Eli didn’t answer. He stomped past her, shrugging off her hand when she tried to grab him. He kicked open the watch room door and started down the stairs. The boards creaked as Miranda started to follow him, but Eli didn’t look back. He kept his eyes straight ahead as he clattered down the tower steps and burst through the door at the bottom into the silent, bowing world.
The door to the watch room slammed shut with a crash that made Miranda wince. She stood there panting, too exhausted to chase the thief down the stairs but too furious to give up. As a compromise, she went to the window, reaching it just in time to see Eli emerge from the bottom of the tower. He walked across the storm wall and down the stairs in quick, angry steps. The world was silent around him, every spirit cowering before the might of the Empress, but Eli paid it no mind. He hit the beach with a stomp and kept walking, stepping over the kneeling bodies of the soldiers. When he passed Josef, Miranda thought she saw him slow, but then he was moving again as fast as ever, marching toward the sea.
Miranda caught her breath when he reached the surf. The waves were still lapping despite the Empress’s pressure, but the moment Eli’s boot touched it, the ocean froze. Miranda blinked at the deathly silence that descended on a shore where the sea had gone completely still. The water stood motionless as far as she could see. Even the great breakers on the horizon were frozen midcrest. Overhead, the air was perfectly still as well, the winds holding their breath as Eli walked forward, striding across the smooth water like it was stone.
When he reached the center of the bay, Eli stopped. He folded his arms across his chest and glared up at the towering wall of palace ships. High overhead, the Empress looked down at him with a haughty sneer. In that whole, still world, they were the only two who moved.
“Well, well,” the Empress said. “The rat emerges.”
Miranda blinked. The Empress hadn’t raised her voice, but Miranda could hear her as clearly as though the woman were standing beside her.
“Come to meet my challenge at last?” the Empress continued, drawing a shining sword from the scabbard at her hip. “Come then, boy. I’ll show you who is truly worthy of the Lady’s favor.”
“Nara.” Eli said the name like an insult. “You want her? Take her. Love her for another eight centuries. But this?” He pointed his thumb over his shoulder at the shore. “This land is mine. Go home. No one wants you here.”
“I am not yours to send away,” the Empress hissed. “You claim this land? Fight to keep it. The Shepherdess has no love for the weak.”
Eli tilted his head to the side. Miranda could feel the impatience radiating off him even at this distance, but Eli didn’t answer the Empress’s challenge. He just stood there, staring up at the woman with a smile so defeated it made Miranda’s chest ache. And then, without warning, he opened his spirit.
Eli’s power exploded out of him. It filled the beach, filled the sky, and swept over the Oseran mountains to fill the channel behind them. It expanded and expanded, pressing down so hard Miranda had trouble breathing. And then, at its center, a light brighter than any Miranda had ever seen broke like the sunrise.
All at once, the world, already bowed in homage to the Empress, turned its back on her and prostrated itself before Eli. Miranda clutched the window’s edge, staring in amazement. She’d seen this once before, in Mellinor, but the scale was totally different now. Everything Eli’s spirit touched woke, and every spirit that woke praised him. The sea flattened to glass below his feet and the winds circled him in supplication. On the island, the mountain woke and began to tremble, the very rock bowing in obedience. The sand on the beach swelled in reverence, burying the soldiers in its eagerness to show its respect, and even the stones of the tower were singing praises. Their song was little more than a buzzing under her fingers, but its meaning was clear. Miranda stood perfectly still, her eyes so wide they hurt. She had been amazed when the Empress opened her spirit, but this was so much more. Terrifyingly more.
When she found her voice at last, the question was a whisper, more air than sound. “What is he?”
For a moment nothing answered, and then Durn, sturdiest and calmest of her spirits, spoke.
“He is the favorite.”
Miranda caught her breath, trying to remember where she’d heard that term before, but too many new things were tumbling through her head and she couldn’t make it all fit together. It didn’t matter though, for in the next moment, something happened that put everything else out of her mind.
Out on the glassy sea, the Empress fell as the wind abandoned her. She landed on the deck of her palace ship, crashing into the wood with an impact that made Miranda wince. For a moment the woman lay stunned, and then the Empress curled into a ball, burying her head in her hands as she began to weep. Down on the water, Eli, barely visible beneath his own light, shook his head in disgust and raised his arms.