Airlean Tales S2E32: Rizas Mali (1)

Halcyon wasn’t the only Leventis left.

He shouldn’t have been surprised. His mother, Lihai Daoha, had been a cunning woman who had risked everything to smuggle Halcyon out of the country. Of course she would have done everything possible to protect her second child, little Actaeon Leventis—who had only been four years old when Halcyon had fled Atlantis. Among all the Leventis concubines, she had often been lauded as the most clever—and the most ruthless.

But still, Halcyon was surprised. Because Xiph had lied.

She’d told him he was alone. That his entire bloodline had been purged. That no one was left except him.

And he’d been fool enough to believe her.

Rathos’s chuckle echoed across the field, filling Halcyon’s skull. Interesting, the senator mused. A flea has come to play hero. What makes you think you can defeat US, child?

Actaeon didn’t flinch. He only planted the butt of his halberd on the ground and lifted his chin. “I don’t think I can, you treacherous snake. I know.”

Then you have gone mad.

Rathos dismissively flicked a bony finger. Giant vines lashed down in a cross, pincering the boy, while a rain of thorns flew overhead to cut off his escape. But his strike was lethargic, curious—testing, not intended for lethal injury.

Actaeon did not draw back, but flung himself forward. He avoided the intersecting blow and carved his halberd powerfully down the remaining vine, cleaving it in two. Another three clean arcs of his halberd sent crescent scythes of wind mana soaring to the falling thorns, scattering them like dust.

He planted his halberd again and grinned up at the senator. “Is that it?” he called. “Thought a miasmic senator would bite worse than a shrew!”

Rathos crooked his fingers, and his palms circled with more focus. This time, Halcyon sensed lethal intent. It was enough to return him to his senses.

Actaeon, his baby brother. His only remaining family. What was he doing, gawking like a bystander? He’d never forgive himself if anything happened to this kid.

Rathos pushed his palms forward, and the soil rippled outward, destabilizing the ground. One of the floating islands trembled and groaned as wooden shards hailed down from its roots. Halcyon saw the danger before Actaeon, who was deftly dancing around the ripples in the ground, striking at brambles that crawled out to lash at his heels.

The island collapsed, its crushing weight descending right on Actaeon.

Halcyon swept his glaive forward and flared his manawell. A torrent of water manifested from nothingness, slicing a roaring line upward like a geyser. The water split at the base of the island and flowered out, droplets slowing, debris hovering, as if suspending time in a liquid cage.

He flicked his glaive. The cage of water collapsed inward, splintering the island into a thousand tiny, harmless pieces.

Actaeon squawked, pinwheeling backward as harmless debris rained down on him.

“What the—a landwalker?” He turned, his red eyes fixing right on Halcyon. “Are you crazy?!”

Halcyon wordlessly jumped in, carving apart the vines that rose to flay at them both. Did this kid not know an opening when he saw one? That had clearly been the signal to disengage.

“You! Airlean! Or Yueraian?” Actaeon gripped his halberd as Halcyon darted around him. “This is no place for a landwalker. Leave this to a Leventis!”

Back up, kid! Halcyon saw foliage begin to converge into the twisted core of a tree blight. He slashed hard with his glaive until it splintered into dust.

“Don’t you speak Common?” Actaeon changed his tone and barked something in sharp, accented Yueraian, which almost made Halcyon laugh. Despite his appearance, he didn’t understand a lick of Yueraian beyond dishes that Nali liked to order.

“Calm down,” Halcyon responded in perfect Atlantean. It was worth it for the way Actaeon stumbled, visibly thrown. “This position is too open. We need to move.”

“Atlantean? Who are you?” But then the Actaeon’s face, torn between suspicion and wonder, cleared into focus. “No, you’re right. We must work to take down the Senator first. But then I’m bringing you in for questioning, stranger.”

“For what? Assisting with defense of the country?”

“For—for—” The boy narrowed his eyes. “Skulduggery.”

Gods. Kids were so annoying. “Alright, you do that,” Halcyon said dryly.

“I mean it! Your intentions might be all good and well, but if a master of the lance masks up and refuses to reveal his identity, it can only mean—”

Soil erupted under Actaeon’s feet. He expertly backstepped, halberd cutting a smooth arc through a thick earthen lance from the ground. Good reflexes—even Halcyon had to marvel. But the kid’s guard dropped after he removed the perceived threat. He was blind to thorny vines lashing down from overhead, aiming to sweep his head clean off his shoulders.

