Page 63 of A Petal in the Crown

Erik

“Where’s the smoke coming from?” Janelle coughed, covering her mouth with her sleeve. “We’re still too far from Coombes for it to be coming from there, aren’t we? Are there more villages between here and there?”

Erik shook his head, his heart racing. The smoke was getting thicker by the second, floating above the ground and billowing into the sky above them. Janelle coughed again, harder this time, and Erik pulled on Cinnamon’s reins, turning her around. “We’re turning back. Something’s wrong. This isn’t safe.”

Janelle nodded, unable to speak as she choked on the smoke, her eyes watering. Erik reached down and ripped off a piece of his shirt, thin and worn, but better than nothing. “Breathe through this,” he said, handing it to her while urging Cinnamon forward. He hadn’t completed his mission, but Gray would have to understand. None of the other villages had been smoking like this—like the fire was consuming the ground, coming from within it—and Erik didn’t feel prepared to face whatever was causing it alone.

Sensing the danger, Cinnamon increased her speed as she raced around a large tree trunk, skidding to a halt at a waist-high line of fire spreading in front of them. “Dammit!” Erik hissed, throwing outhis hand and smothering some of the flames as he forced Cinnamon through. He’d been correct that the smoke wasn’t from a village burning.

It was a wildfire.

The extreme heat from the relentless sun had dried out the grass and twigs until they were nothing but kindling. And now, he and the woman he loved most were in the middle of that kindling, a strike of flint away from being burned alive.

“Take the reins,” Erik demanded, needing both hands to fight off the fire.

Sweat poured down his neck as the flames rose taller, orange and red flickering and growing in every direction. Within moments, the fire grew so high that its fingers blended in with the blood-orange sky. Erik gritted his teeth and pulled the flames inside himself, shooting a stream out behind them and suffocating what he could.

Janelle led Cinnamon to the left, towards a small pocket of forest yet to be burned, her face tense with fear. To the left and right were more lines of fire—spreading slowly and tauntingly, consuming the grass as they inched across the ground to block their path.

It was almost as if the fire was sentient, moving to block their way, to consume them as well.

“They’re getting closer, Erik!” Janelle shouted, her voice choked with fear. Sweat dripped into Erik’s eyes as he focused on the lines of fire getting closer to trapping them. He commanded the flames to turn around and retreat, but they fought against him, surging and fighting to survive.

It didn’t matter; it was enough for him to buy them time to race through the remaining gap. The air became slightly less smoky as they galloped forward, and Erik sucked in a deep breath. But his relief was short-lived. How long would they be able to breathe without smokeburning their lungs when fires were popping up every few feet? They had to get out of the forest, somewhere with rocks or stone where there was less fuel to feed the flames.

Erik placed a hand on Janelle’s chest, sending healing energy rushing into her lungs as she struggled through another coughing fit. “Hang on,” he soothed. “I’ll get us out of here.”

Cinnamon began to slow, the smoke taking its toll. Erik sent healing energy into the horse's body, too, his magic pulling taut as he expended more and more of it. “Just a bit further, girl,” he urged as she dug deeper and picked up speed. The fire had to stop at some point. The wind was behind them now, and Cinnamon was running faster than he’d ever seen her run before, but as they drew closer to where they’d left Lea and Gray, the flames only seemed to grow stronger.

Cinnamon halted, planting her feet into the ground as Erik swung his head around, desperately looking for an escape. His heart pounded in his ears as he tried to force a path through the fire, but they were surrounded. Flames, almost as tall as the trees themselves, billowed and danced around them, taunting them.

“No,” Janelle gasped, her voice raw. “No! This can’t be the end.”

Erik pulled her more firmly against him, focusing his magic ahead of them, digging into the dregs of his power for every last bit to suffocate the flames, but they were so strong. Too strong.

“Erik!”

Erik's head snapped to the left at the sound of Gray's voice.

“Over here!” he shouted, relief flooding through him unlike anything he’d ever felt before.

Erik pushed Cinnamon to move toward Gray’s voice, promising her that if she could just get them out of here, he’d give her nothing but apples and sugar for the rest of her life.

An enormous wave of shadows, immeasurable in its intensity, punched through the fire, Lea's hands outstretched before her as darkness funneled in an arc. The flames extinguished instantly, revealing a path ahead of them like a burned out, cobblestone road to paradise.

“Hurry!” Lea ordered, shouting over the crackling of the fire behind them. Cinnamon responded before Erik could even command her to, leaping onto the road made of ash. Lea twisted her shadows out, spreading them out to clear the way as their horses raced forward.

The darkness coming from Lea’s hands grew, a tidal wave crashing around them in every direction, putting out the fires as far as Erik could see. But even then, once the smoke had cleared and the only orange in the sky was the reminder of the sun god’s fury, they didn’t stop to rest—not for hours.

Not until Cinnamon couldn’t run any further, and Erik forced them all to stop so he could heal her.

None of them spoke about the fires, or how narrowly they had escaped them. Maybe they were too exhausted. Or maybe it was because acknowledging what had happened would mean admitting that it wasn’t just time that wasn’t on their side, but the universe itself.

Chapter 40

Gray

Lea jumped off Luna before she’d even stopped moving, asking Janelle to gather more moonflower seeds as she pulled the ones she’d carried with her from her pocket and shoved them into the dry dirt. Soot stained her face and coated her hair, and her eyes were bloodshot from the smoke and lack of sleep, but she barely blinked as she funneled magic into the ground.

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