Then, they were off. As Ehmet and his sleepy-eyed team thundered down the road from Hewran Hall toward town, he realized it was not dawn. The orange sun he’d spied was in fact twenty-foot flames lickingfrom the roof of the Elk & Heron. From this angle, it looked like the entire top floor was ablaze. The king’s pulse quickened in time with his destrier’s gallop as a flash of silver and blue whistled through his mind.
The scene in the square was chaotic, with the fifty-odd guests of the inn and innumerable onlookers crowding the street. The throng parted as Ehmet and his team clopped into town. Even the few watercoursers working on the front side of the establishment paused their tasks to bow to their ruler.
No!“Keep working!” he roared, leaping down from his mount. Those in the crowd with a job to do got right back to it, and Ehmet began to process his surroundings. Smoke stung his eyes as he handed the reins off to a stranger on the street.Perks of being the king, I guess.
A woman screamed out for her children, and his heart clenched in response to her pain. He stood amongst the displaced guests and surveyed the situation. A pair of watercoursers perched on the roof far above him, shooting streams into one of the building’s many chimneys. From this angle the flames appeared extinguished, but he couldn’t say for certain without going around back.
Careening around the corner, Ehmet set a quick pace down the alley beside the inn. This side took the most damage. The back quarter of the third floor and roof were gone, blackened carcasses of the rooms that once stood within.
He feared casualties. Someone screamed again. He’d assumed a kitchen fire, with oil as the culprit. He hadn’t anticipated a chimney fire at the finest establishment in town. A blaze like that could rip and roar through a building in no time flat, running hotter than molten metal, it could bring down a structure and end every life within if not swiftly subdued.
By wondering who was staying in those rooms, he conjured up an image of two possible guests, a lanky young lord and his enrapturing elder sister. The duo entered his mind’s eye just as Ehmet rounded the back of the building and slammed into one of the people in question.
“Your Majesty!”
Ehmet steadied the body he’d nearly bowled over. Bony shoulders met his large veiny hands. “Lord Ka—”
“Help!” Terror stole the boy’s voice as he rasped out the word. His wide panicked eyes bore into the king’s.
Then a forty-ish year-old woman behind the young lord was talking where the boy could not. “She’s inside, Your Majesty.” The woman used her water magic to douse burning embers and chunks of debris that fell away from the upper floors. Her efforts kept the blaze from spreading to the stables beyond. Tall flames still licked from the back of the building on the uppermost story—the attic apartment of the innkeeper and his family.Their babies.
“Lady Hevva?” He didn’t even know why he asked; he knew who they were talking about. Energy charged Ehmet’s extremities as thoughts raced. Using his magic to craft a pair of blacksmith’s gloves that would protect him from the heat, he dashed toward the back entrance.
“She’s gone back up! Top floor!” the woman with Lord Kas shouted after him.
“King Hethtar, don’t—” someone else’s voice rang out, but he didn’t stick around to hear what they had to say.
Heart keeping time with his boots, Ehmet sprinted through the untouched dining room, dodging tables.Top floor. The roar grew louder with each landing he rounded, the heat more oppressive the higher he climbed. Rooms were gone on the third level, black, the ceiling caved in.Up, up!Shielding his mouth with his palm, as if that stopped the press of smoke, he dodged burning balusters, taking the final flight two stairs at a time.
A long narrow room ran the length of the level: the family’s living space. He scanned the doors along the far wall, ready to shout her name over the deafening fire. A door across the room swung open, fanning flames, and there she was, emerging into an impossible situation. The floor between them had burned away, a gaping smoking maw.
“Come this way. It will be all right, I promise,” Lady Hevva shouted to two small figures at her back as she moved to exit the chamber. A third tiny being was pressed against her chest in a one arm hold. Despite the volume of her voice, loud enough to carry over the roar of flames and shouts of people outside, she sounded almost calm and motherly. The nervous shadows behind her moved in, one clutched the other, and the onein the middle clung for dear life to the back of Lady Hevva’s nightdress.
Horror tore through him at the sight of her stepping forward, she would drop with those poor children to the floor below. Who knew if the charred beams would even hold them? They could crash further, falling to their deaths. “No!” he roared, moving forward as he began to craft the sort of footbridge a child might build across a narrow stream. Chaos wove together, logs popping into position beneath Ehmet’s feet.
At that same moment, the countess drew on her own magic to grow and expand the burnt and broken boards across the hole, creating a floor for her to cross with the children. Flames licked at her heels as she pulled the young ones to safety, somehow graceful throughout the turmoil.
They met in the middle of the ruined room. A ceiling beam shuddered and cracked, sending a shower of ashes tumbling down onto them. They slapped at their clothing as Ehmet grabbed the youngest child from the lady’s arms. She turned tightly and scooped up the middle one before grasping the eldest’s hand. “Why are you here?!”
Behind him, flames tore across the room. A glance confirmed the stairwell had been engulfed. Shouts sounded from somewhere above, the watercoursers who’d been working on the chimney discovered the ongoing blaze within. Jets of water hissed against the encroaching fire. They wouldn’t be enough. “We can’t go back that way.”
“What?” Either she couldn’t hear him or couldn’t process anything further given the horrors she’d endured that night.
With a barely audiblepop, Ehmet let his hastily crafted bridge dissipate. He tightened his grip on the tiny child in his arm, and with his other he held onto Lady Hevva’s shoulder. She peered up at him, her blue eyes vibrant against the coating of soot on her face. “To the window.”
“I can’t!” Her well was nearly dry.
“Trust me!” His wasn’t. He didn’t really have one.
She drew on what remained of her magic to stitch together the burnt-out floorboards and their group hurried forward. One of the children screamed and another burst into tears as they reached the destroyed edge of the building where the window once hung. The crowd below stared up at them, agog.
“MOVE! Get out of the way,” he boomed. The gaggle faltered before people got a hold of themselves and made space. Some shuffled back a few steps, others turned and ran to the recesses of the yard. Horses in the stable screamed while the fire roared behind Ehmet, the countess, and the crying children.
He drew chaos from the flames, hoping it would quell the raging inferno as he built their escape. A long slick ramp popped into existence, angling away from the upper floor and across the yard to where it almost reached the cobbled street beyond.
“Be ready to catch us,” Ehmet shouted down to the crowd. People jumped into position, and he turned to the eldest panicked child. “It’s going to be fine, sit down and slide to the ground.”
The girl, who couldn’t have been older than ten, stared up at him with terror in her eyes.
