The world was searing heat and blinding fury. The Lady Knight was gone. Joren did not know where. But she’d left her mark on him in the end. As the flames erupted from the other side of the temple, Salyr had attacked.

  With all his remaining strength, Joren resisted the powerful Knight of Caadron one last time. It was not enough.

  Salyr had dealt a devastating wound to Joren’s shoulder, her godblade piercing straight through bone and sinew. His entire right side was completely useless. Arm hanging at his side, hand dragging, as he crawled across the blazing central hall, trying to find an escape from the consuming smoke and flame.

  The hish was completely drained from his spirit, and he felt pain beyond anything he’d ever felt in his life.

  A section of roof collapsed near the hall. The heart of the blaze. Distant shouts and screams drifted from somewhere beyond his clouded vision. He could not sense anything any longer. As though his spiritual sight had vanished. His own spirit already fading from this world.

  Joren’s eyes watered. The entire temple chamber was engulfed in flames. Joren thought he had nearly reached the hole in the wall where he’d launched the knight.

  Distant shouts. He felt a dim sense of hish around him as villagers attempted to ward back the flames. No one dared venture inside.

  Joren wished he could draw some of that breath of the gods for himself, but his spirit was too spent. Through the smoke, he finally found the edge of the room.

  And realized with numbing horror, that he’d found the wrong wall.

  Flames shot up tapestries, along walls. The toppled visage of the All Father was ablaze.

  Screams.

  God’s breath! Elder Dannsein!

  The man was still pinned beneath the statue. Joren did not know if either of them had any prayer of escape, but he knew he could not abandon the elder.

  Pain lancing up the right side of his body, Joren dragged himself closer to the statue.

  His skin was so hot, Joren feared it might melt straight off his bones.

  “Thank—the gods!” Dannsein coughed, tears streaking down his cheeks. The man had managed to form a ward around himself, but his spiritual strength was waning.

  Joren’s pain had grown distant, numbing, a spiritual practice cultivated across his lifetime to control his own mind’s awareness. Though it would not help the damage to his body.

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  Somehow, he kept moving, and that was all that mattered.

  Joren lifted his voice as loud as he could. “When I say, withdraw your ward. Focus all your hish on the statue.”

  “But it’s on fire!”

  “It will burn us both! But I cannot lift it alone.” Joren positioned himself, with his left boot braced against the body of the statue. His mental shield evaporated at once. The heat was agonizing, and he could ignore it no longer.

  “Now!” Joren screamed.

  Joren heaved his left leg with all his remaining strength, and Dannsein pushed with all the magic he could muster.

  The statue rolled off the elder’s chest, down his legs. Dannsein screamed, still pinned. Joren repositioned himself and shoved with his left foot.

  His entire body was pain and exhaustion.

  But at last, Dannsein’s legs slipped free. He brushed flames from his pants and scrambled to his feet. He grabbed Joren’s shoulder and tried to lift him up.

  “Come on, shaman!”

  Joren slumped on the ground. Mind, body, spirit, all were utterly spent.

  His vision blurred in the heat. Joren tried to roll himself over, but he could barely move his legs. His boots were tatters. His right side was immovable.

  “Get out!” Joren’s voice croaked.

  “You saved my life, I’m not leaving you, shaman.”

  Joren tried to move his body again, Dannsein pulling at his shoulder. The first try, nothing.

  “Go, damn you!” Joren yelled.

  Dannsein heaved at Joren’s body, and his vision swam as his body lurched.

  Joren rolled. Pain shot up his injured arm. Hands gripped his shoulders. Too many hands.

  Joren’s eyes stung, but he knew his wife’s spirit anywhere. Even here, at the end.

  She pulled his face to look at her. Flames glanced off her body like a shower of water, her magic warding off the conflagration.

  “Don’t you dare give up!” she shouted. “Help me, Dannsein.”

  Together, they took hold of his arms. Pain rippled through Joren’s bones, down the entire right side of his body.

  But Joren jerked to his feet, and they were moving. One foot. Then another. Dragging.

  A crunch behind them. Sparks flying around like flecks of stars. And Joren stumbled.

  Dannsein’s hand slipped away. The man screamed.

  Madri turned, and Joren’s legs gave out. He slumped onto his face.

  Madri rushed to ward off the flames from Dannsein’s clothes. She cried out in pain, unable to draw enough hish to protect them all.

  Through the smoke and the tears, Joren saw the gap in the wall, feet away. They were so close.

  Another crash.

  And Joren’s head thudded against the floor. His back seared with unbearable pain. Something on top of him.

  Dannsein blurred past him and leapt through the opening in the wall.

  Joren’s vision roiled like waves in a storm.

  His spirit was slipping away. He saw everything as though he were floating above his own body, pinned to the floor by a fallen rafter. The heat was gone. The pain ebbed away.

  A hand gripped his own, and he was back beneath the flaming beam, again. But he felt nothing. Only warmth. No pain.

  His wife heaved against the beam. Her skin bubbled with burns, her magic unable to ward it off any longer.

  “Get out, Madri!”

  It came out so softly he was not sure he’d managed to voice the words.

  His love’s face twisted with horror. Madri heaved at the beam again.

  “Go! Please!”

  “Never.”

  Joren brushed up against her spirit. Managing one last whisper of hish, as he slipped into the Beyond.

  There were no words.

  Only love. That was all that was left of his existence in this life.

  Madri released his hand, her gaze finding his one last time.

  And then, she was gone, and there were only flames.