Chapter 50 Seraphine
As dawn broke, Sera stood alone on top of Traveller’s Arch, waiting for war.
The sky was a purple bruise, the clouds heavy with the promise of rain. Gone was the night music and the once raucous calls that used to echo along Merchant’s Way. The city had stilled, as if on the cusp of a scream.
The horizon was ablaze. The clouds over the distant hills hung low, their underbellies illuminated by a sea of torches, where the Silver-tongue marched at the helm of his army.
Even from a distance, the prince was unmistakable, dressed head to toe in his gold-brushed armour.
At his side sauntered Theo Versini, discernible by the sweep of his bright hair.
Sera’s breath shallowed at the sight of her friend, bedecked in polished silver armour that made him a perfect twin to Andreas.
Traitor.
Liar.
Soul-eater.
Part of her had thought Theo might be dead, that whatever plan he’d hatched against the Silver-tongue had failed and that he had paid the cost in blood. She wished now that she had been right.
Sera knew how to mourn a friend. She did not know how to kill one.
Shadows leaked from the underside of the arch, where Ransom and Caruso were lying in wait for the prince.
Casting off the hood of her cloak, Sera revealed herself to the dawn.
Taking the dove’s flag from its pole, she raised it above her head – high enough that Andreas would spot her from a mile away and know that she had come to him.
High enough that he would keep his eyes on her and not the saints waiting to ambush him.
It was the only way Ransom would agree to Sera’s plan. If Andreas must be unmade by her hand, then first he would be maimed and rendered so bloodless he would pose no threat at all to Sera when she finally tangled her magic with his.
And Caruso…
Well, Caruso really wanted to try out his new sword.
With morning light came the full flush of Andreas’s army, their torches so bright it looked as though the northern plains were aflame. Soon, she could see the whites of his eyes, and the slow curl of his smile.
She knew he could see her too.
His martyr standing at the gates to the city.
All too soon Andreas reached the wide stone bridge that crossed the northern Verne, connecting the plains to the city of Fantome. It was there, at the other end of the bridge, that he drew to halt and raised his hand to her, as though they were old friends saying hello.
His army crowded at his back, a sea of cornflower blue uniforms standing rigidly to attention.
Beneath Sera, Ransom and Caruso were as silent as a tomb. They were so well hidden that she might have worried Ransom wasn’t there at all if it wasn’t for that tug in her chest, the promise between their souls holding fast.
She looked at Andreas’s army straining at the bit, and wondered how many Rose-bearers he would send across first.
But it was Theo who came. Striding across the bridge in his polished armour.
He wore no helmet, revealing to her the familiar sea green of his eyes and the lazy quirk of his smile.
But there was something different about him now, a hardness that hadn’t been there before.
He wore his power like a second skin, and with each new step she felt it brush against her own, the dark tentacles of his magic probing at the very waters of her soul.
Goosebumps raised across her body.
The old voice stirred, telling her to run.
Too late now.
Theo reached the near side of the bridge and stalled on the outer rim of the stone circle. He looked straight ahead through the archway, his eyes flickering as he scanned the darkness there. He licked his lips, no doubt tasting the other powers in his midst. More souls ripe for the taking.
A shudder tripped down her spine.
‘Well?’ called Andreas, from across the bridge.
‘She’s alone,’ Theo called back.
Sera’s heart stuttered.
Theo looked up at her. ‘I knew you’d come.’
She curled her lip to hide her pain. ‘I’d hoped you were dead. Like the messenger corpse you delivered to my door.’
He hummed. ‘Well. Carrier pigeons are so unreliable.’
Across the bridge, Andreas crowed with laughter.
‘You should really get down from there,’ said Theo.
‘Why? So you can carry me over that bridge?’
‘Because it’s dangerous.’
Now it was her turn to laugh. What kind of game was this? Why had he lied just now to Andreas? Did he really not know there were two more saints skulking in the shadows barely a stone’s throw from where he stood? Did he truly think she was foolish enough to come here alone?
His face was placid, revealing nothing. Again, he said, ‘Come down, Seraphine.’
‘What did he offer you?’ she shot back. ‘To dress you like his tin man? To make you his little sniffer dog?’
His lips flickered. ‘Power.’
Greed edged his voice.
‘Power,’ she echoed.
‘More than you could ever conceive of.’
‘I don’t spend my time thinking about power, Theo.’
‘You prefer to give it all away,’ he said, canting his head. ‘That’s why you’re dying.’
She jerked, as though he had slapped her.
