I land hard in the center of the camp, boots striking earth beside the last burning pyre. Smoke coils up around me, wrapping my armor in shifting shadow. I wait, eyes sweeping over the maze of tents, expecting the Legion to flood from them in waves of steel and fury. But nothing moves. Nothing breathes.
My jaw tightens.
Across the clearing, I catch Orios’s gaze, the same unease written on his face. We Mordorin are no strangers to victory, but this kind of surrender is not in our enemy’s nature.
I storm toward the nearest tent and rip the canvas flap aside. Empty. No soldiers. No sound. Only a single candle burning low, its flame barely clinging to life. I move to the next tent, and the next. All the same.
“Rook!” Orios calls out as I step from another tent. “There is no one here.”
My fists clench. I tear off my helm and suck in a ragged breath, smoke burning my throat.
“Zyphoro!” My voice cracks the night, raw and sharp, carrying all the guilt, all the grief I have buried for centuries, the thousand apologies I owe her for the life she lost. “Where are you?”
The wind steals the echo, and silence answers me again.
The Blades scour the camp, tearing through every corner, but the only sign of the Legion are our prisoners. The rest are gone. Vanished.
Orios finds me again, eyes cutting across the emptiness. “Why does she not answer? Why doesn’t she void walk? What could these humans possibly do to contain her?”
He’s right. Nothing in this realm could silence Zyphoro. Nothing mortal.
“I’ll ask them myself,” I snarl.
In a single bound I clear half the encampment, landing hard on the wall platform, wood splintering beneath me. I seize a Legion lookout by the collar and haul him into the air, his body limp, his head lolling.
“Wake up,” I boom. When he doesn’t stir, I shake him until his teeth rattle. “I said wake up!”
His eyes snap open and the moment he sees me, terror floods his face. His hands claw at my wrist as he realizes I’m holding him over the edge.
“Where is Zyphoro Phaedren?” I snarl, my voice cracking like thunder. My eyes blaze white, the shadows bending away from me. “Where is my sister?”
“I will tell you nothing,” he hisses through gritted teeth, though fear threads every syllable. “I would rather die.”
“Oh, you will die,” I growl, my fist closing in the collar of his shirt until the weave groans. “But not soon. Not quick. It will be long and slow. I will cut through each layer of your soft flesh, pull out what should stay inside and lay it beside you so you canseethe horror with your own eyes. Then I will sew you back and start again. Is that what you mean when you say you would rather die?”
His eyes brim, his lip trembles. Heat crawls up my throat as I watch piss soak dark through his trousers and drip onto the camp below.
“Where is Zyphoro?” I ask again.
Those horrified, watery eyes flick to the monstrous banner at the camp’s center. I follow his gaze to the Legion of Saints flag, red cloth, golden crossed swords framed by praying hands and feel the bile rise.
I shake him. “You lie!” I snarl.
“No!” he keens. “Please. She’s there, I swear it! Under the banner.”
His words bring no comfort, only a fresh, blade-sharp ache. If she lies beneath that flag, why is she silent? Why is she still?
I fling him aside, not over the platform but hard enough that he slams into the wooden wall and collapses into a damp, pathetic ball of sobs.
My wings snap free, and I charge the banner, landing at its base. I crane my neck and stare up into the shadowed folds, every muscle coiled. Still, I cannot see her. The human’s confession tastes like ash in my mouth. I will find his tongue, rip out his lies, and make him swallow them whole.
Then I see a thick mast of wood, rough and splintered, with a crossbeam nailed through its middle. The banner hangs from it, heavy and crimson. My heart goes still.
I reach out, grab a fistful of the fabric, twist it tight around my hand. For a breath, I can’t move. Then I pull. The banner tears free with a rip, the red sheet catching the wind as it falls away.
Revealing Zyphoro.
Her arms are chained to the cross, her legs lashed to the post, and around her throat gleams a silver collar.
