The explosion turned out to only be the first. Several more booms echoed from outside the tower, beyond the narrow slice of the city visible to them beyond the windows. A second later, there was another flash ahead of them, further out into the city, leaving a finger of smoke reaching up in its wake. Its thunderous rumble followed a beat after.

  Lucas was the last person in the room to react.

  Master Nhiti was already out of the door before he’d finished exhaling his gasp of surprise from the first explosion. He was still barely halfway through his flinch before Haddem had turned himself intangible and phased through the window, soaring down towards the still-rising column of smoke just outside the walls. His heartbeat was only just beginning to accelerate when Valerie’s armoured hand came down on his shoulder, turning his unresponsive body towards the door. Florence was already moving ahead of them, glaive in hand.

  By the time adrenaline had started pumping away, Master Renyk seemed to have cast dozens of magical techniques, drawing sigils in the air with the tip of a glowing finger.

  “What kind of magic is that?” he heard himself ask.

  “That’s not an easy question to answer.” Master Renyk smiled at him as Valerie urged him away. “Unfortunate timing, this. Be assured, I’ll continue to look into your concerns if you find yourself distracted.”

  “Thank you, Master Renyk,” Valerie said tightly, and then they were out of sight, rushing into the corridor beyond.

  “Is someone making a move against the Order?” Lucas wondered aloud, his brain finally catching up with the rest of the world. “Attacking skycloaks out on patrol, or just generally causing mayhem to try and lure us out for ambush?”

  The explosions were still ongoing. Every few seconds, a thunderous report reached them, even through the Moontower’s barrier. They varied in volume and length, and without a line of sight, he wasn’t sure if that was down to the strength of the explosions or their distance from the tower.

  “A likely explanation,” Valerie said.

  Lucas looked back at her, but her expression gave nothing away. “We’ll have to gather information before we decide what to do, right?”

  Valerie just nodded.

  “Who do you think has made a move?” Florence asked over her shoulder as she led them back through the corridors.

  “Difficult to say,” Valerie replied.

  “Your best guess?” Lucas asked.

  “I imagine it’s several at once,” Valerie said.

  Florence nodded, looking ahead once more. “Strength in numbers. Few of them would be bold enough to launch a direct attack on their own, but if they’ve joined causes, that may grant them confidence.”

  “We’ll have to see,” Valerie said, a hint of malice creeping into her voice. Her grip tightened on his shoulder.

  Lucas glanced back once more and arched an eyebrow at her. Her grip relented. “Do you need some lunar mana?” he asked.

  She drew in a deep breath, and her next exhalation came out as a hiss. “If you can do it while we move, then yes. If not, it can wait.”

  They rearranged their formation a little, Lucas and Valerie walking side-by-side with his hand on her shoulder, feeding the soothing mana into her system. It was the first time he’d had to employ the technique while on the move, but it was familiar enough to be second nature by now. He barely even had to concentrate on it.

  The grand staircase was packed with activity, an endless stream of skycloaks soaring downwards four or five abreast. The congestion had caused a queue to form just to get into the staircase itself. Long, agonising seconds crawled by. Lucas knew, objectively, that it wasn’t much time to wait at all, but any delay felt unconscionable, and his mind strayed all over the place, pulled between dozens of disparate thoughts.

  Most prominently, he couldn’t help feeling somewhat responsible for all this. No matter how much he told himself that tensions had already been simmering, and that dissatisfaction with the Order and its methods was evidently rife without his involvement, the fact remained that he’d been the one to come up with this plan to push things beyond the boiling point, all for his benefit. There’d be innocent people getting hurt out there because of him.

  Simultaneously, a stomach-churning dread was starting to rear its ugly head. Chances were that he would find himself in combat again soon, wielding a deadly weapon against his fellow human beings. Convincing himself it was all necessary was an ongoing process. This was an existential war, and the rogue groups acting this way were potentially jeopardising all life on an entire planet. No matter how justified they felt—and Lucas had had plenty of moments where he wondered about the Order himself—the fact remained that a divided humanity squabbling with itself only made things easier for the Demon Lord.

