The Spirit War(178)

“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.