A desperate thought occurs to me. When I sat with him and practiced a sigil, the air glowed for a moment. Can I do that again? Can Ihelp?
I touch a hand to his back, then move my fingers in the pattern he practiced. As before, a faint glow appears in the air, but nothing more.
But it’ssomething. I try again, and this time the sigil glows brighter, hovering in the air. The tiniest lick of flame flares just at the edge, and I gasp.
Ky glances back over his shoulder. “No!” he says, his tone sharp with warning.
He sounds so severe that I almost flinch back—before I realize I’m stepping into rejuvenated flames.
Ky catches my arm before I can. Sweat coats his forehead, too. “You’re unpracticed,” he says. “You couldhurtmore than you could help.”
That’s sobering, and I curl my hand into a fist, then nod. He turns back, swiping another handful of fire so we can proceed. Sweat slicks my back by the time we reach the girls. The first has slid down to sit against the hut, and her eyes are heavy lidded. Thick smoke surrounds us, making it hard to breathe, and it’s grown difficult to see in the hazy shadows. A spark lands on the girl’s skirt again, but this time she doesn’t move to do anything about it.
“Ky!” I say sharply, but he’s already moving his hand, drawing the tiny spark away.
The other girl looks up at us through the scorching flames, and she cringes back.
They hate outsiders.
“It’s all right,” I say to her. “We’re going to help you.”
Ky reaches down to pick up the girl on the ground, scooping her into his arms. “Keep her close, Princess.”
The other girl is sobbing, but I pull her close to me, then put a hand on the leather of his armor again. When my hand brushes against a rivet in his armor, it burns my palm. We move through the flames as slowly as we began, fire reaching for us with every step. The girl’s breath hitches against me, but I tug her close, keeping her between me and the king.
“You’ll be all right,” I murmur. “You’ll be all right.”
As I say the words, I really don’t know if any of us will be all right. The air has grown so thick with smoke, and I can’t remember the last time I took a deep breath. When I blink, I see nothing but flames. We seem to be surrounded by blazing arcs of red and yellow. Has the fire grown higher?
But then something cold splashes against me, shocking my awareness. We’ve made it to the edge of the flames, and the soldiers and the Suross people have reached us with their buckets. The king is passing the girl to one of the men who’ve come forward, and an older woman takes the second girl from me. She clings to the other woman, gasping through her sobs.
Ky’s soldiers throw their buckets on the flames as well, cutting a linethrough the fires and making a pattern. It takes me a moment to realize that they’re soaking a circle, keeping the fire from spreading.
The king notices my attention, and he says, “We have a lot of experience stopping fires, Princess.”
I shiver and nod. Water has gone into my boots and soaked half my trousers. But I look to the girls, who are still clutching the people who must be their family. “Are they all right?”
“They will be.”
I look around. “What about Asher? Where’s Charlotte? Are they all right?”
Garrett is carrying a bucket toward the flames, and he nods as he tosses it wide. “Stripes is filling buckets at the stream. Your lady is helping. We got them to set up a chain.”
“Princess.” Ky nods past me, to one of his soldiers. “You and Lady Charlotte should return to the hill with Nikko—”
One of the older women puts a hand on his arm, cutting him off. “You,” she says, and her accent is thicker than his. “You will take your soldiers andleave.”
He instantly bristles. “We came to help—”
“I told the first one,” she says. “I told him soldiers are not welcome here. And yet you came. And now look at what you’ve done.”
I glance past her at those sobbing girls. They’re all watching Ky and the other soldiers suspiciously.
The king inhales a sharp breath, and I remember what Nikko said earlier.They hate everyone.
But Ky also said they were his people. If I’ve learned anything on this journey, I know how much that means to him.
“Wehelpedyou,” he’s saying tightly. “We didn’tdothis—”
