Someone kicked the knife out of Vlora’s hand. She was grasped by the hair, her head jerked backward. She tried to stab the arm with her knife, then remembered it was no longer in her fingers. The feeble thrust of her empty hand was battered away. A foot planted itself in her gut, flipping her onto her back.
The pain meant very little through her powder trance. She wanted to laugh at them, that mental match still poised above all that powder nearby, but she couldn’t quite summon the energy. I’m dying, she realized. She managed to get to her knees, the single action taking an eternity. Hands in her lap, she stared up at the dragoon who gazed down at her over the point of a sword.
She wished she could have spent one last night with Olem before she died. She wished that she could tell him once more that she loved him.
“She’s gone,” the dragoon said, tapping the side of Vlora’s face with his sword. “Look at her eyes. We can take her back to the general, but I doubt she’ll survive the trip.”
“I’m not so sure. Look at her. She’s cut to ribbons, but she’s still fighting.”
Vlora wanted to scoff. Other than her hand and foot, she’d barely been scratched. She let her head roll around, looking down at her body, before realizing that it was far from the truth. She’d been shot at least four times. Her shirt didn’t even exist anymore, and her chest and thighs were a patchwork of bloody cuts that she hadn’t even noticed in her bloodlust.
“Just take her head,” someone said. “No need for the body.”
The dragoon pointed his sword between Vlora’s eyes, then raised it to one side with both hands. “It seems a pity,” he said.
Vlora reached out with that mental match, using the last of her strength, only for nothing to happen. She blinked, surprised, then let out a resigned sigh. Her sorcerous well had run completely dry. There was nothing left to give. No final detonation, no blaze of glory. She licked the blood off her lips and tried to smile at her executioner.
The dragoon frowned. Blood began to run down his face, and it took Vlora several seconds to realize that a perfectly formed icicle had sprouted from his forehead. Odd, that. There’s no ice in Fatrasta in the summer. Icicles rained down, slicing through the remaining dragoons before any of them could raise their swords.
Am I already dead? she wondered. Is this the final fantasy that my body tells me before I give up the ghost?
Something strange crept across the ground. At first, she thought it was a wave washing over the road. It certainly looked like a wave, but no water had ever been that shade of blue. A woman strode past her, hair tight in braids over both shoulders, wearing an immaculate crimson dress in the Adran style. She was wreathed in the same blue that washed over the ground, and Vlora realized that they were flames. They washed over and past that woman with a heat that hurt Vlora’s face and barely even sizzled when it touched off the powder of dead infantrymen.
Dynize soldiers tried to run, but were consumed in moments, their bodies turned to ash where they stood. Vlora fixed her gaze on the woman, wondering who she was, though a part of her brain told her that she knew that figure well. Her eyes fell to the woman’s hands, and the blue flame that sparked from them without gloves.
“You don’t look so well, sister,” a voice said.
Vlora tried to turn her head and found that she could not. Someone stepped around her, into her field of vision, and leaned close. Gloved hands touched her face gently, and the countenance of a man in his early thirties with auburn hair and curly sideburns smiled at her grimly.
“Borbador,” Vlora whispered. “Are you dead, too?”
“Not last I checked.”
“You must be. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here to meet me on the other side.”
Borbador gently slapped Vlora’s cheek. “Stay with me here, my darling sister. You’re not on the other side yet and I’d really rather you not head there when I’ve just arrived.”
“You can’t be here,” Vlora protested. “I only sent for you a month ago.”
“You think you’re the only one who can write a letter? Taniel told me over a year ago that the Dynize intended to invade. I’ve been raising an army. Look, I can tell you about it later. I just need you to stay awake until Nila finishes mopping up a few brigades. It’s going to take the two of us to keep you alive.”
Vlora felt herself shaking, her powder trance unable to hold off the pain any longer. She trembled and wept, wishing any of this was real, knowing that it was the wishful hopes of a dying mind. “I missed you, Bo. I wish I could really say good-bye to you.”
“Shush now,” Borbador said, pulling Vlora’s head against his chest. “Your family has come for you.”
EPILOGUE
Styke stood at the top of one of the remaining towers of the Starlight citadel, leaning on the stone battlements as he slowly carved a horse from a bit of pine. His left hand still had a twinge from the firing squad despite two rounds of sorcerous healing over the last few months, and the pine slipped in his hand a few times as he worked. He sucked away the blood each time, enjoying the biting feel of the tiny cuts.
“I’m getting too big for wooden horses,” Celine told him, dangling her feet off the edge of the tower.
“Who said I’m making it for you?”
“You always make them for me.”
Styke held the horse up to the light, then shaved a bit more wood off each of the back legs. “You’re an ungrateful little brat, you know that?”
Celine swung her legs around and crossed the tower to kiss him on the cheek, before returning to her spot. “You’re getting better with the knife.”
“Sorcerous healing will do that.”
“I thought you said practice makes you better?”
“I used to be quite good at carving things,” Styke answered, blowing wood shavings off the back of his hand. “I had to relearn how to do it with a crippled hand and a dull knife. Come to think of it, having something sharp on hand makes things a lot easier, too.” He took the horse and walked over to Celine, holding it in two fingers and riding it across her shoulder, then holding it in front of her eyes. “What breed is he?”
“He is a she,” Celine said pointedly. “And she’s a Gurlish draft horse.”
Styke frowned at the carving. “I was aiming for a Starlish draft, but it does look more like a Gurlish, doesn’t it?” He set the carving next to her. “How is Margo?”
“We’re getting used to each other.”
“That wasn’t an answer.”
“Good. I like her a lot. She still starts when she hears a gunshot.”
“She’s a good horse. We’ll train that out of her.”
Styke paused, hearing the soft sound of footsteps on the stairs behind him, and half turned to watch Lindet emerge on the parapet. She stood straight-backed and formal by the stairs, her face once again unreadably haughty. She raised her chin at Styke, then let her eyes wander to Celine. There was a question there. He ignored it.
Celine climbed down from the battlements and stared up at Lindet. “You’re the Lady Chancellor?”
“I am.”
Styke put one elbow on the parapet and tried not to look interested in where this conversation was about to go.
“You don’t look very dangerous.”
“You don’t look very interesting. Yet it seems Ben Styke has taken an interest in you.”
Celine sniffed, unimpressed. “My da died in the labor camps. Ben protects me. He said he’s made a habit of protecting little girls until they are big enough to protect themselves.”
Lindet’s eye twitched, and Styke rolled his tongue around his teeth in an effort to suppress a smile. “It seems our secret is out,” Lindet said. “It’s the talk of the entire Third Army. You know how I feel about tongues wagging.”
“You can’t control everything,” Styke said.
“I can try.”
“You can try. But you’ll fail.”