The clouds had broken to the south, in the sky above where the armies of the Theocracy were camped. Great golden shafts of sunlight beamed down on the verdant meadow beyond the edge of the trees. There had been muddy snow in places throughout the shady parts of the forest, but most of it had since been tracked out by Sullivan's army. On the opposite hill, shaded by the gray fog which flowed over the distant ridges like ghostly waterfalls, Heritor Maxius the Elder sat upon a horse under a sea of green banners surrounded by his gleaming porcelain knights.

  From the murky depths of the distant fog there emerged the Vjiskaldi armada of airships, and the sky erupted with the sound of cannon fire. Sasha, clad in the iridescent blue-green scale armor of Dame Varelion, urged her horse forward down the knoll, and Lucia followed. A gust of wind greeted them, and the pale yellow flowers swayed in gentle waves on either side. The thundering sound of hooves filled the air as the knights of both families advanced, Aden red and Varelion blue. Heritor Maxius and his knights also advanced.

  The two parties met on the rocky banks of a small creek in the center of that field of golden flowers. The knights on either side stopped short, but the Heritors continued until not but the babbling stream separated them. Heritor Maxius the Elder wore the ostentatious white regalia required of his role as the Primarch of the Lawgiver, and while his clothing was proud, his own face betrayed a weary sadness.

  "Heritor Maxius," Sasha began, her blue-green armor gleaming in the sunlight. "I want to know if it's true. Did you really order my kidnapping?"

  "Aye," Maxius said.

  "Why?" Sasha asked.

  "I prayed to the Lawgiver, and then my oracles rolled the dice. They interpreted the Lawgiver's will in the result of those dice, that the path to my dream passes through the kidnapping of Heritor Alyesha, and none other."

  "Ridiculous," Lucia snapped.

  "Not as ridiculous as you think," Maxius insisted. "Princess Lucia... or is it Queen Lucia now? Two young men came to visit me from your lands. One of them, a boy named Seth, was blessed with outrageous luck. My son traveled with Seth for weeks, and he never once saw the boy lose a game of cards or dice. Seth was able to support himself and his brother simply through gambling. How do you explain that?"

  "I suppose you are going to tell us?" Lucia guessed.

  Maxius nodded. "That boy has something in common with my oracles. You see, he dreamed of flying through the sky. I can only assume that the Lawgiver speaks to us, indirectly, through random chance, and people who yearn to fly through the sky are His vessels."

  "Impossible," Sasha said. "The Lawgiver doesn't exist. Renna made it all up, along with ninety-nine other religions which have since been forgotten. If what you are saying is true, then there must be some other entity out there, one capable of manipulating luck, one obsessed with flight. Do not ascribe the work of this entity to your false god."

  The grin that appeared on the old man's face sent a shiver down Lucia's spine. Even her horse staggered back. "Does it matter?" Maxius asked.

  Lucia turned to Sasha. The other woman removed her lobster-spine helmet, revealing a face filled with anger. "So you admit it then? You know the Lawgiver is just one of Renna's lies?"

  "The Lawgiver doesn't need to be real," Maxius explained. "Humanity is fundamentally flawed. We must conquer or be conquered. Empathy and understanding are weaknesses that invite invasion and genocide. This is fundamental Truth, the underlying substructure of the universe. Our faith carries us forward in time, it allows my people to survive. And who could do such a thing? Only an entity which has earned the title of God. Know that in your own lands the story of Mother Summer and Father Winter serves the same purpose."

  "You old men are just looking for excuses to put your boot on our throats," Sasha hissed. "In your lands the women are little more than slaves."

  "Your perverse romance with Queen Lucia is known to me. I'll admit there is some appeal to such a pure romance, one built on empathy and love. But history marches on, and the immutable laws of the universe will take advantage of the weaknesses in the short-lived races of this world. Our minds evolved within the context of these immutable laws. God is an organ in the brain, our capacity to survive in spite of our fundamental flaws, our ancient sins."

  For the first time Sasha's face betrayed fear. She understands this madness, Lucia realized. She understands his argument and she doesn't know what to say.

  "It's no wonder your son is such a creep," Lucia said quickly. "Sir Zachary told me what your son did in the house of my ancestors. He said he found most of the castle staff cut to pieces and pickled in old wine barrels. Did you order that as well?"

  "I did," Maxius the Elder admitted.

  "I demand that you answer for this crime, in addition to your crimes against the Varelion family. Sasha, I choose you as my champion. Kill this man, and then we shall write ourselves into the histories as it pleases us."

