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The two bloodthirsty ar Karou, dulled by the immensity of her despair, scarcely knehat to make of it She had felt the moment tilt and hurl them toward disaster Hoas it that they had all simply stopped? Had sheon both sides, just rattling of swords? Could it be as si Around her there was s of breath as hoarse as her own She tried to shake off her fog

And then she saw, in the no- armies, the White Wolf rise to his feet All eyes fixed on hian to abate

Could it be… had this so?

She rose It was difficult to one, but it had left its heaviness draped over her, thick and bleak She saw that the Wolf’s knees were bloodied from the impact of his fall; Utheo had risen just as the blood overtook hi their white fur and spreading onward, toward the first file of angels Uthee; there was a lot of blood, and the Wolfin it, all in white but where his own blood blossomed at his knees and brow And his palether It looked like prayer, but it was clear what it meant Instead of attack, he held his hamsas blind, ink eye to ink eye He held his power in check, and hiround, and no reprisal froesture, but Karou still didn’t understand How had it halted three hundred Misbegotten in e on the ashes of Loramendi that I and mine coinning, and was no plan of ainst my express command That soldier, whoever it may be, has broken ed with disgust, and a shiver trilled down Karou’s spine

Thiago turned, sweeping the gathering of his soldiers with a slit-eyed look "That soldier," he said, peering into the heart of his army, "courted the death of this entire company today, and will be disciplined"

The proaze was deliberate and piercing, and lingered several times on particular soldiers, ithered beneath it

He turned back to the Misbegotten "There is reason to risk our lives, but we are no longer that reason to one another A bad beginning ht Akiva then; Karou felt hiel to step in and help hiether She waited, too, sure of hiht them here; he ed out a brief, strained silence

So Karou felt a stab of concern He looked unsteady, even ill, his broad shoulders bowed by so with him? She’d seen him look like that before; she’d made him look like that, but this couldn’t be the effect of the hamsas, could it? Why should they hit him harder than the rest?

With evident effort, he said, finally, "Yes A beginning," but there was a hollowness to his voice, co words, even as he went on to say, "a very bad beginning I regret this death, and… deeply I regret our readiness to cause it I hope it can be put right"

"It can and will," replied the Wolf "Karou? Please"

A suhted; fear darted erratic in her veins, but she gathered her will and h the host, straight to Utheo and she knelt, unslung the gleaning staff from across her back and lowered it into position, thurible swaying on its chain A switch alongside the shaft activated a wheel lock similar to a friction-wheel nited the incense chamber in the thurible with a report like a snap ofeffused froray skies and signal fires, the breaking of waves Impressions flickered and faded as his soul slipped into the thurible and was safe A half turn to lock it, a flick to extinguish the incense fuse, and she rose fro any lanced to Thiago They hadn’t talked about this, but it felt right She said, "I have never resurrected a seraph, but as long as we are fighting on the sah you may not Think it over; it’s your choice My offer,else" One by one, she ht not look like it," she said, "but I am Kirin, and this is my home So please step aside and let us enter"

And they did They didn’t exactly leap to it, but they parted, clearing the way for her She looked back, found Issa in the throng Zuzana and Mik, wide-eyed Akiva’s presence was like a flare in the periphery, calling to her, but she didn’t look to hio fell in beside her The host caotten let theo led their army inside

"How did he do that?" Liraz breathed

The question jolted Akiva, finally, out of his post-sirithar torpor "How did who do what?"

"The Wolf" She looked stunned "I was sure ere done I felt it And then…" She shook her head as if to clear it "How did he stop it?"

Akiva stared at her She thought Thiago had stopped it?

He gave a hard laugh What else could he do? He knew that a pulse had gone out from him--not explosive this time--and whatever it had carried with it, he had felt the soldiers’ collective intention sever He had done it He had stopped this slaughter fro, and… no one had any idea, not even Liraz, and certainly not Karou

While he had reeled in hisa coherent sentence together, the Wolf had risen to the occasion and claied to earn hi for hie at the head of her ar pair they lass in his chest Perfect, he thought What a perfect backhand froodstars? Chance?

"What?" de?"

"Because life’s a bastard," was all Akiva could say

"Well then," was his sister’s flat reply "I guess we fit right in"

19

THE HUNT

Across Eretz, a pulse of e it this time, no sound or stir, so nearly everyone who felt it--and everyone felt it--believed it theirs alone, their own despair It was a wave of raw emotion so potent that, for an instant, it carved out every other feeling and took its place, in its brief passage colonizing every thinking creature--every feeling creature--with the absolute conviction of the end

Its passage ift and bleak; it raced across land and sky and sea, and no creature was immune to it, and no s could have carried it there, it swept through Astrae, the capital of the Eain In its silent afterreat Tower of Conquest

But at the site of the Tower’s husk, inside the vast and twisted metal skeleton that was all that reels who did Seraphim they were, but not citizens of the E--and now, in unison, like conet, they turned south and east This overwhel despair was trespass and violation; they kneas not their own, and each paused just long enough to sound the depths of its appalling power before thrusting it away Another taste fros of the world

"Beast’s Bane," they’d heard him called in the harsh rumor-whispers of this craven city Murderer and traitor, chimaera-killer, bastard and father-slayer He had done this

Noith eyes the color of fire, the five Stelians fixed on the distant Adelphas Mountains