Shadows spilled across the cobbles as Ransom strained to rein in his mood. If Theo noticed, he made no show of it, and across the bridge Andreas was too busy howling with laughter, eagerly feasting on their conversation.
‘Enough of this,’ said Theo, turning sharp. ‘Get down from there.’
‘Feeling snacky, are you, Soul-eater?’
He narrowed his eyes. ‘You’ve been spending too much time with Hale.’
‘I’ve been spending time with the saints who haven’t screwed me over.’
‘I haven’t screwed you over,’ he said.
She canted her head, mirroring his pose. ‘Yet.’
A shadow moved behind his eyes, there and gone in a flash. He stepped back, looking over his shoulder to Andreas. ‘Aren’t you going to come and claim her?’
The Silver-tongue’s smile was all malice. ‘I think I’ll wait just a little longer.’
‘I’ll come down when your prince crosses that bridge,’ said Sera, looking down on Theo, but the soul-eater wasn’t listening to her now. He was looking at the clouds.
Unease rippled along his brow.
There came a sudden shrieking chorus.
Shadows spilled across the sky as the Strix appeared in their droves. War cries erupted from the Urnican Stargrazers as they swooped down on the city with a vengeance that made even the river tremble.
Sera bit back a curse. There were so many she didn’t know where to look, far more than Mercure’s spies had accounted for.
The largest of the Strix banked and came at her like an arrow. Across the northern rooftops, the Orders fired their crossbows. Bolts whistled as they missed their marks.
Sera gripped the flagpole and sank into a fighting stance. If Andreas wanted to pick her off, he would have to do it himself. She would not be plucked from the arch like a worm.
The Strix bore down on her, the sun glinting off its blood-red tail feathers. Surging forward, she swung the pole with all her strength, slamming into the hard edge of its skull. The impact knocked her on her ass, and she rolled to avoid its snapping beak.
Ransom’s shadows erupted in a towering black wave, blocking out the prince and his army, Theo shouting at her feet, and the rest of the Strix circling overhead.
‘Screw the plan,’ he yelled, climbing onto the arch just as another Strix dived. It banked to the left, narrowly avoiding the swelling dark.
Sera lifted her head, raising herself on her forearms.
Down below, Caruso was advancing on Theo, swinging Fatebringer with a power that made the soul-eater’s eyes glow. Another Strix dropped from the sky. Ransom cast his shadows like a net, and it fell with a dying howl, tossing its rider from her saddle.
Sera got back on her feet, flagpole in hand, as more Stargrazers converged on them.
Ransom dispatched two more without breaking a sweat. He glanced sidelong at her. ‘All right, spitfire?’
‘Never better,’ she huffed, swinging again.
Another Strix came and Ransom stopped its heart with ruthless efficiency.
Soon, he had filled the stone circle around the arch with dead beasts, feathers and blood, and injured riders, wheezing as they crawled from their saddles.
But the Stargrazers of Urnica were as clever as they were brutal.
They came again in a flock of three. The first Strix splayed wide like a shield, absorbing the brunt of Ransom’s magic.
The other two were smaller, faster. They came up from below, darting between his shadows.
Ransom pivoted, driving his dagger through the wing of the first. It thrashed madly, taking a chunk out of the arch as it fought to remain airborne.
Its rider slipped from his saddle, fisting a handful of feathers to stay his fall.
Ransom was on him in a heartbeat, and Sera was so terrified that he might fall too that she didn’t notice the smallest of the Strix until its talons pierced her shoulder.
Far below, someone cried her name. Too late, she leaped from the beast’s path, its knife-sharp talons ripping through the muscles in her back. She hit the arch on her hands and knees, gasping through the pain.
The Strix rounded on her. She grabbed the flagpole and angled it at the sky, hinging it upwards as it dived on her.
With a sickening squelch, the pole skewered its soft underbelly.
Grunting in agony, she drove it home, through muscle and bone and sinew, right into the creature’s mighty heart.
Blood spurted like a fountain as it slid across the arch.
Its Stargrazer released a furious roar, pulling a whip from her belt.
There was an almighty crack, then a lash of brown across the sky, as it tightened around Sera’s waist.
She slid across the blood-slick stone, fighting the pull of gravity. But the Strix and its rider were falling, and she was bound to them by the coil around her middle.
She screamed for Ransom.
Blood-soaked and heaving, he turned from his own fight. Gold eyes shot wide as he lunged through his shadows, but Sera was already gone. Dragged over the edge of arch and down, down, down, where she crashed in a hail of blood and feathers.
Blackness stole in. Then there were only the ragged cries of the Strix and the rumble of bootsteps as Andreas’s army spilled over the north bridge.