  Sasha snapped out of her stupor, her face suddenly filled with determination. "My heart knows no hatred, Heritor Maxius. I believe with all my heart that humanity deserves better than a wayward science experiment that has lingered far too long. I will not shy away from my duty to my people and our allies." She replaced her lobster-spine helmet, shrouding her face in shadows. "I am going to kill you now."

  "I regret that you won't feel any pain," Lucia added. "Sasha was the valedictorian of our class. It will be over in an instant."

  Maxius did not reply.

  While the Heritors conversed, both armies had advanced and positioned themselves on opposite banks of the stream. Far to the south the guns of the Vjiskaldi airships were decimating the Theocracy rearguard. Among King Sullivan's troops, the front lines were bursting with eager soldiers ready to get their next promotion, and across the stream, the Theocracy forces, with nowhere to run, steeled themselves for a fight to the death.

  Lucia followed Sasha into the midst of the knights where they both dismounted. After all the horses were taken away, the knights surrounded the two Heritors with an interlocking barrier of spirit-lattice tower shields. Lucia stood close to Sasha in the dim light of the formation, but she would not be able to contribute once the battle started. Sasha and Maxius both had much larger auras and they would claim all the ether instantly.

  "He won't make the first move," Sasha said. She closed her eyes for a long moment, then drew her spirit-lattice ethersteel blade and pointed it at the sky between the tower shields.

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  "Advance!" King Sullivan cried from the edge of the forest, his voice amplified by wind-aspect ethermancy. "All forces, ADVANCE!"

  Soldiers on both sides advanced across the field of flowers to meet on the banks of the stream. On both sides they were armed with rifles and crossbows, supplemented with pikemen. The two forces met in the middle and the screaming started.

  When Sasha claimed the ether in her aura, Lucia felt the loss of a long-familiar sensation, the weight of all that ether pressing down on her, suddenly gone. The two great auras, two intersecting spheres of spirit-ether, were now filled with useless dream-ether being claimed by two Heritors. However, each Heritor had a section of their sphere in the far back which was outside the enemy sphere. It was in that section that the Heritors could use the ether to activate weaves, a tiny margin where the true duel would take place.

  The two armies clashed in the middle of the creek between the two Heritors. The field of golden flowers began to turn red, while the waters began to turn foul with blood. The enemy soldiers were fearless fanatics, rushing into battle without regard for their lives. The first volley of rifle shots had ended and it became a battle of spears and crossbows as the riflemen reloaded. The formations in Sullivan's army were executed with precision, and this gave their army an advantage. However the sheer zeal and size of the enemy army pressed them back. Still, the Heritors did not use ethermancy, each waiting for the other to begin expending the precious dream-ether at the terminus of their auras.

  Suddenly a rain of bullets smashed into the tower shields that surrounded Lucia, punctuated by the sound of a whirling scream. Confused by the sudden intrusion, she peered between the shields at the enemy lines, but there was nothing abnormal, just a continuation of the butchery. The whirring sound returned, and it seemed to be moving above the knights. Lucia looked up and saw an unfamiliar shape, an impossible shape, one which was instantly in conflict with everything she knew to be true. It looked like one of those flying machines the oculomancers used to travel between the spires.

  But no, these were not the sleek, technologically-advanced airplanes that the oculomancers used. They also bore no resemblance to the predatory fighter jets which Fiona preferred. These airplanes looked like they had been constructed by children using ethersteel, wood, and glue. Each one had a single large cannon strapped to the belly. Judging by the rain of bullets, Lucia assumed that those cannons were loaded with grapeshot.

  "Sasha!" Lucia cried. "Enemy airplanes! They have been sent to assassinate you!"

  "Don't panic!" the knight commander said. "Send the signal to the other knights to prepare replacements if we fall. Stay strong! Protect the princess!"

  Sasha strained with the effort of holding all that ether at bay. She was beginning to sweat. "Wait," she said. "How are they still flying? Where are they getting ether?"

  "They must be burning candles!" Lucia replied. A quick glance at an approaching airplane verified this fact. The canopy was alight with a cyan glow, filled with a thin fog which obscured the face of the pilot. "Can you claim the ether as it seeps out of the candles?"

  "No," Sasha said. "They are moving too fast and I can't focus on that right now."

  More blasts from the grapeshot cannons smashed into the knights, and enough of the bullets passed through the gaps between the shields to cause two knights to collapse. A pair of fresh knights joined the formation instantly, using their bodies to shield Sasha while they worked to orient their shields. A dozen more knights followed, rushing in to form a second ring around the first. The inner ring began to tilt their tower shields, while the outer ring began clambering on top. The result was a dome of spirit-lattice tower shields, almost blotting out the sun.

  "I am surprised that it has come to this," Sasha said. "There should be just enough ether in my free section to pull it off."

