WHEN WE EMERGE FROM THE dungeon and climb the stairs to the first floor of the palace—passing several waterlogged corpses on the way—the siege has already begun. It is pandemonium, a cacophony of swords clanging, shouts in too many languages to count, and pained screams. The five of us move as one down the hall, Artemisia and S?ren with their swords drawn, Maile with an arrow knocked, Heron and me with our hands raised, ready to draw on our gifts.

A group of six Kalovaxian guards rounds a corner toward us, in full armor with their Earth Gem–studded iron swords held high in the air.

I strike first when they’re ten feet off, hitting them with a steady stream of fire. It might not reach them through their armor, but it does turn the metal unbearably hot. Their battle cries turn to agonized screams, their swords hitting the floor with a clatter. Their helmets follow seconds later.

After that, Artemisia and S?ren fall upon them without mercy, dispensing killing strikes to their bared throats.

“Easy enough,” Maile says. “Only have to do it a few dozen more times.”

“Maybe you can even help with the next one,” Artemisia grumbles, but there’s no real bite in her voice. She’s come alive, the way I’ve only seen her when she has a sword in her hand and the smell of blood is thick in the air.

We fight past two more groups of guards just as easily as the first, but I can’t dislodge the feeling of dread pooling in the pit of my stomach. Maile was right—it is easy. And in all of my fantasies about this battle, I never imagined it would be. The Kalovaxians don’t make things easy. Cress doesn’t make things easy.

“Where are the servants?” I ask as Maile fires an arrow into the throat of a guard at Artemisia’s feet. She had her sword up, ready to slice his throat, but now it falls to her side, limp, and she shoots Maile a glare.

“What?” Maile asks with a grin. “You said I wasn’t helping.”

“The servants,” I say again. “And the nobles, for that matter. If we’re catching them by surprise, there should be more people—not just guards.”

“It’s supper time,” S?ren says, wiping a spot of blood from his cheek with the back of his hand. “Maybe there was a banquet. Maybe they’re all there.”

“Maybe,” I say, but something about that doesn’t sit right.

“We’re catching them by surprise,” Heron says. “Making quick work of them. That’s a good thing, Theo.”

I nod, trying to push my unease down. “Let’s keep going and find the other groups.”

The halls we run down are familiar to me, from one of my lives or another, so I lead the way, winding past the chapel, past the stained-glass window of a shining sun the size of my head, past the stairway that leads down to the bathing pools.

Maybe there are Kalovaxians in there, hiding. Maybe servants as well—I hope they are—but they’re not our concern at the moment. First, we need to subdue anyone who could put up a fight. It’s a tactic taken from the Kalovaxians themselves, one they used on us more than a decade ago.

The sounds of battle get louder when we round a corner, heading toward the banquet hall that lies at the center of the palace, just north of the gray garden.

As soon as I turn the corner, though, an arm pulls me against a wall, the bite of cold iron against my throat.

“Theo!” Artemisia cries out, stepping toward me before she stops short, eyeing the blade at my throat.

“Drop your weapons,” the man holding me says, but I can’t be the only one who hears his voice shaking.

“Do it,” Heron says, a note of authority in his voice that I don’t think I’ve heard before. He meets my gaze, a reassurance there.

Trust me, his eyes say.

S?ren and Artemisia put their swords down, and with a little more hesitation, Maile puts her bow down as well.

The man holding me makes a move to pull me with him backward, toward a door, but Heron doesn’t let him get more than a step before he hits him with a gust of wind that moves like a hand, prying the sword away from my neck and out of his grasp, flinging it so that it hits the stone with a clang that echoes down the hall.

“What—” the man starts, but he doesn’t get a chance to finish. With another gust of wind, Heron snaps the man’s neck, and he crumples to the ground at my feet. As the others hasten to pick up their weapons again, Heron comes to my side.

“Are you all right?” he asks.

I rub my throat. There’s a nick in the skin, but it isn’t deep.

“Fine. Are you?” I ask. Heron doesn’t like violence, and likes killing even less.

