Myraden pulled her spear out from her void pendant. Her cover was gone, and she needed to defend herself. First, she whipped the spearhead around on its loose string, cutting away the long tails of the dress and freeing up her legs. Then, she flooded it with Essence, firming it up into a straight haft.

  Soldiers pushed through the crowd, approaching with their swords drawn. Guests shuffled aside, shouting. There may have been marshals (and a few sparse wizards) present, but none of them drew their ceremonial swords or advanced on her and the Hand.

  The Hand drew his blade as well.

  “Run!” Myraden hissed. “No point in fighting it out!”

  He’s just a man, Kythen said. He cannot keep up with you in a race of distance.

  A lump caught in her throat, and she shuddered. But there was no time to ruminate. “Climb on Kythen’s back!” Myraden hissed. “He will carry you!”

  She repeated the instructions to Kythen in íshkaben, and the bloodhorn knelt down, allowing the Hand up on his back.

  Myraden activated her Tundra Veins, then pushed the same technique across her bond to Kythen, fuelling him as well. They sprinted out the foyer doors, moving faster than most of the guests could fathom, then turned to the gates of the Crown Ring wall.

  “Once you get out the wall, turn north!” the Hand shouted. “We make for the ískan bridge! If our luck holds, it will still be open!”

  She and Kythen sprinted out the gate of the Crown Ring. The soldiers were already raising the alarm and shutting the portcullis, but they didn’t move fast enough. She and Kythen slipped beneath the portcullis and out into the streets.

  We’re about halfway out of Essence, Kythen said. If we keep up this pace, we’ll sputter out a few miles beyond the city limits, and their riders will overtake us.

  “Deactivate the Tundra Veins,” she instructed in íshkaben. “We’ll still outpace them with our enhanced bodies, but we’ll go farther, and their riders will give up before they catch us—if they send riders at all.”

  As they neared the edge of the city, darting through the busy streets, dodging civilians and carts and unsuspecting patrols, she deactivated the fortification technique. They slowed down to half their previous pace.

  The nearby buildings still faded away, growing sparse before dropping off entirely. After a few hours, she couldn’t smell the city anymore, and the columns of smoke no longer rose above the horizon.

  Her enhanced body still depleted her Essence, and it was nearly out by the time she stopped feeding it and slowed to a walk. No sense in running herself dry only for a half-mile advantage over the riders.

  “Are you out already?” the Hand asked.

  “Almost,” she replied. “I am sure Kythen carrying you does not help our cause.”

  He shook his head. “Give me a clean one-on-one fight, and I will show you who pulls their weight around here.”

  “Are you sure a wizard would not speed around faster than you, overwhelming you in seconds?”

  The Hand scoffed. “Their speed is negligible in a confrontation like that. My sword is already where it needs to be. I know where they will move, where they will strike, and I have enough reign to cut through anything they throw at me.”

  “Could you defeat a Wildflame?”

  “Perhaps. I was the Emperor’s desperate measure.”

  “So much for your confidence.”

  “I could kill them, and they could kill me. I cannot guarantee the outcome of that fight, but by that nature, they will be equally as wary of me.”

  Pirin wasted no time travelling to the Featherflight. It occupied a pier at one of Vel Aerdeil’s mooring towers—an old structure of white limestone towering above its surroundings. Wooden piers sprouted off it at all angles, but currently, the Featherflight was the only airship in the city.

  He, Gray, and Nomad climbed up the tower, then walked out along the pier to the ship. Even though the sky was a deep blue, and wispy clouds blocked half the moonslight, making the evening darker than usual, there were no torches on the mooring tower. Couldn’t risk igniting the lifting gas.

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  Pirin ran to the Featherflight’s gondola and stepped across the gap between the pier and the open door, only to arrive in a cramped, dark room filled with people.

  Alyus and Brealtod, of course, stood at the wheels, but Skell and Ebb—the two weaveling low-marshals—stood at the map table, and another pair of Sirdian elves stood behind, along with the ship’s two lookout elves.

  Pirin beamed, but quickly wiped the expression from his face. “There’s a high chance we won’t make it back.”

  The weavelings rustled and clicked, and after a few moments’ thought, Pirin translated it to, “You need someone to convince the other weaveling groups of your valour.”

  The Sirdians shifted in their armour and looked directly at him. “We can’t leave you out to dry, my lord. This is how many of us your captain and first mate allowed to come aboard.”

  “You elves have light bones, eh?” Alyus asked. “Get your bird to the cargo hold, then find a place to sit. We’re going full sail to Dremfell, and on my pride as a smuggler, we’ll make record time.”

