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“Yes. I would pull pain from these Masks,” Div said, and at Aiz’s lookof disquiet, she held up a hand. “It is not something I will relish, child. That is why I have never mentioned it before.”
“Tel Ilessi.” Triarch Hiwa appeared from the rubble, accompanied by two dozen of his fighters. The panic on his face was embarrassing to witness. Aiz did not understand how this weaselly creature could be a descendant of Mother Div.
“There is a full Martial legion—”
“I am aware,” Aiz said. “Tell Triarch Oona to lead her archers against them. Triarch Hiwa, you will lead the ground assault.”
“I— But, Tel Ilessi,” Hiwa spluttered. “We will be slaughtered.”
“By the Martials or by my hand.” Aiz brought her wind to bear, pressing on the Triarch’s windpipe. “I’d say you’d have a better chance of surviving them.”
She released him and he glared at her, gathering his wind. She knew he wouldn’t dare to use it. He was too weak.
“Triarch Ghaz,” Aiz said. “Take your men to fight alongside Hiwa’s. Hold them off for as long as possible. I will be there soon.”
“The Masks, Tel Ilessi. It is not safe—”
“I can hold them. Go.”
Ghaz bowed and hurried away, taking his men. The red-headed Mask, seeing that there were no guards, grinned and began to rise. But Aiz forced her and her fellows down with fists of wind.
Div circled them. “Let me help, Tel Ilessi. You know your troops alone cannot destroy this legion. I can give you what you need. More.”
You are lost, Tel Ilessi.Aiz regarded the young Masks. She thought of Ruh’s shining silver eyes. What would he say if he saw her now?
An old emotion, fossilized in the sediment of Aiz’s past self, threatened to break free. Anguish, keen as an eagle’s talon. A sound emerged from her throat, the moan of a struck bird, the last shred of humanity clinging to Aiz’s heart.
Yes, she was lost. Irredeemably so.
But Ruh died so Aiz could get this far. What use, if she gave up now?
Aiz considered Div. She’d let Div hunt and kill for months, and had managed to control her. In doing so, perhaps Aiz had limited herself by curtailing the power Div fed her. Perhaps Aiz had only begun to understand the well of strength Div had to offer.
“Yes,” Div crooned. “Now you see.”
Aiz nodded. “Do it,” she said.
Moments later, the first Mask began to scream.
After, the Kegari soldiers who witnessed the shredding of the Martial legion would say that Mother Div herself descended from the sky and laid waste to the enemy when all seemed lost. Triarch Oona’s red-clad archers had been overrun, the Triarch herself dying at the edge of Empress Helene’s blade. Triarch Hiwa’s troops turned and fled, though their leader had not been so lucky, an arrow slicing through his back as he bolted like a coward.
Only Triarch Ghaz’s soldiers held firm. And when it seemed like they, too, would be destroyed, the Tel Ilessi appeared, glowing with fury. A shadow stood at her back, bearing the sunbeam crown.
The wind rose, vicious and unforgiving. It ripped the Martials to shreds. They turned tail, their Empress with them.
Aiz remembered little of it. She woke after, in the infirmary. The room was simple and white. A memory rose in her mind. Sister Noa beside the cloister’s wide hearth, with Cero tucked under one arm and Aiz under the other.
Holy Cleric Div was most beloved to children, did you know? She hated the politics of ruling. Any chance she got, she would come to this cloister—this very one!—and play cat in the corner with children just like you.
Mother Div paced around Aiz now, her familiar features relaxing when she saw the girl awake.
“I thought it might be too much power for you,” she said, coming to Aiz’s side. “I thought I might have hurt you. I thought in saving your people, you might have destroyed yourself.”
Your people.
Aiz remembered the power then. And how she’d gotten it. She remembered the screams of the children.
“You’re not her, are you?” Aiz finally spoke the question she’d suppressed since Tiral’s death. A question reawakened by her conversation with Noa. She did not look toward the creature that called itself Div.
