Kelsine . . . She was here, trapped inside the building. I could feel her fear, her worry. She might have been a dragon, but she was still a juvenile, and she’d been through a lot in her short life. I just wished we hadn’t been reconnected only to bring her into more danger.

It seemed like ages slipped past as Paorah spoke on the glories of cleansing fire, but the sun hadn’t moved far by the time Aaru leaned toward me.

“She said everyone is free. In one minute, our people will attack. Can you get to the first dragon?”

I flexed my fingers and wrists, my legs and feet. Lying flat on hard stone had done nothing for my circulation. But I could do it. If given the chance, I could reach her. Slowly, I turned my face back to Aaru, memorizing his features while I counted the seconds. His lips, soft and warm, so often tilted up in an expression of neutral pleasantness.

Forty-five.

Those dark eyes that saw everything.

Thirty-two.

The sharp lines of his cheekbones.

Nineteen.

Everything. Everything about him.

Five.

I wished we had more time.

Four.

I wished I’d told him sooner how I felt.

Three.

I wished there’d ever been a future for us.

Two.

But given our different lives, the world we lived in, the choices we’d have made if left alone, maybe it was a miracle we’d ever met in the first place.

One.

“I love you,” I said.

He smiled, because he knew what would happen next—of course he knew—and then silence descended over the ruins, darkening every noorestone.

Soundless, chaotic motion burst all around us, with our fighters leaping out of wagons, through the ranks of Paorah’s soldiers, and taking fallen weapons for themselves. Even dishonored, even far from their risen god Khulan, they were faster and stronger than Anaherans. And when Gerel hurled herself into the fray, she was a vision of perfectly practiced violence.

Without the noorestone light obscuring Chenda’s shadow, it loomed darkly in the golden morning sun, holding a line between the fighting and the portico—protecting our group up here. And for Chenda’s part, she was pulling Safa into the dubious safety of the building and the juvenile Drakontos ignitus within.

Then, almost as soon as the sound vanished, a pulse of charm rippled across the space, so strong it almost pulled me in. As I rolled to my hands and knees, I saw Ilina and Zara moving toward the front of the portico, where Paorah held Mother at knifepoint. My wingsister and my blood sister had their hands clasped, their god gifts working together.

A gag filled Mother’s mouth, and her hands had been tied with a length of ribbon, but she didn’t look afraid. No, she lifted her gaze to meet mine, and there I found a mirror: determination, resignation, and—though I’d never really expected it—love. Then she lifted her chin in clear instruction: go.

In one motion, I finished shedding the ropes around my wrists and ran for the nearest break between Paorah’s soldiers; most of them had left their positions when they went to quell the resistance.