Burn the Skies

by K. A. Wiggins

  He reaches gingerly, poised to catch me when I inevitably sag to the floor. But the chain of energy keeps humming even when we’re not touching, passing from him to Ange, Ange to me, and on the other side, flowing in from Ravel.

  “You—your hands—” Ash inches further away, evidently growing more confident I’m not about to crash to my knees. “Your powers came back?”

  I study the glowing threads. “Something came back, anyway.”

  “Can I put my arm down now?” Ravel says.

  “Not a chance. Here—take her hand.”

  He huffs but extends a hand to a woman standing a few feet away. She blushes, looking around as if this might be a good time to run away from the crazy people. But then she reaches back, her energy fizzing through him to me.

  He might not know her, but I do. I know each and every one of them, the survivors. It’s more than I can keep in my head, all the minutia of their lives and deaths and the dreams that transcend both, but traces remain.

  I smile, trying to be reassuring. She looks away, but she doesn’t let go. And the threads I lent her buzz with every ounce of the energy I spent weaving her hopes and fears and longings back into the fabric of her soul.

  There is more power in just these four than I could have ever imagined. And there are dozens more like them. Hundreds.

  But is it enough power to turn back a volcano?

  “We need to get out of the city. Now.” Reluctantly, I release all the threads but Ash’s, sagging at the sudden drain. Some of the energy must have, I don’t know, recharged me or something, though, because at least now I'm standing on my own.

  I flap both hands at a room full of blank stares. “Now would be good. That’s right. Everyone. All together. Right now. Off we go.”

  Once they get moving, it’s not so bad. We pick up steam and more bodies as we go. Children. Workers. Underfolk. We even snatch armfuls of supplies when they’re along our route. There are some who refuse to follow; division heads who try to order us back to prison, dull-eyed workers clinging to their consoles, unwilling or unable to understand that their devotion to regulation no longer serves any purpose, angry enforcers who have to be disarmed. I don’t like leaving anyone behind, not when I know what’s coming. But we can’t slow down to persuade everyone. It’s all we can do to try to help those who’ll let us.

  By the time we’re wading from the newly barrier-free tunnel through a soggy stretch of low tide, the crowd is mostly even on the same page about what comes next. Which is good because I don’t have time to explain it from the start to the waiting refugees, not to mention the squads from Nine Peaks and a city’s worth of drones, rebels, and everything in between.

  We only have one shot at this. I’m not even sure what this is. Only that something’s happening, something exponential—and tapping into our power together is our only hope of surviving what comes next.

  It starts with a tremor. Pebbles rattle on the beach—but when hundreds of feet are shifting and scuffing along, that’s hardly a surprise. The waves are more telling. The sea creatures stop watching curiously from the sidelines and start swimming—away. Even I can tell the water shouldn’t be moving like that.

  “Earthquake,” Ash murmurs.

  “I thought we were expecting a volcano?”

  He shrugs. “It’s a more complex process than you would think.”

  “Better get started, then.”

  But we both hesitate. I’ve lost him once already today. If this doesn’t work, he won’t be coming back from a second death. None of us will.

  “You’ve got this,” he says, brushing calloused fingers against my cheek. “But, just in case. Whatever happens. Wherever we end up. I’ll find you again.”

  I nod, catching my breath at the heat in his touch. Then he goes. I won’t stand shoulder to shoulder with him, or Ravel, or Ange, or any of my other friends, surrounding myself instead with those I’ve only ever met on the other side. Many of these people have no idea I saved their lives not two hours ago. They have no reason to recognize or trust me.

  But they recognize the mercurial founder of Freedom and heir to Refuge and move to obey his orders out of fear, if not awe. Ange has pull with this crowd, too, well known and trusted throughout Under as well as, to a lesser extent, with some of those from Freedom and the streets. Liwan gathers the young rebels from both the tower and the tunnels, and Ash’s words are enough to bring the Nine Peaks contingent into the circle. They’re each needed elsewhere. And I need to focus.

  I don’t know how much power this will take, or if we even have a chance. But whether we live out this day or die, it’ll be together.

