Lilia gasped and clawed away from them. Her body twitched and jerked. The heat was intense. It felt like she was on fire. Then, her vision went bloody again. Her lungs filled. The heat of some foreign thing, some other substance, some other breath, moved beneath her skin. She had to get rid of it. She didn’t know what to do with it. Sweat soaked her clothes. The muddy snow all around them had melted. It was a morass of warm, stinking mud. Where was Gian? Gian and Emlee and Emlee’s nephew Sorat needed to get away from her. Far, far away. She was going to explode, going to burn from the inside out.

Lilia turned. Raised her hands. Focused on the line of screaming legionnaires. Breathed out.

The burning air left her body. Her skin cooled. She huffed out another breath, a real one this time.

Another burst of fire exploded inside the ranks of the legionnaires. Women’s screams carried across the fence.

Lilia gasped. She needed the safety of the camp. She needed to get away from the fire. Her body ached. She was shaking so hard, her teeth rattled.

“Oma protect me and guide me,” she muttered, an old prayer, something her mother had taught her. “Bring light when there is darkness, show me the shape of the new world, cleanse us in fire and water, show us the–”

“Lilia!”

Taigan’s voice.

She squinted. The bloody haze was coming again. Oma, Oma, please stop, she thought, please stop.

Taigan slid off his bear and pressed his hand to Lilia’s chest. “The song, Lilia, the Song of One Breath, the one I taught you,” he said.

Lilia’s teeth chattered.

Taigan shook her. “You’re burning up, Lilia. You’ll murder everyone here.”

“Let them burn,” she growled.

Taigan slapped her.

“You will not hurt me again!” Lilia pressed her hands forward.

The air around her grew heavy. Mud splattered. She let forth a burst of power. It met Taigan’s misty red wall of air. Blew back at him, past him, toward the legionnaires who met them in the camp.

The woman called Zezili had made her group lie in the mud and put their hands over their heads. Lilia’s wave of heat engulfed their mounts instead. The dogs yipped and shrieked.

“You’ll burn us all up and yourself!” Taigan said. “The Song of One Breath. Say it. Feel it. You’ll burn yourself out right here and that will be the end of all this bright power. Do you understand?”

“Lord Oma,” Lilia muttered, “Lord of mercy, lord of light…”

“Heads down! Stay down!” Zezili yelled. She kept her hands over her head as the wave of heat moved over them. “Isoail! Get me my gate!”

“Are you mad?” Isoail cried. “She’s going to burn out. She’ll turn us to pulp!”

“Open the gate!”

“You won’t get her in.”