Shiori!Kiki called from far away.Shiori!
I looked up, my breath catching. Kiki was too far and too small for me to see, but six cranes pierced the clouds, their great wings bathed in crimson light as they glided through the dawn light toward me.
My brothers!
The branches under my feet crunched, and Zairena stopped midprayer to glance at me. Then she looked up at the sky, and a dark scowl came over her face.
“Shoot those birds,” she commanded. “She is using her dark magic to make them help her. Shoot now!”
Kiki!I urged as the sentinels picked up their bows.Tell them to get out of here!
Reiji and Hasho ignored me. They dove, their wings knocking the torch out of Hasege’s hands before they burst back into the sky. As the flame sizzled in the snow, Kiki bolted for one of my scattered papers to catch the embers.
What a mess you’ve gotten yourself into, Shiori,she said as she set the sparks to the ropes over my wrists.
The ropes burned slowly, loosening their hold on my wrists. I slid my hands free in amazement.You’re a genius, thank you!
Wandei’s idea. A bright one, that brother.
I was unknotting the ropes around my waist when a shadow swept over the pyre. Zairena.
Guiya’s illusion was as perfect as it had been before: powdered face, youthful eyes—sharp and glittering—the mole on her right cheek. The priestess’s fist was clenched, and she raised it high, throwing a handful of her cursed ashes upon the pyre below me.
Fire flared and surged from the ashes so powerfully I would have flown back were I not still tied to the stake. It was a sickeningly bright shade of red, but its heart was black like the smoke rolling into the sky.Demonfire.
It spread quickly—too quickly—twisting around the sticks under my feet, climbing up the mound of wood, and surrounding me with walls of flame. Panic rioted in my chest, and I undid the last knot at my waist and moved down to my ankles. The heat was growing in intensity, the smoke so thick my lungs hurt as they struggled for each new breath.
But the fire did not touch me. As I crouched to free my legs, the flames flickered away from my face, as if there were an imaginary shield protecting me.
A bead of light glimmered in my chest, faint but pulsing. I clutched at my heart. Could it be that Seryu’s pearl was warding off the demonfire?
I tested it, leaning toward the flames. The demonfire jumped back, and the pearl glowed bright, brighter than it ever had before. But amid the chaos of my brothers fighting Hasege’s men, no one was watching me. No one except Guiya.
Hastily I yanked off the rope around my ankles, freeing myself from the stake. The flames parted for me as I fell forward and stumbled away from the pyre.
Hurry, Shiori!Kiki cried.Guiya, she’s—
Kiki didn’t have to finish her sentence. It was impossible to miss Guiya’s looming figure. Her eyes fixated on the light flashing in my chest, she pried open my satchel and reached inside.
No! I was two, three steps at most from the snow. I leapt—
The net flew from Guiya’s hands and swallowed me quickly, its magic clinging to the prize it sought. Out of my chest tumbled the fragment of Seryu’s pearl, falling neatly into Guiya’s waiting hands.
Once again, the demonfire roared high, the force of its heat throwing me back, deep into the pyre. The smoke formed into claws, pinning me down when I tried to charge through the flames.
A smirk tugged at Guiya’s lips, and her eyes glittered with triumph. “So long, Your Highness,” she said, trying to peel the net off of me, but I wouldn’t let it go.
She laughed and threw her hood over her head. “I’ll get it once I return for your ashes, then. Don’t fear. You are not the first that we have burned in the name of the mountains. It won’t hurt—that is the priestesses’ gift to you.”
Before any of the men realized she was working sorcery, Guiya mounted the closest horse and rode toward the edge of the forest. There, behind the headless trees Hasege and his soldiers had chopped to fuel the pyre, she watched me burn.
Tears scalded my cheeks, and I could smell my hair beginning to singe, an awful acrid smell. The sole reason I wasn’t in ashes already was because of the starstroke net, my only shield, but it would be moments before the demonfire worked its way through the holes in the net and seared my skin.
My brothers, who had been distracting the sentinels until now, swooped in to help me. Arrows hurtled through the sky, nicking their wings as they circled over me. Feathers exploded and hailed down on my pyre, but my brothers didn’t retreat. They dove to pluck me out of the fire, Andahai and Benkai lifting me while Hasho beat out the flames in my robes with his wings.
From the fire emerged claws of smoke, coiling around Andahai’s and Benkai’s necks. Squawking with alarm, they dropped me—and I fell back against the stake. As they scrambled to pick me up again, my other brothers flung snow into the fire, attempting to put it out. The flames only grew taller.
Tell them to get out of here!I yelled to Kiki.Go! This is demonfire. They cannot help me.
