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  “Fine,” she said. “You want me to make a choice? Then I will. While Weshern was under Center’s control, Kael broke into their cathedral to rescue me from a prison cell. He risked everything to save my life despite knowing it would likely cost him his. Our places are switched, but nothing else has changed. I will risk everything to save him. He’s earned that from me. And if you don’t agree with that choice, then, well …” She gestured to the door. “Like you said. We all have a choice. I’ll fly alone to his execution if I must.”

  Saul refused to back down.

  “I lost my parents saving your lives,” he said. “I lost my social standing and the land our family had owned for decades. But I gave up it all up because I knew I was doing what was right. For the longest time, I hated you and your brother for it. You know why? Because I thought neither of you would ever do the same. All I saw in you was a selfish desire to prove you were the best at everything. You didn’t fly well in a team, you couldn’t master your fire, and by hanging on like you did I thought you were only putting our lives at risk when battle finally arrived.”

  He let out a soft chuckle.

  “But then you became the Phoenix. Everyone’s beloved little figurehead. Trust me, I thought that would make you even more insufferable, but when Galen fell …” He shrugged. “I don’t know if I saw you for the first time after that, or if its fall changed you, but I saw it then. If you believed it was right, you’d give everything for it. You’d risk your life to save others. You wouldn’t just die for your brother; you’d die for strangers at night at risk of demon fire. All of Center could rise up to crush our little army, but there you’d be, right in the heart of battle fighting anyway.”

  Bree felt taken aback. She kept still on her blanket, hands knit together, her tongue at a loss for words.

  “That’s when I decided,” Saul said. “I decided long before we ever flew for this run-down little hideaway. You did mean something special to Weshern, not because of what you could do, but for who you are. With what meager skills I have I will do my best to keep you safe. If you fly home for Weshern, I will follow. If you head into an execution to save your brother, I will follow. Either way, I’ll know I do the right thing.”

  Tears trickled down Bree’s cheeks.

  “Thank you,” she said. “It really does mean a lot.”

  The left half of Saul’s face pulled up into a halfhearted smirk.

  “Don’t let it get to your head, though,” he said. “I still think you’re an insufferable girl trying to be the best at everything.”

  Bree sniffled and laughed and wiped at her tears.

  “Go to bed,” she said. “We’ve an early morning, and a dangerous flight ahead.”

  “Back to Weshern?” Saul asked, despite clearly knowing she meant otherwise.

  “Like hell,” Bree said. “Tomorrow morning, we’re saving my brother’s life.”

  CHAPTER

  19

  The night was late when Johan approached the newly built Weshern encampment. Multiple camps had been merged into a single noisy, bleeding sleeping ground after the failed invasion. Johan recognized the scene well. Blood, fear, and pain were intermixed with joy and relief, a camp-wide feeling of a hard sacrifice given for a worthy cause.

  It was the stink of victory, and Johan hated it.

  Celebrate the dying, thought Johan as he stepped into the darkened shadow of a home. Feel pride in your murder. I expect nothing less from your pitiful race.

  Johan held still, safely hidden from any prying eyes. The shadow of his essence swirled around what remained of his corporeal body, malleable, changeable. His face melded and shrank, his height lessening as his legs shortened. Tendrils of shadow curled off the back of his head, firming into strands of hair. His false eyes came into shape, followed by an outer layer of shadow that formed into a Weshern Seraphim uniform. Johan focused on various memories of his new body, analyzing speech patterns, accents, even the tiniest little tics humans rarely noticed of others. And then he opened his mouth.

  “This is how I sound,” spoke Bree’s voice from his false lips.

  Satisfied, Johan adopted a wearied look of relief and strolled into the encampment. Bree would join in their sorrow, but she’d also feel hope for a peaceful resolution. Like countless humans before, she believed war led to peace in the way dawn inevitably led to dusk. But war wasn’t a sunrise. It was a fire, consuming as it spread, caring not for its destruction. Either you stamped it out, or it spread until there was nothing left to burn.

