Urla Pelasius dreamed of fiery skies over a dark sea. Wind ripped through her braids, and she clung to her husband’s waist as Voltari shot over a hillside, and the heavens opened up before them. The world stretched to the horizon, infinitely beautiful.

  Her husband’s shaggy dark hair whipped in the wind. The dragon dove, sending a thrill through Urla’s entire body. She shrieked with joy.

  Just before the incredible beast pulled up, Urla woke in her tent back in the Faltari encampment.

  She was jolted from the memory-laced dream, realizing that the shriek had not been her own.

  Urla bolted upright and sprang to her feet, drawing a dagger.

  Shrieks filled the camp.

  Her tent flap shot open, and her young lieutenant Caliphus entered.

  “Lady Consul, you must hurry.”

  “Lieutenant, what is going on? What are those screams?”

  “There’s a fire at the Temple!”

  ***

  By the time, Urla reached the inner village, some of the villagers had managed to douse most of the flames with a mix of water and magic. Dawn was just beginning to creep over the horizon. The nights were so bloody long this far north, even in early autumn.

  The roof of the temple had caved in, and the main worship hall was exposed by a massive hole in the front wall. The street was filled with smoke, and Urla coughed as she hurried over.

  Several soldiers investigated, picking their way carefully amongst smoldering beams. More villagers doused the wood with buckets of water.

  Urla spotted the shaman’s wife, knelt over her husband’s body at the edge of the carnage.

  Joren was barely recognizable, the burns were so extreme. It reminded Urla of the carnage after rains of fire.

  “The Lady Knight was in there,” Caliphus said.

  The answers were fragmentary. Ava Rykus had been found. The shamans were traitors. Salyr and the village elders had confronted them. Caliphus was sent for reinforcements. By the time he came back the temple was ablaze.

  Villagers and soldiers scrambled all around her. Two of the village elders were gravely injured, and Faltari healers were hastily applying spells while both men groaned in pain.

  An impending sense of dread hung over Urla’s perception like a storm as she neared. She marched up to the temple.

  A tall soldier blocked her path. She could not recall his name. He was a transfer after the Sigan campaign.

  “Lady Consul, we haven’t yet determined—”

  She did not wait for the rest. Urla avoided the man and walked through the hole in the temple wall.

  Smoke filled her vision in the low light. All the walls were stained black. One of the supporting pillars had given out, and a section of roof was exposed above it. The far side of the entry hall was completely caved in. Parts of the floor had collapsed too, but she could see a path.

  Shrieks erupted from somewhere down the hall. A crash. A section of roof collapsed deeper in the building.

  Hands seized her, pulled her back.

  “Unhand me!”

  The soldiers pulled her back toward the hole in the wall.

  “My son was in there. I have to—”

  More screams from down the hall.

  Urla slipped from the soldier’s grasp, and stepped further into the room.

  “Urla, wait!”

  A shout from outside. Caliphus. Only he would be so bold as to use her first name.

  She turned to find Caliphus holding onto the shaman’s wife. The woman was shackled. Urla hadn’t noticed that when she passed moments ago.

  “Consul Pelasius,” Madri said. “Your son isn’t there.”

  “Where is he?” she demanded, rage overwhelming her.

  “Please come out of there,” Madri said. “And I will tell you all what happened this night.”

  ***

  Ava’s leg hadn’t hurt this bad since her Desert trial at the academy.

  They’d been slogging through the woods for nearly an hour. Ulgar led them straight up the steep sides of the fjord. The skies were dark with thick clouds, or perhaps it was smoke, but slowly, the night seeped into the pre-dawn gloom as they climbed.

  For a while, Ava heard voices. Shouts echoing on the wind, coming from the village. Sometimes, they sounded close, but Ulgar insisted they were far ahead and it was just a trick of the mountains.

  They pressed on. It was all Ava could do not to fall behind even while Malik and Yuri were carrying an unconscious Ruan with no stretcher. The shaman’s sister remained close to her brother’s side.

  Ava brought up the rear. The pain in her leg was a constant agony, even with a makeshift cane Ulgar had fashioned from a socha branch.

  Everything smelled like smoke and singed hair. She had burns on her ankles and arms, but they didn’t seem to be severe.

  All she could do was focus on the next step and the next, and try to numb her mind to the discomfort.

  They approached the crest of a steep embankment, and all at once, her foothold was gone and she was tumbling. Sliding.

  Ava heaved her body, scraping her arm as she fought to remain on her front. She latched on to an exposed tree root and stopped, heart pounding.

