“What? Why?”
“The magic flowing into them is a constant distraction,” Syan said. “You won’t be able to focus so long as it’s there.”
“I…well…okay.” Ellarion sighed and folded his hands together. With that hiss and crackle, they tumbled down into the ground, leaving his wrists bare.
“Good,” Syan said, then reached out with both of her hands, wrapping them around Ellarion to rest on his diaphragm. “Breathe.”
“What?”
“Just breathe.”
Ellarion inhaled deeply, then let it out. “Good,” Syan said, pressing her hand firmly against him, moving it in and out. “Now again. Slower. Deeper. Breathe in and out.”
“Okay, but I d—”
“Shh,” she cut in. “Now. Look at the zaryas. Focus on them. Let them become the only thing in the world. Let everything else fade away. The ground beneath them. The log behind them. The whole world. Let it dissolve.”
Ellarion’s tongue poked out beneath his upper lip in concentration, and his gaze narrowed. Syan kept her hand where it was, and he kept taking those breaths, and as she spoke, her voice felt mesmerizing, hypnotic. “Good. Keep breathing. Keep focusing. And as the world melts away, let yourself melt away as well. Let go of that pain. Let go of that anger. Let go of Ellarion Volaris.” I wasn’t even the one up there, but I could feel my heart starting to race, my skin prickle with goose bumps. “Let go of everything but the zarya.”
Ellarion’s nostrils flared and his chest heaved up and down. His brow furrowed. A sweat drop streaked down his forehead. The air around him seemed to stiffen and crackle, nearly invisible fissures wavering in the light. I scooted forward on the log, barely realizing I was holding my breath….
But for all of that, the zaryas still didn’t move.
After a minute, Syan stepped back, letting go of Ellarion’s chest. He let out a harsh sound, somewhere between an exhale and a groan, and wiped the sweat off his brow. “It didn’t work.”
“I’m sorry.”
He shook his head. “No. It’s fine. A first try. No one gets anything on their first try.” He paused. “Please. Just…let me keep trying. I’m sure I can figure it out.”
Nothing about Syan’s expression gave any indication that she thought that was true, but she nodded nonetheless. “As you wish.”
We rode on. There’s this haze that comes from days of riding, where the thoughts bouncing around your head blur with the gentle bobbing of your horse, where minutes blur into hours and time loses all meaning, where you blink and suddenly it’s nighttime and you’re miles from where you thought you were. I hit that headspace maybe three days into our journey, zoning out for huge stretches, snapping out of it only when we made camp or when someone shouted my name at least three times.
There were little things I did notice, though. Gradually, the lanky forests I’d gotten used to faded away, clearing out for wide hills and open sky. There was still vegetation here, scatterings of bushes and short, stubby trees breaking up the stretches of brown dirt. Here and there, tall pillars reached out of the ground like stalagmites, culminating in flat, smooth plateaus. There were few signs of life, though, outside of the occasional bounding hare or grazing sheep or the screeching hawks circling overhead. This was a badlands, Lyriana had explained. Most of the civilization was further west, along the Adelphus, which was also not coincidentally where the war was raging.
I didn’t mind. There was something soothing about this place, its stillness, its quiet. At night, curled up against Zell, I’d stare up at that infinite spread of stars, a hundred thousand diamonds glistening in a sea of darkness, and almost feel at peace.
After a week on the trail, we began getting nearer to the Adelphus’s eastern branch. I could hear the rushing of the river faintly, like a whistling breeze that just wouldn’t stop. Signs of civilization began to crop up again: an abandoned barn here, the faded cobblestone of an old road there. I figured that would be a good sign that we were close to the village of Torrus, where my father’s contacts would help us. But his expression was just going from grim to grimmer.
“Something’s wrong,” he said at last. It was late afternoon, the setting sun painting the sky a dusky orange.
“What are you talking about?” Ellarion asked.
My father squinted toward the horizon, at the incline of a wide hill. “We’re a mile from Torrus, two at most. We should’ve seen someone by now. Scouts, merchants, something.” He reached a finger out into the air, then tasted it. His expression somehow got even grimmer. “Ash.”
