Her spells were failing. The heat bit deeper; her hair was burning. But the spells on the collar died too, slowly corroding beneath the entropy in her hands. Asheris caught her left wrist, gave a raptor’s shriek of rage and pain. She smelled her skin crisping, but she was already numb.
“Stop,” Asheris gasped. “Please.”
He was more powerful than she, but not more powerful than the force she called. Storms stilled, flame smothered, and in the end even stars chilled and died. She could stop his undying heart.
But she’d die first. Ice within, fire without, more than her fragile flesh could withstand. If she left herself open to the abyss too long, it would claim her.
The last of the ward-spells dissolved, leaving nothing but gold beneath her frozen fingers. Gasping, she broke the channel. The pain of it made her scream and she might have fallen, but her hands were locked stiff around Asheris’s throat. He cried out too and stumbled, and they both fell to their knees.
“Please,” he whispered, “please-”
She had exhausted her magic. His fire would burn her, and she had nothing left to stop it. But she wasn’t dead yet, and gold was soft.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered back, raw and ragged. Then she kneed him in the groin as hard as she could.
He groaned and tried to curl around the pain, but she forced him back, driving her knees into his stomach and tugging at the collar. Blood slicked her hands, hers and Asheris’s, as wire bit their flesh. Her vision washed dull and spotted as she began to feel the pain, but she held on, shaking like a terrier with a rat in its jaws. Metal twisted, bent, broke. Strand after strand. She sobbed with the pain, tears and sweat and blood from a bitten lip splashing Asheris’s face.
Snarling, he pushed her off and backhanded her across the face, sending her sprawling on the stones. She choked on her own tears and curled into a pain-riddled ball. She couldn’t stand, could only lie shuddering and wait for the death stroke.
But Asheris didn’t spring for her, only rose to his knees, trembling like a blown horse. One hand clutched his throat as he choked and gagged. She might have crushed his larynx. As blood filled her mouth and her cheek began to throb, she couldn’t quite care.
Then she felt the pain in her hands, and something else. Gold twisted around her claw-hooked fingers, gleaming beneath the blood. And in the palm of her ruined left hand lay a blazing diamond.
She forced herself to her knees, peeling the wire out of her hands; blood welled in the cuts, dripped to the ground. She and Asheris stared at each other through witchlight and shadows.
“Destroy the stone,” he gasped. “Imran wears its twin-part of me is still bound in them. I can’t do it, please-”
The pain on his face made her look away, pain and desperate hope. She couldn’t stand to hear him plead again. But she had no way to even chip such a stone, let alone shatter it…
She turned, clumsy, and stared at the orange light glowing from the mountain’s cauldron. Diamonds were forged in the earth’s fire. That would be enough to melt it.
She stumbled to her feet, knees buckling. Her arms were nothing but pain from fingertip to shoulder, and her face was already swelling from the blow. But she could still walk.
The stones shuddered beneath her feet. Beneath the keen of the wind she heard shouts and sounds of battle. The Dai Tranh must have broken the wards. They needed to be away from the mountain as fast as they could.
So she, like a fool, was climbing up it. It made her laugh, till her hand cramped around the stone and she whimpered instead.
The lake of fire was higher than it had been, great bubbles of flame bursting on its surface. The stench of sulfur and burnt rock choked her. She crouched on her knees at the lip of the crater, afraid to stand against the wind.
She spared a heartbeat to stare at the ruined collar. Still beautiful, rubies like drops of blood amid the mangled gold, the diamond rich and flawless. He was a demon and she meant to free him. She’d never be able to stop him again if he turned on her.
Only a heartbeat’s hesitation and she flung the stone away, into the cauldron. She didn’t see it land, but flames belched high and bright. And from the landing below came a fierce raptor’s cry.
She turned, scrambled down the stone till she reached the steps. And stopped as Asheris rose in front of her on four burning wings. His eagle’s head turned, watched her from one blazing eye. Even Assari friezes couldn’t capture the beauty of the jinn.
