Keiro stood frozen in shock as the unexpected battle swelled around him. The Fallen and their mercenaries clashing with the thin-faced invaders, all unarmored and poorly armed. Keiro would call them common stock, his own brethren who had grown in hovels and fields and on dusty roads. But they were fighting, and they were not losing.
The mages, all the mages that the Fallen had worked so hard to collect and twist—they stood more frozen than Keiro, their backs rigid, all staring eerily openmouthed in the same direction. Keiro didn’t recognize the woman they faced, but she was black-robed and eyeless, a preacher by any measure—save for the terrible, spine-scraping smile that stretched her face as she watched the mages all powerless before her. Even the screaming mage had stopped, pinned beneath a dwindling group of frantic Fallen torn between deciding the greater threat.
The woman who was not a preacher spread her arms, palms up to the peak of Atura, and her echoing laugh turned to a defiant shout. “You have no power over me.” She hadn’t spared so much as a glance for the Twins. If she spoke to anyone in the chamber, Keiro had no idea who it was.
He might have kept watching her, horrified and entranced, if it hadn’t been for the swordsman approaching him.
No—not approaching Keiro. Approaching the Twins.
Sororra had pulled her brother up onto the comparative safety of the dais, where they at least had height, had a barrier from the surging battle. The mages who had stayed to protect them were frozen, useless; the blades for the darkness were occupied, already engaged in their own fights, unable to break free. They couldn’t turn, not even to face the huge swordsman who walked slowly through the fray with an impossible sword held before him, shards of ice and tongues of fire weaving along the blade. No other fighters approached him. He simply walked toward the Twins through the fighting, his steps steady, his face resolute.
And Keiro realized he was the only one who had any hope of getting between the swordsman and the Twins.
Keiro stood frozen to the spot.
Sororra’s face was twisted with concentration and with fury, doubtless reaching with the fingers of her mind to try to shape the swordsman’s will, but his steps did not falter, and the stone of his face did not crack. Fratarro’s hands twitched at his sides, both of them, spastic and frantic, but the battle raging within him looked as much a stalemate as the battle without. The swordsman approached unimpeded.
Still, Keiro did not move. If he could . . . what would he do? He had spent so long keeping his mind a careful blank, so long tamping down any dangerous thoughts. Now, when he was free to do as he wished, he had no idea what he wished.
He watched the swordsman approach, watched Sororra push Fratarro behind her, making herself a shield. It would never occur to her to flee, not from one of her Parents’ imperfect creations. “Stop,” she snarled as the swordsman stood before her, but he didn’t.
The sword went through her stomach with a twist, and she fell as it pulled free. The swordsman was quick: Fratarro had time for only a small, aborted cry before he fell beside her.
Keiro’s legs stuttered forward on their own, hand reaching to do gods-only-knew-what, but it was already too late. It had been too late the moment he had stood rooted to the spot, the moment he had defied them, the moment he had killed for them, the moment he had found them. It had always been too late for Keiro.
“I am sorry,” the swordsman said in a deep rumble. He still held the sword in both hands, but it looked a normal sword now, no fire and no ice along the blade.
The Twins’ stolen bodies sprawled at the edge of the dais, empty and bleeding out, the Twins gone, leaving them only the young twins who had filled Keiro with such hope years ago. Avorra and Etarro. Avorra, who was too clever by far, and Etarro, who had a secret penchant for watching the sun rise.
Their eyes were empty, though. Even Etarro’s, who had fought so valiantly to make his presence known, to hold on to a piece of what he had been. But his body was still, blood flowing more sluggish from the mortal wound, and Keiro felt his knees give way as something broke within him.