She wanted her baby. Luz had left her. But Lelie was not his at the moment to give, and he knew at least Lelie was there, and Hati was. It was dark in the tent, while fire raced across the skies. He called for Patya, to be sure she was there, and Tofi; and hearing answers he fell down on the mat and lay there, only breathing, thinking of the beshti, still under saddle, and the people still on the road, and worst of all, caught on the cliffs with the storm still coming… since come it would.

They could still get behind rocks, at a last resort. He wished them to think of it, simply to snug down with whatever canvas they could secure against something strong—but he was powerless to help them, powerless in all events now. If the sky was burning—if the earth shook like that—what hope was there?

He shut his eyes, but the visions persisted. Stone had hit the sphere. The ring of fire had gone out, and that was what sheeted over them. He knew it now. He got up on a fevered, exhausted effort, and put his head out to see what he could.

There was as yet no sign of storm, only that unnatural glow in the sky, a glow enough now to cast a shadow.

The hammer of heaven had struck a spark to set the sky afire. But the wind—the wind was yet to come. A few more might straggle into the tents. A few more might live.

He knelt in the doorway of the tent, on knees numb with exhaustion, his arms and back afire with fever, and he felt Hati take his arm. He felt her presence, felt Nor it’s, Lelie’s, continually. Norit and Lelie had found each other.

A new vision came: a pillar of cloud, lit red, spreading light across the heavens.

The bitter water, Norit had said. The hammer of heaven would come down in the bitter water, and the fountain would go up, and the earth would crack like a pot, pouring out fire.

Had they not felt the earth break?

“It shines like a lamp,” Norit said. “The heat of it goes out and the ashes will fall and fall. The hammer is down.”

If it were himself alone he might sit down in the doorway in a fit of shivering and watch what came next. As it was, he felt Hati’s hand, and moved his hand to Hati’s, felt her fingers, as swollen and rough and wounded as his own, and dragged his gaze away from the awful sky and toward the look she gave him.

“We’re going to live,” she said, and set her jaw in that way Hati had, and he loved her, he loved her so much in that moment he could look away from the sky.