We all looked at each other uneasily, sharing that same sinking dread. I felt the hairs on my arms stand on end, and a cold chill ran down my spine. It wasn’t too late to turn back. To look for another way. Maybe even to head back to Galen. But we rode on, cresting that hill, and saw the town of Torrus.
I wish we’d turned back.
Torrus was a quaint little fishing village, home to maybe a hundred, built up alongside the bank of the Adelphus. When I say was, I’m emphasizing the past tense, because all that was left of it was a scorched ruin. The entire town had been razed, leaving just a few blackened posts and frames, the skeletal remains of the houses that had once been. Flaky ash coated the ground, fluttering here and there like a snowfall. The broken husks of boats littered the river’s bank. The town’s gate remained, a wide arch, and a half-dozen bodies hung off it, their faces burned beyond recognition. Above them, on the gate’s wooden frame, words were carved in a crude scrawl: DEATH TO TRAITORS.
We rode down in silence. The town had been razed some time ago, but the air was heavy with that suffocating smoky smell. Ash crunched under our horse’s hooves. Lyriana clutched a hand over her mouth, looking like she was about to be sick. Ellarion’s eyes burned furiously. Zell just had that expression, that hard stare, the look that meant there was a fury raging inside him and he was doing everything he could to keep it down.
Syan reached out, touching a jagged post that might have once been a family’s home. Her fingers came back coated in ash. “Zastroya,” she whispered.
It took us getting to the center of town, a sprawling courtyard around a blackened ring of stones, before anyone else spoke. Ellarion. He turned around slowly, and forced his words out through gritted teeth. “Kent. What in the frozen hell is the meaning of this?”
“It must have happened after Miles betrayed me,” my father said, and even he looked ready to scream. “His men must have learned the rebels were based here. But razing the whole village, killing everyone…it’s low, even for them.”
I tried not to look, but I still saw charred bodies in the rubble, scorched shriveled frames, men, women, children. Some of them so small. I hadn’t seen anything like this since the bombing at the Godsblade. “It feels pretty on point to me,” I said softly.
“They’ll pay for this,” Lyriana said. “All of them.”
“You lured us here,” Ellarion grumbled, and I’m pretty sure if he could use magic, his hands would be aflame. “You knew, you son of a bitch, but you lied to get us to bring you along….”
“I had no idea…”
“It doesn’t matter,” Zell cut in. His voice was flat, emotionless, which always meant he was at his most emotional. “The question is, what do we do now?”
I followed his gaze, out of the town, toward the Adelphus River. It was bigger here than it had been back in Lightspire, so wide that I had to squint to see the bank of the other side. And it was faster too, the current surging past us with a roar. No way in hell could someone swim across. We’d need a boat, a good one. And considering all the shattered frames lining the shore, the royal soldiers who’d destroyed this village had done a damn good job of making sure there weren’t any left.
“Do we look for another town?” I asked.
“Too dangerous,” my father answered. “If the soldiers have come this far east, they’ve likely hit every town along the river searching for rebels. Best-case scenario, the townsfolk capture us on si
ght and turn us in. Worst-case…” He gestured at the ruins around us.
“What about your power, Syan? That thing you did back in the Skywhale, where you made us appear somewhere else?” Zell asked. “Could you do that to get us to the other side?”
Syan shook her head. “No. It’s too dangerous. I’ve spent too much of my flame already. If I tried, we might end up in the middle of the river. Or in the ground beneath it.”
“Unbelievable. Unbelievable,” Ellarion said. “All the way out here, and we’re blocked by the oldest barrier in the continent.”
I wasn’t giving up that easy. “What about your magic, Lyriana? Couldn’t you, like, Lift us across?”
Lyriana gazed out at the river’s surge. “I don’t know. Lifting five people, including myself, and carrying us that distance…it’d be extremely difficult. Maybe impossible. There’s a reason Mages don’t fly, you know.”
I hadn’t actually put much thought into it, but I guess that made sense.
“I could try,” Ellarion said, and it was clear even he didn’t really believe it. I’d seen him every morning, practicing with Syan. I’d seen those zaryas lying still.
