Daja cupped her hands around her mouth. “Stop!” she yelled at the top of her lungs. “Halt!”

A boy looked back, as did two drivers. When they saw who spoke to them, they turned away.

“Polyam, tell them!” cried Daja, yanking on the woman’s shoulder.

“Tell them?” Polyam demanded. “Tell them what?”

“The forest is burning!” cried Daja. “We’re riding into it!” When Polyam hesitated, Daja snapped, “I’m in contact with Sandry—she can see it from the castle!”

Polyam looked at the trees and the smoke. She thrust the reins at Daja and yanked her staff from the back of the cart. “Wait,” she ordered. “And hold ’em.” Slipping from the bench, she landed on the ground and staggered, her wooden leg sliding. With the skill of practice, she stopped her fall and lurched into motion on the road, using her staff to pull her along.

“Where’s the mimander?” she yelled. “Everybody halt! I need the mimander, I need the gilav—” She stopped to cough helplessly. The moment she got herself under control she moved forward, shouting for the leaders of the caravan.

Daja ground her teeth. Everyone ignored the yellow-decked Polyam. Of course, thought Daja grimly; she’s unclean because of her contact with me. They won’t hear her till she’s washed me from her skin.

Rising to her feet, Daja filled her lungs. Her ribs served as a bellows—smoke had no effect on a bellows—as she cried in a booming voice, “Halt right now, or by Hakkoi I’ll rust every nail in the caravan! I can do it!” She couldn’t, but the Traders didn’t know that. “Every ring, every buckle!”

The closest wagon slowed, then stopped. So did the wagon ahead of it.

So, thought Daja, grimly pleased, you just have to know how to talk to them. Where Is It? she mind-called to her friends on the tower. Where Is the fire? Was that a flicker of orange off to her left?

It’s half a mile ahead of the caravan and it’s coming at you all along the eastern edge, said Tris. And—and—her magical voice failed.

It jumped the road in front, Sandry told Daja somberly. You’re cut off. Make them stop, or they’ll ride into it.

Daja grabbed the reins and jumped to the ground. Dragging the donkey, she closed the gap between her and the wagon ahead and hitched the animal to it. People inside shouted, objecting to their wagon being touched by a trangshi; Daja ignored them. Once the donkey was securely tied, she ran to the front of the caravan, where Polyam was yelling at its leaders.

“You’re cut off!” Daja cried when she was within earshot. “Turn back! The fire has jumped the road!”

“Trangshi—” snapped gilav Chandrisa, furious, “this has polluted us all! Was that your aim all along?”

“I don’t care if you’re polluted or not!” Daja cried. “I do care that you’re riding into fire!”

“We have been too lenient,” began the gilav.

“Enough,” said a firm voice, as harsh as a crow’s—Polyam’s. “Mother, do as she says.”

The gilav blinked at Polyam, who went to the heads of the ponies that drew Chandrisa’s pretty wagon. Gripping the reins, Polyam began to turn the team.

The road leader urged his mount back along the string of wagons, talking to each driver. Slowly, one at a time, they started to turn around. None knew better than Traders that haste now would mean tangled harness and fouled wheels. Each worked carefully, one fearful eye on the heavy pall of smoke on the road’s eastern flank.

Daja walked up to Polyam. “You never said she was your mother,” commented Daja in an undertone.

“It wasn’t exactly something that brought us honor, after the mountain ate my leg,” was Polyam’s muttered reply. Seeing Daja walk south on the road, she asked, “Where are you going?”

“I want to see how close we’re cutting this,” called Daja. The road led her up a small incline, over a rise, and across a small bridge above a dry creek. She climbed a second rise, halting at the top.

Three hundred yards before her, trees of all sizes blazed on either side of the road. The ground under them burned, reminding her of Rosethorn’s words about mast. Clumps of flaming leaves—burning squirrel nests—were carried by the wind into places where there was no fire. Within seconds they had started fresh blazes.

The fire advanced, roaring as she’d once heard an earthquake roar. Daja gulped from her water bottle, thinking hard. If she allowed this fire to come on, it would overtake the Traders. They needed a chance to get wagons and animals turned in this sunken road. Somehow she would have to stop the fire’s advance.

Tris? she mind-called. This is as much your kind of thing as mine.

She felt Tris reach out and wrap her fingers around a man’s warm and bony wrist.

It is mine, too. It was Frostpine, able now to speak and hear Daja through Tris. Relief made Daja’s knees weak. Frostpine would fix all this!

He looked through her eyes and whispered, Shurri and Hakkoi. He sounded frightened.

Daja swallowed hard. Perhaps he couldn’t fix it. What can I do? she asked. If I make myself into a really large bellows …?

No! Don’t blow the fire back, he cautioned. What works with candleflame won’t do here. You’ll just spread it.

You have to weave it, Sandry announced, like you did that day when Poly am gave you her plate. We’ll give you the power, but you have to work it.