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I doubt my army has any idea why I’m suddenly energized.

Valerisse glances toward the oncoming troops and turns back with a smile I can make out between the cheek guards of her helm even across the distance.

Whatever other soldiers have noticed the new arrivals, they must also assume it’s allies joining the fray late. No sentries have warned them.

Our trickery is working as planned.

The arriving troops must be exhausted from the pace they’ll have set, but at the sight of the battle underway, they surge forward even faster. They sweep across the field from both sides, rushing toward our enemy’s flanks.

At the last moment, just as the forerunners raise their blades, the illusionary teams drop their magic. Uniforms flicker to pale Cotean green, Lavirian red, Gorician brown—and the familiar dark green of my home country.

Even Accasy made it in time.

As more clashes of blades ring out across the landscape, I thrust my sword toward the sky once more. “Our allies are here! All of the empire unites against the traitors! ”

The conquered countries weren’t able to pull together enough troops to overwhelm Valerisse’s force, but our numbers look nearly equal now—and the newcomers have taken her people by surprise. Dozens of soldiers topple in the first onslaught from behind.

My supporters on the hillside rally all over again. Determined shouts resonate all around me.

For the first time, victory is truly in reach.

We aren’t the only ones to realize that. I catch flickers of fear crossing the faces of the nearest enemy soldiers. Those on the far edges of the battle wheel around, shifting and scrambling as they attempt to defend themselves from the other side.

Valerisse’s horse rears. She glares straight at me with narrowed eyes, claps her hand against her blessed armband, and leans low as if to speak to someone beyond my view.

I’m already bracing myself when a roar of power reverberates through the soldiers.

The unseen force knocks aside even Valerisse’s people, opening up a passage through their ranks, framed by invisible walls. As her horse springs forward along the narrow path, the effect veers up the hillside.

My soldiers dodge the swath of magic and swing swords and spears only to have them bounce off the protective surface. Arrows patter off the top.

A few of my guards leap in front of the surge of magic only to be knocked to the side. Their own gifts crackle and sizzle off the racing force.

One of them manages to hurl up a barrier right in front of me with a hum of magic that trembles into my flesh. Sparks flare between the opposing walls.

But I don’t think Valerisse intended this effort to fell me on its own. She’s galloping toward me, looking absolutely intent on delivering the killing blow herself .

I hold my sword out defensively, my legs shifting into the stance Captain Evando has coached me in for months. The weapon feels heavier than usual in my hands—maybe because the godlen who blessed it is much more invested in the woman closing on me.

A ruddy glow lights all around Valerisse’s form. She slows her horse as it climbs the slope and dismounts about ten paces away from me.

The path behind her contracts and vanishes, encasing us in a smaller but still impenetrable bubble.

I’m not sure how much my guards’ efforts are protecting me anymore.

Marc bangs against an invisible surface a few feet away while Raul and Lorenzo ram it with a mass of condensed shadow from the other side.

The magical barrier doesn’t so much as creak. I suppose the dedicats who’ve conjured it dispersed the rest to concentrate on solidifying the shield around the tribune and me.

Valerisse stalks toward me, violet feathers bobbing in her helm, her mouth set in a grimace, her eyes gleaming with triumph. The athletic grace of her strides speaks of total arrogance.

She assumes I’ll be easy pickings. That she can make a spectacle of cutting me down, and nothing else in this battle will matter.

She might not be wrong.

When she stops, only five paces away now, and lifts her voice, I realize she has an amplification charm by her throat. It projects her words far and wide.

“So-called empress, did you think you could win by begging for favors from all the countries beneath us? Don’t you know that real strength can’t come from shaky alliances, only from what you can do for yourself?”

Her words couldn’t have pricked deeper if they came from divine inspiration. My chest constricts with the thought of the loyalties that lead to the deaths all around me.

I’ve fought so little of this war in any way she’d actually consider fighting. My allies have taken the worst of the blows.

That doesn’t mean I haven’t earned my throne, though.

“You have no idea how much strength it’s taken for me to get to this moment,” I retort.

