I nodded, still struggling to keep my face hidden.
Septimus tucked one hand into his pocket and brushed past me, patting my horse’s shoulder as he did.
“Good luck out there. Looks like some nasty business.”
I released an exhale as he passed, unwilling to question my luck even if I had the time to. Maybe he’d dismissed me. Or maybe he’d recognized me. Even if he had, I couldn’t let myself stop to think too hard about what that meant.
I had a task, and a clear road ahead of me. I kicked my horse back into a canter.
I took the left path.
The attack was a near-perfect mimicry of the attack on the Moon Palace. I had to admire Jesmine’s commitment to her pettiness. As far as she knew, Raihn had been responsible for the Moon Palace attack. To her, this would be justice. And Mother, she was damned good at her job. It was amazing what she’d managed to execute. It felt like I was galloping into the underworld itself.
Nightfire smoke had a very particular smell—one that seemed to burn your nostrils from the inside out. The stench of it was overpowering by the time I crossed the second bridge from the human districts back into the vampire territories of Sivrinaj. I was at the outskirts of the city at this point, and as soon as I turned the corner to the first main road leading to the base, I cursed to myself.
The scene before me was one of pure carnage. The searing white of Nightfire stung my eyes. It consumed most of the armory.
It seemed that Jesmine had decided—probably wisely—that retaking and holding the base was impossible so close to the heart of Sivrinaj. So destroying it would have to do.
But they were far from unopposed. Rishan soldiers surrounded me, casters fighting back the flames, warriors charging into the bloodshed. On the roof, barely visible through the Nightfire light, warriors tangled. I jerked my horse backwards as a bloody, mangled Hiaj body landed at its feet with a sickening wet thump.
I stared down at him. He blinked at me. His face was covered in blood, shapeless in a way that implied most of his bones had been broken. A brief flicker of recognition sparked in his eyes, and his mouth opened, but no sound came out.
For a horrible moment, I was looking at my father’s body, mangled just like this one, trying to speak to me in his final moments and failing.
My head snapped up as a distant scream rang out—the kind that set the hairs upright on the back of my neck.
I recognized that sound immediately. It was the same sound that had pierced the air during the Moon Palace attack.
Demons. Jesmine had gotten her hands on a summoner.
My horse had heard that scream too, and it was extremely uninterested in going anywhere near it. It reared up in a violent, sudden lurch, then bucked, and I had to throw myself off its back as it bolted back into the darkened streets of the city.
I let out a barrage of grunts as I rolled against the cobblestones. I cursed and pushed myself up to my feet, groping around until I found Killan’s sword again. It was a clumsy, unremarkable weapon. I didn’t like fighting with traditional swords—they were big and awkward and didn’t move as fast as I did—but something pointy was something pointy.
I staggered to my feet and set my sights on the burning armory. The doors had been blown open. An entire quarter of the building was simply missing.
Jesmine would be inside. My soldiers would be inside.
I was running into the flames before I gave myself time to think about it.
10
RAIHN
I fucking knew it.
If there wasn’t so much death all around me, I might’ve reveled in that a bit more. As it was, it was hard to appreciate my sense of superiority.
I was lucky I made it through the explosion alive. Many Rishan warriors hadn’t. Someone had managed to breach the armory walls and plant sigils, apparently, because the explosion came before the Hiaj or the demons did. I was walking through the halls when it happened, and I felt it a second before the Nightfire split the air.
You smell that? Blood.
Well, I certainly smelled it now. It was the first sense that came back to me as I regained consciousness after the explosion. Then I pushed myself up, and staggered into hell.
Nightfire everywhere, silhouettes of Hiaj and Rishan soldiers alike running through the blaze. Nightborn demons—four-legged, hairless beasts—darted through the flames at impossible speeds. A distant wail rang out as they clamped their teeth around some unlucky soldier, halls away. They were identical to the ones that had been planted at the Moon Palace all those months ago.
An intentional choice, I was sure. All of it. The Nightfire. The demons. A deliberate, downright artful imitation of that night. Jesmine’s little fuck you for the attack I’d refused to confess to.