Glennis nodded, firm and unyielding. “Five hundred years ago, my mother chose the future of the royal bloodline over fighting beside her loved ones. And though she never regretted her choice, the weight of what she left behind wore on her. I have carried her burden my entire life.” The crone gestured to Bronwen, then to Asterin. “All of us who fight here today do so with someone standing invisible behind us.”

Asterin’s gold-flecked black eyes softened a bit. “Yes,” was all Manon’s Second said as her hand drifted to her abdomen.

Not in memory of the hateful word branded there, of what had been done to her.

In memory of the stillborn witchling who had been thrown by Manon’s grandmother into the fire before Asterin had a chance to hold her.

In memory of the hunter whom Asterin had loved, as no Ironteeth ever had loved a man, and had never gone back to, for shame and fear. The hunter who had never stopped waiting for her to return, even when he was an old man.

For them, for the family she had lost, Manon knew her Second would fight today. So it might never happen again.

Manon would fight today to make sure it never did, too.

“So we come to it after five hundred years,” said Glennis, her voice unwavering yet distant, as if pulled into the depths of memory. The rising sun bathed the white walls of Orynth in gold. “The final stand of the Crochans.”

As if the words themselves were a signal, Bronwen lifted the horn of Telyn Vanora to her lips and blew.

Most believed the Florine River flowed down from the Staghorns, right past the western edge of Orynth before cutting across the lowlands.

But most didn’t know that the ancient Fae King had built his city wisely, digging sewers and subterranean streams that carried the fresh mountain water directly into the city itself. All the way beneath the castle.

A torch lifted high, Lysandra peered into one of those underground waterways, the dark water eddying as it flowed through the stone tunnel and out the city walls. Her breath curled in front of her as she said to the group of Bane soldiers who’d accompanied her, “Lock the grate once I’m out.”

A grunt was her only confirmation.

Lysandra frowned at the heavy iron grate across the subterranean river, the metal bands as thick as her forearm. It had been Lord Murtaugh who’d suggested this particular route of attack, his knowledge of the waterways beneath the city and castle beyond even Aedion’s awareness.

Lysandra braced herself for the plunge, knowing the water would be cold. Beyond cold.

But Morath was moving, and if she did not get into position soon, she might very well be too late.

“Gods be with you,” one of the Bane soldiers said.

Lysandra gave the man a tight smile. “And with you all.”

She didn’t let herself reconsider. She just walked right off the stone ledge.

The plunge was swift, bottomless. The cold ripped the air from her lungs, but she was already shifting, light and heat filling her body as her bones warped, as skin vanished. Her magic pulsed, draining quickly at the expenditure making this body required, but then it was done.

Distantly, above the surface, the Bane swore. Whether in fear or awe, she didn’t care.

Surfacing enough to gulp down a breath, Lysandra submerged again. Even in this form, the cold tore at her, the water murky and dim, but she swam with the current, letting it guide her on its way out of the ancient tunnel.

Beneath the city walls. Into the wider Florine, where the cold grew nearly unbearable. Thick blocks of ice drifted overhead, veiling her from enemy eyes.

She swam down the river, right along the eastern flank of Morath’s host, and waited for her signal.

The Crochans took to the skies, a wave of red that swept over the city and its walls.

Atop the southern section of the wall, Ren at his side, Aedion tipped his head back as he watched them soar into the air above the plain.

“You really think they can fight against that?” Ren nodded toward the oncoming sea of Ironteeth witches and wyverns.

“I think we don’t have any other choice but to hope they can,” Aedion said, unslinging his bow from across his back. Ren did the same.

At the silent signal, archers down the city walls took up their bows.

Scattered amongst them, Rolfe’s Mycenians positioned their firelances, bracing the metal contraptions on the wall itself.

Morath marched. There would be no more delays, no more surprises. This battle would unfold.

Aedion glanced toward the curve of the Florine, the ice sheets glaringly bright in the morning sun. He shut out the dread in his heart. They were too desperate, too outnumbered, for him to deny Lysandra the task she’d taken on today.

A look over his shoulder had Aedion confirming that Bane soldiers had the catapults primed atop the battlements, the Fae royals ready to use their depleted magic to levitate the enormous blocks of river-stone into place. And on the city walls, Fae archers remained watchful as they waited for their own signal.

Aedion nocked an arrow into his bow, arm straining as he pulled back the string.

As one, the army gathered on the city walls did the same.

“Let’s make this a fight worthy of a song,” Aedion said.

CHAPTER 85

Manon and the Thirteen shot into the skies as the Crochan army flowed below, a red tide rushing toward the sea of black ahead.

Forcing the Ironteeth legion to choose: their ancient enemies or their new ones.

It was a test, and one Manon had wanted to make early. To see how many of the Ironteeth would heed the command to plow forward, and how many might break from their orders, the temptation of battling the Thirteen too much to bear. And a test, she supposed, for the Matrons and the Heirs who led their legion—would they fall for it? Split their forces to swarm the Ironteeth, or continue their assault on the Crochans?

Higher and higher, Manon and the Thirteen rose, the two armies nearing each other.

The Crochans didn’t hesitate as their swords glinted in the sun, pointing toward the oncoming wyverns.

The Ironteeth had not trained against an enemy able to fight back. An enemy who could be airborne, smaller and faster, and strike where they were weakest: the riders. That was the Crochans’ goal—to bring down the riders, not the beasts.

But to do so, they’d need to brave the snapping jaws and spiked tails, the poison coating them. And if they could navigate around the wyverns, then the matter would remain of facing the flying arrows, and the trained warriors atop the beasts. It would not be easy, and it would not be quick.

The Thirteen rose so high that the air became thin. High enough that Manon could see to the very back of the host, where the horrific, unmistakable bulk of Iskra Yellowlegs’s wyvern flew.

A challenge and a promise of a confrontation to come. Manon knew, despite the distance, that Iskra had marked her.

No sign of Petrah. Or of the two remaining Matrons. Who had replaced the Yellowlegs crone to become High Witch, Manon didn’t know. Or care. Perhaps her grandmother had convinced them not to appoint Iskra or a new one just yet—to clear the way for her own path to queendom.

Just as Manon’s head turned light at the altitude, fifty or so wyverns peeled away from the enemy’s host. Flying upward—racing for them, beasts freed of their tether. Hungry for the glory and bragging rights that killing the Thirteen would win.

Manon smiled.

The two armies slammed into each other.

Loosing a breath, Manon yanked once on Abraxos’s reins.

Her fierce-hearted wyvern flung out his wings as he arched—and plummeted.

The world tilted while they twisted and plunged down, down, down, the Thirteen falling with them. They tore through wisps of cloud, the clashing army blurring, the castle and city looming below.

And when the Ironteeth were close enough that Manon could see they were Yellowlegs and Bluebloods, Abraxos banked sharply to one side and a current launched him right into the heart of them.

The Thirteen snapped into formation behind her, a battering ram that smashed through the Ironteeth.

Manon’s bow sang as she fired arrow after arrow.

At the first spray of blue blood, some part of her slipped away.

But she kept firing. And Abraxos kept flying, ripping apart wing and throat with his tail and teeth.

And so it began.

Even in the river, the thunder of marching feet rumbled past Lysandra.