. “Yes. A few. For some time, if they aren’t burst firing.”

Halcyon nodded. “Speak with the captain. See if you can get his marksman unit.”

Marksman unit! It couldn’t be; starshooters were so difficult to come by. Even the entire National Garrison only had the Marksman’s Core. “Will he have one?” Azalea asked.

“The Geppetts are a militaristic family and have the money to arm their private troops to the teeth,” Halcyon said. “He’ll have one.”

He looked at Nicolina, and so did Azalea. The guildmaster was silent, her fingers laced together like threads in a web, logistics in a plan. Finally, she sighed and fell back against a chair, the weariness written over her face.

“Very well,” she said quietly. “Swap places with Yuden. You’ll see to Grimwall, and he’ll see to the Lewis estate.”

Azalea saluted. “Thank you, Guildmaster.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Nicolina said with a shake of her head. “Thank me when everyone comes back safe and you get a promotion.”

“I don’t want a promotion.”

“The world doesn’t care about what you want, Fairwen.” Nicolina’s eyes were like twin stars of burning ice. “It only cares about what you deserve.”

 

Azalea had just stepped into Gallows Square when the sky throttled and the mana lamps went dark. Dismayed cries fluttered around the square. Doors were bolted, shutters were drawn, and the bell tower lowed its mournful call to arms.

Oh dear, was the first thing Azalea thought. Then: but I’m tired.

Then she chided herself for being selfish. She’d known the risk of heading to Fletcher’s Fry so close to a surge. There’d been the very real possibility that she would be called to duty as soon as she returned, and that was exactly what had happened.

Azalea sucked in a breath, straightened her shoulders, and shook out the soreness in her legs. The moment’s respite at Wes’s workshop would have to do. For now, her country needed her.

“Headed out already?” drawled a voice by the fountain. “Always such a busy little bee. Maybe that’s what I should call you instead.”

Azalea whirled around and squinted into the dark. She didn’t have to see to know the owner of that voice—bone-white hair, bland smile, wary slouch—but it was disorienting to feel blind. Without the constant glow of the mana lamps, the world was pitch black.

“Show yourself,” she demanded.

“Would that I could,” said Echo’s disembodied voice. “Alas, the lights are out. I don’t suppose you could Form a torch, could you?”

She bristled. “You’re the worst.”

He laughed dryly. “Yet here you are, one Class Four richer on the board. Something you would do well to learn, Little Red, is that the worst ones are often right.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Well, then, don’t think about it too hard.”

Azalea narrowed her eyes. More than anything, she wanted to sock him in the face and drag him to the Magistrate of Justice. He was aggravating. He was unbearable. He’d ignored her wishes and saddled her with a tip just before a surge, leaving her exhausted and the First Hunter badly injured. He had much to answer for, and Azalea was starting to think that he was a bigger problem than she’d originally anticipated.

But now was not the time. The bells were tolling. The surge was on its way.

“Enough,” she snapped. “I’m not in the mood to play your twisted little games.”

“Games? So you think they’re fun.”

“Leave me alone, Wolf. You don’t want me to escalate.”

She turned and focused, ready to boost herself over to the guild with her windsoles, when—

“Shouldn’t you be wondering why I’m here?” the Wolf said softly.

It was a deadly, melodic sort of quiet, eerie as the strains of a funeral dirge, the kind that dug right into Azalea’s bones and made her shiver. Her footsteps stuttered to a halt, and unbidden, her fingers clamped on the hilt of her sword.

She heard the rustle of fabric as the Wolf stood. Stepped closer once, then twice. The sky flashed, outlining a lean silhouette in white fire. Azalea shuddered.

“Perhaps it’s for the same reason as always,” the Wolf said, still in that lulling, baleful voice. “Perhaps I know where the next Four will rise. Perhaps I know which area will be under critical pressure, which town is likely to fall. Wouldn’t you like to know that, Little Red?”

“I’m sure the guildmaster will tell me,” Azalea said staunchly, and turned, when—

“Ah, but I think you would be very interested to know this, Little Red. Very interested indeed.”

And, curse it all, Azalea felt tears biting at her eyes, giving voice to the churning frustration in her belly. Why did he insist on hounding her? She was worn out from her mission and anxious for this surge; the last thing she needed was additional pressure.

And yet.

She couldn’t dismiss the Wolf, and he knew it. Because he had been right. He was always right, and that was what made him so insufferable.

Gritting her teeth, Azalea turned in Echo’s general direction and crossed her arms tightly. “I hope your socks get very wet tonight,” she said.

There was a bark of surprised laughter. “Is that your idea of a threat?”

“Don’t underestimate it. It’s a very unpleasant feeling.”

“You’re so precious, Little Red.” Echo paused. “I wouldn’t worry about my socks. I’d worry about your Support’s.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s Grimwall.”

Azalea blinked.

A click of Echo’s shoe on the cobbled stone.

“The next will be Grimwall,” he repeated softly, his voice hovering close like a specter, “and many will die.”

The name landed hard. Azalea’s gut dropped like a stone.

Grimwall. A bustling, prosperous town despite its rough beginnings. So far inland that it was considered to be a safe haven amidst the Storms.

The very place where Wes was to muster his company.

Azalea’s gaze jerked upward to the broiling sky, just as another bolt of iridescent light carved a wayward arrow. Wes must already be at Grimwall, briefing his company on the upcoming surge.

He was already in danger.

“So the Geppett heir is your Support,” Echo murmured, jolting Azalea back to reality. “Fascinating.”

She heard Echo sweep around her, his cloak shifting, mist-like.

“Are you afraid, Little Red?” he whispered, the thin trace of his voice resonant and eerie.

“No,” Azalea said.

“But you lie.” A rustle on her opposite ear. Azalea whipped around, breathing hard. “You’re terrified for your Support, aren’t you? That he will perish. That you will have to see him in agony, rent apart, disemboweled, a bloody mass of raw flesh, all your fault—”

Azalea’s skull was pounding, aching, spinning. She lurched desperately in the direction of the Wolf’s voice. Her hands fell through air.

“Use your bait,” she pleaded. “Lead them away.”

A moment of silence in the dark. “And why would I do that?”

“You’re a mercenary. Name your price. Bargain with me.”

The bell tower tolled again. She was tarrying too long. She had to leave. But she couldn’t, not without doing everything in her power to protect Wes.

“Ask the Observatorium,” Echo finally said. “They’ve known how to make bait for years, but have yet to lead a single creature astray.”

