Day after day of fighting up the mountain slopes had turned the game trails between the plateau and the early wards into well-beaten paths, stomped flat by hundreds of boots. Where the path crossed water, Baron Arnold Crosbie’s engineers had felled trees, cut timber, and built wide bridges. When the track ran along the edge of a dropped off, and the soldiers could look down on the highest tips of aspen trees, the Valegard men had worked with Kerian troops to grow stout trunks, serving as fence posts, onto which long boards had been nailed up to chest height, to prevent any accidental falls. Where the ground was trod into mud, more boards had been set down to that the march up Nightfall Peak would be unimpeded.

At Elder Aatu’s command, twenty wyrms made up the van, each with one of the few loyal Iravatan riders mounted just behind their great heads. The enormous serpents had been held in reserve until now, but with the summit of the mountain within reach, their job was now to break any remaining barriers that stood between the army and its goal.

Valtteri ka Auris, who remained determined to lead the final assault personally, had shaped a masterwork of magic to ride among them. An enormous wyrm of ice, with articulated, sigil-etched scales of adamant as hard as steel, fangs sharp as swords, and breath that rose from its maw in a frozen cloud, all of which somehow moved, fulfilling his intent.

As annoyed as she was at the prospect of being kept from the front lines, Liv had to admit that she could not have created anything to match it. Not yet, at least.

“Are those enchantments carved into the scales?” Arjun asked, as he and Liv watched the van move out from the fourth ward. Soile had managed to bring some of her troops back, nearly all of them wounded and exhausted. The Kerian commander herself had taken two shots from the enemy Antrians, one to her shoulder, and one that broke her hip. She was now with the healers back on the plateau, waiting only for the next supply train to bring her back to the waystone at Feic Seria.

Liv shook her head. “Not carved. He actually formed them that way from the beginning. He told me there’s ten different enchantments worked into those scales, each one contingent.”

“Where did he get the mana for it all?” Miina asked, and then coughed. Liv watched her take a sip of tea from her waterskin: willow-bark and honey tea, Liv knew, because it helped to soothe her cousin’s throat. By this point, they’d all quietly acknowledge that the scarring inside her body would never quite go away.

“All those charms he wore in his hair,” Wren explained. “I watched him unbraid a dozen of them and lay them out on the ground. Bits of bone from all kinds of mana beasts. When he cast the spell, the ice caught it all up.”

“Two mana batteries, as well,” Ghveris added. “Taken from broken Antrians. I recognized them.”

“He must have been planning this spell out the entire time,” Liv grumbled.

“I notice his conjured ice-monster has a built in saddle,” Wren teased her.

Liv rolled her eyes, but when her father rode the thing over to their group, she stepped forward to speak with him. “I should be up front with you,” she said, without preamble.

To his credit, her father didn’t immediately dismiss her argument. “I have no doubt you could command the van,” Valtteri said, after a moment’s consideration. “You’ve fought in rifts on both continents, and now you’ve seen battle against Lucania. That is the reason I am confident leaving you in command of the main force.”

Liv opened her mouth to continue arguing, and then had to stop.

“We have a dearth of experienced commanders,” her father admitted. “Inkeris is back at Whitehill; I would have trusted him. Soile is wounded. Juhani holds Feic Seria, and secures our supply lines. If Duchess Julianne and her husband were still alive…” he shrugged. “There is no point thinking about those we’ve lost. We work with what we have. What you lack in experience, Ghveris can provide for you.”

Liv could just see the Antrian inclining his head, a few paces to her side. She swallowed. “Thank you for trusting me.”

Valtteri nodded. “We will break everything between here and the summit,” he promised. “We will take the brunt of the enemy defenses. I expect that by the time we reach Ractia herself, my command will be shattered. You must use your judgement to follow behind – to strike when the time is right, with fresh troops, and get our elders where they need to be.”

Behind the wyrms, Liv now watched rank after rank of Kalleisian infantry, from Soltheris, marching out from the ruined fourth ward, continuing up the mountain. Hundreds of them, followed by Elden bowman as well. She stepped forward, close enough to the wyrm that she could feel the chill radiating off its scales, and stood up on the toes of her boots so that only her father would be able to hear her when she whispered.

“You’re using the least trustworthy troops in the van?”

Her father nodded. “I’m leaving you with Whitehill knights, our own Tundra Riders. The soldiers from Valegard and Ashford, Al’Fenthia and Mountain Home. Men and women who fought with you at the pass.” He reached down a hand, and Liv took it in her own. She wished that they weren’t wearing gauntlets, so that she could feel the warmth of her father’s palm. She wanted to climb up onto the ice-worm and hug him, but she didn’t.

“I’ll get the elders where they need to be,” Liv promised.

