'Twelve hours. Cressida said twelve hours.'
We'd been fighting for maybe forty minutes.
The third wave didn't come immediately. Instead, there was a pause. Long enough for the silence to crawl back in. Long enough for the nervous kid to start shaking again.
Then the air changed.
It wasn't a sound. It wasn't a sight. It was a pressure, like the atmosphere itself had thickened. The hairs on my arms stood. The chains around my wrist, dormant since I'd retracted them, vibrated against my skin.
'Spirit essence.'
A lot of it. Not one source. Dozens. Maybe more.
From beyond the ridge, lights began to appear. Not torches. Glowing shapes, indistinct at this distance, moving through the air above the ridge line. Some were small, darting like insects. Others were large enough that they cast shadows across the broken ground.
"Summons," the wiry woman said, and for the first time her voice carried something other than composure. It carried weight.