  Johan wound through the seemingly haphazard array of tents. They’d set up the camp earlier that day. He’d been there, in Johan persona, when Argus Summers made the request of Archon Isaac. Argus wished to hide the extent of the wounded and dead from the populace, wanting them to only focus on their grand victory. It had burned Johan’s heart, but he’d kept silent, with no reason for his persona to question the decision.

  “Of course you’d hide your casualties,” he whispered, amused by hearing Bree speak the words. “Diminish the loss, exaggerate the gains. It makes it that much easier for the populace to swallow.”

  “Saw you fighting over Angburg, Phoenix,” a nearby Seraph called to her from his seat beside a fire. “You flew like a goddamn lunatic.”

  “Thanks,” Johan said, tilting his head slightly away and mimicking embarrassment coupled with a tiny smile. Johan knew the girl took pride in her skill but disliked the attention it gained her. She liked the fame, yet wanted it distant, nonintrusive.

  “How many knights did you bring down?” a friend of the first asked.

  Johan didn’t turn, only held up his hand with five fingers spread wide. He didn’t know if he over- or underestimated, but it seemed close enough to earn him another whoop from the two Seraphs. A wry smile stretched across Johan’s feminine lips.

  Keep praising my murders, he thought. All while condemning Center for theirs.

  When Johan had visited the camp earlier in the daylight, he’d expected to find his target occupying an extravagant abode, but Argus Summers had taken a small standard-issue camp tent. The only difference was that his was separated from the others by a wider stretch of grass, giving his tent a feeling of solitude the rest lacked.

  Johan could have taken a more direct path but he didn’t want stealth or secrecy. He wanted multiple campfires to see Bree’s presence, and at least several to see her approaching Argus’s tent. The campfire outside it was dull and smoking, but the flicker of a candle lit the interior of the tent.

  “Argus?” Johan asked, pausing by the entrance. “Is it all right if I come in?”

  Perhaps not as direct as Bree would ask, but Johan wanted to add a bit of hesitance to his aura. Self-indulgent as it was, he wished to toy with his prey like a cat with an injured mouse. His opportunities for pleasure had been fleeting the past five centuries, after all.

  “Come in, Bree.”

  Johan ducked through the tent flap. Argus sat on a wooden chair that looked out of place atop the blanket-covered grass. A slender table was before him, lit with a half-melted candle. Several papers lay scattered atop it, and his eyes never left them.

  “Are you writing something?” he asked.

  “No,” Argus said. “Looking over the latest reports of the dead.”

  Johan felt a pang of sorrow for his initial desire to toy with him. As despicable as the human race might be, there were always shining examples of their true potential. Men like Argus had given his fellow lightborn hope over the centuries, but they were too far and few between. While others celebrated, Argus would read over the dead. He’d focus on the loss. He’d remember the cost come time to battle again. Peace often came not from glorious conquerors but from men and women like him. If only he’d dedicated his skills and time to an art separate from war. What paintings might his brush have created if he’d given it the same dedication? What sculptures could those careful, dexterous hands have created if not locked in a Seraphim gauntlet to slay men with ice?

 
; “Such a shame, isn’t it?” Johan asked. Not entirely a Bree response, but Johan was more interested in Argus’s reaction.

  “A loss that never should have needed paid,” Argus said, and he leaned back in his chair and finally looked up. “And one I pray will not need paid again. Is there something you need, Bree?”

  All that Johan really needed was to put the commander at ease, but his curiosity was still there. He sat atop the commander’s bunk and stared at his own thin, pale hands.

  “We … we can win now, right?” he asked. “This war isn’t so desperate as we first thought.”

  “It would appear so,” Argus said. “We chased Center off, and the other islands didn’t suffer near as terribly as we did.”

  “Do you think the Speaker will surrender? Or maybe offer some measure of peace?”

