“Why don’t we just run for it?” Hawk whispered, as the number of refugees against the spire increased.

  “Because there is a more important question here: Why are they not running for it. Your people are welcoming towards the refugee—at least, you are in my experience,” he added, as Hawk choked on the concept a little bit. “You aren’t shooting at them, you’re offering blankets and food, and are making an effort to get the handful you can out. That’s far more than most would do. So why aren’t they running for your general’s welcoming arms?”

  Hawk had to give him the point. She surveyed the bleak passage between her and the road home. It was perhaps the size of a football field, surrounded by Argon’s people and filling, not slowly, with the broken people whose homes he had burned out. It gave the appearance of being herded, being pushed or swept along. As if this was where they wanted the refugees to go. Anyone else, she would have guessed that the refugees were unwanted, and this was Argon’s way of saying “Don’t let the Rift hit you in the ass on the way out.” But these were worshippers, too. Why—

  Her curiosity was ended rather abruptly when a family of four, one adult and three children, suddenly made a break for the Temple. The adult left off from their little group and, clutching a child under each arm, began to run as if they were chased by a Shadowcat. A child just old enough to be trusted with their own direction followed. They ran across the burned-out moss, the smoke of dying embers rising around them hellishly. They reached for the temple spire, which was unburned. They rushed for the green star-moss growing between the glowing stones. They raced for the water pouring crystal and clear down the spire’s sides. They ran for the military, a man and a woman, both with red cross armbands, who were reaching out for the little quartet. For the family.

  Oh god, Hawk thought.

  The embers rose up around them, bursting back to heat and a flame that reached tendrils for the family immediately. The oldest child, the one allowed to run on their own, stumbled and fell into the burning flame assailing them. Cursing, one of the medics lept out from their position before anyone could stop them—the man, it was, his buzz-cut visible in the burst of red light and heat—and grabbed the boy, only to be enveloped by flame himself.

  The flames also danced up the legs of the running woman, who did not scream. Instead she flung off her robes, exposing her face, her identity, for a few heartbeats. Then she dropped one of her children, the heavier of the two, and flung the second at the female medic, who had enough presence of mind to catch. The woman then bent to lift her other child, but it was too late. The flames had curled possessive tongues around them both, and within seconds the screaming had died, and there were, indeed, four skeletal curls that used to be people, three Holian residents and one Earthside medic, all devoured in the time it took to think, run.

  Hawk gagged on her borrowed water and bread, and had to turn to one side to be noisily sick. Fortunately, she was not the only one. Someone within the ranks of Argon’s armies began a hymn, and her borrowed understanding gave her a horrifying reality: it was praise for the burning. Praise for the children, devoured alive. Praise for the mother, named traitor, being ended. Praise him, they sang, in both English and Holian tongue. Praise him, and the flesh was still smoldering in the passage between the refugees and the Temple of Light. Praise him. Praise.

  “That would be why,” The Shadow whispered, to himself.

  “How are we going to get across?” she whispered.

  “Perhaps I give Argon what he wants,” Shadow said, his voice low but not that low. “A confrontation.”

  Hawk ignored this. “Can we wait for Illyris to arrive with her army?”

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  “We could be waiting forever. She may have agreed to assist us because she wanted us gone. Remember, with her type, the deed is her word. Actually doing what she promised? That’s a bit out of character.”

  She looked across the way, where more soldiers were setting up shop. With guns. The surviving medic and several others of her ilk were all herded further up the spire. A rising rumble of malcontent—of despair, she thought silently—rippled through the people massing in Argon’s field of war. He wanted them there. He did not want them to leave.

  “He’s going to turn them all into Embers, isn’t he?” Hawk said, as she finally understood his motive. “As soon as Earthside attacks, or he decides to, he’s going to murder them all to be his first wave of troops.”

  “Aye. You’ve seen it true.” Shadow said. “Tis why I think I will be giving Argon what he wants. Single combat, at the cost of as many of those desperate children as you and yours can hurl up that spire.

  “Nothing doing,” Hawk insisted. “You said it yourself. He’d kill you.”

  “No. He’d just take me down to nothing but my Orb, and maybe eat a bit more of me as compensation. You’d find me in the discarded dark, and be able to take your piece for Henry. Wouldn’t that please everyone most?” His voice was light, saying these obscenities. How dare he.

  “First, I would be violently unhappy. Second, I have no idea how to resurrect Henry without you. Which means nobody would be happy except Argon, and that’s point three: He doesn’t deserve to be happy. He’s murdering innocent people.”

  The Shadow grumbled to himself slightly, then sighed. “Exceedingly good points, all. That still does not get us—” he stopped, and tilted his head for a moment. And then his smile became absolutely feral. “Oh. Oh my.” His eyes were now fixed above their head.

  Hawk followed his gaze and saw something shimmering, glittering high above their heads. No, not that high, she realized. Much nearer than she thought. She’d given it distance because she couldn’t make sense of the amorphous blob sailing pleasantly above her head. But it was just a blob. A globe of…

  “Water,” She whispered.

  “Indeed. Faster than I thought. Come, hurry,” And he pulled Hawk towards the clot of refugees. “She won’t harm them,” was his whispered excuse.

  The water continued to glide overhead, like shapeless birds. It came in globules each the size of a man’s head, burbling and drifting and glinting with what little light there was. She swallowed as those globes of water began to gather in a very specific pattern, right above the refugees.

  Don’t notice, she willed towards Argon. Don’t see. No one look up. Because once he sees, once he knows, he will have to do something about it. She clenched her fists tight against her borrowed clothes, her heart banging hard in her chest as, bit by bit, the water pooled high in midair.

  It was about the size of half the main refugee gathering when an outcry began in Argon’s force. And suddenly the flames began leaping again, surging up through the eternal embers Argon kept alive for this very purpose. Tongues of flame once more lashed hungrily at the air, and people began to scream…soon they would begin to burn.

  The water suddenly surged together, faster than before. As if the purpose of a sneak attack had been lost, and now it was all for speed. The source of water was too much for Hawk to guess at. Maybe Illyris used the Shadow’s trick of pulling water from life. Maybe she used some hidden source nearby. What mattered was there was now nearly a football field’s worth of water, floating directly over their heads.

  And then to her horror, the embers nearest her flared white. She could feel the fire as it came alight, feel it in every cell of her body. She was being called towards it, pulled to her death like moths to flame. She grabbed the Shadow’s arm, pulling his attention towards the flame that would, she knew, devour herself down to the bone. It seemed to already inhabit her marrow. Her mouth was dry with her own death.

  “No!” the Shadow shouted, and pulled her around him, deeper into the glut of people they stood beside. This move got her away from the fire with a dreadful ripping sensation, as if she were leaving her own skeleton behind, but it got her away from the flame. But it was worse in another way. Panic had hit the clot of people and it responded by drawing closer together, individual actions losing their potency as the crowd changed to more of a crush. She was caught in this sea of people and dragged away from the Shadow. Her grip on his arm was no match for the strength of several thousand people caught in the mouth of panic. And there were more embers glowing, flaming, roaring to life. Heat was everywhere and everything, growing more and more oppressive by the minute.

  “Please!” She screamed up, her voice joining the thousand-strong throng. She did not know to whom or what she pleaded. Only that if she didn’t, she was going to die. “Please! We’re going to burn!”

  And at that perfect moment, the water overhead began to fall.