“I don’t understand. They said something about Sentar’s essence . . .”
“She did it, Killian.” Shani sighed. “She destroyed Sentar’s store of essence. Ella knew it was dangerous, but she also knew she was dying. Last night, she went out, all alone, and she did it. He can’t open the portal now.”
“Why does her skin look like that?” Killian placed his hands on Ella’s forehead and cheeks. “Is she cold?”
“It’s essence poisoning,” Shani said. “Where essence touches the skin, it turns it blue.”
Killian’s face went white. “Essence poisoning?”
“Ella destroyed a ship filled with essence. I know the signs. We can only assume it came into contact with her skin.”
Ella’s chest was barely moving. Killian put his ear to her lips. “She’s breathing.”
“For now.”
“How is she here? How can she still be breathing? What will happen to her?”
“I don’t know,” Shani said simply. “I’m sorry, but I don’t expect her to live.”
Killian straightened, his face twisted with anguish. “It should have been me.”
“She was dying even before she destroyed Sentar’s essence,” Shani said. “You can’t blame yourself.”
Killian leaned forward to brush his lips across Ella’s forehead. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered, so that Shani could only just hear him. “I should have been there.”
Shani heard a sudden blast. It was the city’s clarion, sounding the call to arms. Shani wondered at the sound: they were already fighting for their very survival. “What’s happening?”
Killian couldn’t take his eyes off Ella. Shani read the expression of a man in terrible pain.
Killian visibly shook himself. “We have to go,” he said. “Shani, I need your help.”
“With what?”
“I need you to come with me to the Wall. Help me gather the other elementalists. We need you. I’ll explain it to you on the way.”
53
Ella didn’t know where she was.
She stood on a path made of neatly fitted stones. The path stretched ahead as straight as an arrow until it vanished into the hazy horizon. The air felt hot and heavy, weighing down on her, and looking up, she saw the sky seethe with storm clouds, shifting hue from gray to red, plunging down to greet the land but shooting back up again as if shying away from making contact.
Ella frowned in puzzlement. How had she come to be here? She heard a rumble but knew it didn’t come from the clouds, and turning around she saw that behind her the path continued back in the opposite direction, but shadows danced on this horizon, shadows that launched streaks of flame into the air and erupted with smoke.
A second sound carried forward from the shadows: the clunk of marching boots, and Ella felt a surge of fear when she saw the flash of steel as spears and swords poked through the flame.
The shadows were moving along the path, picking up speed as the thunderous footsteps grew louder, heading inexorably forward, toward Ella.
Ella’s heart began to race. She knew that the enemy was approaching. If they caught her here, she would die.
Ella began to hurry forward, glancing back over her shoulder with every few steps.
In all directions the horizon blurred, impossible to focus on. An angry purple haze coated the land, as if seeping up from the ground itself. Ella looked for features, anything to break the monotonous landscape, but saw only a rocky, barren wasteland.
Her footsteps were heavy, and she felt tired, but she hurried fearfully on. Her hair fell in front of her face, and she pushed it away, her eyes widening when she saw golden tresses tumble through the air, though she’d only touched her hair with the lightest caress.
Looking back, Ella saw with relief that she’d outdistanced the enemy. They were still there, at the limit of her vision, back behind her, but the detonations weren’t as loud now, and she could no longer hear the marching.
She wondered how she would ever get out of this place.
Ella pinched the skin on the back of her hand and grimaced. Wherever she was, she could still feel pain. She looked at her bare arms and then down at her body. She wore a plain white dress, sleeveless and short, and her bare feet moved silently on the smooth paving stones.
Ella squinted ahead again, shading her eyes from the glare, though there was no sun in the sky. To the left: there was something there, beside the road. It was a building of some kind.
Checking to confirm her pursuers were still far behind, Ella progressed along the road until she drew close to the structure. She decided to investigate.
It was a wooden house, more of a shack really, with crumbling steps leading up to a rickety porch. A post outside the house proclaimed its name.
“‘Mallorin,’” Ella said, reading the sign.
Ella stood at the bottom of the steps and gazed up at the house. Then she heard a voice from outside the building, and looking to the rear, she saw trees clustered around a muddy pool.