Page 134 of The Last Remaining Light

And the children.

Bloody stars, the children.

Elowynn, at that moment, was eternally grateful this part of the city had never seen many children. Most remained along the northern and southern districts and out of the central court. But there had still been some visiting, and they now cried openly while others could only stare.

Elowynn kept one hand near the pocket where her astrylite crystal sat, and the other lifted slightly before her, ready to call resonance if she needed to.

The currents beneath the city continued their lament. It was not sound in any ordinary sense. It was pressure and pain and grief, a vibration that seemed to move through the marrow of the world itself.

She had studied aethercurrents for turnings. She had charted their fluctuations, debated over their distortions, and spent entire nights buried in records everyone else dismissed as superstition.

None of it had prepared her for hearing them scream as they were now.

A hand brushed her sleeve.

Elowynn glanced over just as Lora leaned close enough to be heard over the bells and distant shrieks. “You know, he is exactly as tragic as your letters implied.”

Elowynn nearly stumbled. “What? You read my—?”

“Now is not the time. Focus,” commanded Alyra.

“I’m frightened and coping poorly, alright?” Lora shot back. “Humor is a perfectly valid survival strategy.”

A broken laugh escaped Elowynn. It hurt. It hurt badly. The laugh became something too close to a sob before she forced it down.

Lora’s hand tightened briefly around her sleeve. “But I understand now,” she said softly.

Elowynn looked at her. When had Lora read her damn letters? It was a question for another time, if they survived this.

Lora’s eyes flicked back toward Caelyn, who walked several paces behind them with his shoulders rigid and one hand pressed against his side. He watched every alley, every shadow, every movement with the attention of someone expecting violence from all directions. Blood left a dark trail behind him whenever he faltered.

“I understand why no one here was ever enough,” Lora said.

Elowynn had no reply to that. Lora hadn’t reached that conclusion from the letters.

She had reached it by watching Caelyn.

Another shout broke through the smoke ahead. A cluster of civilians flooded from one of the lower walkways, panic distorting their faces as they shoved past one another. A woman clutched a small child against her chest while two older scholars supported a man whose leg bent wrong beneath his torn robes.

Behind them, pale shapes emerged through the haze.

More Starless.

Alyra stepped forward before Elowynn could move. The resonance blade brightened in her hand, silver-blue light sliding along its edge as if the weapon had taken a breath.

“Keep going!” Alyra ordered.

The first Starless lunged, and Alyra met it with brutal grace.

Her blade cut upward in a clean arc, and light split the creature from shoulder to throat. It convulsed and burned from the inside out, collapsing at her feet with a sound that was almost human as its black insides leaked out. Another came from the side, faster than the first, its cloudy eyes fixed not on Alyra, but on the crystal light spilling from Lora’s clenched hands.

Lora was frozen in fear, unable to move.

Caelyn reached the Starless before anyone else, his speed so unnatural that Elowynn lost track of him for a beat.

He struck the creature hard enough to drive it into a nearby stone archway. Frost erupted from the point of contact, black-edged and violent, racing beneath its skin in branching fractures. The Starless jerked once, then again, before the corruption threading through its body seemed to unravel beneath his grip.

The creature went limp.