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Nineteen

THREE WEEKS LATER

Below Merrik’s aeroplane, the Wall—the crackling blue magic that protected the Alliance Kingdoms—glowed with white-hot fury.

The Mongavarian army amassed behind a ridge of ground just beyond the now dry Chibo River. The river, which just that morning had separated Escarland and Mongavaria, had run dry only a few minutes ago in the wake of an explosion, its dust cloud still rising into the air on the southeast horizon.

On the Mongavarian side of the border, large metal vehicles had rolled right up to the Wall while on the Escarlish side, Merrik could just make out the tiny figures of Uncle Farrendel and Fieran crouched on a bridge extending into the riverbed.

The radio crackled with the voices of the squadron, raised and clamoring with tension.

“What’s going on with the Wall?”

“Should we strafe the Mongavarian army?”

“What about attacking those machines?”

Merrik’s gut clenched in a way he couldn’t fully explain. He’d seen Uncle Farrendel and Fieran use their magic many times, but there was something off about this. “Lt. Rothilion, we need to get higher. Now.”

With Fieran on the ground with his dacha, the elf lieutenant Saranthyr Rothilion was the acting commander of the Half-Breed Squadron.

There was barely a pause over the radio before Rothilion’s voice spoke, clipped and stern. “Ascend! Ascend!”

Merrik waited another moment, glancing around to ensure that the rest of the squadron obeyed the order, before he yanked back on the control stick. His aeroplane crawled upward with agonizing slowness, even as the fiery brightness of the Wall burned in increasing intensity below.

Then there came a flash of light unlike anything he’d seen before, dazzling his vision with black dots as if he’d just stared at the sun. Only a heartbeat later, a shock wave blasted into Merrik’s aeroplane, sending him tumbling through the sky and battering the fragile wood and canvas of his wings.

He fought the stick and the rudder bar, trying to regain control. The sky whirled, and he wasn’t sure what way was up. His chest seized, and he struggled to drag in a breath for several long moments.

As he steadied his aeroplane, he peered around, attempting to get his bearings. Past the ringing in his ears, he grew aware of shouting on the radio.

“What was that?”

“Everyone okay?”

“The Wall is down!”

Rothilion’s voice. “Half-Breed Squadron, sound off.”

While the others spoke into the radio, letting Rothilion know they were still flying and not crashing, Merrik tilted his aeroplane to peer downward.

For his entire life, the Wall had protected the Alliance from invasion. For most of Merrik’s childhood, it had been merely a blue glow in the ground, ready to spring into the air at the first sign of trouble. In the past few years as tensions rose, the Wall had risen too, and it hadn’t gone down.

Now, it was gone. Just…gone. There was the faintest trace of blue in the ground, but that was it.

The large metal vehicles had been blown backward. Even the Mongavarian army remained huddled behind their barrier of earth, as if too stunned to move.

Where were Uncle Farrendel and Fieran? Merrik searched the ground, trying to spot the small figures. He let his aeroplane circle downward.

There. A figure moved, his red hair glinting in the sunlight.

Fieran, at least, was alive.

Yet the Mongavarian Army had shaken off its paralysis and was now climbing over the berm and rolling toward the Alliance all along the dry riverbank.

Somehow, Mongavaria had taken down the Wall. And now, without that magical barrier standing in their way, they were invading.

“Lt. Loiatir?” Rothilion’s voice cut across the radio with a tone that seemed to indicate that it hadn’t been the first time he’d called Merrik.