  This was Johan’s true worry. He wanted humanity to eat itself. The weaker it became, the fewer of his eternal-born that would suffer and die during the final extermination.

  Argus’s chair gently rocked back and forth, easing his gaze into nothingness as his mind raced. Johan could sense the uncertainty whirling within.

  “The other islands are surely preparing for an offensive as we speak,” he said. “Combined with Center’s losses today with the damage they suffered during the fireborn attack, and it’s possible we could achieve another victory. If Marius likewise believes this, he might finally request some sort of treaty. Whether or not we’d accept, or he’d be able to swallow his pride and give us all we’ve demanded, is another thing entirely. I don’t know the man well enough to say for certain.”

  He looked at her, a strange emotion passing over his face that Johan failed to read.

  “Bree … I’m sorry about Kael. I really am. If we’re to have any peace, I swear his safe return will be part of the conditions.”

  Johan thought a moment on how to respond. This was one of the trickier aspects of humanity, the moments when logic and emotion directly contradicted. Would her national loyalty outweigh her bond to her brother? Would the assurance of a commander she respected soothe her fear enough to remain rational? With Bree currently flying to Center in preparation for a likely suicide mission, Johan knew well enough that answer, but his Bree was not that Bree.

  “I understand,” he said. “I hate it, but I understand.”

  Argus looked much relieved.

  “We’re sending messengers to the other islands,” he said. “Hopefully we’ll know their plans by the morrow. I hope we see peace, Bree, but if we must continue to fight, then we will. The cost we’ve paid is far too high for us to surrender now.”

  He nodded but said nothing. Best to pretend to sulk and let the commander talk. The man’s nerves were easing, and it seemed he’d been rather bothered by a fear that Bree hated him for his decision. Johan knew that not the case. He could have lied and feigned anger, but Johan could not deny in his heart that the man did not deserve such deception.

  “You did well today,” Argus said, gathering up the papers and setting them facedown in a pile. “Weshern owes a great debt to you for protecting the royal family. Your mastery over your fire is also noteworthy in its improvement.”

  Johan mimicked another pleased, embarrassed smile. Ah yes, Bree’s fascinating skill of flame and blade. Stolen power from fireborn blood, yet the ignorant people cheered her for it.

  “I’m just doing my best,” he said. “Trying to live up to your reputation, after all.”

  “Live up to it? I’m certain you’ve surpassed it, Bree. Years from now, people will tell stories of your deeds while I’ll have been long forgotten.”

  Johan decided he’d had enough carrying on with the ruse. It just wasn’t enjoyable. Argus was a man Johan would have loved to visit with in ancient times, when he was still a lightborn.

  “You’re right,” Johan said. “I’m an excellent killer. My fire makes me stand out among those risking their lives alongside me, achieving equally great accomplishments with their lesser talent and gifts. People will brag as if I single-handedly ended the war and brought Center to her knees, while those like you, General Cutter, and Miss Waller, the vital pieces who engineered the entire war in the background, will go unnoticed.”

  Argus frowned at him.

  “I’ve never heard you so cynical before, Bree,” he said. “We’re not fighting to be remembered. We’re fighting to free ourselves from Center’s tyranny and ensure the safety of our people.”

  Johan shook his head.

  “No,” he said. “You’re fighting because I wished you to, and your race knows no other way.”

  He lunged from the bed, his arm elongating in shadow as he reached for Argus’s throat. The commander’s eyes widened, his bafflement and surprise overriding his finely honed Seraphim reflexes. Johan’s strength was so great the wooden chair shattered as Johan slammed Argus to the ground. He kept his grip tight to prevent any sort of warning cry from escaping. Argus frantically kicked with his lower body as his hands wrapped around Johan’s, desperately trying to pry them loose. His face flushed red from his exertion.

  Johan abandoned the ruse, letting his visage return to one Argus recognized. At first the man recoiled in horror, and then anger flooded into his frightened eyes.

