Page 159 of Sharpest Court

Those boys were not with her now.

“The entry collapsed,” Osana said as we approached, her arm blistered from a burn. Valeria and Dashiel scrabbled through the ruins beside her. “Two children are trapped inside.”

Keil relinquished the boy he was supporting to Zeke’s care. “Get him out of here,” he ordered.

But Zeke was gaping at the house in horror, firelight dancing in his watery eyes.

“Zeke!” Keil shouted, snapping him out of his daze. “You want to help? Then get that boy out of here.”

Zeke looked once more toward the burning house, something haunted in his expression. Then he nodded and towed the boy away.

Keil faced the wreckage, seeming to add his power to the efforts. But as he lurched back, cursing, I realized why they hadn’t been able to make it through the rubble. This structure was still smoldering—too violently hot even for the most powerful specters.

A loud creak drew my attention upward, toward the settlement’s water tower. And I realized, too, the cause of their urgency.

“The tower is collapsing,” I breathed. Even if we somehow put out the ravenous flames around the tower, its frame was ready to crack under the weight of the great tank above. And judging from its position, it would plummet directly over this area, crushing the young boys still trapped in their house.

As the group began moving more frantically, a quiet determination hummed through me.

“We need to divide our efforts,” I said, with such steely calm that the others turned toward me. “We need to hold up the tower.”

“How?” Valeria panted, her nest of hair coming undone. “We won’t be able to secure the frame in time, and the heat will scorch through any Wielder’s power.”

“We only need enough time to get the boys out.” I glanced at the tank, still untouched by the blaze below. “If we feed our specters high enough, we won’t even touch the fire.”

Valeria looked toward the tower’s apex. “It’s a long way to extend your specter.”

“I know,” I said as my power coursed through me, stronger than it had ever felt. “I can make it.”

“I can, too.” Osana peeled away from the others, and gratitude flared inside me. She’d once held up a collapsing mining tunnel in Daradon, and she had that same look about her now: unwavering and flinty-eyed. “Get everyone out,” she said to Val. “We’ll buy you all the time we can.”

Then she was off, her braids whipping at her back.

I was about to follow when Keil grasped my hand. I hadn’t seen him this worried since that first moment I woke after Neyamay, when he’d stroked my hair through the pain.

Though he may have wanted to stand beside me now, we both knew that his strength was better used evacuating these children, carrying out as many survivors as he could.

“Wait for me,” I said, breathing heavily.

He squeezed my hand and nodded. “Always.”

I released him and ran toward that burning tower, the pain in my thigh barely slowing me down. I stopped close enough that the heat stung my eyes. Osana was already there, a damp rag pressed to her nose and mouth. She tossed me another and I drew a deep, wet breath, trying to clear the smoke from my lungs.

“Ready?” Osana yelled over the deafening crackle.

I blinked up at the groaning tower, and then nodded, stretching my power toward the tank.

The first touch was excruciating. Even from a distance, the embers spluttered with an acid-spraying intensity against my specter.

But I’d spent weeks feeding the mass of my power further and further outside my body, refortifying it every time it was torn to shreds. So now, just as Stian had taught me, I clenched my specter, turning it solid under the tank, until the embers hazed against the first thick ripples without penetrating its bulk.

Then Osana’s power weaved through mine. My specter pulsed and parted to accommodate her, our tendrils splaying out to form a web of support.

When the first leg of the tower buckled, I thought I would buckle with it. But as the tank tilted its weight onto our specters, and I hissed out shallow breaths, I held on.

The damp cloth dried quickly, growing stiff over my lips. Osana’s figure rippled in the waves of heat, her jewelry making golden streaks in my vision.

“Keep holding,” she called, her shoulders tense from exertion, her specter tightening through mine as though from the pull of a knot.