STRAIGHTENING UP AFTER removing the princess’s shackles, Mira listened for noise on the landing beyond the iron door. The door was so thick it possibly muffled any noise from inside. They were also fortunate the garrison soldiers hadn’t brought them supper—otherwise they would have caught them trying to get free of their irons.
Ninia shivered, pulling her cloak about here. “It’s freezing in here.”
Mira didn’t reply; her attention was on Asher instead as she watched him scan the room. His gaze rested on the flickering cresset above the door. Then he glanced over at the hawk. “You’d better go, Grim,” he said quietly. “It’ll be safer to watch this from above.”
Without a sound, the bird dipped its proud head. Then it launched itself off the window-sill—disappearing into the darkness.
Mira watched Grim go. “What’s the plan then?” she asked Asher. “Can you gather the Light and break the door down?”
“It’s armored … and dead-bolted from the outside.”
Mira raised an eyebrow. “No challenge for you, surely?”
Asher ignored her and crossed instead to the princess. He hunkered down before Ninia and met her eye. “I’m going to need your help,” he said, keeping his voice low. “We must gather the Light together. Will you follow my lead?”
The princess stared back at him before nodding. “I'm not good at controlling it,” she warned him. “But I’ll do my best.”
Asher reached down and helped the girl to her feet. Mira stepped close to them, irritated at being ignored. “Mind sharing what you’re up to?”
Asher gave her a cool smile. “We’re going to set this room on fire.”
Mira tensed. “With us in it?”
“I’m afraid so. We need to create a diversion. Wait behind the door. When it opens … kill the guards.”
“With my bare hands?”
“Aye … I know you’re capable of it.”
Their gazes held for a moment before Mira nodded.
Asher and Ninia crossed to the window while Mira took up her place by the door. The princess sneezed again and wiped her streaming nose with the back of her sleeve. Her eyes had taken on a slightly glazed appearance as the fever took hold. “I’m ready,” she said before giving a loud sniff.
Asher nodded and gathered the Light with his right hand, holding out his left with his palm upward. The orange flames burning in the cresset spat upward and flew in a single fluid arc across the room, landing on Asher’s outstretched palm.
The enchanter turned to Ninia. “It’s not much to work with, but we need to use this flame to set the wall beside us on fire.”
Ninia frowned. “But it’s tiny … last time I gathered the light of the sun. This is different.”
Asher shook his head. “It works on the same principle. Light is still light. All we need to do is magnify it.”
Across the room, Mira watched them. Asher and Ninia stood close, their voices low as the enchanter whispered instructions to the princess. Mira didn’t catch half of what passed between them, but what she did hear made little sense to her.
Watching Ninia’s flushed face, Mira felt a grudging respect for her. Despite her sheltered upbringing, the girl was tough.
Eventually, the princess and the enchanter ended their discussion. Asher then drew his right hand over the dancing flames that still hovered above his left palm. The flame expanded, deepening in color and staining the room vermillion.
Ninia stepped close to Asher and drew her hand over the flame in the same motion. The flame flared brighter still; the light was so intense now that Mira had to avert her gaze. After a few moments Mira risked glancing up once more.
Ninia flung her right arm out toward the wall.
Light exploded in Mira’s face, and a deep boom shook the building to its core.
Mira flew back and collided with the door.
Asher and Ninia joined her a heartbeat later—and then a wave of heat engulfed them. Shielding her eyes from the glare, Mira turned her head to see what they’d done.
The room was most definitely on fire. Flames had devoured the wall Ninia had taken aim at, turning the small space into a furnace. Mira choked. Smoke clawed at her throat and stung her eyes; the heat of the flames was blistering.
Asher turned around and bashed his fists against the door. “Fire!” he bellowed.
The great iron door lurched open, and the three of them tumbled out onto the landing. Black smoke poured out of the room behind them.
Eyes streaming, and wheezing from the smoke she’d inhaled, Mira went for the first guard who made a grab for the princess. She dove under his guard, drawing one of his knives. Then she drove the blade up under his ribcage and twisted. The man fell, clawing at her. She shoved him aside, yanked the dagger free, and slashed the next guard across the throat before taking a knife from him too. Next to her, Asher dealt with the last of the three men guarding the door. He hit him in the chest with a whip of fire and sent the guard tumbling down the stairs.
