The top of the animagus’ staff begins to glow Godstone blue.
My terror is like the thick muck of a dream as I struggle to find my voice. “Fernando!” I yell. “Shoot him! Shoot to kill!”
An arrow whizzes toward the animagus in blurred relief against the crystal sky.
The animagus whips his staff toward it. A stream of blue-hot fire erupts from the tip, collides with the arrow, explodes it into a shower of splinters and sparks.
People scream. Hector gestures at the guards, barking orders. Half tighten formation around me; the rest sprint away to flank the sorcerer. But the crowd is panicked and thrashing, and my guards are trapped in a mill of bodies.
“Archers!” Hector yells. “Fire!”
Hundreds of arrows let fly in a giant whoosh.
The animagus spins in a circle, staff outstretched. The air around him bends to his will, and I catch the barest glimpse of a barrier forming—like glass, like a wavering desert mirage—before Ximena leaps across the bench and covers me with her own body.
“To the queen!” comes Hector’s voice. “We must retreat!” But the carriage doesn’t budge, for the milling crowd has hemmed us in.
“Queen Lucero-Elisa,” comes a sibilant voice, magnified by the peculiar nature of the amphitheater. “Bearer of the only living Godstone, you belong to us, to us, to us.”
He’s coming down the stairway. I know he is. He’s coming for me. He’ll blaze a path through my people and—
“You think you’ve beaten us back, but we are as numerous as the desert sands. Next time we’ll come at you like ghosts in a dream. And you will know the gate of your enemy!”
In the corner of my eye I catch the gleam of Hector’s sword as he raises it high, and my stomach thuds with the realization that he’ll cut through our own people if that’s what it takes to whisk me away.
“Ximena!” I gasp. “Get off. Hector . . . he’ll do anything. We can’t let him—”
She understands instantly. “Stay down,” she orders as she launches against the door and tumbles into the street.
Heart pounding, I peek over the edge of the carriage. The animagus stares at me hungrily as he descends the great stair, like I am a juicy mouse caught in his trap. My Godstone’s icy warning is relentless.
He could have killed me by now if he wanted to; we’ve no way to stop his fire. So why doesn’t he? Eyeing him carefully, I stand up in the carriage.
“Elisa, no!” cries Hector. Ximena has trapped his sword arm, but he flings her off and rushes toward me. He jerks to a stop midstride, and his face puckers with strain: The animagus has frozen him with magic.
But Hector is the strongest man I know. Fight it, Hector.
Shivering with bone-deep cold, I force myself to step from the carriage. I am what the sorcerer wants, so maybe I can distract him, buy enough time for my guards to flank him, give Hector a chance to break free.
Sun glints off a bit of armor creeping up on the animagus from above, so I keep my gaze steady, and my voice is steel when I say, “I burned your brothers to dust. I will do the same to you.” The lie weighs heavy on my tongue. I’ve harnessed the power of my stone only once, and I’m not sure how.
The animagus’ answering grin is feral and slick. “Surrender yourself. If you do, we will spare your people.”
A guard is within range now. The animagus has not noticed him. The solider quietly feeds an arrow into his bow, aims.
Look strong, Elisa. Do not flinch. Hold his gaze.
The arrow zings through the air. The sorcerer whirls at the sound, but it is too late; the arrowhead buries itself in his ribs.
The animagus wobbles. He turns back to me, eyes flared with pain or zeal, one shoulder hanging lower than the other. Crimson spreads like spilled ink across his robe. “Watch closely, my queen,” he says, and his voice is liquid with drowning. “This is what will happen to everyone in Joya d’Arena if you do not present yourself as a willing sacrifice.”
Hector reaches me at last, grabs my shoulders, and starts to pull me away, even as the guards rush the animagus. But his Godstone already glows like a tiny sun; they will not capture him in time. I expect fire to shoot toward us, to turn my people into craters of melt and char, and suddenly I’m grappling for purchase at the joints of Hector’s armor, at his sword belt, pushing him along, for I can’t bear to see another friend burn.
But the animagus turns the fire on himself.
He screams, “It is God’s will!” He raises his arms to the sky, and his lips move as if in prayer while the conflagration melts his skin, blackens his hair, turns him into a living torch for the whole city to see.