It wasn’t tough to spot the groundie leadership from the air, and El flipped and flared her wings to soften her nearby landing.

  “Ma’am,” El jogged over and saluted.

  The commander, a lieutenant colonel by the insignia, looked from El to the Firestorm above, then back to El. “That was quite the entrance. New orders, I take it,” she said.

  “Yes ma’am,” El said. “We’ve been given the order to fall back. There’s a newt army on the way to join the golems, and they’ll pin you in if you don’t get out of here now.”

  “How big is the newt army?” the lieutenant colonel asked.

  “At least five times what you have here now. Probably more. Approaching from the west,” El explained. “Firestorm will cover your retreat, but only until the lizards reach the town, then they’ll be falling back as well.”

  The lieutenant colonel grimaced. “How long do we have?”

  “Ten minutes, if you’re lucky,” El said.

  “Ten minutes?! Burn it, that’s not enough to get everybody out.”

  “No, but it’s what we’ve got.”

  “We?” the lieutenant colonel asked.

  “Yes. How can I help?”

  The lieutenant colonel thought for a moment, then nodded. “There are two people I need you to relay my orders to. First, Captain Waalis. You’ll find him three or four blocks east of here. Look for the red mullet, probably on a roof somewhere so he can get a good view of the battlefield. Tell him to pull his troops back, straight south. No delays. Use the passphrase ‘banana chips,’ he’ll know what it means, and it will get him to move his ass.”

  “Red mullet. Banana chips. Yes ma’am. And the other?” El asked.

  “Second might be a little tougher to find. Lieutenant Yole, leads one of our top hit-and-run platoons. Look for where the most damage is being done; she won’t be far. Shaved head with tattoos.”

  “Shaved head with tattoos. Got it. Should I also tell her ‘banana chips?’”

  “Blaze no, she’ll put a sword through your heart. Tell her ‘carpet protocol.’ She’ll know what it means, and where to go.”

  “Anything else?” El asked.

  The lieutenant colonel shook her head. “No. What are you still doing here?” she asked, then turned and started barking orders at the soldiers around her.

  El didn’t stick around to see where they’d go, and leapt into the air, igniting her wings and flashing down the street. Red mullet, huh? Hopefully Captain Waalis’s command sense was better than his fashion sense.

  Groundies swarmed the streets as she skimmed above them. One block. Two. Three. Time to get a better view.

  She gently pulled up to the level of the roofs still standing, there weren’t many, and quickly picked out a cluster of troops on a roof not far away. The shock of red hair in the middle told her she’d found her man. If he followed the lieutenant colonel’s orders with ‘banana chips,’ whatever that meant, they might actually be able to get the groundies out in time.

  “Captain Waalis,” El shouted and landed behind the group, though none of them paid attention to her, and doused her wings. They were all too busy looking up. Was the Firestorm covering their asses that surprising? Whatever, they didn’t have time for it.

  “Captain Waalis,” El repeated, ignoring whatever was going on above them. “New orders for you. You’re to pull back straight south. Passphrase ‘banana chips,’” El said, and waited for a response. Nothing.

  What the Blaze was so interesting above…?

  Oh.

  It wasn’t the Firestorm they were watching. No, it was probably the pitch-black clouds above them that had appeared out of nowhere, and were now swirling like a whirlpool in the sky. That can’t possibly be good.

  Isolated to directly above the city, clear sky beyond, blue lightning arced at the edges of the cloud and then sped inward, lighting up the dark as it passed.

  Was that El’s imagination, or were those giant blue eyes looking down at them with every flash of lightning?

  In the center of the thunderheads, the whirlpool of clouds spun faster and faster, lightning chaining along it as it spiraled open.

  “Banana chips. BANANA CHIPS!” El repeated. Burn it, what the Blaze was she saying? They needed to get out of there. Whatever was happening up there was not good. “We have to go. You have to go. Now!” El shouted and shouldered her way through to the Captain. “Captain, get your banana chips and get the Blaze out of her!”

