Ahkio was yelling something at him, but Roh knew the minute he lost his focus, Almeysia would conjure something to eat him. He pressed forward across the cracked stones and shattered bits of the tables, the burst vegetal matter and broken thorns.

He hadn’t mastered the ability to hold a shield and deploy an offense at the same time. Almeysia hounded him with more and more attacks. He broke a stout rattler tree, and severed woody varga vines, all the time advancing on her position.

Almeysia had to work harder for her manifestations, though. As he came forward, he saw she was drawn and trembling. Sweat soaked her tunic.

He was younger, fitter, and his star was ascendant.

The Sanctuary doors burst open behind him.

A blast of air took him off his feet. He created a fast bubble of air to cushion his fall and landed lightly on the other side of the Sanctuary.

Almeysia took the full force of the attack. The great stone lanterns of the gods ringing the altar smashed against the far side of the Sanctuary. Almeysia went with them, tossed to the floor like a tangle of seaweed.

Roh let go of Para. The tension that had held him upright left his body. Exhaustion rolled over him. He sank to his knees.

On the other side of the Sanctuary, Nasaka and Ohanni stood with Ahkio. Ohanni was a parajista and still had a whirling cone of air circling her, churning up dust and debris. Roh could see the misty blue shape of it, sapphire streamers whirling from her fingers.

The Sanctuary was a ragged mess of twisted, seeping plant flesh and broken tables. Tattered paper lanterns tumbled across the floor. The tiles of the floor were broken, jagged in places where Almeysia’s plants had torn through.

“Oma’s breath,” Ohanni said. “Did you do this, Roh?”

Nasaka strode across the Sanctuary to Almeysia. “She’s alive,” Nasaka said. “Bring a draught, Ora Ohanni. I want her drugged. And you–” Nasaka turned to Roh. “You stay where you are. You have much to explain.”

Roh stared into his hands. He had never been in a fight before. Not a real one.

He fell to his knees, trembling. He should be retching, he knew. He should be horrified at causing harm.

But he had never felt so alive.

Chapter 16

16

The boar spiders swarmed Lilia at the edge of the Woodland. Each spider stood as high as her knee and whispered forth from deep burrows hidden by floxflass nests. Lilia froze, the way her mother had taught her. The spiders clambered up her trousers. One perched on her head. She closed her mouth and breathed through her nose, trying to stay calm. Boar spiders were like hornets – they only bit when provoked – but she was hungry and exhausted, and the fear that roiled over her was paralyzing.