The ground burst open on either side of her. Fresh flames spewed from the earth she’d ripped open, blasting her face with heat. Rocks went flying; one slammed into the shoulder of another racer as he struggled to get out of her way, and he fell.
Guilt spiked through her, but then Maliya shrieked, disoriented. Something was wrong. Her gait was uneven.
Rielle slipped, nearly tumbling off. She yanked herself back up, hard, and inhaled a mouthful of smoke.
Maliya made another terrible sound. She was wheezing; Rielle’s legs were burning. Everything was too hot.
Up ahead, Audric had made it to the pass.
Rielle pushed Maliya harder, and they followed him in. The air was full of smoke, flames, the roar of falling rock. The dizzy euphoria of power sweeping through Rielle’s body was so overwhelming she could hardly stay in the saddle, hardly think, hardly breathe.
And something, very near, was burning.
Beyond the assassins, a flash of color, a man’s cry: Audric, just out of his attackers’ reach, urging his horse faster. But the Borsvall men were almost upon him.
Rielle licked her lips, tasted sweat.
She had not brought any weapons. Why hadn’t she brought any weapons?
The Borsvall rider nearest her turned in his saddle and cried out in horror. He thrust his ax into the air, yanked it back. Rielle’s horse surged forward beneath her, let out a sharp cry, and stumbled. The man was a metalmaster; his power flew out from his body through his casting and jerked Maliya’s bit left, right, and left again. A sour metallic tang in the air made Rielle want to gag. She reached down into the air and threw everything she felt at him.
Heat ripped through her, belly to fingers. A knot of sizzling white flew at the Borsvall rider and enveloped him in gold. For a moment he seized, outlined in light. Then he was writhing on the ground, his ax dissolving into ash beside him.
Rielle flew past him. She gagged at the smell of him, at the sight of the charred mess that had once been a body.
Just like her mother.
They had been at home that day, surrounded by candles. An evening prayer, a simple argument—and an explosion.
Rielle glanced down at her hands. Her riding gloves were singed through; streaks of blood slicked her palms. She turned one hand to the left, to the right. A white-gold shimmer winked just under her skin, then faded.
Sunlight.
Wouldn’t Magister Guillory be proud of her? A true sunspinner, one who could bring down the sun with her bare hands.
She laughed, a torn sound. What was happening to her? Her body was a bonfire, spreading out and out, and she couldn’t stop it.
She dropped the reins, instinct screaming at her to reach for a weapon, and though she found only empty air, her palms crackled with heat. Blind and desperate, she threw her hands at the Borsvall attackers. An invisible force flung them to the ground. Their horses ran free, crazed with fear.
Rielle looked around, dazed. The quaking world behind her, fanning out along Maliya’s path, was a spiderweb of fissures. Her mind felt similarly ruptured, like her power had knocked loose all her edges.
Where was Audric? She searched wildly through the smoke and dust.
“Rielle!” A familiar voice.
Audric, on foot. She must have knocked him off his horse as well, and now he was limping. She kicked Maliya into action. Audric stepped back from her approach. Something terrible fell across his face.
What did he see?
A thick black arrow zipped past her.
Rielle yanked Maliya around, turning her so hard she could feel the cut of the bit in her own mouth. She bore down on the man who had shot at her. He faced her, reaching for another arrow.
He nocked it. He took aim not at her, but at Audric.
Rielle cried out for Audric to move, urged Maliya forward to get between him and the archer.
Maliya took a few faltering steps, and then something beneath Rielle gave way. She looked down. Her horse was a raw, pulpy mess—drenched with blood, patches of her gray coat charred black and smoking.
The horror of it struck Rielle in the gut. She dropped the reins and leaned back in her saddle. She had to get away from this terrible thing beneath her. Where had it come from?
Maliya’s hindquarters sagged and buckled; Rielle fell hard on her side. She crawled, frantic, clawing at the dirt to get out of the way.
Another arrow from the Borsvall assassin—but not aimed at Rielle, nor at Audric. The arrow pierced Maliya between the eyes; her screams fell silent. The wreck of her lay there, steaming.
Rielle huddled on the ground, the scent of Maliya’s burned flesh thick in her nose. A distant part of her mind still searched for Audric, but when she tried to rise to her feet, her body wouldn’t cooperate. Heaving, she pushed herself up and retched. She was covered in dirt and blood—her own and Maliya’s.