"Ugh!"
One of Derek's men groaned as he drove his blade through a creature.
It shrieked like a woman, but its wings belonged to a vulture. Feathers grew from patches of swollen flesh, talons twisted from human-looking hands, and a crooked beak snapped uselessly at the soldier as he kicked it away.
A harpy.
A twisted abomination of flesh and feather.
And there were hundreds of them.
They poured from the frozen sky.
The Frost-Lock had come.
And with it, monsters from beyond.
A scream split the night.
"Help me!"
A soldier was seized from behind and lifted screaming into the air. Three harpies descended upon him.
They tore him apart before he could scream twice.
Blood misted beneath the moon.
"In twos!" Derek bellowed. "Watch yourselves!"
His shield smashed into a harpy, sending it crashing against a stone wall. Bone cracked. Feathers scattered.
It got back up.
"Damn it!"
The creatures swarmed.
Claws. Beaks. Wings.
A storm of flesh blotting out the sky.
"Why don't we just hide in the castle?!" I shouted over the chaos.
"Because then we'd be sitting ducks!" Derek snarled, swinging his axe through another harpy. "And don't fool yourself—the castle won't hold!"
Alpha answered with action.
Her spear punched through a harpy's chest and pinned it to the ground.
"Out here, at least we can fight!"
Regina moved like flowing water.
Her dark blade traced clean arcs through feather and flesh. Every strike was graceful. Every movement deliberate.
The blood that followed was anything but.
"Harpies," Jasmine spat, severing a head with one swing. "Ugly things."
Ugly didn't begin to cover it.
One lunged at me.
Its rancid breath filled my nostrils.
Its talons raked toward my face.
I shoved my sword into its path.
The creature impaled itself.
Its scream choked off.
Blood spilled across the stones.
The Catwoman leapt above the fray.
Her claws flashed silver.
She landed gracefully, carving through feather and bone with feline precision.
Then the elves drew their true weapons.
The common steel they had carried was discarded.
What emerged from their sheaths were blades unlike anything I had ever seen.
Orange-silver light shimmered along their edges.
Alive.
"What's so special about that?!" Mésos demanded, even as her spear punched through another throat.
The Sun Elf answered without looking at her.
He raised his sword.
Despite his missing arm, his movements were impossibly graceful.
One cut.
A harpy fell.
Flowers bloomed from the wound.
Marigolds.
Then sunflowers.
Golden petals erupted from torn flesh.
For a heartbeat, the battlefield stopped.
Soldiers stared.
Harpies stared.
Even Derek stared.
The corpse collapsed at the elf's feet beneath a bed of impossible golden flowers.
The Sun Elf smiled.
"What's wrong?"
He flourished the sword.
"Never seen true art?"
The spell broke.
The battle resumed.
But something had changed.
Nobody looked at the elves the same way again.
Because now everyone understood.
Those weapons weren't merely weapons.
They were permission.
Permission to do things that ordinary steel could never do.
Regina cut down a harpy beside me.
"Watch yourself."
I nodded.
Then I noticed something strange.
The Night Elf delegate still hadn't drawn her sword.
She sat amidst the carnage.
Serene.
Still.
Around her, soldiers fought and died.
She simply watched.
An orb of light was forming between her hands.
At first it was no larger than a marble.
Then a fist.
Then a sphere.
Bodies around her began to disappear.
Not collapse.
Disappear.
Blood lifted from the ground in thin streams.
Flesh dissolved.
Essence flowed toward the growing sphere.
It absorbed everything.
The orb became brighter.
Warmer.
Terrifying.
"Boom!"
The sphere pulsed.
Like a solar eclipse unfolding in reverse, a corona of searing light expanded across the battlefield.
Harpies dissolved into ash mid-flight.
The frozen ground steamed.
The night itself seemed to recoil.
For one impossible moment, it felt as though dawn had arrived.
Then the light contracted.
Silence followed.
The last harpy fell.
Derek stood among corpses and shattered ice, his great axe dripping.
His chest heaved.
His eyes moved toward the Catwoman.
Her earlier warning echoed in my mind.
Don't lose your head.
Then—
A scream.
Everyone froze.
We turned north.
Nothing.
For several seconds, there was only wind.
Then I heard something.
Not a sound.
A thought.
Something moved at the edge of sight.
My breath caught.
The sensation scraped against the back of my mind.
Not fear.
Something deeper.
Something that made fear feel primitive.
The figure stepped into view.
Young.
Androgynous.
Beautiful.
Terrible.
It possessed no face.
Its body was made of light, swirling endlessly beneath a translucent humanoid shape, as though something had attempted to construct a person from thought alone.
It held a sword.
Not steel.
Not silver.
The blade was something else entirely.
An impossible edge that seemed to cut not merely through the air—
but through the distinction between things.
The wind parted around it.
A soldier lowered his weapon.
"In the name of all that is holy…"
His voice trembled.
"What is that?"
No one answered.
Derek gripped his axe.
But he didn't advance.
The elves had stopped moving.
The Night Elf's miniature sun flickered between her fingers.
Even Regina's legs trembled.
She forced herself to remain standing.
The figure looked across the battlefield.
Not at the corpses.
Not at the elves.
Not at the soldiers.
At us.
And then I realized something.
It wasn't looking at us.
It was studying us.
Its head tilted.
The movement was almost childlike.
Almost curious.
Then its sword moved.
A single stroke.
Nothing was struck.
Nothing fell.
Yet every soldier within its line of sight suddenly stepped backward.
They had all seen the same thing.
Something none of us could explain.
My lips moved.
I hadn't told them to.
A voice emerged from my throat.
Cold.
Absolute.
Not mine.
"The Page of Swords."
The figure raised its blade.
And then—
everything went black.