The camp had ignited. Orange and yellow flames lit up the area, drowning out the glow of dawn over the mountains, torching the dry, fallen trees, the piles of wood, the tents. Guards and slaves alike ran screaming. Some were on fire—flames that turned gold and silver and a bright and unnatural blue. They screamed in agony as the fire scorched their flesh before the violent and overwhelming fire transformed their bodies to crystal that exploded into a million shards of broken glass.
Jonas stared at the sight of the deaths with disbelief.
This was no normal fire ignited during a battle.
This—this was a horrible, destructive, deadly magic. Fire magic.
“What is this?” Magnus said, his voice rising in fear.
Blood spilled on the Blood Road. Three times. Three disasters.
A tornado, an earthquake, a wildfire.
Jonas’s newly healed heart pounded faster. He came up next to the prince. “Do you believe in fate, Prince Magnus? I never did before, but . . . do you?”
“Why do you ask?”
“Just curious.” Jonas slammed his forehead against the prince’s face. He’d been so still, so weakened since his resurrection. It had taken time to get his full strength back.
But it was finally back.
He grasped Magnus’s sword, then brought his elbow up into the prince’s face and hit his nose hard. Blood gushed and Magnus roared in pain. Jonas snatched the sword completely away from Magnus and swung it around to slice the other boy’s throat. But Magnus was also fast, and he blocked the strike with his forearm.
By now, the tent was engulfed in flames. The fire licked at them both, so hot it burned.
Jonas spun the sword around and drove the hilt into Magnus’s gut, earning a satisfying grunt of pain. But before he could manage another blow, Magnus grabbed for a handful of Jonas’s hair, tearing it out by its roots and kneeing him in the chest. He then managed to yank the sword completely from Jonas’s grip.
“We need get out of here or we’ll die,” Magnus growled.
“I came here prepared to die today. In fact, I already did.”
Jonas tackled Magnus and lurched both of them backward. As they fell, Jonas angled himself so that it was Magnus’s head that slammed against the side of the burning table. It was hard enough to stun the prince and he kneeled on the ground, gasping for breath, sword in hand.
Still, Magnus grasped hold of Jonas before he was able to slip away.
“I have a dungeon just for you, rebel,” he promised.
Five guards approached the burning tent, shouting Magnus’s name.
“Here!” he called out to them. “I have a prisoner!”
“Wrong,” Jonas snarled, using every last piece of his strenth to wrench away from Magnus’s grip, yanking the sword away from the prince again. He brought the blade down, but Magnus rolled out of the way just in time.
Jonas swore, eyeing the approaching guards who loomed at the tent’s burning entry.
“Sieze him!” Magnus yelled.
“Perhaps another time, your highness.” He’d come here to take Magnus as a prisoner, but if he tarried another moment, it would be the other way around.
Without wasting another moment, he cut through the side of the tent and burst out into the chaos outside, ducking and hiding to avoid being seen by any guards through the raging, magical wildfire that raged all around them.
To his right, he saw an older, bald man and a young girl huddled close, away from the carnage, looking around with fear and confusion. The tents were all on fire now. The road camp was an inferno.
Strewn everywhere on the ground were burning bodies— guard or rebel, their blood spilled across the road as if it was a violent and fiery canvas. Some had turned to the strange crystal form after being touched by the fire—broken and scattered across the dusty ground.
Where is Lysandra?
It was his first coherant thought.
He strained his eyes to find her, to find any rebels, but he saw no one apart from those that lay dead on the ground. He couldn’t count. He wasn’t sure how many had fallen.
The body of a dead girl with long, dark hair lay across his path, an arrow pierced through her heart. He stopped breathing completely at the sight of her.
“No. Please, no.” He crouched down, pushing her hair off her face.
But it was not Lysandra. It was Onoria.
A loss . . . a horrible loss to them all. Onoria was an incredibly brave and clever rebel.
After closing her eyes, he got up quickly and ducked behind a tent. He couldn’t stay here. If he did, he would be killed, either by the fire that continued to rage or by a guard.
“Lys,” he whispered. “Where are you? Damn it. Where?”
She had to be alive. Lysandra Barbas was not meant to die tonight.
No, he decided firmly. She was alive.
And if she was, he would find her.
Chapter 33
LYSANDRA
AURANOS
Lysandra stumbled as a guard shoved her into a dark and crowded cell, and she fell hard to the dirt floor. The stone walls were damp and smelled of mildew and death. At the top of the tall wall, there was a small window no bigger than her hand, just large enough to let in a ray of sunshine, taunting her with the freedom that had finally been stolen from her.
Only five of them had made it to their destination alive. Phineas had spoken up during the trip to the Auranian dungeon, mouthed off to a guard, and had his throat cut immediately, his body tossed off the side of a bridge.
The rest remained silent after this. Lysandra held tightly onto Tarus’s sweaty hand most of the way. The young boy was terrified, but he tried to be brave. For her. She didn’t know what had become of Jonas, but she refused to believe he was dead.