He alit on the step below her and the light died, leaving only the man. His clothes were torn and filthy, skin lusterless beneath blood and sweat, but his throat had healed.
“Lady, it is done.” He offered her a hand and she took it, but when their fingers touched he flinched away. He stared at her right hand, her beringed hand, and for an instant she wondered if he would send her into the volcano as well, to free the bound ghosts.
Instead he turned her hand over, frowning at the blood, at the fingers hooked with pain. Then he caught her left, baring the blackened, blistered mark his hand had burned into her wrist.
“I’m sorry. I wish I could heal you-”
She smiled crookedly. “But that’s not what either of us is made for, is it? Perhaps you could help me off this mountain instead.”
“It would be my pleasure.”
The ground shook again when they reached the landing and they stumbled.
“This is bad, isn’t it?” Isyllt asked.
Before he could answer, footsteps slapped against the path and Zhirin stumbled up the stairs. Witchlights flickered around her and she raised a hand in warding when she saw Asheris.
“It’s all right,” Isyllt said. “We’re not killing each other anymore. What happened?”
The girl gaped an instant longer, then shook her head. Blood ran from a cut on her cheek, spotting her shirt collar. “Imran is dead. He burned, and I don’t know how-”
Asheris smiled, cold and cruel. “Backlash. A pity I wasn’t there to watch.”
“But,” Zhirin went on, “Xinai got away. And I think they’ve broken too many wards.”
His bloody humor fell away. “Yes. The mountain is waking.” He tilted his head, listening. “It’s been waiting such a long time.”
“Can you stop it? Like you did at the warehouse?”
He shook his head. “This fire is greater than I could ever quench or contain. All we can do is get away.”
“But the Kurun Tam, the villages, the forest-”
“Are all going to burn. I’m sorry. Imran would have done better to send me after the Dai Tranh while there was still hope of stopping this.”
The mountain rumbled, a roar building beneath their feet.
“We’re not going to make it down, are we?” Isyllt said. She didn’t feel like running anyway. It was hard enough staying conscious.
“We wouldn’t, no.” Asheris slipped an arm around her waist. “But we’re not going down.” He held out his other hand to Zhirin. “Miss Laii?”
Zhirin stared. “What-”
“Come on,” Isyllt said as she began to understand. She grabbed his waist, abused fingers clutching a handful of silk. “Zhirin, please, let’s go.”
The girl took his hand, let him pull her close.
“Hold on,” he said. And uncased his wings.
Zhirin shrieked, short and sharp, as they rose. Isyllt slipped, her hand nearly useless, but his grip tightened.
“I won’t let you fall.”
His wings blazed against the night. Isyllt felt their warmth, but it didn’t burn her. The mountain fell away in a dizzying spiral, a burning eye in the black stretch of forest; Symir glittered in the distance. They moved into the low clouds and her skin tingled as the damp touched her burns. For a moment there was nothing but wind and mist, the taste of rain and the delta spreading out beneath them. Zhirin made a soft sound of wonder and delight.
Then the mountain exploded.
Xinai fled before the mage stopped screaming, leaving the Laii girl to stare as
he burned and writhed. She avoided stairs and sorcerers altogether, scrambling across the crags instead. The rough pitted stones scoured the skin from her hands but were easy enough to climb. Light leaked over the lip of the cauldron, sullen even to her colorless night-eyes. She could imagine the red glow easily.
A touch of a charm lent her a burst of speed; she’d pay for it the next day, but now she needed the deer’s grace. Her mother’s presence surrounded her like a cloak of ice, chilling the sweat that ran down her back.
She thought she heard a shout below as she reached the edge of the crater, but couldn’t tell who it came from. With any luck the mages would all kill one another.
Crouching against the wind, she ran. The light was brighter now, and she kept her eyes averted. As she neared the northeastern side of the crater she heard Selei call her name.
The old woman waited a few yards down the slope, a pair of Dai Tranh warriors keeping watch. The wind was gentler there, though it still whistled sharply over the rocks.
