"Get some rest while you can. The lookout will alert us at the first sign of trouble."

  Rocher escorted me to our room. The curtains were drawn, steeping the room in darkness. My eyes took a moment to adjust.

  I could hear Seraphine's soft breathing mingled with Evelyn's faint murmurs and the rain's steady patter. I had prepared sleeping draughts to ensure they'd be well-rested when it came time to fight, but it proved unnecessary. The two of them were visibly exhausted by the time they'd returned in the te afternoon. They had colpsed straight into bed.

  I closed my eyes and tried to will myself to nap, but my mind would not settle. It was too te to dose myself. I needed to be alert when the attack came.

  "Hey, Mister Rocher," I whispered, tentatively.

  "What's the matter? Trouble sleeping?"

  Of course Rocher was awake. The Hero often suffered bouts of insomnia. In-game justification had been that the heavy burden of his duty made him restless. But really, it was just an excuse for the pyer to crawl into the heroines' beds.

  "You don't have to force yourself. They say it's enough to just lie in bed and clear your head of thoughts."

  He delivered sage advice borne from a hundred sleepless nights.

  "Thank you. For today, I mean."

  "Don't mention it. If anything, I'm a little apologetic, forcing you to speak up. It can't have been easy."

  As a man, Rocher could have spoken on my behalf, in deference to the castle's customs, smoothing retions over. But he had insisted that I try to stand on my own two feet. 'It's possible you may have to take command during the defense. We won't have the time to go through me as a mouthpiece.'

  I y there for a while, pensive. Rocher finally broke the silence.

  "Cire, when this is all over, I—"

  Lightning fshed, and thunder followed close behind. The low crion call of a horn reverberated through the castle, making my blood run cold.

  Rocher and I tumbled out of bed to wake the others, but Evelyn was already on her feet, gear strapped and ready to go.

  "Oy Sera! It's showtime!" With her trademark ck of delicacy, Evelyn shook Seraphine awake.

  Seraphine blinked, lost for a second, then wiped the drool from her mouth. I helped her pull a rain poncho over her head, one bdelike ear at a time, and held up her pointy hat.

  Rocher was already halfway out the door. "Evie, you follow me to the gate. Sera and Cire, head up to the roof."

  "Evelyn! Rocher! Wait a second!"

  Seraphine raised her hands to her core, and luminescent magic circles appeared beneath our feet.

  "By cloud and current, iron and sky—let lightning lend its edge. Lightning Bde."

  Energy coursed through our hands and weapons, the air hissing with charge. Rocher gave us a quick nod, then he and Evelyn sprinted down the hallway.

  I couldn't fire my crossbow fast enough to put the ft damage infusion to good use. But Rocher with his sword and spear, and especially Evelyn with her daggers—it would significantly augment their offensive output. Seraphine knew all along what to do without me saying it. I grinned.

  The spell tied up a good share of her mana, leaving her defenses thin. Did that mean she trusted me to be her bodyguard? No, probably not.

  Most of her work had already been done yesterday, so perhaps it was just her being economical.

  Huffing, we finally reached the top of the bell tower at the center of the castle. Outside, it poured, the wind freezing and relentless.

  I muttered a quiet prayer for good luck, then unwrapped my burp sack.

  Out spilled goblets, gemstones, jewelry—a collection of trinkets I had "borrowed" from the royal treasury.

  Cupping my hands and lifting them towards the night sky, I incanted.

  "By the Goddess's grace, let the night be purged. Let the darkness fall away—Holy Light!"

  The trinkets pulsed with divine energy before crumbling to dust. Behind us, the stately old bell thrummed with light, resonating in sympathy.

  I smiled wryly. Lumiere probably could have done this without spending all these consumable relics. But in my hands, this would go down as the most expensive ntern in the history of the kingdom.

  A beam of light shot from the bell tower and scattered off the dark canopy above us. It bathed the castle and immediate area in a soft, divine glow.

  Mer-beasts were used to fighting in deep, lightless, wet conditions. Unlike with the were-bats, this light was nowhere near enough to blind or incapacitate them. But I wanted to even the pying ground a bit. If they could see in these conditions, then it was only fair that we could too.

  I quickly surveyed the area. Every body of water around us wriggled with life, filling my gut with dread. It was a writhing mass of flesh and steel—as if we were in the maw of a beast, being swallowed.

  Pockets of that mass broke off, crashing violently against the stone. I trembled at the sheer size and ferocity of the attack. The walls held, but fighting was already spilling over the ramparts. Steel cshed, the screams of anguish and resolve piercing the rain.

  At breakneck speed, a streak of lightning raced along the ramparts, leaving charred corpses in its wake. Evelyn was starting to go to work.

  From the other corner of my eye, several bolts smmed down, tearing the sky asunder. The area around the main gate was brimming with monstrous energy. The Hero was doing his part as well.

  Now for our turn. I took a deep breath and steeled myself.

  "Miss Seraphine."

  "As expected, the ones fighting right now are just the vanguard. My surveilnce spells are picking up several more regiments in reserve. Hiding in those ditches."

  At close range, mer-beasts were destruction incarnate, but that also made them a danger to their nearby allies. It wouldn't make sense to deploy them all at once.

  Seraphine's crimson eyes flickered. "Shall we give them a warm welcome then?"

  I nodded—but 'warm' didn't feel like the right word. She raised her oak staff high above her head.

  "Cold sleep, coil deep. Break—and shatter!"

  A white light rippled through the space surrounding the castle. With a sharp crack, frost began to nucleate from several points along the encirclement. It rapidly spread and turned everything it touched into ice.

  The traps she had worked so hard to y yesterday were sprung. The enemy was scrambling.

  I whistled into the wind. There was a well-known saying among the magic community: 'Power, speed, and mana economy. Pick two.'

  Since we had guessed in advance how the enemy would approach, we had all the time in the world to prepare powerful countermeasures.

  But still... I clicked my tongue. More mer-beasts than I expected were slipping through, charging the walls in a panic. The spell activation wasn't instantaneous, and the monsters were terrifyingly fast.

  We hadn't bothered to trap the moat with Gcial Snare. Unlike rainwater, there was too much junk in it, making it too costly to freeze. The mer-beasts seemed to cling to that hope.

  Instead, we had prepared a nastier surprise.

  I csped my hands together in prayer. From my vantage point, I couldn't make out whether it would work, but on the bridge below...

  Dunk. Dunk. Dunk, dunk.

  Rocher gnced over at the mer-beasts starting to dive into the moat for safety. He smirked.

  It was serendipitous that Greymane's main export was jerky. Yesterday, they'd raided the rders and dumped all the salt they could carry into the moat, turning it briny. For good measure, they had even deposited all the salt in Friedrich's saddlebags, carried all the way from the royal pantry.

  When the order came down, the guards were aghast and looked to Count Greymane for direction.

  Cire insisted, 'Mer-beasts breathe through their skin. Salt will suck the moisture out of them and leave them nothing more than dried husks.'

  The Count could only shake his head in resignation.

  'Do whatever she says.'

  Gurgle. Before long, the submerged mer-beasts began thrashing about. The air filled with hissing and brine as the salt withered their flesh. Their sunken-eyed corpses surfaced, floating like grotesque trophies.

  He thrust forward, skewering another mer-beast through the abdomen. It uttered a sickening deathrattle before falling away from his spear, but to Rocher it was all sounding like music. A strange giddiness overtook him. He hacked forward, ughter ripping free from his throat.

  The soldiers beside him shuddered at the mad silhouette of a man, his face and hair streaked with blood and soot.