Already a few of her constructs had needed repairs, a shard or two dying out as the people who’d given them passed away. They couldn’t kill everyone in the Empire and still live, but they needed to subdue them.

The streets of this city were paved instead of packed dirt, and more than once she paused to stamp out burning embers before they could reach the flowing hem of her pants. Smoke stung her eyes and she tried not to cough. Leaf sent out the beasts, rounding up survivors huddled in alleyways or staring wide-eyed at the remains of their homes.

“We’ll start the Tithing tonight,” Nisong said to Leaf. “The sooner we can build up our army, the sooner we can take Luangon and make it our base of operations. From there, we can—”

A crack split the air, followed by a low rumbling. The ground below her feet trembled, but only briefly. Everything in the town went silent except for one errant scream. Leaf seized her forearm.

“What was that?”

She stared back into his pale face, his wide black eyes, and didn’t know what to say. She only had two experiences to compare it to – the quake she’d felt once on Imperial soon after arriving, and the moment on Maila when the world had gone sideways and the mind-fog had lifted. Even the beasts had halted in their work, the people they’d been rounding up looking about as though the sky was about to fall.

Nothing else happened. Her taut muscles relaxed, her heartbeat slowing in its gallop. “I’m not sure, but—”

Her gaze fell upon Luangon. Smoke rose from several places on the island, swirling upward to meet the clouds. “It’s not us,” she said, her heartbeat speeding up again. “It’s Luangon.”

And Grass was there.

She was running, her slippers slapping against the paving stones, jarring her teeth with each step. The beads on her tunic clicked against one another. It took her a moment to realize where she was going. The docks.

“Nisong!” Leaf called after her. “The prisoners, should we—?”

The wind whipped away his words. It didn’t matter now; what mattered was getting to Grass, getting her back from Luangon. She remembered Grass mindlessly sorting through the food on Maila before she’d woken up from the fog. Before Nisong had brought her out of it. Now she had a dry wit, steady hands, an even steadier mind. Bit by bit, she was losing them again.

Not Grass too.

“Wait!” Leaf called out. His feet pounded after her. Waiting was for calmer times. She saw the island shake again before the sound hit her ears, rumbling low like distant thunder. Behind her, a burning house collapsed, sending sparks and embers flying into the air.