  And that was another thing that worried him. He knew humans were more than capable of fighting amongst each other on their own, no outside intervention needed. But if something benefitted the enemy, then he had to consider enemy involvement. Was it a coincidence that this was all kicking off just as they were investigating the possibility of an infiltrator acting on the demons’ behalf?

  Jam was still as alert as he’d been since the Harwyck contingent returned. The explosions hadn’t fazed him. The creature’s attention was still firmly fixed within the Order’s territory, in the same way that one might hear the buzz of a hornet in a dark room, unable to see where it was. With their very souls intertwined so closely together, It was awfully distracting. Lucas wondered if Jam felt any frustration at Lucas’ own worries leaking through their bond. If he did, he wasn’t showing it. It was like the only thing that existed in the world was the demonic aura it was sensing. Getting Jam’s attention for anything else was nigh impossible.

  Questions arose, too. Who was doing this? How were they setting off so many explosions? Where were they targetting? Most prominently, he supposed, was why were they doing this? What was their goal?

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  Lucas couldn’t decide what was more likely: whether they intended to lure the Order out to defeat them in detail, or isolate and pick off smaller groups, or simply to cause chaos and discredit the skycloaks. Hell, dozens of possibilities came to mind.

  Finally, they reached the grand staircase, leaping in as soon as there was an opportunity. Lucas pumped mana into his cloak, and then they were soaring down, barely stopping to touch down on the steps. The stomach-swoop feeling of semi-controlled flight distracted him for a few seconds, but in no time they were at the bottom of the staircase and striding across the atrium, heading for the southern wall where the first explosion had occurred.

  The atrium was abuzz with activity. Everywhere he looked, Skycloaks rushed around. A cacophony of voices jumbled together, shouting orders and barking requests, punctuated by the constant low rumble of thousands of footsteps. The air was practically electric with all the active mana in use. Pushing out his floramantic sense to its limit, he could almost feel the world rippling.

  Throughout it all, more explosions were going off in the distance. A near-constant boom, boom, boom, with barely a handful of seconds before each new detonation.

  He caught snippets of conversation as Valerie and Florence steered him through the crowd. Most of it was useless, but some words stood out.

  “Coalition.”

  “Ambush.”

  “Conspiracy.”

  “Wands.”

  “Riots.”

  Just that much painted an unpleasant picture, and Lucas’ dread was solidifying into a heavy weight on his shoulders by the time they made it out of the atrium. The courtyards were no less busy, throngs of skycloaks rushing between the various tall buildings packed into their territory. Dozens of columns of smoke rose above the walls, and Lucas winced.

  “That doesn’t look good at all,” he said.

  Neither of his companions replied. Their silence lingered all the way through the Moontower’s grounds. At some point, Cherry joined them, silently slipping into their formation without so much as a greeting. Florence spotted Symar near the gates, and he followed them, too.

  For a heart-dropping moment, Lucas wondered if Florence intended to lead them straight out of the gates and into the city. Instead, she pivoted at seemingly the last moment, heading into a small door beside the great arched gateway. It led straight to a stone staircase that took them right to the top of the wall, giving them a view of the inner ring of the city.

  It was madness out there. Lucas had expected it, somewhat, but in an abstract sort of anticipation, without imagining what it would actually look like.

  The explosions had evidently only been a part of whatever strategy the enemy had been deploying. There had to be hundreds of fires burning, far more than the explosions that had erupted. Easily one in every ten buildings was aflame. Bursts of magic flashed in distant streets, never coming too close to the Order’s actual territory. The sound of fighting reached them, the clash of steel, shouts of alarm and pain, bellowed orders. Below, a new party of five skycloaks seemed to leave every other second, heading out to bring order to this pandemonium.

