In front of them, the raindrops fell into the lake with little plops and splashes, sending a sound like the shaking of a crystal tree tinkling in the air. The Petryans under siege in Tlaxor would have fresh water this day, for which Ella was thankful.

It was time to return to Torlac.

~

"WAIT? Please, Ella. I cannot wait further. You said you needed the weather to change. It has changed," Prince Ilathor said.

"We must wait for the rain to stop," Ella said.

"How long?"

"I can't say," Ella said. "When the rain stops, the city will be yours. That's the best I can give you."

The prince sighed, rubbing at his forehead. Controlling the men under his command was taking its toll.

"You'd better go," Jehral said.

Ella touched the prince's shoulder and turned, leaving the prince staring out the window at the Petryan capital below.

As she reached the bottom of the stairs, Ella cocked her head.

Silence.

She left the barracks completely — the guards well-used to her presence by now — and looked up at the sky.

The clouds had parted, and the weather was still cool.

The rain had stopped.

~

WITH Shani's help — Ella would never have understood the thermal equations without the elementalist — Ella built her great magic at a hundred points around Lake Halapusa.

Their loose clothing fluttering under a brisk breeze, a detachment of twelve horsemen kept a wary eye out for the enemy as Ella reached the first point. Shani was working in the opposite direction, and the two women would meet at the opposite side of the lake, a place they had chosen to be the section of lake closest to the trade town of Torlac.

Taking a deep breath, Ella halted her horse and dismounted at the place she and Shani had previously marked. She walked down to the lakeside until she stood beside the shallows, wary of touching even the smallest amount of the scalding water. Careful not to splash herself, Ella lifted her arms and plunged the first of her fifty sharpened staves into the water. A warrior tried to come forward to help as Ella then lifted a heavy hammer, but she waved him back. Ella smashed down on top of the stave until she was sure it was secure.

She spoke the activation sequence. "Simela-atun. Sunala-arun. Mulan-turapela."

The runes she had inscribed on the top half of the stave lit up with power, each shining bright and blue. Satisfied, Ella hefted her hammer and remounted her horse. Forty-nine to go.

When she was sinking the forty-fifth stave, Ella looked back along the shore the way she had come. Her breath caught. She could see a plume of grey steam rising into the air, tapering down to a point where the previous stave must be. Looking further still, along the shoreline, Ella could see more plumes, many of them.

It was working.