“You need to at least give our soldiers time to surround both buildings,” Liv insisted. It had been all that she and Matthew could do to keep Triss from storming out of the guild mistress’s office, through the campus, and down to the guild halls by herself, sword in hand.
“She could be hurt, Liv!” Triss exclaimed. “For all we know she’s bleeding right now somewhere, and she needs us.”
“And if they’ve taken her captive, and see us coming, they could sneak her out the back and be gone before we know what’s happening,” Matthew said. Someone who didn’t know him might have said that his voice was calm, but Liv could hear the tension cracking beneath the surface, see it in the stiffness of his body. Her brother was keeping himself very tightly controlled, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t just as upset as his wife. “We need men watching every entrance before we do anything. We don’t even know which of the two guild halls is the one we want.”
Not for the first time, Liv almost suggested that she send her spirit out to scout the buildings. If the need hadn’t been so urgent, or if Keri had been with her, she might have done it. She didn’t relish the idea of simply leaving her body slumped in a chair in Lia Every’s office, particularly not if she ended up delaying everyone else while they waited for her. It was never entirely predictable, where the currents of mana moving through the world might take a disembodied spirit, and she’d never been able to forget how Keri had ended up wandering the world, unable to return to his body until she’d found him. No, it was simpler just to give her soldiers time to do what they needed.
“We should at least head in that direction,” Triss argued. “Shouldn’t we? So we’re ready to go?”
Liv exchanged a glance with Matthew. “That seems reasonable,” she said. Triss needed to be doing something, or she was only going to get angrier. Liv turned to where the guildmistress sat behind her desk. “Thank you for letting us use your office, Lia, and for your help,” she said.
The older woman nodded. “Of course. Would you like me to come with you?”
“No.” Liv shook her head. “I’d rather have you here at the school, ready if we need you. I would recommend that you keep all the students in their dormitories for the rest of the evening, until we know exactly what is going on.”
“Of course.” Every nodded.
Liv slipped out the door into the corridor, where Triss had already made a beeline for the stairs, Matthew just on her heels. Kaija and two of Liv’s personal guard peeled off from where they’d been watching the office door and fell into step, the two guards behind Liv and Kaija on her left side.
“Ghveris is down there with Soile,” Kaija said, keeping her voice low.
“How long will it take them to surround both buildings and shut down the streets?” Liv asked.
“I’d imagine they’ll be finished by the time we get there,” Kaija replied. “If you want the rest of the guild halls locked down, that will take more soldiers and more time. The Butchers Hall has an attached restaurant and its own small dock on the river. If you want that place secured, it’s going to attract a lot of attention.”
Liv sighed. “We’ll wait on it, then,” she declared, as they stepped out onto the campus. The night air was a welcome relief from the day’s heat, and every breeze that made its way into the city seemed to carry with it the fresh scent of the mountain peaks that surrounded the valley. Her carriage was waiting, the driver perched atop his seat with reins and whip in hand, and another two of Liv’s personal guards waited there to make certain that no one approached. During the day, when classes were in session, she would never have brought it onto campus: there were simply too many people moving about, from building to building, hurrying between the training grounds, the workshop, the infirmary, or the dormitories.
Triss was first inside, one hand on the hilt of her sword, but as Matthew was climbing into the carriage after her, a sudden fluttering of wings came down out of the night sky. Liv took a step back, dropping her hand to the hilt of her stormwand, where it hung at her hip, and before she’d even had a chance to register what was happening, she’d been forced back by her guards, two of whom thrust themselves in between her body and the bat that practically fell out of the sky onto the cobblestones.
“Wait,” Liv said, as her guards drew blades or pointed the heads of their halberds at the small animal flapping on the ground. Something was obviously wrong, and she caught sight of a bleeding wound before the bat collapsed in on itself. “It’s a Red Shield hunter. They aren’t here to hurt me.”
