Page 26 of While the Dark Remains

“Yes.”

“Yourmissionis ended now?”

Indridi is shaking. Saga half collapses against me, and I struggle to hold her upright. She gasps for air. I try to breathe with her, breatheforher.

“I have a duty to my people,” says Indridi, voice shrill and high. “The mountain does not belong to Skaanda. It belongs to the Iljaria.”

“And what would your Prism Master think to do about it, seeing as he doesn’t believe in war?”

“Don’tmockme, Vil!” Indridi cries. “You have your beliefs. I have mine.”

“Youdo not have theright,” he grinds out, “to use my name.”

Tears drip down Indridi’s cheeks. They turn to steam.

Leifur flicks his eyes to Vil, who gives a sharp nod. Leifur strides forward and grasps Indridi’s shoulder, flinching for only a moment before her flames die out altogether.

She sags in the grass. She looks small, vulnerable, her white hair stained orange in the light of the rising sun. Smoke coils up from her fingertips.

Vil approaches her, every line of him hard as steel. “Indridi Hellir, you are charged with high treason against the crown of Skaanda. I sentence you to death.”

“No!” I shriek, lunging forward only to be caught by Pala and held forcibly back.

“There is nothing you could do or say to change this,” the soldier tells me. Her voice is quiet and filled with regret.

Saga weeps on the ground.

Indridi raises her tearstained face, a hardness coming into her that rattles me to my core. “You do not have the power to deal out death to the daughter of a First One, Vilhjalmur Stjörnu,” she says. “I answer only to my people, and it is to them I surrender myself now.”

She wrenches out of Leifur’s grasp, and flames begin to dance along her arms. The fire runs up her neck and down to her feet, singes thegrass where she stands. It pulses hotter and hotter, so that Leifur tugs Vil back, lest he be burned.

Pala releases me, and I stand and watch in sick, helpless horror as Indridi is wreathed all in flame, tongues of fire licking greedily at her hair, making her skin bubble and crack. She gives one long, high scream, and there comes a flash of red so bright that for a moment I am blinded.

There is the stench of burning flesh, the reek of smoke, and the rattle of bones, and when my vision clears, Indridi is gone, reduced to ashes by the power of her own magic.

I collapse to the ground, where Saga kneels shrieking, and I think I must be screaming, too. Tears blur my vision and everything reeks of death and this must be a nightmare except I don’t wake and every time I look to the place Indridi was standing there is only ash and shards of bone, gleaming white.

Somehow, eventually, we ride back to our camp, pack everything up, and start again on the northern road. We let Indridi’s horse go free.

We ride through the day and some hours into the night before stopping again. Leifur builds the fire and hands out rations from the packs, but it seems no one has the stomach to eat anything. I certainly don’t.

Saga sits close beside me in front of the fire, her eyes wet with fresh tears. “I don’t understand,” she says, helpless and hollow. “How could she be Iljaria? All this time? Spying on us and scheming, pretending to be my friend and pretending to admire Vil—”

“I don’t think she was pretending those things, Saga,” I say dully. “I think she genuinely cared for you.”

“That makes it even worse.” Her voice breaks.

“I know.” Everything hurts, and I want to crawl into my bedroll and surrender myself to the bliss of unconsciousness, but I am afraidIndridi’s ending will follow me into my dreams. I am afraid I will never be able to think of anything else.

Saga hugs me close for a few long moments, then gets up and goes to bed. I stay sitting by the fire, watching the smoke coil up, trying to comprehend the fact that Indridi isgone.

Vil comes to crouch beside me, and I fight off the tears stinging my eyes.

“You were going to kill her,” I accuse him. “Right there on the plains.”

His face is racked with agony. “She kneweverything, Brynja. The inner workings of the palace. Our plot to take Daeros and the Skaandan army’s paths through the tunnels.Everything.She was a horrible risk to us, and with her fire magic, how could we even restrain her? What other choice did I have?”

My insides are writhing and my heart is fractured. “But would you really have done it?”

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