When they emerged, finally, from the trapdoor, all three looked ready to fall over, and though a low wall ringed the top of Intarra’s Spear, Sioan put her arms out protectively when the wind gusted. She need not have worried. The Aedolians—Fulton and Birch, Yian and Trell—ringed the children, guarding, even here, against some constant, unseen threat. She turned to her husband, the curses ready on her tongue, then fell silent, staring at the blaze destroying the city below.

They had seen it from inside the Spear, of course—the furious red refracted through the glass walls—but from the impossible height of the tower’s top, the streets and canals might have been lines etched on a map. Sioan could extend a hand and blot out whole quarters—Graves or Lowmarket, West Kennels or the Docks. She could not, however, blot out the fire. The report, when she started climbing, had put it on the very western edge of Annur, a vicious conflagration confined to half a dozen blocks. During their interminable ascent, however, it had spread, spread horribly, devouring everything west of the Ghost Road and then, fanned by a quick wind off the western sea, lapped its way east toward the far end of the Godsway. She tried to calculate the number of houses burned, the lives lost. She failed.

At the sound of the trapdoor clattering shut, Sanlitun turned. Even after years of marriage, his gaze still gave her pause. Though Adare and Kaden shared their father’s burning irises, the fire in the children’s eyes was warm, almost friendly, like the light from a winter hearth or the gaze of the sun. Sanlitun’s eyes, however, burned with a frigid, unwavering flame, a light with no heat or smoke. No emotion showed on his face. He might have spent half the night watching the stars chart their course through the dark or the moonlight ribbing the waves rather than fighting a conflagration that threatened to consume his city.

Sanlitun considered his children, and Sioan felt Adare straighten at her side. The girl would collapse later, in the privacy of her own chambers, but now, in the presence of her father, legs trembling with the strain of the climb, she refused to lean on her mother. Kaden’s eyes were wide as plates as he stared at the city below. He might have been alone on the roof, a child of seven facing the blaze all by himself. Only Valyn took her hand, sliding his small fingers into her grip as he looked from the fire to his father, then back.

“You arrived in time,” the Emperor said, gesturing to the dark blocks of the city.

“In time for what?” Sioan demanded, her anger threatening to choke her. “To watch ten thousand people burn?”

Her husband considered her for a moment, then nodded. “Among other things,” he replied quietly, then turned to the scribe at his side.