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A Mongavarian attack was highly unlikely unless they did it with clubs and the handful of damaged aeroplanes and airships that had been in the sky when her family had unleashed their magic.

“Now, the two of you should rest.” Uncle Iyrinder swept that glance over them once again. “Well, rest more. You have done your duty. Now the end of the war is out of our hands.”

There was nothing more she could do. She’d done her duty, fought as a warrior, and lived up to the Laesornysh legacy. For the moment, her magic was exhausted and quiet inside her, leaving her at peace.

Dressed in his olive-green uniform, Merrik stood before the assembled gathering of pilots, mechanics, and other support personnel. Since it was a sunny fall day, he’d called them to assemble on the lawn before the farmhouse’s steps rather than all crowding inside the main floor.

A faint breeze stirred his hair and rustled the orange leaves of the maple tree planted next to the house, the only sound in the otherwise hushed stillness.

Merrik swallowed and stared down at the paper he held in his hands. They all knew what it would say. And yet he still found himself struggling to gather himself enough to read it in a steady voice.

After everything they’d been through since the night they’d awakened to bombs falling on the fort where they’d been in training, after all the fellow pilots they’d lost, all the crashes, wounds, and fear they’d endured, this was it.

He drew in a deep breath, straightened his shoulders, and faced his squadron. Lije stood in the front row, tall and slim, his blond hair tousled. Next to him, Stickyfingers didn’t even come up to his shoulder. On Sticky’s other side, Tiny was even shorter yet, though his broad shoulders and brawny arms showed his troll heritage. Even Aylia, standing on Lije’s other side at the front of the elven pilots of Flight A, wasn’t smiling as the breeze tossed her brown hair.

Beyond them, all of the familiar faces of the two squadron flights stared back at him. Elves and humans who had trusted him to lead them, even without Fieran at their head. And Merrik had done it. He’d brought this squadron through the final two weeks of the war without losing a pilot, despite the hard-won battles they’d fought.

He cleared his throat, raised his voice, and read, “At ten hundred this morning, the Empire of Mongavaria formally and unconditionally surrendered to the Alliance Kingdoms of Escarland, Tarenhiel, and Kostaria.”

At those words, several of the flyboys whooped and hollered. Some leapt in the air while others went so far as to grab the person next to them, shaking them or hugging them or exchanging back slaps. Even the elves let themselves get pulled into the jubilation.

There was more on the page. Commendations from the kings to the soldiers who had fought so bravely. Recognition for those who had made this moment possible.

But Merrik didn’t try to quell the celebration to read it. His squadron had more than earned this moment.

Chapter

Forty-One

Merrik’s aeroplane soared on the drifting air currents, the steady hum of his squadron around him, the blue sky of a perfect fall day above him. Below, the new Wall rose strong and crackling with power across the landscape, protecting the Alliance from invasion once more. On the other side of the Wall, the familiar buildings of Fort Defense lay nearly unchanged, waiting to welcome them home to Escarland.

After the surrender, the Half-Breed Squadron had spent several days patrolling the skies over the encamped army before a new squadron was sent to relieve them. They were finally being sent back to Fort Defense for the rest they desperately needed after the nearly nonstop fighting of the past weeks.

Adry, Merrik’s dacha, and the elite guards, too, were on a train headed for Fort Defense for much-needed rest. King Rharreth and Rhohen had volunteered to remain at the front a while longer with those staying in Mongavaria to occupy the conquered section until the formal treaty could be signed and the land given back to Mongavaria.

Merrik set up a circling pattern in the sky over the airfield and waited while the rest of the squadron landed first. When the others were all safely on the ground, he lined up for a landing, his wheels finally touching the familiar shorn grass of the Fort Defense airfield.

Once his aeroplane had rolled to a halt near the hangar, Merrik unbuckled his lap belt and climbed out, leaving the biplane for the ground crew to return to its spot in the hangar.

As he walked to the hangar, taking it slow while he worked the stiffness out of his muscles and the ache from his stump and ankle, he took in the gathering of flyboys and flygirls just outside of the hangar. It seemed no one had actually made it inside just yet.

“Merrik!” Stickyfingers waved him over. “Look who’s here!”

The pilots parted, shoving someone forward.

For a long moment, Merrik didn’t recognize the man standing there in an olive-green uniform too large for his wasted frame, his head bald, his eyes sunken and cheeks hollow.

But then he smiled, and even without his characteristic mustache, there was no mistaking that expression.

Merrik hurried forward as quickly as he could to clap his friend on the back. “Pretty Face.”

“Not such a pretty face at the moment.” Pretty Face gave a shrug that emphasized the bony, gaunt set of his shoulders, his words coming out almost rehearsed, as if he’d spoken that attempt at a joke many times by now.

“You have lost weight.” Merrik’s tone lowered as he took in what was left of Pretty Face after his weeks of imprisonment in Mongavaria. Pretty Face had come into the army the wastrel son of a minor lord with the habits and lifestyle to prove it. One would never guess he was the same man.

Most of the pack of flyboys and flygirls began drifting away, as if sensing this was a moment that needed some measure of privacy.

Pretty Face’s gaze dropped to Merrik’s feet. “You lost a leg.”