The tirones don’t put up too much of a fight once their steeds are down. They may have been noxiors at one point, but I imagine most people still have a problem with killing young children. They relied on their nightbeasts.

And more are coming.

The gate splinters to pieces. Bison charge in, followed by the flood of leopards, gorillas, all other destructive beasts Luc thought up. They’ll be through the second gate in mere moments. We’re out of light beasts. We’re out of weapons.

Then I hear a thunderous call from the other side—a battle cry of a hundred voices as people charge through the veil behind the nightbeasts and Luc’s tirones.

Citizens of Tenebra. Each one armed with weapons from the coliseum. Scattered among them are noxiors. But at their head is a woman with a little girl in her arms, riding a rhinoceros with swirling gold fog puffing from its nostrils.

Helene. And in her arms sits Heidi. I piece it together instantly. When Heidi fell asleep in House Adelphoi she woke up in her mama’s arms. That is her home, and her heart sent her there. They finally found one another.

Helene didn’t come to Castle Ithebego when I sent her with the rhino. Instead, she took it to the coliseum. She rescued her family and didn’t stop there. She brought the other parents.

And now they’re here to fight for their children.

Everything is different with the parents in the fray. They know how to fight. They were all noxiors once. Crixus trained them to survive the Nightmare, and now they’re using their skills to destroy it.

They charge into the castle, hacking at the pterodactyls and bison as they go. The nightbeasts are feral and give a good fight, leaping for throats, clawing at exposed stomachs. But the parents aren’t to be stopped. They hack and stab and tackle. Their efforts grow more fierce when the children begin to cry out for their parents.

Luc’s tirones flee, and the fighting parents give chase. The children continue to cheer them on and come out from their hiding spots.

I don’t cheer.

A hand slips into mine as I watch the tirones retreat through the broken gate.

“This isn’t over,” Stranna says, speaking my thoughts.

I tighten my fingers around her hand. “I know.” If that was Level 1 and we maxed out our arsenal . . .

Luc raises his hands in the air. Most of his retreating tirones stop to watch. The parents in the courtyard and on the walls around us still.

Mist pours from Luc’s hands, forming in the air as it falls to the ground. Chimera, griffin, three-headed dogs, Minotaurs, basilisks . . . all the Roman mythical creatures rise up from the ground by the hundreds, armed and sniffing for blood.

How does Luc have the energy and emotions to keep creating so much?

His tirones turn back toward Castle Ithebego, victorious smugness on their faces, energy renewed. They know they’ll win now. But Luc isn’t done.

Black shrubbery bursts from the ground sending vines flying toward Castle Ithebego. The vines pull at the stones and the forest we created, tearing out chunks like a many-toothed monster. One turret wobbles. Trees crack and tumble, splintered into firewood.

A storm swirls overhead with shards of black lightning growing like inverted icebergs. Preparing to fall upon us. Waves of tar seep up from the ground, rolling through the cracks and crevices of our keep, filling the courtyard with the sticky Tunnel darkness that we all fought so hard to escape when first infected.

We brace ourselves. Not for the fight, but for the death that is coming. That is here.

The nightbeasts charge. The tirones charge.

I take aim with my slingshot, but not at the army. At Luc. He’s far away, but I release stone after stone. They all fall short.

Stranna runs for the ballista and loads one last broken spear from the ground. She aims at Luc’s stingray, but he sees it before she releases, and the stingray swoops beneath the bolt. That movement brings him a few yards closer, so I shoot again. I have five stones left in my pocket.

C’mon, I tell myself. He’s just another Goliath.

Tar suffocates Stranna’s fountain. The left turret of Castle Ithebego crumbles and Stranna screams, almost tumbling with it. Our forest is flattened.

I know you win in the end, God, but . . . can’t we skip the battle?

One of my stones hits Luc’s wrist. I would have preferred his forehead, but I’ll take any small win at this point. He shakes off the pain, then picks up the creative stream once again. It’s another chimera, and this one breathes fire. It bounds toward the corner of Castle Ithebego, its sights on Stranna who has only just regained her footing.

A Minotaur cuts down a parent. The three-headed dog corners several children. Our light creatures flap and flail against the dar now sticking to their feathers. Someone screams, and I glance over my shoulder and see parents and children circled up, surrounded by advancing nightbeasts—a bull’s-eye of death.

The nightbeasts howl or thump the ground, smelling victory. Smelling blood. The chimera clambers up the wall like a gecko and drags Stranna off her ballista. I shoot at it with my slingshot, frantically searching for nightmist inside me despite knowing it won’t serve me. Won’t obey. And I really don’t want to create something that may turn and attack Stranna. Or me. Or the children.

A screech breaks the air. I whirl.

My phoenix streaks across the sky, a stream of fire and gold trailing behind it.

Hope blossoms. She’s here. She’s alive! I can get in the air and go after Luc and chase him off. Or even better, she’ll take him down.

But she passes him. I raise my arms so she’ll see me. She veers downward. Luc releases lightning shards from the sky like rin blades. They slice through her wings, her tail, her body. Again and again.

“No!” I yell.

She screeches and tucks her wings tight against her body, a bullet headed straight toward me. With a mighty flap that sprays phoenix blood through the air, she slows long enough to drop something at my feet. Then she whines, crackles like a wet log in fire, and bursts into flame, falling like a meteorite into the sticky sea of tar. Nearby nightbeasts scatter from her impact, but there’s nothing but a pile of dying coals.

I am too stunned to react.

A Minotaur stomps through the tar and crushes the phoenix coals beneath its hooves. The tirones shout their approval. Then they turn as one to Luc, awaiting his command just like the Roman gladiators awaited the emperor’s thumbs-up or thumbs-down in the games.

And Luc does hold out a thumb, parallel to the ground, then drops it. “Kill them all!”

They don’t need to be told twice.

Parents swoop in front of their children—vulnerable shields against the advancing death blows.

I scan the ground for the item the phoenix brought me. It’s a single grain of glowing wheat, still covered in ash—the one Luc kicked away in the Arena. He thought it had burned. Thought he’d destroyed it.

Yet here it is in my hands. Waiting for my command.

The fate of this battle rests in the palm of my imagination. The circle of a hundred nightbeasts closes in on the parents and children. What sort of creature can I create that would destroy so many nightbeasts? What weapon?

Luc commanded and created these animals—will they disappear if he is killed?

Time doesn’t stop for contemplation. The circled group is seconds away from death.

I send my thoughts far beyond this moment—to the end goal. Jesus thought beyond the cross. I need to do the same.

And then I know. I know what to make, but the only question is if it’s possible. I close my eyes and grip the kernel tight in my fist.