And then Karou is there with blood on her blades and Virko is folding his spikes back downthey interweave, Zuzana sees, and the elegance of it the symmetry almost overwhelms her with its perfection, and thats
the thing that shell remember most, not the dismemberment, her mind is already pulling a curtain on that, but the symmetryand Virkos spikes arent padded now with a smelly blanket, and theres no harness to hold on to when when Mik boosts her up, but Zuzanas not afraid, not of this. In the middle of this very bad dream, shes glad to have a friend with a lions mane made of knives. Mik mounts behind her and Virkos muscles bunch beneath them. He gives a great, labored heave and they leave the ground and then vanish.
Ziri sees Virko wink outgoneand Karou is turning, searching. Not for him; Ziri knows that, and he minds less than he did before. A great gust that can only be the draft of Virkos invisible wingbeats blows her hair back like a battle standard, silken blue and streaming, and in the screaming maelstrom of battle, she is surrounded by a curious cushion of stillness.
Because shes being protected, Ziri sees, by both chimaera and Misbegotten. Because shes the resurrectionist, and because she has another, more immediate job to attend to. The realization kicks him forward. Whatever happens here, Karous plan must go ahead. Jael must be stopped.
Ziri looks for Liraz and shes there, and so is Akiva. Theyre fighting back-to-back, lethal. Akiva wields a pair of matched swords, Liraz a sword and an ax, and her smile seems a third weapon, almost. Its the same smile from the war council, where shed scoffed at the odds of the fight. Three Dominion to one Misbegotten? shed said, with eagerness. And Ziri sees that before him: three to one and more. And more, and more, but somethings happening. Theres Nisk and Lisseth. Astonishingly, theyre backing Akiva and Liraz up. Each has a blade drawn but a hamsa outheld, too, and against the pulse of weakness, the Dominion cant match the speed and force of the pair of Misbegotten.
Ziri feels a lift of hope. Its a hope he knows well and despises: the ugly, black hope that one might, by killing, stay alive awhile longer.
Kill or die, no other choice.
Bodies litter the crater and more are falling. Ziri has a flash image of how it will be filled with corpses as though the mountains have cupped their hands to offer up the dead to Nitid, goddess of tears and life, and to the godstars, and to the void.
The bodies are chimaera, too, and Misbegotten, and then
a second darkness falls.
Overhead, a second sky of fire is falling, wing to wing to wing, and even the ugly, black hope cant outlast this. Another wave of Dominion as great as the first, and today Nitid is the goddess of nothing but tears.
Karou! Ziri calls, and it doesnt surprise him anymore to hear the Wolfs tenor come from his own lipsa voice to cut through battle clangor and rally tired soldiers to keep on, and keep on, as though life is a prize to be won by bloodletting. Kill and kill and kill to live. How many, and for how long? Its just a calculus in the end, and though the real Thiago had surmounted impossible odds in battle, none of them had been this impossible.
And besides, he isnt Thiago.
He calls out orders; chimaera and Misbegotten alike take heed. By the time he reaches Karou, theres a buffer of soldiers forming with Karou, Akiva, Liraz, and Thiago at its center.
You two need to go, the Wolf says. His voice is raised above the chaos, and his eyes are intent but not cold, not mad. This White Wolf will tear out no throats with his teeth today. Get clear of this. Use the glamour. You have a job to do.
Karou objects first. We cant leave you now
You have to. For Eretz. For Eretz. Its understood that this means: If not for us.
Because well be dead.
Ill only go if you designate a safety, Karou says in a choked voice. Someone. Anyone.
Someone to wait out the killing in safety and come back to glean souls after its all over. Its pointless. Now that the seraphim know about resurrection, they take measures to prevent it. They burn the dead, and guard the ashes until evanescence is certain. But Ziri nods anyway.
Its time to part. The reluctance that envelops them all is a complex weba cats cradle of loves and longings and even the earliest tender unfurlings of a possibility so remote it should have been laughable. Ziri glances to Liraz as she glances to him, and both look swiftly away again: Ziri to Karou, Liraz to Akiva. A second onlyan eternitydo they permit themselves for farewells. They wish pointless wishes, and let their what-if s fall to the ground with the corpses.
In the legends, chimaera were sprung from tears and seraphim from blood, but in this moment they are, all of
them, children of regret.
As Karou and Akiva begin to turn toward each other for their last look, both their faces falling blank with unfathomable loss no please no not now please oh the Wolf speaks up. Akiva, he says. Take them. Get them to the portal. See to it.