  Lord Two arrived in Ostaloth only a few hours too late. Ever since he’d returned to the Mainland to hunt the sprite, he’d been just a little too late—no matter where he went. The Seissen bordertown of Deep-Bei? Demonling purged. The work of a powerful wizard. It had to be her.

  First, he’d expected her to travel deeper into Seisse, hunting for elixir refineries, or perhaps seeking out an active labyrinth. But he found no sign, so he adjusted his search. He travelled north along the coast until he reached Greatsaad Bay where, in the little villages and towns along the coast, reports of a sprite with crystal antlers floated about.

  No matter what, it’d be impossible for a blonde-haired sprite to hide in these lands, much less one with antlers made of red crystal. And one who travelled with an enormous horse-sized goat—a bloodhorn, native to ískan.

  But she had never been alone. At least, not according to the rumours.

  She “travelled with a red-gloved man”, or “a black-coated Seissen man who looked nearly as dour and dreary as you”. (The last one hit a little too close to home to Lord Two, even if Two still proudly wore his magenta cloak and light armour.)

  But the Red Hand still lived. There was no one else it could be.

  He tracked them north to Ulan-Ost, then to Ostaloth. The moment he thought he was catching up, a spiritual presence to the west distracted him, and he chased it, but it turned out only to be a pilgrimage of old Flares. So many clumped together that, combined, they produced the spiritual weight of a Blaze.

  They were perhaps a hundred and fifty years old, kept alive beyond their mortal expiry by their Essence, but it wouldn’t last forever, and they seemed just as old as a mortal man who turned seventy season-cycles.

  Lord Two cursed under his breath as he watched them from high up on a ridge. They were local Greatsaadan men, with broad, round cheeks and light bronze skin. Their hair would’ve been black if not for age.

  But no time to waste. He had to catch up to that damn sprite. She’d get everything coming to her.

  We have only seen her once, in a passing glimpse, said his Familiar. The cat-sized scorpion still perched on his shoulder, clinging to his armour with its purple legs. She is your duty, not your feud.

  Lord Two rolled his eyes. “She’s a sprite, Mélier. She deserves it.”

  You’ve seen enough of the Dominion’s inner workings, the scorpion’s voice grumbled inside his head. You should know what lies they’re feeding you.

  “I understand where their lies are coming from. My anger comes from a different source, and I will have revenge. When Sirdia falls, we shall slaughter the sprites hiding there. The Burning of ískan was a convenience, but it was nowhere near complete enough. But this sprite-girl’s death shall be a wonderful start.”

  The scorpion chittered softly, but said nothing.

  “Come, now. By all accounts, she’s heading north. When she reaches the ískan bridge, we shall intercept her.”

  Lady Neria rode at the very rear of her army. She sat atop an average hauler-horse with no other burden. It strutted through the thick mud of No Man’s Land with ease, lifting its hooves high in decade-old craters and trotting over ancient ruins.

  The band of eternally wet, eternally dead land was a result of the early days of the elven civil war. So much elven blood spilled here, so much chaos and destruction, only to render a swath of land between Sirdia and Aerdia unusable.

  But, then again, such suffering gave the Sirdians time to refortify their Dremfell Wall—some sort of ancient ruin in the mountain pass, now repurposed to defend the north from the south. If nothing else, she forced herself to acknowledge why they’d fought so hard.

  The elves thought the world weeped for them, and that was why their graves stained the ground. Neria preferred a simpler theory: their blood was simply toxic. They were a horrid plage deserving of eradication.

  And then she smirked. With the help of Lord Three, the wall would fall in days, if not sooner. All their effort rendered useless.

  They just hadn’t worked hard enough to stay alive.

  It would be a tremendous victory for the Dominion, and from there, Sirdia’s main chokepoint on land would be gone, their supreme advantage nullified. Their dwindling numbers shattered.

  She lifted her chin, keeping her eyes on-target. Ahead, a column of silver-armoured soldiers, mounted horsemen, and bird-riders poured across the land. Their boots squished through the mud. Supply wagons took the highest routes they could, and when they bogged down in muck, teams of cavalrymen hooked up to the wagon to pull it free.

  When the mountain range emerged from the horizon, she ordered every soldier to begin hunting for scrap. They would assembled siege towers once they reached the mountain pass, but the trees of the pass were scarce, and they needed what little they could find.

  She cracked her knuckles and tilted her head side-to-side. Stolen army or not, she would destroy these insolent elves.