“What?” she asked, and he grabbed her hand, pressing her palm flat to it.
“You are soul-bonded to the Lord of the West. This is his ancestral home. It will open for you.”
She nodded, willing whatever part of Rionan lived inside of her to come forth now and allow her entry to Savangrad. Alianna had no idea how this magic worked. But she focused on the feeling in her chest, which was currently a mix of concern, of steely focus – but mostly, of hot, fiery rage.
Alianna felt the door warm beneath her hand, and she pushed it. The door swung open for her, revealing a long entryway. The floor was made of polished granite. Grey pillars decorated with leaves and whirls of stone beckoned them forward down the path. The walls were adorned with paintings; some portraits, some landscapes, that Alianna did not have time to inspect now.
She took off into a run with Ulreah, following him to the second level. There were so many stairs to run up that Alianna felt herself struggling for breath, but she had to keep running.
The leather bag at her side bounced and heaved with each step. She pulled it tight towards her, wrapping an arm around the stone to ensure it would not come loose from the bag and fall out.
After making their way through five other floors, with Ali barely having any time to stop and take in the décor in the gloomy night, Ulreah pushed a final door. It did not budge.
“Open it!” He shouted to her, and for a moment, Alianna thought she saw electricity skittering along his skin. She wondered if he was holding back with his lightning strikes this whole time, the force of the impending overhead explosions pushing against his internal restraints, to the point where the awaiting storm danced across his skin.
Alianna opened the door, as she did the first. When it swung open, they were hit with cool night air and met with flashes across the night sky.
Amongst the red, the purple, the blue, she picked out several bolts of yellow energy meeting with groups of Eastern Warriors. The energy seemed to burn through them, encasing their bodies in a golden-yellow light that burned brighter and brighter, until the warriors collapsed within.
Rionan. That was Rionan’s power that she recognised.
Ulreah raced ahead of her, moving toward one of the walls of the rampart that they now stood on, scanning the battlefield below. As he looked down, lightning began to crack in the clouds overhead, illuminating the sky around them for heartbeats at a time.
That is when Alianna saw them, moving on the distant horizon.
The Amassa.
Flying in from the direction that she knew would be the mountains, the Amassa were coming. She did not know if they were coming to aid their cause or push against it.
“Ulreah!” she shouted, “Above!”
Ulreah looked into the distance, acknowledging the Amassa with a nod. They were not beneath his storm clouds, yet. Not in the firing line. Ulreah raised his hands slowly, his hair standing on end as he did so, and he flicked his wrists down with an effortless grace.
There was a huge, world-cleaving crack, and lightning shot from the sky, forking down towards the Xanthians below. It hit the ground beneath them with an incredible boom. She knew that whoever was beneath that lightning strike would have been blasted to smithereens.
Again. Ulreah sent another bolt of lightning shooting down from the sky, slightly further away this time, the same world-shattering crack clanging through the night around them as the ground beneath it burst open with the force of the blow.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Ulreah seemed to be moving his strikes, slowly, in some sort of line.
Alianna realised what he was doing. He was clearing a path through the enemies for the Western forces to push through.
“Ali, you need to keep moving. I’ll be right behind you!” he cried through the wind that whipped over his shoulder. He pushed down another lightning strike before pausing, looking up overhead.
Alianna began running along the rampart ahead of them, following its curve. The Amassa soared overhead, swooping down from the skies above them. They were enormous beasts, with bodies of large, clawed lizards. Forked tongues shot out beneath their razor-sharp teeth, and their huge, colourful, feathered wings boomed through the air as they flew back up into the sky. They were picking up Xanthians, she realised, watching the bodies writhing in their talons. Some Xanthians managed to get their hands free and shot bolts of power up at the Amassa. Some hit their targets, and the large creatures fell from the air, their bodies limp. Seeing this, other Amassa began to whirl through their air, to somersault, to throw the Xanthians they carried up, before catching them again and flying to greater height…
…and letting go.
The Xanthians careened towards the earth. Alianna couldn’t hear their sickening thuds as they hit the floor, but as she peered over the rampart wall at their lifeless bodies, she could see that they were not getting up.
“Ulreah!” A female voice came from behind where Alianna had stopped. Ulreah had run behind her as the Amassa had descended, giving them a moment to determine where they needed to be and what they needed to do. Ulreah, Alianna now realised, had somehow determined that these Amassa could be trusted – they were not going to attack. As she now turned to the owner of that female voice, she realised why.
Sitting on top of a large Amassa, who clung to the rampart walls with long, shiny talons, was Lyrna. The Amassa’s purple plumage of its wings was a strange contrast to hersilver skin, making her look like she was some sort of ethereal being, riding a creature of nightmares.