What? That wasn’t possible—wasn’t. Couldn’t be. No, it could be; if a solo mercenary from the underworld had figured out a working concoction, then the Observatorium, full of brilliant sages and researchers, had to have known.

Still, that wasn’t important. Not now. Not with the seconds ticking down to Wes’s fate.

“I’m not asking the Observatorium,” Azalea said. “I’m asking a mercenary. As a patron.”

Echo chuckled. The sound had no warmth. “You have no idea how dangerous that bait is, do you?”

“Dangerous?”

“Some things cannot be bought, Little Red.” She heard a rustle of fabric as the Wolf turned away. “Blind heroism is one of them. My charity ends here.”

The mana lamps flickered. Azalea caught Echo’s silhouette just as his windsoles fired, as he arced to the Mythaven rooftops.

She followed.

With a flare of her windsoles, she shot towards him, swift as a hummingbird, and crashed right into his back. Echo choked out a note of surprise as they hit a shingled roof, hard tile slicing into their arms.

Azalea gave no reaction to the stinging pain as blood crawled down to her wrist. She honed her focus and threw her weight, pinning Echo down, hands pressing on his wrists. Abovehead, the mana lamps fluttered to life one at a time, sprinkling the rooftop with a dim, desperate glow.

“No more,” she said clearly. “No more running.”

The open surprise on Echo’s face promptly vanished. “Free information, and this is how you repay me?”

“I’m offering to pay you now, and you’re refusing.”

“True enough. For one simple reason.”

Echo moved. His hips throttled up, pitching Azalea forward. She released his wrists, scrambling for balance, but his hand chopped in the nook of her elbow and dropped her. In the blink of an eye, he had wriggled free.

Azalea dropped on her heels, prepared for his counterattack. But Echo only slipped his hands into his pockets and looked straight at her, his gaze cold.

“You cannot buy what is impossible, Little Red,” he said softly.

Azalea faltered. The sky bellowed another arc of lightning.

“What do you mean?” she said.

“Everything comes with a price.” He tilted his head. “Tell me, Little Red. When you eat food, what happens?”

She was silent.

“It makes you grow stronger,” Echo murmured. “Does it not?”

Azalea stepped back, the realization dawning, blazing bright and unforgiving.

No.

“Those Fours that you led me to,” she said dazedly. “They were…they were Threes. Weren’t they?”

“Well, naturally. That’s what happens, Ones become Twos, Twos become—”

“The bait turned them into Fours, didn’t it?”

Echo said nothing.

“Myths above.” She stepped back, a raw vein of icy fear in her neck. “What have you done?”

“The bait merely accelerates the corruption’s natural growth,” Echo said. “But now you can see why I’m unwilling to use it on corruptions that are already Fours.”

“They would become Fives.”

“They might become Fives. But if they do, the entire nation could be destroyed. Not particularly great for business. Patrons tend to be late on payment when they’re dead.”

Azalea couldn’t speak. A common mercenary knew how to accelerate the growth of a corruption. And if he did, then who else? How many people in Airlea could destroy the nation with nothing more than a few scavenged remains?

Echo drew closer. “Take it from me, Little Red,” he said softly. “You want to save your Support, you don’t send bait. You don’t send a mercenary’s toys. You send yourself. To the people of Airlea, nothing is more powerful than the presence of a Hunter.”

She swallowed, the lump in her throat going cold. “What if they’re wrong?”

He smiled. The edge of his teeth caught the faintest gleam.

“Don’t let them be,” he said.

He turned and flew. This time, Azalea let him. His silhouette faded until it was swallowed whole by the night.

 

“You broke my table,” said Nicolina.

Azalea cringed before the guildmaster’s imposing desk, head kept low and contrite, hands clasped behind her back. The silence of Nicolina’s study was no longer a comfort, but a threat.

“I’m terribly sorry, Guildmaster,” Azalea said hesitantly. “I have no excuses.”

From her perch on her resplendent chair, Nicolina folded her hands together. “There’s no need for any. I’ve already collected the witness statements, and they were clear enough.”

Witness statements! The blood drained from Azalea’s face, leaving her cheeks stiff and cold. Nicolina was compiling the investigation and acquiring evidence. Azalea was going to be sent to a tribunal. She would be tried for her terrible misconduct and crime of property destruction, relieved from duty, and imprisoned for fifty years for her gross offenses against the nation. Oh, her fears had been well-founded.

“Wipe that look off your face, Fairwen, you’re not going to a tribunal.”

Azalea’s jaw slackened. “How…?”

“You might as well be a signpost. Every thought is stamped right on your face.” Nicolina sighed. “Don’t worry too much about it. A day hasn’t gone by without one of my Hunters breaking something. I just take it out of their stipend and leave it at that.”

“Oh,” Azalea said faintly. Then Wes had been correct. “So—so that’ll be, um…”

“Be what?”

“A month of docked pay? Two?” She paled. “A year?”

Nicolina balked. “Mythics, Fairwen, what do you think our tables are made of, solid gold? We’ll just get another one from the carpenter.”

“O-oh.”

“Yes, oh.” Nicolina shook her head. “I want you to realize something, Fairwen.”

Azalea raised her chin. “Of course. I’ll never act so shamefully ever again.”

“Wha—no. Myths, child, am I really that imposing?”

Azalea chose to say nothing in response.

Nicolina’s grey eyes softened. “What I want you to realize, Fairwen, is that I’m on your side.”

Your side. The words felt so strange to Azalea’s ears. Foreign, yet warm. A lovely piece of comfort that she didn’t expect from a woman known as the Thumb.

“I want my Hunters to succeed,” Nicolina continued. “You’re a good soldier with a good heart. Not even your little toe belongs in a tribunal, I know that much. So please, don’t look at me like I’m going to eat you. I’m here to support the guild, not to destroy it.”

Azalea stared at the guildmaster, eyes wide and a little watery. Nicolina’s face was open and honest, every word from her grounded in a sincere tone that could not be mistaken.

And I doubted her, she thought hazily. I doubted someone who stayed this humble when she is, as a High Magistrate, one of the most powerful people in the country.

She felt a trickle of shame, but more than that, she felt awe.

“You have such a kind and beautiful soul,” she said softly. “I don’t think the guild could be any more fortunate to have you as its guildmaster.”

Nicolina blinked. “The hell? You’ll make me blush, Fairwen.”

“But it’s true.”

