Toshi dropped the arm he’d raised to cover his face against the oncoming fireball, and found himself on top of the Governor’s Villa, standing next to the speaking stone.
He allowed himself one moment of utter confusion before he wrangled his wits back in order. Ivan, he thought, and raced down the stairs of the villa, through the maze of passages, and into the lab.
Toshi found Ivan, still furiously making pesticide as fast as he could, and pulled him away from the vats.
“It’s over,” Toshi told his old friend. “The Queen is dead.”
Ivan’s eyes drifted off to the side, the barest hint of a smile turning up the corners of his lips. His face suddenly darkened.
“Grace,” he whispered. “Is she—?”
“Still on the pyre,” Toshi answered before Ivan could finish asking. The two of them turned immediately and ran through the city to the wall.
Lily heard the hissing and tasted the wet smoke before she realized what was happening. Bucket after bucket of water was being shuttled to her and dumped over the last flames. Her pyre extinguished, Lily cut off the loop of power flowing between her and her claimed. She could hear voices all around as her claimed dug to get her out of the remnants of her colossal pyre.
Relief gushed through her, thick and sweet as honey, but a mountain of burnt and half-collapsed logs both surrounded and covered her.
“Hold on, Lily. I’m almost to you,” Rowan said, his voice sounding muffled and far away.
“I’m here,” she called out.
Water started dripping down through the collapsed tinder above her, black and greasy with charcoal. She heard the thunking of an ax as Rowan got closer and closer to her, and felt the half-joyful, half-frightened thrill thumping inside him.
It’s over. We won, he kept whispering inside his mind, repeating it over and over, trying to convince himself it was true.
“There she is—I see her!” he shouted to the crew behind him. Lily saw Rowan throw aside his ax and start wrenching logs away with his hands.
Lily pulled her chains free from the crumbling stake, and reached up to him as he threw the last log aside and gathered her to him.
“We did it,” he whispered, his voice breaking.
“We really did,” she replied, smiling through tears as she clutched at him.
She couldn’t seem to get close enough to him as they kissed and held each other. She pressed herself against him, laughing and crying and babbling all at once. They held each other in the center of the scorched pile while the rest of the timber crew cleared a path, wanting nothing but to stay exactly where they were.
Toshi and Ivan passed teams of rebels still combing the streets for swarms, their expressions cautiously hopeful that the battle was over. Bodies were already being collected and taken off the streets on stretchers. The injured were rushed to healers, who had set up triage centers every few blocks. Toshi noticed that not everyone getting help was a citizen. The restricted zone must have emptied into the city proper at some point during the battle, and Toshi held out hope that his family had made it across.
When they reached the wall they found that the stairs that zigzagged up to the top were cleared of the Warrior Sisters who usually guarded them. Toshi and Ivan took the stairs two at time. When they reached the top they heard voices. Someone had beaten them to Grace.
Grace’s pyre steamed under her knees. She crouched atop the pile of doused logs, facing an Outlander with a fierce face. He threw the empty bucket he was holding aside and strode toward her.
“Grace Bendingtree. I am Alaric Windrider, sachem of the last tribe. I find you guilty of genocide,” he declared.
Grace shifted on her knees, her shackles jingling softly. “Aren’t I supposed to get a trial first?” she asked, smiling.
“No trial,” he said. He pulled a knife out of his belt and her smiling face fell.
“Sachem? What are you going to do with that?” Toshi interrupted, edging his way forward uncertainly.
As Toshi frantically combed his mind for some kind of argument to present to Alaric, a small swarm of Warrior Sisters flew toward them and landed on the battlement. Alaric faced them, dropping into a fighting crouch and brandishing the long knife in his hand. Toshi felt Ivan push him back, protecting him, but the Warrior Sisters weren’t looking at any of them. They went directly to Grace.
Grace looked at her former claimed uncertainly as they stalked toward her. “Wait,” she said, holding out a tentative hand. “No—”
Before Ivan, Toshi, or Alaric could make a move, the Warrior Sisters snatched Grace up by her arms and legs, flew her past the edge, and let her go.
She screamed the whole way down. When she finally struck the ground and went still, the Warrior Sisters flew away.
“Grace is dead,” Lily said as she and Rowan scrambled out from the extinguished pyre. Clouds of steam still rose around them, filling the air with fog. Fatigue was taking Lily over, and turning her legs to jelly.