A blaze of dark fire erupts from the dragon’s mouth just as Thierren yanks Sparrow against his chest and growls out a spell, a translucent blue shield flowing over them before the fire slams into a building behind them. The ground beneath them shakes, debris pummeling their shield before they turn to find Sparrow’s apartment building exploding into silvery black flames.

Thierren’s heart clenches as he pulls Sparrow back into a run, her hard-won home, gone in the blink of an eye. And any people inside...

Another dragon zooms in, dark fire streaking from its shrieking jaws to slam into the building across the street. Thierren hurls both himself and Sparrow sideways as another huge explosion sounds, debris colliding with their shield in a repelling punch that comes close to knocking them both off their feet.

His heart pounding against Sparrow’s back, Thierren holds tight to her as the smoke partially clears, people screaming all around. Horror sears through him as he spots an entire family ablaze just across the street. A toddler with hair on fire, shrieking with pain and terror as her mother frantically pats her hair to put out the flames. A screaming little boy wails nearby, his string of runic orbs aflame, his father struggling to pry it from his fists.

Before Thierren can react, the street heaves and buckles as the unnaturally burrowing fire streaks through the very ground and the surrounding buildings begin to collapse.

Thierren growls out a spell, pulls back his arm and slashes a wide arc of water over the flaming people, dousing the steely fire before he and Sparrow launch back into a run and the panic of the crowds devolves into chaotic terror. Thierren meets Sparrow’s horrified gaze once before they swerve right, breaking into a faster run as they launch themselves onto a path through the Voling Gardens.

They burst onto the Voling Plaza just as the Icaral and Black Witch statue in its center explodes into a ball of dark flame. Sparrow flinches, dragons shrieking and soaring across the sky while battles break out between the Vu Trin and the Mages on the ground and in the air, sapphire and silver-black explosions detonating.

“Sparrow!” a child’s familiar voice cries out.

Relief blazes into being as Sparrow spots Effrey by the plaza’s edge. He’s huddled with Mii Vun under a translucent violet shield he’s clearly conjured, a glowing amethyst shard in Effrey’s raised hand, the base of the shield cleverly tethered to amethyst Xishlon jewelry that Effrey must have requisitioned from a nearby upended jewelry cart.

Mii Vun is embracing three terrified-looking children under the luminous shield, all of them pressed against the stone fencing at the garden’s edge.

“Effrey! Stay there!” Thierren calls out. “Hold your shield!”