The Everburning City

Act 1, Part 6, Chapter 4

Emily

"Mack?" Emily asked.

The air had changed. Like between heartbeats a season had changed. It was now hot and dry, like a field longing for rain. Above her the sky had turned a different shade of blue, like looking at it through some sort of tinted glass. And to the best that Emily could remember, she had never felt so little wind.

It felt as if the air was being held in place.

The shadow wasn't far away from where she stood. Mackaroy was watching the edge of town, much as everyone else in the company was. He had been the first to put away his weapons, once the fires warding the Gloam had transformed into a bright, furious wall of fire and chased the Gloam away.

Of everyone in the company, it was her platoon that looked the least awed. After all, every soldier in the fourth had watched Crafters fighting on the wall. They had seen this before. But even among the tempered nerves of the warriors under her command, it was the old shadow's expression that drew her.

It looked pained.

It had to be his past, Emily realized. His years in Oversight, and the scars on his face, might make witnessing something like this difficult. Seeing the fires rage like something alive, feeling the air around them transform mid-breath, it might pull him back into the horror that flavoured Mackaroy's every word and motion like an unfamiliar spice.

Emily stepped over and put a hand on his shoulder, thinking it might be comforting. "He had to, Mack. We couldn't have bought more than a few minutes with our lives. We've run out of ground to retreat to, and have no more choke-points."

When Mack turned to face her, Emily was afraid the old shadow was going to stab her. "Where is Cameron?" he asked her.

"I sent him to tell Vincent he needed our help."

Mackaroy looked up again, and then towards the fields. "So you asked for this."

Emily realized she misunderstood Mackaroy's pain. "Ordered. We were dying, Mack."

"And now he is."

Mackaroy's answer might as well have been a knife in the gut. She had sent Cameron with that order without knowing if their escape route was finished. She sent that order, knowing what Crafting meant. She had also sent that order, knowing the stakes of the war, having witnessed what it took to bring down a Golem.

And she had spent a Crafter of the calibre of those who were sent to the walls. Not even to save Barleybarrel; Vincent might have managed that without the Rangers. She spent Vincent's life to save her own.

"To live is to burn," Emily whispered, and nothing she had ever said in her life had hurt more. She turned and began to run. All she managed to say, as she rushed past her soldiers, was to Valen. "Platoon's yours, Redgrave. Keep them together, and keep the watch."

Emily passed the fountain, and had the station in her sight, before she realized Mackaroy was running beside her. The old shadow was keeping pace with her easily, running with the kind of enviable ease she didn't see much of from deep inside the City. He looked over to her, and nodded up ahead. "What's your plan?"

"I don't have one," Emily admitted.

"Mackaroy cut in front of her and stopped, forcing her to skid to a halt. The old shadow had a knife in his hand, the one with the obsidian pommel. "You had better come up with one. And it's my call if Vincent needs to die."

"Die?" Emily asked.

"Isn't that why you're running? You're worried Vincent has lost himself to the Craft, or is about to." Mack said.