Then, in one, cold, horrible moment, she realized she could no longer feel Mellinor.
She scrambled away from Josef, running all out toward the bay. Soldiers grabbed for her, but she kicked them aside, scrabbling on her hands and knees through the sand until she reached the water at last. She threw herself into the surf, slamming her body beneath the cold waves. Her soul roared open as she submerged, reaching out until her mind was on the edge of breaking. She yelled Mellinor’s name, screaming with her spirit and her voice until both were raw. She screamed again and again, taking in great gulps of seawater with each shout, but it was no use. Nothing answered.
Hands closed on her shoulders, pulling her out of the surf. She fought wildly, writhing in the man’s iron grip even as she recognized Josef’s voice telling her to calm down or they wouldn’t get out of here alive. But she didn’t want to calm down, she didn’t want to get out alive.
“No!” she shrieked. “Let me go! I promised! I promised I wouldn’t leave him!”
Josef ignored her. She fought as he dragged her out of the water, but her punches and kicks bounced off him. He tucked her under one arm and ran for the stairs, keeping the Heart high in his free hand, ready to swing. He didn’t have to. The enemy was keeping their distance now, unwilling to engage him even when he was burdened with a hysterical woman. Perhaps it had something to do with the dying men lying scattered across the sand. Whatever it was, Miranda didn’t care.
“You don’t understand,” she screamed, the words broken by sobs. “I let him go. I left the water! I failed him!”
“That may be,” Josef said, charging for the stairs. “But we’re still alive, though not for long if you don’t stop fighting me.”
Miranda went limp, her body flopping in his grasp. She was sobbing violently now. She couldn’t help it. She’d poured too much of herself into Mellinor, and what she had left was barely enough to keep her lungs working, let alone stop the tears.
She was still crying uncontrollably when the force hit her, but it wasn’t until Josef stopped that she recognized what it was. After all, she’d felt the Empress’s spirit just moments before, but that strength, strong as it was, was nothing compared to the wave of pressure that rolled over her now.
All around them, the soldiers were dropping to their knees, pressing their foreheads into the sand. The beach grew silent as everything went still. The fighting on the wall above them silenced as well, and Miranda got the feeling that if she could somehow climb up to look at the city of Osera, she’d find that even the fires had stopped burning. With the sole exception of the waves lapping on the shore, everything in the world seemed to have gone still, and in that stillness, the Empress spoke.
“Osera,” she called, her voice clear and ringing through the air. It came from every direction, filling Miranda’s ears with its hated smugness. Slowly, painfully, Josef turned them, and Miranda found herself looking out at the sea she never wanted to see again and at the woman standing in midair above it.
“You have fought bravely,” the Empress said, standing on a swirl of wind above her ship. “I admire strength, but the time for fighting is over. You have lost. Your army is broken, your wizards defeated, your city burning. Put down your weapons and surrender, and I may be merciful.”
“She’s got to be kidding,” Josef said, though his voice was quiet. “Oserans don’t surrender.”
There was no way she could have heard him, but the Empress answered in the most effective way possible. She opened her spirit fully.
Miranda seized up as the true power of the Shepherdess’s star struck her. Even Josef gasped, his arm clutching painfully around her waist. But it wasn’t just the spirit pressure. Out over the water, the Empress had begun to glow. Light shone through her skin, filling her body until she glowed like the morning, but brightest of all, brighter than the sun, brighter than anything Miranda had ever seen, was the mark on the Empress’s chest. The moment she saw it, Miranda knew exactly what it was and what it meant.
Bow down.
The Empress’s voice echoed through Miranda’s mind, through the very fabric of the world, and as it faded, the world obeyed.
The soldiers around them were already bowing, but now the sand under their knees joined them. All along the island, the spirits were lowering themselves before the Empress. The winds bowed, the stone bowed, even the fires shrank back in obedience, burning low before the star. Even the spirit deaf felt her presence. Oseran soldiers fell to their knees without knowing why, their spirits obeying on instinct alone. Only the wizards remained standing. Up on the storm wall, Banage clutched his rings, staring at the Empress in astonishment and growing terror. Even Sara had lost her jaded expression. She was looking about in open amazement, her eyes wide as she watched the world change itself to honor the Empress.