“The mages are coming,” Xinai gasped, sinking to her knees in front of Selei. She let her night-eyes fade. “We need to hurry.”
Selei nodded and turned to her guards. “Leave us. And hurry down-I don’t know how quickly the mountain will wake.”
“What about you, Grandmother?”
“I know what I’m doing. Don’t worry about me.”
They nodded unhappily and started down, leaving behind a wooden box. Xinai could feel the magic humming inside it, hot and violent. The rubies, soon to be reunited with the mountain that charged them.
“You’ll have to leave soon too,” Selei said. “But I wanted to see you again, before this ends.”
“What-” Her mouth opened, closed again. A queasy chill settled in her gut. “No. You can’t-”
“It has to be done, and this is the price.” She shook her head. “I’m tired, Xinai. I’ve lost so many-my brothers and sisters, my childhood friends, even my children. I don’t want to end my days a dowager, a burden on the clan.”
“You’re no burden! You lead the Dai Tranh.”
“But not for much longer, I think. I may be a clever old witch, child, but even witches’ wits dull with age. I want to have a death that means something. That buys something.”
“Why not a life that means something?”
“I think I’ve had that.” She took Xinai’s hands in hers. “Don’t you?”
Xinai nodded. Her eyes prickled, pressure building behind her nose. “What about Riuh? You’re all he has left.”
“Look after him for me, then.”
Selei’s face blurred as Xinai blinked angrily. She couldn’t talk her out of this. “I will,” she choked. “I promise.”
“I wish you could have been mine by blood as you’ve been in my heart. But Cay Lin is lucky to have you.” She untied two charms from around her neck. “Give this to Riuh,” she said, tapping the larger. “This one is yours. There’ll be nothing left for the rites, but if you and he would sing for me when this is over…”
“We will.”
A tongue of flame uncoiled from the crater, washing the night carnelian and gold. The mountain was a hot pressure against all of Xinai’s senses, scraping her raw.
“It’s time,” said Selei. She knelt and took up the box of rubies. “The wards are failing. You should go.”
“I can’t let you go alone.”
“This will be a bitter enough victory-don’t make us lose another warrior to it. Run, child.”
Scrubbing her eyes, Xinai turned and started down the slope. Rocks slipped and scattered under her feet and tears blurred her already strained vision. She looked back once, saw the old woman picking her way carefully toward the top of the mountain, silhouetted against the cauldron’s glare.
The first tremor threw her down and she slid cursing through rock and brush before catching herself. She kept her footing through the next, but the path was treacherous.
She was scarcely a quarter down the slope when the night shattered into flame and ash.
Chapter 20
Zhirin was so busy staring at Mount Haroun that for an instant she didn’t understand where the roar was coming from. Then the sky blotted dark and Asheris twisted up and sideways, his impossible wings shredding the clouds. She screamed, gasped as his arm tightened around her ribs. She clutched at him as they spiraled farther away from the mountain, land and sky spinning around them.
When they paused again she saw what had happened. The cauldron hadn’t erupted, but one of the hills flanking the mountain had burst open, spewing smoke and ash. The plume rose before them, past them, blotting out the stars. Sparks flashed in the column like blossoms on a tree. An instant later she cried out again as cinders and ash rained over them.
Asheris cursed and turned, shielding them with one set of wings while the other beat frantically against the thickening air. Zhirin choked on the stench of sulfur and char; grit crunched between her teeth.
Craning her head and shielding her eyes, she saw lava leaking from the shattered mountain, incarnadine blood pouring down the southwestern slope. Flames flared gold and vermilion around the flow. The forest was burning.
The air cleared as they gained distance, though the smell was still thick. Asheris turned and they watched in horror and amazement as the mountain shuddered and split again. A new rift opened on Haroun’s main slope, spitting fire and rock. Lava spilled from the cleft, rushing down the hills.
To her otherwise eyes, a many-headed serpent writhed free of shattered rock, hissing his hundred-tongued fury into the sky.
Zhirin wasn’t sure how long they hung there, coughing on the acrid fumes, watching the mountain rip itself apart. Her lungs and throat burned and tears leaked down her face.
