I nod, remembering how the animagus who held me captive used magic to freeze everyone around him. But it didn’t work on me.
“You think I’m even immune to a Godstone’s fire?”
“I doubt it. It becomes a natural thing after it leaves the stone itself, burning and spreading just like any other fire. But you might be immune to your own.”
So I follow Storm’s example and set my feet shoulder-width apart. I imagine that my legs are rooted to the earth, conduits for the magic creeping beneath the earth’s skin.
“Now what?” I ask.
“This is the part I never mastered,” he says with a grimace. “But my tutor said that if I closed my eyes and blocked out everything around me, I should feel a connection to the magic of the earth. Almost like the tug of a string.” He lowers his amulet and shrugs. “But I never felt anything. I failed—”
“Try it. I’ll try it if you do.”
He opens his mouth, closes it. Stares at the amulet dangling from his hand.
“It’s just you and me,” I add softly. “No one need ever know what transpires here today.”
He reaches with a forefinger to hook his hair behind his ears—a nervous, useless gesture, for it is still too short. “All right,” he says. “We’ll try it without blood first. Ready?”
I close my eyes. I concentrate on the feel of the earth beneath my feet. I imagine a string connecting me to the zafira.
Power rushes into me like a flood. My Godstone flashes hotter than desert sunshine, and my limbs tingle with an overwhelming desire to spring into action.
I crack open one eye and peek at Storm. He is panting, his face is flushed, and tiny beads of sweat collect on his upper lip.
“Anything?” I ask.
He opens his eyes, and a huge smile spreads across his face. “Oh, yes,” he breathes. “It’s like a thread of power connects me to the world.” He stares wide-eyed at his caged amulet. A tiny spark pulses at its center. “What about you? Do you feel the thread?”
“It’s more like a rushing river. A really warm river. I could probably heal someone right now. I’m not sure how to call fire, though.” As I relax my focus, though, the power drains out of me as if I’m a sieve.
“You’re supposed to direct the line of power through your Godstone somehow. And apparently it helps to think angry, destructive thoughts.”
“How pleasant.”
He nods. “If by ‘pleasant,’ you mean the exact opposite of that. Here, I’ll try it.” He closes his eyes, breathes deeply, holds his amulet out toward the granite outcropping. “Just reach down,” he murmurs, “find the thread, direct it toward the stone.” His brow furrows, and his breathing quickens. “Then think about something that makes you angry—”
A stream of red-orange fire erupts from his stone and pounds against the cliff, trailing sparks to the ground.
The fire fades quickly, and I stare at the circle of char left behind, mouth agape. “You did it! Storm, you . . .”
I turn to find him knocked to the ground. His long limbs are sprawled at awkward angles, and his amulet smolders beside him in a carpet of dead pine needles. But his smile is huge, and his green eyes blaze with triumph. “With practice,” he says, “the fire will get so hot it will turn blue. Then white. A white fire is powered wholly by the zafira, and will continue to burn even when it’s out of fuel. For years, sometimes.”
I think of the charred ring of destruction around my capital city and its unquenchable embers. “It was a white fire that struck Alejandro. And Mara. Mara’s burn resisted healing until I healed her myself.” I reach my hand down. We grasp forearms, and I help him to his feet.
In his other hand, he dangles his now brightly glowing amulet at a safe distance. “With practice I’ll be able to aim better,” he says. “Ground myself so I don’t fall down.”
My lips twitch. “I just hope you don’t set the mountainside on fire while you figure it out. And maybe you shouldn’t try for a white fire just yet. Not until you have some control.”
His eyes narrow. “Your turn,” he says in challenge.
I take a deep breath and turn toward the granite face. I imagine myself shooting fire from my belly, which sends me into a fit of giggles.
“This is humorous for you?”
No, I suppose it’s not. In answer, I close my eyes and open myself to the zafira.
It comes in a rush, eagerly, as powerful as a sandstorm, as gentle as a feather. “Well, hello,” I whisper, as if greeting an old friend.
Now to focus it all on my Godstone, the conduit for my power.
But unlike Storm, I feel no single thread. There is nothing to focus on. Instead, my whole body hums with power.
My whole body. That’s the difference. A living Godstone is not the conduit.
I am.
“Elisa?”
I lift my right arm and point toward the granite face. “Storm, you might want to step farther away.”
And it’s as easy as telling it where to go. It blasts out of me, a bolt of blue-hot fire that explodes against the cliff face. Shards of rock fly everywhere. Something stings my cheek.
I fall to my knees, gaping at the smoldering crater in the granite. The rock is glazed over, melted like glass. I feel empty, used up, like I could sleep for days.
Storm’s laughing penetrates the haze. I turn to find him doubled over. “You’re not supposed to let it all out at once!” he says between gasps. “You’re supposed to loose it in controlled bursts. No one else in the world has so much power, and yet you are the clumsiest thing I’ve ever seen. You are as vulnerable as a babe.”
I smile sheepishly. “We both have a lot to learn.”
“Yes. But, Elisa?” His uncanny eyes flash with glee. “We’re animagi now.”
12
HECTOR
ONE of the horses died. Not the tiny mare with the white fetlocks, and I’m not sure why one horse should matter more than any other, but I’m glad.
Four others sickened. They vomited green bile and collapsed onto the ground, thrashing their legs. The Inviernos had seen mountain laurel poisoning before, and they assured the Joyans that their horses would most likely be well enough to travel in a day or so. But Franco is out of patience with delays. After an afternoon’s debate, he ordered everyone forward, leaving the Joyans without healthy mounts behind.
There are now only sixteen captors from whom I must escape.
Poisoning the horses halted our progress for less than a day, but I sit straighter in the saddle, feeling stronger. Not helpless. Maybe I can do it again. My mind spins with other possibilities. Anything to slow us down and give Elisa a chance to catch us before she’s forced too deep into enemy territory.
It’s almost like protecting her.
I think hard about it as we navigate the tight, rocky trail of the mountainside. Below us stretches Invierne, a vast land forested with pine trees that, by some trick of light, seem as blue as the deepest part of the sea. Fog sends billowing tendrils through gorges and ravines. It rains or snows several times a day.
After an evening meal of pine nuts and thin soup, the chip-toothed Joyan comes to tie me up for the night. My bonds are so badly frayed now that he is derelict not to notice. If he worked for me, I’d make him scrub chamber pots for a month.
“Marreo,” I say, using the name I’ve heard others use. “A word.”
“You have nothing to say that I care to hear.”
“It’s strange, don’t you think?” I say as he works the triple hitch. “That only our horses got sick.”
“Your horse is fine. So is mine.”
“I mean only Joyan horses got sick.”