A loud bang ruptures the air, and I flinch back against the hard length of him. Light bursts into being, the entire mountain ridge suddenly limned gold, bright as Yule candles.
The alarm horns blare again as the center of the mountain’s glow flares brighter. A thin, golden line scythes out from it, straight across the sky. It slams into an advancing dragon, exploding the beast into a churning ball of flame that writhes and plummets toward the earth.
Cries sound from the ground below the beast, and the Urisk geomancers send up streaks of sapphire, catching the hurtling creature in an intricate web. The flaming dragon hangs suspended just above a battalion of soldiers. The men scatter away in panic, a spot of budding chaos on the orderly field.
The other dragons circling overhead turn and arrow toward the north. Toward the strange glow.
Golden lines strike out again from the mountain’s center, spearing the night air in regular bursts, left to right and back again, fast as the beat of a hummingbird’s wing. Dragons all across the sky burst into flame, and the night lights up orange.
Full-blown chaos erupts as flaming dragons rain down from the sky, one pinwheeling diagonally above us.
“Great gods,” Vale exclaims, teeth gritted, his arm extended and braced by his other hand as he forces more power into our shield.
The gargantuan dragon crashes down next to us, the ground shaking, painfully jarring my tailbone against Vale’s hip. Stones and dust and flame course over Vale’s shield, briefly casting us into foggy darkness.
When the air around us clears, I look toward the Mage-shield across the field, where my family is most likely to be. Two dragons crash to the ground near their shield, and a third rolls down the remaining bluff to collide with a group of screaming soldiers.
And then there are no more dragons in the sky.
Men yell orders, cry out and run aimlessly in all directions. There are tents on fire all over the field, everything lit up orange and yellow. Smoke rises in an amber fog, filling the valley.
The line of gold along the mountaintop constricts toward the center, the glow becoming fuzzy and muted. A black mass levitates inside the golden cloud, like a cobra raising its head, highlighted by the ethereal glow.
Tight lines of glowing orange flash from the black mass and strafe down the mountain in a series of flaming spears.
The black mass swoops higher, then down, over the avalanche of fire. As it moves ever closer, advancing straight toward us, I suddenly realize what I’m seeing.
Gardnerian soldiers in dark uniforms. On dragons. Our dragons.
Like a flock of geese, they’re arranged in a V. Fire rains down from the V’s lead point. A shield courses back from this point over the rest of the V like a flowing, golden current.
“Ancient One,” I gasp.
Order breaks down completely in the face of enemy dragons and the advancing Magefire. A young Kelt clambers up the bluff nearby, his eyes wide and terrified, his face streaked with sweat and soot. Kelt and Urisk soldiers are running south, fleeing, climbing up the bluff we slid down, scrambling for safety. Trying to escape the murderous flock now coursing over the field.
And the advancing river of fire.
A Kelt clips our shield, then howls in agony and falls to the ground, his arm exploding into sparking blue flame. Haphazard flashes of geomancy spear out from all over Crykes Field to no effect, the lines of color exploding in a harmless kaleidoscope of puffs against the shield surrounding our dragons.
They’re flying low now. Low enough for me to see her.
She’s astride the lead dragon, wand raised and throwing down fireballs with a passionate vengeance. A golden shield flows from the palm of her other hand and streams backward over the other dragons like a flaming current of air. Her face is twisted into a bloodthirsty war cry.
The fire of her bloodlust rocks through my magic-stripped body.
Like a dark flame, her long black hair flickers behind her as she swoops in close and fills the valley with fire.
Through a break in the smoke, I can see her face clearly, and our eyes meet. Her face is so much like Vale’s—sharp lines, glittering Mage skin, fierce eyes.
Vale’s mother.
She swoops up, the line of Mages sweeping up with her, following the curve of the bluff, rising over our ditch, her dragon’s belly momentarily so close I can make out individual shard-like scales. Her fierce wave of fire crashes into our shield and crests over us, the flames overtaking our shield with a deafening roar.
Heat radiates through me. I’m so empty of fire, so painfully cold, and I cry out, unable to control my fire-lust, desperate to merge with the fire magic I’m stripped clean of. I strain toward the shield, toward the fiery river, struggling to pull my arms free of my bindings.
Vale’s arm is tight around me, restraining me as I struggle for release. I’m dizzy with desire for the flames, light-headed, disembodied. Vale’s arm trembles against mine as he fights to both hold the shield and keep me away from it as fire engulfs the world.
The world blazes orange, then yellow. Then searing white.
Then black.
The entire world is altered.
A bleak landscape surrounds us—scorched earth as far as the eye can see, smoke turning the dawn light a sickly yellow. Everything lifeless. Barren.
Scorched by her.
I’m on a horse, slipping in and out of consciousness, and a strong arm wrapped around my waist is the only thing keeping me upright. My head hangs, limp as a rag doll’s, and my body feels cold and scoured out, my affinity stripped bare. The only comfort is a radiating warmth at my back that tells me it must be Vale in the saddle behind me.
A large number of Gardnerian soldiers ride around us at an unhurried pace. Fain’s horse plods alongside ours. His chest is bare, and as he rides past, I see that pale, raised lash scars cover his entire back.
I glance down, my head lolling in time with the horse’s slow trot. I’m in a sooty soldier’s tunic, a rumpled silver sphere over my chest.
Fain’s tunic.
He gave me his clothing. A wave of gratitude washes over me.
A wagon rattles by beside us, and I turn my head, the world swaying and tilting as I do.
“Tessieee.” The sound is muffled and low, as if slowed down and stretched out. I numbly register that my brother is in there, restrained by the Gardnerian adults who surround him and keep him from launching himself clear off the wagon and onto me.
My grandfather is just behind Wren, looking at me in shock, tears coursing down his haggard, lined face. He’s bobbing his praying hands up and down as he cries, then makes the star sign of holy blessing on his chest over and over and over.
I list to the side as the wagon passes, and the arm tightens around me.
Vale.
His cloak is wrapped around me over Fain’s tunic, another barrier between us, but I can still feel the heat of him—just enough heat to keep me from slipping away.
That fire. Like his mother’s. I remember her fire, coursing over the entire world.
I’m hungry for it.
But not just hungry for the fire. Hungry for how Vale and I match, our affinity lines in perfect symmetry.
Except mine are now empty of magic.
“Vale...” My head lolls, my teeth chattering lightly, the edges of my molars tapping out a choppy, uneven rhythm.
I’m