“But how?” The fire that Elena had started was in the east, but the smoke was coming from the north, the direction of the second mine.
“An accident?” he thought aloud. Jantari ore was highly combustible.
Elena twisted the reins in her hand. “Only one way to find out.”
Yassen hesitated. “How strong is the inferno?”
“Not very. It feels…” Elena closed her eyes. “Weak. Like it just started.”
“Then maybe something did go wrong out there.” He urged his brenni forward, trying to ignore his unease.
Based on their location, he felt fairly certain the smoke was coming from the second mine. If they could grow the inferno, if Elena could strengthen it, then perhaps this job would be over sooner than expected.
“Hurry,” he said.
They broke into a gallop, cutting through the trees. As they rode closer, the smell of ash grew stronger, mixed with something he couldn’t tell for certain. Metal glimmered from between the treetops. With a screech, his brenni threw back its head.
And then it hit Yassen.
The acrid stench of burning metal.
The second rig rose out of the pines, glinting from the light of the flames beneath it. Fire was flickering under the western leg of the mine. A cart had fallen, and ore spilled onto the ground, burning rapidly.
Men danced around it as they tried, vainly, to put it out.
But it was too late.
Above, soldiers streamed out of a hoverpod docked on the northern platform.Strange, Yassen thought.There’s only one hoverpod.Some soldiers stood on the upper stairs of the rig, directing water tanks toward the blaze.
Elena had tied her steed beneath a molorian and was already dropping into the first form of the fire dance. She looked up at him with a tight smile.
“I can hear the fire calling,” she said.
He tightened his grip around his gun. His brenni nickered nervously.
“Make it quick.” A siren began to wail, and Yassen watched as more soldiers hurried toward the blaze.
Elena raised her arms, sparks raining down from her fingertips. She twirled, and the sparks flared into a flame that leapt onto the canopy. The branches wilted and blackened like his arm, the leaves curling into ash. Elena coiled her wrists. The fire snaked up the spine of a retherin. The pine groaned, resisting, but then its trunk snapped with a loud crack that resounded through the forest. Everything fell to the inferno. Even the stones darkened as flames devoured the underbrush, the leaves, the trees.
Yassen shrank back, heat buffeting his face. In the distance, the rig fire swelled as if sensing the new blaze. Soldiers cried out. He saw them turn, point in their direction.
“Let’s go,” he called over the crackle.
When Elena turned around, he saw a bewitched look in her eyes as the flames spat behind her. It crackled, and for a moment, Elena swayed, as if listening. Tiny flames curled around her toes.
“Elena,” he called in warning.
His voice seemed to break her trance. She quickly untied her brenni and swung into the saddle, looking over her shoulder with a mirthless smile. “Ride, Yassen,” she said.
Yassen nudged his brenni, but it needed no encouragement. It shot forward into a gallop. He could barely make out Elena in the thickening smoke. He wanted to call out to her, to stop her, but he could only cough. His eyes stung. Worry nagged at him in the darkness.How did that cart catch on fire?
Yassen did not see the neverwood; its branches raked him across the cheek, and he cried out. He felt something warm drip down his jaw as his brenni brayed and vaulted to the right, nearly bucking him from the saddle.
With a grunt, Yassen slowed his brenni and hauled himself straight.
“Are you all right?” Elena called out.
Suddenly, the drone of a hoverpod filled the mountain. It appeared above them, a dark, smooth shape against the rolling grey sky. Yassen turned to Elena, reaching for her when light flooded the grove. His brenni brayed, blinded.
