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lowered his voice. “I tried to tell them exactly that earlier, and I don’t think they believed me.”
    “Or perhaps we simply were hoping you would eventually jump, thus sparing us all your rancid troll wit, which is nearly as sour as your breath,” Vara said.
    “You should talk.” Vaste waved a hand in front of his nose as he looked up at her. “You kiss him with that mouth? Did you swallow a—”
    Vara flushed red as a ripple of reaction ran through the spiral below them. Cyrus noticed it in the form of a hush that fell, whispers straining to reach across the gap as his eyes found Ryin, who was listening intently to someone ahead of him in the line. When the druid heard what was said, his head rocked back and he blinked three times in rapid succession. “Ryin!” Cyrus called, drawing the man’s gaze toward him as the rumor raced up the spiral. “What is it?”
    “I could have told you,” Vara said, voice a quiet whisper behind him. He turned to look her in the eyes, again, but found the mirth that had been present only moments before had fled as surely as the desert dwellers of the Inculta disappeared at sunrise. There was a tentativeness behind her eyes, a hesitance that caused him to quiver as her ears reddened at the tips, with her blond hair now drawn back in its severe ponytail, as it always was when she was ready for battle.
    “What is it?” Cyrus asked, swallowing heavily. A sense of nervous anticipation flowed through him freely, and he placed his hand upon Praelior as much for the feeling it provided as for a place to rest it.
    “The Emerald Fields,” Vara said, her voice with a quiver of its own. Cyrus’s stomach dropped as though someone had shoved it over the edge of the stairwell. “The titans of Kortran have come through the Heia Pass … and they’re attacking the town as we speak.”

4.
    The flash of a teleportation spell faded into dark night, and the smell of flames and smoke reached Cyrus’s nose before his eyes regained their sight. The orange glow on the horizon was the first sign of the trouble ahead, and Cyrus found himself giving orders before his mind had caught up with his balance. It was a hot night in the middle of summer, the moisture thick in the air as if a hard rain were imminent. “Keep a tight formation! We don’t know how many we’re dealing with, or what we’ll find when we get there.” He didn’t wait for acknowledgment before beginning his run, pushing out in front of his army of some three hundred. Flashes behind him told him that more were on their way in, and he trusted them to follow close behind him.
    “This is like a waking nightmare,” Vara said at his side as they headed toward the town in the distance. The clank of her silver armor was subtle compared to the shouts and screams that came from ahead, the cries in the night of battle and terror. “How many people did we have stationed here?”
    “Maybe five hundred at the portal,” Thad said, causing Cyrus to turn his head to look at the warrior in blood-red armor. He already had his sword drawn, a plain-looking weapon of mystical steel that had been procured from one of their endless trips to the Realm of Purgatory. It’ll be enough to cut a crease in titan skin, that’s certain. “We pulled half the garrison last year at Administrator Tiernan’s request.”
    “And they’d have been in poor position to deal with anything out of the south,” Cyrus said, his long legs making less stride than they could have. He held himself under control to keep from outpacing his army. “They were meant to defend the portal against invaders, not the town against an army out of the south.” He pursed his lips into a tight line, his fearful anticipation growing with each step closer to the flames of war that beat in the near distance. His jog was not enough for him, not nearly. He longed to run, to lope along the worn and dusty road from the portal to the town, to use every bit of the speed that Praelior