Halcyon moved.

His windsoles burst and his body throttled forward, tackling Actaeon. The vines sliced into his shoulders, thorns drawing a line of blood clear up his back. He hit the ground in a rough somersault. It shielded the boy from impact, but loose rubble dug into his new wound. He groaned at the sharp pain.

More earthen spears and vines crashed towards them, seeking to pin them down. Halcyon fired his windsoles hard and coasted away, bringing the boy over the coliseum wall.

“Are you taking this seriously?” he spat. He tasted lingering blood in his mouth.

The kid’s face was pale, but he quickly regained his composure and gripped his halberd with both hands. “I—I’m sorry, sir.”

Halcyon’s temper left him. This kid hadn’t gone through the Leventis regimen. The entire house had dissolved before he’d been properly trained. Anything he knew would be secondhand, watered down. Not that Halcyon knew much better, but at least he had years of fighting upper corruptions and brawling in the kennels under his belt.

“Stay focused,” he commanded. He pulled himself up, wincing at the lingering throb along his back.

“Yes, sir.”

Sir now, was it? Halcyon’s mouth twitched. “This is not an honorable duel. The senator doesn’t fight in turns. Never let down your guard from any direction, even when you think you’re the one on the offensive. And when I tell you to withdraw, you’d better damn well withdraw.”

“Yes, sir.” Actaeon scrambled to his feet and saluted. “I won’t disappoint again.”

Gods, he was too young and bright-eyed to be in this kind of war. Halcyon sighed.

“My allies are striking at the senator’s central sites of power,” he said. “We wait for their signal, and buy time until then. I hope you brought more to bear than bravado and a sharp tongue.”

Actaeon squinted. “Of course I did! …Sir.”

“What is it, then? And don’t say the Hunt. You know its strength depends on the number of Arbiters present.”

This seemed to surprise Actaeon again, but he recovered quickly. “I…well, yeah, it’s not that.”

The kid pointed. Halcyon looked. It was a blank stretch of Amphitheater wall, falling to ruin.

Then Halcyon blinked, and the wall evaporated.

Something dark and crimson catapulted across the field, streaks of bloodlike smoke curdling in its trail. A small form cracked right into Senator Rathos with a percussive boom that rippled over the tattered remains of the Amphitheater. A raw, inhuman scream, more like a broken bell than recognizable vocals, pealed into the shattered night. It drew an instinctive shiver of fear down Halcyon’s spine.

“I found the domina,” Actaeon said casually, his face lighting up in a grin. “And I led her here.”

Wes saw Azalea’s shadow flit in the sky, backlit dimly by Atlantean mana lamps. His heart leapt hopefully. There was no one else with her, which wasn’t a good sign. But she was alive, and if he was honest, that was what really mattered to him.

He straightened his shoulders and smiled warmly as she landed with a soft swell of her windsoles. “Glad you’re safe. How’d it—”

Azalea’s cheeks were wet, her eyes shining, her mouth trembling. His voice trailed off.

“I—I’m sorry.” Her voice was broken, yet she stood straight, her gaze fixed on his. Oh, she was trying so hard to stay strong. “I failed. I couldn’t convince them.”

“Oh, ’Zalie,” he murmured.

Her face crumpled, and she ran to him. He wrapped his arms tightly around her, holding her close, as if he could shield her thin, shaking frame from the chill of the night.

“I don’t understand,” she mumbled, pressing her face into his chest. “I don’t—we’re willing to fight, and we’re landwalkers—this is their country! How dare they run? How could they not take up arms, if just for their families?”

She sniffled angrily, almost wringing a smile from Wes. But his humor cooled quickly. No reinforcements to secure the nest…Was it all doomed to fail? Others were relying on them. Halcyon. Lillian. The crown prince. They were fighting right now, putting their lives on the line, trusting that Azalea and Wes would find a way. Every person had to do their part to stitch together the patchwork mess that was this battle.

Without the Scarecrows…immense loss seemed inevitable.

A battle, came the cool, detached voice of Wes’s father, is a testing ground of miracles. He who has the last miracle wins.

