With a nod, I shift into my fox form. Racing on all fours, I take off back to the cobblestone streets, dodging blasts and bullets as I head for the bluff.
* * *
When I reach the bluff,I find Estel at the edge. She looks out at the fighting below, perfectly still. All that moves are the particles on her face, crawling rapidly and blurring her features.
Shifting back into my human form, I stand at her side and look down on the chaos. Flames dance into the sky above two of the tanks, while another sinks into the sea, strands of seaweed pulling it deeper down until it disappears from view. The beach is coated in blood and debris, the air clouded with smoke. I look away, seeking signs of any other evasive force at work. But there’s nothing.
“I don’t feel it,” Estel says.
I turn to look at her, watch as her expression settles into one of concern. “Feel what?”
“The Parvanovae,” she says. “I thought I would be able to sense it, but I can’t.”
“Have you ever sensed it before?”
“The day you brought it to the meeting of the Alpha Alliance, I sensed something. Before you even presented it to us, I felt it shifting the weight of the air. However, I never noticed it before, in all those years it was kept at Irridae Palace. Perhaps it wasn’t always in the weapons room. Perhaps when it was, the iron clouded my senses. That’s what could be clouding them now.”
“Estel, none of the tanks are carrying the bomb.”
She sighs. “It could be on the warship. They might be holding back just to see if they can wear us out fighting the tanks first. For all we know, a greater force awaits.”
“Maybe I can find out.” From this vantage, the warship is in full view. If I can return to the Twelfth Court…
With a deep breath, I close my eyes, fueling my intent with a need to see beyond the limitations of physical form. Just like before, the world returns to shimmering violet when I open my eyes. Time slows down once again, while the particles composing everything both dead and alive move rapidly over my vision.
I immediately look to the warship. It’s difficult to see anything except the ship itself at first, but then the layers begin to split, revealing what lies beyond. I see human bodies, pulsing and shifting. Their numbers are far less than I expect, perhaps only a fraction of the men one of the landing ships brought. The brightest, most vibrant lights represent motors and sources of massive energy, but there’s nothing to suggest the Parvanovae.
Breathing out, I let the haze of the Twelfth Court fall away and come back to the present moment. “I don’t see it on the warship, either.”
Estel turns to me, shimmering brow furrowed as she studies my face. “You can see beyond time and space?”
I’m not sure how to answer that, so I shrug. “I journeyed through the Twelfth Court.”
Her eyes go wide, a small smile curling her lips. “You truly have been blessed by the All of All, haven’t you?”
I open my mouth but can’t find my words. It’s never occurred to me that my experiences in the Twelfth Court are anything but ordinary to the fae. It’s through the magic of the mysterious realm that the fae learn to shift forms. But I remember what Foxglove said when I first prepared to journey there to fight for Aspen’s throne.Going there is a rare thing. A sacred and dangerous excursion.
Estel lifts her chin. “The All of All wants us to win.”
“Then we need to steal back the Parvanovae. But where the blazing iron is it?”
Estel only shakes her head, lips pulling into a frown. “I don’t know, but I think something’s wrong.”
Her words chill me. I’m about to ask her what it could be, when something draws my attention from the corner of my eye—a dark shape hovering in the sky. At first, I think it’s Franco, or a dragon perhaps, but it looks impossibly large for how far away it is.
I skirt around Estel, squinting into the sky. There, stark against the canvas of cloudless blue floats an enormous, wingless beast.
46
The object is hardly more than a speck at this distance, but there’s no mistaking what it is.
An airship. A great and terrifying master of the skies.
Just like the tanks, this is something I’ve only seen depicted in the broadsheets, and everything I’ve read about them does little to comfort me. Filled with hydrogen gas, its shape is long and cylindrical, tapered at both ends with fins at the rear. It’s able to soar at impossible heights, evading enemy reach to drop bombs from the sky.
Estel turns and follows my line of sight. Her words come out breathless. “What is that?”
I shake my head, my heart pounding against my ribs at an agonizing tempo. “This is all a diversion,” I say. “All of this. They have our fighting forces concentrated far from where they intend to drop the bomb. It doesn’t matter that we’ve released magic. It doesn’t matter that we’re overpowering all of their tanks. The Parvanovae isn’t coming by sea. They’re sneaking it in by air.”
