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A battalion of Divhs screech across the skies, either barreling into the flying skrill or searing them out of the air with gouts of flame.

More great beasts drop to the earth, but as they land heavily, the ground seems to break into pieces below them, and an entirely new wellspring of snakes erupt, shooting skyward and spinning out in a furious mass.

Meanwhile, the Sahktar press toward us, blackening the earth. Any Divhs that get close enough to them to be a threat immediately fall, victim to the killing vapor that fills the shadow creatures.

Men, horses, and Divhs are overrun for a moment in this swarm, and I wheel around in horror to see Rihad standing now separate from the others, his arms lifted high as his mouth extends into a grotesque howl of obscene joy.

On the opposite edges of the battlefield, the Sahktar raise their arms as if in solidarity, and a new horde of skrill emerge from their depths—larger and more horrible than any that have come before, winged and fanged.

Then a cluster of spinning balls of light burst out of the depths of the coliseum and race past me, angling toward Rihad.

They wink out of view and appear again half a battlefield away, repeating the move once more until they appear directly in front of the former lord protector.

They smash into him unceremoniously, and I don’t know who’s more surprised—him or the hummerlets.

As he falters, though, the first wave of the new horde shatters into nothingness, simply disappearing. Then Rihad rights his stance and the hummerlets scatter.

The moment Rihad raises his hands again, the screaming fury of the skrill mounts anew, but that brief break is all I need to understand my course.

I need to get to Rihad.

No sooner do I press forward then a lumbering Divh, some sort of half-bear, half-bull creature, roars into my path and swings around, completely covered in the glistening bodies of the skrill.

There’s no way for me to avoid the punishing blow of his fist, and I’m lifted bodily out of the saddle as my horse scrambles away.

I crash into the ground so hard, my sight flashes away to utter blackness, then roars back again with fire and pain.

Literally fire and pain, as a blanket of heat scorches the air above me, and fire dissolves the curtain of snakes that shower over me.

The snakes that still live fall to either side.

I’m protected that way at least, but there are still so many of them, too many.

I’ll never reach Rihad in time on my own.

Talia! Syril’s voice rips across my senses, and I look up, stumbling back.

She’s riding low, her waist clamped in Tennet’s grip, and she gestures me back, away from the mound of snakes as the glorious golden Ayne drops another line of fire in front of me, clearing the path.

I stagger forward, then gain speed, but I know I’m still too slow. Too slow!

Still, if Ayne and Tennet are here, that means they heard my call—heard my summons across the Blessed Plane. I did it! I called and they heard, never mind that I wasn’t bound to Gent, never mind that I hadn’t yet put on the crown. And if they’re here, then…

“Fortiss?” I call out with all my might, both inside my mind and through my bloodied lips, and I hear his voice in return but it’s still too far. Is he making his way through the Blessed Plane? If so, what’s taking him so long?

I see Marsh then, all bird head, winged shoulders, and man-like body barreling through the sky to hit the ground in his usual awkward gallop, Caleb brandishing an enormous torch as the Savasci woman beside him shoots flaming arrows into knots of skrill.

From the corner of my eye, I see Nazar’s great winged lion swoop across the sky, plucking skrill-covered guards from their mounts and tossing them to the ground.

A scream has me turning around in the middle of the field, and I see my father on the ground, stumbling forward and covered over with a pile of snakes. They’ve pinioned his arms wide, and in his newly banded delirium, he can’t get up.

I hadn’t thought the sickness would come on him so harshly, but he hasn’t been banded in nearly a decade. I didn’t think!

Gent ! I shout in my mind, willing my Divh to hear me with every fiber of my being. The Lord of the Tenth house is fallen! The house you have stood for and fought for since the dawn of the Protectorate is in peril. Please come!

But Gent doesn’t come, and only chaos reigns.

I fight my way toward my father, slashing my hands to the right and left, clearing a path based on little else than the sheer force of the winged crown.

It’s not enough, it can never be enough, but if I can just get through them fast enough to free my father, get him to call his Divh…

I finally reach him, and with a mighty heave, I sweep the snakes from his hands, his arm.

