I want to reach for another ball of starfire. I want to incinerate Temujin and every last one of his traitorous Shoniin. But Serik grips my hand and tugs me back toward Uzul. “Arguing is pointless. We have to stop the blaze. Warn the people.”
I look over at Serik as we trip through the undergrowth—at his determined, stalwart expression and his hand, locked tight with mine—and sobs fill my smoke-filled throat. He could have turned on me like the shepherds. He could have blamed me for the broken fence and the stampede. He could have scolded me for falling prey to Yatindra’s betrayal or refused to believe me at all. But here he is. At my side. Charging with me into battle.
“We’ll never get there fast enough,” Serik pants.
“There’s another way to warn them.” I don’t know if Ziva helped Yatindra sabotage me, but right now it hardly matters. I shove my smarting ego aside and yank on the perpetual undercurrent of darkness connecting us, snapping the night like a whip until she responds with a groggy tug. I immediately send her an image of the fire raging toward Uzul and the Shoniin.
The tendrils pull taut. Ziva sends back so many frantic messages, they bleed into an indecipherable jumble of black. A distant scream rises over the roar of the inferno. Lights flash, winking like stars through the leaves and thickening smoke.
“Everything will be fine,” I chant as we run. The Namagaans must have a way to combat fire. They live in trees, for skies’ sake.
The flames snap behind us, consuming the leaves like an oiled wick. My mouth feels dry and blistered and tastes of burning sap. We stumble past the demolished sheep pen and Uzul sprawls above us, overrun with absolute mayhem. Bridges swing precariously as far too many Namagaans shove across, burdened by clothing and jewelry, paintings and tapestries and fine china. Everything they can possibly carry.
Meanwhile, Ruya and her orange-clad soldiers wheel carts bearing massive brass fittings across the platforms. Men and women crowd around them, helping to lift the fixtures and fasten them to the brass pipes running beneath the limbs.
With a shout from Ruya, and a creak like the turn of an ancient knob, silty-brown swamp water explodes from each nozzle. The torrent that blasts through the canopy is even more violent than the geysers in the Ondor Mountains. Just the runoff pelting my head feels stronger than a Rain Maker in battle. Limbs tear from the ancient trunks, and the holes that riddle the canopy look like they were made by actual cannons.
In order to douse the fire, the Namagaans have to decimate their forest.
I stand in shivering, dripping silence with Serik and the shepherds, who gradually emerge from the trees with their animals and gather around a different tree—noticeably apart from me and Serik.
We watch the water cannons beat back the blaze. After what feels like a hundred days of battle, the last of the embers die and the water cannons peter to a trickle. The Namagaans drop the hoses and wilt into soaking heaps, crying and coughing and hugging. The shepherds scratch at the doors hidden in the tree trunks like hungry strays, but the Namagaans don’t hear. Or they’ve chosen not to respond.
King Ihsan appears on a platform overhead and moves among his people. Once again, he’s wearing his dressing gown, and he looks as exhausted and worn down as everyone else, but he still manages to clasp hands and pat shoulders, offering quiet words of comfort to his people.
Murtaugh and Yatindra trail the Marsh King, and the sight of her teary eyes and quivering hands makes me see red.
“Breathe, En,” Serik whispers in my ear. “Lashing out now will only make things worse.”
Things can’t get any worse!I want to scream. I pull several deep breaths through my nose, waiting for King Minoak and Ziva to appear at the end of the royal procession, but they’re nowhere to be seen.
It immediately strikes me as odd.
“Where are Ziva and Minoak?” I mutter.
Serik shrugs one shoulder. “Who knows? They’re not Namagaan. There’s probably little they could do to help.”
“King Minoak isn’t the type to sit back if his allies are in danger.”
“Maybe he felt he needed to prioritize his safety for the sake of Verdenet?”
“What about Ziva?” She would never hide away and avoid trouble. Especially not after the frantic images I sent through the darkness. I reach for the night to compose another message, but the sound of sloshing boots makes me whirl around.
Temujin and his Shoniin trudge into the clearing, looking eerily clean and composed compared to the rest of us.
The shepherds wail and throw themselves at the hidden doors, pounding even harder.
The Namagaans peer down at us through the rope railings, as if suddenly remembering we exist. But still the doors don’t slide open.
The night buzzes around me in agitated circles. “Let us up!” I beg. “They are dangerous traitors!”
Temujin’s voice fills the swamp like another cannon blast. “If anyone is going to be labeled a traitor, shouldn’t it be the Night Spinner who set fire to your forest?” He points an accusatory finger at me.
“He’s equally to blame!” I shout back as every Namagaan eye fixes on me with horror. “He’s using my siphoned power!”
“Do you think these people are fools?” Temujin waves an arm at the crowded platforms. “Lies will get you nowhere, Enebish. Stop trying to manipulate them. We are advocates for the Protected Territories. We have no quarrel with Namaag. We wouldn’t have ventured into the marshlands at all if you and Serik hadn’t betrayed us and fled. We even attempted to treat with them in the desert,” he calls up to the crowd, “but Enebish attacked—like always.”
“Heis the one trying to manipulate you!” I insist. “They are allied with the Zemyans! They helped them take Sagaan! They’re going to seize the entire continent!”
