Most wizards remember the day they fully awaken their magic. It’s hard not to, when it’s such an important part of your life. More than your family, more than your natural physical or mental capabilities, more than your status or wealth, your magic is one of the heaviest determiners of where you’d go in life. In Avalon, manifestation is a special occasion, usually more celebrated than the individual’s birth.

Because that was what magic was. A second birth. A true birth.

Liara couldn’t remember the day she was born, but she remembered the day her parents first looked at her like they knew she was their daughter. She and her two brothers were playing in their treehouse, when most of their secret stash of sweetbreads and candied fruit had been ransacked by birds from the aviary. Her brothers, twins two years younger than her, had gone weeping to their parents with the terrible news, but she’d decided that something more concrete had to be done. She’d picked up a stick, some jagged, broken branch, and begun carving what she thought said, “No birds allowed!” on the outside of the treehouse.

Once she’d finished, every bird within five miles fled the estate.

Runes were a very common form of Alteration magic, though it wasn’t until Liara manifested that a wizard was found to have such flexible control over their form and function. The next few weeks were a blur of meetings and tests and experimentation with different mediums, though Liara always remembered the way her parents had finally come to see her in her room. Previously, only nannies and private tutors had ever visited her in the lonely east wing of their estate, and though she was grateful for her parents’ attention in a way that only children truly can be, there was something about the interaction that rang hollow.

The first thing her father asked her was how old she was on that day. Her parents only had four children, but it was apparently, until that moment, beneath her father’s notice to track the growth of his only daughter. Her mother was similarly distant. She’d picked up a small, framed photograph from the windowsill, a picture of her entire family posing for one of their occasional portraits, with an idle comment on how it was a pleasant picture and that she wondered why no copy had been made for her.

It had been Liara’s birthday gift from her parents, the year before.

What followed was nearly seven years of private lessons with the world’s most renowned runemages, as well as lessons on etiquette and nobility, now that Liara had been determined to be worthy of her family’s name. What had previously been a relatively halcyon life of playing with her brothers and trying not to get underfoot was replaced by a mountain of expectation, embellished by the false affection that only became more pronounced as she’d gotten older.

The combination of her family’s affluence, her emotional isolation, and her own prodigious talent resulted in an incredibly haughty teenaged wizard. In the spacious building that her parents had purchased to serve as her personal laboratory, Liara developed numerous new arrays and flexible new applications for persistent rune magic. Her creations gathered her a great deal of notoriety, given her young age, and earned her parents even more wealth and influence. Her first few years of serious work debunked several widely-held myths regarding the way runes needed to be inscribed, despite continuous challenges by the most well-established runemages of

the age.

Then, on her fourteenth birthday, her parents apprenticed her to a soldier.

It was that first taste of bitter offense that marked the beginning of what she considered to be the most important chapter of her formative life. She had gotten through the initial shock by managing to convince herself that she was to be working on advanced military runic applications, that she’d somehow exhausted the available improvements to be made in the world of theoretical and economic rune magic.

This hope evaporated quickly enough when Will began her apprenticeship by teaching her how to duel.

She remembered the time fondly now, looking through the lens of nostalgia, but teenaged Liara had hated William in those first few months. Having had the time to grow up comfortably with her own magic, Will’s education that seemed to intentionally ignore her strengths saw her boiling over on more than one occasion, though her master always took her little outbursts with grace, and sometimes even returned a spot of wisdom for the trouble.

She’d grown immeasurably, in those frantic, war-torn years. Will had taken in a sheltered, snotty genius and cultivated her into a keen, vicious soldier. Liara had been born with talent, but it wasn’t until she met Will that she truly began to grow as a wizard.

Returning to the present, running in front of her master and behind a teenage girl who had been Mundane the previous hour, Liara wondered what sort of master she would be. It was the way of youth, to be incapable of understanding the true measure of oneself, but Liara was older now, and she got an odd vibe from Emily Browman.