  Besides, if we weren’t holding each other up, the shuddering earth would have us flat on our faces by now.

  Haynfyv works his way through the crowd, murmuring apologies for those unfortunate enough to be in the path of his elbows. “Do they need to hold hands?”

  “Huh?”

  He peers down at me. “Judging by your agents’ movements and the present environmental disturbance we are in imminent peril. And the strategy that suggests the greatest chance of success involves gathering in close proximity. I’m offering to lend my aid in whichever way you deem best suited to the occasion. Now: do you need people to join hands, or is proximity sufficient?”

  I grab his hand—for balance. The earth seems to be trying to yank itself out from under me. “You don’t actually remember anything, do you?”

  “I’ll take that as confirmation. You: hand,” he barks at the man standing beside him, and then the next one down the line.

  “It’s coming,” Ash shouts from somewhere in the crowd.

  The water is roiling in front of us, thick clouds of steam hissing into the air. If this doesn’t work, it’s anyone’s guess whether we’ll boil or suffocate first. I reach for the threads. First to those nearest me, and then through their neighbours, the call reverberates out.

  The very air seems to come alive with the response. Energy crackles through each strand as it finds my fingers. The sudden force almost breaks my grip. Each and every sliver of myself I’ve given away seems to be finding its way back now with twice—no, dozens of times the energy I spent healing the victims of the Mara. I feel amazing.

  A thin sheen of silver ripples from my hands to my neighbours, and to their neighbours. Instead of using this power to cross over to the safety of that other reality, where the crowd cannot follow, I yank the shielding silver manifestation of a dreamwalkers’ power into the waking world.

  When Ash realizes what I’m doing, he pushes back through the crowd to reposition the gifted from Nine Peaks, spacing them evenly around the perimeter. They tap into the dreamscape one after another, distinctive frissons of energy forming a series of anchors to weave my impromptu barrier around. A living barrier this time, not made of pulverized elements and shattered souls, but woven of life shared and returned. A feedback loop powered by hundreds of separate sources.

  It’s more than I dared hope for. But is it enough?

  The earth shivers beneath us. The air is thick with choking fumes. The water boils, followed by the land. Deep crimson and flaming gold spark from the heart of the city and fling chunks of it into the air. They batter the surface of our misty shell. I strain, pushing it out another inch, two, a hands-breadth, an arms-length. But the drain of every flaming missile is tangible. Each scorching coal seems as if it rakes across my skin, even as each terrified cry from those on the outer edges echoes in my head.

  Together, we’re more than I ever could have imagined. But if I crumble under this assault, the few dreamwalkers scattered among the crowd may manage to survive, but they won’t be able to shield the powerless.

  Now the city is burning. The sea itself is boiling. And friends and strangers alike are about to lose not just their homes but their lives.

  “On the plus side, you’ve spared us all an eternity of undead torment, so there is that,” Cadence says.

  There is that.

  Sweat tri
ckles into my eyes. My knees tremble. There is a resistance, now, when I draw on the power running through the threads, a sort of tension that warns I won’t be able to keep on at this rate much longer. It’s like all my efforts to heal had been sequestering energy, but now I’m drawing those reserves down to the dregs—and soon, I’ll hit bottom.

  “Dark much?” Cadence laughs.

  “What do you want? Sunshine and rainbows? Just look at it! Everything’s getting destroyed! Where are all these people supposed to live, huh? No homes. Nothing left alive. Even the sea is ruined.”

  Squishy wobbles against me.

  “Oh. Um. Sorry. I’m sure it’s not the whole sea. Just, you know. This bit.”

  I try not to think of the creatures getting boiled alive under the waves. At least there wasn’t much growing around us on the shore to get ruined.

  That’s when it splits open beneath us.

  Chapter 34: Eruption

  My fingers slip. The ground drops out.

  “Are you stupid?” Cadence yells.

  I’m scrambling too fast to argue, snatching at loose threads no one else can see, shifting the energy of the mist to cover a crowd crumbling apart as we speak.