Wes remembered that he’d stared at his father, bewildered. After all, Lord Roland Geppett had been known for his calculating mind, his unflinching brutality, his use of position and intelligence and strategy to seize victory. He’d been the last man to leave things to chance, to gods, to any factor outside his control.

And yet he’d only repeated his assertion, watching Wes closely.

A battle is not always a matching of wits. Nor a matching of resources. Wits and resources tip the scales, of course. But the final verdict is always made on miracles.

Miracles, Father? young Wes had said with a frown.

Yes. Lord Geppett’s gaze had grown distant. Sometimes, one man faces down one hundred. By all laws of mathematics, he should lose. But sometimes, he seizes a miracle, and he wins.

Like Aster Arthus with Excalibur!

Perhaps. The winning factor could be as simple as a magic sword. Lord Geppett had cracked a grim smile. But usually, it is something much more hidden. Much more unpredictable.

Wes returned to the present. He was often at odds with his father. They’d gotten into many a bitter fight and were barely on speaking terms. But he knew that Lord Geppett was right about one thing.

The battle wasn’t over until every last possible miracle was exhausted.

Wes gently pulled Azalea upright and tipped her chin. “We have to take down the nest some other way, ’Zalie,” he said. He hoped he sounded just as clear and confident as his father. “They need us to.”

Azalea’s eyes went wide, green irises as clear as a meadow. “But…but we’re not strong fighters. We can’t.”

Can or can’t had no place in the debate. They had to, simple as that.

So. If someone destroyed the nest without using raw power, how could Wes see it being done?

“We need immense explosive force,” Wes said slowly, beginning to pace in rhythm with his spinning mind. “If we don’t have enough mana, then it has to come from an external source. I doubt there’s an explosive or ballistic that’s safe or easily accessible, Warmongers would have used it by now. Then what do we have available?”

He looked at the ground.

“Nothing volcanic to use,” he muttered.

He looked around. The staggering ocean walls loomed up, still as glass, eerily silent.

“Bringing the ocean down would mean destroying the Kardeia, which would drown everyone in the country.”

He looked upward at the open sky.

“Gravity,” he mused aloud. “Drop something. How do we get it high up? Plant mana, growing…ah. Root displacement.”

Azalea’s eyes flickered over his face, searching. “Do you mean…we have to find something huge to drop on the tree?”

Wes felt a trickle of that cold clarity seep into him as he straightened his shoulders. Despite himself, he loved this. The thrill of a kernel of an idea taking root.

“Not quite,” he said. His voice gained steel, strength. “We’ll take a page from the Senator’s book. We’ll drop the tree itself.”

Azalea squeaked in surprise, but she only nodded, her eyes shining with wonder and hope.

You are drawn to the battlefield, whispered the echo of his father’s voice. It’s in your blood.

I am not, Father.

Yet all you have invented is weaponry.

He pushed the voice away. Now was not the time to be fighting any inner demons.

There were plenty of outer ones to worry about.

Halcyon gaped as Xiph’s bestial form plunged into Rathos, shredding at his body as if it were a piece of meat.

Her Warmonger form had grown more inhuman since he’d last seen it. The draconian tail that lashed behind her had grown from a stub to a full serpentine coil, barbed end jutting like a spear. Her eyes were bleeding pits of black, barely illuminated by slits of reptilian red pupils. Two horns curled back from her temples like a noble crown. And with every movement, her skin gleamed with the sheen of a thousand iridescent micro-scales, ready to seal up any injury—of which she had already suffered many, going by the tattered rags of her once lavish clothing.

Her lengthened claws tore through Rathos’s protective shell of a bone cage and dug straight into his chest. His unearthly shriek resounded in Halcyon’s skull as she wrenched it away, black blood and viscera fountaining out of the cavity she left.

Rathos lashed back. Gone were his distant, almost bored airs. His abyssal limbs contorted as he struck her with a flurry of blows, too fast to track. The bone cage unfurled from his body, twining around him like a serpent, snapping at Xiph’s ankles as if it were a summoned beast. Sharp spurs dug into her shoulder and thigh and tore out chunks of her flesh. Blood scattered over the ground like rain.

She screamed, dissonant and heavy, like glass shrieking over a lake of metal. The sound raked up Halcyon’s spine.

A battle between turned senators was just as horrifying and brutal as he’d feared.

