“Ready?” Sorian asked, glancing at Kael, who was mounted on a midnight stallion that pawed restlessly at the frozen ground, stirring up snow-mist that caught in the wind.
Oona was perched behind him on the saddle, her arms wrapped around his waist, her face partially hidden against his shoulder.
The morning had given way to an unnatural noon—sun dimmed, the sky a steel shade of wrong.
Oona slid off the horse’s back, tugging at Kael’s arm.
“I guess this is it,” he said to Sorian, as an eerie silence settled over the frozen earth.
The tower stood a couple hundred yards ahead, ancient stone somehow both weathered and pristine, its upper reaches disappearing into a mist that wasn’t there minutes before.
Sorian gave him a salute, knuckles to the heart—a gesture from their academy days. “Good luck,” he said.
“We’ll see what this android has.” He turned, motioning to the wall of soldiers cresting the hill behind them—the Crown’s remaining might, armored figures stretching across the white landscape like shadows on snow.
A massive battering ram was being hauled up the incline, positioned to slide down behind the first wave of soldiers, its iron head shaped like a fist, the Crown’s symbol of power.
“Look at us,” Kael said to Oona, a grim smile tugging at his lips as he surveyed the scene.
“Running off to fight a tower. Seems a little silly now.”
Around them, the air was charged with an unnatural electricity. Their hair stood at angles to the earth, as if gravity itself were distorted near the tower. The horses sensed it too, nervously dancing on their hooves, kicking up snow and snorting clouds of steam that froze in the air.
The blue flare from the tower’s highest window was intense, visible even in daylight—a strobing beacon bending the air around it. And each pulse sent a wave across the landscape, a ripple that couldn’t be seen but could be felt, like pressure on the eardrums.
Oona studied Kael’s face, tracing the lines of worry, the scars of old battles, and the shadow of the boy he had once been. “Kael,” she said, approaching him, her hands brushing his face, her touch gentle against his wind-chapped skin.
“What?” he asked, covering her hands with his own.
“I—I—” The words wouldn’t come. Instead, she just embraced him, pressing herself against him as if trying to memorize the feel of him.
He held her, his face buried in her hair.
They let the moment linger, until the sharp crack of Sorian’s whip propelled his horse forward.
It began.
A cold wind whipped across the hill. The ancient tower loomed over the battlefield, as Sorian raced toward it, followed by soldiers first with bows and arrows, then with swords drawn.
There was a grim irony to the scene as wave upon wave of arrows hit the stone spire, then plunged down.
Kael led Oona as planned, veering to the right where the ground dipped slightly, providing minimal cover. Ward lay in wait to join them, crouched in the snow in full battle gear, his weathered face grim beneath his helmet.
“Thought you might have changed your minds,” he said as they approached, rising to join them. “Though I wouldn’t blame you.”
As the second wave of soldiers crested the hill, battering ram in position—the air coalesced.
Blue lightning appeared, followed by thunder, rattling the ground. Nexus’s onslaught came in full fury.
The snow darkened with shadows that moved independently of anything casting them. Where the tower's cold beam touched, armor fused with flesh.
Whole garrisons disappeared in a flash, leaving behind only scorched earth and the echoes of men.
In the chaos, the three of them crept forward, trying to keep those images out of mind, focused on the service door at the tower’s base. As they pressed against the ancient door at the base, sealed with a key that Oona carried within her, Kael saw a cloud of snow form behind them—and heard the snort of a horse.
Kael spun around with the sudden appearance. And Ryn dismounted in a fluid motion, face smeared with ash and blood.
“I have to keep my eye on you,” Ryn said. “Or next thing you know, you’ll be joining forces with Nexus.”
Oona shook her head. “No. You can’t come.”
“I’ll be damned if I let you two go in there alone, Crownsman and murderer.” Ryn stood her ground.
“She comes,” Ward said, his hand going to his sword.
“Okay, but not in the chamber,” Kael said. “Guard the door. Oona has to…” and then his voice trailed off, suddenly realizing he didn’t know what Oona’s plan was.
He’d been so focused on getting Oona to the tower that now, like a man struck in the head mid-battle, he stood disoriented, unsure whether he even had a next move, or what it might be.
“Oona has to what?” Ryn finished the thought, watching another figure cross their path, a Crown soldier engulfed in blue flame that didn’t consume him but transformed him, no longer uttering human sounds.
Suddenly, the questions rippled through them all: How many soldiers did Sorian have? How many would turn tail and flee? How much time did they have…
Heads turned to Oona, “What’s the plan to defeat Nexus?” Ward echoed everyone’s question, their predicament and the enormity of the task suddenly dawning on them.
Oona just shrugged, opening the door. “Stopping Nexus.”
“How?” Ryn spoke, but they all thought.
Oona’s gaze met all three at once. “By convincing Sarah to let go.”