The book was partly destroyed. Yet what was left might be enough.

The Primate didn't know it, but the scraps of metallic fabric he held in his hands were the key to the most powerful relic the world had ever known.

A relic Evrin must protect at all costs.

4

4

ELLA stood by the bank of the Sarsen, upriver from the Crystal Palace, soot on her cheeks and an expression of concentration on her face.

"Don't bring your wrists so close together," a woman in a rust-coloured robe admonished her. "Slowly condense the flame until you can feel it coiled tight. Then bring your elbows together. No, your elbows."

Sweat broke out on Ella's brow. She wore a red cuff on each wrist, and the pulsing colours on each indicated they had been activated. Between her wrists was a ball of fire, red with fiery heat and writhing as if possessed of a life of its own. It was strangely heavy, and Ella's arms ached with the effort.

"Get down!" Ella cried. The ball of flame shot out from between her wrists, fortunately away from her body, or she wouldn't have been alive to warn the two onlookers.

The woman in the red robe dove to the side, while the other onlooker, Bartolo, fell off his seat, the fireball barely missing him. The ball of energy hit the river with a sound like a crashing wave and water shot up into the sky in a cloud of steam.

Once again, she had lost it.

"You're terrible," said Shani, the woman in red.

Bartolo picked himself up off the ground, making a show of dusting himself off.

"Don't worry, bladesinger, your pretty silk blouse is still nice enough to wear to the dance," Shani said.

Bartolo paused, mid-way through pushing back his curly dark locks and smoothing his tiny moustache. He opened his mouth to retort when Ella interjected.

"What am I doing wrong?" Ella asked.

Shani came over and looked the young enchantress up and down. Ella wore her green silk dress, and she was slimmer and slightly shorter than the woman in red.

"You're too weak," Shani said, squeezing Ella's upper arms. "You're too accustomed to having big burly men like this oaf here do your dirty work for you. You make the zenblades and give them to others to wield for you — that's the enchanter's way, isn't it?"

"That isn't fair," Ella said.

"Well, let me tell you, being an elementalist isn't like that. Blessings, girl, I don't know why I'm bothering with you."

"Perhaps because she's the only one preventing them from locking you up for the duration of the war," Bartolo said. He'd taken his zenblade out of its scabbard and was making a show of looking down its length, examining it for marks.

Shani had arrived the previous week; the scouts had found her in Altura's south, scratched and starving, her dark skin instantly giving her away as a Petryan.