Page 350 of Burn of the Everflame

She nodded. “Understood. Clear my way.”

She fell in beside me, and we forced our way through the horde of enemy soldiers. Bodies lay in heaps as we passed, many of whom I recognized as Guardians. If Cordellia noticed, she didn’t let herself show it.

Throughout the war, Diem and I had been forced to plead with the Descended not to give up, to reassure them, remind them of the stakes, shame them for their cowardice, even at times threaten them into staying in the fight. Meanwhile, the mortals tended their wounds, mourned their dead, and prepared for whatever came next. It shamed me to see how years of pain had forced them into resilience, while our privilege had only nurtured fear.

We made it to the ballista, and I shoved Cordellia up onto its wheeled platform, then joined Symond as we fought at her back. She spun the firing arm back and forth, tracking the gryvern’s movement in the sky. Ophiucae’s soldiers clambered at the sides of the platform, clutching at her legs. She kicked them off, but it cost her precious opportunities to fire as Xipherus soared in and out of range.

Symond grunted as a soldier crashed into his wounded side. “Could you hurry it up?” he yelled out to Cordellia, shoving the soldier toward me so I could bury my blade in their back.

“I’m trying,” she shouted, slamming her boot into the groin of a man who’d climbed in front of the ballista’s loaded bolt. He tumbled to the ground as another man lurched toward her, gripping her arm. I lunged to grab him, but a sword went slicing near my head, forcing me to turn away to block it.

Xipherus banked, soaring back in our direction and flooding the eastern flatlands with dragonfyre. Cordellia’s face set into a focused glare. With her free arm, she swung the ballista toward the beast, closed her hand around the trigger, and⁠—

Boom.

Boom.

Boom.

The world went spinning. I had the briefest awareness that I was flying through the air before I slammed into something hard and wet. My ears were ringing, my head pounding. I put a hand down to push myself upright, and it clutched against something that felt disturbingly like bone.

Boom.

Boom.

Bursts of flame exploded nearby, sending bodies—and pieces of them—flying past me. I shook off my daze and looked around. The air was hazy with smoke set aglow by fiery debris. The ballista lay on its side, a godstone-studded bolt still loaded in its arm. The crowd of soldiers had been scattered by the blasts, leaving the area eerily quiet.

“Symond?” I called out, squinting through the haze. “Cordellia?”

No one answered.

I shakily pushed to my feet. One side of my body was burned, my scorched flesh peppered with scraps of metal—the hallmark shrapnel of rebel bombs.

Boom.

Boom.

Boom.

I crouched low as more explosions went off. They were all coming from the same place, and they all detonated with the same orange-yellow hue of mortal fire.

“Symond?” I called out again. “Cordellia?”

A moan rang out in answer. I ran toward the sound and discovered Symond half-buried beneath a pile of bodies and bleeding from a gash at his temple. “What happened?” he asked woozily.

“Rebel bombs. Either Ophiucae got inside the Guardians’ heads and turned them against us, or the dragonfyre ignited their supply.”

“What about the gryvern? Is he⁠—”

A faraway roar answered for me, sounding almost gleeful. Symond glanced at the overturned ballista, and his head rolled back with a groan. “We’re fucked.”

“Centenaries don’t whine, remember?” I grabbed his arm and dragged him free. “This could work to our benefit. The bombs scared the gryvern off and cleared Ophiucae’s soldiers. It bought us time.”

“A blessing from the Kindred,” he said dryly, gazing around at the carnage.

I beckoned for him to follow, and we ran to the ballista. We pushed against its base, trying to haul it upright, but its weight was too much for us to budge.

For the first time, I saw genuine fear creep into Symond’s features. “Can it still fire from its side?” he asked.