Midwinter

Hy Pezho let the grin come. "I never miss. Your Majesty." He whispered the word of unbinding.

Beneath Gefi, a column of flame erupted from within the projectile, a vertical beam of red and orange and blue. The city's center tore apart as though it were made of paper. A halo of debris, flashing sailcloth, and vaporizing flesh made a corona around the column as it expanded upward. Beneath the city, a colossal black cloud of dirt and ash billowed out, breaking trees like matchsticks and setting the grass aflame.

The sound came soon after, an impossibly low bass rumble; it hit Hy Pezho in the chest, nearly pushing him backward. For a few seconds, the only thing he could hear was the fierce thunder of destruction, as the city's enormous yellow and green sheets caught flame, sending plumes of white smoke skyward.

Marar watched, defeated, as the terrified citizens of Gefi leaped to their deaths in order to escape the flames.

Gefi, riding high at an altitude of over a hundred feet, began to topple. With her chambers of Elements and Motion destroyed, she no longer had the power to remain aloft. The city-burning, scorched, ablaze-toppled and fell to earth, her structures collapsing, her massive floors breaking apart with thick wooden cracking sounds. When she hit, she hit hard. Every remaining building fell into sticks, every spire crumbled and disintegrated. Within seconds, there was nothing left of Gefi but an enormous ember, a smoking hull where a city had been only moments before.

"Most impressive," said Mab, when the sound abated enough to allow speech.

"It pleases me you approve," said Hy Pezho, bowing.

"Marar," said Mab, rising from her seat. "See what you did?" She turned her back, saying, "Cut his throat."

"What of the wife and child?" said Hy Pezho. Everyone on the deck stopped short, including Mab. She turned slowly.

"Let them live," she said to Hy Pezho. "Show them that their Empress is not without mercy."

The legionnaires stepped forward and slit Marar's throat open with their swords. His blood poured onto the immaculate tile of the observation deck, but his eyes remained skyward.

contested! a comeuppance

Beyond the boundary, the Contested Lands proved bleak and dry, littered with sharp stones and dust. Dry brush and gnarled trees grew in places, and shadows lay low upon the ground, even at noon, with nothing to cast them. A bitter wind scraped along the floor of the valley in which they rode; it was warmer here than in the Eastern lands they'd just left, but the wind was harsher and it blew dust and sand in their faces. Will o' the wisps darted among the dry branches of the trees and small rodents skittered through the dust. In the sky above, carrion birds waited, circling.

Their progress west had been halted by a mountain range that ran north and south across the Contested Lands. They'd followed it north for most of a day before discovering this valley, and Gray Mave's weak Gift of Premonition indicated that it was passable. So far the valley's bottom had been level enough, following the course of a tiny stream which was frigid but unfrozen. At least they didn't have to melt snow over the fire in order to drink.

Raieve rode in back, tasting dust, keeping watch behind them. That was fine; the steppes of Avalon were dusty as well, and feeling the grit against her teeth almost made her homesick.

Thinking of home made her stomach twist inside her. She'd been gone for three years; anything might have happened during her absence. Had the Tongul warlords conquered the steppes in the Unseelie's absence? Had her own Heavy Sky Clan managed to unite the other clans and reform the Concordat? Or had the Unseelie perhaps returned and begun their predations anew, this time with better leadership and in greater numbers?

There was no way to know, and the not knowing ate at her.

Ahead of her, Mauritane rode point, insisting on silence and stopping often as they progressed through the valley. He'd told her to watch for any sign of an ambush, and she held back a hundred yards or so, eyes searching all around for signs of trouble. For the moment, though, she only watched Mauritane.

Here was another mystery. She'd been brought up to believe that the Fae were capricious, spineless fools. Her experience with the Unseelie in Avalon had gone a long way to confirm the impression. Their strategy had always been to make sloppy attacks with overwhelming numbers, seeming not to care how many of their own soldiers died as long as they achieved their objectives. Their invasion of Raieve's world seemed to progress almost randomly, without any apparent forethought. Granted, their lack of strategy often wreaked havoc on the plans of the insurgence movement, but it was also the Unseelie's ultimate undoing. Five years ago, the attempted occupation had proved a failure in both governance and profitability, and Queen Mab's army simply stopped fighting and left. Cowards. Barbarians. Fools.