“So,” came Actaeon’s voice from next to him, and Halcyon senses the boy peering curiously at him, “how do you suggest we help the domina without accidentally stabbing her and turning her on us?”

Was he not disturbed by the violence? Surely Xiph turning wasn’t common. Her Warmonger form was small, reserved—no grand weapons or eldritch extra appendages. She wasn’t yet too far gone into miasma, and that only came from the discipline to use her powers very sparingly.

Well, maybe the kid wasn’t worried because he thought she had it completely under control. Which wasn’t particularly accurate. Every moment Xiph spent as the Warmonger was another step to never coming back.

“We shouldn’t engage,” Halcyon said. “Xiph is too unpredictable. It’s more likely that we’ll injure her or impede her.”

“Then what, we leave her to fight alone?”

“Of course not.” Halcyon looked to the floating islands suspended on vines and tree boughs, to the ground riddled with Rathos’s root system, to the nearby abyssal blooms feeding Rathos more mana. “We try to fix the field in her favor. Kid, you take down the islands. I’ll find out what’s behind the flowers.”

“What?” Actaeon yelped. “How do I just—take down an island?”

“You’re creative. I’m sure you’ll think of something.”

“It’s an island!” Actaeon called, but Halcyon was already springstepping away, scanning the ground for clues.

He landed at an intersection where the stone and sand of the Amphitheater had shattered, giving way to a mess of mulch and tangled vines. A cluster of venomous flowers, each one large enough to consume a man, bloomed vicariously over the plant mass. These must have been the blossoms that Korone had tried to cull, to little gain.

Now that he was looking at it himself, he understood the problem. The flowers weren’t a source of power, but a symptom. Wherever their roots lay was the true contender; the blossoms themselves were powerless.

Behind him, Xiph released another banshee-like shriek. Some kind of concussive blast shattered a giant decorative pillar, bringing heaps of rubble down on Rathos head. He was driven to the ground with a hollow scream that rang painfully in Halcyon’s skull.

Well, at least he’s distracted.

Halcyon jabbed his glaive at an angle beneath the roots of the man-sized flower. Little roots crawled out of the soil to entangle his shoes and dig into his legs on instinct, but they were not honed by Rathos’s focus. He shook them off easily. Then, with a quiet breath, he shoved a burst of water mana into the soil.

Water sloshed as the packed earth dislodged, showing a glimpse of what the flower’s roots had found. Faint blue light, ingrained into the ground in orderly geometric lines, peeked through the myriad web of soil and green stems.

Opalite veins?

It made sense. Opalite made for an effective magical conduit, like Airlean mana quartz. A network of it threaded through the city to power the mana lamps, aquaponics, water treatments, and countless other facilities. The raw ore was bountiful near abyssal trenches and one of Atlantis’s core resources. If Rathos had managed to infect the opalite network, then he could sap its power.

Halcyon channeled a rushing current of water that smashed the blossom’s roots from the bottom up, flinging their prying green fingers away from the opalite. Satisfied with his work, he springstepped across the Amphitheater in search of another flower.

He caught sight of Actaeon breathing hard and leaning on his halberd; just a few feet beyond lay the remains of a huge dirt pile mixed with rubble that must have once been a floating island.

“I knew you could do it, kid,” Halcyon called to the boy.

Actaeon reddened—though whether from anger or pride, Halcyon couldn’t tell.

“Could you stop calling me ‘kid?’” the kid said. “You could at least go for ‘Champion Leventis.’”

“Too long for the battlefield. What about ‘Champ?’”

“Alright, now you’re just being mean.”

Halcyon’s lips quirked. For all his overconfidence, the kid had a good nature and let jibes roll off him with relative ease.

“Since you’ve worked so hard and brought down an island in the sky,” he said, “I’ll call you what you want. What’ll it be?”

The boy sighed. “Just call me Tae. My friends do, anyway.”

“Oh, we’re friends already? How nice.”

“You—” Tae pointed accusingly at him. “I bet you’re fifty-three behind that mask, hiding a sparse beard and a forehead full of wrinkles!”

Halcyon nearly laughed. “Age is an insult, now, is it?”

“Well, I…” Tae trailed off. “No one wants to be fifty-three and wrinkly.”

Fifty-three wasn’t wrinkly, and even if it was, most Hunters wouldn’t mind living to that age. But they were running out of time for banter. Halcyon jerked his chin upward. “Next island. Go on.”

