“Don’t say ‘puke,’ ” Dayo begged, then rifled through his gold-trimmed trousers to produce a vial of amber liquid. After tossing some back, he offered it to me. “New from Thérèse.”

The potion tasted strongly of ginger and burned as it went down, but did wonders to settle my stomach. I looked guiltily at the empty bottle, wishing I’d thought to share with our Imperial Guard escort. Sanjeet had stayed back to secure the capital and had sent a cohort of trusted warriors in his place. They followed a respectful distance behind as we neared the holy forge, trying their best not to look queasy.

The Holy Olojari Forge and iron quarry rested in the heart of a scruff-covered mountain, hollowed out over centuries for the purpose. As the temple prospered, a chain of villages had sprouted up at the mountain’s feet, servicing the forge with generations of miners, blacksmiths, and inns for the year-round influx of Ember-sect tourists.

At first, we passed through a patchwork of sumptuous noble villa estates, roofs dotted with iron statues of bluebloods—the same nobles, I imagined, who had managed the quarry on my ancestors’ behalf for generations. Every now and then, an orange fleck buzzed near my ear, and something sharp and piercingly hot accosted me in the face. Once, I slapped my neck and brought my hand away to reveal the squashed carcass of a tiny winged creature.

“Ina sprites,” Dayo observed. “Fire spirits. With so many, the forge must be thriving.”

But the closer we got to the temple, the more I sensed something terribly, terribly wrong. The villages, while numerous, were little more than tenements and mudhouses crowded together, with the occasional tourists’ inn surrounded by beggars. As far as I knew, the forge had employed Olojari commoners for hundreds of years. So why did so many live in squalor?

The narrow streets and markets lay spookily bare.

“Where is everyone?” I asked Dayo, careful to keep my voice low. “Do you think word got out about Umansa’s prophecy?”

“I don’t know,” Dayo replied. “But that’s not a good sign, is it?”

He pointed to a plume of smoke slowly filling the horizon. The mountain appeared to be steaming—unearthly tendrils of red, gold, and black rising from craggy rock.

We soon discovered where most of the villagers had gone. A crowd of thin, soot-covered commoners blocked access to the forge. Armed priests guarded the forge entrance: a tall, wide arch carved into the face of the mountain. Twin statues of Warlord Fire, depicted as a barrel-chested giant with billowing hair and wicked amethyst eyes, framed the arch. A phrase in large script, mottled with ash and soot, had been carved into the entryway:

IN THE EYE OF KUNLEO, OLOJARI WILL PROSPER.

Some in the crowd bore picks and iron mallets, others simply lifted bruised and calloused hands, as if in prayer. But all of them swayed, voices lifted in rasping song and jaundiced eyes alight with hunger. From the sidelines, well-dressed bluebloods looked on with nervous scorn. As for the Ember priests of the forge, who stood out in costumes of red and gold, their sympathies appeared to be split. Some acolytes stood with the poor and rioting, joining in their music, and blessing them in red clouds of incense. Other acolytes stood with the wealthy, sneering at the rabble, and making signs of the Pelican to ward off evil.