Ducot skidded. Magic pulsed out under him and made a pit, catching another knight with a whinny and a crunch. But another two were riding toward them.
Cullen lunged, ready to take down one. But the third slowly raised her flashfire. Raw hatred furrowed her brow with ugly lines.
Eira tried to find water in the air, but it had all evaporated from the fire of the mines. None came to her hand. She tried to force it up from the earth. From the heavens above. From her own marrow if that’s what it took. To be strong enough that she could will water into existence.
She wasn’t strong enough.
Another explosion rang out from the mines behind them at the same time as the woman’s flashfire burst with sound, light, and deadly magic. Eira dodged on instinct, bringing Alyss with her, Eira’s hand still on her shoulder. Cullen was already out of the way, the wind under his heels.
But Noelle…
As Eira rolled, sky turning to earth, and then sky again, she caught a glimpse of Noelle staggering back. Blood poured from the wound in her chest. It dribbled from her shocked, parted lips. The ground groaned, cracking under another explosion that was somehow softer than Eira’s scream.
Noelle fell back, lifeless, as the earth under her feet crumbled and the blaze consumed her.
41
Eira’s scream now felt as if it tore through the lining of her throat. Ice shot out from her in a burst of frost that coated the landscape, briefly snuffing the fires trying to break through the cracks in the earth, holding the remaining rocks together underneath her, Cullen, and Alyss. The ice coated every blade of grass, every grain of dirt, every inch of Eira’s skin. It thickened over the two remaining horses and riders, turning them into living statues.
Hatred was cold.
It was bitter. It was numb. It was a midnight lake on a late winter’s night. It was a pit where light couldn’t reach. Not even the light of a magic fire stronger than any sorcerer Eira had ever known could touch her.
She slowly stood, shuffling over to the new edge of the mines following the collapse of a huge swath of the upper rim. Rubble had fallen into the vast pit. It was impossible to see anything through all the blazing orange and rippling magic. Tongues of fire hissed against her skin as they lapped against her, trying to consume her, too. Eira held out her hands and spread her feet.
Freeze. She willed it all to freeze.
The condensed, raw, natural magic of the flash shale fought against her. Steam rose into the air higher than smoke. It felt as if the fire was within. Burning her from the inside out. As if she were the one who had been cast into the blaze and not Noelle.
Eira let out a slow cry that built into a raw and animalistic scream. She poured out her magic as tears poured down her cheeks. She would destroy them all. Cast all of Carsovia and the Pillars and the whole bloody world into an unending tundra where nothing would exist but suffering.
“Eira…” a distant voice called. “Eira.” Closer, now. Two arms circled her waist, trying to pull her back. When she didn’t move, Cullen came to her. His front pressed against her back. He hissed softly, no doubt in pain from the biting cold.
He’d held her once like this before…or tried to. It was after the incident. So long ago, when things seemed so complicated but were really so simple.Oh, that girl then knew nothing of problems and pain…
“Eira, we have to go,” he said softly, holding his position through what was surely agony.
“She’s—she’s a Firebearer. Fire can’t hurt her…” Eira bit out. “If I can clear a path of flames… She… We can get her back…”
“You saw the hole in her chest, the fall,” he whispered, temple pressing against her head. “I’m sorry.”
“No. We—we’reallgoing back. Every one of us,” Eira insisted. More ice. More power. With enough power, no one she loved would ever die again. She was so much stronger than she had been when Ferro killed Marcus. This… “This should be nothing for me. I’m saving her.”
“You can’t bring her back.”
“I will be so mighty that Death himself will fear me. I will fight him for her if I must,” Eira bit out the words. They quivered around the tears.
“Eira…we need you. We need your help, or we’re all going to die here.”
The words jarred her enough that Eira looked over her shoulder. Snow and ash were falling, coating the world as an appropriately somber gray. The knights that had been pursuing them were all frozen, dead, in Eira’s stasis. Olivin clung to Yonlin, inspecting his brother as he lay prone on the ground. Alyss clutched Ducot, who howled as if he’d lost a limb. If not for her holding him, he might have launched himself over the edge. He trembled, lunged, and rocked. It was as if his heart had been ripped out and the sound had even more space to echo within, magnifying, becoming heartbreak incarnate.
They needed her…
What had her help ever done for them? She’d lied to them. Hidden things from them. And when she had tried not to—tried to consult oneverything. To ensure she wasn’t unilaterally deciding…this had happened.
We are going to need a leader in there. Someone to make decisions if—when chaos inevitably happens. Lavette’s words echoed back to her. Was all this because Eira hadn’t made decisions for them?
Was it because of her that Noelle was dead? What else should she have done? Her head pounded; her heart was still.
