Everything was urgency and risk.

  Balthazar had seized on my plan like the final lifeline that it was. The others had scorned and argued. There had been threats of convening an emergency session to forbid it and have Balthazar impeached for supporting it.

  I’d told them all that I was Sword, and the Griidlords of Boston would go as I directed. I told them to convene their session, but it wouldn’t matter. In a few hours Boston would fall to Buffalo and their impeachments and councils would mean nothing, or in a few hours the war would be won and the Lords who supported our daring gambit would go down in history.

  I left before they made a decision. Time was the one thing we did not have.

  What I proposed had been done before, but only in the most desperate of situations.

  Assaulting the Oracle Chamber of a Tower with Griidlords was a double-edged sword. On the one hand, controlling the Oracle Chamber was seen by the priesthood as controlling the city. Wars had ended by treaty before when a city had crumbled by the attackers only for the Oracle Chamber to be unassailable. Despite total conquest, the priesthood would only name victor those who controlled the Oracle Chamber. A war could be fought for years and cost tens of thousands of lives. Or a war could be won in an hour by a successful assault on the Oracle Chamber.

  Why then was it not the default mode? Because of the risk.

  Within the confines of the Tower no Footfield could be employed. Griidlords fought each other all the time, but how often did those fights end in the loser departing under Footfield? If a city committed its Griidlords to a Tower assault they could expect victory or the total elimination of their Griidlords. And the defenders had all the advantages. The Griidlords would need to scale the Tower, battling knights as they ascended, facing a ready team of suits if they made it that far.

  But we didn’t need to climb a Tower.

  Olaf, Magneblade, Tara and I rode the Eagle. Alya had remained behind. She alone had the greatest ability to repel the battle tanks when they arrived, her BEAM could still be a terrible deterrent even with the lack of other defenses. And inside the Tower, in close contact with other suits, she would provide little advantage.

  It was a gamble, a savage and desperate one. But the only one left to us. The odds were still an issue.

  Danefer had seven Griidlords remaining at his disposal. If he was attempting what I thought he was, the culmination of all his schemes, deploying that relic, then he would want as much protection as he could muster. I expected all seven of those Griidlords to be waiting in the Oracle Chamber. We had but four. By now I had grown enough that I expected to be the strongest in that room, me or Magneblade, but still, seven against four in those tight confines courted total disaster.

  We flew, the Eagle streaking across the sky, our Footfields only amplifying its dizzying speed. There were precious hours left before the attack on Boston would begin. We would need every one of those hours.

  We flew North and West, skirting the glowing wall of the veil. Buffalo passed beneath us and still we did not slow, soon the winking lights of the city had disappeared into the dark horizon.

  An hour later the light of dawn had broken and the wilds south of Minneapolis were bathed in grey light.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  I relayed the instructions to Magneblade at the helm. He, like the others, had long quit trying to ascertain how I could know where we were going. They had heard my plan and joined me. They trusted me.

  The Eagle dove, the ground below us growing larger and more detailed at an alarming rate. We passed over a huge pine forest in minutes. We were closer to the ground now, all eyes staring at the ground, searching.

  Olaf suddenly shouted. “There! I see her!”

  Magneblade growled, “And to the West, I see the others.”

  We plunged again, the Eagle screaming with effort, engines howling, the wind a banshee around our vessel.

  A figure in purple was descending a cliff face. She didn’t look hurt to me. As she was climbing, she couldn’t employ a Footfield. I glanced to where Magneblade had indicated and saw the other Minneapolis Griidlords. They had been moving randomly, searching and hunting. The sight of the Eagle seemed to focus their attention and suddenly three Footfields were racing towards us, and her.

  At the end of the dive the Eagle broke its descent, coming to a hover. Magneblade was deft at the controls and we drifted easily but swiftly down. Just like that, the windscreen of the cockpit was filled with cliff face, scrolling past us as we descended. Then a lithe figure in a purple Griidlord was before us. Magneblade stroked the controls and the vessel twisted, the side door sliding open.