“Alright, sweet-talker.” Nicolina made a shooing motion with her hand, but she was smiling. “Get outta here while I piece the tableware back together.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Azalea saluted and softly shut the door behind her. She stared blankly at the smooth panels of wood for a moment, her mind fuzzy but slowly stirring.

Nicolina hadn’t seemed like the stern, imperious guildmaster who’d tried to turn Wes away. She’d been akin to a grandmother, or a grumpy aunt: firm but approachable, tough but kind, a quirky hint of humor that would make the children smile.

She had seemed like a friend.

Absently, Azalea drifted to the refreshments table by the wall. She poured herself a cup of warm milk and stirred in a spoonful of chocolate, letting the drink take on a dark, luxurious hue.

She should have trusted the guildmaster. She should have trusted the guild. They all had their secrets and agendas, but in the end, the establishment had defended the country for centuries. And every guild member, no matter how eccentric or secretive, bore that weight in their own way.

Next time, she would choose to trust Nicolina.

But she would still scold her if she tried to take Wes away.

Azalea cast her gaze around the tavern for a seat. The crowd had thinned considerably since the night she’d burst in, screaming for reinforcements; perhaps they were at the smithies, checking on their equipment before the surge. She recognized the towering bear-man, hunched over a table with a hand of cards. He raised his flagon in her direction with a bushy grin.

Oh no, he acknowledged her. Courtesy dictated that she should sit at his table and make small talk. But even if he seemed to be a warm person, he was very large and a bit scary, and she wasn’t ready to talk after embarrassing herself in front of the guild.

Azalea ducked her head apologetically and scoured the other tables before he could approach her. She nearly jumped when she caught a familiar flare of plum-pink from the corner of her eye. Karis Caelute sat alone at a table, casually sipping a cup of tea as if she were attending a garden party.

Azalea quickly strode to her and almost fell over in a hasty curtsy. “Lady Karis! What brings you here?”

Karis lowered her cup. “Good evening, Fairwen,” she said. She nodded at the chair beside her. “Please, sit.”

Azalea sat. A bit too quickly, perhaps, because she bumped her knee hard into the table. She hissed quietly as she set down her hot chocolate.

“It seems that your hunt went well,” Karis said.

Azalea straightened. “Thanks to you. I mean, the First Hunter. But it was—it was you, really, you’re the one who enlisted his help.” She swallowed. “I know it…was a little hard, maybe, given how much you hate him.”

“I don’t hate Yuden,” Karis said, looking genuinely surprised.

Azalea blinked. “Really?”

“Of course not. We may not see eye to eye on…anything, really. But that does not mean I hate him.”

“Oh,” Azalea said, slumping back against her chair, relieved—

“Hate would imply that his skylarking is worth my concern,” Karis said. “Which it is not.”

“Oh.”

“But that is not limited to Yuden.” Karis tilted her head. “I simply prefer not to grow too attached to any of my colleagues.”

“Oh,” Azalea whispered. She remembered the scented candle burning away on Nicolina’s desk, rosehip and juniper. “Because they…they could…”

“Because more often than not, they are insufferable.” She raised her teacup in a mock toast. “It is part of a Hunter’s charm and prerogative, I think. You should attempt it yourself.”

“Not growing attached?”

“Being insufferable.” She smiled.

Azalea blinked. She opened her mouth, then closed it. She sipped at her hot chocolate, a luxuriously tender coat on her tongue. Then she opened her mouth again.

“But you’re not insufferable,” she said. “You’re one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.”

Surprisingly, a warm, light pink sprinkled over Karis’s cheeks. She cleared her throat and waved a hand idly. “Oh, well. Give it time,” she said. “You’ll see, I think, how mercenary we all can be.”

Azalea fell quiet. Perhaps that was what most people thought. Perhaps the average bystander would see that Karis rarely frequented the guild, note her presence on this particular day, and think to themselves, Ah, she’s here to cast lots for the First Hunter’s rank. But Azalea would never consider that. Not from Karis, who’d spent an entire precious day helping a completely new Hunter with nothing to offer in return. She hadn’t even asked for a cut of the kill credit.

Karis suddenly straightened, a knowing smile curling her lips. “Ah, look. The hero of the hour.”

Azalea turned just as the door to the guild flung open, hitting the wall with a sharp crack. A mass of blood-speckled blue pushed through the doorway. Silence descended sharply over the room as all eyes turned to the newcomer.

Lord Halcyon. He was alive. Not unhurt, but well enough to walk. A heavy weight dropped from Azalea’s shoulders.

After a momentary pause, the Hunters returned to their conversations, and the steady tavern’s hubbub rose once more. It was nothing special, apparently, for a Hunter to step into the guild soaked in blood. Azalea wondered if they would even react to a corpse thrown in their midst.

Even Karis sipped mildly at her tea, as if visitors were always dripping blood all over the floor. “Well?” she said to Halcyon. “Did you have fun?”

Halcyon stared at her from beneath blood-slick hair. Then he grunted and vanished into the medical ward.

Karis lowered the cup, tracing its rim with a delicate finger. There was a light frown on her lips.

Azalea turned to Karis. “Is he alright?”

“Yes,” said Karis.

Azalea heard the note of hesitation in her voice, even before Karis pushed away her tea and slid to her feet.

“I’m off to tease him,” she said smoothly. “It’s not every day a Hunter suffers injuries from an ordinary human.”

There was no bite in her words. Azalea watched as she glided into the medical ward.

Karis had been in Thom’s study more often than she would have liked to admit. She was intimately familiar with the shelves of neatly labeled herbs, the soft shift of laundered linen, the clean scent of lemon and paper. Despite the pristine smell and the ominous examination table in the center, Thom had done his best to make the room feel like a homey apothecary. Framed paintings decorated the walls, flowers dressed the windowsills, and propped on his desk was a childlike charcoal scribble of something that was probably supposed to resemble him, but looked more like a plucked chicken—no doubt the charmingly terrible work of his charming and terrible younger sister.

Karis nodded briefly at Thom in greeting as she stepped into the room, then looked at Halcyon. The First Hunter was already seated on the examination table, mana inhibitors clasped on his arms.

“To what do I owe the pleasure?” he said dryly.

The corner of Karis’s mouth eased, just a bit. At least he had the energy for wisecracks.

“A mistake, I believe,” she said, and arched a brow. “But not mine.”

