Chapter 129: It is Time

"His captains are gone."

I let it hang in the air like a blade.

"All eight. They rode out, and they will not be back for hours. His great army is a smear of dust on the horizon. His king is alone on a chair, in a room, waiting for you to keep being afraid."

Heads were turning. Eyes were meeting. A woman near the back wiped her face with her sleeve and stood a little straighter.

"I will not tell you that this will be easy," I said. "I will not tell you that all of us will live. Some of us will fall in this hall! And some of us in the corridors! And some of us on the stairs! But I will tell you this..." My voice cracked like a whip. "Every man who dies tonight will die free! Every woman who falls will fall standing! And every child who sees the sun tomorrow will see it without a king standing between them and the sky!"

A single boot stamped on the floor.

Then another.

"The Twilight Order did not come to rule you!" I shouted. "It came to end this! It came for every locked door and every hungry night! It came because someone, somewhere, was fool enough to believe you were worth saving!"

Stamp! Stamp! Stamp!

The whole front row was stamping now, a slow, heavy beat that rolled up through the soles of my boots and into my bones. The chandelier trembled on its chain. Torch flames leaned toward me like sunflowers.

"I am asking you to believe it too!"

I thrust my fist into the air.

For one long heartbeat, the hall held its breath.

And then, the gaunt man with the bandaged hand tore the sleeve from his tunic and flung it up like a banner, and he screamed.

It was not a word. It was a raw, cracking, animal sound that had been buried for months.

But another voice joined it, and another, a woman’s, a boy’s, an old man’s, and then it was a wave.

It crashed up from the floor and slammed into the ceiling. Hundred of throats, hundred of mouths, hundred of people discovering at the same instant that they had voices.

Camila threw back her head and screamed something in Euniscopian. Hazel ripped her crossbow free and held it overhead, shouting until her face turned red.

Theodore, in the shadows, straightened for the first time since I had known him and grinned like a wolf that had finally smelled blood.

"Fight!"

"For the Order!"

"For freedom!"

"For tomorrow!"

The roar poured out of the hall like a flood. It roared up the stairs and down the corridors, shook the crimson windows in their frames, rattled the silver from the shelves and the dust from the rafters. It was louder than any bell.

It was louder than any king.

I stood on that podium, shaking all over, my heart slamming against my ribs like a prisoner, and I listened to my own words come back to me a thousand times larger.

I will not lie. It was the most intoxicating thing I had ever felt. It rushed through my veins like fire, hot and bright and dizzying, and for one terrifying second I did not want it to stop.

The soldiers came running.

They burst out of the corridors in twos and threes, swords half-drawn, drawn by the thunder shaking the walls. They skidded to a halt in the doorways, and every one of them went white.

They had expected a riot. 𝔣𝖗ⅇℯ

A few angry drunks.

A brawl they could break up with a shout.

What they saw was the whole pack, a hundred and fifty guests, surging across the hall like a flood... Eyes blazing. Mouths open. A tide of hunger and fury that had waited too long.

"Rebels!" someone shrieked.

"Get the captains!"

"The captains are gone!"

A young soldier dropped his sword and bolted. Another followed, and then a third, boots slapping stone, screaming for help that would never come. The crowd howled after them like hounds, and the sound of it shook dust from the ceiling.

My blood was singing. I could feel it in my wrists, in my throat, in the roots of my teeth. I raised my left arm, and the bracelet burned against my skin like a coal.

"Now," I whispered.

The air above the great hall split open.

It began as a thin white seam in the shadows near the rafters, and then it widened, and widened, until it was an arch of pale moonlight as tall as a house.

The Moon’s Door.

Far away in a swamp clearing, four people felt the air begin to shimmer, and stepped forward without a word.

Silver light spilled over the crowd. Even the soldiers stopped to look.

Figures stepped out of it.

Lee came first, a huge sword on his shoulder, dragon scales glittering along his arms in the borrowed light. Arthur followed him, spear in hand, strip of cloth over his left eye, a fierce, lopsided grin splitting his face. Mary came next, calm and watchful, a long blade held loose at her side. And last came Sera.

She raised her hand.

The air beside her shuddered, and something dropped out of the shadows with a rustle of feathers.

It was as large as a hunting dog, sleek and black, its wide wings spread like a raven’s, its eyes burning like coals.

It landed on her shoulder and tilted its head, and a cold ripple rolled across the hall. Even the bravest of the soldiers faltered.

Puppeteer.

Sera swept her gaze across the whole roaring hall, a hundred and fifty faces, three hundred raised fists... her brother standing on a dead man’s podium in a one-star shirt with his heart on fire.

Her eyes found mine. She did not smile. She only inclined her head, the barest fraction, in a gesture that was very nearly respect.

"It is time," she said.