Tae balked. “It—it took most of my mana to take down the first.”

“You’re creative. I’m sure you’ll find a method that uses less mana.”

“You can’t just sweet-talk into getting your way!”

But for all Tae’s huffing and protesting, he darted obediently to the next island. Halcyon felt an unexpected pang of sadness. It was…fun, taking up arms side by side with his little brother, falling into a rhythm that almost felt like they’d grown up together. And yet, they hadn’t. How many years with Tae had he lost? What memories would they have made that would never come to pass?

Maybe none. The Leventis Arbiters hadn’t exactly lived the idyllic family life. Between the children divided and pitted against each other, desperately vying for approval of the Elect and their venerated father the Arbiter Sovereign, perhaps he and Tae would have grown up hating each other. The politics of the estate had grown as tangled and merciless as an imperial court.

Either way, it was probably too late to say anything. A long-lost family member strolling back into one’s life was a heavy disruption. Tae knew nothing about Halcyon’s true identity; Xiph had clearly concealed it, and intended to keep it that way.

Halcyon shook the moment of gloom away. He was dwelling far too much on could-have-beens and might-haves lately. Such brooding would help no one. His path had split from Tae’s, from Atlantis’s, long ago.

The most he could do for the boy now was keep his path unimpeded, and stay out of his life.

Wes had seen fortifications uprooted by a single tenacious plant.

It was a surprisingly common occurrence, especially in Airlea, where the land flourished with bountiful mana. Trees worked their root systems or saplings underneath structures. As they grew, they destroyed roads, foundations, any infrastructure within reach. Sometimes, in the abandoned outer settlements of Airlea, they lifted entire houses and towers until thatched huts raised like tree branches, extending straw hands to the sky.

Plant mana had none of the immediate, showy explosiveness of other elements, like fire or wind or lightning. But that didn’t make it any less powerful.

Wes turned to Azalea. “I’m going to try to redirect the root system beneath the nest’s tree,” he explained, “and lift it up into a floating island so we can drop it.”

Azalea’s eyes went even wider. “That takes a lot of mana.”

“Normally, yes. But the senator’s influence means that this entire area is practically bursting with plant mana. I mean—his mana is a blend of both abyssal and plant, but it’s still enriching the soil, which I can use.”

He frowned lightly at the tangle of boughs and branches overhead. Dollops of silver cocoons winked at him with luminescent light.

“There are two problems with my strategy,” he mused. “First, I have to get…kind of close to the tree.”

Azalea’s fingers gripped her starshooter a little tighter. “How close?”

“Close enough for the nest to know and for us to get attacked by whatever corruptions are lying in wait. Second, I…” He squinted up at the tree that seemed impossibly large and sturdy. “I don’t know if the drop will actually do enough damage to eliminate the nest entirely. I only have a single chance. Then the senator will know what we’re up to for sure.”

He was surprised by the sudden grip of Azalea’s hand on his shoulder. “It’ll work,” she said without a single tremor of doubt. “And if it doesn’t, you’ll think of something else.”

She always believed in him with such unfailing conviction, and it always warmed a hollow spot in his chest. He felt color in his cheeks as he coughed lightly and said, “Well, yes, I can certainly try.”

Wes and Azalea crept closer to the flourishing abyssal tree. Up close, it exuded a fog of dread that laid on his skin like filth. He shivered and glanced around for any signs of hostile corruptions. Nothing seemed to be moving.

“That’s strange,” Azalea whispered. “Shouldn’t a place like this be teeming with beasts?”

“You don’t sense any?”

“If there are, they’re not moving. Everywhere has a lot of this…sick kind of mana. It gathers in the treetops and then pulls into the soil, through the roots.”

“That’s probably how the senator is getting a good amount of his power.”

“But from what? The sun’s not out. Even if it were, Senator Vathalos’s mana doesn’t feel related to sunlight at all. It’s dark, and sharp. And very, very ancient.”

Wes frowned. It was a good question. On a different day, he would’ve investigated further, intrigued by the mana in harmony that the Observatorium had always thought incompatible. Abyssal and plant. Perhaps there were combinations of mana previously thought impossible…or perhaps there were dark origins of the senators’ special powers that went against the very fabric of nature.

