Wind and night kicked against them. Pine trees shivered. Merik’s eardrums instantly swelled, as if he’d flown too high too fast, and a full moon shone down.

This was not Nubrevna. Merik gripped the Northman’s forearm and hauled the man back through the magic door.

Crush, stretch, stop, and move. They stumbled onto the ledge they’d just left, both men panting. “Cold,” the Northman said, and Merik could only nod. He motioned up. Then once more, his winds twined beneath them and carried them high.

The next door, on a ledge scarcely large enough to hold them both, ejected them into a ditch. A narrow slope cutting upward toward a crack in the earth, and the scent of cedar and stale smoke hit his nose.

This was not the Lovats under-city either.

Back into the cavern they moved, and on to the next ledge, the next door. This ledge, next to the cavern’s falls, was slick with water. The Northman slipped; Merik’s winds caught him—but not gracefully. He shoved the man through the glowing blue …

And once again, cold snapped against them. This time, though, there was no wind. An icy staircase ascended before them, and Merik and the Northman quickly skipped up. All they found, though, was a vast, flat expanse of nothing. Moonlit and white. Shimmering and lifeless.

“Sleeping Lands,” the Northman said, and there was fear in his eyes as he backed down the stairs. “Death,” he warned. “Death.” Then the Northman rushed back through the magic doorway.

Merik hurried after. He had heard of the Sleeping Lands—of course he had. It was an uncrossable frozen wasteland that sucked in unprepared travelers. Only the Nomatsis … the No’Amatsis, rather, had ever managed to cross it.

Once more, the door’s magic pummeled against Merik. This time, though, when he toppled through and landed inside the cavern beyond, something was wrong. When he inhaled and called his winds, they came—and they came strong. With power, power, power for the taking.

But there was cold slithering beneath them. Icy rage that Merik recognized in an instant.

“We must hurry,” Merik said. Nubrevnan words useless to the Northman, but all he could manage. In a burst of strength and momentum, Merik flew them to the next door, this one tucked at the end of the cavern.

This door did not glow, and when he stepped inside, no magic battered against him. He saw only shadows. Next door, next door—they had to reach the next door before the Fury came. Before the Fury could lead the Raider King here. And this doorway was near, connected to the current ledge by stairs.

But the mountain shook. So hard, it flung Merik to the ground. So hard, it flung the Northman off the ledge.

Merik threw out his winds, catching the Northman and ripping him back to solid ground—solid ground that still quaked. Rubble fell. Dust plumed. And as Merik and the Northman stood there, gripping each other and waiting for the tremor to slow, cold twined into Merik’s lungs. It plucked at his breath.

Power, power, power.

Then came the darkness, undulating and frozen. It rippled around Merik and the Northman, and both men wrenched toward the doorway they’d just abandoned. Dust clouded its dark gullet now.

A figure formed.

“Why do I hold a razor in one hand?” he asked. “So men remember I am sharp as any edge. And why do I hold broken glass in the other? So men remember that I am always watching.”

The Fury stepped from the shadows. Cold billowed off him in vast, violent waves. He was his namesake; he was fury through and through.

His blackened eyes met Merik’s. “Where are they, Merik?” he asked. “What have you done with my blade and my glass?”

The Fury attacked.

FIFTY-THREE

A rush of scalding air hit the boat as Vaness sailed Safi and the Hell-Bards onto Lake Scarza—and as she sailed them into a battle only the Hell-Bards could see.

The heat swept Safi’s hair from her face, stung her cheeks with invisible embers she couldn’t spot, and set her lungs to choking. All while the boat dipped and shuddered, guided by Vaness’s magic, which was guided by Caden sitting at the helm.

They aimed for shore.

Not fast enough, though. Not before the explosion ripped loose through the Floating Palace. A sudden visceral surge that battered into Safi. She heard nothing else, she felt nothing else. The firestorm ripped against her, lived inside her, and breathed with her dry lungs.