His face is covered in glistening goo, the poison of the snakes creating a thick, sticky mass that turns my stomach.

But we have no time for him to recover. I jerk his left arm forward and up as his bleary, poison-addled eyes meet mine…

A glorious green fire raptor bursts into the sky above us, talons out.

I only have enough time to register my father’s startled gasp as he’s snatched up and away from me—and tossed into the sky.

Then the raptor spirals around him, coming up and under his limp form, and somehow my father has the wherewithal to clutch onto her showy green plumage as she lets forth a burst of fire to blast another fall of skrill into ashes.

I grin in a moment of sheer, undiluted joy at the sight, but then realize how much my distraction is going to cost me.

A veritable wall of the bigger, stronger skrill drop out of the sky, circling me and pressing close—close—and then cover me completely.

I collapse to the ground. The skrill can’t outright kill or even poison me, but as Rihad is clearly demonstrating, they can imprison me.

And whether they intend to or not, I understand as I gasp for air beneath them…

they can kill me. By the sheer pressure of their bodies, I can feel the breath leaching out of me, my heart starting to hammer with real fear.

Talia. I hear Fortiss’s voice finally break through my own panic, and I almost burst into tears.

His voice in my mind feels like coming home after being lost in the darkness.

Even separated across the battlefield, my body broken and dying, our connection remains unbroken—something deeper than magic or duty.

I don’t have the strength to answer him back, I don’t think, not with words.

He can’t see me, and if he’s riding Szonja high above the battlefield, there will be no way to pick me out of the undulating sea of skrill.

Instead, I picture Rihad in my mind, the imposter lord protector with his gleaming golden crown.

A responding tide of fury washes over me, Fortiss’s protective instinct surging not just for the Protectorate, but for me specifically. Despite my dire condition, I smile. For Fortiss, it’s always personal.

My shoulders weaken, and I somehow sink farther into the dirt, as the slithering pile of snakes press me down.

Despite the horror I fully feel, I don’t fear the snakes themselves.

The skrill were, as always, simply tools to be used by the warriors who claimed the crown.

They’re deadly weapons, yes, but also stone masons capable of incredible feats of creation.

The mighty fortress of the Eighth House, the great wall that cut off the Western Realms—neither of these would’ve been possible without them.

The poison that drops from their body, the fear they incite, the hallucinations…

these are a part of who they are, yes. But only part.

They are creatures of the darkness, but they’re not evil.

Only the warriors who use them with evil intent can truly claim that mantle.

Still, I wish they weren’t so heavy .

I hear a scream that sounds…almost familiar in the distance.

Not Gent’s hooting, ululating howl, but the high-pitched, chittering screech that once upon forever ago during the Tournament of Gold turned my bones to milk.

Now, I can barely recall the mighty creature it belongs to. Now…I only wish to sleep.

A scorch of heat slashes above me, and I blink up at it, blearily.

There’s no pain, though. The poison of the snakes may have worked enough for me that much, numbing me to the truth of my situation.

It’s nice, almost. It’s quiet, and my sight is dimming, weakening with each strangled gasp.

Then another wave of blistering hot wind rushes over me, and I can almost believe I see daylight, and the flare of a sapphire dragon zipping by.

I sigh, and with what little breath I have, I murmur my last, most important words.

“I love you, beautiful Gent,” I whisper. “I hope you’re back among the hills of the Blessed Plane, running?—”

A blow of incredible force knocks words—breath—even thought, from me as I’m swept aside amid the pile of skrill, like winter leaves cleared from a mountain pass.

I go tumbling end over end, bouncing hard against the ground before another blow sends me flying in the other direction.

Before I can catch my breath, I’m slammed again, this time into a dark, thick wall of warm, smooth hide?—

Hide?

I suck in a huge lungful of air and fling my arms out, my eyes unseeing as I’m lifted high into the sky and cradled tight against an immense barrel chest. Gent’s howl lifts up to the heavens as he swings me around, his right arm sweeping out from side to side as his left paw curls around me protectively.