He scoffed slightly, then winced. Karis’s gaze dipped to his ribs, but there was nothing torn or frayed on his brocaded tunic. A cold prickle crawled up her neck.

Halcyon never entered the medical ward. Not unless he was approaching death’s door. He had his excuses—Thom never sleeps, Nicolina’s overreacting, others need it more—but she knew what it really came down to. Pride. Because she was the same way. Both of them hated to acknowledge when something was powerful enough to wound them. Hated to acknowledge that they were only human, fallible and fellable.

For Halcyon to have shown pain, it must have been crippling indeed.

And for his pain to have been crippling when his physical symptoms were, for the most part, tame—

—well, that just left mana corruption. A slow, crawling, incurable death from the inside out.

Karis settled in a nearby chair and crossed one leg over the other. Her gaze was cold as she tapped a finger on the armrest.

“How strong was he?” she said.

“Strong,” Halcyon replied.

No hesitation.

Karis held back a grimace. “Stronger than you?”

“More reckless,” Halcyon said flatly. “Nearly blew us both to hell.”

She glanced at Thom, who was utterly silent, eyes shut, too immersed in the biological world of blood and bone to heed any of their conversation. There was no flicker of dismay on the doctor’s face—but then again, there rarely was.

Her gaze returned to Halcyon. He returned it evenly, waiting.

“I imagine it left a pretty mess,” Karis said softly.

“Wouldn’t call it pretty.”

“You seem mostly untouched, at the least.” There. Her question, at last. Albeit wrapped in a challenge.

Surprise flickered over Halcyon’s face, and she wondered if he’d seen past her—past the barbed words they always shared. Then his expression flattened.

“Sorry,” he said. “You’ll have to be Second Rank for a while longer.”

Nothing serious, then. Whatever his problem, it would not take his life. Karis rose to her feet, allowing no emotion to bleed through her features.

“Then hope for a swift recovery,” she said liltingly. “Before I overtake you.”

“You’re welcome to try,” Halcyon said.

Oh, his injuries were less than serious. They were absolutely trivial.

She looked at him with a flicker of irritation and a sugar-sweet smile. “Is that a challenge I hear, Hal?”

“Wouldn’t dream of it,” he said flatly.

“You should,” she said, turning the door. “Or you lack imagination.”

She just laid her fingers on the handle when Halcyon stopped her in her tracks with a soft, even tone.

“I’ve never fought someone like him, Karis. Someone who cared so little about their life. If you run into him, don’t make that mistake. He goes straight for the kill and damns the consequences.”

Karis opened her mouth to say something. Something arrogant, possibly, and something she would certainly regret later, like I don’t make mistakes.

A boon, then, that in that exact moment, the sky outside shattered into bits of prismatic light.

The mana lamps flickered, the distant bell tower gave a low, resonant toll, and the door of the study burst open with little regard for privacy. In stormed Guildmaster Nicolina, the very picture of livid fury with rosy cheeks and thunderous brows, crimson cloak rippling behind her like a river of blood.

“Really, Yuden?” she snapped, her nostrils flaring. “Right before a surge?”

Halcyon quickly moved to stand in respect, but flinched and hissed through his teeth. Thom shot him a dour glare and forced him to sit back down, muttering a dark Don’t move unless you don’t want your ribs anymore.

Karis’s brows knitted together. In a way, it was her fault that he was incapacitated. She was the one who had fed him the tip and asked him to look after Azalea. “Guildmaster, the hunt was executed without flaw,” she said smoothly. “It was merely the unexpected presence of the Dragon Whisperer—”

“Don’t,” Nicolina snarled. “I don’t want excuses, Caelute, I want my first two Hunters in one piece during a surge for once. Why is it always you two? Why?”

Karis was not cowed. “If the Whisperer is pushing inland, and had the gall to attack a Hunter—this may just be his way of declaring war. It was important that Hal incapacitated him so he could not destroy a town.”

“The Whisperer could have destroyed the royal convoy, and until this surge is over and done, it is not our problem.”

“Guildmaster.”

Nicolina’s ruddy face began to pale, drawing out into a long, weary look. “Observatorium says the epicenter is right on the Midsummer Parallel.”

Karis stiffened. Thom looked up from his work, his brows carved in a grim line. Even Halcyon seemed stunned, lips parted on an ordinarily stony face.

“So close,” Karis said softly.

“Basically on the capital’s doorstep.” Nicolina rubbed at her temples. “And we have a bunch of idiot nobles who are dispatching their private companies to the inland towns, like Maple Point and Grimwall. Because those are supposed to be such safe, easy pickings, you know. But this time around, I think inland will be seeing Class Fours.”

Halcyon grimaced. “That far inland is getting close to the capital.”

“At least it’s closer to the Garrison.” Nicolina folded her arms. “But yes, we’re running out of places to evacuate people. Those towns have significant populations.”

“The larger towns have made underground shelters,” Karis offered. “The citizens could hide there.”

Nicolina nodded. “If we can secure the territory before they’re trapped and starve to death. For that, we’ll need every fighter we can get.” She sighed and looked morosely to the door. “We don’t have enough Hunters for this.”

“Put me down for something,” Halcyon said. “I can keep going.”

Nicolina glared at him. “Like hell you can. You must be dry as a desert.”

“I can manage something simple,” Halcyon said firmly. “Twos. Maybe a Three.”

Nicolina looked at Thom, who only sighed.

“Cracked ribs, dislocated shoulder, concussion, overburn fatigue, blood loss,” the doctor said. “I’ve set the shoulder, patched up the emergencies, and applied poultices. I could regen him further, but—”

“Not with the surge,” Nicolina said, and Thom nodded reluctantly. The guild’s medical staff needed to conserve every scrap of mana possible for the litany of bodies that poured through the door after a surge.

“He’s going to ignore my advisory and your orders anyway, Lina, so might as well send him out,” Thom said wryly.

Nicolina threw her hands in the air. “Unbelievable. That eager to put a candle on my desk, Yuden?”

“Make it smell like the ocean,” Halcyon said.

“I’ll make it smell like sewage.” But the fight left her shoulders, and she only sighed and rubbed at her eyes. “Fine. Report for your assignment following this check-up. But when this is all over, Yuden, you’d better march your ass to bed and stay there, or I’ll remove it from your body. Are we clear?”

He inclined his head. “Yes, ma’am.”

Nicolina scowled and turned out of the room. “Caelute. You’re with me.”