On the surface, she seemed like an adult. She was composed, brave, and if the reports were to be believed, rather talented as both an individual and leader. Still, Liara had been surrounded by courage, talent, and strong character since she was a teenager, and there was something off about the way Emily acted, something that put her at odds with Liara’s fair amount of experience with heroes.

“Two on the roof, three o’clock,” Emily called out, her voice just loud enough to reach Glory, who flew in the air over their heads. “One behind the front door.”

Glory peeled off to deal with the new threats as the group continued on. Liara watched her crash into the two men on the rooftop of the nearby house, striking with a flare of energy that blasted a slightly larger than necessary hole in the roof. Judging from the angle and force of her descent, she probably also hit the enemy hiding behind the door.

A moment later, the front door opened and Glory strolled out, cracking her neck as she patted the drywall dust and splinters from her shirt. She winked at Liara as she took to the air once again.

Liara had always envied Glory’s easy mastery of the Seven Roads. Despite the fact that even the most complex magical effects were a mere ten minutes and a dozen runes away from her grasp, the required setup time meant she still often lost out on the sort of spectacular...well, glory that William’s wife seemed to live and breathe.

It was something of an idle envy. Liara knew Glory respected her abilities when it came to runes, and Will’s training had forced her to learn to be capable independent of her own magic, so she wasn’t much for the type of wishful speculation that was common in relationships that featured power caliber disparities. She’d been taught to push herself to the limit, as a soldier and a wizard.

Emily’s head whipped around to face due east. She skidded to a stop so abruptly that Liara had to briefly activate her flight runes to avoid knocking the girl to the ground.

“What is it?” Will asked as he caught up with Liara. “Another attack?”

“I...don’t think so,” Emily answered. “The light is always black when it’s blood magic. This is green, and violet.”

Liara raised an eyebrow. “The light is green and violet?”

Emily glanced at her, then looked away quickly.

“I know it doesn’t make sense,” she said, somewhat defensively. “But I can just tell. The light is green, and there’s purple light inside it.”

Liara frowned as Will let out an explosive sigh of relief.

“That’d be Heidi and Lily, then,” he said, his eyes scanning the darkness beyond Glory’s miniature sun, as though he might catch a glimpse of the magic the two women were wielding. “Starting medical outreach, I bet.”

Emily turned and resumed jogging without another word. Liara and Will exchanged glances, and her old master gave her a significant look before jerking his head towards her new Familiar.

Liara flushed. She wasn’t sure she was ready to start mentoring. It didn’t really feel like a good time, Emily didn’t seem like she was in a receptive mood, not to mention she was their sensor at the moment-

“Emily!” Will called out. Liara hissed at him, waving her hands in negation, but her former master jogged to catch up with the girl all the same. Liara knew better than to think Will would listen to her at this point, so she sighed, fixed her hair as best she could, and did her best to appear imperious and experienced.

Emily’s eyes danced back and forth between Liara and Will. Whatever she gathered from their expressions saw her frown and avert her eyes once more. Liara cleared her throat.

“I just wanted to say-” Liara started.

“I don’t need this.”

Liara froze with her mouth halfway open. She glanced at Will, whose eyebrows had shot up. The angle of the ball of light over their heads cast an odd shadow on Emily’s face, but even in full illumination Liara was certain the girl would have looked quite somber. There wasn’t a trace of the vicious joy she’d worn when revelling in her magic earlier.

“I’ve tended to enough children to understand what you’re doing,” Emily went on. “I appreciate the sentiment, but every moment you spend coddling me is a moment wasted. We can save the pep talk for after we find Cheri.”

They were strong words. They showed a dedication to the task at hand and a faith in her own ability to continue on without support. Liara remembered Will saying something similar, back at the height of the war. She remembered the resolute look in his eye, the force behind the words. Emily lacked that resolve from every angle Liara could see, and her words carried all the force of a ribbon in the wind. The general vibe of her speech was that same selflessness, but it seemed sourced in apathy, not courage.