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  She bit the inside of her lip to stop from screaming. The others came rushing down. A hand brushed her shoulder. Warmth spread over her leg, and then a blessed numbness.

  “I’m sorry I’m no help with old wounds,” Malik said. “But that should ease the burns a little.”

  The shaman hadn’t spoken a word to anyone since they exited the tunnel beneath the village. Ava could feel intense emotion radiating from his spirit.

  Surel knelt by Ava’s side, her hand at her back to steady her. Gods, she hated the attention, but there was nothing for it now. Speed was the utmost necessity, and she was spent.

  “We’re nearly there,” Ulgar said, motioning them up the mountain. “We must hurry before daybreak.”

  Malik and Surel helped Ava to her feet, and they were moving again.

  Her mind reeled at all that had happened last night. The shaman and his wife were captured, possibly dead. And their chances at stealth with this mission to the Spires was entirely lost.

  The Atticans knew Ava had remained behind after the attack.

  She had failed.

  Ulgar stopped at the top of a ridge and peered around.

  “Oh, thank the gods!”

  A woman’s voice. It was startling, but Ava was too tired to jump.

  Ulgar relaxed his shoulders and turned. The woman embraced him. Malik and Yuri set Ruan down on the ground, and the woman knelt immediately to examine him. He hadn’t woken again since they first moved him.

  A minute later Ava and Surel joined them.

  “Olma?” Surel asked.

  “It’s a relief to see you,” Malik said. “She’s the Feathered Serpent clan elder,” he added for Ava’s benefit. She looked familiar. Dimly, Ava recalled her father speaking with the woman during the Festival of the Fading Sun.

  They reached the nook in the mountainside. The elder pulled Surel and then Malik into an embrace.

  “Malik, your parents…”

  The young shaman shook his head. “My father is gone. I felt his spirit untether as we left the village. My mother…” Malik’s voice trembled. “I don’t know. She stayed back so we could escape. She was in great pain. But I lost her resonance. Perhaps she escaped. I don’t know. We couldn’t risk…”

  The anger and sorrow were potent. Ava’s mind clouded at the intensity of his emotion, mixed with her own guilt. It was times like these, she hated her gifts. Her own feelings were enough to bear.

  “The boy?” Olma asked, looking at Ruan.

  Yuri and Ulgar had set him down outside a wooden door set straight into the mountainside.

  “Consul Pelasius’s boy,” Malik said. “My father operated on him last night to repair injuries from the attack. That Lady Knight came to check on him. And all the Abyss was let loose. Anyway, it was either bring him, or let him die in the flames.”

  “You made the right choice,” Olma said.

  Ava could feel the shaman’s uncertainty, though he did not voice it. Everything had been a matter of moments.

  A tinge of shame reddened Malik’s cheeks, and Ava felt a wall go up in his mind.

  “And you,” the elder woman said, her piercing gaze settling last on Ava. “The Valucian rebel’s daughter.”

  It was not anger in her voice. Ava sensed no tell from her spirit. The woman was well-trained, like Malik had been the day they’d met. Olma stepped closer, and peered into Ava’s eyes.

  “My, you look so much like her…”

  “Like her… you knew my…”

  Olma nodded. “Elora?”

  “How?” Malik asked.

  The elder smiled. “Your father isn’t the only person on the island who had a life-altering uhmskara back in their youth. Yes, I knew your mother long ago. Your father, too, though he barely remembers me. Still, it was enough to find him when the gods demanded it.”

  “My fath—” Ava’s voice caught in her throat. “Is he…”

  Olma motioned to the door in the hillside, which seemed to belong to some sort of permanent shelter.

  “Come, all of you.”

  Yuri and Ulgar carried Ruan through the doorway. Then, Malik and Surel. Ava entered last, alone.

  Malik and Yuri rushed forward to greet Riese Torendeil, and Ava’s own father pushed his way toward her.

  Ava could feel his relief wash over her before he reached her. He pulled her into an embrace, and Ava immediately broke into sobs she hadn’t known she was suppressing. She collapsed into her father’s arms.

  “Thank the gods,” he murmured, crying too.

  Olma snickered. “Oh, he thanks them now. But it was all I could do to lead him away, and trust the gods that you would escape from the village to find us. But of course, Ulgar is a fine boy, and the gods are good, so I knew you were in excellent hands.”

  Her father shrugged. “My wife was always more devout, you may recall.” He helped Ava over to a small bed in the corner of the hut, and turned back to the woman.

