Another pulse hit the tree above, and the molorian groaned then fell, crashing between them.
And then Elena turned. She ran. Farther and farther away, around the bend.
As he watched her go, Yassen felt a quiet settle in his chest, a calmness that came with finality.
He climbed the ravine bed. Crouched just along its edge and trained his gun. Through the flickering flames, Yassen could make out movement. They had spread out around him, just as he had predicted. Yassen breathed in smoke. Let it curl in his chest. And when he breathed out, he pulled the trigger.
A shadow fell. Yassen turned and found another. He fired twice to bring it down. The flames crawled up the fallen molorian and licked at his feet. He breathed in more smoke. Shot down another shadow and its partner.
A pulse zipped past his ear, cutting through a pine on his left. A soldier ran between the trees and Yassen fired, but he missed. The man ducked behind a trunk. Yassen waited, the flames crawling up to his ankles, and when the soldier reappeared, he fired again. This time, the man fell.
Yassen inched forward on his stomach as more soldiers gathered, lighting up the forest with their pulses. He huddled behind a smoldering neverwood bush, coughing. Heat and exhaustion tightened his throat, but they did not unseat his sense of clarity.
Peering through the smoke, Yassen spotted movement in the thicket of trees to his left. He fired, and his assailants responded. Pulses slashed through the trees, cutting deep wedges in the bark. They all came from Yassen’s left, and he fired twice in that direction. A man cried out. Yassen pulled the trigger again, but the chamber only clicked, empty.
Cursing, Yassen unlatched the empty magazine. It clattered to the ground. He tried to grasp a new magazine with his right hand, but his fingers were frozen.Damn this arm!He gripped the pistol between his knees and pulled out a new magazine with his good hand. A pulse slammed into the pine. A branch fell just to Yassen’s right. He gritted his teeth.Focus.He finally managed to line up the magazine, and it slid into his pistol with a satisfying click.
He turned, searching the smoke, when a shot rang out. It ripped through the forest. Tore through branches. A bullet sliced through his right arm and out.
Yassen tumbled into the ravine. There was a warm, liquid sensation in his chest. He rolled onto his back, struggling for breath as he looked up and saw the burning heavens and the sky full of smoke. The stars glinting like uncut gems. The fire surrounded the ravine, but this time, its heat did not suffocate him. It kissed him.
And in that swath of darkness that came after, Yassen Knight saw a light.
He did not fear it.
Finally in his cursed life, he would find untroubled sleep.
CHAPTER 43
ELENA
Though I have the memory of you, I see you from before, in a land where roads are rivers and the sun is aglow, and we will wade to that wilderness that claimed us forever ago.
—from a Sayonai folklore ballad
Elena raced through the forest of fire and smoke. She did not know where she was going, but she followed the ravine as Yassen had told her. The mountain larks screeched singular notes. A pine groaned and snapped, sparks raining down. Elena yelped, falling. Pain pounded through her elbow, her wrist. She rolled in the dirt, the world spinning, the flames hissing at her feet. The inferno came to her as if urging her to get up and move. With a grunt, she pushed herself up onto her knees.
Pulse fire sliced through the forest. It was like the temple all over again, except this time, she wouldn’t get out.
She stared up at the burning sky, blood wetting the bandage Yassen had tied around her arm. She tried to rise only to fall again; it was as if her body had given up. All she wanted to do was sleep and wake up back in Ravence. For Ferma to tell her it was a bad dream.
But if she died here, no one would weep for her. She would be known as the shortest reigning monarch of Ravence, a footnote in history and nothing more. Would they sing of how she died? Would they say that she had put up a good fight, and that when all was said and done, she had died buying Ravence a little more time?
The sky had burnished into shades of orange like a glowing ember.
Like the desert sky after a storm had nearly passed. She could still see grains of sand in the air, still taste salt on her lips. Her desert, her home, connected by a sky just like this.
She had to reach it.
Slowly, Elena clambered to her feet. Placed one foot in front of the other.
Her chest clamored for air.Don’t look back.
With every step, her heart cracked. With every step, she abandoned Yassen.Don’t look back.
If this was strength, if this was weakness, she did not know. She could only fight against the pressure in her lungs and the tears clouding her eyes. She could only put one foot in front of the other, until she was jogging, running again, because it was all she could do.Don’t look back.
The ravine curved off to the east and Elena climbed the bank. She hauled herself over the edge, gasping. The flames crawled up the trees, shaking the dead leaves with a sadistic hunger. Far off in the distance, she saw the third mine. It jutted out, cold and silent, and for a moment, all Elena wanted to do was to hurl fire onto its metal face. She didn’t just want to see the mine implode; she wanted it to melt before her, to ripple down the mountainside, dragging away Jantar’s precious ore.
