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PREVIOUSLY...
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Azura and Ari talked, Azura questioning the validity of her powers. Ari stole a report from Palmira's office, proving that what happened to Jile had—indeed—happened. In the process, he also stole a letter from Palmira questioning events that occurred eleven years ago with the Sharlik Empire destroying a village in Yetok. Azura was panicked by this discovery—repressed memories surfacing—but it was overshadowed by another discovery; Ari revealed he was the prince of the Tacree Kingdom. Before they spoke more on it, Azura was summoned to Palmira where Azura reiterated that she won't assassinate the emperor as she had people she cared for.

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I watch Suri and Lilja argue over the answers in their book, a smile tugging my lips as they rehash the basics of magic, Suri's hands flying in the air as she tries to get her point across.

It's been a few days now since I declined Palmira's job for me yet again. Everything within me seems to have settled because of it, like the river has finally stopped rushing.

But it doesn't last long. Bad things happening is an inevitability I'll never be able to deny.

A clatter from outside draws my attention and I raise my gaze to the balcony doors. The girls fall silent as the noise continues, a rhythmic clank coming closer. I jump from my bed and the girls are right behind me as I throw open the balcony doors and step into the night.

What I see chokes the breath from my lungs.

Lit torches scatter across the land beyond the school like stars in the sky. But they illuminate hundreds of figures, their armour jostling, their marching footsteps a steady beat coming towards us. And their banner—the deep crimson and black of it—makes bile rise in my throat.

"The Empire!" someone screams, other students standing on their balconies too, witnessing what we're witnessing; the inevitable death of us all.

I'm surprised something like this hasn't already happened.

The pounding on our door makes me jump, but I turn to see Ari burst through it, his eyes wide and hair ruffled.

"We need to go," he declares.

"Go where?" Lilja asks, clinging to Suri's hand.

"To the training room. They're not here for tea."

I bark out a startled laugh, my nerves rising. "Right then. Let's go."

We dash through the halls, other students flocking around us. We converge on the domed ballroom, all of us desperate to find our orders, to find a direction in this chaos.

There hasn't been the threat of battle like this for so long, not since the fall of Tacree. Most don't know what the edge of a Sharlik soldier's blade feels like, but then again, most weren't street rats in Warroll.

We push through the gathered crowd in the training room, using elbows and hard shoves to make our way through, receiving glares in the process, but I toss them right back.

"Everyone needs to calm down," someone is calling from the other side of the room. Probably one of the teachers, but frightened voices rise in answer to their command.

"We need more people at the gate," I hear and turn my head to see Erasmus ordering a group of students, already armed. "The rest of you need to guard the walls, make certain they don't find a way over." The students disperse, running to do as he ordered. Erasmus' gaze scours the crowd before him and then his eyes catch on me and he jerks his chin.

I force my way towards him, the others right behind me.

"It's good you're here," he greets and gestures to the pile of weapons behind him, gleaming like treasure in the light of the candles. "We need as many people at the front gate as possible. It should be the only way in if the sygils around this place hold. They'll only be able to come a few at a time this way."

"It'll take days to cut them all down like this," I argue.

"We don't need to cut them all down, just enough to send the rest running. The Empire hasn't had a full force in years, not since Tacree. They're spread thin so they won't have reinforcements." Erasmus tells us all of this in a rush as we collect our weapons.

I test the weight of the two short swords in my grip, not accustomed to the weight of metal anymore. I don't have the luxury of practising with them.

"Keep them at bay. Do whatever you can to make certain they don't get inside the school."

We depart with our weapons, other students with us. We run through the school, my heart pounding in my chest so hard I fear it may crack my ribs.

They will not take this place. They will not destroy the only peace I've managed to find in this wretched land. I refuse to let the Sharlik Empire take more from me.

We get outside and dash through the overgrown garden and cracked paths until we reach the front gate where yelling is coming from. Braziers light the way and illuminate students pressed against the wrought iron, trying to hold the tide of Sharlik soldiers at bay. We rush forward to help them, but as we do the gates crack and burst open. The students are thrust back, hit by a wave of power that tugs my braid loose.