It was unfortunately a hypothesis he had no time to test.

Wes began pulling together threads of plant mana into one large tapestry. It was easy. Everything around him was thick with plant mana, almost as if he were submerged in an ocean of it. The threads came docilely to him, and he knew he could knit cords the size of tree trunks with the same effort it took to lift a pinky.

The problem would not be mana—it would be control. Rathos was a much stronger influence than a simple human like Wes, and could easily dominate Wes’s Forms if he focused. More than speed, Wes needed stealth.

He needed to be unnoticed until it was too late.

Wes focused on pulling those threads faster, quieter. Threads became braids. Braids coiled together into rope. Rope wove and knotted into an invisible loom that braced the tree’s enormous root system, ready to grow skyward.

“Wes,” came Azalea’s tremulous voice from next to him, “I think corruptions are stirring.”

“Mm,” was the only noise he could manage, too focused on his work.

“I’ll protect you.”

I know, he wanted to say, but couldn’t quite.

No sooner had she uttered such a thing, vines swept down and cracked towards Wes’s head and small abyssal forms lunged from the shadows. He vaguely heard the familiar whirr-thwoom of Azalea’s starshooter quickly winding up and expelling a firebolt, followed by a th-th-thunk of three avian bodies nailed in one shot.

The sound was…unexpectedly comforting. Wes returned to his task of knitting together the loom of plant threads beneath the tree, readying the soil.

More firebolts soared, swift and precise. He felt the warmth of one graze just by his ear and a spray of some blood over the back of his neck. The corruptions were getting closer, harder for her to fend off.

“Wes,” Azalea’s voice said from next to him, “I think we have to retreat.”

The loom was done, but Wes hadn’t actually pulled it upward yet. The tree was standing strong, not ascended a single inch.

For a second, Wes was struck with indecision. He hated putting Azalea in danger. And danger it was—he trusted her judgment, and her judgment was saying that she could no longer hold the line. But if they failed here—the other two parties were throwing themselves at the remaining nests, burning every resource they could for just one more chance at victory, relying on Wes’s success as much as he relied on theirs.

What would happen if they lost their only opportunity to stop the corrupted senator? What destruction would he rage across Atlantis, already struggling to patch together the rags of its decorated history?

“I-I—” He tried to bite the stammer out of his tongue. “Alright…yes. We’re no help if we’re dead. We retreat.”

He drew to his feet, which was harder than he thought it would be; concentrated mana work took a toll on him, and a part of his focus was still holding that loom together. He felt Azalea’s arm hook under his, supporting him. He stumbled away, half-blind as the shadows buzzed with gathering creatures and building mana, angry at their intrusion.

“Wes!” Azalea suddenly shrieked.

Two hands shoved him hard, sending him tumbling to the earth. He turned, alarmed—just in time to see grey vines snap down from the sky and strike right where he’d been. Except it wasn’t him.

The last he saw of Azalea was her thin, pale face as the vines wrapped around her and enfolded her into a silken cocoon. The cocoon dragged away, hoisting her upwards to the tree’s canopy.

“’Zalie!”

The scream that left his lips did not sound like it came from a human. The tinny echo of it thundered in Wes’s ears as he dove forward, carving his sword down without hesitation. The point of it just reached the outer layer of the cocoon, but the silk only bulged, reforming again. The cocoon pulled up out of his reach.

Wes saw Azalea’s starshooter dropped on the ground, took it up, and fired. The bolt plunged deep into the stalk holding the cocoon, and the fire mana burned, charring it. He pressed the trigger again. But it locked, a pin-sized light on the barrel glowing red. The mana instability was too high to fire again. He didn’t have Azalea’s capacity for Stabilizing.

With a cry of frustration, Wes threw the useless weapon onto the ground. He blazed his manawell, flinging desperate halfway Forms at the cocoon—brambles and briars, thorned whips, root spears, each more futile than the last. Plant mana did nothing to Rathos’s ironclad nest. When Wes tried to reach in his manawell and convert, spin some of that energy into fire, he felt an ache in his chest, then a cold snap, as if the element was rejecting him.

He had the wrong talents for this. He needed to be a fire manacrafter.

No, no, no, I can’t lose her.

