“All of you are so ungrateful,” Keita accused, heading back to the palace.

“I wouldn’t go far, Keita,” the Empress warned.

“And why is that?”

“Because something is happening.” The Empress removed her hands from Brannie’s face, closed her eyes, and took in a breath. “I hear your mother on the wind. She calls to me.”

Keita walked back toward them. “My mother wouldn’t do that unless . . .”

“Unless the final battle has begun,” Branwen finished for her.

“Lord General!” the Empress called out.

An Eastland dragon came to the Empress, dropping down on one knee, head bowed. “Prepare my army. I’ll be sending us all to the Southlands. I’ll be opening a doorway within a quarter hour. Will you be ready?”

“Of course, Your Majesty.”

“Good.” The Empress looked over at the Eastland Riders. “And you, Batu the Iron Hearted? Will you fight with us?”

“We will, decadent royal. We’ll do it for Branwen the Awful.”

“Our friendship is so over,” Keita growled at the Rider.

Batu grinned. That was probably exactly what he’d wanted to hear.

And Branwen was just glad to know that she wouldn’t have to travel by sea again.

“You will need us, decadent She-dragon.” Batu glanced around at the remains of Lord Xing’s army. “But what of your brother’s men and dragons?”

“Well, I’m not wasting my magickal skills to bring riffraff with us.” She gave a wave of her hand before walking off; tossing over her shoulder, “So kill them all.”

Chapter Thirty-Four

Talwyn blocked the blade with her shield and speared the wielder through his chest.

She’d lost her sword hours ago and since had been using weapons she’d picked up off the dead.

The grasslands were no longer green but red from the blood spilled. But still, the Zealots kept coming. They wouldn’t let their enemies move closer to Salebiri’s castle. Even if it meant sacrificing themselves.

But a challenge had been sent. Written on the flesh of a Zealot that they’d catapulted through the damaged main hall roof and now, they waited for the answer.

“Talwyn!” her brother called out, two fingers pointing at his eyes and then off in the distance. “To the hills!”

The Zealot priests and priestesses were moving into place.

“Get Grandfather!” she ordered her brother. She speared another Zealot and moved to get her father and uncles prepared. But in the fields behind her there was a flash and then the sound of racing horses and armed men.

“Izzy!” Talwyn roared. “Behind us!”

Her cousin climbed onto the back of the nearest dragon and stood on her shoulders.

“I see Riders!” she yelled back to Talwyn, which was strange, because the Daughters of the Steppes had said they would allow Northlanders through their territory but they wouldn’t take part in this battle. “And gold armor!”

“On Riders?”

“No! Two separate armies and . . .”

“And what? What do you see?”

“Brannie! It’s Brannie!”

Izzy jumped off one dragon’s shoulders and onto the back of Éibhear, who quickly took to the air.

* * *

Brannie led the charge on horseback, motioning with her hammer to where the Riders should attack and where the Empress’s army should mount a defense.

Once her commands were given, she charged forward toward the main battle near Salebiri’s castle. But something caused her war horse to flip, head over tail, crashing hard into the ground.

Brannie rolled free and back onto her feet before the horse could crush her. She ran, ducking under a swinging sword and flipping over a jabbing spear.

Zealots ran toward her and she changed her hammer to a halberd. She’d only impaled one of the Zealots on the end when Éibhear slammed down onto the rest.

“Izzy!”

“Bran!”

Izzy jumped off Éibhear’s giant shoulders, but he caught her with his tail and safely lowered her to the ground.

“I wish you wouldn’t do that,” he grumbled but Izzy ignored him, throwing herself at Brannie.

“I thought you were dead!” Izzy yelled into Brannie’s neck as the pair hugged.

“Not yet,” Brannie said, holding her best friend tighter. “Definitely not yet.”

* * *

Aidan landed behind Brannie and Izzy, but before he could say anything, his best friend was squeezing the life from him.

“Can’t breathe.”

“Stop complaining.” Éibhear finally pushed him away. “We all thought you lot were dead until Ghleanna got here. But then we heard you were with Keita, so . . . you know . . . we thought you were still dead . . . eventually.”

“That’s lovely to hear.”

“You’ve been with Keita all this time?”

“Uh-huh.”

“I’m sorry, old friend.”

“Your sister’s mean,” Caswyn complained, stalking past Éibhear and Aidan with Uther behind him. “Really, really mean.”

* * *

Dagmar stood on the top step and stared into the courtyard. She closed her eyes; breathed in, breathed out, and fought a nearly overwhelming desire to panic about what she knew was happening hundreds of leagues away in the Outerplains.

“Mum?”

Forcing a smile, she glanced back at her son, but he wasn’t fooled.

“I’m all right,” she insisted.

Var walked up to her and took her hand. “Maybe I should have gone. I’m sure I could have helped.”

“If they don’t succeed, I’ll need you here. We’ll need to get the children out before the Zealots come.”

“That’s disappointing.”

“What is?”

“I was hoping more for a Northland way of handling things.”

Dagmar, who no longer thought about panic, had to fight hard not to laugh. “Unnvar—”

“We’d kill the children. The servants. Ourselves. The dogs. The horses. The squirrels in the trees.”

“Var, stop it,” Dagmar ordered around her chuckles.

“I was actually looking forward to cutting Arlais’s throat myself since we both know she’d put up a fight.”

Laughing out loud despite herself, Dagmar leaned against her son, but she immediately stopped when Arlais suddenly ran out the castle doors.

She opened her mouth to announce something, but her eyes abruptly narrowed and she glared at her mother and brother.

“You two are talking about me,” she accused.

“Is there a reason you’re out here?” Dagmar asked.

She pointed to the middle of the courtyard and a mystical doorway suddenly opened. A moment later Keita and Ren of the Chosen tumbled out. A living, breathing Ren of the Chosen.

Arlais squealed and ran to her favorite aunt while Var leaned in to her and whispered, “And now, Mum, we have a fighting chance. . . .”

* * *

The witches met in Rhiannon’s sacred space, including the Empress, whose power Rhiannon desperately needed if they hoped to make this work.

The queen, the Empress, Morfyd, Nina, Rhi, and Brigida, all in their natural forms, stood in a circle. And while the others began to chant, Rhiannon walked inside the circle they created, tossing the ashes from the sacrifices she’d made, creating a circle within a circle.

Once she was done, she stood between her daughter and granddaughter, everyone linking claws and paws and hands. Then they began the summoning.

* * *

The Zealots retreated back toward the castle and Brannie finally returned to her troops. When Aidan, Caswyn, and Uther tagged along, Izzy immediately noticed and raised an eyebrow.

“Don’t you have a war to fight, General?” Brannie snapped. “Legions to command?”

“Mmm-hmm,” Izzy replied in that annoying, high-pitched way.

After that, they all waited in silence until Duke Salebiri finally appeared, riding into the middle of the battleground with a company of soldiers behind him. He dismounted from his horse and turned in a circle. “You sent me a challenge, queen’s whore,” he called out. “And now you hide?”