Page 139 of Sokâr

She nodded. “We will depart.”

She wrapped her shawl tighter about her shoulders as the unusually frigid air stole her breath. The sacred flames in the corner guttered, despite no draft. One went out entirely. Auryn raised her hands and cast through the focus rune on her wrist, relighting it without a word.

“Let us go quickly. The darkness is upon us.”

They did not make it a hundred paces before her heart faltered.

Something was wrong.

The air shifted. Stripped, as if something with violent intent had passed through it. A silence swept the street, not heavy, butwatchful. Auryn’s feet slowed. She turned her head, sensing — not a presence, but an absence. A pause in the breath of the city.

Her Reskala didn’t speak, but their tension thrummed, runes already hissing. Preparing.

Behind her, a torch guttered once.

Then the wind changed.

Sharp. Unnatural.

Her Reskala tensed and drew their blades when she stopped and raised her hands, prepared to cast. These men had guarded her for months, and they’d learned to trust her instincts.

Auryn’s head snapped up as a shriek echoed across the open latticeway — a predatory cry, birdlike and furious. The sound drew forth the image of the Moores. Its clear skies. Birds flying above then diving with deadly precision to attack their prey.

Voices shouted in a language Auryn didn’t fully understand, but the syllables spurred her into action.

“Gliders,” she warned, instantly casting a ward around her guards.

They come. Feathers and death.

“They attack from above,” she bit out, ignoring the voice. “Raise your shields. Ready runes for aerial projectiles.”

That won’t be enough. Not with only four little runes at your side.

Night smothered the alleyways in darkness, and even with Auryn’s wards lighting the surroundings, none of them heard their attackers until it was too late.

The sound was like leather beating on drums. Powerful massive wings descended on the five of them, and at the heart — Glider warriors dressed in feathers, steel, and war paint. Golden eyes blazing, they gave a sundering battle cry as they dove from above. Legs first, muscular thighs taut,and feet booted in leather crowned with sharp spikes in the shape of bird talons.

The first Reskala barely had time to raise his blade. A blur of dark feathers and silver metal slammed into his chest from above, shattering Auryn’s ward like it was nothing. The Glider’s curved glaive pierced through bone with an audiblecrack, and the Reskala crumpled, his blood fanning across the ground in a grotesque arc as he was cut in half.

Auryn shouted, but the second and third Reskala were already moving, blades drawn.

She tried a larger shield.

Too slow.

The Glider moved impossibly fast, her braids trailing behind her like inky black smoke.

Another dropped from the sky, blade glinting. The second Reskala raised his shield—and it split in half under the blow of a serrated spear. Auryn ducked as the dying cry of her guard filled the air, his throat torn open with one clean slice.

"Death to the Veilweaver!" one of the attackers screamed in a guttural accent, brown wings flaring wide behind her like a shadowed sunburst.

Auryn’s breath caught. Panic tried to rise, but she stamped it down. She turned to run —

The third Reskala leapt between her and the incoming blade, roaring as it lodged deep into his chest with a sickeningcrunch.

His eyes met hers, wide and blood-filled, just before he collapsed against her. She screamed as his weight knocked her down. She fell hard, the back of her head cracking on the cobblestone. His sticky red blood sprayed across her face, her chest, her arms. It soaked into her clothes. Still hot with life.

She pushed him off with shaking hands. Surged to her feet. Cast fire. Threw it behind her, but didn’t hear the shouting.