No, not apathy.

Several things slipped into place. She’d mentioned some kind of trauma earlier, when they’d spoken in the arsenal. She clearly took the threat to her hometown and family incredibly seriously, and the Karalis girl’s reports had made her out to be some kind of local rebellion leader. It was easy to imagine a group of children happily following someone so talented and apparently selfless, but it wasn’t quite selflessness that Emily displayed.

It was denial. She denied herself, what she needed, what she had a right to as a person. Liara had caught a glimpse of the person that lay beneath Emily’s stoic mask, back when she’d been show-boating off the thrill of her newly awakened magic, but every other action she’d seen the girl take showed a total lack of desire- or willingness- to pursue anything for her own benefit. Hell, she’d been tortured not even an hour before, and Liara didn’t remember hearing any sort of apology given or remonstration launched. The girl was tough, to be sure, but it raised a slightly disturbing question.

What kind of person doesn’t care if you torture them?

It was one thing to not want help. Liara knew plenty of highly independent wizards. There was a span of nearly two weeks after they’d rescued Lily from slavery where the girl had assumed anyone who came near her was going to attack her. Will was the only person she let close enough to even exchange words. Even now that she’d more or less acclimated to Will’s giant, extended family of allies, she was still inordinately independent. She thought needing help was a sign of weakness, something to be ashamed about. It was consistent throughout much of her early behavior. Lily didn’t render help unless she thought it was absolutely necessary, because she thought that a little bit of suffering was usually worth the growth, as she would.

But that wasn’t what Emily did. Emily seemed like the opposite, if anything. She would probably help anyone who even momentarily looked like they needed the help, but the reasoning behind it wasn’t sourced in generosity. It was sourced in her refusal to accept that she deserved basic human kindnesses. Rest. Safety. Comfort. Emily forewent each of these ordinary human conditions to continue putting herself on the line for others, utilizing herself like a resource.

“Unacceptable,” Liara said, shaking her head sadly. “You’re a part of a unit now. If you’re not at one hundred percent-”

The light overhead flickered, then went out.

Liara was blind in this environment. She evoked a glowrune on the tip of her wand, but the transition from bright light to total darkness left her incapable of even discerning her enemy’s location. Still, she was hardly vulnerable.

She dismissed her blade. The hand that had held it flashed behind her, tapping a series of three runes on her back, hip, and outer thigh. The greater array of runes that were woven into her armor and clothing would interpret the combination, returning the specific magic effect that she was calling for. In this case, Adaptive Barrier.

A globe of dim, blue energy formed around them. It shimmered briefly as it acclimated itself to the type and saturation of the magic energy in the area, and directed its own energy towards where the most hostile presence was felt. Each attack it sustained and each variety of energy it was called to defend against would make it a little better at adjusting. Most importantly, she could examine the expanded readout from the rune itself when she had the free time. The information gleaned by observing the performance of the barrier could change the way the Rainbow Cabals did battle in the future. It could save thousands of lives.

Emily had drawn her sword again, and she held it out in front of her with both hands. It looked like a more Eastern style of swordsmanship, which struck Liara as odd considering how little of Shangri-Laian culture had made it this far west. Regardless, her stance was strong, and she seemed able to pick out the enemies moving in the darkness beyond them.

Will had pulled a longblade and a large magisynth shield from his vault, and Liara could feel the force of the enchantments on them rippling through her array. She briefly met his gaze.

“How does it feel? Stable?” he asked. “I was worried the Mantle would interfere.”

The magical instability put off by the Mantle of Sovereignty was interfering, but the Adaptive Barrier held. With enough exposure, it would probably even give her some insight into the nature of the pure magic that flowed through the seven Mantles.

