He slapped his cheek once, twice.
“Tory. Viktor. Look at me.”
The lashes didn’t even flicker.
The ground shuddered once more—then stilled. Ashakar’s roar guttered into silence, fire-choked vents hissing their last. The sky, once raining stone, spat only smoke.
The dragons wheeled above, screeching as though their chains had been shattered, wings folding back toward the mountain.
The battlefield stilled with them. Casqadia’s line faltered, voices hushed, men staring across a desert littered with fire and ruin.
Gabriel didn’t hear it.
He hooked his fingers under the breastplate edge, lifted, as if rage alone could force a heartbeat.
“Midnight!” he roared into the wind, the name tearing his throat.
The storm didn’t answer fast enough.
Gabriel tipped his head back and screamed again, voice breaking on desperation and command both:
“Midnight—please! PLEASE!”
The air shivered.
Heat drew tight, like a bow before the string is loosed.
Samson’s eyes went wide, tears cutting clean tracks through ash.
“Please,” Gabriel said to the dark, to the broken space between them.
His forehead brushed Viktor’s.
“Tory—wake up—”
A shout carried down the ridge:
“Viktor!”
Storne was breaking formation, lurching from the cavalry, boots gouging the basalt slope. A captain tried to seize his arm—Storne threw him off, slid hard to the flats. His blade was still wet, his face ash-streaked, but his eyes fixed only on Viktor.
“Damn it, Gabriel—”
He dropped to his knees beside them, voice a rasp, command and desperation warring in it. His gauntlets pressed down to Viktor’s cuirass, seeking breath, heartbeat, anything.
He snapped his head up at the sight of Balian frozen nearby.
“Balian—four men!”
His voice cracked like steel on steel.
“Two with ropes, two with spears. Get him off this cursed field.”
Balian hesitated, ash streaked across his face. Storne seized him by the collar, yanking him forward.
“Move your feet or I’ll cut them off myself. That’s your commander on the ground.”
Balian swallowed, slammed his fist to his chest. He spun, already shouting down the line for carriers, men to strip cloaks for bindings, spears for stretchers.
