“For once, you have to be a coward,” he said and gripped her hand. “Run.”
They ran down the staircase that she had ascended countless times. They ran as men died around her. They ran as the fire devoured the last parts of the temple. She could feel its heat nipping at her heels. Elena ducked as a stray piece of a statue flew past her head. Her heavy robes dragged against the stairs, slowing her. She fumbled with the gold clasps, but her hands were shaking. She grunted in frustration and yanked. The clasps popped off, and she tossed the robes away. They plummeted down the cliffside like crippled wings.
Slowly, the landing pad beneath the staircase came into view.
Yassen was right. There were no hoverpods. Only the mangled bodies of men.
Tears sprang to her eyes as she spotted limbs twisted at unnatural angles. From far away, they looked like broken toys, snapped and bent by cruel gods. The fire roared around her, picking up speed, the flames tumbling toward the landing dock like eager children.
Elena sprinted, her heart pounding in her chest. She had to get there before the fire. She had to stop it. Twenty steps, fourteen, ten—
Something shot through the air and then clattered across the landing. Before Elena could discern it, Yassen screamed, “Grenade!” but it was too late.
The explosion rent the air, and Elena felt the grenade’s heat sear her face as she tried to stop. She fell forward, rolling across the landing. Dirt and rock hit her face and filled her mouth. She flung out her arms, trying to hold on to something, but there was nothing, only air.
Elena tumbled down the mountainside, bramble cutting through her clothes. The heavens and the land merged into one incohesive blur. The mountain was melting. She was melting. She gasped and tried to grab a root of a banyan when she skipped forward and slammed hard onto a ledge.
Momentum nearly carried her over the lip, but she flung her arm out and found a jutting stone. Straining, she pulled herself up and saw the heavens falling.
Torrents of fire washed down the mountainside like great red waterfalls of wrath. Below, clouds from the initial explosions dotted the forest. Pulse shots tore through the trees.The Arohassin.Anger and despair filled her as she lay stranded on her meager ledge. She looked up to see the fountain of the Phoenix jutting over the cliff face. And clinging to it, she saw a small figure. Even from this distance, Elena recognized the broad shoulders.
“Sam!” she screamed.
His head whipped at the sound, and as he turned, the flames reached the steps and lunged for him.
“No!” she cried. But she had no time to grieve, for the fire had finally found her. It slithered down the mountain, its hiss filling her ears. It knew her. It knew her fears, her fate, and in its blaze, Elena saw their faces again.
Jump—she had to jump.
Elena flung herself off the ledge. For a moment, she was suspended in the air, the mountain beneath her, smoke above, and then she plunged down, wind rushing past her ears, ash filling her lungs, the forest dark and waiting.
CHAPTER 34
YASSEN
Do not run, wanderer. Arrive.
—fromThe Odyssey of Goromount: A Play
The fire was everywhere.
It singed his arm, filled his lungs, blinded him. Yassen wheezed, clawing his way back to his feet. The grenade had knocked him down, and he spat out blood. It sizzled even before it hit the ground.
Behind him, the inferno swelled. It tumbled down the staircase, gaining speed. Yassen scrambled down the remaining stairs, hugging his arm to his body as dots swam in front of his eyes.
Air, he needed air.
“Elena!” he croaked. But the dead around him gave no answer.
He stumbled, panic filling his chest, thick and sharp like barbed wire. Yassen looked down and saw a burst of white smoke from an explosive. Pulse fire lit up the forest. He needed to head west like Akaros had shown him, to the path where the Arohassin assassins lay hidden, but the fire roared toward him, obscuring the way. Yassen ran forward, but there was nothing beyond the landing—nothing but the burning forest. He skidded, nearly falling off the edge when he saw a flash of dark curls.
“Elena!”
But she did not hear him over the din of the inferno.
And then—she leapt off the ledge. Hair flying, skirts flaring around her, she plunged into the trees below.
He did not even hesitate.
