“They aren’t the rightful rajah. You are.” I scrub away the flaking henna on the backs of my hands. “As the kindred, I’ll stand at your right-hand side.”

Ashwin sees my rank marks, and tears flood his eyes.

“Please give me the machete,” I say. With my guidance, he gradually lowers the blade. “Now let it go.” He does not, so I pry the weapon away.

He gasps for a saving breath, his chin quivering against more tears.

Anjali ejects a sigh and stops twirling her chakram. “You never know when to lose, Kalinda.”

My instincts prickle. I back up for the trees. “Ashwin, get to the temple.”

He pivots to run, but before he takes a single step, Anjali slings a chakram at him, boosted by one of her vicious gusts. I knock Ashwin down, away from its path. The chakram whirrs off into the forest and embeds itself in a tree trunk. We scramble up, and Anjali hurls a follow-up wind at us, flinging us back.

I land hard in the snow and drop the machete. Ashwin flies into a log, hitting his head, and lies in a daze. I throw up a flame, a signal to Indah and Pons, and draw my dagger. As I stand, I notice Anjali has disappeared.

The sun has sunk, and the dusky twilight rapidly fades to dark. I scan the shadowed landscape for her. The northern winds blast, each gust stronger than the last. I cannot discern which are Anjali’s and which belong to the sky-god.

I back up toward Ashwin, and a wind whips at my ankles. I fall, dropping my dagger. Another squall lashes my back. The sting goes through my tunic to my skin. Then another strike belts me, followed by Anjali’s laugh.

She whips me again with her slicing gusts. My tunic rips, exposing my back. Another few agonizing lashes come. Welts rise on my skin. I roll over and throw repeated heatwaves to make her stop. The color of my flames starts out a lime green and steadily intensifies to emerald.

Her flaying winds peter off, and nature’s less punishing gales skim over me. Snow presses into my back and cools the pain. Where are Indah and Pons?

“Burners are supposed to be the most dangerous of us,” Anjali says, standing over me.

I reach for my dagger, but a wind pushes my arm above my head. Anjali stomps on my other arm, pinning my fire powers against the frozen ground.

“Leave us be,” I say. “Killing us will not stop Udug.”

“My father has given me everything good in my life. I do as he asks.” She leans over me and grabs my neck. “First you die and then the prince.”

The wind on my raised arm has passed. I swing it down and seize her wrist. “I’ll turn you into an ash heap first.”

“I accept that challenge.” Her powers dive inside me and squeeze my chest. She winnows my lungs, shriveling my breath and stealing my sky.

But our skin-to-skin connection goes both ways. I thread out her soul-fire, parching her. Her lips and skin dull to gray, yet she holds on.

The loss of air weakens my grip.

I. Must. Breathe.

A streak darts across my vision. Ashwin shoves Anjali off me and swings his machete at her. She lobs a wind at his weaponized arm, and it involuntarily goes over his head. While his blade is restrained, she captures his throat with her hands. Ashwin stills and shudders.

I funnel my powers into a burning ball and toss my emerald fire, now blue at the edges. Anjali’s free hand summons a wind that casts my sphere of flames into the trees.

My odd, sickly fire devours the underbrush. The northern wind picks up the embers and showers the forest with them. Sparks grow to flames that spread despite the cold.

Ashwin shoves and kicks at Anjali. He breaks free, panting, and she grabs him again. I hurl my dagger at her, burying the blade into her leg. She screams but does not release him.

I pull my second dagger, and a huge chunk of ice smashes into me. Pain bursts down my spine. I fall forward, dropping my dagger, hands deep in frost. I reach for my weapon, but flying icicles impede my path.

Behind me, Indira, a rebel Aquifier, throws her icy blades. I roll away from them, farther from my weapon. And then Indira is on me, her cold hands wrapped around my wrists. Her powers flow inside me and sing a song to my blood that entrances the rivers of my veins. She pulls, and like a tide following the moon, droplets bleed from my body.

Her powers lock me in place, like a leaf caught in a whirlpool. From the corner of my eye, I see Anjali still winnowing Ashwin. His arms turn limp, and his struggles lessen. My blood cries tears across my skin. Its irony wetness seeps into my mouth and nose. My heartbeat slows to muted thuds, and my vision dims.

Ashwin’s eyes roll back into his head. Mine start to do the same.

My inner star pierces my haze.

Indira is draining my lifeblood but also depleting the cold inside me.

I pulse my dwindling soul-fire at her, sending forth a burst of scorching heat. She tumbles off me shrieking, her robes on fire. Behind her, the forest is ablaze. Indira rolls around on the ground into the flames. The fire sweeps over her, and her shrieks and frantic movements stop.

Winded and dizzy, I climb to my knees. Flecks of blood cover my exposed skin. Dark stars sweep across my vision, blending into the sky. What did Indira do to me?

