As Caisa ducked and parried the knife, Ahkio held the sword tight in both hands and swung. Not for the man’s head or torso, the places the shadow would anticipate and set up gifted defenses, but his legs.

The man yelled, leaping away from Ahkio’s strike, and turned. Ahkio knocked into him with his own body; pushed him over.

Caisa took up her weapon in both hands and drove it into the man’s back, pinning him to the floor. Ahkio got as close to the burning wall as he dared. His clothes were smoking. He raised the fiery sword as high as he could and realized what he was about to do.

Murder. At his hand.

He could not bring down the sword.

Caisa pulled her sword free and hacked a second time. Blood sprayed them. Her third stroke freed the head from the torso.

Ahkio dropped his own sword, throwing the flaming tunic with it. “Out!” Ahkio said.

Caisa stumbled over the body. She had one arm clutched to her chest. Ahkio saw more blood there beneath her arm. Her face was drawn.

“Kai,” she said. “I’m sorry.”

“Quiet, now,” he said. “You did well. Let me help you out.”

When she consented, he took her in his arms. His hands did not tremble.

They stumbled up the flaming stairs and into the cold, murky air.

Ahkio released her, and Caisa sagged against him. Ahkio felt the heat at his back. He helped Caisa into the courtyard, near the fountain. The fire blossomed up through the house and spread out over the wreckage, an enormous bonfire that licked at the cold sky and sent out a wave of heat and light. Other people lined the square, those living in the houses above their market stalls, those in nearby community houses, some hovering in the shadows, but others…

The fire lit the square. Ahkio saw a stir of fighters. How many left? Twenty? Bodies lay in the square. Militia and Oras. And Raonas. Civilians.

He saw forgotten swords. Shattered glass.

He looked down at Caisa. She was covered in blood and soot.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“You keep saying that.”

“He stabbed me going into the alley. Closed the air around me, stabbed. I’m sorry.”

“Caisa–”

“Go on,” she said. “Fight them now or fight them later.” She handed him her sword.

Ahkio shook his head. “I can’t.”

“They will destroy us.”

“Maybe not in the way we think,” he said.

The building blazed behind them. He sat with Caisa, watching the fighting in the roaring light. Ghrasia fought a man in a dark cloak, she and two others. There were four Oras behind them. Ghrasia plunged forward. Her blade took the shadow through the gut.

The shadow faltered.

Ghrasia darted forward again. She took him with a solid thrust through the chest, then cut off his head. Then she was moving again, limping toward the last stir of figures.