Thick smoke now filled the landing, making it difficult to see. Coughing and choking, the three of them fled, stumbling toward the wooden stairs. Asher led the way down the creaking stairwell, one hand fastened around Ninia’s arm, while Mira brought up the rear.
The roar behind them sounded as if a great beast pursued them, a fire-breathing drake. Mira had never seen an inferno up close before, had never witnessed the raw power of fire. The heat of it branded her back as she bounded down the stairs after Asher and Ninia.
Around them the leaguefort groaned and shuddered as if it were in agony.
Asher barreled into the men who thundered up the stairs. The soldiers grasped for him, blades flashing, but Asher gathered the Light—drawing from the wall of fire that roared at his back—and knocked them aside.
“Run,” he roared at the guards, his throat raw from smoke.
He meant it too. This wasn’t a diversion. All of them, he and his two companions included, risked dying in here. They were all just moments away from the roof caving in on the lot of them. The fire had taken hold and nothing would stop it.
The fire, borne of enchantment, wasn’t like any other he’d seen. It raced through the leaguefort with a devouring hunger. It was at their backs now, licking at their heels.
The three of them hit the bottom level and raced into the hall where they’d met the commander earlier that day. Smoke billowed into the space after them, followed by a bolus of orange flame that set the doorframe alight. Behind him, the screams of men burning alive seared Asher’s ears.
This wasn’t what he’d planned. He’d wanted to start a controlled fire and yell for help so that they could overpower the guards. What Ninia had unleashed on the wall wasn’t like anything he’d ever gathered himself.
“We need to find an exit north,” Mira shouted, her voice rough from inhaling smoke.
Asher glanced around, panic surging. He looked north, at where the fire was now consuming the wall, and the passage to the northern side of the fort. “No chance,” he rasped. “We just have to get out of here. The building is coming down.”
Mira took one look at the wall of flame licking toward them and didn’t bother to argue. They fled across the wide space, kicking up sawdust behind them. The roof started to cave in. Huge iron girders and wooden beams groaned as they came free and crashed down. One fell, just a yard or two left of where Asher ran, towing the princess after him.
Ninia screamed. Asher yanked her sideways, pulling her free of a beam that swung down like an executioner’s axe and hit the floor with a boom.
They staggered out, hauling in gulps of the fresh night air, and ran straight into a crowd of panicked soldiers. Some were fleeing the inferno, while others carried sloshing pails of water toward the burning fort in a vain attempt to douse the flames. At first they didn’t notice the three figures that hurtled from the doorway and into their midst. But moments later some did. Asher gathered the Light from the fire that licked through the doorway behind him. He struck out at the first men who blocked their path, sending them staggering away, beating flames off their clothing.
Then Asher ran, making for the line of the woods which were still a furlong distant.
They’d made it halfway when Ninia gasped. She dug her heels into the ground, pulling Asher to a halt. “Mira … what’s she doing?”
Asher turned to see the Swallow—who’d been running at his heels a moment earlier—veering away back toward the crowd of soldiers behind them.
Asher spat out a curse. Then he realized whom she was running toward—a huge man with a scarred face, wearing a grey wolf-skin mantle. The garrison commander hadn’t seen Mira. Instead, he was bellowing orders at his men, directing those bearing buckets they’d filled from the well outside the fort to wet the perimeter fence to stop the fire from spreading.
It was already too late. The edges of the high, wooden palisade to the east and west of the fort had already caught alight. Yet men were valiantly throwing water over the flames, trying to slow the fire’s path.
Mira raced toward the commander. The pulsing, red glow of the fire, roaring like a great funeral pyre just yards away, outlined her lithe form. On the way, she drew a knife she’d taken from the guard earlier and used it to bring down a man who lumbered across her path. Then she relieved him of another knife and his sword and ran on.
“Mira, no!” Asher shouted. However, she either didn’t hear, or ignored him.
The garrison commander turned, his warrior’s instinct perhaps warning him that someone approached. His gaze widened when he saw Mira. Then a grin spread over his face. He drew his sword, steel flashing in the firelight. They both lunged.
