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It was then that three reapers stalked forth from the swirling black mass at the centre of all the suffering.

Thea tried to direct her horse with her knees and thighs, but it wouldn’t budge – it was no Tverrian stallion. And so she leapt from its back, sprinting towards the closest reaper.

The monster was reaching for a soldier cowering before it, its talons poised to pierce armour and flesh, as another had once done to her. She had incapacitated that beast with her magic, but she wasn’t willing to risk that now. What if she obliterated the entire field? Along with everyone – man and monster – on it?

Instead, she whirled Wilder’s great sword of Naarvian steel, and the reaper seemed to sense her.

Slowly, it turned to face her. Sniffing, just as its brethren had done, as though it could scent the magic coursing through her even though she wore the alchemy-treated fate stone.

‘Sniff all you want,’ she said between gritted teeth. ‘I’ll gut you just as I gutted your friend.’

A lash of darkness came for her, but she was ready.

She sliced at it as though severing a limb —

Only to have Cal and Kipp leap in front of her.

‘What the fuck?’ she shouted, shoving her two friends out of the way. ‘You don’t even have Naarvian steel.’

‘So give us yours,’ Cal said, eyes wide as the reaper stared them all down.

Kipp placed himself between her and the monster. ‘You’re a princess of Delmira, Thea. It’s our duty to protect you.’

‘I don’t need protection.’ She pivoted around her friends, just in time to block the whip of another dark coil. ‘And I’m no fucking princess.’

Thea launched herself at the reaper.

The monster sent out a blast of darkness that sent all of them sprawling across the mud.

‘Now’s not the time for this shit,’ Wilder growled, the heart of another reaper clutched in his fist. He tossed it aside and helped Thea to her feet, his hands slick with blood. ‘Cal and Kipp, a noble effort from you both, but your strengths lie elsewhere. Theprincesscan handle herself.’

Thea could have kissed him then and there.

‘He’s right,’ Torj grunted. ‘Cal, you see to the archers. They need to regroup. See what you can do about retrieving arrows from the dead. Kipp, for fuck’s sake, go to Esyllt. He needs your head on your damn shoulders.’

If it weren’t for the reaper advancing towards them, Thea would have laughed at the sight of her friends saluting her sheepishly before scrambling back towards the castle. Their hearts were in the right place, but their concerns were misplaced.

Now, she turned to face the monster, squaring her shoulders once more. How many more hearts would she carve out before the battle was done? How many had Talemir Starling claimed before the midrealms had dubbed him the Prince of Hearts?

A whip of darkness came for her.

Thea dodged it as Torj cleaved through it with his sword and Wilder attacked the reaper itself.

For a moment, Thea’s vision blurred, and she saw the Daughter of Darkness, her one good eye piercing Thea’s, staring into her soul as though she were right there in front of her. A wave of indescribable grief washed over Thea, almost knocking the air from her lungs. She didn’t understand what she grieved, only that she felt it in the deepest part of her chest.

And then the Daughter of Darkness was gone, and Thea was launching herself at the reaper, half climbing up its sinewy frame like an incensed animal, ignoring the lashing of onyx power and the pain that seared her exposed skin. She clung to the reaper’s grotesque torso, forgetting the Warswords in the heat of the skirmish as she clutched her dagger in her fist, stabbing the monster over and over in the neck, its blood spurting like a fountain. She knew it wouldn’t kill it, but in that moment, she didn’t want to give it the gift of death. She wanted it to suffer, to scream beneath her punishment.

Torj and Wilder cut its legs out from underneath it and she fell with the creature to the muddied earth. She hacked at its already gory body until its chest caved beneath her hands and she tore flesh and muscle and cartilage to get to that throbbing black mass within. She tore its heart from its body, panting.

As the adrenaline ebbed away, she hardly recognised herself.

She scanned their surroundings, spotting a wraith creeping up on Wilder, who had moved on to deal with another reaper. She snatched a spear from a nearby corpse and threw it with all her might, pinning the lesser monster to the ground before she pounced upon it and took its heart too.

She could feel the eyes of their forces on her, and she knew she must look like a feral creature, covered in blood and gore, throwing herself at monsters with wild abandon. She didn’t care. This was what she had been born to do, and as she looked around, she realised that they were winning, at least on the northern front.

As she sliced through another wraith, a cheer rose from the battlements.

Thea looked around to see what heroics Wilder and Torj had managed, but when she met their gaze, it was her they looked at.