Karis glanced at Halcyon, unsure what parting words to share. A jest to lighten the mood, an apology for pinioning his wings, a word of gratitude for looking after Azalea. He caught her gaze, and for a moment, she thought she saw a flicker of emotion in his eyes. Then it was gone. She was staring at the enigmatic surface of the waves.

He jerked his chin at the door. “Go ahead. Nicolina doesn’t seem to be in a patient mood.”

Karis cleared her throat lightly. “Don’t be rash tonight, Yuden. Take care.”

“Is that concern I hear, Caelute?”

She looked away. “I simply don’t wish for the guild to smell like sewage.”

She did not wait for a response. She quickly strode out of the study, putting the exchange out of her mind. She did not want to return to an ocean-blue candle burning its final embers.

 

Wes stood before stately double doors of oak and gilded gold. They were remarkable works of art in their own right, as were most of the fixtures within the Geppett manor. Engraved by a master craftsman, the doors depicted a frame of flowering trees and twisting vines, and at the center, a luminous sword embedded in a great stone.

Every child of Airlea was familiar with the legend of this sword. Excalibur, it was called: a mythic weapon forged at the beginning of the world, appearing only to the worthiest of heroes in the hour of greatest need. But with its location and capabilities lost to time, Excalibur was treated as little more than a tavern yarn, idly thrown about to pass a long evening.

Wes raised his hand and knocked on the door, prompt and firm. Barely one second passed before he was answered.

“Enter,” said a low voice from within the room.

Wes pulled at the ornate handles and stepped inside.

Lord Roland Geppett in all his stately robes and lapel pins was an imposing man, and his study an equally imposing room. Suspended on pedestals of dark, luscious wood was a grand assortment of wartime memorabilia: battle standards, historic helms, and swords polished to perfection, all engraved with the Geppett leaf crest—an overwhelming display of their family’s warmongering legacy.

Wes drew up in an attentive military stance, spine straight and shoulders even. “You summoned, Lord Father?” he said.

Lord Geppett did not look up from whatever he was writing, nor did he bid Wes to sit. He let Wes stand there for a long moment without acknowledgment. A devastating insult, had Wes been a guest from another house. But he knew it to be an unspoken message: I own you, boy. You are below me, and there is nothing you can do to change it.

Eventually, Lord Geppett appeared to tire of his papers. He set aside his quill and regarded Wes with a cold look beneath thick brows.

“You were short with the young lady last evening,” he said.

Wes’s jaw twitched. He wanted to lash out—to demand why his father had summoned him in the dead of night, just to stuff him like a turkey and send him off to a frivolous birthday gala. But he already knew the answer. The gala had been hosted by the beautiful, eligible Lady Alison Hart, whose father monopolized the printing presses and, accordingly, held significant sway with the mercantile guild. A worthy connection for House Geppett, who boasted military power and weapon trade.

“My apologies,” Wes said smoothly. “I did not intend to appear unsociable.”

“Then you did a poor job of it,” Lord Geppett said.

“As always, it would seem,” Wes muttered.

“Do not be clever with me, boy,” Lord Geppett snapped. “A bedpost would have provided more invigorating conversation. Must you always insist on disrespecting your company?”

Wes couldn’t hold back a bitter chuckle. “Disrespecting my company?”

“What else would you label such an absurd violation of civility?”

Wes straightened, a burning feeling trickling down his spine. “This was no simple exchange of pleasantries, Lord Father. Arranging dinner so we sat across each other? Orchestrating me to be her first dance? Your intentions were made quite clear.”

“And you saw fit to spit upon them.”

“Unfortunately, I am one of those sentimental fools who wishes to marry someone whose company I enjoy.” Wes’s voice dropped to a mutter. “A notion foreign to you, perhaps.”

Lord Geppett pretended he had not heard. Of course he would—just like he pretended his wife did not exist, shutting herself in her room, sickly and morose and descending into histrionics.

“Your selection is rapidly shrinking, boy,” Lord Geppett said, his voice hard. “You have met with nothing but the finest women, well-mannered and intelligent with extensive education. What fool fancy are you waiting for, a princess? A Mythic Star? One of the king’s lapdogs, a Royal Hunter?”

Wes could not rise to the goad. He could not risk Azalea’s identity. He bit the soft flesh of his inner cheek until it bled.

“The truth is that you are a coward,” Lord Geppett said, “and all your protestations for love are a frail excuse. You are only delaying the inevitable, boy. Sooner or later, you must select a wife.”

My condolences to the lady, Wes thought. But he said nothing.

“This is beyond matrimony, even beyond forming alliances.” Lord Geppett stood, looming over Wes, and turned to the window, hands clasped behind his back. “The time is coming for you to assume control of the estate. You must be prepared.”

“Surely one of my brothers would better suit—”

“Do not speak of those fools,” Lord Geppett said sharply. “They cannot steward their personal chambers, much less an estate. Or are you so eager to watch your bloodline fall into ruin?”

Wes cared nothing for his bloodline. It had never cared much for him. But on this count, he could understand his father. His brothers were brutes who reveled in power and violence, and he hated the thought of them controlling an estate and private army almost as much as he hated the thought of controlling it himself.

“What would you have me do?” he said resignedly.

Lord Geppett straightened. It seemed that they had, at last, reached the heart of the matter. Wes braced himself.

“The Thorn Company has been developing steadily,” Lord Geppett said. “Take command of it.”

Wes exhaled. Military command. It could have been worse, much worse.

“The Thorn Company,” he said carefully. “A unit that you’ve personally trained, I presume?”

“Hardly,” Lord Geppett said. “They have just concluded basic conditioning and require further instruction. I thought it would be appealing for you to have the opportunity to shape a company from its inception.”

Appealing for his father, maybe, who enjoyed such activities. For Wes, the thought of carrying the fates of a hundred men was nothing short of terrifying.

“I don’t suppose I could decline?” Wes said flatly.

Lord Geppett’s eyes narrowed. “On what grounds?”

“I’m no captain, Lord Father. The company would be handled poorly.”

“Your Academy scores in military strategy and subunit tactics would say otherwise, boy.”

Wes held back a curse. Of course that was the one thing his father would pay attention to. “Scores distributed by your staff, Lord Father. Surely you’ve considered that there might be some, shall we say, bias—”

“Enough.” Lord Geppett fixed Wes with a steely gaze that squeezed his lungs. “I tire of your excuses.”

Wes fell silent.