The soldiers march through with their swords brandished and murder in their gazes.

My gloves squeak together as my grip on my blades tighten, feeling the ridges in the wood, the weight of the metal. I take in everything, the slide of my boots through the damp grass, the moisture in the air, the presence of those beside me, preparing themselves for a gruelling fight.

The soldiers rush towards us as the first droplets of rain fall, sliding down my blades that shine in the moonlight. I twist a foot, lowering my stance as I let out an even breath.

Death is a simple thing in life. Death and pain. They are the two certainties. I fill myself with such certainties.

The first slice of my blade cuts through raindrops before it reaches the soft skin of a soldier's throat. I don't see their face before they're crumbling to the ground, the gurgle that leaves their lips the last sound they'll make before they die.

I duck beneath the slash of a blade, slicing through a stomach and a thigh before I come back up, twist from another blade, barely able to draw breath before I'm beheading a soldier, jumping back from a slash, blocking another with my blades.

It becomes as simple as blinking. Moving, dodging, watching their eyes to judge their next blows. Dark hair sticks to my cheeks with the rain, spraying water as I spin with the flash of my twin blades.

We push back against the soldiers that pour through the gate, not allowing them to reach the school. We fight together, picking off a soldier that didn't die from the slash of someone else, stabbing another soldier in the kidney before they can take the arm of a student.

It's a whirlwind of death, the stench of blood mingling with the scent of rain.

"Azura!" someone calls and I look to Lilja as she runs towards me, but her gaze is on something behind me. I twist around in time to see soldiers leaping over the wall.

"The sygils," I gasp. They've failed already. The soldiers land on the ground and then I see who they march for. Suri. She's struggling with another soldier and her back is exposed. "No!"

Her gaze darts to me, wide with fear, but I won't reach her in time. A cry tears from my lips as I run for her, seeing Dax looking up at that soldier's blade. I reached him. I reached him only for him to die and now I won't be able to save Suri.

You failed.

I failed.

There's a blur of movement and a growl that fills the air and scatters bumps along my skin. A beast leaps upon the soldiers, teeth quick to send blood spraying through the air as they tear through a soldier's throat. They scream horrible screams as the hulking form shreds through their armour and delves its teeth into their soft flesh.

The soldiers are dead in an instant, leaving Suri the only one before the beast, panting and backing away. The beast snarls, shadowed and menacing as it creeps closer to Suri, and I can't tell if it thinks she's friend or foe but I'm not willing to find out.

"Hey!" I shout and the beast turns to me, hackles risen. "Look at me." I wave my arms as I take a step back, my breath lodged in my throat. "You want me."

The creature growls, low and rumbling, as it moves towards me, keeping low.

"Suri, Lilja, go."

"What about—" Suri starts but I hiss.

"Go, Suri."

They don't get a chance to move before the monster lunges, a wild snarl tearing from its chest. Someone screams and I close my eyes. I escaped the jaws of a monster once, it's only fitting I should die by them now.

But the pain never comes, the teeth don't wrap around my throat. Instead something wet splashes against my cheek and I wince as the taste of blood trickles into my mouth. I pry my eyes open and turn my head to see the hulking beast—no, wolf—standing over a soldier behind me, it's teeth glimmering with blood, it's head nearly reaching my shoulder as it looks at me. I peer into its eyes, something familiar tugging me towards them.

"You saved me," I breathe. The wolf's soft brown eyes draw me in, bright with courage and reassurance. "Ari?"

The wolf tilts its head and whines.

A startled laugh leaves my lips. "Your other form." Shouting interrupts my astonishment and I lift my gaze in time to see soldiers sprint into the school, the other students unable to hold back the tide streaming through the gate.

"Azura, go after them," Lilja orders, shoving me forward. "We'll stay out here to hold off the rest."

"But—" I begin to argue.

"You're the best fighter among us. Go take them down."

"I'll go with you," Suri says and is at my side.

I nod, wanting her out of this chaos and inside before we're overwhelmed. We don't tarry for another moment and run into the school after the soldiers, leaving the confusion of battle behind and the snarls of the great wolf.