  Ash and the others do their best to organize the chaos, hauling people out of fissures and herding them back together so no one slips out of my reach. Children to the center, dreamwalkers and healthy adults to the outer edges.

  But another tremor like that, or the worsening heat, or a renewed storm of scorching hail . . . We can’t survive this without help, and I’m out of tricks.

  Fluffy nudges me, looping a soft, fibrous tendril around my wrist.

  “Not now.” I block out the choking smoke and focus on keeping my grip on hundreds of threads at once.

  The treespawn nudges harder.

  “What are you—”

  The little creature drops, its thin tendril unspooling to maintain contact with my wrist as it tumbles into a crack in the earth. The scorching, gnashing, lava-fissured earth.

  Trees are made of wood. They burn.

  “Fluffy!” I drop to my knees, lunging after the little wood-grained knot, but it’s already gone. Everything but that one thin strand. And no matter how I yank on it, it doesn’t budge.

  The earth trembles again. I brace myself for the tremor, pushing power we can’t afford to waste into extending our shell of protection beneath our feet to keep anyone from falling this time. But the sudden, violent jolt doesn’t arrive. New cracks aren’t splitting the earth. There’s just a slow, steady creaking as the existing fissures narrow. And seal.

  Leaving Fluffy locked in the earth.

  I dig my fingers into the dirt where its lonely remaining tendril vanishes. Something pushes back. A lot of somethings.

  Soft green sprouts spring up underfoot. One shoots up taller, a young plant, then not so young. A sapling, thickening as I stare. A tiny yet grizzled form steps out from its smooth bark and cocks its head, looking up at me. It spreads both forelimbs. Fluffy is almost too big for it to hold.

  “Did you do all this?” I reach for the wooden knot. It extends a sleepy loop and clings to my arm. The forest creature steps back into its sapling, leaving the treespawn behind. “You’re holding the earth together for us? Isn’t it hot?”

  Fluffy grumbles and squirms in a pleased sort of way, but its smooth brown whorls and satiny curves are looking a little charred around the edges.

  And the few extra moments’ safety the forest has bought us, though appreciated, doesn’t change anything. The city is still burning, melted slag mixing with lava and hissing into the boiling sea. The young dreamwalkers seeded around our perimeter are flickering and going dark one by one as they burn through their reserves and run dry.

  The ordinary humans are worn out too, leaning against one another or sprawled on the renewed ground, despite its growing heat. Fluffy’s miraculous ground cover is already withering.

  Squishy steams gently, and even my sweat is starting to evaporate. I can’t draw enough power to push back the heat, not if I want the dreamscape’s protective mist to last more than another few minutes.

  The seaspawn flicks a wavelet at Fluffy as if in farewell. It melts, losing its shape and patters down on the wilting sprouts at my feet.

  A fine rain spatters across my face. The roiling sea surges, a fresh current sweeping in high from the far side of the inlet. The waves calm, steam hissing up from the points where molten rock still invades the newly cooled water.

  Squishy coalesces on my shoulder, giving me a damp nudge before sloshing down to cuddle with Fluffy. The newest member of their uncanny little trio hovers uncertainly near my face.

  I blink at it, considering. The other two seem tired but unharmed by their efforts to protect us. “Well? What do you do?”

  Puffy gives a little roll in midair. Then it, well, puffs apart. A breeze filters through the crowd, cool and heavy with the lingering remnants of Squishy’s rain. It sweeps the remaining smoke from the air, leaving it sweet and clear.

  The fog-creature spins itself back into a visible mass and bobs at me hopefully.

  “Very nice. Now if you can just keep that up for . . .” How long do we still have to hold out? The rumbling underfoot has calmed, but outside our little oasis of protection the volcano still churns, throwing chunks of earth into the sky, spitting fingers of flame, coughing fresh smoke in our direction. It’s nowhere near done yet.

  The energy I can draw from the crowd is guttering. I lock my knees to keep from falling as the manifesting dreamscape sucks at the last of our reserves. It is not going to be enough to just shelter from the storm. If I can’t find a way to stop the volcano itself, none of us will survive.