“It wouldn’t be very adaptive if a tiny bit of negation magic was all it took to shut it down,” Liara answered, affecting an airy indifference. As if on cue, a rapid-fire sequence of blood magic crashed into the outside of the barrier. Will watched the flashes of black and blue energy with a mild expression.

“What is that, Disruption and Dispersal?” he asked.

“Absorption and Dispersal, actually,” she said. “The learning array can adjust tactics with any combination of runes, but in order to teach itself about interacting with other magics, I had to give it some method of processing the energy it comes into contact with.”

Emily was keeping an eye on the surroundings while they had their little chat. Most of her attention was on the air over their heads, but she scanned the area on all sides once every four or five seconds. Liara was more focused on finally observing her barrier in action than watching the fight that was apparently going on up there. She’d seen enough of Glory fighting to know how things were undoubtedly sorting out.

Liara began walking forward, and the barrier moved with her. It would stay fixed to the object the array was inscribed on, though the more stable the object the more resilient the barrier. Will fell into step beside her, with Emily following suit after only a moment’s delay. Her eyes were still mostly skyward as they proceeded, taking in the periodic flashes of brilliant light that marked Glory’s battle.

“She’s incredible,” Emily murmured.

Will snorted. “Don’t let her hear you saying that. She’s fond of saying I have a big head, but she’s by far the proudest person I know. If I know her like I think I do, then she’s actively showing off. Probably for you specifically.”

“Why would she be showing off for me?”

“She’s...kind of childish,” Will said, his voice dropping into a conspiratorial whisper. “All of Cheri’s life, they’ve been close. Mother and daughter, two against the rest. In the wake of her running away, and then finding out that she made a whole group of friends...I don’t know. I think she feels threatened.”

Emily turned to scan the darkness to her left, though Liara suspected she was hiding a smile.

“That’s rather motherly of her,” she said. “Cheri’s a lucky girl, to have such a proud, loving influence.”

Liara reached out and placed a hand on the poor girl’s shoulder. Trauma had a way of insinuating itself into every moment, and Liara expected that her new Familiar had it worse than many.

Emily glanced back at her, a somber smile on her face. Their eyes met briefly, then the girl’s gaze moved beyond Liara, to something behind her in the darkness. She narrowed her eyes slightly, confusion turning to panic as she rushed forward, sword raised.

Liara spun on her heel as Emily shoved past her, and the clamor of steel on steel rang out through the street. Appearing as if from nowhere, a bloodmage was now struggling to force a machete through Emily’s guard. He’d swung from overhead, and though she’d managed to intercept the blow, the enhanced strength of the bloodmage was beginning to stress her grip on her horizontal blade.

Will was engaged with another two of the sudden infiltrators. He ducked under a swing that would have decapitated him, then rushed inside his attacker’s guard and slammed him with his raised shield. Without even looking back, he passed his sword behind himself in a sweeping parry, deflecting the other bloodmage’s incoming strike before thrusting the blade into the first man’s chest. He kicked the dying enemy off of his sword before turning to face the second, his expression grim.

“How are they getting in, L?” Will shouted over his shoulder to Liara.

Two more men appeared, each clad head to toe in a featureless black robe. It looked like they were burning into existence, stepping out of shadowy, black flames that ignited in the open air. They couldn’t be nearby, or Glory would be stopping them by now. Her battle with what Liara assumed to be the majority of the enemy force still raged on in the air over their heads.

One of Emily’s knees hit the ground as her opponent continued to lean on his weapon. With a grunt of effort, she tilted her sword and shoved the man’s strike off to one side. In the same motion, she planted her lower hand on the ground, drew in one leg, then thrust it straight up from the ground. Her heel met the bloodmage’s chin with a resounding crack, and he stumbled backwards a few steps before falling flat on his back.

Emily regained her feet in a graceful somersault. Not for the first time that night, Liara wished she’d met the girl in less dire circumstances. Movements like that were uncommon in most soldiers, and she’d only just come into her magic. The girl stepped up beside her as the two newcomers seemingly deliberated on which fight to join. 

