Partisan - Book II

Veins Aflame

The world is on fire.

It's the first thought in Allayria's head when she sees the rivers of smoke and flame. She's setting us all on fire.

There's something about seeing it from the air—one might think it would make the churned chaos of carts and crates and shrieking horses seem small, remote, but the ignited supply lines loom all the larger because here they can all be seen, these long veins of vitality charred in death.

The sound up here is greater too, and they can hear it all, hear screams from beings turning to ash leagues away, hear the crack and sizzle of frames in collapse.

And she doesn't know what to do.

Some people are trying—Nature-callers are sending water over some of it, others are trying to beat down the flame, but it not fast enough. They are not fast enough. And up here, watching it all, she is trapped.

How can I save them? she despairs, watching as one of the burning soldiers frees himself from a cart, stumbling in a blaze of crackling, melting flesh toward a stream. He's dead before he touches it.

"Five lines," Feuilles says, sounding as sick as Allayria feels. "Two hours—five of our seven supply lines completely destroyed."

"Their minds are all connected," Ruben says. "It was too precise for a typical attack. She ordered it simultaneously."

"Skilling is not a one-way street. The more you control elements, the more they can control you," Allayria murmurs, letting her eyes slide closed, letting herself feel the weight of the words she should have understood sooner settle on her, the way the overpowering lights and sounds had once pressed on her in the lonely trawl of Solveigard City by night. "She's Skilling the metal plates in their heads the same way you Skill the elements sight-unseen, Ruben. And the Skillers have been exposed to the metal for so long..."

"The connection is working on them in reverse," Ruben finishes, sounding ill too by the end. "I have heard of people becoming disoriented or dissociated by overexposure to elements, but never of someone manipulating the reverse process..."

"And on different types of Skillers," Feuilles interjects, looking pale and gaunt as his eyes remain fixed on his burning troops. "How is it working on Nature and Beast-callers?"

"We have to fix this," Aren Dost says. "We have to prevent it from happening again."

"We need Smith-callers," Beinsho says in an unaware echo of his protégé, his mouth nothing but a hard, thin line.

"I need to get to the front line," Allayria says, and they all turn and stare.