I watched the fight from the bridge of my flagship, a black lattice of glass and song that drank starlight and gave me what I asked for.
The Moon filled the forward pane. Pale stone. Human wards like a thin gold thread. Bone guns. Too many banners for such a small rock. Boring, usually. Earth is a provincial hinge in a provincial war; I only send Archdukes because it amuses me to see what they do with borrowed teeth.
But the human with the sword was not provincial.
He had not walked the Gates. I could tell by the way his breath still lived inside his chest instead of inside the world. And yet—he edited. His blade moved and a room obeyed. A page turned where no book was. Insolent. Charming.
"Name him," I said.
"Arthur Nightingale," my choir-officer answered, fingers moving through a sheet of shadowed light. "Human. Mid Radiant. Carries a weapon-spirit—Valeria. Commands a lich-king. Surrounded by saints and witches. Unclassified phenomenon present at the edge of his actions."
