Shouts rent the air; the palace doors had opened, andElantian guards were now shooting arrows at them. Elanruya barreled toward them, fans whirling and páo spinning as though she were dancing. The Nameless Master stepped out from a Gate Seal, his dagger arcing across a guard’s throat. Master Nur followed close behind, steel-edged whips lashing out. Then Chue appeared, firing arrow after arrow with speed that Master Cáo, the former Master of Archery, would have been proud of.
As the disciples of the School of the White Pines emerged from the night, fighting their way into the palace, Dilaya felt emotions rise thick in her throat. She joined them, Falcon’s Claw flashing, and perhaps it was the elation of the moment, the hope thatthey could actually win,tonight, but Yeshin Noro Dilaya felt her hand guided by more than instinct.
This is for you, E’niáng,she thought as she danced.This is for you, masters.
This was for her people who had suffered, whether at the hands of the Elantian conquest or under the cruel imperial regime before that.
Within minutes, the main hall of the palace was theirs.
The practitioners straightened, looking around in disbelief.
The palace was a thing of splendor, Dilaya had to admit. Splendor built on the lives and sacrifices of this land and its peoples by both ruling bodies that had presided over it: the emperors and the Elantians. Gold and jade and lapis lazuli dripped from the walls. Polychrome paintings of flora and fauna, gods and immortals, filled every bit of the ceiling, which was topped with filigreed cornices covered with intricate carvings.
Vermilion pillars engraved with gilded Hin characters and patterns ran the length of the hall, though here, too, the Elantians had made their mark. Silver had been inlaid in the pillars, and in the walls and furniture as well, and the blue-and-whitebanners fluttered between the pillars. Hin signs had been removed, replaced by the strange, sharp horizontal lettering of the Elantians.
“It is quiet,” Master Nur remarked, his hands tightening on his whips. “Do you sense anything? The demonic qì is so strong, I can barely feel anything else.”
By his side, Elanruya was silent, her blindfold fluttering as she cocked her head, perhaps attempting to sift through the currents of qì, just as everyone else was.
Chó Tài pointed. “The throne room is that way.”
“There are still Elantians in this building,” the Nameless Master said. “I sense them.”
A few of the disciples held their weapons higher.
“If we find nothing, we split up,” Dilaya said. “Paint this place red with their blood.”
Behind them, one of the Elantian banners rippled.
Elanruya whipped around and flung out a fan. One of its steel spikes shot out, piercing the fabric.
There was a faintplinkas it pinged off metal.
“Magician.Magician,” Chó Tài said, and that was when an arrow whistled toward him.
Dilaya leapt, Falcon’s Claw in her hand. A swing of her mighty blade and the arrow clattered to the floor. As she turned in the direction it had come from, one of the banners shifted and an Elantian Royal Magician stepped out.
Recognition was cold ice seeping through her veins. She had seen this magician at the invasion of Skies’ End, at the right hand of the white-haired magician who had killed Ulara.Lishabeth,they had called her.
Lishabeth’s lips twisted grimly. She held up two fingers and gestured.
From all around, other Royal Magicians emerged.
Dilaya tightened her grip on Falcon’s Claw. Tonight, she would avenge her mother.
“In formation!” Lishabeth roared, and her army drew into a tight circle, back to back, weapons out.
The magicians raised their arms, metal cuffs at their wrists gleaming.
“Surrender,” Dilaya said in the Elantian tongue. She had not studied it as carefully as Zen had back at the school, but she knew enough. She pointed her dao at Lishabeth, then toward the square. “All are dead. You will not win.Surrender.”
Lishabeth’s sneer of disdain was one Dilaya would never forget or forgive. “Never,” came the response, and all hells broke loose.
Dilaya had never engaged in close combat with Elantian magicians, for the battle of Skies’ End had been fought by the masters. She could see, now, how the Elantians had taken the Last Kingdom in the span of weeks.
The Táng warrior next to her went down with a gurgle. When Dilaya looked at him, she realized with horror that a drop of metal had latched onto his chest and was growinginside him.His mouth gaped open, and liquid silver filled his throat, then his eyes, then his ears. With a solidthunk,he fell onto the cherrywood floor by her side.
“DEFENSE!”Dilaya bellowed, backing away and weaving a Seal.“DEFENSE—”