“But mages do fly,” Zell insisted. “Miles and his bloodmages made that whole metal ship fly. And back in the city, they made those platforms go up and down, the aravins. Couldn’t you do the same with us on a raft?”
“That’s different. They weren’t doing a Lift. That was them working together to manipulate air currents and…” Lyriana stopped. “Oh. Actually…yes. I suppose we could try something like that. But it’ll be difficult to raise us and move us myself. That’s two different Arts.”
“I might be able to help with that,” Syan said. “Taming the wind is one of the first gifts that Torchbearers master. If you can get us into the air, I could try to guide us. I might have enough flame left for that.”
“Might?” I asked. “And if you don’t?”
“Then we crash into the river and drown,” she replied, way too casually.
“Anyone got a better idea?” Zell asked. We all looked back and forth at each other, hoping someone would say something. But no one did. “All right, then. Let’s find ourselves a raft.”
There was no raft, not really, but we found a big wooden platform at the fringes of the town, a building’s wall that was mostly unburned. We carried it down to the river’s edge, laid it flat on the bank, and loaded it with necessities: a few days’ food, our waterskins, our weapons. After a moment’s debate, we let our horses go, sending them running back into the hills. They deserved better, but we didn’t have a choice. Just getting us across the river would be challenge enough.
By the time we were ready, the sun was halfway down to the horizon, the sky almost red. We huddled up together on the platform, which was barely big enough for all of us to stand together. Lyriana took a few metal rods that Zell had found, and placed them upright against the platform. With a wave of her hands and a brownish glow from her Rings, their bases glowed, fusing them into the wood.
“What’re they for?” I asked
“To hang on to,” Lyriana answered. “It’s going to be a bumpy ride.”
Syan and Lyriana took up positions at the platform’s rear. I reached out and grabbed the nearest rod as tightly as I could. Zell, next to me, did the same, as did Ellarion, grudgingly. My father alone was left at the front, and he hooked the chain binding his wrists around his rod. Seemed a little risky, but it’s not like he’d be able to swim with them anyway.
“Are you ready?” Lyriana asked Syan, and she nodded. Her zaryas lifted up, hovering around her shoulders, spinning in slow, measured rotations. “Titans, grant us this crossing,” Lyriana whispered, and then, with a deep inhale, raised her hands. Her Rings flared a vibrant white. Below us, the platform wobbled, and then lurched up, lifting a good fifteen feet into the air.
I let out a gasp as the thrust tossed me up, then brought me down. The platform buckled beneath us, the wood straining and splintering. Zell sucked in his breath, and Ellarion whispered a prayer to the Titans, the first I’d heard from him since Lightspire fell. I glanced down, over the edge, and saw the ground below us, and the river’s edge.
How had this ever seemed like a good idea?!
“Now!” Lyriana said, and Syan focused hard, brow furrowed. Her hair and tattoos glowed again, but it was a duller glow, faded, like a shirt that had been washed too many times. Her zaryas sprang into action, hovering behind the platform, chasing each other in circles like a pair of flirty birds.
And then the wind rushed, an upswell from below, that pushed the platform forward, out, over the river itself. It lurched, sending us sliding and clutching our rods, but then Lyriana corrected it, grunting and straining, raising her left hand higher than her right. The platform leveled out, and then it sailed forward, over the river.
This was working. It was actually working. “Hold on tight!” Zell yelled, and we kept gliding through the air, like a giant leaf, streaking out over the Adelphus’s surge. Lyriana’s hands clenched tight, her whole body tense as she kept us up, and Syan’s breath came in hard gasps as her zaryas spiraled around, pulling up the gusts of wind to keep us going.
I grinned, despite myself, and next to me, Zell let out a little whoop. “I feel like a girl from a fairy tale,” I said to him. “Like the Princess of Jakar, who sailed around the world on a flying carpet….”
“That was always my favorite,” my father said softly, and I remembered, oh, right, that’s where I’d heard it. Sitting on his lap in his study, nestled snug against him, while he read from that huge leather-bound tome, Tales from the Old Kingdoms…
Nope. Nope nope nope. Way the hell too many feelings there. I shoved all of that down, deep down, and focused instead on the world rushing by.