Anjali releases Ashwin, and he sags in a lifeless heap. No, Anu. No. She jerks my dagger from her thigh and tosses it, then rides a swift wind and lands in front of me. Anjali snatches my throat, and her powers crush my lungs. Having spent all my fire on Indira, I clutch the Galer’s arms with a weak, useless grip.

“I burned your father’s journals. Used them as kindling.” Anjali’s winnowing powers unfold into my limbs, siphoning out every last bit of breath. “Consider it payback for betraying my father.”

I weep inwardly for the loss of my father’s journals. I will never read his thoughts, never see my mother through his eyes. Never know them for myself.

The forest fire blazes, lighting up Anjali’s silhouette. My powers that sparked the inferno have grown wild, into nature-fire. Serpents slither in the flames.

Come to me, friends.

None heed me.

Please, I need you.

They continue their crazed overtaking of the forest. Ashwin has not moved. I will be next. Where are Indah and Pons?

I latch on to the only weapon within my reach—Udug’s cold-fire. I summon it as I would my powers. Sapphire sparks shoot from my fingers.

Anjali releases me with a shriek. I land on all fours, coughing in loose chunks of air.

Pons and Indah charge into the clearing. Both bleed from cuts on their faces. Pons aims with his blowgun and shoots three darts at Anjali in swift succession. She diverts them into the fire with well-timed gusts.

Anjali stumbles away, favoring her wounded leg. Indah stays back, the cold frustrating her powers, but Pons stalks closer. The forest fire hedges Anjali in. Pons fastens his winds into a whip and lashes at her. While I stay low, she rallies her own drafts against him.

Across the way, Ashwin has not stirred. He’s too still.

Pons and Anjali fling their powers at each other. The sky crackles. Their airstreams clash, and a clap blasts above me. Lying on the cold ground, I cover my ears. Anjali falters a step. Pons’s winds push her back to the wall of fire. Anjali emits a guttural cry and ducks. His airstream blows past her into the trees, picking up flames and pitching them into the distance.

Anjali commandeers the northern wind and flies over me. She heaves a chakram at Pons. He dodges the spinning blade, and she soars over him and Indah. He chases her with lancing airstreams. Anjali dashes into the smoke, out of sight.

Indah runs to me, scrapes across her forehead and cheeks. “We tried to get here sooner. The northern Aquifier iced the courtyard gate shut and attacked us with icicles.”

“Help Ashwin,” I croak, rubbing my hoarse throat.

She hurries to the prince. Pons comes over, collecting my daggers along the way, and helps me to the lake. Slashes from Indira’s attack run up his forearms. I rest near the icy shore, and he returns to assist Indah with Ashwin. Pons lugs him over his shoulder. As they cross back to me, a streak of white zips into the sky. Anjali takes off aboard our wing flyer, vanishing into the night.

She will return to her father and report that she winnowed the prince to death.

Anu, spare him.

Pons lays Ashwin down on the rocky lakeshore. Though he does not wake, his chest rises and falls. I send up a prayer of thanks, but we are not out of harm’s way. We have to put out the fire.

Indah reaches for the lake, but the water is trapped under the ice. My own powers are spent, and I cannot wait for them to recover. Teeth clacking, I look down at Ashwin. Stealing another’s soul-fire to increase my own is wrong, but I need my powers to stop the fire from reaching the temple.

Gods, forgive me. I touch Ashwin and tug in his white-hot light. Warmth pours into my chest and fills up my heart.

Not too much. You’ll hurt him.

But his soul-fire is so warm . . .

“Kalinda!” Indah wrenches my hand from him. After a horrified look at me, she checks him over. Ashwin is still breathing.

I have what I need.

Favoring my knee, I dash off. Heat rolls off the nature-fire, roaring with fiery serpents.

Shh, my friends. Sleep.

They rage onward to the temple, the unrelenting northern winds pushing them to and fro.

Pons runs up alongside me, diverting the smoke with his winds. “You need to send the nature-fire away.”

“I’m trying,” I say, and then cry at the flames, “I am fire, and fire is me!” I reach out with my powers, but my hands glow a cold, pale sapphire. None of my soul-fire is visible within me, only this cruel blue.

The fire is beyond my control.

“Pons, we have to get everyone out!”

We sprint through the gate, past chunks of ice from when Pons and Indah hacked their way free. Priestess Mita ushers girls out the main entry into the courtyard. Several of the younger ones know Pons, and they rush to his side. He scoops the littlest up in his arms. Healer Baka comes with more wards. A stream of girls and sisters races for the lake.

Everyone has gotten out. Priestess Mita would not leave a single girl behind.

The fire snaps closer and closer. I attempt to quell it one last time. Priestess Mita gasps at my glowing blue hands. Please, Anu. Please. I concentrate so hard my head aches. But the nature-fire will not obey.