“They’re not coming from nearby,” Emily said, moving to put some distance between herself and Liara. “Everyone out there is focused on Glory.”

One of the waiting bloodmages turned to face Liara and her Familiar. As he raised both of his hands, a crackling black nimbus formed around them that smelled like it was burning the air. His comrade joined the man still locked into tentative combat with Will, though it was apparent from their fresh aura of caution that the pair of bloodmages had figured out who exactly they were facing.

Emily was favoring her left foot. Considering how physically fortified the average bloodmage was, Liara wouldn’t be surprised if her other heel was broken. Badly bruised at the very least.

“I don’t think he can shoot that magic,” Emily murmured, just loud enough for her to hear. “It’s rooted in his hands, and the connection looks really stable.”

Endlessly useful, this girl’s new eyes. For the secrets of magic to be so exposed, at a simple glance. A wizard’s chance in combat against other wizards was often directly related to how well they could conceal their capabilities. Keeping their trump cards in their sleeves and their weaknesses as far from the light of day as they could manage. Once Emily got the hang of using it in actual combat, Liara could only think of a handful of wizards, Prism Council included, that could handle her without a great deal of trouble.

The bloodmage that faced them began his approach, magically imbued hands twitching with his eagerness. Liara curled her lip. It was always the same with Ciudad Blanca’s foot soldiers. All bloodthirst and cruelty. Not a drop of discipline between any of them. She recalled her blade with a tap to her wrist and stepped forward to meet the enemy. If possible, she wanted to spare Emily the need to spill blood tonight. As much as she might feel like she was invested, this wasn’t her fight.

Not even a second after Liara raised the crimson sword to meet her opponent, Glory appeared with a sound like a whip cracking. As she tended to do, she was positioned in the air just above and behind the man, and struck him in the back of the neck from his blind spot the instant she’d finished teleporting in.

As the bloodmage crumpled lifelessly to the ground, Glory floated down next to Liara, taking in the man that Emily felled and her husband in his two-on-one with a vaguely amused expression.

“Already done out there?” Liara asked, bumping the woman with her shoulder. Glory winced, one hand going to her side as she shook her head.

She lifted her right arm to show where a nasty wound was peeking through a hole burned into her shirt. Liara could see the flesh already working to knit itself back together, though blood magic always did its best to fight off natural magic regeneration.

“There’s about fifty of them out there now,” Glory mused. “And that’s after running through probably twice that many. Someone’s teleporting them in, and judging from the range…”

Liara made a face. “Ignacius, then?”

Glory nodded.

It figured. The highest-ranked blood priest in the White City’s ranks, Ignacius the Sender. His teleportation was normally limited to his sight range, but in the last decade or so he’d picked up a subordinate that could link sight ranges together. It had taken him from being an enemy that required special tactics to a strategic nightmare who could only be outlasted or overpowered, never outmaneuvered. If he was here-

“Incoming,” Emily said, her head snapping around to the east again. “It’s not teleporting in, but whatever it is, it’s huge.”

Glory gestured towards the back of one of the men tag-teaming Will. The bloodmage was hauled off his feet towards her, and was met with a kick that sent him flying into the far edge of the barrier. He didn’t rise.

“Feels like Igor,” she said, sticking her tongue out at Will, who’d shot her an exasperated look after dispatching his remaining opponent. “At least some of us are getting their shit done.”

Glory glanced over at Liara, humor glittering in her eyes. “You may as well drop the barrier. You know it won’t survive the impact.”

Liara wasn’t actually sure the surge of physical force that would accompany Lord Yellow’s landing would be enough to take down the Adaptive Barrier, but insisting otherwise only to have it shatter with the titanic warrior’s arrival would leave her open to weeks of ridicule. She dismissed the barrier with a flick of her wand, resolving to put more specific effort into the Barrier’s physical absorption properties. She’d gathered enough data anyway.

