One of the soldiers fired a desperate shot at it. The cloak fluttered, and the flames stopped in mid-flight, settled instead against its gloved hand. The fire changed color, glowed a deep and unearthly blue before disappearing in a quick puff of blue smoke.
A Firesmoker. The undead Devoted was a damn Firesmoker.
A Firesmoker who could channel blue flames.
Just like me.
My mother had once led the Devoted, Mother Salla had told me. And Firesmokers with blue fire were rare as hell.
I didn’t want to think about it.
I aimed my Howler.
The ground to the right of the figure exploded, kicking up grit and dust, but the mirage didn’t move. I shot at the sand to its left next, with the same results. It said nothing, didn’t retaliate. I couldn’t see its face, but I know when I’m being stared at.
“Who the hell are you?” I didn’t want to know what was behind that hood, whether or not whatever face was behind that cowl might resemble mine, or if death and rot had stripped that away. I didn’t want to admit that those blue flames had shaken me, thrown me off guard. I didn’t want to have anything in common with this creature.
The mirage didn’t bother with a response. Its shoulders arched and its head tilted back, as if seeking some strange benediction from above.
There was a hissing noise that sounded like it came from everywhere at once.
There were three seconds of hushed, fearful silence.
And then water swept down from the sky; it fell like fine mist, and then like a raging river. I cupped my hand and stared, astonished, at the clear liquid collecting in my palm.
“Rain,” Noelle said. “It’s raining.”
Nothing could have prepared the Golden army for this. However rigid their training had been, it was clearly not enough. Many fell to their knees, staring up with mouths agape, while others scrambled away, back toward the safety of the dome.
I couldn’t blame them. I’d never seen the sky weep before.
A peculiar howling echoed across the desert, and I didn’t think it had come from the rain or from any of us present.
“Let’s get out of here,” I growled at Haidee. On the heels of the rain and that mournful howl was a familiar, welcome sight: heading straight at us, a rig painted with the colors of the Oryx clan.
Haidee hesitated. “Mother—”
“Won’t listen. You’re dumping a lot of painful realities onto her lap all at once, and she’s in no shape to deal with any of them.”
The rains finally snapped Latona out of her rage. Her hair was now wet and plastered to the sides of her face, the water soaking through her robes. She looked down at her hands, the patterns around her fading, then up at the dark clouds overhead. “What have you done, Haidee?” she cried out, but the rest of her words were lost amid the howling winds.
The rig screeched to a halt beside us, Faraji’s ugly mug grinning from behind the wheel. “Let’s go!” Mother Salla roared from the backseat, her own Howler already trained on the few soldiers who still held their ground. Some of them were working frantically at the cannons, trying to set off a second round of glowfire.
Odessa’s eyes glowed, an almost sickly green. Thick brown vines emerged from the ground around the cannons, wrapping themselves tightly around the weapons until every surface was covered in a seething mass of leaves and thorns. The glowfires faded, and the men scrambled away from the heavy artillery like the metal had come alive.
“How’d you know we were here?” I panted as I helped the girls in.
“A conversation for later!” Mother Salla’s tone was all I needed to know I was in trouble. “Get your butt in here, young man! You’ve got some explaining to do yourself!” Her eyes widened as she took in both Haidee and Odessa, but she pursed her lips with obvious effort and said nothing other than, “Faraji, floor it!”
He stomped down on the gas, and the rig spun, tore out at high speed. I could see the soldiers attempting to shoot at us again, but if they were close enough to hit us that meant I was close enough to hit them. I aimed my Howler. I fired.
The nearest cannon blew up, and abruptly water wasn’t the only thing raining down on them, as men and women tried to scamper out of the unexpected hail of machinery bits. I saw Latona with her fists clenched, a look of utter despair on her face.
“What are we going to do now?” Odessa asked.
Haidee looked at her twin, and I saw in their faces mirror images of despair.
They thought they’d saved the world. Hell, we all did. The rains were the clearest signs that something had changed. That was something to be happy about, right?
So why wasn’t the uneasy feeling in my gut going away?
I remembered the galla trying to claw their way out of the portal, reaching for us.
Odessa was right. This was only the beginning.
“I don’t know,” Haidee whispered. “I really don’t.”
The rain fell harder.
Chapter Two
Lan at the Oryx Lair
“WE TRAVELED HALFWAY AROUND THE world only to find more rain,” I groused, and Odessa, despite the gravity of our situation, couldn’t completely rein in a giggle.
This storm wasn’t as bad as the ones we often weathered in Aranth—I doubt anything else would be, excepting the acid rainfalls a few hundred miles northeast of the city—but most of the Oryx clan was transfixed by the sight. A couple actually wept openly. It was a sobering thought, that something I had always taken for granted was a rare, precious commodity to them, one that made all the difference between life and death.
It seemed even more inconceivable to me that anyone could have survived living in the dry, arid climate on this side of the world until now. The rain did little to stave off the heat, and the moisture clung to the air, my hair sticking to my skin in the most uncomfortable ways. I had already shrugged off my heavy woolen cloak and armor and stripped down to a sleeveless tunic, but I was still drenched in sweat. Odessa had done the same, and it was hard not to notice the softness of her curves, revealed by the absence of multiple layers of clothing. Arjun and Haidee, both apparently used to the insufferable heat, barely looked discomfited despite wearing more. Much to my irritation, Noelle was similarly unruffled, like she was incapable of perspiration altogether.
While the goddess Latona and her army had lacked hospitality, the clan mistress of the Oryx had, at least, opened her home to us. One of her charges, a pretty girl named Millie with goggles pushed up over her forehead, offered us small bowls of soothing tea as we sat on rocks sanded down for makeshift seating. The place was surprisingly spacious, with small rooms carved out within for privacy, and rudimentary utensils for cooking and cleaning.
I didn’t sit for long. And then I couldn’t stop pacing. I couldn’t stop thinking. It was roughly sixty strides from the cave entrance to its deepest end, marking it approximately 120 feet long. There were twenty Oryx clan members in total, including Arjun, eleven of whom could use elemental gates. I spotted three vehicles outside the lair. Twenty-four Howlers leaned against the wall. Four fire pits. Seventeen cots. It made Aranth look like luxury.
I needed more information than I had. How large was this desert? Where did the Oryx find sustenance? Should Latona decide to mount an attack, how defensible was this cave? Not very, was my opinion. Its only real asset was that it was camouflaged so well against the sand; under a sustained attack by the goddess’s army, though, we wouldn’t last an hour.