  “How did you get here?” Ava asked.

  “Olma found us outside the village. Moments before the temple erupted into flames.”

  There was another bed beside hers, and Yuri and Ulgar laid Ruan down. Malik spent some time administering healing spells for Ruan, while Olma did the same for her.

  Then, the whole group gathered around to hear the full tale.

  How Ulgar had seen Aram following Yuri back to the temple, and chose to tell the Serpent clan elder all he knew.

  “Ulgar hurried back to help. And I kept a third eye out for outsiders. I expected Rykus would be returning before the Atticans reached the Spires, if he’d left his daughter behind. Lucky for him there was so much commotion in Yerida, or someone else might have detected him first. But my senses are keen. My mum always said I could’ve been a shaman if I’d been born into it. Anyway, I found Rykus, and much to my surprise, Riese as well. Ulgar did his part to aid the rest of you. And here we all are.”

  The room went silent. They all glanced at one another, the same thought on all their minds.

  “What now?” asked Surel.

  Olma shrugged and turned to Rykus. “Captain?”

  With one hand on Ava’s shoulder, he turned to the others.

  “The gate at the top of your Spires must be destroyed before the empire reaches those eggs. That is the mission. And we can use all the help we can get.”

  Malik and the others nodded.

  But Ava pulled away from her father’s grip. “What about the eggs?”

  Her father shook head. “Plans have changed. We dare not risk a venture into the Abyss itself.”

  “Without more Rebelmounts, we’ll never be able to form a true resistance.”

  Olma scowled. “The Atticans will make the journey quickly after what’s happened. If you go after the eggs, you’ll risk failing this entire mission.”

  “And the entire rebellion,” Ava’s father said. “Olma’s right. And the council agrees.”

  “The council wouldn’t know a wise plan if it hit them in the nethers,” Ava shot back.

  Olma bit back a smirk.

  Her father shook his head. “If we fail, Ava, we’ll have no chance of winning Elya’s support. Without further aid, we stand no chance of taking on Attica. Even with a few more Rebelmounts. But if we can cut off their power…”

  Ava met her father’s gaze. She could feel his fear. There was something, a much greater tragedy than what had happened last night, that lingered in his mind. Clouding his judgment. He pulled back, sensing her magic intrusion.

  “What aren’t you telling me?” she demanded.

  “Ava, now’s not the—”

  “Father, what happened while you were away. “I’ve never known you to take the safe path. I deserve to know why you’re insisting on it now.”

  He grimaced. “We have a mission to complete, Ava. That is all that—”

  “Your island,” said Riese. “It is gone.”

  “Gone?” said Ava, feeling a surge of pent up rage in her father’s mind at the words.

  “The Dragonmounts burned it to the ground,” Riese continued. “In retaliation for the first eggs you stole.”

  “The entire island?” Ava asked.

  Her vision swam, picturing the rocky beaches and lush hillsides of her girlhood, engulfed in flames.

  Her father held her gaze, eyes misty. “Every village. Every home. Every gods-damned structure, and every person within. The people who served our family, our cause, though few knew the extent of it. All our people are dead. The will of the Dragon Emperor.”

  “Father, I—”

  He cradled the side of her cheek and looked in her eyes. “We cannot afford to fail, Ava. ?rithèa stands on the brink of another Age of Fire.”

  Ava gripped his trembling hand. She drew on no magic, but she could not shake her resolve. “You told me rebellion was a fool’s errand without Elyan aid. But even if we destroy the source of their power, they still have dozens of Dragonmounts. Do you really think it will be enough for Elya to risk their own future? Their Flying Armada?”

  Silence fell over the room once more.

  “She’s right, you know.”

  Ava’s heart leapt at the voice.

  Ruan raised himself to sit up in his bed. He squinted as he took in his surroundings. Malik came to his side.

  “You’ve been unconscious for two days,” the shaman said. “Swelling in the brain. My father operated last night.”

  “Before the fire,” Ruan said.

  Malik nodded.

  Ruan did not seem to notice. He turned his head, still squinting.

  “You remember the fire?” Ava asked.

  “I was in and out of things for a long time. Sometimes it was dream, sometimes reality. Sometimes something in between.” He turned his head. “For awhile, it was hard to discern which from which. Until I figured out that it was reality that was pitch dark.”

  Ava’s body felt cold and hollow. “Ruan, what’s wrong?”

  His face was expressionless. Even after days of unconsciousness and pain and trauma, he remained so composed. So Fjuriin.

  “I... I think I’ve gone blind.”