“Fly,” I command, Vör’tha pulsing on my hand.
The stallion leaps into the air.
Behind us, the fortress fell away.
The air strikes me like a blow. Cold, merciless, tearing breath from my lungs. My thighs burn as I cling to Astenos' massive frame, every muscle screaming with effort. My hands tangle in his mane, gripping so hard the coarse strands cut my palms. Wind roars in my ears, ripping at my hair, stinging my eyes until I can barely see. Tears freeze on my lashes. The world blurs—black sky above, shards of fire below.
I try to breathe, but the frost scours my chest raw. My jaw locks against a scream, teeth gritted so hard my head aches. The glow of Astenos’s wings is blinding. White fire arches with their every thunderous beat, trailing sparks that fall like stars. It makes the dark seem deeper, swallowing the fortress into void.
I press low against his neck, my heart hammering.Hold on. Don’t fall. Don’t let go!
The courtyard comes into view in fragments—through smoke, through tears, through bursts of light from shattering wards. Below, the people look small, like beads upon a checkerboard. Screams and shouting. Magefire and spraying blood. Wings, talons, glaives, and shields.
And there—
Kailorien.
I see him for an instant. Crimson waves tearing outward. Gliders dissolving into ash before his unleashed fury. Reskala chanting—Resh! Resh! Resh! Resh!—even as the Gliders mow them down.
I open my mouth to shout, but cold wind silencesme.
Kailorien!
A scream splits the air, ragged and desperate.
“RIFT! RIFT!”
I twist, eyes locking on a nearby wall as it tears open. A jagged wound in reality, spilling shadow and shrieks, broken bones, warped limbs, and glowing eyes. Varkhounds pour out in a tide of black slimy ichor, running at full tilt, destroying everything in their path.
Every pulse in my body demands to reach Kailorien. But my hands wrench tighter on Astenos’s mane.
“To the Rift!” I gasp, voice breaking.
Vör’tha sings between my fingers. The war-steed obeys, wings snapping with a deafening gust as he veers away from the Bond, carrying me straight toward the abyss.
Toward the breach.
Toward the wound in the world that only I can close.
37
Starborn’s Lament
The Rift howled, black ichor spilling varkhounds into the fortress by the dozen. Kailorien’s blade split skulls, his runes screaming in his bones, the chant ofResh! Resh! Resh!beat like war-drums in his ears.
Reskala fell in waves, torn open beneath claws and riven light. Blood blackened the cobblestones, and still their voices rose above the din—raw, ragged, unbroken.
“Resh! Resh! Resh! Resh!”
The chant had carried them through every battle, every slaughter for the last nineteen years. It was the cry of Krystopolis, of the Doctrine itself, and they flung it into the Void now, even as their throats filled with blood.
And with a cacophony of voices, the Rift answered.
From the throats of the varkhounds came the same cry—perfect, guttural mimicry, as though the dying prayers had taught the beasts a hymn.
“Ressssh…Resssssh…Resssssh…”
Misshapen. Warped. Echoed back in the tones of men devoured even as they called their gods. The wails rolled through the battlefield in a distorted chorus—courage stripped to mockery, a blasphemy flung against the Destroyer and his faithful.
