“Can you spare a change of horse? I’ve ridden this one all day.”

“Of course. Take your pick.” He waved at the picket line in the wind shadow of a shed.

Arian moved her gear to a sturdy dark bay with no white markings to show at night, gave her horse a quick rubdown, and put him in the shed. Then she mounted and rode away eastward, letting the taig flow through her. Despite the taig’s disturbance, it was a relief to have that connection back.

A chill wind blew from the north, stronger than it had been as they rode toward Harway. This close to the disturbance, she could easily tell what it was. Men setting fires in the dry leaves … men sneaking through the woods. She was a few sandglasses’ ride from Riverwash.

She met one patrol at a little less than half the distance, rangers who knew her name from old times. All they asked was of Tsaia: did the Tsaian king know, would Tsaia come to their aid? Arian told them what little she knew and rode on.

Suddenly light bloomed in the sky ahead and riverward, first a yellow glow and then white. The north wind strengthened, as if in response. Arian’s skin drew up; the taig’s reaction was instant and violent—pain, terror, anger, all mixed. She legged her horse into a gallop and very soon heard the roar of flames that towered into the night sky. This was not ordinary fire … terrified deer ran toward her along the road; her horse swerved to avoid them.

She felt first warmth, then heat, and reined in as the road angled north to Riverwash: the entire town was ablaze. What had once been buildings glowed and fell in like coals in a fireplace, white at the center. The wind now blew toward the fire, pulled in by its heat, but then came a stronger blast from the north, and the fire bent over and moved south, toward the road … toward her.

Her horse squealed, jigged, tried to whirl. Arian held it firm long enough to be sure there was nothing she could do—the fire was coming fast and would cut her off from the east—she could not cross its path before it arrived. She turned back to the west, the horse in a panicky run.

The taig beat at her, its pain her pain, until she almost felt her own skin crisping in an instant. Grief, too, as she thought of the lives in that town, all gone in a few instants of agony. Singer of worlds, help us. Adyan Namer … she rode between cold and fire, and met the patrol she’d seen before riding cautiously toward her.

“What is that?”

“Scathefire,” Arian said. She looked back. The fire was roaring away south; where they stood they could see the trees silhouetted against it. “The king of Pargun—when he came and King Falkieri met him—warned of a fire weapon he called scathefire. It cannot be quenched with water, he said.”