“We need to land,” Asheris finally said, turning away from the devastation.
The air was clearer to the east; the worst of the ashen cloud rolled west, toward the bay. Toward Symir. Useless to think about that now, she told herself. There was nothing she could do.
Asheris’s wings stretched wide and they wheeled downward in a narrowing gyre. The river glittered beneath them. He was landing near the dam.
He touched the ground as gracefully as any bird, but Zhirin stumbled as soon as he let her go. A rock bit her foot and she frowned-she’d lost a sandal somewhere in the sky. She took a step, then kicked off the other. When she turned, his wings had vanished.
“What are we going to do?” she asked.
He shrugged, steadying Isyllt with a hand on her elbow. “Stay out of the way until Haroun’s wrath is spent.”
“But Symir is going to burn!”
“There’s nothing we can do to stop that now.”
She turned away, gritting her teeth in fear and frustration. Even the river’s nearness couldn’t soothe her now, though it steadied her, eased the drain of spent magic. She could see the gray bulk of the dam upriver, the sharp-toothed mountains behind it blotting out the stars.
“The dam,” Zhirin said. Her voice sounded odd and distant, like a stranger’s. “If we release the dam, the river can help stop the fire.”
Asheris shook his head. “Then the city would flood and burn. It would only add to the destruction.”
“You always speak of the mountain as though it lived. Do you think the river is any less alive?”
“Fair enough. But men bound the river as they did the mountain. What makes you think the Mir would help us if it could?”
She smiled slowly. “Because I’ve asked.”
Without her charms, Xinai would have died a dozen times on the mountain. As it was, her spells were all but exhausted when she reached the foothills near the Kurun Tam. Her muscles screamed, pushed to their limits, and falling rock and ash left her bruised and burned; her lungs felt scoured raw despite the scarf over her face.
The pillar of smoke blotted out the sky, hid the coming dawn. Lava writhed down the slope like red-gold worms, consuming everything in its path. It would be on them soon.
P
eople moved among the trees, gawking like her. She didn’t know if they were Tigers or Dai Tranh or Khas, didn’t have it in her to care anymore. They’d all be just as dead if they didn’t run.
She might have stood and stared until the fire took her, but the earth shook again and Haroun belched another gout of smoke and sparks. A moment later the rain of stones resumed. A black rock the size of her head landed a yard away, shaking Xinai out of her daze.
A hand closed on her arm, yanking her toward the cover of the trees before another could crush her. Phailin’s face was streaked with soot and blood and her mouth worked soundlessly. An instant later Xinai realized that the girl was shouting, and she was the one deaf.
The road, already softened by rain, was murderous now. Mud slid away in sheets from the steeper slopes, and branches and sometimes whole trees blocked their path. A horse passed them, only to founder and fall, crushing its rider as it rolled. Xinai was glad she couldn’t hear man or animal scream.
The ash thickened, worse than rain; a stone struck Xinai’s shoulder, wringing a gasp from her burning throat. She stumbled, slid, scrambled up again. Just a little farther, she told herself-they were almost to the ferry. Her sweat-drenched scarf smothered her and she clawed it away from her mouth. Her lungs hurt so much already she didn’t care about the ash.
The slope eased, trees thinning. Almost there-Another tremor and she hunched, arms around her head to ward off falling stones. Phailin slipped and crashed into her and they both went down in a tangle of limbs and mud. Xinai tugged at the girl’s arm, but she didn’t move. She pulled her a few feet, then paused as she saw the black blood glistening across Phailin’s face. Xinai touched the wound, and jerked her hand away when shattered bone shifted under her fingers.
Hands on her shoulders, pulling her up, turning her. She could barely stand, or focus on Riuh’s face. He was shouting, voice sharp with fear, but she could only shake her head and gesture angrily at her useless ears. He flinched when he saw Phailin, jaw working as he swallowed. He took Xinai’s arm, dragging her toward the dock. Her knees shook and she wondered if he’d have to carry her to the boat.
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