“Allow me to elucidate,” said Lord Geppett. “You will assume command of the company, or you will find your license to the Board revoked.”

There it was, the ultimatum. Wes had walked into the room expecting it, waiting for it—but hearing it as cold, sharp syllables from the mouth of his father still stabbed him in the gut. He would never be anything more than a puppet, dancing by his father’s strings.

He struggled to keep his tone even. “Then what might my duties entail?” he managed.

“Return to the estate for drills and tactics, two days per week. And tonight, you shall muster them at the town of Grimwall for the next surge.”

Wes barked out a sharp laugh. “Grimwall.”

“Save any impudent words, boy—”

“Grimwall is so deep within the Airlean borders and so insulated, you might as well send me out as a nanny.” Wes shook his head. “Very well. I’ll lead your guard there and oversee their vacation. Maybe we’ll bond out of boredom.”

Lord Geppett’s face darkened. “Then would you prefer to see the frontlines, boy? Do you thirst for blood and flesh on your hands?”

The acrid taste of his words surprised Wes, who paused for a moment to find his reply. “I simply would prefer to be stationed somewhere useful, if I must be stationed at all.”

“Or you feel the call in you to fight and win, and you cannot ignore it.” Lord Geppett’s eyes were burning. “You are my son. It will always be in you.”

No. He couldn’t be further from the truth. Nothing about Wes could bear the violence and cruelty of the battlefield, and that would never change. He wouldn’t let it change him.

But Wes’s gaze fell to his hands, and for a moment, he swore he saw blood caked into the grooves of his skin.

Stop it—stop it, Wes, he’s learned his lesson—

He swallowed past a rush of ice in his veins and spoke.

“Very well,” he said, his every syllable on a leash so tight that it nearly strangled him. “Send me to Grimwall. I’ll enjoy the very peaceful, idyllic surroundings.”

“I am certain you will.” Lord Geppett was not angry. He was smiling as if he knew something special.

Wes didn’t give him the pleasure of a dismissal. He turned and left the study, heading back to Mythaven with an angry ache pounding in his skull.

The air was beginning to smell of rain, but more was changing than just the weather.

As Wes strode through Gallows Square, he took note of how the windows were shuttered, how the merchants’ wagon-stalls had dwindled to a scant few, how the parents ushered their children indoors before the sun had even set. He dropped by Granny Mabel’s stand—of course she would remain with her baked goods, rain or shine, war or peace, to the very end of the world—and purchased two milk buns. He must have looked disastrous after arguing with his father, because she slid him an extra mint and patted him sympathetically on the shoulder before sending him on his way.

Wes slid into the workshop. The fragrant wood creaked under his shoes in greeting, and a few strands of golden sunbeams drifted through the window. He shrugged off his traveling cloak and tossed it carelessly over a stool, then stopped short when a glimmer caught the corner of his eye.

Azalea was curled up on the plush chair beneath the window, sleeping quietly and haloed by warm sunlight.

Wes’s breath caught and his heart pinched. She looked so peaceful, bundled comfortably in her favorite corner of his workshop. He sighed and pulled a light blanket dotted with patterned wildflowers from his shelves. As he tucked it around her, a lock of golden hair spilled over the curve of her cheek. He instinctively reached out and brushed it behind her ear. Her skin was soft, aglow with sunshine, a lingering warmth on his finger.

He pulled back. There was no point in pining. He had no freedom and she had no interest. To wish for anything more would just invite pain. Easier said than done, given that he’d been smitten with her for years. But he would manage. He had thus far.

Wes turned back to his workbench, but he’d barely taken a single step when a hand gripped his sleeve.

“You’re back,” said Azalea sleepily. She sat up and rubbed at her eyes.

Wes crouched down. He was hovering close, too close. “Sorry,” he murmured. “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

She shook her head, her lashes filtering the light. “I’m glad you’re safe. How was it?”

Wes’s mind ran blank, and he stared at her, tongue-tied. He tried to pull up a reassuring smile, but his lips refused to listen.

“You’re upset,” Azalea said softly.

Her eyes were wide and liquid green, pulling him in, coaxing the words from his mouth. Here in the safety of his workshop, huddled close to her, warm and whispering, Wes felt shielded from the outside world.

“I’m to assume command of a company that Father has trained.” The voice in his ears was calm and measured—nothing like the simmering frustration, the boiling rage in his gut.

Azalea’s lips parted. “Are you going to accept it?” she asked quietly.

Wes’s gaze dropped. “He’d have my license revoked otherwise. Probably would blacklist me from the Board.”

“He can’t do that.”

“He’s Lord Geppett. He can do whatever he damn well pleases.”

Azalea slid off her chair and settled on the patch of floor next to him. Her hand reached up, and Wes felt her small, gentle fingers press at his temple, guiding his head to lie on her shoulder. He had no strength to resist; he sat there, cheek pressed to her cloak, quietly breathing in the sweet scent of wildflowers and strawberry fields from her hair.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured.

He closed his eyes as she combed her fingers through his hair. Her velvet touch was a balm, and he let himself indulge. “’S not your fault.”

“Is there anything I can do?”

He shook his head slightly. He wanted nothing more than what she was already doing. He shifted to nuzzle into her shoulder, but as he did, he felt something squeeze in his pocket.

“Ah,” he said, remembering. “There is something.”

“Tell me.”

“You could…eat this lonely milk bun.” He grinned and retrieved the squashy wrapper, waving it tantalizingly before her face.

He was rewarded with a smile that lit up like a firework. “Oh, Wes, you shouldn’t have.”

“Yes, I should have. So I did.”

She giggled and eagerly popped open the wrapper. There was something satisfying about the way she ate. She treated every bite like a favorite song, or a brand new color. It was one of Wes’s favorite things about her; she was always so observant to the beauty around her, from the flavor of a pastry to a well-executed windsole maneuver.

It was almost enough to make the sour encounter with his father fade completely. Almost.

“What are you going to do?” Azalea asked softly, eyes trained on him as she munched on her milk bun.

Wes’s smile faded. “Comply, I guess. I have to set out tonight, muster the company at Grimwall for the next surge. He didn’t leave me much choice. If I don’t, then I lose…all this.” He waved a hand vaguely around the workshop.

“It sounds like he wants you to lose it anyway.”

Wes blinked. That was true enough. If he fought his father, he would find himself disgraced, jobless, and homeless. But if he acquiesced, he would only continue down the path of his father; heirdom, a loveless marriage, and a lifetime of nothing but paperwork and politics. Either way, he would lose his workshop and his freedom. And he would lose Azalea.

