Hurt sparks sharp in my chest. “I shouldn’t have pressed you,” I say quietly. “I shouldn’t have asked you why you don’t stand up to him. I understand why, better than anyone.”
“You understand nothing,” he spits at me. “I saidleave!”
I stare at him, fighting the sudden press of tears. “But we’re friends,” I say stupidly.
“You’re not my friend. You have been taking advantage of me, and if you ever come here again, I will drag you right to my father. Do you understand?”
Terror beats through me with wings, large and dark. “Ballast,” I whisper.
He leans toward me, closer than he has ever been before, close enough that I can see his eyelashes are a mix of white and dark, just like his hair. “I never want to see you again,” he says. “Now get the hellout.”
I climb up into his vent and crawl away from his room, clumsy and shaky, the world blurred before me.
I do as Ballast asks.
I never go back.
Chapter Five
Year4200, Month of the Red God
Daeros—the plains
We abandon our camp and ride hard east after Indridi, into the burgeoning dawn. The wind sears cold past my ears, choking all my breath away. My heart beats, beats, an erratic rhythm. Saga rides beside me, frantic in her anguish. Vil rides ahead, grim as the goddess of death, flanked by Pala and Leifur.
“How do you know?” Saga had asked Pala, desperate in her denial in the flaring lantern light. “How do you know Indridi is an Iljaria spy?”
“Because she rode east, Your Highness, as fast as her horse would take her, and when she glanced back and saw me, she threw flames from her hands. Why would she do that, if she were not an Iljaria spy?Howwould she do it?”
She wouldn’t. Because Skaandans don’t wield fire magic. That was enough of an answer, for Saga.
So we pound on after her, our horses’ hooves tearing into the earth. We see Indridi in the distance as the sun lips above the rim of the world—she’s sparking red. But for all her magic, her horse has none, and she’s driven it too hard. The animal stumbles. Indridi slides from its back and turns to face us. Fire burns in both her palms; it does not hurt her.
I blink and see Dagmar, the Iljaria boy from Kallias’s Collection who was there when I first arrived. Even at nine years old, Dagmar was a master of his fire magic, and Kallias feared him. I was eleven when Kallias slit his throat and dumped his body in the Sea of Bones.
Flames curl up into Indridi’s hair as the rest of us slide from our mounts and pace toward her. Vil draws his sword, and Saga just stares at her friend, openly weeping. I am sick through to my core.
The fire burns away the black of Indridi’s hair, until her curls are white and gleaming, her brows and lashes, too. She lifts her chin, her eyes locked hard on Vil’s.
“I should have known,” he says, voice harsh and unyielding as stone. “I should have known no natural person could start such a fire in the rain.”
I fight the urge to be sick in the grass. Heat radiates from Indridi, even from ten feet away.
“I don’t understand,” Saga chokes out. “Ridi, I don’t understand. You’re Skaandan! You’ve served me and my family for a decade. You’re my best friend. You can’t—you can’t—”
Indridi shifts her gaze to Saga, and her fire lessens a little. “I never meant to hurt you, Saga.”
“You dyed your hair,” Saga realizes, staring. “You kept your magic hidden. Why?”
Indridi’s fire lessens yet a little more, and I finally see the fear in her eyes. “I was ordered to,” she whispers.
“Bywho?” Vil asks viciously.
Indridi flinches. Flames flare hot once more, crawling up and down her arms, circling her brow like a crown. “The Prism Master.” She sets her chin, but it wobbles. She looks at Vil like her heart is fracturing into infinite pieces.
On either side of Vil, Pala and Leifur draw their swords.
“You were going to report to him,” says Vil. “Somehow meeting the Iljaria on the road yesterday was your signal to go.”
