“Go,” Marise said sharply as she shook Jesenia. “Back to the palace. Now.”
She couldn’t argue. She tried to turn and run, but as she did, Korvath’s soldiers broke through the front gates of the city, swiftly cutting off any escape. Something slammed into her from behind, rough hands yanking her backward into the crush of bodies. A hand clamped over her mouth before she could scream, her shawl torn as she struggled, breath ragged and sharp against her captor’s gauntlet.
They cut men down where they stood, and any women they could grab, they did, corralling them like cattle at the central plaza of the city.
Among them, was Jesenia.
THIRTY-ONE
The first hornssplit the silence like a blade. They did not sound like the ceremonial calls Solmiris had grown accustomed to in his time as king—the measured notes of assembly or triumph—but a warning torn from lungs already burning with fear. The sound reverberated through stone, rattling the banners that hung along the high walls of the palace and setting every nerve in his body on edge.
Val-Theris was in the war room when the Angelicus Prime burst inside, his face pale beneath streaks of blood.
The ministers and generals inside startled. A few hands went instinctively to their weapons, but relaxed when they saw Rohannes. But he was disheveled—worried. His cloak was torn. One gauntlet was missing. Blood streaked across the edge of his jaw where a blade had kissed him.
Rohannes had always been composed, even in battle. Even when death pressed close enough to whisper. To see him like this—armor scarred, breath uneven, eyes burning with urgency—sent a ripple of unease through the room.
“My king, Korvath has breached the main gate.”
A cold weight settled beneath Val-Theris’s ribs. But then his posture changed into that of a seasoned soldier. Fearless.Prepared. He hastily stepped with Rohannes toward the doors and out the palace.
“Mobilize everyHastatisoldier in this city,” he ordered, his voice clipped and sharp. As they passed through the palace doors, a fresh gust of wind drove thick, bitter smoke into their faces. Below, the city roared with fear. Warning bells rang. Steel struck steel. Screams rose and fell.
“Val-Theris,” Rohannes said, turning the king’s attention directly to him. There was something urgent in his voice that had not been there moments before. The kind of urgency that preceded words that would change everything. “They’ve taken hostages.”
By the time Val-Theris and theHastatiwith him reached the plaza, the air was thick with smoke and tension. His soldiers formed a hard line behind him, halberds raised, their feathered plumes dulled by ash and sweat, but the enemy stood firm in the center—and between them, the hostages knelt, hands bound, faces ghostly with terror.
The plaza had once been a place of commerce and ceremony. Now it was scarred beyond recognition. Fires burned unchecked along the edges, devouring market stalls and tapestries alike. Shattered stone littered the ground, slick with blood that reflected the flames in dull, trembling pools. The air rang with the sound of crackling wood and distant screams, punctuated by the sharp bark of Korvathian commands.
It was only women and children kneeling, as if they were the only target of this attack. If any of them cried too loudly, Korvath’s soldiers cut them down. Something caught Val-Theris’s eyes at the very center of the group—two young children crying near what could only be assumed to be their dead mother.
The woman lay slumped forward, her body shielding nothing now, her hair matted dark against the stone. One of the children clutched at her sleeve, shaking her as though she might stillwake. The other sobbed openly, face streaked with soot and tears, their small shoulders hitching with each breath.
Val-Oros landed in front of them then, his flaming wings shooting outward. The heat of his descent rippled across the plaza, forcing even his own men to step back. Stone blackened beneath his boots, cracks spiderwebbing outward as if the ground itself recoiled from his presence. He turned to the crying children with a scold on his face.
“Be quiet!” He barked, but the children only cried harder.
And the sight that followed made Val-Theris go still with dread. Jesenia, kneeling among the hostages. She had reached for the two children and wrapped her shawl around their faces so they did not see the blood.
“You again?” Val-Oros said, grabbing her roughly by the arm. When he did, his eyes glossed over with his prophetic vision.
He saw this Lunarethian girl lying on a chaise with his brother at her back, their hands resting lightly over her stomach. Intimacy. Tenderness. A future he would never let his brother taste.
The vision left him as quickly as it came, and Val-Oros decided in that moment that this would be the way he would break his brother and put an end to this war.
Val-Theris’s wings twitched instinctively to take flight—to go to her, but he forced them still as his gaze locked on the curve of her face and the strands of hair knocked loose from her braid.
Every instinct screamed at him to abandon formation, to damn the consequences and tear the plaza apart stone by stone until she was free. He tasted blood where his teeth cut into his lip, the discipline that had ruled him for centuries fraying under the weight of her presence there.
And because the world’s cruelty knew no end, Jesenia’s eyes landed on him just enough to make his chest splinter, and Val-Oros noticed.
“Well, well,” Val-Oros said, his voice carrying easily over the square, laced with cruel amusement. “The rumors were true, then. The Angel-King and his little foreign pet.”
A ripple of laughter broke through the enemy’s ranks.
Val-Theris’s jaw tightened, his voice low and even despite the icy fire beneath it. “Let her go.”
His voice came out far weaker and more desperate than he had meant it to.