  “I don’t suppose one of you could do something about that?” I eye my unexpected allies doubtfully.

  The forest’s gift doesn’t bother answering, clearly weak against the fire. The sea’s wobbles uncertainly, but judging by the state of the inlet, its waters can only do so much. The sky’s is tracing lazy figure eights in midair—I’m not entirely sure it’s even listening.

  But I already knew the answer before I asked. There’s no last-minute rescue waiting in the wings. I’ll fight until the end, of course. It’s just . . . It won’t be long now—

  “So, uh, the self-sacrifice shtick is cute and all, but I have a better idea,” Cadence says. “Why don’t you give me your anchor?”

  “My what?”

  “Fluffy. Ugh, I cannot believe you named it that. Whatever. Just gimme the tree thingy, and the other two, and I’ll see what I can do.”

  “About what?”

  “Are you stupid? I’m gonna stop that volcano.”

  “Cadence, stop distracting her,” Ash says.

  I twist to acknowledge the backup with a nod—and the world goes glittery around the edges.

  There’s a slow, grey moment. My stomach dips, turning sour. I’m somehow freezing and feverish at the same time.

  Then I’m sitting in the middle of a ring of worried faces with silver mist leaking from my fingers.

  “I think this is it, C.” Ash tries for a smile. It doesn’t go well.

  “Yuck. I mean, sure, go ahead,” Cadence complains. “Have your tearful goodbye scene if you must. Or you could give me your toys and let me save the world for a change.”

  I go to rub my head, remember halfway that I was supposed to be doing something, and reach for the web of threads woven through the crowd. The pulse of energy in return is sluggish, the resulting layer of mist stretched thin, but I can cover everyone still, if only just.

  “It’s okay,” Ash says bravely. “You tried. You can let it go now.”

  “Or, again, you could stop ignoring me,” Cadence insists.

  “Yeah, it’s not like power totally goes to your head or anything,” Ravel says, popping out from the crowd with Ange in tow. “Might as well party on at the end of the world, right?”

  But his smirk is forced, and Ange’s expression tense.

  “We�
��ve made sure the kids are in the middle,” she says. “They’ll have the best chance of surviving. One of your young ones”—she nods at Ash—“will guide them north later if—if they can . . .”

  She swallows hard, looking away.

  “Again. Hi. Right here. Offering to save the world.” Cadence says. “What’s the worst that can happen? You all gonna die twice or what?”

  I blink. She’s not wrong, but—“What’s in it for you? You let half these people die once already. What’s different this time?”

  “Do we have time to rehash the sins of Cady? No? Cool, let’s move on. Gimme the sprites. I’ll say “please” if it helps.”

  “Will you really?” Ravel snarks back, apparently unable to help himself.

  “Well, not to you. Cole, I know how you just love the limelight and all, but how about instead of martyrdom you just let me have this?”

  I pant, shaking my head against the stars dancing at the edge of my vision. I can’t catch my breath. The world keeps greying out around me, except that’s not right, is it? It’s not the world but me that’s fading.

  Cadence won’t stop pestering me to the last. It’s nice to know some things never change, I guess. But— “Why are you still here? I know you don’t have to be. You can run away to the other side anytime you want.”

  “Would you let me?” Her voice is hushed, as if she doesn’t want the others to overhear. “Will you let me go now, Cole? I saw you free them, you know. Mom and dad. If you’d be okay with me hiding out in the dreamscape, you should be able to let me go for real. Please. You don’t need me anymore.”

  I stammer, breathless and dizzy, straining for the words to express how shocked, how absurd her—

  “Don’t. I stayed for you. Set me free now, Cole.”

  Maybe it’s because I’m tapped into the dreamscape. Maybe it’s some trick of the mist and the dregs of the crowd’s power boost, but I can almost see her: a child with wild hair and a lace-like birthmark a few shades darker than the rest of her skin framing deep brown eyes. She holds out a hand. There’s apology in her face, and regret, but that hand is imperious.