“It’s happeningright now?”
“Yes, it’s starting. That’s what helped me open the portal to pull you here for the first time.”
And she let me yell for the past few minutes? She let me carry on watching my fire? Sheisdemented. “Then send me back. Send me back now!”
“That’s what I’m hoping we can do. I want you to save your country. But listen, this isn’t a normal eruption. It is fueled by firelight. Smoke, ash, and lava will spew for as long as firelight continues to fuel the magma. Do you understand?”
“What? How…” Thoughts and fears explode in my mind.My firelight? Will fuel as long as…that’s two months!“How do I stop it?”
“I may have blessed you, but you are the one who created firelight. I never gifted my Touched with that kind of spell. You will have to figure it out, and fast. I’ll try to help if I can.”
Erif lifts the poker. “We shouldn’t wait much longer. This is going to hurt a bit,” she says, staring at the branding flame on the poker’s tip.
Before I can make a sound of protest, she thrusts the poker into my chest. I croak out a gasp. It’s fire and pain and…and…
I crumble, shock tensing and stalling my every cell. Why, why would she kill me again in this way? I have to help Belwar. The room spins. I’m zooming backward, away from the red room. The pain eases slightly. I feel my heart pump once again and realize that in the past few minutes my body stood silent.
“In the war to come, I’ll be on your side!” Erif shouts.
“War? Wait, what war?”
“Just worry about the task in front of you. If you don’t stop it, the war will be over before it even begins.” She pulls the poker, ripping it from my chest. Grasping my shoulders, she tugs me toward her. “Good luck.” And with a push I’m falling backward, into the fireplace. I scream out as my skin pulls and I’m suckedin.
My gut tightens. I’m going to be sick. A spot on my stomach turns back into the rainbow of colors of my royal ceremony garments. I’m flipping, spiraling backward until other colors bleed into being.
I come back to life gasping, my lungs starved and unable to purchase enough air.
Several shrieks of surprise vibrate against my ears.
“Adraa?”
“Is she really…?”
“We did it,” someone whispers.
I blink back tears, my entire body groggy except for a dull ache that pulses a vigorous tune:I live. I live. I live.Color and light glare around me and yet it’s dark, gloomy. Only firelight lights up the three women huddled about me. I finally make out their faces. Zara, Riya, and my sister.
Riya swings one arm around my back to help me sit up. “You’re okay. You’re safe.”
“I’m back,” I choke out.
“This is impossible. Are you…How do you feel?” Zara asks. She’s practically itching to take notes.
I begin to say that she can when Prisha leaps into my arms, crying. “Don’t you ever do that again.”
The earth shudders. A rumble like thunder rips through the air. Jars of herbs crash onto the floor.
“What the blood was that?” I ask, but I already know. It wasn’t some death dream or hallucination. Erif was real; her warning was real.
“Don’t worry about it. We need to focus on evacuating,” Riya commands.
Prisha still cries in my embrace. Zara is calm enough to announce the truth, to tell me just how much I do need to worry about it.
“It’s Mount Gandhak. It’s erupting,” she whispers in fear.
“You can’t go. I’m not losing you again.” Riya pushes me away from Hubris the Third.
She won’t listen to me. Even as I threw on flying pants and tried to explain Erif’s warning, she wouldn’t listen. “I have to go,” I tell her.