  “It should not be so surprising,” Johan whispered. “Have I not demanded war with my every breath?”

  Johan shifted so his right leg pressed down on Argus’s chest, easily pinning him to the ground. He released his one hand, using his other to keep Argus quiet. The weaker grip allowed Argus a bit of air, and he gasped out his final words.

  “They won’t believe it’s Bree.”

  “I don’t need them to believe,” Johan said. “I only need doubt and confusion. The war must continue, Argus. Your death will help ensure that happens.”

  His right hand elongated, wisps of black curling as it shaped, peeling back layers as it thinned into a long, curled Seraphim blade. His shadow hardened, becoming steel.

  “You were a fine man,” he whispered. “But a flower among a field of rot must still burn with all the rest.”

  He slowly pierced the blade through Argus’s chest, stopping only when it reached the heart. Argus convulsed, his internal mechanisms failing. Johan leaned closer, careful to keep the sword still. He did not wish to increase the man’s pain. He felt no joy in it.

  “You are too rare,” he whispered. “Beyond these islands is a world of beauty, wild with animals and awash with the song of birds. I salvaged it from humanity’s grasp. I saved it from good men like you and evil men seeking war and death. If I could, I would give it to humanity’s best. But even the best of you may become the worst. Your will is free. Your choices are your own. It is the curse an impotent God placed upon you. Please, die knowing you die to achieve a peace humanity could never reach on its own.”

  Argus’s shudders ceased. Johan rose to his feet, pulling his sword free and returning it to the shape of a young girl’s arm. Bree’s face replaced his, and he shook it sadly.

  “Your extinction cannot come soon enough,” he said.

  Johan exited the tent and walked back through the camp, ensuring many saw her tired expression, her dead eyes, and her swords swinging loose at her hips.

  Most of all, he wanted them to see the faint spray of blood across her clothes.

  CHAPTER

  20

  Kael awoke to a pillar of blinding light invading his prison cell. He couldn’t see who entered but heard their footfalls, heavy and armored.

  “Stand up,” a gruff voice commanded. “It’s time.”

  Kael rose to his feet while leaning against the wall to keep steady. No food. No drink. He felt like a drained, weaker version of himself.

  “A pardon from the Speaker?” he asked the knight who pulled him from the wall and slapped manacles on his wrists.

  “Shut your mouth, prisoner.”

  “Is that a yes?”

  A mailed gauntlet backhanded him across the mouth. Blood trickled from Kael’s lip and
down his neck. Two men held him by either arm, guiding him into the light, a third walking just ahead. Kael squinted, impatiently waiting for his eyes to adjust. Were any of the three his father? They walked down a wide corridor with a low ceiling; the wings of the two knights who held him nearly scraped the walls. Kael kept his eyes on the third knight while he more stumbled than walked forward. The knights lifted him higher, their hands digging deep into his armpits. His feet barely touched the floor after that.

  The corridor ended at a thick iron door locked with three separate bars. Soldiers blocked the way. An older man with a massive tome on a pedestal waited beside them.

  “Kael Skyborn,” the first knight said.

  The old man closed one eye to peer through a monocle on the other.

  “Properly scheduled,” the man said, scribbling a few quick marks with a quill. “Let them out.”

  It took four men to lift each bar from the rungs. Kael listened to their grunts with dire humor. It appeared there would be more effort spent removing him from the prison than actually executing him. A trio of escorts, a record keeper, and a squad of soldiers for his release compared to a single knight, a dropped rope, and an empty well for his death.

  “Something amusing, prisoner?” asked the knight on his left.

  “Nothing,” Kael said. “My mouth is shut, remember?”

  Kael dared a glance at the knight now that his eyes were adjusted. He was a shorter man but thick with muscle. His dark skin stood in stark contrast to the glimmering gold of his armor. The knight grabbed Kael’s face, and he leaned down close to stare eye to eye with him.

  “One more word like that and I will break your jaw.”