power. Pure, unadulterated, undeniable power radiated from the woman like light from a lamp. Even as a blind human, Miranda could almost see it burning, and her heart began to sink.
“That’s it then?” she said, almost laughing at the absurdity. “We’ve lost.”
“We never had much chance to begin with,” Banage replied. “We set ourselves against a star, after all.”
Miranda did laugh then, a dry, humorless sound of utter disbelief. Across the bay, those palace ships that still had prows began to lower them. The moment the ramps hit the water, ships laden with troops began to pour out. Hundreds of ships, thousands, more ships than Miranda could count, all rowing toward the bay.
The Empress watched her ships with haughty pride. Miranda was too far to see her expression, but she didn’t have to. The woman radiated triumph as a fire gives off heat. With a great sweeping motion, the Empress swung her hand down and the wall Durn had raised across the bay tore itself apart. Trees and ship hulls flew in every direction as the seafloor rent itself to let the Empress’s boats pass.
For one endless moment, Miranda could only watch as the Empress, with one motion, undid all the ground they’d gained that day. Despair like she’d never felt filled her mind as the boats began to pour into the bay. Despair so thick, so overwhelming, she didn’t hear Mellinor the first time he spoke.
“I said let’s go,” he said again, his voice surging through her mind like a deep current.
“But she’s a star,” Miranda whispered. “She has the will of the Shepherdess. We can’t stand against her. Nothing in the world can. That’s what the Shaper Mountain said.”
“No,” Mellinor said. “Nothing in the world will. There’s a difference between can’t and won’t.” As he spoke, Mellinor’s voice shifted, and Miranda could hear the echo of the enormous sea who’d spoken to her in the dark throne room so long ago. “I am the Great Spirit of the inland sea,” he boomed in her mind. “I am still myself, with my own mind and my own soul, and I have no love for the stars or their White Lady. Any one of them could have freed me from Gregorn’s prison, but they didn’t. They left me to rot and madness in a pillar of salt for four hundred years.” Mellinor’s voice was racing with rage now, and Miranda could feel his power flowing through her, filling her.
“You have shown me more care and protection in the last year than my Shepherdess ever did,” Mellinor said finally. “If you’re not ready to roll over and give up like the rest, then I am with you, mistress.”
Miranda put her hands to her face to stop the tears flowing down her cheeks. “Thank you,” she whispered. “If we can try, we must. But how?”
Mellinor told her, and Miranda fell still. It was dangerous, very dangerous. It also went against everything she stood for as a Spiritualist, sworn to keep her spirits from harm. But as she turned it over in her mind, something flinched inside her, snapped like a bone being set into place, and she knew what she had to do.
She turned on her heel and started to run. Gin, still bowing, didn’t follow. Banage called her name, but Miranda didn’t look back. She kept running, feet pounding across the ruined paving as she ran along the storm wall’s edge, straight toward Josef.
CHAPTER
26
Josef clutched the Heart of War, blinking against the sweat that dripped into his eyes. In front of him, the metal-and-stone creature hovered over its two severed legs, still not dead. Josef lifted his wrist to his face, rubbing the sweat and dirt away as best he could. This was taking too long. Cutting the Empress’s war monster was easy, but keeping it down was another story, and he was getting tired.
Tired was, as Eli would say, the bedrock of understatement. He was exhausted. His fight with Adela, becoming king, sinking the ships, defending the beach, and—his mind grew dark—the death of his mother, it was all adding up. He’d been fighting in one way or another since midmorning, and now this. He watched as the war creature rolled back to a defensive position, its severed legs already crawling back toward its body. He had to finish this quickly and go help the Spiritualists with the others before the whole island was overrun. Assuming, of course, it wasn’t already.
He glanced up at the city. The mountain above him glowed like a sunset. Everywhere he looked things were burning and falling. Even at this distance he could hear the screams of the people, now his people, as they tried to fight the fiery monsters destroying their homes. Rage built up in his chest, but before he could give in to it, the Heart grew heavy, calling his attention back to the fight at hand. Josef obeyed, letting everything else fall aside as he focused on the war spirit, which was nearly finished pulling itself back together. The Heart’s hilt pressed against his sweaty palms, pulling him forward, urging him to finish it now, while they still could.
Josef obeyed. He lunged forward, letting the sword’s weight pull him into a low sweep. The Heart caught the war spirit’s left front leg just as it reattached, and the war spirit opened its great, steel-toothed mouth in what Josef could only guess was a scream of pain. Sometimes being spirit deaf had its advantages.
The Heart jerked in his hands, and Josef refocused. He was beneath the creature now. The blasting heat dried his sweat instantly, baking his skin hard. Josef coughed at the reek of smelted metal, but before he could flee between the creature’s legs to cool, dark safety, the Heart jerked again. Josef nodded and shifted his stance, turning with the Heart as the sword flew up to strike the monster’s exposed, red-hot belly.
The black blade cut upward, slicing through the glowing metal like a razor through snow. The war spirit jerked above him, a belated dodge, but it was no use. The Heart was lodged at the center of its great, lumbering torso. But Josef was now at the limit of his reach. He stood on his toes, fully extended below the writhing creature with the Heart buried to the hilt in its body. He had no leverage to continue the blow up or strength to knock the spirit over. So he did the only thing he could. He planted his feet and brought the sword down in an arc in front of him.
The Heart cut cleanly down and burst free with an explosion of heat as the war spirit’s torso tore open. The spirit was thrashing now, and Josef rolled away before one of those writhing legs could skewer him by accident. The second he was clear, Josef spun to face the monster again. The war spirit was on the ground now, rolling and thrashing as it tried to pull its split torso back together. The Heart of War shook in Josef’s hands, but Josef didn’t need to be told twice. He darted forward, dodging the spirit’s thrashing metal legs as he swung the Heart over his head with both hands. Then, gritting his teeth, he swung it down.
The first blow slammed the spirit to the ground. The next drove it into the stone. Josef swung the Heart as hard as he could, shivering with power as the black blade came alive in his hands, hammering the war spirit into the stone of the storm wall with the weight of a mountain. Finally, on the tenth stroke, the war spirit lay still.
Josef fell backward, nearly dropping the Heart as he gasped for air. In front of him, the Empress’s monster lay at the bottom of the crater left by the Heart’s rage, beaten beyond any recognition. Stumbling, Josef pushed himself up, ears still ringing with the fading power of his sword. Because of this, he didn’t hear the woman yelling until she standing right beside him.
“What?” he shouted, turning to see Miranda. She looked terrible, clothes ripped and stained, hair bedraggled and clinging to her sweaty, soot-streaked face. She also looked determined, and that worried him. In his experience, Miranda looking like that meant something terrible was about to happen.
“I need you to cover me down to the beach,” Miranda said, her voice exasperated, as though she’d already said this many times.
Josef blinked. “The beach? Why?” He looked over the storm wall and winced. Apparently that crash he’d heard earlier had been more than just the war spirits. Something had punched through the wall that protected the bay. The water was full of boats now, some with their soldiers already out and wading toward the shore.
“Forget it,” he said, turning away. “The beach is a lost cause. Fight the battles you can win. We should regroup at the top of the stair and—”
“No.” Miranda’s voice was determined. “I’m not going down there to fight the soldiers. I need you to protect me from them so I can get to the water.”
“The water?” Josef said. “What are you going to do in the water?”
Miranda lifted her head stubbornly. “I’m going to do my best to save your people.”
Josef ran a hand through his sweaty hair. “Where’s that dog of yours? Can’t he do it?”
“No spirit can help me with this,” Miranda said, shaking her head. “The Empress is a star. That’s why I need