  Burn it, how many times was she going to have to say that stupid passphrase out loud before he got his ass moving?

  Waalis turned to her, eyes wide. “Banana…?” Understanding washed over his face. “Burn it, it’s that serious?”

  El glanced up. “Maybe more so,” she said. “Fall back. Straight south.”

  “You heard the woman,” Waalis shouted at the people around him, finally pulling their attention from the clouds above. “Get those orders out. Fall back, on the double.”

  “Yes sir,” five voices echoed, and they ran to pass on the command.

  One down. Now she just had to find Lieutenant Yole…

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  A cold wind swept over the building, and El shivered.

  Cold?

  She looked back up at the sky, the pointy tip of some kind of crystal emerging from the swirling clouds. No, that wasn’t a crystal. That was an icicle. And with a sudden crack of thunder, it fell from the black clouds.

  No more than ten feet tall, and half as wide, the single icicle hardly looked like a threat as it cut through the air and drove into the ground at an intersection only a block away from where El stood. A handful of groundies died on impact, but most were simply knocked to the ground, only to turn back and wonder what in the Blaze had just happened.

  Another crack of thunder and the ice split apart, falling into four equal pieces to reveal a knight in full plate, so blue it was almost black. The hilt of a massive greatsword extended above his shoulder, and he stepped from the ice into the crossroads.

  Oh no.

  The confused soldiers got to their feet, but they didn’t know enough to run. If only the brass had listened to El. If only they’d warned everyone.

  The Stormbearer reached up and pulled his sword over his shoulder. “Purge,” he said, his voice sending a shiver down El’s spine even from the distance. Then he swung his sword to the side, and a surge of ice burst forth, rushing down the street to the north like a tidal wave from wall to wall.

  Just like that, in the blink of an eye, a sea of ice forty-feet tall and three blocks long cocooned every groundie in that direction. Maybe one or two had escaped inside a building, but it didn’t look like it.

  “Purge,” he said again, and swung his sword to his left. This time, ice enveloped the southern street, dozens more groundies lost.

  “I don’t know what that is, but hit it!” Captain Waalis shouted, and orders passed along soldier to soldier. Dozens of weapons leveled at the Stormbearer, but he either didn’t notice, or didn’t care.

  The air filled with flaming bolts as the troops opened fire, peppering the knight with a salvo of fire. Fire that froze to ice and dropped to his feet the instant it touched his armor. Shards of ice fell by the dozens to the ground as he stepped into the weapons’ fire, not even flinching as blast after blast plinked off him.

  “You can’t beat him! You need to fall back,” El shouted. Couldn’t they see it? They couldn’t stop him.

  “Somebody has to slow him down,” Waalis said.

  A chance to prove herself.

  Was that what this was? If she could slow him down, and the groundies could escape, the brass would have to accept the Stormbearer’s existence. There would be too many witnesses to silence. Too many to label as cowards.

  If they escaped.

  “Pull your men back. I’ll see about distracting him,” El said.

  “What can you do against that?” Waalis asked, but waved his men to fall back

  “Mainly try not to die,” El whispered to herself and ignited her wings. Any flames that touched the Stormbearer turned to ice almost immediately, and her arrows hadn’t done much damage before.

  No, don’t think about hurting him. Just get his attention. Keep him focused on you, not the groundies.

  She had almost a dozen electrum weapon hilts on her; they’d have to be enough.

  El leapt into the air, her second hammer hilt igniting to life in her hands, and angled high over the knight. A hundred feet up she spun and then dove straight down.

  Groundies ran down the street ahead of the Stormbearer, and his sword drew back for another swing.

  El brought her hammer down with all her strength square on the top of his head like she was hitting a large, armor-plated, exceedingly dangerous nail.

  Stones at his feet fractured at the impact as he sunk to his ankles from the force of the blow, but El’s hammer shattered into a thousand tiny ice shards that hung in the air.

  The Stormbearer’s shoulders shifted, and El launched herself to the side to avoid the massive sword that came swinging around. She was faster than he was; she just needed to stay ahead of him. Every second meant more groundies would escape. She didn’t need to hold out for long.