Matthew stepped back out of the carriage to see what was happening, and the bat slowly shifted from a mass of viscous blood into a wounded young man, both hands clutched to his belly and face twisted in pain, curled at their feet. Liv recognized his face, even though he wasn’t in any of her classes, and she pushed past her guards to kneel next to him.
“Shooting Star, isn’t it?” Liv asked, and the Red Shield nodded. “What happened to you?”
“I was with Ettie and Ronja,” the young man gasped. His face was pale, and Liv suspected that he’d used all the blood in his system to change shape, rather than to heal his wound. “We found them – the ones trying to kill you. But they caught us on the way out. I tried to fight, but they had crossbows. Ettie told me to get out and find you.”
“Crossbows.” Triss was leaning out of the carriage. “Were you the only one shot?”
Shooting Star nodded. “When I left them, neither was hurt.” Talking must have hurt, for the young man winced in pain.
“Where were you?” Liv asked. “You did the right thing coming to get us. Tell me where you left them, and I’ll go take care of it.”
“Joiner’s Guild,” Shooting Star gasped. “Basement.”
“Good.” Liv reached down to place a hand on the young hunter’s shoulder. “I’ll get them out safe. I promise you.” She turned to her left, made eye contact with Vihaan, a guard who had come to her from Lendh ka Dakruim three years back. Liv had been hesitant to accept him until he’d revealed that he was one of Tej Mishra’s nephews.
“Get him to the college infirmary, as quick as you can,” Liv commanded. “They should already know that he needs blood – there aren’t all that many Red Shields here. But make certain. You can meet us at the Joiners Guildhall once you’ve safely delivered him.”
“As you command,” Vihaan said, his words still slightly accented. The ksatriya knelt, scooped Shooting Star into his arms as easily as if he were lifting a child, and then muttered an incantation under his breath. Then, he blurred into motion, stirring the air with the speed of his passing so that, just for a moment, it felt like a storm wind had roared into the valley from the surrounding mountain range.
Matthew, in the meantime, climbed back into the carriage and held the door out for Liv.
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“No.” She shook her head. “I’ll get there faster on my own.”
“We don’t know what’s going to be there,” Kaija protested. “Crossbows, enough men to take two of your students and a Red Shield captive, and a plot to kill you. Luring you in could be exactly what they want, Liv.”
“Then they’re fools.” Liv drew the stormwand in her right hand, then rolled her head to either side to pop the tension out of her neck. “Go on, or I’ll be done by the time you all get there.”
It had been eighteen years since she’d fought Ractia – eighteen years of waiting for Wren and the other scouts to come back from each rift, hoping that this time would be different, that this time they’d finally manage to pin the ancient goddess down somewhere that she’d be forced to stand and fight. And though that fight had never yet come, Liv hadn’t for a single day stopped preparing. The battle atop Nightfall Peak had shown her exactly how far she still needed to go, if she ever wanted to face the Lady of Blood on even footing.
Letting her body fall away was as easy as shrugging out of a dress at the end of a long, tiring day. A howling gale carried millions of snowflakes up into the sky, each one utterly unique, a marvel of crystalline geometry – and each one only a piece of the greater whole. The winter storm that had been Liv blasted down the streets of Bald Peak, and where she passed, her people flung themselves aside, shouting out in surprise.
She left ice in her wake, frosting over the glass window panes of inns, shops, and houses. Where water dripped from a roof, or formed a puddle in the cobblestone streets, it froze over instantly, forming patches of black ice, or hanging icicles of the sort that hadn’t been seen since winter. Behind her, the carriage carrying Matthew and Triss rumbled across the cobblestones, but she left them far behind in only moments. Liv knew that Triss would want to be there – but her sister-in-law would want, even more, for Henriette to be safe.
People who had dressed for the unbearably hot summer days which had plagued the valley shivered, wrapped their arms around their bodies, and looked on in shock as their breath frosted the air, each puff hanging visible for a moment until Liv had passed them by. She was the very breath of winter, come to the city of Bald Peak without warning and leaving just as quickly.