“Do you think,” he said softly, “that I should try to fight back?”

He never would have considered the option before. His father had seemed so powerful, so invincible. A festering anchor that would never change. But the Royal Hunters defied their limits every day. Maybe Wes had just been deluding himself with excuses, and now was the time to—

“Oh, no,” Azalea said, paling. “Don’t fight him. He’s too scary. He’d definitely win.”

Wes blinked, then laughed. “If it were you, you would fight.”

“That’s what gets me in trouble,” she mumbled.

Wes watched her face. Her eyes darted to him, then away. She coughed lightly.

“’Zalie,” Wes said. “What happened?”

Her gaze shifted. “Hm? What happened to what?”

“’Zalie.”

Her shoulders slumped. “You always know. I don’t know how.”

Maybe because every thought was scrawled across her face, plain as day. Wes sat up straight, eager for a good story.

“Did you get into a fistfight?” he asked. “Blow up a town? Trash the whole guild?”

Azalea visibly flinched. Wes gawked.

“Wait, you actually—”

“Not the whole guild,” she said, lowering her head. “But, um. I’ll…have to face disciplinary action.”

Wes fell into stunned silence.

“I’m not trying to run from it,” Azalea said quickly. “Or, well, um, not for long. See, the guildmaster was out when it happened, so I—I wanted to see you, you know, before I’m detained, or maybe discharged, I don’t really know what the punitive damages might—”

“Before you’re what?” Wes’s blood quickened. “Mythics, ’Zalie, what happened?”

“I broke a table,” Azalea said miserably.

Silence dropped over the workshop. Wes blinked.

“No, I mean, that sounds—it trivializes my transgression. What I meant is, I destroyed guild property. Brandished my weapon in a peaceful environment. And, and I threatened the guild members, Wes, my own associates.”

“Wait,” Wes said. He wet his lips. “Wait.”

Azalea waited.

“How did you…wait, did you shoot the table?”

“Oh no,” Azalea said, wide-eyed. “It wouldn’t do to fire indoors. I swung my sword.”

“Your short sword.”

“Yes.”

“And you broke a hardwood table.”

She wilted. “Yes.”

Wes stared blankly at her. “Wow,” he said.

“I know.” Azalea buried her face in her hands. “I’m awful.”

“Awfully strong,” Wes said bemusedly. “I didn’t know that was possible.”

She flushed. “I was just, I was so angry, because I went to get help and nobody was doing anything—oh, I’ve been on a mission the past few days, where the First Hunter taught me how to kill a Class Four—anyway, the other Hunters were just sitting around, making bets—”

“Wait, wait, the First Hunter? A Class Four? ’Zalie, you killed a Class Four?!”

“Yes, sort of. Anyway, I was trying to get reinforcements from the guild, but they weren’t responding. But how could they not? Lord Halcyon had been ambushed, and it wasn’t by just anybody! It was the Whisperer, and it happened right after fighting the Four—”

“The Dragon Whisperer?!” Wes choked. “You ran into him again?”

Azalea nodded. “He jumped us right after we dispatched the Class Four. It was quite odd, and very rude. I think I would have died if it had just been me.”

Odd. Rude. Dead. Wes felt a tickle in his chest—the bewildered, hysteric kind of chuckle that would be difficult to stop once it started.

“Lord Halcyon distracted him and let me get away,” Azalea continued matter-of-factly, “I was afraid he would die, so I decided to enlist reinforcements from the guild. But nobody responded apart from jokes, so I lost my temper, and, um. That’s when I did something very regrettable, and—why are you grinning, Wes?”

It burst out all at once. Wes laughed, the kind that shook deep out of his chest, honest and unstoppable and a little disturbed. “It’s just, you know. We both go on trips for a few days. One of us prances around in a stuffy suit, and the other apprentices under the First Hunter, slays a Class Four, and goes head-to-head with the Dragon Whisperer. Oh, and breaks a hardwood table with a short sword, can’t forget that.”

Azalea flushed red to the tips of her ears and buried her face in her hands again. “It wasn’t, it really wasn’t all that. The First Hunter did mostly everything. And, and who knows, maybe tomorrow I won’t be a Hunter anymore. I’ll be dishonorably discharged for being harmful and volatile.”

“I highly doubt that.”

“It could happen.”

Wes frowned. Hunters broke tables all the time. Guildmaster Cotton was probably just counting her blessings that it had been a guild table. If Wes recalled correctly, Hunters had previously shattered the priceless stained glass windows of the royal palace. Not even during the Battle of Havenport or anything—just during a silly game of kickball, where both teams had gotten carried away and started terraforming, summoning cyclones, and launching deadly projectiles. Needless to say, it was a miracle that only windows had been shattered that day.

“I’m sure it’s happened before,” Wes said with a shrug. “At the very worst, she’ll give you a stern word and dock your pay.” He nudged her shoulder. “Just go talk to her. It’ll be alright.”

“Okay,” Azalea mumbled. She kicked at the floor.

“Want me to come with?”

“Oh, no, I’d rather be humiliated in private. But thank you.”

Wes held back a smile as she slid to her feet, scarlet cloak rippling like butterfly wings. She nibbled morosely at her milk bun and slipped out the door, cute and funny and beautiful at once. He watched her leave, watched the wind sigh through her golden hair in parting, watched the workshop door sway shut. He felt his pulse throb in his throat, and he knew.

He had asked her whether he should fight against his fate, against his father, but truthfully, he’d never had a choice. He had to fight to keep this. No matter what it demanded of him.

 

Azalea barely saw the First Hunter move.

One moment, the fireball was searing right for him.

The next, his glaive carved forward, and water arced around the projectile in a beautiful crescent—

—and crushed in, dissipating the fireball in a hiss of acrid steam.

Even before the beach cleared, Azalea knew what figure she would see. She knew the signature of that twisted black fire deep in her bones.

The Dragon Whisperer emerged from the steam with a billow of his crimson scaled cape, menacing and impressive.

For a moment, all she could do was balk. What was he doing this close to Airlea’s heart? He had never pushed out of the far north—at least, not from what Nicolina said.

Silence descended on the battlefield. Halcyon’s grip tightened on his glaive, and he angled himself in front of Azalea.

“Run,” he said tersely.

“What?”

The madness had disappeared from his eyes, replaced by a lucid, deathly cold. “Run. He’s not after you.”

