"In the Nestings, she would be called a conqueror. It is your pride speaking now, Rö. Your fear that the Riven has been bested…and is now bound to something other than the Sky."
We continue down through the tunnels of the Cataclyss, but we do not make it far before Solutus horns wail through the darkness. Beside me, Zora tenses.
"The children," she hisses. "Rö, move us quickly. They must have found the nest, even with my wards in place. Or perhaps the blast—"
I don't wait for her to finish, shouldering my glaive and summoning mana to my fingers. Violet light pulses in the air as I chant the spell for quickening. The bloodline of Eternal answers, and I lift Zora against my side, flying forward through the murk. I cannot unfurl my wings here to their full breadth. With each motion, my feathers scrape the surrounding stone. With each heartbeat, the horns grow louder.
In moments, we reach a vaulted chamber, the walls shaking with the ear-piercing blasts of the Solutus and their raucous shouting. Rows of small cots line the circular walls. Now empty. Children scream as men in robes and white masks drag them from the warmth of the central fluxhearth, twisting ropes around their wrists and covering their faces with filthy linen sacks.
I set Zora down and jump into the fray. Careful not to maim small bodies, I slice my glaive in a wide arc, cleaving an entire row of Solutus in half. Red blood sprays with more violence than a river bursting from a dam. It smells of treason. Of sickness. Ofvesh'tera.
They lunge at me, but they may as well be clumsy fledglings with toothpicks in their hands. Their movements are slow. Their arms and bodies weak and frail. I cut them down, ploughing through flesh as I would plough through wheat to harvest it. One manages to avoid myglaive, and I crush his head in my fist. Another comes for my flank. I whirl around and pummel him with my wing. He flies back, hitting several others on the way. His momentum carves a path of death through the others, snagging three more men. As their bodies collide with the wall, the force pulverizes their bones.
The scent of rain and Sky fills the air. Zora's magic. She cannot fight as I can, but she moves with grace through the chaos, gathering the children, ripping the bags from their heads and cutting the ropes around them. She leads them to a corner, warding the group of shivering, terrified forms.
This is good.
It gives me room to breathe.
To cut, and rend, and eviscerate every living thing not inside the ward.
Then silence.
Quiet settles over the chamber as blood pools against stone, and ivory masks lie shattered at my feet.
I turn to the Skywhisperer, and the children around her shriek in terror as I approach. They clutch at her clothes and press close. I pause, setting the end of my glaive against the ground with an echoing thud.
"We cannot stay here,"I tell her in our native tongue."Gather your wards and supplies."
This chamber has been Zora's shelter—a place of healing and research—for nearly two cycles. The Solutus steal children from the temples above to convert them to their zealotry, and Zora takes them back. Not to the city, but to the parts of the Cataclyss where those who have escaped the bondage of the Flaeme survive in groups together.
She is a creature of order, but in a single moment, months of toil and research have been set aflame. Her alchemy bench lays ransacked, shattered glass and glowing potions a testament to loss and futility. These barbarians—theseignorant creatures that live in this dead earth—know nothing of equivalent exchange. Of balance.
"There is nothing left to gather,"Zora says, her voice hoarse.
I glance at her."Then you will build again. That is what you do best, is it not?"
Her golden and blue eyes pierce into me."The Riven speaks only truth."
"We must find another chamber."I glance at the children's' terrified faces."I will go ahead. Do not let down your guard, Zora'ethra. More Glasswalker blood will stain my talons this night."
39
Golden Breath
The chaos that erupted after the attack on the Han was worse than the explosion itself.
The Jade Lattice had fallen into uproar. Word of the devastation raced through the tiers faster than any courier or Attendant could carry it. The portal network lay unusable. Reskala runes failed anywhere within the radius of the blast. Menders and Priests alike found their mana slipping from their grasp. Krystopolis was bleeding, and its citizens had been left without supplies to staunch its wounds.
The Solutus had never struck so boldly before, never dared to reach so openly into such critical territory in the city. They were a nuisance, certainly, with their bombs and magical traps designed to maim and kill Reskala. But this time, they had not chosen some distant street or forgotten alley to bombard.
They had crippled the entire Han.The district feeding Krystopolis through trade and craft had been gutted in a single brutal evening. Merchants staggered into the Commons with rubble in their hair and blood on their hands, dragging carts of whatever wares they'd managed to salvage from the wreckage. Crafters fled the shattered avenues clutching child apprentices and bundles of cloth, as if those scraps of their lives might somehow anchor them to the world that had existed only hours before.
And above it all, the Council snarled and fought each other like a pack of starving dogs over scraps of meat.
Within the Circle of Rule, voices clashed like drawn steel. Resources. Trade routes. Gleams. Retaliation.
Everythingexcept the People.