Liv blew past the Smiths Guild hall, and saw that it was surrounded. Soile was there, a sword on her hip and a fistful of seeds loosely clutched in the palm of her gauntlet. The soldiers of the Alliance, human and Vakansa both, were arrayed about her with crossbows and polearms, wearing their helms and jack of plate. Just as many had been employed to keep crowds back as to watch the entrances to the guildhall.
As the wind-driven snowflakes moved past the troops, Liv could sense their eyes widening, their backs straightening. She heard their murmurs and whispers, and where the people of Bald Peak had reacted to her storm with surprise, the soldiers who had pledged their lives to her service were instead clearly buoyed by a kind of anticipation, an energy that only seemed to bolster their confidence.
“She’s here, isn’t she?” one young woman muttered to her commanding officer. The girl was young, human, with close cropped hair beneath her helmet. She might have been an infant during the battle at the south pass, but no more. “The queen?”
“Aye, that’s her,” the older man said. He was Eld, and old enough that his face was starting to reflect his age, even without the scars. “Nothing else feels quite like it. Felt it for the first time on Nightfall Peak. It’s like –” he paused for a moment, to choose his words. “It’s like the morning after a winter storm, when the fresh snow shines in the sunlight, and there’s no tracks yet.”
Whatever they said to each other next, Liv did not hear, for she’d moved past them, on to the hall of the Joiners Guild. There, Ghveris was in command, and he looked ready to break the doors down personally. His enchanted blade was extended from his arm, the V?dic sigils pulsing with a soft glow. Atop his shoulders, the panels in his armored form had slid back enough to reveal the weapons beneath.
“We’re ready,” he said, his voice rumbling out into the evening air. Liv let the snow dance about him for just a moment in acknowledgement, and then continued on to the guild hall itself, where she blew up and over the roof. If luck was with them, her niece was still in the building below, alive and unhurt. Liv tried not to think about what might have happened in the time since Shooting Star left the girls, if they were not fortunate.
Below her, Liv could hear the sound of tradesmen panicking. She didn’t want to give them time to do anything at all – not to grab weapons they might have concealed around the building, not to flee, and certainly not to harm their captives. For this, she didn’t even need magic.
Liv pressed her Authority out to encompass the entire guild hall, from the lumber yards that surrounded the building, down to the basement. Cold stretched out to follow the reach of her awareness, covering the ground in ice, coating the piles of lumber with a dusting of snow, and pressing the men below her down to their knees. She knew what it felt like: so many years ago, when she’d first seen Ractia, she’d felt that great, irresistible weight bearing down on her. Cries echoed up from below as the guild workers were pressed to the ground, unable to rise.
She reassembled her body, then, wand in hand, and as Liv coalesced high above the guild hall, she held both Aluth and Cel at once, cradled by her intent. No sooner did she have a torso than wings of glittering blue mana stretched out from her shoulders, holding her above her city. A cloud of swords, each one made of glittering, adamant ice, froze not one at a time, but in an expanding wave in every direction, until a hundred blades hung around her, pointed down from all directions.
A thought, and Luc flared to life in the back of Liv’s mind. There was no need for words or incantations after so many years of practice, of pushing herself to be ready to fight a goddess. A bolt of lightning fell down from the summer sky above, hit the first of her swords, and then spread among them, leaping from frozen blade to frozen blade until every one of a hundred weapons crackled with glaring arcs of electricity. The air smelled like a storm.
Now that she had a mouth with which to speak, Liv shouted down. She’d never have the sort of voice which carried effortlessly across a battlefield, not like her husband did; but eighteen years of ruling a kingdom had taught her how to make herself heard.
“Every one of you will throw down your weapons immediately and surrender to the soldiers of the Alliance,” Liv demanded. “Any attempt to flee, to fight, to draw a weapon, any other action at all will be considered an assault upon the kingdom and the crown of the Alliance, and will be responded to with immediate and overwhelming force.”
