“We are not safe, beloved Utros,” Ava said. “I don’t know if anyone is left alive in our army.”
“I need to see!” he demanded. “Now.” He pressed the gold half mask against his face.
Exhausted, Ava and Ruva sagged. When they allowed their magic to dissipate, the transparent shell flickered away, and Utros stared out upon a nightmarish landscape so hot that the ground had turned into glass. Lumps of rock smoldered, still glowing dull orange. Smoke fouled the air like black bloodstains. Nearby, the landscape was a forest of blackened bones, curved ribs, charred skulls exploded as the brains boiled in the flash of heat.
He and the twin sorceresses were the only ones alive nearby. The entire front ranks of his gigantic army had been wiped out.
Utros had always segregated his thoughts, walling off emotions from logic, tactical plans from historical knowledge, but now those compartments in his mind began to crumble with the horror of what he saw. Staring at the vacant black scar that had recently been crowded with loyal troops, he guessed that at least thirty thousand men had been caught in that instantaneous funeral pyre.
As he stared at the roasted world and thought of all those soldiers who had unquestioningly followed his command, he let out a bellowing roar toward Ildakar, demanding revenge.
And as he watched, the city itself shimmered and disappeared before his eyes.
Nathan tumbled through the air, heartsick as he watched the inferno rush across the battlefield, enclosed by the boundary runes the other teams had inscribed. Safe beyond the flames, he crashed onto the grass and rolled.
Other Ildakaran defenders tumbled beside him: Rendell, the two morazeth, the soldiers and arena fighters who had kept Elsa safe while she completed her magic. Elsa had used her last energy to hurl them all to safety. Lyesse and Thorn sprang to their feet and prepared to fight without even bothering to brush themselves off. Nathan, Rendell, and the others gained their feet and prepared to face the ancient soldiers.
But the outburst of fire from the transference magic was overwhelming. Nathan saw that this one blow, this one spell, had killed tens of thousands of the enemy.
And one dear Elsa.
In his anger at seeing the half-stone soldiers on the perimeter still moving toward them, Nathan flung out more wizard’s fire, destroying any enemies who dared to come close. The blast gave him and his companions a moment to catch their breath. “We have to get back into the city,” he called in a hoarse voice. “Fall back to the gates.”
They turned toward the towering city of Ildakar, their only safe haven now. They had all sacrificed so much to defend it. But before they could move to rush back home, the entire city flickered, then vanished entirely.
“Dear spirits!” Nathan cried. He knew what had happened.
Rendell’s jaw dropped open in disbelief. “Our city! Ildakar is gone.”
The other survivors stared in dismay. “Our homes!” cried one of the city guard, who bled from a long gash down his left arm.
The two morazeth were still ready to kill, but their faces were stricken. “Our Ildakar…”
With the shroud restored, the city and much of the uplift were simply erased. The beautiful buildings, the orchards, the layered gardens, the merchants’ district, the craftsmen’s district, the warehouses … everything was gone, as if it had simply been shaved off the plain, leaving a drop-off to the river, but no city.
Ildakar had vanished again, sealed away in time.
Nathan groaned. He remembered the first time he had seen Ildakar from the high mountain pass of Kol Adair. His life book had guided him here, and he had indeed found what he needed, the heart of a wizard—Chief Handler Ivan’s. He felt pain in his chest now and knew it was in response to the shock of seeing that the city was gone.
But the same prediction in his life book had declared that the sorceress would save the world. He didn’t even know where Nicci was.
The “sorceress” … Had the foretelling meant Elsa?
“The shroud may be permanent, or it may be temporary,” Nathan said to his shocked companions as they picked themselves up. Standing just outside the blackened devastation, he suddenly felt vulnerable. “Either way, Ildakar will give us no protection now. We have to get away from the battlefield, and swiftly, before Utros issues commands—if he survived. Either way, I imagine they will want revenge.”
Though his soul ached from the loss of Elsa, he knew she would have been satisfied with what she accomplished. Her transference magic had dealt a terrible blow to the enemy army. Even now, General Utros’s forces were barely recovering.
Nathan knew it was time to move. Now.
He looked in the blackened grasses, saw the other surviving strike teams, and realized they would be rushing for shelter, too. He drew his ornate sword and tossed his soot-smeared white hair behind him. “There may not be many of us, but we have to find a way to fight what remains of the army.”
“We cannot fight them all,” said the morazeth Thorn. “We are the only ones left.”
“Not the only ones,” Nathan said. “It is not over yet.”
Still, there was no city left to fight for.
Their group raced around the well-defined edge of the burn and reunited with Olgya and her surviving fighters. Their larger group kept moving westward to the rugged foothills, in the direction of the mountains and Kol Adair. They also reunited with Perri’s contingent, as well as Leo’s, farther down the valley. When they encountered the bedraggled remnants of the group that had shot the fire arrow, Nathan learned that Julian had been killed, but not before finishing the boundary rune.
Together they continued to withdraw from the unsettled and stunned enemy army. Nathan thought the wilderness in the direction of the mountains would offer them the best chance. Nicci was gone through the sliph, presumably far away in Serrimundi. How could she ever come back now? He doubted he would ever see her again.
And poor, dear Bannon. He had hoped to keep the young man safe in the city, which was now whisked away. Nathan gritted his teeth. In a thousand years, he had made many bad choices, and he had to live with them all. He would find a way to live with this one.
“Come, we have to survive,” he said. The remnants of all six strike force groups, the outcasts of Ildakar, also raced to the hills. The reeling enemy army was unable to count their dead, struggling to recover from what had happened. Was Utros even still alive? Nathan had seen the general and his two sorceresses well within the boundary of the inferno, but he couldn’t be sure. If Utros was dead, then who would lead what remained of this gigantic force? He could always hope the ancient army would break apart and disperse.
In the foothills, the Ildakaran defenders converged, tired, frightened, and confused. They had all seen their city vanish, and they knew they were cut off from their homes and families forever, stranded in the wilderness. As the refugees gathered in the hills, they came upon the fifth group of fighters, who had drawn the last boundary rune.
Nathan was surprised to see a familiar face—one he had never expected to see again. “Prelate Verna! Dear spirits, I cross half the world and the Sisters of the Light are still following me.” He had broken her jaw the last time she had caught up with him.
Verna looked wrung out. Her face was smeared with dust and dirt, her gray-shot brown hair a tangled mess. She had seven other Sisters with her, along with General Zimmer and a small group of D’Haran soldiers. He saw the wizard Renn, who had been sent away from Ildakar, and the two young scholars, Oliver and Peretta, whom Nathan and Nicci had dispatched as messengers from Cliffwall. “What are you all doing here?”