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Merrik dropped his final bomb on an airship, pointing his aeroplane’s nose toward the sky to roar away before the resulting explosion could clip him.

Below, airships burned, exploded, and drifted in powerless chaos. All around, Mongavarian aeroplanes strafed and maneuvered, trying to break up the tight Alliance formations. A few Alliance aeroplanes had used up the magic powering the protective shields, and the others kept them tightly protected from enemy fire. If necessary, they’d switch to powering the shields from the main power cells, but that was a last resort. The magical shields would drain power so quickly that pilots could quickly find themselves dead in the air if they weren’t careful.

More of the Mongavarians had attempted ramming. None had succeeded, but neither had they crashed into their own airships.

As Merrik leveled out, his aeroplane jerked, as if gripped by a sudden gust of wind. The engine whined, the power gauge leaping into the red danger line, even though he’d done nothing that would have stressed the magical power cell.

He cut back on the power, letting his aeroplane slow, as the radio burst with a garble of voices.

“What was that?”

“What’s going on?”

Muffled cursing.

After a moment, the power surge in his engine subsided, though the gauge remained pegged in the yellow.

He leaned forward, reached as far as he could into the nose of the aeroplane until his fingers found the large bypass switch, and turned it with a faint clunk. The gauge on his dashboard immediately dropped back to green, now that he’d flipped the bypass that connected the two magical power cells, helping to disperse the power surge. “Half-Breed, flip your bypass switches.”

A chorus of “Yes, sir” rang over the radio before Lije’s voice cut through the chatter. “What do you think that was?”

“Uh, everyone? Look down.” For once, Aylia’s voice didn’t have a cheerful undercurrent. If anything, she sounded…awed.

Merrik tilted his aeroplane to better see over the side. Below, Adry’s power blazed with a white-hot fury that outmatched the still rising sun as it raced outward toward the eastern horizon. Tilting his aeroplane the other way, he took in the blue glow that lit the undersides of the clouds.

“I believe…” The reverent voice of one of the male elven pilots broke through the hush that had fallen across the radio. “We are about to witness the magic of the ancient kings unleashed as it has not been for generations.”

“You should get down there, Captain.” Aylia’s tone turned even more somber. “The stories of warriors who unleashed their magic like this? They did not usually end well.”

Merrik’s chest seized. He was all too familiar with those stories, given he’d grown up right alongside Adry and Fieran.

He shouldn’t abandon his squadron in the middle of battle. Again.

Yet if he didn’t go and something happened to Adry…He found himself pointing his aeroplane’s nose in the direction of where he’d last seen her on the battlefield before he’d even fully processed what he was doing. “All right. The dogfight is almost finished here anyway. Clean up the last of the airships, but keep a wary eye on your engine gauges. If they spike like that again, disengage and head for the airfield.”

His ears ringing with his squadron’s acknowledgment, Merrik peeled his aeroplane away from the fighting.

One of the Mongavarian aeroplanes tried to chase him, but Lije and Stickyfingers headed the enemy off before he could get far.

Merrik took one last look over his shoulder at his squadron, still flying in their tight formations as they harassed the burning, crashing airships slowly sinking from the sky. The scattered Mongavarian biplanes darted about, occasionally engaging one of the formations before either being shot down or peeling away to escape.

Then he faced forward and tilted his aeroplane into a dive so steep it was on the edge of an out-of-control free fall. He braced himself against the rudder bar, his left ankle and his stump aching at the pressure.

The crackling brightness of Adry’s unleashed magic rushed toward him. At the last moment, he switched on his magical shield and hoped that the remaining magic within both the engine’s power cell and the one for the shield would be enough to withstand the onslaught.

His aeroplane plunged into the inferno, the magic from his shield instantly disappearing amid the blaze, though his aeroplane remained untouched. For a long, breathless moment, he was in the middle of a fire, everything around him hot and crackling and consuming.

Then he was through, his aeroplane untouched. But his propeller was slowing, the vibration of the engine diminishing as it slowed its rotations due to a lack of power. The gauges showed both power cells had been drained empty while the now dead radio was silent rather than filled with the chatter of his squadron.

Thanks to his steep dive, he still had plenty of momentum on his side. If anything, he had too much speed as the land rushed toward him.

He eased back on the control stick, leveling out and slowing his descent.

Yet the feeling of the dead aeroplane around him was all too familiar. How many times had it been now? At least this time he wasn’t bleeding out and the wings weren’t on fire.

He spotted her—or, at least, the glowing center of the magical storm that marked her location—just behind the highest of the line of hills. Beyond her, the Mongavarian troops huddled in their lines of trenches.

The space just behind her was flat enough that he could risk setting down his aeroplane. He eased his biplane into a turn. Too steep or sudden a movement would lose his momentum and send him plunging into the earth.