Tears traced down her cheeks. She had not saved Dé’zi. She had not saved Skies’ End. She had not saved her friends.
Now, she could not save Zen.
Lan pressed her forehead to the crook of his neck. She could feel the bulge of his amulet digging painfully into her chest. The future that had been just within their reach shrank further across a vast, impossible chasm.
“You told me you wished for me to never be alone again.” The words fell from her lips in broken, jagged pieces.
Zen’s chest shifted as he drew in a sudden, rattling breath. His fingers tightened against her shoulders, pushing her back.
His eyes were clear.
He held her in place for a moment more. His gaze roved her face, from her chin to her lips to her eyes, as though committing every part of her to memory.
Then he let go and stood.
Qì blazed from Zen’s body again, fanning out like wings in the night, and with a single leap, he was gone, slipping through her fingers like wind.
Those born with the Light in their veins must shoulder the burden of bringing Light to those without.
—The Holy Book of Creation,First Scripture: Verse Nine
In the watery light before dawn, Lishabeth watched their army lay siege to the fortress that had been the last standing Hin school of practitioning. It was satisfying to see them break through the stone and walls of buildings that had eluded them for twelve long years.
In the end, resistance was futile. Nothing could best them, and certainly not a lesser kind. The tricks the Hin had used to distract them were pathetic, child’s play before the might of the Elantian Empire.
This was the inevitability of the world. Mankind born with the touch of the Creator held the burden of enlightening those born inferior. And building a new world started with destroying remnants of the old.
Their soldiers, though, did not destroy without purpose. Previously, they had laid waste to hundreds of Hin cities as a necessary means to bring about control and respect. Now they picked apart the bones of this kingdom for all that would serve them and strengthen their rule.
There was much to be gained from the wreckage.
Lishabeth laid a hand on the single boulder that stood at the top of the steps—nine hundred ninety-nine of them, with no better means to ascend than to climb them one by one, a true sign of barbarian logic. Hin characters spilled down it in an indiscernible tangled mess, bearing no resemblance to the neat, horizontal lines of Elantian lettering. Her translator had told her the boulder held the name of this place:School of the White Pines.Her translator had also told her the ridiculous name this mountain bore—another indication of madness, to think that rivers could flow uphill and that the sky had an end.
Still, the seven Hin practitioners had put up an impressive fight, she had to admit. Perhaps Erascius had been right to read their books, to study their magic and desire their power.
It was in the early hours of the morning that two soldiers had come to her with news of a secret passageway hidden deep in the mountain. The practitioners had been scattered around the periphery of its entrance in an ambush that—Lishabeth had to admit—had almost succeeded. Erascius’s troops had been whittled down sharply with the attacks of the two demonic practitioners. Three Elantian magicians had been killed.
In the end, though, their sheer numbers had won out. Even magic could not subdue the might of metal weapons and armor.
She prowled around the cavern mouth—the Chamber of Lost Practices, her translator had informed her—and kicked at a satchel of turtle shells with disgust. They lay strewn around the body of one of the Hin practitioners, his fingers splayed near them as he’d tried in vain to reach them before her soldiers had cut his arm off.
Someone had brought the tall swordswoman here as well—the first practitioner they’d met at the gates to this place. Her curved sabers lay in a pile by her lifeless and broken body.
And then there was that large, bearish Hin, with those metal spikes strapped to his knuckles. He’d been one of the most impressive fighters of the bunch, and she almost regretted not keeping him alive to interrogate him on what the Hin called their martial arts.
The sight of him, crumpled against the cavern mouth, gave Lishabeth a sliver of satisfaction.
Two of the magicians with her were holding up the body of a slim, bald practitioner. This was the one who wielded magic in a way that had impressed even Lishabeth.
She watched the two magicians in disgust as they opened and closed the dead monk’s mouth and laughed.
“Leave it,” she snapped. “These are not toys. They are the valuable property of the Elantian Empire and His Majesty the King.”
The two magicians—a Bronze and a Copper, the lowest-ranking, with the ability to wield only a single metal—quickly set the body back.
Two military commanders appeared with a report on progress. They had demolished every pillar of the prayer hall on the first level and were moving on to the next: a medicinal chamber.
“Remember, leave no brick unturned,” she told them. “I want every item of value taken for examination. And where is the rescue squad for Erascius?”
