“We should’ve turned in the Vulmin! It’s their fault!”
“But this is the capital! Why would they burn it? They know there are innocents here!”
Wick jumps up onto a house’s front steps to shout across the crowd before they grow too frenzied. “King Carrick doesn’t care about innocents. He’s willing to sacrifice everyone here. This is why we need to come together! No more Vulmin against fellow fae! We are all people of Annwyn, and we will not let a tyrannical monarch destroy us! It’s time to work together!”
His proclamation seems to catch, the doubters and naysayers quieting.
“Make sure all the children and infirm are taken to the canals! Bring only supplies that you can carry and go downstream.” His gaze casts across the street. “Any Vulmin or Lydian willing to fight or deal with the flames, come with me!”
We race with Wick down the street, and people either join us or rush toward buildings and boats. He knows the way,taking us down different bridges and walkways, heading for the entrance of the city as more fae come with us to help.
“Is the king with them?” Wick asks the Vulmin.
“No. I heard them say the king went into Orea.”
Slade and I exchange a look.
“Make sure everyone is armed!” Wick calls out before he turns to us. “Lydia might be teeming with waterways, but it’s also full of trees that can catch and burn.”
“Carrick won’t burn another city to the ground,” Auren replies darkly.
I know she’s thinking of Bryol. Of what they did to her home, her parents. She won’t let it happen here.
Wick looks at her as we hurry over a covered bridge. Throngs of knitted smoke are now weaving into the air in thick sheets. People are running away, and others are jumping into the canals. There’s shouting and fighting ahead.
A Vulmin rushes over, his face streaked in ash, breath coming in coughing spurts.
“How many soldiers?” Wick asks him.
“So far, two hundred strong. I don’t know if there are more coming. They’ve got magicked fire-users too.”
A grim look crosses Wick’s face as he pulls out his sword. “Enough to take a city that has no outer walls, no towers, no defensive protections whatsoever…”
But Auren shakes her head. “No. They can’t retake the city. Not with us here. They don’t stand a chance.”
Wick blinks over at her, as if he’s suddenly remembered her power and my own.
We turn the corner around a bricked building, and then we stop to take everything in. The city’s arch is barely visible through the smoke. There are Stone Swords gripping torches and swords, fighting Vulmin and lighting up anything the flames are willing to devour.
I spot two soldiers using fire magic—one that blows out a thick stream of blue flame, and another who tosses sparks from his hands.
Above us, animals and birds stream from the trees that have caught fire, the flames spreading up the plaited branches and licking down the leaves. Already, the fire is polluting everything with heat and smoke, and starting to consume several buildings closest to the entrance.
I can feel Auren’s anger prying open and showing its teeth. It makes her aura burn deeper.
“The fire is spreading fast!” the Vulmin says, yanking up his shirt to cover his mouth in order to block the fumes.
“Anyone with water magic?” Wick asks.
“You don’t need water magic. You have me,” Auren tells him.
Pride fills my chest at the ferocity of her words.
Gold starts flowing from her hands and gathering thickly at the ground, thin veins of black rot branching through it. She lets it pool, and the fae with us back up, eyeing her with amazement.
Stone Swords across the way spot Auren. “There’s the gilded Turley!” one of them shouts, and the fire-breathing fae steps forward. “King Carrick wants her burned alive!”
Burned alive?