Asher watched, transfixed. He'd seen men fight many times before. King Nathan of Rithmar had a number of highly skilled soldiers within his King's Guard. But he'd never seen someone fight as if they were an extension of their weapon. Mira flew toward the commander—fearless, fey, and dangerous.
Their blades clashed, and Asher watched them struggled for dominance. It looked hopeless; this man was easily twice Mira’s size and looked impossible to beat. Yet Mira was faster and lighter on her feet than her opponent. Their blades swung about, and she danced around him. Asher watched her slice and cut, her blade flashing orange in the firelight, until the commander’s fine cloak lay in tatters at his feet.
The garrison commander roared, incensed to be toyed with. He lunged at the Swallow, his broadsword slicing through the smoky air, his face a rictus of rage.
Ninia tugged at Asher’s arm. “We can’t leave her.”
Asher tore his gaze from the duel and took in the situation around them. He and Ninia now stood exposed on the bare stretch of land between the border and the woods, illuminated by the burning fort. More soldiers had spied them. Their shouts echoed above the roar of the fire, and they raced toward the escaped prisoners.
Asher growled another curse. Damn, Mira and her need for reckoning. We don’t have time for this.
He gathered the Light once more and drew a burning line of flame across the path of the approaching soldiers. It was an effort, for fatigue now dragged at him. He’d have asked Ninia for help, but after what he’d just witnessed he was afraid to. The girl had a wild power that cowed him. If she gathered the Light again, especially when filled with fear as she now was, Ninia risked incinerating them all.
The perimeter of flame was enough to keep the soldiers at bay for now. It wouldn’t hold the men back for long, but it would hopefully give Mira enough time to join them.
“Mira!” Asher bellowed, his throat burning from smoke and exhaustion. “We have to go!”
She didn’t acknowledge him. As he watched, Mira ducked under the big man’s guard and sliced him across the back of the legs. The commander crumpled with a roar, and then she was on him. Mira dropped her sword, whipped out a dagger, and stabbed the man repeatedly in the chest.
The commander fought her, twisting and bucking under her, but Mira continued stabbing him until he lay still.
Asher and Ninia watched. “Shadows,” the princess rasped. “She’s vicious.”
Asher didn’t reply, although he too was quietly horrified by the depth of fury he’d just seen Mira unleash.
“Mira!” he shouted again.
She appeared to hear him then, leaping to her feet and sheathing her bloodied knife. She stooped, retrieved her fallen sword, and took off toward Asher and Ninia—the commander’s men just a few yards behind her.
Mira’s face, splattered with blood, was harder than Asher had seen it. Her eyes were pitiless.
“Idiots,” she yelled as she approached them. “Why are you standing there? Run!”
They tore across the last stretch of ground toward the woods. Asher’s barrier of fire crumbled behind them, letting through the crowds of soldiers.
Plunging into the trees, his hand still fastened on Ninia’s arm, Asher heard the men calling to each other. The chase was on.
The glow of the inferno behind them penetrated a few yards into the woods, and then darkness descended. Branches caught Asher across the face and shoulders, and brambles clawed at his legs and cloak, but he sprinted on, raising his free arm to protect his face. He could hear Mira running next to him, and her muffled curses as she collided with the trees. Yet they ran on blindly, a group of pursuing soldiers just yards behind.
After a short distance, Asher’s eyes adjusted to the darkness, and he spied the radiance of the moon filtering down from a gap in the trees overhead. Forcing back the fatigue that pulled at him, Asher gathered the Light once more and brought a glowing sphere of moonlight down onto his outstretched palm. Suddenly, they were no longer running blind, for the light illuminated a yard or two in every direction.
It helped, for they were able to run faster now. The sounds of pursuit, which had been so close earlier, gradually drew back and grew faint. They broke from the tree line and ran onto the open stretch of bare hills that lay between the woods and the lake’s edge.
“We need to get back to the boat,” Asher gasped. His lungs felt as if they were on fire. He hated the thought of retracing his steps, but it was the only way he could think to escape the men still chasing them.
Neither of his companions argued with him.