The Cold Fire was cold no longer.
For a moment, Hong-la stood in stupor—half-bent, still, one hand on the wall that supported him. Distantly, he heard cries: alarm, wonder. They did not turn his head. He had eyes only for the column of smoke and fire mounting the night, wreathed in a coruscating lace of violet lightning, too bright to look at and too terrible to look away from. The thunder rumbled softer, higher overtones to the voice of the mountain.
He reached out with his otherwise senses and felt the fretwork of other wizards also reaching. Felt them organize around the familiar presence of Yongten-la, seeking, gentle fingertips of the spirit and will exploring the energy trapped within and leaking from the no-longer-dormant volcano. If this were the prelude to a violent eruption, some wizards would stay behind and control the volcano for as long as possible—mollify it, redirect its energies. Others would lead the evacuation, if evacuation there could be.
The energy Hong-la felt had a strange, vile flavor—acrid and awful. He’d never felt fire from the very belly of the earth before, but the heat that soaked the sulfurous waters from the depths of the Cold Fire was soothing, and this … felt as if it should shrivel flesh.
Hong-la released an easier breath when he sensed the direction and power of the flow. An eruption, yes—and the first flakes of ash began to brush his hair and face as he thought it—but not an apocalyptic one. One that could be contained, channeled. One within the powers of the wizards whose calling it was to soothe the volatile earth under Tsarepheth.
Blessed stones, there would not be an evacuation tonight.
Hong-la walked back to the Citadel breathing through the gaps between cupped fingers to filter out the ash that blew like snow on every side and gritted underfoot. Pride alone had kept him upright until he regained the Citadel and reported to Yongten-la.
He did not remember, later, falling asleep mid-sentence.
* * *
When he awoke, it was on his own bed, his coat and boots removed, his shirt and trousers loosened. Tsering-la, compact and moon-faced, her braids glistening with the first few strands of silver, sat cross-legged, waiting patiently while Hong-la rubbed at crusted eyes.
She pressed a warm, damp cloth into his hand. Any wizard knew what awakening from a long slumber was like.
As Hong-la cleaned his face, the thrush in the black cage beside the window chirruped sleepily. No one had covered him, and the lamps were keeping him awake. At least it seemed the novices had kept him fed and watered in Hong-la’s incapacity.
“How long did I sleep?” Hong-la asked, dropping the used cloth in the basin that Tsering also presented.
“It’s after moonset,” she said. “You collapsed a day and a half ago.”
He would have protested the term, but it was probably fair. He was lucky his heart hadn’t simply stopped when the Citadel’s borrowed energy ran out. He would not have been the first wizard to die that way. “Did I walk to bed?”
“Carried,” she said.
He heaved himself onto his elbows and took the next thing she held out: a bowl of steaming broth and noodles, with scallions and shreds of ginger floating across the top. There was a brazier beside Tsering and sweat dewed her forehead—while he himself felt shaky with chill. He had exhausted himself past the point where his body could maintain its own warmth.
“Situation?” he asked, letting her steady the bowl as he raised it to his mouth. He had the strength for brief movements, but simply keeping his hands lifted made them tremble.
“Complex,” she answered while he drank, and went on with details. As he’d expected, the rumor of Tsansong’s escape had spread wide, and while it wasn’t precisely possible for it to grow in the telling, it had certainly become more detailed. Hong-la himself had apparently called down lightning, the better to defend the emperor when the great bird struck at him.
“I don’t remember that,” Hong-la said mildly, setting the soup bowl aside.
Tsering replaced it in his hands with a cup of salted, buttered tea. “There are plenty to remember it for you.”
“Is there rioting yet? Have Tsansong’s faction thought to claim that the bird’s intervention is a sign of favor from the Six Thousand?”
She shook her head. “There is other news.”
Strength seemed to be returning as fast as it had fled. He was warmer. His teeth did not chatter on the rim of the tea cup now. He managed it one-handed, and with the other gestured her to continue.
“Anil-la says the Cold Fire was awakened intentionally. He can read the signature of a sacrifice in its energy. And Yongten-la says the taste of Erem’s poison magic is bitter through all its emanations.”