Page 164 of Of Empires and Dust

He didn’t even have to hold the mage in place with the Spark. She simply stood there like a stunned deer, unmoving while Dayne looked down at the glowing red gemstone in his hand, his níthral casting a white light across the dock.

Lorian soldiers and Valtarans in the colours of Koraklon and Thebal circled around him but dared not come closer. They’d seen what he had done to the mages – what he was currently doing.

One man dared take a step forward, only to drop like a sack of stones when Belina put a knife in the back of his head from atop a nearby roof, vanishing again before the others could spot her.

Dayne looked down at the glowing gemstone. He’d held one before but had never allowed himself to draw from its strength. But something about it felt different that night beneath the Blood Moon. It called to him, whispered in his ear, yearning for him to tap into the strength it offered. And for a brief moment, Dayne considered it. He’d seen what the Lorian mages could do with the power their Essence offered. And in his hands, in the hands of someone who understood death, it could be used to free Valtara.

But he had also seen what Blood Magic did to the mind over time. He had sent enough warped mages into Heraya’s embrace. And so Dayne lifted his gaze to meet that of the last surviving Battlemage, pushed threads of Earth and Spirit into his hand, and crushed the gemstone to dust. Crimson light sprayed through his fingers, bright as a star, then died in a wisp of red mist.

“Do you have any last words, mage?” Dayne asked as he tilted his hand and let the dust fall onto the docks. He could feel the woman probing at the ward in which she was encased, desperately trying to break through.

“You don’t have to do this,” she called back. Dayne could hear the fear in her voice. He knew it well. When a person lived with the Spark at their fingertips, it became engrained in everything they did. And when it was taken away, they were helpless as a newborn babe suckling at their mother’s tit. “Youdon’t,” she repeated. “We will surrender the port without further bloodshed. I promise it.”

Dayne believed her. “Unfortunately, it’s your blood I need. Not your surrender. I truly wish that were not the case. But it is. May Heraya embrace you.”

Dayne released his níthral and at the same time wrapped a thread of Air about the mage’s waist and another around a sword on the dock behind him.

He pulled.

The woman careened through the air, screaming. He grabbed her by the throat just as his fingers wrapped around the hilt of the dropped sword, then drove the steel through her gut.

“In another life,” he whispered as the light went out in the mage’s eyes.

He could have dealt with them all quickly, but that night wasn’t about efficiency, or haste, or even death. It was about terror. It was about the traitors and the Lorian soldiers watching their mages be ripped apart one by one. Watching the shadows hunt them. It was about making them fear the dark.

Dayne released the woman’s throat and let her body drop. He wove threads of Spirit and Air into his voice, looking about at the soldiers around him, the light of the burning ships drawing shadows across the docks.

“I am Dayne Ateres. This is my home, and you are no longer welcome.” He cast his gaze over the Lorians and Valtarans who stood about him, their weapons drawn. “Those of you who survive tonight, tell them what happened here. Tell them that the wyvern of House Ateres flies again and that it yearns for blood. Leave Valtara and never come back. If you do this, you may yet live to grow old and grey.”

Dayne opened himself fully to the Spark, feeling it pull at him, feeling it burn in his veins and crackle over his skin. Hefound the elemental strand of Air in his mind and plucked, its smooth, cool touch rolling over his skin.

“Now, I say to you but one last thing – run.”

He drew a deep breath, then cast threads throughout the port town, spreading them over the burning ships and every lick of flame he could find: the candles, the lanterns, the firepits.

In a single breath, he quenched them all, and with the black clouds above blocking the moon’s light, Ankar descended into darkness.

Petrick Leoth ranwith such haste he could hear nothing but the sound of his own heart and the scrambling of feet and shouts around him.

He’d never seen a night so dark. He could barely make out the ground before him.

A sudden burst of white light illuminated the street, revealing the mass of men and women around him, Lorian and Valtaran both. That shimmer of white gifted him a momentary sense of relief, only for his eyes to fall on the dark silhouette of the man who had called himself Dayne Ateres, a coruscating spear in his grip. He swung the weapon in a wide arc, ripping through three soldiers. And then the spear was gone and, with it, the light.

“What the fuck is he?” someone shouted to his left. “He’s like some kind of?—”

Whoever had been speaking never finished the sentence. A sharpthunkwas followed by the sound of a body hitting the ground.

That was when wingbeats thrummed above, accompanied by those sharp, pulsing screeches.

“Petrick!” A hand grabbed Petrick’s shoulder. The voice belonged to Mikhail. “This way!”

Petrick hesitated. The gates were forward. The voice was not.

The white light burst into life once more, and Petrick watched Dayne Ateres drive his white spear through a man’s chest, arcs of lightning streaking from his palm and tearing a group of Thebalan loyalists to pieces.

A second hand pulled him in the opposite direction – Gwinton Jon. Sweat-streaked ash covered Gwinton’s face, his eyes wide, veins in his neck bulging. “What are you doing? Move, move!”

Petrick made to answer, but then something crashed into Gwinton from above, slamming him to the ground. Deep red scales and savage horns. The wyvern opened its jaws and ripped chunks of flesh from Gwinton’s shoulder and neck, its rider sitting calmly on its back. The creature lifted its head, and bright golden eyes looked into Petrick’s.

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