She scoffs. “Sitting pampered in your palace in Accasy and then more of the same here in Dariu—and you think you can talk about struggle? The Darium empire was built through combat and domination. You would never have lasted a day during the founding.”

A quiver tickles across my throat. When I speak, my voice resonates as loud as hers.

“It isn’t the time of the founding any longer. We’ve left the Great Retribution far behind. We can be more than survivors grappling with each other to come out on top. As a tribune, I’m surprised you don’t know how much strength there is in bringing people together for a common cause.”

At the corner of my eye, I see Bastien standing shoulder to shoulder with Lorenzo now. Is it their gifts working together, air and illusion, to project my voice like hers?

Can she not see how much strength there is in what we’re accomplishing right now?

She doesn’t want to.

Valerisse rolls her eyes. “We march into battle with all the blessings of our godlen of war, the godlen who gave the imperial family their sacred charge. Sabrelle will see you fall.”

I raise my voice even louder. “The empire answers to all the godlen, and I have their blessings. I’m guided by all of them for the good of all the empire’s people. Let them show they stand with me as I have honored them, even as Sabrelle turns her back on the rest of our divine guardians! ”

Sheens of light flicker within the barrier: orange and green, blue and pink, yellow and gray and a wash of deep purple that wavers all around me as if Creaden himself has wrapped me in his approval.

Then white. The pure, soothing white of my chosen godlen washes over me from above like a stream of warm sunlight.

Elox may not have offered an open show of his support before, but he’s here now. He’s facing this challenge with me.

Gasps that are all astonishment and awe rather than pain reach my ears from the soldiers surrounding us. Valerisse’s face hardens into a mask of resentment.

She takes another step forward, her sword lowered but her fingers clenched around the hilt.

Her words take on a sneering lilt. “Show you can earn Sabrelle’s favor, then, as you’ve failed to so many times before.

Are you actually going to fight, or only hide up here behind your guards and soldiers?

Let’s see what might the ‘empress’ can bring to bear! ”

My limbs quiver with the urge to answer her challenge, to launch myself forward with a swing of this sword—but that’s exactly what she wants.

She’s goading me, knowing that if it comes to a regular skirmish, she has years if not decades of experience over me.

She wants to show my failure in combat before all the soldiers assembled on both sides.

Every particle in me longs to demonstrate the strength I do possess, the respect I’ve more than earned.

Valerisse and her godlen have backed me into a corner too many times. I came here, I did battle with her, but it’s been as much on my terms as I could make it.

If only she’d step close enough for me to use the addling potion in my ring… But I doubt I could touch her before she ran me through with that sword .

A chill trickles through me despite the support the gods showed me. I won them over, but can I really win this fight?

What if my methods aren’t enough? Should I take my chances while I have them and attack Valerisse? With the blessed sword, I might be able to snatch Sabrelle’s favor from her…

Even as that doubt grips me, I feel the gazes of the people all around us. The soldiers still standing who marched here on my behalf, the princes who threw in their lots with me over their own families, the man who was once emperor and now hails me as his empress.

They followed me because they believe in me , in all the ways I’m different from the rulers before. Great God save me, I believe in me too.

I’ve trusted in my own methods to see me through so much struggle before. I will not let my principles be compromised any further.

I’m not a warrior. I’m not a killer—never willingly.

The woman in front of me is, though. Perhaps in her tactics against me, she’s revealing what would get under her skin.

I let my own sword dip as if I no longer see her as a threat.

Drawing on the well of calm I’ve cultivated inside me, I meet her eyes with all the serenity I can exude.

“Why should I fight you when you know I’ve already triumphed?

Eight godlen support me, while you can only call on one.

You talk about strength, but the only kind you know is lashing out with fists and blades. ”

Valerisse’s eyes narrow. “That’s how strength is enforced, which you’d know if?—”

I interrupt her before she can launch into a longer criticism.

“You can’t offer the empire the joy of play and making art or the kind of creativity that can transform people’s understanding.

You can’t offer my people the wisdom of history and philosophy to recognize what a healthy society needs.

You can’t offer them a willing ear to listen or the means to connect and collaborate across all the borders from north to south. ”