Asters, gods, stars. He was going to lose her. His Azalea. What would happen to her? Would the life bleed out of her, drop by drop, until she knew nothing but hollow, miserable pain? Would she mutate into a corruption that he’d have to strike down? He wouldn’t, couldn’t let that happen.

Something. Anything!

Wes looked around frantically for salvation as the silver dollop of that cocoon retreated into the giant tree, nearly winking out of existence—

—and then, a line of metal sliced right through the stalk, severing the cocoon in a whisper.

Wes blinked. The cocoon was plummeting hard to the ground. Quickly, he knit a web of soft vines to catch it and brace its impact.

A shadow flitted in the corner of his eye. When a figure landed next to him with light footsteps, he didn’t startle.

“Two children alone on the battlefield,” the figure said. A woman’s voice, rich and beautiful as silk. “Little Xiphia’s desperation has sunk to a new low, I see.”

Wes turned and bowed deeply. His limbs were still shaking hard with adrenaline.

“Thank you,” he choked. “For saving my friend’s life.”

There was a pause as the woman evaluated him. “See to your lover,” she commanded. “Leave this to us.”

Wes finally looked up at her.

It took him a long moment to place the face—it was so different without the sheets of paint and kohl and rouge, without thick layers of jewelry and boundless silks. Dressed in plain, sharp black, her hair loosely tied back, the lower half of her bare face shrouded in a veil, was Irene Cnidea Zorbea, Senator of the Lover. She’d been a monarch caught between butterflies and jellyfish last time Wes had seen her. Now, she was a sharp shadow, lightning on the edge of a harpoon, refined to slice through the night. The massive longbow in her hands was dark as obsidian, decorative black roses twining around the arched limbs. A long arrow was already nocked, though she made no motion to draw.

“Lady Senator,” Wes stammered. “What are…I mean, we thought…”

She placed her finger to her lips. “Quickly. Or your sweetheart’s condition shall worsen.”

He trembled as he sliced open the cocoon and gathered Azalea in his arms, sponging blood and sap off her with leaves. He’d heard stories aplenty of the Lover’s cunning and ruthless subterfuge, but he wouldn’t debate a miracle.

“I—I’ve Formed a root system under the tree,” he said, grasping for his composure. “I think I can raise it. And then drop it for a sudden impact.”

“Good. Wait for my signal, then. We strike together.”

She whistled. It was a piercing, sweeping melody, like the call of a songbird. Trees rustled and branches cracked as a fleet of shadows emerged from the undergrowth and darted into the skies.

Bowmen. Nearly a hundred of them. Sheathed in rippling black dresses, long knives strapped to their thighs, arrows nocked and waiting. Wes watched as the bowmen vaulted easily around the overgrown terrain, deftly firing arrows in the middle of their acrobatics, always keeping distance from the abyssal creatures that snapped at their heels. Every so often, wind mana covered them like a shroud, and they blinked from one place to another, impossible to pin down.

These had to be the Night’s Devoted, the Lover’s personal cohort of elite warriors. Wes had expected them to be deadly, but not so graceful, so performative, as if they were dancers on a stage more than soldiers in a war.

Irene disappeared into the crowd of her Devoted, and bowstrings sang as arrows found their mark in the abyssal creatures. Wes took a moment to breathe deeply until his shaking hands finally began to still. He fought back tears as he fired his windsoles, carrying Azalea to the borders of the battlefield.

Fool! He’d nearly gotten her killed with the arrogance that his half-baked plan would work. How could he have forgotten his father’s first lesson in tactics? Always appear as if you have the upper hand, but never truly believe that you do. The greatest thief of victories, Roland Geppett had said, was always overconfidence.

Wes was an ingeniator. He should have plotted for contingencies.

He tried to massage warmth back into Azalea’s hands, soaking in the feeling of her being in his arms, alive, safe. He wanted nothing more than to dive into her biosystem and repair any damage to her manawell…but the job wasn’t done. There was still something he could do.

“I’ll be right back,” he whispered, pressing his lips to her forehead. “Hang in there, ’Zalie. Please.”

He reached for a pouch at his belt and took out a smooth, fist-sized stone with red veins. He flung it down, shattering it on the ground. Embers dashed from the broken stone, and a piercing flare crackled as it shot straight up, sparks skittering from its comet head. Its light pierced the night sky above like a star.

The signal had been launched. It was time for all three nests to fall. Wes only hoped the others were ready.

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