But maybe he is, Azalea thought, trembling. She had the sinking feeling that the Whisperer was, in fact, following her.

“I can’t just leave,” she whispered. “I can’t, Lord Halcyon. He could kill you.”

“That’s an order, Fairwen.”

The Whisperer moved, the barest shadow in the night. Halcyon swept his glaive, the blade aglow like an underwater opal.

For a moment, there was stillness, and Azalea wondered what they had done.

Then the impact landed.

She was struck by a surge of power, raw and explosive, an ocean’s undertow meeting a volcano’s eruption, so brutal that she was knocked clear off her feet. The entire beach pulsed, sand whipping in the air and water throttling away from the shoreline.

Halcyon skidded back, untouched, his mouth set in a grim line.

The beach quieted.

Azalea staggered to her feet, winded. The world was spinning, the air thick and curdling with instability.

What in the Myths’ names just happened?

She understood then. As lovely as the sentiment of loyalty might have been, the grade of this fight was leagues beyond her. It didn’t matter if she stayed; her contribution would mean little, like bringing a kitchen knife to a war between starshooters.

Halcyon’s glaive carved a neat line, and Azalea felt the power washing into the blade, gathering there, a boiling wave behind a dam. He glanced over his shoulder, eyes narrow.

“Go,” he said. “Now.”

Azalea sparked her manawell. Fired her windsoles.

She arced away from the beach as the world ruptured behind her. Light seared the sky in vermillion and turquoise, casting vivid shadows on the sand. A torrent of black fire barreled into a soaring wave of water, splattering the beach with scalding steam.

Halcyon could die.

The thought pushed Azalea faster, faster, shoving more mana into her windsoles until she was bolting through the air, feet throttling with every step. She lurched down the beach, the world a blur around her. Still, she pushed harder.

Get to the Guild.

Get help.

The First Hunter was incredibly powerful. She’d only caught a glimpse of it in the final moments of their hunt—how something in him had clicked open, and suddenly, a regenerating Class Four had looked like little more than a domestic pest. But what the Dragon Whisperer could not match in refined skill, he made up for in brutality and an utter lack of self-preservation. He would kill the First Hunter even if he had to kill himself in the process; how he’d detonated the cavern had shown Azalea that much.

She burned harder and flew faster. The world was blazing by in a sea of dim shapes, wind slapping at her cheeks, feet stumbling for balance. Even at this distance, she could feel the echo of every strike behind her, breathing at her back in a shower of unstable sparks.

Faster. Faster still.

Azalea’s knees began to scream with every leap and her ankles felt on fire—but then she was rewarded with the distant lights of the Mythaven mana lamps rising to meet her.

She flared her windsoles and shot over the wall, landing hard on the flat tiled road leading up to the guild. Another springstep placed her at the entrance, and she shoved through the door, wood splintering under her palms at the force.

“The Whisperer,” she gasped through burning lungs. “Fighting the First Hunter. Need reinforcements.”

The guild was bustling, thank the Myths. Hunters milled at the tables with drinks and cards in hand. They fell silent at her sudden outburst, and all eyes shot to her, demanding and suffocating.

“What’d the kid say?” called a voice in the back.

“Reaper found himself a target, from the sounds of it. And Yuden found himself another fight.”

“Cheers,” said another easily. “Any bets on if anything stays standing?”

“Barren land, all structures down, trees burned to ash,” laughed a Hunter by the beverage table. “Put me down for fifty.”

“I’ll raise you one hundred.”

“We can’t bet on the same result, you dolt, that’s not how betting works.”

“Why not? We should all be winners in something. Myths know that it never happens.”

Through her haze of exhaustion, Azalea felt the tight, congested feeling of absolute bewilderment. Were they making light of this? The First Hunter could die, the Dragon Whisperer was in the heart of Airlea, the encounter could prove fatal for everybody within miles—and they were tossing jokes about as if this were simply another game. She had pushed herself to her limits, beyond her limits, for nothing. They would leave Halcyon to die and cast lots for his position.

The heat in Azalea’s chest rose, boiling into frustration, frustration into anger, until—

—she drew her sword and, in one fell cleave, split the table before her, sending cards and mugs of ale scattering.

The room fell deathly silent.

Shards of wood sprayed over the ground like bits of rain.

“I didn’t run all this way for a round of bets,” Azalea said. Her voice was terribly even, distant in her own ears. “Somebody go provide reinforcements. It’s near Fletcher’s Fry, down the coast.”

For a moment, there was no response. She was met with silence, and her hands began to tremble, numb and cold. She couldn’t tell whether it was fear or rage or exhaustion. Perhaps all three.

Finally, one of the Hunters drew up and faced her. He was a mountain of a man, grizzled and bulky, scars knotted up his arms to where bear furs hung from his shoulders.

“Do not misunderstand, little cub,” he said. His voice was deep enough to rattle Azalea’s bones, but she refused to cower. She looked him in the eye, even though it meant craning her neck until it hurt. “There are times when it is better for a Hunter to fight alone. Have you witnessed the height of Yuden’s power?”

Azalea said nothing.

“It is a torrential flood that sweeps away everything in sight,” said the bear-man. “A storm that indiscriminately destroys all in its path. Yuden would not be able to fight at his greatest potential while fretting about the safety of his allies. No, it is better to leave him be. In that state, he is more monster than man.”

Azalea faltered. Was that why Halcyon had sent her away? Not to get help, but to simply remove her as potential collateral damage?

Would she always be an obstacle to her allies, and nothing more?

“And—and what if he dies?” Azalea said, hating how her voice broke. She’d tried so hard to be strong and confident like Halcyon, but in the end, she sounded like nothing more than a scared child.

The bear-man smiled, an unusually warm look. “To be a Hunter is to avoid the cull of the grim reaper every day. This night is no different.”

It was not comforting. Azalea knew that he’d meant it to be, but she felt far from comforted. She only felt, even more keenly, the yawning gap between her and the other Hunters—their graceful acceptance of death, their bravery and drive in the face of it. She felt shaken and ashamed, and the exhaustion of her sprint combined with her intense mana flare had left her weak. Beyond weak, even. It was a struggle to keep her eyes open, and the warm candlelight overhead was starting to sway back and forth, as if she’d boarded a rocking ship.

“Well,” she said faintly, staggering against the broken table. “Then I wish I hadn’t run so fast.”

And she promptly fainted, the world spinning to black.