The shimmering blue bubble around them dissipated into the night, revealing a veritable field of black-hooded figures. They stood nearly shoulder to shoulder on the street, the lawns of the rows of houses on either side, the rooftops surrounding them. As she and her comrades appeared, they stirred into preparation, lifting knives and surging with onyx clouds of energy.

Glory grinned at the gathered masses.

“Heads up,” she said, pointing one finger towards the starry sky.

Lord Yellow struck the pavement like a meteor. The slight horizontal angle of his landing dug a furrow into the asphalt and the dirt of the lawn he finally came to rest in, and the ripple of force that accompanied his arrival sent the closer bloodmages flying and those a little further staggering into each other.

The mountain of a man didn’t pause in the slightest. As soon as he’d gotten his feet under him he was swinging the massive chunk of metal he called a sword, cleaving through upwards of five bloodmages with each sweeping strike, laughing uproariously all the while. There wasn’t a man in the Prism Council that enjoyed battle quite like Igor Kozlov.

Glory took back to the air and began harassing the bloodmage forces with brilliant bolts of light. They were off balance from Lord Yellow’s arrival, but they would rally before too long. No strangers to carnage, these soldiers, though they were typically on the other side of it. 

“We’ve gotta move,” Will said, banishing his sword and shield. “This’ll only get harder the longer we wait.”

“What in the name of the Seven Roads has you still dallying here?”

Warwick’s dry, disinterested voice rang out from above. Liara glanced up to see the old necromancer seated atop a floating chunk of stone, the Orange Mantle pulsing with faint light. She felt a surge of relief as the rest of the Prism Council floated into view behind him. 

The group fell the last few feet to the ground as Heidi hit the limit of her endurance. Liara offered the motherly woman a commiserating smile. It was hard, as an ordinary wizard, to regularly consort with the people in William Vinaldi’s orbit. The Green Mantle may have granted her access to its telekinesis, but simply donning the cloth hadn’t afforded her the technical skill required to command its magic. Heidi herself commonly complained about the difficulties of manipulating anything more complex than stone, especially when watching Glory make Control seem so effortless.

“We ran into a few issues,” Will answered sarcastically, though a smile not matching his tone danced on his lips. “Any solutions come to mind?”

Warwick answered with a noncommittal hmm-ing sound. He strode to the head of the group, his head swivelling to take in the full scope of the arrayed forces.

“Morgan!” he called into the darkness. “Are you near?”

Lord Indigo appeared next to Warwick, a frown on his face. “I’m not supposed to interfere with-”

Warwick waved the young man’s complaints away. “It’s just one swap, Morgan. How far do you think you could send Liara, the girl, and the Vinaldis?”

“I could get them to the far edge of the crowd,” Morgan answered. The limited amount of time between question and answer told Liara that he’d already checked the range, probably before he’d reappeared in the material realm.

“On my mark, then,” Warwick said, turning to Heidi and Lily. “Miss Gustavson, do you think you could handle creating a vortex? With Miss Veruso assisting you?”

Heidi winced, and Liara couldn’t really blame her. Exhausted as she was from having to carry the rest of the council here, not to mention whatever healing magic she’d mustered earlier during her and Lily’s medical outreach, and then being expected to output magic on such a grandiose scale? And it would probably be wind-based, the most inherently difficult of the four basic Controls. Still, Lady Green squared her shoulders and nodded, though she looked a little less confident than one might expect from one of the seven wizards who led the magic world.

Will called Glory back down as he pulled Emily by the arm over to where Liara stood. Warwick began firing off pulses of energy to keep the advancing bloodmages at bay, though the masses would soon overtake their ability to pick them off one by one, even for as prodigious a wizard as Lord Orange.

