Midwinter

"Look behind you," said Eloquet. She raised her head painfully and looked backward.

The city of Mab was split down the middle in two jagged halves. From within the wrecked hull, geysers of water from torn plumbing lines sprayed into the afternoon sky. A swirling fire spread across the massive main deck of the city, sending up tongues of flame along the cloth sails and the rigging.

"Look," said Satterly. "It's falling out of the sky."

It was true. The entire city had begun to dip toward the earth. Entire sections of its architecture began to split off and hurtle toward the ground. Fliers sprang from every part of the city's walls, some so loaded with Fae that they themselves tipped and spiraled to the ground.

With a peal like thunder, the two halves of the city separated. The forward half, that containing the Royal Complex, remained aloft while the rear half lost all buoyancy and plummeted. Whatever screams might have been heard were lost in the rush of wind and the cry of metal and wood tearing and breaking, a symphony of destruction.

As Raieve watched, the remaining half of the city lurched once, then twice, then it listed to the side and began to fall, tumbling end over end.

The two halves struck the forested ground within seconds of each other. There was a flash of light from the ground, then an enormous billowing of dust. Then the sound of the explosion reached them, screaming like the roar of death that it embodied.

In the confusion, no one bothered to follow them as they sped away.

"We made it," said Eloquet. "We did it! We did it!"

Mauritane looked wearily at him. "There is no cause to celebrate what happened here," he said. "We just murdered thousands of innocent Fae."

"We saved Sylvan," said Eloquet, his eyes searching.

"Yes," said Mauritane. "I suppose that's one way of feeling better about it." He turned his eyes away from Eloquet's.

Raieve chose to remain silent. She ran her brown-stained fingers through sticky hair, remembering her clan's practical adage that blood and conversation do not mix.

"Look!" said Silverdun, pointing at the ground. "We weren't as successful as we might have hoped."

In the light of the burning city, Raieve saw troopships on the ground, ranks of Unseelie soldiers still filing out of them. There were hundreds of them, perhaps even thousands. As she watched, the soldiers began rushing toward the city's wreckage, fighting the heat of the blast to reach it.

"No," said Mauritane. "And we failed to achieve our primary purpose. See the barge there in the center of the ships? With the gold and purple banners?"

Raieve nodded. The barge was surrounded by soldiers; a curtained palanquin was just visible on its decks.

"That," said Mauritane, "is Queen Mab's."

* * * *

Hours later, when the damaged flyer finally returned to the temple's roof, it was dark. The round disk of moon bathed the world in a rich indigo glow. No one was waiting to greet them.

Confused, they hurried down the many flights of stairs that led to the middle tier, where the massive stone columns cast shadows in the moonlight.

"Look," said Silverdun, pointing.

Raieve looked down the bridge, where Eloquet and his men had built a barricade against the turmoil in the streets below. The barricade had been demolished.

"Let's go downstairs," said Eloquet, his voice shaking.

Before they reached the great room, they knew. It was too quiet; the rooms and halls were vacant, devoid of sound and movement.

In the great room, where the temple's worship services were held, a massive fire had been set in the central fireplace. Surrounding the fire were twisted bodies in pink robes, some of them badly burned, others bathed in blood. The bodies were piled on top of each other, dozens and dozens of them. Raieve had never seen anything like it.

Looking away, Raieve saw movement from the corner of her eye. On the steps leading up to the dais, a tiny figure sat, cradling someone in her arms.

"Someone's alive," said Raieve, pointing.

They approached the figure on the steps. It was a young girl, dressed in the white robe of a novice. She cradled the still form of the abbot Vestar to her, holding his head in her lap. She stroked his bald head gently, kissing his hand, whispering prayers into his ears.

"Are you Mauritane?" the girl said, not looking up. Her voice was flat.

"I am," said Mauritane.

"The man said I should give you this when you came. He took the girl with him, the baron's daughter. He said it was about her." She handed him a rolled note from within her robe, her eyes on the abbot's face.

Mauritane unrolled the note and read it. It simply said, "I win," and was signed by Purane-Es.

the battle of sylvan

Many of Eloquet's men had fallen alongside the residents of the Temple Aba-e, their corpses mixed indiscriminately with those of the coenobites. A hasty search revealed no survivors except the girl holding the abbot's lifeless head; the girl herself was deeply in shock and could tell them little else about what had happened.