Panting, Tavi slid off Acteon’s back. He tossed the reins back up over the saddle’s crest and slapped the beast on the flank, sending him running back toward the Legion, crashing through the heavy brush and small trees that had grown up behind him. He heard Kitai’s mare let out a squeal, then follow the big black.

Tavi did not let go of the craftings in front of him. This would be the hard part.

He reached out to the water again and called to fire, sending it coursing back into the ice with a wordless cry. Steam exploded from the walls, from the cracks, in screaming whistles.

“Arise!” he called again, and again the water crashed up from the ground.

And again, he pulled the warmth from the water that had sunk even deeper into cracks that were slightly wider. And he sent heat washing back in a few seconds later.

“Arise!” he called, and began the cycle again.

“Arise!” he called again.

And again.

And again.

And again.

Ice and steam hissed and cracked. Stone screamed. Thick white vapor billowed out from the walls, denser than the veiling cloud, all but opaque.

Tavi fell to one knee, gasping, then slowly lifted his eyes to the gates, his jaw set.

They were coated in a layer of ice six inches thick.

Metal groaned somewhere in the gates, a long moan that echoed from empty buildings and through the mists.

“Right,” Tavi panted. He pushed himself back to his feet, looked over his shoulder, and nodded at Kitai. “Here we go.”

She smiled at him, and said, “Clever, my Aleran.”

He winked at her. Then he slowly drew his sword. He extended it deliberately to his side and concentrated.

The metal seemed to hum—and then fire kindled and rushed down the length of the blade, a white-hot wreath. Tavi reached down into himself, focusing, using the fire along the blade as a starting point, gathering heat and preparing to unleash it.

He extended the sword toward the gate with a scream, and fire and a sudden hammer of wind rushed forth toward the frozen gates. The white-hot firebolt slammed into the gate with a force as real as any ram, the ice sublimating in an instant to steam, and the gates, strained beyond measure by the flexing of water and ice and new life growing within them, shattered.

So did the towers beside the gate.

And a hundred feet of the city’s wall, on either side of the towers.