Page 409 of Of Empires and Dust

That had maybe not been her smartest move, but Belina never had been good at controlling her impulses. Well, she’d made her bed now. She might as well lie in it.

“Suck,” she repeated, her mouth still half-full of the noxious liquid that appeared to be burning her tongue and cheeks. “My. Cock.”

She reached over and snatched a flaming torch from a sconce. Her first instinct had been to spray the liquid through the flames over the man. She quickly realised that she wasn’t quite sure whether that would set her own face on fire. She liked her face, so she decided instead to swing the torch into the man’s hands as he rubbed his eyes while quickly spitting the rest of the Godfire on the ground behind her.

It didn’t take even a second for the Koraklon soldier to burst into flames, screaming and shrieking. He fell backwards, slamming against the stone, thrashing as he did. The flames caught on the trail of Godfire she had marked from there to the gatehouse.

She watched the fire tear across the stone as the other soldiers levelled their spears, and more looked down from the ramparts and about the yard at the sound of the dying man’s screams.

Belina decided she would leave this part out when she told Dayne about how she’d brought the gates down. He’d always said she made too much of a scene.

“Easy, easy,” she said, pointing the torch towards the man who now lay still in the flames. “He was like that when I got here.”

Three of the men raised their shields and strode forwards.

“Come now,” Belina said, backing away slowly, her eyes never leaving the three men. “This is all a misunderstanding.”

The three soldiers lunged in unison, pulling their spears back to skewer her like a fish. She glanced down to make sure her feet were clear, then dropped the torch.

The Godfire she’d spat on the ground erupted in flames, consuming all three of them. Half a second later, the entire keep shook and the Gatehouse exploded, flames pluming in all directions, chunks of stone crashing down all about the yard.

“Well,” Belina whispered to herself, staring up at the bonfire that was the gates. “That worked a lot better than I expected."

In the ensuing chaos, Belina dropped her shield and vanished into a nearby doorway.

A flashof light shone at the keep’s gatehouse, followed less than a second later by an eruption of flame and stone that shook the earth. A clap of thunder swept through the valley, and Alina watched in awe as the gates of Achyron’s Keep were tornasunder. Horns bellowed, and the defenders’ shouts carried across the plains below.

More horns answered, and below, her warriors and the Andurii swept into motion, the light of the red moon reflecting on their shields.

“Well,” Mera said, sitting up straight in Audin’s saddle. “She said she’d set something on fire.”

Beneath Alina, a rumble spread through Rynvar and turned to a roar as the wyvern reared and unfurled his wings, more wyverns answering through the forest at their back.

“Wyndarii of Valtara,” Alina shouted, unclipping a javelin from the side of the saddle. “Tonight is the night we burn the Lorians from our home. Tonight, we set Valtara free!”

A chorus of cheers rang out behind her.

She raised her javelin into the air. “By blade and by blood!”

As Rynvar surged forwards and leapt from the ledge, spreading his wings, Alina heard Amari, Lukira, and Mera all answer her call, rising above the roars of the wyverns. “By blade and by blood!”

Alina pressed herself tight to Rynvar’s neck as he plummeted down the cliffside, the buckles at her hip clinking, a weightless feeling in her stomach.

This was what she was born to do.

To her right, through watering eyes, she saw arcs of purple lightning tearing through the air towards her marching warriors. She watched with pain in her heart as some of the lightning tore holes into the ranks, shouts and screams rising. But most of the lightning swerved in the air, bending and twisting, funnelled towards four spots within the ranks before vanishing entirely.

In the purple glow, Alina just about made out the Narvonan Isildans, clad entirely in their gleaming Atalus-shell armour, riding astride their darvakin. The armour absorbed the lightninglike a river did rain. If they’d had armour like that these past centuries, Valtara would already be free.

Alina squeezed her legs as Rynvar opened his wings and swept parallel to the ground some five or six hundred feet below them.

To her side, Mera’s white-gloved hand flashed signals: split. Four. Above. Below. Attack. Question.

Yes, Alina signalled back. Both Amari and Lukira acknowledged the command.

They held superiority in numbers over the traitor Wyndarii, but the mages and archers on the ramparts could even that out in the blink of an eye if they weren’t seen to.

“Take the walls!” Alina shouted to Rynvar, pressing herself to his neck so he could feel the vibrations above the wind. “Rip them from the ramparts.”

---