  I stood in the door and looked at Racquel.

  She hung there, bladed hands embedded in the cliff face, and just stared at me. She let the helmet slither back from her face. She was tired. Tired and pale. She’d been fleeing a while, and though I couldn’t see a wound, she looked pained.

  She stammered. Self-assured Racquel stammered. “H-how?”

  I leaned in the doorway, “Don’t you mean, can I come in?”

  She glanced at the other Boston suits in the vessel. “But…”

  I reached out, offering her a hand. “It’s okay. Special circumstances. We need you.”

  “You do?”

  Magneblade bellowed from his seat, “This conversation could just as easily be had when we’re flying again.”

  I arched an eyebrow. She shook her head, a giddy smile replacing the bafflement, and she leapt. I caught her outstretched hand, though it wasn’t really needed, and then she was inside.

  Magneblade wasted no time. Instantly we were accelerating upwards. I caught a glimpse of purple-armored figures staring at us from the clifftop. BEAM lanced at us, a few half-hearted shots, and then we were blazing across the sky once more.

  Racquel slumped to a seat, looking from me to my teammates and back again. “What the hell is going on?”

  So I told her. I told her everything. She took the offer. She had no others.

  Racquel and I stood at the back of the vessel as it raced towards its goal.

  She touched my shoulder. I could feel she wanted to be closer to me, and I wanted the same with her. But there were eyes in the Eagle. As much as all had agreed to my proposal in the face of the odds we faced—seven Griidlords defending the Oracle Chamber—there was still a sense of shame and judgement. No matter how it turned out, I had had an affair with a Griidlord from another tower. No matter what happened, she had seduced and slept with one of their own.

  She looked at my eyes, trying to speak with nothing but connection. When that predictably failed, she whispered. “So… I help you win this fight and we’re all happy families?”

  I nodded. “The Towers are slaved now. I think it’s going to stay like that if we win. No matter what else happens, if we survive this it means Perdinger won’t and that means Buffalo will need a new Arrow. The real problem is that our chances are so slim.”

  She said, “You don’t seem afraid.”

  I shrugged. “I’ve got no choice. It’s this or destruction. I do feel guilty for pulling you in like this. I knew you were in trouble and it was the only way I could think of getting you out of it. The trouble I’m bringing you into now could be much worse.”

  She shook her head, “I was at maximum trouble. At least there’s a chance of an out like this.”

  “Still, I didn’t give you much choice, did I?”

  She said, “This could mean trouble with Minneapolis. They mightn’t have seen your suits, but everyone knows the Eagle is Boston’s. This could mean war.”

  I couldn’t process that. I knew wider consequences were likely imminent from more than Minneapolis. “If we succeed with this, and we do actually Slave the Buffalo Tower to ours, then there’s going to be an awful lot of trouble to come. And if you stay with us, part of the Buffalo team, you’ll be in for all of it.”

  She shook her head. Was it apathy? Commitment. “The only future I had half an hour ago was a noose. Now, at least, I have some hope.”

  Magneblade called from his seat, “There she is. It’s nearly time.”

  I turned and saw the distant lights of Buffalo on the horizon. The Eagle was stripping that distance down at an astonishing rate. I wanted it to be slower, but I needed to get there as fast as I could.

  I paused.

  I felt the bulge on my thigh where I kept Katya’s dagger. Every time I touched it I could hear her saying it. Did I want to be a prince or a puppet? Since she’d asked me that I’d started a conspiracy, waged a war, and colluded to use my nation’s resources to rescue my girlfriend.

  If I was to be the man I wanted to be, I needed to be beyond apologies.

  “Fuck it.”

  I took her by the hip, pulled her to me, felt the perfect fit of her contours against mine and I kissed her. Damn any of the others who dared pass a comment.

  I only hoped it wouldn’t be for the last time.