He glanced at the farther tower where he’d left Auryn sleeping hours before.
It was warded. Shielded.
Forgive me, my starlight. I promised to call for you, yet here I fight alone.
His thoughts shattered when the ground beneath his feet suddenly growled and shook. Not from the explosions above, but from something else entirely.
“Rift!” someone screamed. “Rift in the mess hall!”
Everyone’s heads snapped to the shout, but the Gliders didn’t stop. They kept fighting, their eyes focused only on slaughter and annihilation. Kailorien didn’t dare to pause now. Didn’t dare to stop the motion of his blade or the storm of his magic.
Around him was a swath of bodies—burned, crushed, ripped open, melted. Yet more came. The courtyard drowned in smoke, wings, blades, and raking talons.
He caught one Glider by the throat, bones crunching under his grip. With a single twist, the neck snapped like dry wood. He flung the corpse into a line of attackers surrounding Zarrek. The body cracked with building magic as he hurled it, bursting mid-air into a concussive blast. Warriors howled as they were thrown like stones across the ground; their wings and bodies shredded.
The shockwave slammed into Zarrek, who braced behind his axe. He grinned through the smoke, even as more attackers swarmed. “There’s my Resh’Agar!” he called.
The Reskala cheered like zealots, drunk on the blood he spilled, chanting—Resh! Resh! Resh! Resh!—until the battle swallowed them again. Even beyond. They screamed it through blood, through broken teeth, even as wings cut them down. Worship that did not falter, even in death.
It built and built and built, the men drawing courage from his legend, from his name in Doctrine. A final prayer to the Arm of the Void. A eulogy bathed in screams and frenzy.
“Resh! Resh! Resh! Resh!”
The same chant they’d roared in gilded processions back home now mirrored here—their final cry as they sank into the Void.
And still…your thoughts are only for the star locked in the tower…bathe in their blood, Iridias…drown in their chants…this is what you…what we were made for…
Kailorien gritted his teeth, pushing the voice back, fighting the searing pain at the nape of his neck. The madness wanted out. The scene of death and carnage tempted. Cloying. Beckoning.
The next wave of attackers melted as they stepped too close. No time to scream. No time to raise their weapons. Only a sudden silence as the Vargrún howled and sent a tidal wave of crimson light outwards past the courtyard walls. Bodies sloughed apart where they stood, armor sagging over powdered bone.
For a moment, the other Gliders balked, their fierce eyes wide. Their wings flaring at the violence, at the Reskala’s worship of it.
“It’s him! Resh’Agar!” they shouted.
“Skycleaver!” they screamed—the name they had spat in warning, in curses, in stories of wings torn from the sky. Here, at last, they saw the truth of it. And even warriors bred for war faltered.
“Bring down the Skycleaver!”
His Second turned, a smile on his face, just as Thessia barreled into another Glider diving down on him from above. She sliced off his entire wing mid-jump, then whirled and landed on his chest. He spewed blood, hissing a curse at her as she collapsed his throat with her armored heel.
“RIFT!” the scream came again.
“It’s inside the damn walls!” Zarrek shouted. “Get in there, Resh! The men can’t hold the hounds!”
“We’ll take the courtyard!” Thessia cried.
The ground quaked. The air clapped with a deafening sound. The winds shifted, pausing as though the world was taking a breath.
And then everything spiraled into death as the shrieks of varkhounds echoed. Kailorien pivoted, slapping his hand to his thigh and drawing deep from Raido. The air around him condensed. He drew back, then with a thunderclap, he surged forward, flying like an azure blur.
Toward the hounds.
Toward the screams.
Toward the rift.
36
