Page 48 of A Legionnaire’s Guide to Love and Peace

But it was starkly, horribly clear when they hit her. The beacon of her sword snapped sideways, the crunch carrying over the confused shouts of the century. Their centurion was wearing armor. That had to have mattered. The alternative was too terrible to thinkof.

And just like that, their plan was ashes.

It had all hinged on having the might of an Aurean warrior to finish the demon off, but Mira was crumpled somewhere in the dark.

Her sword’s light had disappeared the second she was hit, and now the clearing was nothing but indistinct shadows, lit only by the last embers of the demon’s smothered fire and the red glow of its infernal heart impossibly high above them.

It let out a quivering, guttural noise.

Kat had never heard a demon laugh before.

Her hand fell from her spear. Their strength as a century had conquered two of these Lesser Lords, but the third was a different beast entirely—one cunning enough to bait them in and powerful enough that it had dispatched Mira like it was swatting a fly.

They had nothing but strength and steel to stand againstit.

Strength, steel, and the token hung from her neck.

Multitoken Aureans always attuned ahead of battle.

In the chaos of the lines, there was barely any room to think—only to react and follow orders.

Bringing more than one token into alignment was near impossible in the heat of the moment.

But the flow Kat slipped into as she centered her focus on the demon’s hulking, twisted shadow took very little from her conscious mind.

It was survival instinct, plain and simple, and in that moment, Kat knew exactly what to call for.

The gate to the heavenly realm flung open, and angelic light blazed overhead.

It poured down over the Lesser Lord like molten metal, flooding the clearing with its golden warmth. The beast gave a rattling hiss, its star-stained eyes flinching closed against the overwhelming luminance.

There was no whistle to drive them forward. Only Emory straightening ahead of her and bellowing, with all the authority of a hinge shield, “ CHARGE. ”

And like the good, trained soldiers they were, every last rank of the Third Century lunged.

Every soldier but two. As the spears locked in behind their shields and the lines closed on their target, Emory held back, his sword at the ready, his shield raised to cover Kat as she maintained her alignment.

The sight of it nearly knocked the light from her grasp.

He hadn’t learned a single thing from the moment she’d put him in the dirt all those months ago.

But maybe that wasn’t quiteit.

He wouldn’t even follow his own orders if it meant leaving her unshielded.

She wouldn’t squander his devotion—not when this was their last chance.

Kat found the edges of the hole her focus had pried between planes and ripped with every last bit of strength she’d gathered over the course of her training.

She raised one arm. Conducting, not grounding.

A movement to guide her intention. Her fingers spread, and overhead, the light matched her motion, splaying into a sheet that whited out the night.

It made it impossible to miss the inevitable consequence that came for her.

She’d been careful when she first called the light to pin the source away from herself.

No grounding gesture had given her token away.

But this clever demon saw the ranks of soldiers charging for it, saw the two that weren’t, and knew exactly where its next strike should fall.

It was the same trick in a horrid reversal. As the gnarled claws reared back for the blow, Kat felt the choice she could make like a wound that had already speared her clean through. Drop the light. Dodge. Draw the demon’s ire away from Emory even as he squared steadfastly to meetit.

Or hold. Hold with every drop of bravery she had left, hold with the knowledge she might never walk back through her father’s forge door, that Emory might never taste Miss Ophelia’s strawberry rhubarb pie, that the life in peace that had been promised to them at the end of this road was nothing but a dream.

Hold and give the rest of the Third the chance to strike true.

It was the choice she’d been making ever since her first battle—but it had never hurt this much before to make that call. To let the future be ripped from her teeth and grin through it. To keep performing, a proud soldier to the end.

She fixed herself on the view she’d always expected to see when the end came. On the back of Emory’s neck, the solid wall he’d made of his shoulders as he squared to the incoming blow. Anything that got to her would have to go through him first.

But impossibly, the demon’s hand stalled in its arc.

It took Kat a full second to blink her own light from her eyes and register that it hadn’t just happened —that four spears had rammed clean through the demon’s sinewy palm and lodged, sending their wielders digging into the forest floor with every last ounce of their strength.

The Lesser Lord, too, seemed confused about this turn of events—a confusion worsened by the rest of the Third’s efforts to stick it like a pincushion.

It operated in a world of hierarchical power, power that cascaded down from a lord to its generals to its underlings to its thralls.

It only understood the power of its enemies within the same framework.

It had gone for the first Aurean that had lunged at it.

Its next logical move was to eliminate the second.

It had ignored the simple human soldiers. Kat had drawn the monster’s attention so completely that it hadn’t bothered dodging the spears that came its way. Hadn’t even seen the first decade’s spear line lunging to step between its mighty swing and their hinge spear.

Ziva, Sawyer, Brandt, and Giselle—Kat could have tackled them all into a hug if she weren’t so busy maintaining the overhead light show.

They’d held their line, and now they held the demon’s outstretched arm aloft on the tips of their spears.

For a moment, she feared it would wrench back and disarm them all at once, but then her gaze flicked over to the beast’s body.

Where no fewer than eight of the century’s spears were buried through its infernal heart.

The Third Century piled onto the beast, taking no chances, but the red light of its fire had gone out, leaving nothing but Kat’s brilliant gold.

Their battle cries went from vicious to joyous, the tumult from furious to a tangle of arms and limbs as the soldiers began to slap each other on the back and pile into chaotic hugs.

Kat fell to her knees—but she held her light.

And then Emory was on her, joined by the rest of the decade, the ten of them on the ground in one seething heap, a dream she never wanted to wake from.

It was over. The third Lesser Lord was cooling at their feet, and it welled up in Kat all at once that she would never, ever have to fight again if she so chose.

That with this blow, the last stain of evil upon the material plane was wiped out. Telrus would be at peace.

She would be at peace.

Only one thought wrenched her from the complete joy she found herself buried in. “ Mira, ” she gasped into Ziva’s elbow. She tried to fight free from the tangle of her decade, but Emory steadied her with a hand to the shoulder.

“They’ve got her,” he shouted into her ear. “She’s…I wouldn’t look, if I were you, but they’ve just landed with a healer in tow.”

Who had just landed was made abundantly clear as a token-assisted voice blasted over the clearing, “Three down, none to go!”

Adrien Augustine got little more than exasperated groans in answer as he dropped himself squarely on the crown of his downed enemy’s skull.

Kat’s hard work was doing him all sorts of favors, his tokens catching her light greedily and his mop of golden hair grabbing whatever was left over.

The prince stood tall, triumphant, and finally unburdened from the weight of the fear that had been dogging him all these months.

He’d dug his circlet out from somewhere just for the occasion.

“I feel like some sort of speech is in order,” he said, clapping his hands together.

“ But, ” he continued after more than a few emphatic stares, “I also feel like the lot of you might have had more than enough of that back at the feast—and not nearly enough of the fine ale I sourced to compensate you for the glorious work you’ve done tonight! ”

The fist he flung in the air was met with enthusiastic cheers—though they were nothing compared to the roar that went up when Bodhi Ranjan and an Aurean healer lifted Mira Morgenstern gingerly to her feet.

The centurion’s face was half bloodied, one arm dangled limply at her side, and the glorious battle armor that had seen her through seven years on the campaign was crumpled so badly it would take a master crafter months to set it to rights and restore the detailing.

Her eyes were unfocused, and the healer had one hand on the back of her neck, the other white-knuckled around their token.

Kat got the sense that Mira’s spine was the very first thing they’d seento.

“Weren’t you louts in the middle of a party?” their centurion spat, along with a tooth. “Start acting like it.”

And who were they to refuse a centurion’s order?