The school appears to be empty, all of the students already outside, so it isn't hard to pinpoint the clanking of the soldiers' armour and their heavy footfalls.

We give chase and I spare a thought to wonder what they could possibly be after in here and if that's the sole reason the Empire have marched here. Whatever these soldiers have planned, I aim to find out and stop them.

Through desolate halls we run, the maze familiar after the weeks spent here but Suri is still an immense help. And as the soldiers ahead of us traverse the maze just as well as us, more questions begin to surface. Down spiralling stairs, through halls of sparkling marble and dark wood, and finally we descend into darkness and I suddenly know where they're going.

My heart leaps into my throat as I follow them down the echoing steps and reach the lengthy corridor. But they're already inside.

"Stop!" I scream, one of the soldiers standing by the wide open doors. He looks back at me, his features shadowed by his helmet. I sprint towards them, knowing I have to reach them before—

The explosion takes me off my feet and sends me flying into a wall. I grunt as I collide with the stone, the roar in my ears deafening. I choke on the dust that blooms in the air and stings my eyes, clouding the corridor. Disoriented, I don't know which way is up for a moment, my ears ringing and skull pounding.

I stagger to my feet, waving the dust from before my eyes, and take a shaky step forward. My boots hit loose rocks and cracked stone.

I was too late.

My eyes widen as I see the mess before me, the tunnel completely collapsed, the soldiers buried along with it. They sacrificed themselves for this. They took their own lives to destroy the Order's main boon. The healing waters... They've buried the healing waters. The only thing that saved Suri's life and they've taken it.

Suri.

Suri.

I spin around, scouring the darkness for her. She was right beside me. She was there. Then I spot her, a lump on the ground, little more than a bundle of tangled limbs, panting with strangled breaths like a dying deer in the thick of the wild.

"Suri," I sob, falling to her side as she wheezes, her eyes scouring for my face in the dark.

"I can't..." she gasps, gritting her teeth as tears trail into her short hair, seeping into that thick scar. "I can't feel... my legs."

I reach for her and she cries as I cradle her head in my lap, searching her body, but I know she's fragile, I know she's broken.

Fragile. Breakable. Weak. So, so weak.

"Shh," I murmur, my voice wavering and pain clamps down on my heart with jagged teeth. I stroke her cheek with trembling fingers, feeling her smooth skin beneath my cold, leather gloves. Her eyes meet mine, terror shining in them. Terror like my own.

The healing waters are gone. I can't fix this.

"I want to... go home, Azura," she says, her lip quivering and I nod, smiling down at her as the tears spill from my eyes. "I want to go home." But she's like me, she doesn't have a home anymore, we don't have that luxury in this world.

"I'll take you home," I promise her as her eyes flutter. She blinks a few times and sighs. One of my tears drop on her cheek and I watch it trail away.

"Lilja," she murmurs on a breath and closes her eyes, her lips parting as the rise and fall of her chest slows. I lean down, pressing my forehead to hers and close my eyes along with her, coldness seeping into my bones.

"Suri," I whimper but she doesn't stir, her breath a weak flutter against my cheek, fading. There's no more movement within her, no matter how many times I whisper her name, no matter how many pieces my heart shatters into. I cup her face in my palms, holding her, afraid to break her further.

The precious soul that guided me in the dark, that listened to my fears and told me hers in the shadows of a bathroom. She saw me, she saw my scars and she still smiled at me, still showed me kindness despite it all.

"Suri, please." But she's not waking up. "Don't leave me."

"Azura." I look up at the voice, my sight blurry with tears. "Let me take her." Erasmus slips Suri into his arms as I watch, helpless, kneeling on the ground before him. "She's still alive. We can save her."

"How?" I sniffle, hope a dangerous thing that blooms in my chest.

"We'll take her to Wymler." The sorrow in his voice breaks my heart further and I bury my face in my hands, not wanting to see Suri's broken body anymore.

"They did this," I whimper, my voice muffled. "They did this to her."

"And they will pay. But I'm going to make certain she lives." Erasmus' footsteps retreat, leaving me alone in the dark. So helplessly alone.

Nothing remains unscathed around me.