We were nearly halfway across the river now. I could see the other bank a lot more clearly, the sweeping plains of the Southlands. Peering over the platform’s side, I could feel the spray of the water below. If it had looked like it was rushing fast from the shore, it was so much more intense from above, a torrent blasting out to sea. When was the last time I’d gone swimming? Did I even remember how?
And right then, the platform lurched forward, hard, plunging down.
I screamed and grabbed my rod, my body falling forward as the nose of the platform tipped down toward the river. Zell’s hand shot out, grabbing my shoulder, but he was barely hanging on himself. I heard Lyriana let out an agonized gasp and the front of the platform pulled up, but now we were banking hard to the side, a lateral swing that sent Ellarion tumbling over. He caught himself halfway down, his metal fingers digging into the platform’s wood, his feet dangling clean over the edge.
“What’s happening?” I screamed, and now we were just spinning in a circle, the platform groaning beneath us, dipping up and jerking back down.
“I’m sorry!” Syan shouted back. If her magic had been a faint glow when we started, it was almost all gone now, the streaks in her hair a dull gray, sparkling, just barely, with blue shimmers. Her tattoos were faded altogether. “My flame, it’s not strong enough….”
“Just get us as far as you can!” I yelled.
“And fast!” Ellarion replied, his feet kicking over a fifteen-foot drop into a raging torrent.
“Just a little more,” Lyriana choked out. Her magic was keeping us up, sort of, but without Syan’s wind, we were spinning wildly, falling lower and lower.
“I’m trying,” Syan pleaded. Even back in the Skywhale, with Jacobi bearing down on us, she’d been cool as ice, so seeing her terrified now meant things were real bad. Her zaryas zipped around wildly, uncontrolled, and the left one wobbled, dropping, barely staying in the air. “I’m trying, I’m trying, I’m trying,” she pleaded, but it wasn’t enough, just not enough. The water was closer and closer, racing up to meet us…
“A little more!” Lyriana yelled, and her hand shot out to grab Syan’s.
And then…something happened.
It was like al
l the air drew in around them, pulling in like a breath, and then burst out in a thunderous rushing exhale. The whole world throbbed and crackled, a rush of energy that sizzled through my skin like the deepest shiver. Syan let out a gasp, and then she was glowing. The streaks in her hair blazed brilliant, sapphire meteors cutting through black. Her tattoos surged with a light so bright, it was blinding. Her zaryas leapt up into position, and then zipped out, spinning in a beautiful spiral that left streaks of color glowing in their wake.
“You’re…you’re…” Lyriana stammered, still staring at her hand clasped in Syan’s.
“I know!” Syan replied, and even though her back was turned to me, I could almost feel her grin. The platform caught itself, leveling out, and then it surged up, up up up, lifting boldly away from the river. Zell pulled Ellarion back up, and I let out a triumphant whoop of my own. I had no idea what was happening, but it was amazing.
The platform cleared the rest of the river confidently, and the two mages gently dropped us down onto the sandy bank. Ellarion rolled off, clutching the sand between his fingers, howling with relief. Zell clasped my shoulder, and my father, my father, let out a little laugh of delight.
Lyriana and Syan stood together at the base of the platform, staring at each other. Lyriana had let go of Syan’s hand, and the magic had faded out of her; her hair was a flat black now, her tattoos dull. But there was nothing dull about the way they were looking at each other.
“You drew from me,” Lyriana said, beaming. “Our magic, it combined, grew together. Like nothing…nothing I’ve ever felt…”
Syan pressed a hand to her chest, gasping. “Your power was within me. I could feel all of you there. I could see you….”
“I know…like we were one…”
“I’ve never felt anything like that,” Syan said, staring down at her hands. “Have you ever done that before?”
“No. I’m not sure anyone has.” Lyriana finally let herself go, slumping down into the sand on her knees, breathing hard. Her whole body was slick with sweat, her shirt clinging to her chest. Whatever that had been, it had taken a lot of out her; her face looked sickly, colorless, and it was clear she could barely stand up. Syan clasped her shoulder, then pulled away, as if she’d done something inappropriate.
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