“Mark!” he shouted, and Liara felt the familiar tug of Morgan’s magic. The young man’s teleportation was not as long-range or as accurate as Glory’s pure Transmission, but it also consumed significantly less energy. Teleporting their entire group halfway across the planet had probably tapped her out on the Indigo Road for the better part of the week. It was largely tied into conditions. Magic that had open activation, no conditions for its use, typically used a lot more energy than magic with more specific requirements, like Morgan’s swapping teleport.

Many types of teleportation magic were accompanied by a glimpse of swirling colors, a shadowy world, or a rush of blinding lights. Morgan’s had none of that fanfare. One moment they were standing in front of a surging tide of black-robed figures, the next they were staring at an empty street, though the clamor of battle was close in their ears. 

“Go!” Will called out, and their group hastened on, three pairs of feet pounding on the pavement as Glory flew overhead. Liara didn’t look back, though she could feel the dire pulse of blood magic echoing behind them. Warwick, extraordinary strategist that he was, wouldn’t have proposed this plan if he didn’t believe it would succeed, and Liara trusted her back to the old necromancer.

She felt the draw of the vortex before she’d made it five steps. Even beyond the magic’s range, it still tugged on her hair, at the loose clothing on her back. Liara could only imagine how strong the pull was within the magic’s area of effect. There really wasn’t anything quite like the magics that were wrought when the Prism Council worked together.

“We’re almost there!” Emily shouted over the rush of wind and the crackling of magic that chased them down the street. “Around this corner, halfway down the-”

The girl cut off as they turned down her street. Even without knowing beforehand which house belonged to Emily, the crowd of bloodmages in the front yard was a dead giveaway. A group of three was leaving the house by the front door, and Emily stumbled to a halt as they appeared.

“There’s...blood on their knives,” she whispered. “Why...who…”

With a sound somewhere between a sob and a growl, she took off again. Liara and Will had stopped when she had, and so were a full beat behind starting to run again. Emily put a considerable amount of ground between them in that moment, fear and panic giving her wings.

Liara had lived her entire life dancing to the ominous tune of fate. She knew the swells and the crescendos, and she could recognize the approach of tragedy the moment its heavy dirge began to play. She’d first heard it when she was a year younger than Emily, when the Rainbow Mage had executed her parents in a public square, along with everyone known to be connected to members of William’s rebellion. When she turned twenty, she knew it well enough to hum along. A song of pain, written with the deaths of friends killed so savagely that their only memorial was what lived on in the memories of their comrades. 

 Emily was a mere ten feet away from the group of bloodmages when the man at their head raised a hand. Liara felt the blossom of heat as the two-story home exploded, though Emily was close enough to the blast that she was hurled from her feet.

When the light from the explosion faded, Emily’s house was little more than burning rubble, and the men responsible were gone. Emily climbed to her feet, though she made it only a few steps before falling back to her knees. The sound that tore out of her was forlorn and almost animal. A tormented scream, from a girl who’d traded away her humanity and lost her home anyway. It rose above the roar of the flame, above the clamor of the battle nearby. A single note, drawn out longer than Liara would have thought possible.

Liara stepped forward, tears starting to her eyes, but stopped as she felt a hand at her shoulder. She turned to meet Glory’s violet eyes.

“You don’t burn the bridge until you’re across it,” she said softly. “They got what they came for.”

They had arrived moments too late. Liara knew that if the bloodmages were leaving with bloody knives, then the explosion was a mercy. No one should have to see their parents in the state that White City interrogations left their victims. Glory was right. They wouldn’t leave and erase their only lead if they hadn’t retrieved the information they were seeking. They knew where Cheri was hiding.

Will stepped up beside her.

“We have to go,” he said, and Liara heard the torment in his voice, layered behind steely resolve. “There’s nothing we can do for her.”

Liara took one last look at the girl, sobbing outside the wreckage of everything she’d ever known.

Gods forgive us, but we’ll pay for this someday, Liara thought as she turned away from her Familiar, following Will and Glory toward the chase, and a soul they might yet save.