  Sasha began channeling ether into her aura, activating a cacophony of inscribed weaves, mostly of the life-aspect and water-aspect varieties. The ground began to tremble, and, shortly after, giant rocks and fireballs began smashing into the dome of knights. Maxius no doubt sensed that Sasha was using her reserved ether, which provoked his attack. To her credit, Sasha was able to spare just enough ether to create a wind-aspect barrier to block most of the stones. The spirit-lattice tower shields deflected the fireballs in random directions.

  When Sasha's weave was fully activated, the forest at the top of the hill simply exploded. Every tree in the entire forest disintegrated into powdery chunks of wood, jetting up into the sky like geysers of sawdust and shredded leaves. And from that obliterated wreck the sap began to coalesce, forming a long, sticky web of pale golden liquid that seemed to float through the air and converge directly above Sasha's head. Two massive trunk-like legs of tree sap smashed down on either side of the knights, while a torso and a pair of arms formed high above.

  Within seconds, a forty-foot tall golem made from pure tree sap loomed over the battlefield.

  It moved with astonishing speed, throwing its stretchy, sticky arms out to pluck a nearby airplane out of the sky. The thing stuck to the sap and crunched, the wings snapping clean off, the body buckling from the sudden change in G-force. Blood sprayed on the inner surface of the glass canopy. The golem, in spite of being forty feet tall, was able to sprint. It rambled across the battlefield towards Maxius, arms flailing drunkenly, and threw itself forward into the knights surrounding the Heritor. Two outstretched arms of sap wormed through the tower shields, converging in the darkness of the center. With a great upward heave the golem hurled Maxius the Elder out of the formation and into the sky.

  Whatever spells Maxius had at his disposal, a barrier that protected against tree sap must not have been one of them. The shock of being thrown into the air above the battlefield must have stunned him, because he lost control of most, if not all of the ether in Sasha's aura. Suddenly Lucia was thrown outward by a massive wave of wind, as were all the knights. The area around Sasha was clear, and she tracked the hapless Heritor as he sailed through the sky. The whole sky darkened as a brilliant flash of lightning arced out from Sasha's hand and transformed the Primarch of the Lawgiver into a loose cloud of ashes which quickly disintegrated in the wind.

  There was a girl here, Lucia thought as she tumbled away from her lover. There was a girl here. Her name was Alyesha, and she was here, in this moment, with me. I was her witness.

  Lucia smashed into the mud and crushed yellow flowers. Sasha began zapping the enemy frontline with lightning as King Sullivan's knights surged forward, their auras working once again. Friendly ethermancers began to join in the assault as well. Sasha's golem jogged casually above the battlefield, snapping up more airplanes like butterflies by turning one hand into the shape of an oversized bug net. Lucia scrambled to her feet.

  The enemy lines broke. King Sullivan's men eagerly pressed the attack, which forced the enemy to retreat straight into the waves of deadly ethermancy from the Vjiskaldi airships. It was a slaughter. The ground shook as the golem stalked the battlefield, carrying its prizes in a huge mesh of tree sap. It reached down and deposited the airplanes on the field in front of Sasha. One of the pilots opened the canopy and began to climb out of the craft, dazed and clearly terrified.

  With the sound of gunfire, the pilot's head suddenly exploded in a plume of blood and pink gore.

  The Eyes of Empire approached holding the smoking gun in one hand. As always, the oculomancer wore black robes with purple epaulets. "All soldiers in our army must swear oaths of secrecy about what they have seen here today," she demanded.

  "It will be as you say," King Sullivan said as he trotted up alongside the oculomancer.

  "Some of these airplanes are in good condition," Sasha observed. "Have the words 'I must subjugate the etherborne' painted on the side and ship them to the Elder Saint, as a gift from me."

  "That will not be necessary," the Eyes of Empire replied. "The Elder Saint will be here shortly, to personally attend to this crisis."

  The sound of the airplanes had not left. There were still three of them in the sky, but they had retreated far to the south.

  The oculomancer must have seen where Lucia was looking, because she said: "Some fighter jets from Spire Renna are on their way. They will take care of the last of the enemy airplanes."

  "The day is won," King Sullivan announced. "We must make haste to the east and aid Emperor Corrin. Even now his navy assaults Lawgiver City."

  "I will be there," Sasha promised. "Just give me a moment of respite."

  The other woman marched toward Lucia, doffed her helmet, and grasped Lucia's face in her warm palms. Lucia almost melted into a puddle on the spot. Sasha leaned forward and their lips locked.

  "I am happy, Sasha," Lucia gasped. "I'm happy that you survived. I'm happy that I get to see tomorrow with you."