He nods, his brow furrowed as he looks down at the man’s body. “It’s war,” he says. “I think the gods will understand.”

I place a hand on his arm, pull him with me down the hall and around another corner, only to stop in my tracks at the scene awaiting in the corridor ahead.

It’s a bloodbath so crazed that I can barely tell who is fighting on what side—all I can see are swords flashing in candlelight, blood gushing over skin, and eyes wide with fury and fear. Fifty warriors altogether. Maybe even more.

One man starts toward me, and it’s only when he’s a few feet away that I see the Kalovaxian red of his uniform, peeking out from where his helmet meets his breastplate. Without thinking, I aim a ball of fire there, and watch as the uniform catches flame. In his haste to pat the fire out, he doesn’t even see Maile’s arrow until it is embedded in his chest, the steel tip having broken through the chain mail and found flesh.

And just like that, we are as deep in the battle as the others, though the five of us stay close and the other four take pains to surround me at all times. Maile and I find a rhythm, her knocking arrows and me using my gift to set them on fire. It saves some time and works out decently, though I suspect a part of it is born from her desire to keep me safe and out of the way.

I hear the sword slicing into flesh before I see it, and for a moment, everything around me moves like a dream, slow and liquid. Then, I hear Heron’s cry of pain, and the scene sharpens once more. I see the blood, the sword’s hilt protruding from Heron’s stomach, hear the scream in the air that I realize too late is my own.

“No!” I scream, and again, the world goes still. But this time I am not frozen in place. I am not frozen at all; I am fire from my head to my toes. I don’t even see the face of the warrior who stabbed Heron. I don’t see any of their faces. In some ways, I think I leave my body altogether—I’m back in the inferno at the Air Mine, and all I feel is fury, burning though me, desperate and hot and insatiable.

I push past Heron and Artemisia, touch the warrior who stabbed Heron, and though my fingers barely graze him, he bursts into flame, screaming, but I don’t linger long enough to watch him die. I move through the crowd, touching every piece of Kalovaxian armor I see, savoring the sight of each one of them bursting into flame. When I reach the other side of the corridor and touch the last Kalovaxian, a shocked cheer goes up from the crowd, but I barely hear them. I barely see anything.

I make it back to Heron on unsteady legs. S?ren is supporting him on one side, Artemisia on the other, and the sword is still in his gut. His eyes are tightly closed, his expression pained as they help him sit down against the wall.

“Don’t take it out,” he says, his voice calm despite everything, his teeth clenched.

After Artemisia sits, she turns to the crowd of rebels watching behind us. “Is anyone here an Air Guardian?” she asks, desperation coloring her voice. No one replies. “A doctor? A healer?” she presses, her voice growing high and thin, but still there is no answer. There is no one here who can help.

“Can he heal himself?” Maile asks.

It’s a question I haven’t ever had to consider. Every time someone has been injured, Heron has been there, ready to lessen their pain at least. I never let myself think about what would happen if he was the one who was hurt.

“I’ve never tried it,” Heron says, wincing as his hand finds the blade. “I think it missed the important bits, but if we take the sword out, there will be too much blood loss. I’ll pass out, and then there will be no chance of me healing it.”

He sounds so calm, as held together as he ever does. He opens his eyes and looks at me, eyes heavy.

“Theo,” he says. “You can cauterize the wound.”

“Cauterize the…” I trail off, the words nonsensical to me.

“S?ren, you’re going to pull the sword out. Slowly and evenly,” Heron says, and S?ren nods. “As he pulls it out, Theo, I need you to use your gift to burn the flesh around it, to keep it from bleeding.”

Nausea makes my vision swim. “I…I can’t do that,” I say.

“Theo,” Heron says again, drawing my eyes to his. “I need you to.”

If you don’t, I’ll die. He doesn’t say the words, but they hang in the air between us all the same. I nod, pressing my lips together in a thin line and lifting my hands to hover just above his wound, flames leaping to my fingertips.