  There were screams, too. Agony, anguish, and despair. A dark pallor had settled over the inner ring of Dawnguard, as if the deaths occurring out there were fogging the very air.

  Lucas swallowed. “What is this, do you think? What’s their plan?”

  “Testing our strength, and how we respond to a direct provocation like this,” Florence said, sounding grim. “And it’s a show of force to those in the city who would otherwise consider themselves neutral on the topic of the Order. There’s a common belief that the Order of Five is so entrenched that no one could challenge us, especially with Lady Claire in charge. Here, they’re trying to show that they have the resources and will to face us head on.”

  “This is head on?” Lucas asked, baffled.

  “It’s the most direct attack anyone has made in decades,” Symar said. “Haven’t seen anyone get this uppity against the Order in my lifetime, at least.”

  “Lady Claire has not faced active rebellion since the Caelunn incident,” Valerie said, her voice inflectionless.

  “Don’t know if Mum was even born, then,” Cherry murmured.

  “When was your mother born?” Symar asked.

  “Dunno,” Cherry said.

  “Well, how old is she?”

  “She’s been dead twenty years, and I’ve no clue how old she was then.”

  Symar held up his hands and muttered an apology.

  Even atop the walls, there were plenty of skycloaks running around, using eyeglasses and various spells to gather intelligence on the situation, which others then sprinted away to relay. Presumably, all this information was making its way back to Master Meyah, eventually, who then spread it to whomever she decided needed to know. Valerie had vouched for her competence in such situations, and he had to trust that she, along with the other Masters, would guide the Order through this crisis.

  Lucas took a moment to just breathe, seeking to calm himself. Despite all the weight of expectations placed upon him, he felt ever so small here. One day, he’d have to be the one down there, managing a situation like this, hundreds or even thousands of lives in his hands. Even with the promise that the Great Star would eventually make him good at it, it was an intimidating prospect. Just standing here, mostly on the sidelines, had him sick with nerves.

  The worst part was, he knew he couldn’t afford to be on the sidelines. For numerous reasons, he had to involve himself. The experience would only benefit him, for one thing. He couldn’t get good at something if he never practised it; even the Great Star couldn’t form new skills from nothing. Not for the first time, Lucas wished the Summoning had shoved all the information he needed right into his brain, ignoring the possibility it would have simply overwhelmed and shredded his soul.

  There were other reasons to take action. It didn’t feel right to stand around and watch while part of the city descended into a small-scale war. The righteous part of him wanted to be out there helping people. The indignant, angry side, however, wanted to enact vengeance against the people who’d set all this off, to punish them for putting so much at risk with their actions—no matter how they tried to justify it to themselves.

  And the honourable part remembered a promise he’d made, to ensure that a few members of New Dawn made it out of the madness alive. The man he’d promised wasn’t alive to know if he’d kept it, but it was a weight on Lucas’ mind. It wasn’t even in his top ten highest priorities, but it was there, a small torment among all the great ones. A problem that seemed far more solvable than everything else currently on his plate.

  Not that it would be easy. It wasn’t something he could devote a lot of thought to; he’d try to find the people Niall had listed and bring them in, whether that amounted to sticking them in Order custody, hiding them away in one of those underground sites, or threatening them away from the city. If that failed… Well, the best he could do for them in that case was spare them. Once. It was the only chance they’d get. No other skycloak would tolerate their continued existence, if they were as involved with New Dawn as Niall was, and New Dawn was involved in this attack.

  This was all easier said than done, of course. There was a rather large hurdle to leap before he could even begin to think about devoting any attention to the people he’d promised to spare.

  Lucas squared his shoulders, mentally prepared his arguments, and looked over at Valerie. “Are we going out there?” he said.

  “Yes,” she replied without looking at him. “We’ll have no choice in the matter.”

  “I—” Lucas cut himself off. “Oh. Okay.”