Every time one of our warriors falls, something inside me twists. The first few times it happens, I say a prayer to the gods, but soon there are too many of them, too much blood, too many bodies. Soon it becomes difficult to tell who is fighting for whom.

We are advancing, though, the fight inching closer and closer to the mine and the slave quarters next to it, both ringed by wrought-iron gates, with guard barracks set up around the perimeter. Not much of the slave quarters is visible from our vantage point, just flat tin roofs and thin spirals of smoke.

“Their objective will be to protect their assets—the mine and the slaves,” S?ren said when we were plotting our attack. “They’ll know we’re there to free them. They’ll know that when we do, the battle is lost.”

He’s right. The Kalovaxians surround the perimeter of the mine and the slave quarters, holding their line fiercely even when that means they lose their barracks. As our army closes in on them, a few Kalovaxian warriors disappear into a building I didn’t notice at first. Small and squat, it sits separate from the slave quarters, almost obscured behind the mine. The fence surrounding it is spiked at the top, and the metal gleams strangely in the sunlight, a brilliant red-orange.

S?ren’s gaze follows mine and he swallows. “Iron mixed with crushed Fire Gems,” he says. “It’s a newer discovery; I’ve never seen it implemented in such a large quantity. It’s incredibly expensive to make. Whatever they’re keeping in there must be valuable.”

“Whoever,” Blaise corrects, nodding toward the building’s gated entrance, where the guards have reappeared, but they aren’t alone. Ten Astreans stumble in their wake, chains around their ankles binding them together and making their steps slow and sluggish. They shrink from the sunlight when it hits them, raising their arms to block the rays.

Valuable Astreans, ones the Kalovaxians would spend a lot of money to protect. No, not protect, not really.

“Berserkers,” I say, the word barely coming out a whisper. Blaise takes hold of my hand, and this time I barely feel how hot his hand is against mine. I can’t take my eyes from those people.

“We knew this was a possibility, Theo,” he says to me. “We prepared for it.”

I nod because I don’t trust myself to speak. It’s true that we knew the Kalovaxians would likely use the berserkers they had at the mine, and it’s true that we have a plan for how to counter it. It will limit the danger they do to our army, but it will not save them. Though I know there is no saving them, my stomach still ties itself into knots.

“I can’t watch this,” I say quietly.

“You don’t have to,” Blaise says. Out of the corner of my eye, I can see that he’s gone a little green himself.

“You should, though,” S?ren says. He swallows, forcing himself to keep his own gaze on the scene. He’s the only one of us who knows what we’re looking at, I realize. The only one who has seen berserkers in action before.

“She doesn’t need to see it,” Blaise snaps at him. “I think she can imagine it perfectly well after hearing about what you did in Vecturia.”

S?ren has the grace to look ashamed. “It’s important to understand it,” he says, his voice clear. “To see it.”

“That won’t accomplish anything,” Blaise says, but there’s an edge of fear in his voice. His hand shakes in mine; the air around him simmers. I squeeze his hand and the air stills, but his eyes remain wide and afraid.

He doesn’t want me to see it, I realize. He doesn’t want me to see how he will die if the same fate ever befalls him. I don’t think he wants to see it either—it’s easy to be noble about dying when it’s abstract, but I’m sure it’s much harder when the process unfolds before your eyes.

“She’s stronger than you think she is,” S?ren says. There is no bite to his voice, but Blaise hears one. He turns to S?ren with hateful eyes.

“I know how strong she is,” he says, his voice low and dangerous. “I knew it when you believed her to be a weak flower in need of protecting.”

S?ren doesn’t say anything to that, though a muscle in his jaw twitches. His hand wanders to the sword at his hip. I know he’s taken on Artemisia’s usual duty, that he has instructions on what to do if Blaise becomes a danger to us. The thought sickens me. S?ren must realize that Blaise is only angry, not dangerous, because his hand stills.

“Right now I believe her to be someone who can make her own decisions,” he says, his voice level.

I swallow, though I force my eyes back to the battlefield, back to the ten Astreans being unchained. They’re delirious, stumbling every few steps they take, wobbling on their feet. One man’s knees buckle and he falls to the ground only to be forcefully yanked back up by a guard.

“They’re drugged,” S?ren explains quietly. “It keeps them manageable, makes them more inclined to follow directions.”

The Kalovaxian commanders press gems into their hands, which they accept eagerly, the way a parched man would accept water.

“To push them over the edge,” I remember Erik saying when he told me about berserkers. But he didn’t tell me how it affects them. As soon as they touch the gems, it’s like something deep in them sparks to life. Something feral and inhuman. The air around them sharpens.

Gems in hand, the berserkers take a few hesitant steps toward my army. Their movements are still slow and drugged, but there is an energy to their movements now that is unnatural. They jerk like puppets on strings being urged forward by some force I can’t see.

My army hesitates. It doesn’t matter that we knew this would likely come, that everyone had been instructed on what to do when it did. It doesn’t matter that a few dozen warriors have arrows nocked and ready for just this moment. They hesitate in the face of it, and I can’t even blame them for that. The figures approaching are not berserkers, after all. That is a Kalovaxian word for a Kalovaxian idea. They are not weapons; they are people. Sick people who need help we can’t give them. We can only offer the mercy of an arrow to the heart.

“Shoot,” Blaise murmurs under his breath, his gaze intent. “Shoot now.”

S?ren, however, remains silent, his eyes heavy on the scene.

Finally, one arrow fires, striking a berserker man square in the chest. He looks down at it, the drugs in his system making his reaction slow. He falls to the ground as if he’s sinking through water instead of air.

That shot breaks the spell and other arrows follow, some missing, others finding their target. Berserkers drop, one after another, gems tumbling from their slackened grips and rolling away harmlessly. I count them as they die, my heart lurching with each one. They all die mercifully, until only one is left, a young girl who can’t be more than eight. Her steps drag like she’s forgotten how to walk, and though I’m too far away to say for sure, I think she’s crying.

The arrows stop but she doesn’t. She takes another step, then another, crossing the field between armies, a figure so tiny that she nearly disappears altogether.

Even Blaise is silent now, though I know all of us are waiting for it, waiting for the arrow to fly and find its target, waiting for someone to end this, to put her out of her misery.

No one does. No one can.

The girl reaches our front lines before stopping short. Standing in front of thousands of armed warriors, she looks even smaller. Too small, surely, to hurt anyone. My armies retreat as quickly as they can, but for many it isn’t quick enough.

Something sparks. She sparks. One moment she is there, a crying, frightened girl, and the next she is a ball of flame, engulfing everything around her for yards. They scream as they burn, but she screams the loudest.

I stumble back a step and it takes everything I have not to look away, not to turn from the gruesome sight until it’s over, but I somehow don’t. I keep watching, even when it feels like it will kill me.

The fire dies as quickly as it started, and all that is left is a fifty-foot circle of charred grass and close to thirty burned corpses, including one that is far too small.

I’m going to be sick. I lift my hand to my mouth and breathe through my nose until my churning stomach stills.

“It could have been worse,” S?ren says quietly. “It could have been much worse.”

I know he’s right, but I still have to fight the urge to slap him.

Erik told me about berserkers, he told me what happened, what they became, but no words could have prepared me for the reality of it, for the feral humanity of the people, how they cried as they walked to their deaths.

My army is as shocked as I am, and they are slow to respond. The Kalovaxians are not. They use our hesitation to push forward, gaining the few yards that we fought so hard for before my army gets a hold of themselves.

But when they do push back, they are angrier than ever.