She reached out with her left hand, and an enormous blue hand of mana shimmered into existence, mirroring her motions. Liv used it to lift the roof off the guild hall and throw it aside. The roof didn’t come off neatly; beams broke, tiles crumbled, and debris fell to every side. A passing thought, a whisper of intent, caught the rubble with angled planes of mana that shunted the rubble off to the side, into the lumber yard, where it couldn’t hurt anyone.
By the blue glow of coalesced mana and crackling lightning, the first floor of the guildhall lay revealed to Liv’s sight. One man, pressed flat to the ground on his belly, struggled to raise a crossbow. It never got more than an inch off the ground, but Liv impaled him on one of her hundred blades anyway, and his corpse twitched and jolted while the lightning ran through him.
There – a staircase leading down.
Liv’s conjured hand of mana reached down again, scooped the wooden floorboards out, and threw them aside, revealing the rooms of the basement like the honeycombs of a beekeeper’s well-tended hive. Men screamed, tossed aside in the rubble as easily as if they’d been caught up in the breaking waves of the ocean.
The girls were there, lashed to two pillars that must have once supported the first floor of the hall. Ettie and Ronja’s hair blew in the wind of Liv’s storm, their faces turned upward and lit by the glow of the crackling lightning as it bounced between her swords. It nearly broke Liv’s heart to see the expression on their faces – how relieved they were. There was Ronja’s crutch, even, lying on the floor. If she hadn’t been wounded at the Estuary Rift, would they still have been captured?
There were three men in the room with the girls, pressed flat to the ground where they still gripped their weapons futilely, cursing. More crossbows, yes, but also clubs of various sorts, and knives. All of them men were tradesmen – bodies strong from years of hard work. But they weren’t strong enough to stand under her Authority.
Movement from one of the side rooms in the basement caught Liv’s eye. The room was nearly half full of wooden barrels, and a black-haired, bearded man lay next to them on the stones of the floor, laughing. Liv didn’t even recognize him, but he looked wealthy from the cut of his clothes.
“Caught,” the man gasped, hardly able to move under the pressure. “One place or the other, caught you. Goodbye, Pyre Queen.”
Liv frowned. She couldn’t see what he –
– there. A fuse, leading to the barrels and burning fast.
With a thunderous roar, the night erupted in light and heat.
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Dramatis Personae
Livara t?r Valtteri Kaen Syv? - Archmage, former scullery maid at Castle Whitehill, the bastard daughter of Maggie Brodbeck and Valtteri Ka Auris. Queen of the Alliance and Lady of Winter. Done with this nonsense. [38 Rings of Mana, not counting mana stored in items.]
Beatrice 'Triss' Summerset (Formerly Crosbie) - Daughter of Baron Arnold of Valegard, Wife of Matthew, mother of Henriiette, sister-in-law of Liv, sister of more brothers than anyone could ever want. Mama bear. [17 Rings of Mana]
Ghveris, the Beast of Iuronnath - Formerly a Great Bat in service to Ractia, now the remains of his body form the heart of an Antrian juggernaut. Ready and wait to visit maximum carnage on Liv's enemies. [Mana Battery: 10 Rings]
Kaija - Captain of Liv's personal guard. Has mustered the troops. [22 Rings of Mana]
Lia Every - Guildmistress and Chancellor of the College at Bald Peak. Perhaps she should mystically airtag all students in the future? [20 Rings of Mana]
Matthew Summerset, Duke of Whitehill - Henry and Julianne's son, husband to Beatrice. In the awkward position of having to try to be the cautious one [14 Rings of Mana]
Obadiah Harrow - Guild Master of the Merchants Guild. Boom.
Shooting Star - A hunter of the Red Shield Tribe. He did the thing! Brought help!
Valtteri ka Auris - Father of Liv, son of Auris and Eila. Enjoying being a grandfather. [37 Rings of Mana]
Vihaan - A member of Liv's personal guard, originally hailing from Lendh ka Dakruim. [17 Rings of Mana]