Her father nodded, once, and then the wyrm wheeled about, its coils pushing it upslope to join the march. White traces of frost remained in its wake, tracing the enormous serpent’s path upon the trampled ground.

Liv glanced back to where the three other elders who would be taking place in the assault waited, under heavy guard, right in the middle of the main force. She would join them in a moment; but for right now, she simply watched until her father was out of sight. Once again, she heard Julianne’s scream in her memory, from that moment when Liv had looked over and seen an arrow in Henry’s eye.

Wren wrapped an arm around her. “What’s the word – ironic? My father on one side, and yours on the other. Of course, mine’s a slave. You worried about him?”

“No.” Liv shook her head. Nothing was going to happen to her father, because she wasn’t going to allow it. “Ghveris, make sure everyone is ready to move. We’ll give them a quarter bell to get ahead of us, and then we’re following them up the mountain.”

“As you wish.” The war-machine strode off, his metal plating clanking as he went.

Liv wrenched herself around and strode over to where the elders were waiting. Kaija and her guards moved with her, forming a perimeter that shifted the other soldiers out of the way. With Arjun, Wren, and Miina clustered around her, it would be impossible for anyone to not see where she was headed.

Her grandmother, her great-uncle Eilis, and Aira tär Keria turned to face Liv as she approached. “We’ll be leaving in a quarter bell,” Liv told them. “I want to be close enough behind that we can see what’s happening, and move to support them if they need it.”

Aira reached out and took hold of Liv’s arm by the boiled leather vambrace. “So long as you focus on why we’re here, Livara. Your father can take care of himself. We’re here for Ractia.”

“I know that,” Liv assured her. “I don’t want us to be too far away to take our opportunity.”

“Show me what you’ve been working on, then,” Aira said. “While we have a moment.”

Liv hesitated. What she really wanted to be doing was heading up that mountain, so that she could keep eyes on what the vanguard was facing. But her father had trusted her to be in command, and the whole point of letting him and his troops do the work of breaking through enemy lines was so that the rest of alliance army could follow behind, preserved from the worst of the fighting. She unclasped the straps that held her spellbook to her belt, flipped through the pages until she found the notes she’d taken at the Tomb of Celris, and handed it to the old woman.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

“A moment?” her great-uncle said. Eilis took Liv by the shoulder and turned her away from Aira, who was occupied by tracing a finger across each line of Liv’s notes as she read them.

“What is it?” Liv asked.

Eilis, who was much taller than she was, leaned down and lowered his voice. “Something has been bothering me more and more, the closer we get to the summit,” he said. “I do not see a confluence approaching.”

Liv frowned. “I would think that us facing off against the last of the old gods would be something important enough you’d get a glimpse of it,” she admitted. “Though I’m the last person to understand how Dā works. I’ve essentially given up on trying to master it until all of this is over.”

“You would be correct,” Eilis said. “Or, at least, I believe you would be. But I have considered a possible explanation, and it is not one that will make you happy. I’ve never tried to use the word of time to understand what one of the Vædim might do before. People around her, yes – members of her cult.”

“Which is how you helped Keri and Wren get on their trail in Lucania,” Liv said, nodding.

“Nor do I know anyone who ever has,” Eilis continued. “It’s simply been too long since the last of them died or left this world. Unlike some of the other houses, we don’t have the daughter of a goddess to go to when we have questions. It is often said that the word of time broke when Däivi was killed. I thought that I understood what that meant – that the limitations we now work under come from the reduced power of the word. But now I wonder: has Dā been weakened to the point it cannot see the actions of the Vædim? Could it ever? Perhaps only a being of equal power can divine their fates.”

Liv caught sight of her grandmother. Eila had remained at Aira’s side, but now she met Liv’s gaze, and gave a slight shrug.

“Uncle.” Liv reached out and took the older man’s hand. “I think you’ve gotten too used to having hints of what to do. Seeing pieces of the future. Maybe it's a good thing I never learned enough about Dā to rely on that. I understand it makes you uncomfortable.”

“It’s a bit like being blind,” the older man said, shaking his head.

“The rest of us just have to live our lives this way,” Liv reminded him. “It doesn’t change anything for me. Come along. Let’s see if Elder Aira has found any mistakes in my work.”

☙

Aira tär Keria had, it turned out, not only cackled wickedly once she’d understood the spell Liv was assembling, she’d immediately begun scratching out notes of her own. She was still working with Liv’s book by the time Ghveris got the main part of the allied army marching up toward the summit, and the moment they had her in the saddle, she went right back to work.

Liv accepted a hand up from Akseli, which made it easier for her to get into Steria’s saddle. She wasn’t certain who she had to thank for making certain that the mare had made it first to Feic Steria, and then across the desert, to be there when Liv needed her. If she could find out, after the battle was done, she intended to do something nice for them in return.

