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With the means to end their lives tucked away safely, the Warswords were the first to mount their horses, taking the lead and starting the march through the main Bloodwoods. They were to ride the Mourner’s Trail for the last time, drawing the reapers’ attention outwards, so that Kipp might utilise the lesser-known entrances to the fortress from within.

But as the trees closed in around them, Thea saw just how much poison had seeped into her former home. As they drew nearer, they saw vine blights strangling the ancient trees. The sight alone triggered a deep lance of pain in Thea’s wrist. Her breath whistled between her teeth as she winced, the agony following the line of her scar.

Wilder’s horse came up alongside hers. ‘You alright?’ he murmured, low enough for only her to hear.

Rubbing her wrist, she nodded. ‘We’ve got bigger things to worry about.’

As they rode deeper into the Bloodwoods, the monsters’ scent became pungent enough to make Thea gag, the smell of fresh earth long gone. The forest was a far cry from the one she remembered. The dark glades had been beautiful and mysterious once, the canopy lush, the leaf litter damp and sliding beneath her boots. But like everything else in the midrealms, the Bloodwoods were dying. No leaves peppered the trees’ branches; no birds called from above. It was silent in a way it had never been before: the intake of breath before the last exhale.

It wasn’t long before they came upon the Mourner’s Trail – the only true way in and out of the fortress, the trees either side reaching over the road and joining in the middle, creating what was once a leafy tunnel, now just an archway of skeletal branches. There were no shadows, not yet, leaving the route clear for them to approach – a trap, or a tactic to cause unease and suspicion. But they had no choice, not with Kipp relying on them to draw the enemy’s focus away from the fortress, and certainly not with the weight of the few catapults they’d managed to transport from Aveum.

The narrow, rocky path seemed smaller to Thea somehow. Two years ago she had followed the trail out of Thezmarr with Wilder at her side, heading for Delmira. She had never imagined returning here with an armed force at her back. She had fought to become a Warsword for so long, only to come to this point – to use her Furies-given abilities against the fortress that had raised her.

Now, the trail seemed to hum in Thea’s presence, welcoming her home.

But it didn’t feel or smell like home, not anymore.

The wind rustled the brittle branches of the trail, sweeping up any debris in its path and pulling them towards Thezmarr. Thea shifted in her saddle, glancing back at the force behind her.

Two hundred.

Two hundred men and women, a combination of shadow-touched, Guardians and common folk, all marched along the Mourner’s Trail in her wake, and Thea knew without a doubt that soon enough, they would come to understand the road’s name intimately.

As the fortress walls came into sight, Esyllt signalled for the catapults to be taken off-road. His expression was all hard lines and determination. ‘They’ll cause significant damage,’ he said to Thea as he directed two soldiers and their cargo into the woods. ‘But I’d sooner see it in ruins than in the talons of those monsters. Thezmarr has stood against them from the start.’

‘We’ll raze it to the ground before they can hold it another day, sir,’ Thea told him.

The weapons master sat up straighter in his saddle. ‘I always liked you, Zoltaire. Fucking terrible at cleaning armour, though,’ he added as he found his place in the ranks once more.

The laugh that formed on Thea’s lips died as a rider appeared ahead.

A lone figure atop a black mare – the leader of Harenth’s royal guard, Captain Barker. Thea had only dealt with him once before, in Aveum, where he’d ushered Princess Jasira to safety after their trouble on the road. He drew the reins up short a few yards ahead, scanning those who stood before him.

‘Some familiar faces,’ he said, his eyes tracking across Thea, Cal, Kipp, Wilder, Torj and Vernich, widening as they landed on Talemir. Thea saw a flicker of fear in the captain’s gaze before he gathered himself and spoke again, loudly enough for the back lines to hear. ‘It does not have to end this way. You do not have to die today. Join me, and there is no need for you to perish at the foot of those walls. Join me and the ones you love need not be swallowed by the shadows.’

Thea urged her mare forward a few steps. ‘And who are you to offer such clemency? We have your king in chains. Do you expect us to believe that you hold any sway over the monsters inside Thezmarr’s gates?’

‘I have influence —’

‘We’re done with people who have influence,’ Talemir cut him off, giving Thea a subtle nod.

In a flurry of movement, she was at the captain’s side, her blade a blur of silver sweeping through the air before it sliced through flesh, tendon and bone.

Captain Barker’s head hit the road and rolled from the Mourner’s Trail.

‘One less monster to deal with,’ Wilder commented, with a note of satisfaction.

Thea let her ruthless smile show as she pushed the man’s still-twitching body from the saddle, watching it fall to the side and hit the ground with a thud. ‘Looks like we’ve got another horse. Who needs one?’

With one enemy leader now dead, they marched across the final stretch of the Mourner’s Trail until the thick stone walls and fortress gates were in full view. Tattered banners clung desperately to the towers, bearing the insignia of a guild that once protected the midrealms from darkness, now gripped in its shadows. All around the parapets, shadow wraiths were poised like watchful statues. The air was thick with their choking scent.

Somewhere behind Thea, she heard the battering ram being prepared, but no volley of enemy arrows came for them, no lashes of onyx power… Whoever was leading the defence from within Thezmarr’s walls was allowing them this attack.

The battering ram collided with the gates, the impact shuddering through the ramparts and the ground below.

The long, heavy pole swung back and forth again, striking for a second time.

Stomach churning with unease, Thea looked down the frontlines, waiting for someone to speak, to rally the courage or foolhardy recklessness of those who were already doomed —