  Spreading her wings wide and arching her back, El swooped along the wall of the closest building, then darted out, paired axes igniting to life in her hands. She rolled in the air, pulling her wings in close and narrowly avoiding a spear of ice meant for her head, then landed sideways on the building wall across the street.

  The Stormbearer’s head swiveled to follow, and El launched herself straight for him, bringing her axes horizontally across while simultaneously twisting her body to bring her feet up.

  Flaming blades slammed into opposite sides of his armored neck at the same time, enough power behind each to fell a tree, but froze in an instant. El dropped her useless weapons in that same moment, planted her feet on his chest, and pushed herself off.

  Frost crawled along her flame armor, devouring it as it went, and her toes went numb, but El managed to flip away before the ice got any further than the tips of her boots. Touching him for anything more than a second could be the end of her.

  El rolled in the air and landed on the street twenty feet away from where she’d hit the knight, drew a flaming spear, and looked up to plan her next move.

  Except the knight was right in front of her.

  When did he…?

  Instinct told her to run, and El leapt into the air. Have to put some distance between us!

  But she wasn’t fast enough.

  A chill ran up her wing and into her back, and suddenly she was going in the wrong direction.

  El hit the ground hard enough to crater the street, the heat generated from her flame armor’s kinetic conversion melting the stone. The air warped from the temperature, then flowed into the Stormbearer like he was absorbing it.

  His left hand held her wing, the flames somehow solid beneath his grasp, and he lifted his sword above his head.

  Have to… move…

  But her body didn’t respond, and the sword drove down into the stone beside her.

  What?

  The Stormbearer’s left arm yanked on her wing, pulling her into the air, then slammed her back down into the ground face-first.

  El grunted as a heavy boot planted between her shoulders, and a chill crept into her other wing.

  What’s he doing?

  “You… don’t… need… these…” the Stormbearer hissed, then pushed down on her back.

  Pain screamed along El’s shoulders and back as the knight pulled on her wings. As he pulled her wings out.

  El’s fingers clawed at the stone, and she kicked her feet, but the weight on her back was too much. The pain moved beyond her shoulders, somewhere deeper into her core, and she howled in agony as she squirmed and struggled.

  Her head twisted to the side, and she caught her reflection in the nearby ice, the knight standing above her with her wings in his hands. He ground her into the stone under his boot, and gave a great heave, El’s wings ripping away from her shoulders, only to be held on by the barest streamers of flame.

  El heaved and gasped for air, the crippling agony spasming though every nerve in her body.

  One more tug like that, and her wings would come right off. And the pain.

  How was that even possible? The wings weren’t actually a part of her. Just a manifestation of her Spark.

  That was it. He wasn’t pulling on her wings; he was pulling on her Spark.

  Her Spark! He was ripping her burning Spark out!

  What would she be without it? It defined her. Made her who she was.

  “Be… cleansed…” the knight said, and El’s eyes locked on her reflection as the Stormbearer adjusted his grip on her wings.

  This was it.

  The knight leaned in, his boot crushing her, and…

  …got hit by a comet. At least that’s what it looked like, but suddenly the weight on El’s back was gone. Her limp wings fell to the ground beside her, thin lines of flame like bloody tendons the only things connecting them to her back.

  But she couldn’t feel them, and they bled away in a dark smoke that left only exhaustion behind.

  The pain had faded with her wings, but El couldn’t stay there, and she rolled onto her back, heat and light washing across her face.

  What happened to the Stormbearer? What hit him?

  There he was, getting to his feet, with what looked like a raging pyre between him and El.

  The flames of the pyre roiled and whipped, sucking in air faster than it could move and spiraling it around like the eye of a hurricane.

  Anger like a physical thing came off the fire in waves, shaking the ground and melting the buildings like candles.

  But something about the flame soothed El. A warm, familiar blanket that had always been there when she needed it.

  El smiled.

  Nexin had arrived.