Then the glamour fell. Just a flash like before, but enough for Safi to see the full extent of the battlefield.

A ship splintered in half burned just ahead, great plumes of smoke given to the sky. Blood stained the water. Sailors clung to debris. Charred corpses floated by.

Habim had always said war was senseless, yet he had caused so, so much senseless horror here. This was what Uncle Eron’s scheme had done, and it was not peace in the Witchlands.

Vaness’s bandage was soaked through now, turning the red crepe to almost black while more blood oozed from her nose.

Then the glamour winked back into place, and false peace shrouded Safi’s vision once more.

“Right!” Caden roared. The boat veered right. “Sharper!”

“Oh gods, sharper!” screeched Lev.

And Vaness’s hands wrenched sharper. So hard, they almost flipped. But Zander clung to Vaness, and Lev clung to Zander—all while Caden and Safi simply clung to the boat. Ash flew into Safi’s mouth. Her eyes burned with unseen smoke.

Then the boat heaved back the other way, and so the other way they all flew. Back, forth, back, forth. On and on, side to side while Caden shouted directions and Vaness obeyed.

Three more times, the glamour fell, and three more times, Safi saw wreckage and death and blood smearing from the Empress’s nose. Then they left the glamour behind entirely. Between one breath and the next, Safi could see again. The Empress could see again—and abruptly, she sat taller.

The boat hurtled faster, sheering atop the waves. The lake crawled with ships fleeing the glamoured battle behind, but Vaness swerved and skipped and carried them ever onward.

Until quite suddenly, there was nowhere left to go. They were almost to shore, the quay zooming in fast. Vaness did not slow, though. If anything, she pushed the boat harder. Even when Caden roared for her to stop and Lev screamed, “You’re going to kill us!”

Vaness only flung her arms higher and aimed straight for the road, where thousands of people poured by. Blood streaked off her face. It hit Safi’s cheeks—not that Safi cared. All she saw was death propelling toward her, made of stone and bodies and pain.

Now Zander was shouting too and Safi also joined in, but still Vaness did not listen.

They reached the stone lip onto shore.

The boat lifted from the lake, water spraying and people screaming. Then the boat landed, a crash that shocked through Safi’s bones.

For several resounding seconds, everyone sat there in gaping shock. Not just Safi, Vaness, and the Hell-Bards, but all the Marstoks who’d fled the boat too. Everyone stared, breathing hard and trying to grasp what the rut had just happened.

But the moment of recovery was short-lived. Pistol shots rang out, and when Safi turned, she saw another ship plowing this way, packed fore to aft with soldiers. They fired their weapons into the sky, a warning for people to clear—a warning that people obeyed with frantic shrieking.

Leaving only Safi, Vaness, and the Hell-Bards sitting in a boat on dry land while they waited for death to reach them.

“So,” Lev piped up, “I guess it’s fair to assume those Marstoks are not on our side?”

“No.” Safi swung out of the boat. “Run.”

The Hell-Bards did as ordered. Again, Zander slung Vaness onto his shoulder, and Vaness uttered no word of protest. Her nose still gushed, her face had lost all color, and now her crepe bandage leaked blood down her face. It sprayed against the street in time to Zander’s leaping stride.

They cut off the quay onto a side street, barged through an intersection, and then shoved onto a wider thoroughfare. Crowds clotted thick against them; pistols chased from behind. No slowing, no looking back. They pushed and ducked and fought their way through the throngs.

Two streets later, though, Lev hollered over the traffic, “Where are we going? We need a plan!”

“You think?” Caden called back. “I don’t want another Ratsenried any more than you do.”

“We had a plan in Ratsenried,” Zander inserted. “It just didn’t work.”

“Because it was your plan!” Lev began. “Hell-pits, if you’d just let me—”

“Shut up!” Safi snatched Lev’s arm. “All of you, shut up and follow me!” As before, the Hell-Bards obeyed, and at the next intersection, Safi angled left. West, toward the mountains.