She indulged, for just a moment, pressing her face into the mare’s warm neck and simply breathing in the familiar scent of horse. It was comforting. Then, Liv straightened up, fixed her helm in place, urged Steria to a walk, alongside the three elders.

“Here. Take this back, child,” Aira urged her, reaching across the space between their horses to hand the book back to Liv. “I want you to make a trial of that, against the first thing we find that would make a good target.”

Liv held the book up, trusting Steria to follow the rest of the horses for the moment, and scanned the page. The elder had removed a piece of Liv’s incantation, isolating a component and adjusting it into a full spell in and of itself – one that only used Cel, rather than both words.

“I thought we were saving all of our mana?” Liv asked.

The old woman shrugged, and her gray braids rustled against her shoulders. If Liv could have made her wear a helm, she would have – just the sight of an unprotected head, while they were marching toward the enemy, upset her.

“The summit should all be within the shoals of the rift,” Aira pointed out. “I don’t think you’re going to run out of magic. I’d rather work out any problems now, and get you as comfortable and confident as we possibly can.”

“Fine.” Liv kneed Steria forward, and moved up next to Ghveris. She hardly even noticed her guards moving with her.

“When we get to the next ward, we’re going to halt for a short while,” Liv told him. “Elder Aira wants me to try something.”

The sixth ward – the second to last before reaching the summit – was a corpse-strewn wreckage by the time they’d arrived. Elder Aatu’s wyrm riders had apparently crashed straight through the palisade, because Liv saw nothing but splinters and a single post still standing. The entire ditch, which was set just before the palisade itself, had been bridged with a layer of ice, frozen across the entire width of the trail. The black iron warding, in the meantime, had been ripped up, broken into pieces, and flung aside to make space for the advancing army.

“How bad does it look?” Liv asked Ghveris, once he’d called a halt for her. She was quite satisfied with having the Antrian convey all of her orders: his deep, rumbling voice could be as loud as thunder when he wanted to be heard.

“A token defense,” the war machine told her, after scanning the dead. “They must be concentrating nearly all of their troops at the last barrier before the summit.”

“Alright.” Liv drew her stormwand. “That post, right there,” she told Aira, who’d ridden up alongside her.

The old woman raised her eyebrows. “You think you can hit it? Perhaps you should move everyone back a ways.”

Liv bit her lip. For a spell she’d never once tried before, it wasn’t a bad suggestion. “Ghveris?”

“It will be done. Back!” He turned to face the troops. “Back up three paces!”

“Arjun, maybe you should put up a mana shield, too,” Wren suggested.

Liv took a deep breath and raised her wand. There was no reason to be nervous – this piece was just using Cel. It was her best word. She could have done this on the fly herself, if she needed to, without Aira’s help. Still, it was a portion of what she hoped would be her archmage spell – and something about that made her stomach roil.

“Celet Næv’bel Æn’Ceuvim,” Liv intoned. She flicked the stormwand up toward the scattered clouds overhead and reached with her magic and her intent up, up – there. The unfallen rain, waiting for a storm to unleash it on the ground below. She could not see what was happening, not so far away, but she could feel it.

It was not so different from calling down lightning, or using those tiny crystals of ice to build a charge. A different shape, yes, but Cel was as eager to be let loose upon the world as ever. Liv felt the spear form, made it of adamant ice, strong as steel – and then she let it fall, tip down.

“I’m not entirely sure what it’s going to do,” she admitted, lowering her wand.

“Hit hard,” Ghveris said, kneeling down in front of her. His mana shield flared into existence, right alongside Arjun’s.

“Get down off the horse,” Kaija said, tugging at Liv’s leg. “Down, Liv!”

She slid out of the saddle, and caught Steria by the reins. How long did it take something to fall from that high? This clearly wasn’t going to be the sort of spell she could toss off by reflex in the middle of a spell exchange, it was going to require planning. For a moment, Liv wondered whether she’d made a bad choice.

The ground in front of them exploded.

Chips and splinters of wood flew in every direction as the post simply ceased to exist; dirt sprayed up in a great cloud from the ground. The sound of the spear hitting was loud, as loud as standing next to a lightning bolt when it hit.

Horses reared back and screamed; soldiers covered their ears. Splinters slammed into the two mana shields in front of Liv and hung there, wedged into the cracks caused by the sheer force of their impact. Only when the cloud of dust settled did Liv stride forward to see what had happened.

Her friends rushed up alongside her, to the rim of a crater at least fifteen feet across and perhaps a third that deep. It was Wren who scrambled down into the center, where she found what was left of the spear buried in the ground, beneath a covering of loose soil that had fallen back down to coat the crater.

“That’s going to be your archmage spell?” Wren called back up out of the crater.

Liv shook her head. “No. That’s only part of it.”