“Should we go with them?” Felitïa said.

Zandrue shrugged. “We could, but I don’t see any reason to. Just because they’re in your weird vision thing doesn’t mean you have to trail after them the moment you see them. I mean, there was a week between meeting me and drawing me into your web of intrigue.”

“Web of intrigue? That’s what you think of me, is it?” Felitïa stuck her tongue out at her.

Zandrue smirked. “Just teasing. But my point is, we should just let things happen as they happen. If you run after them now, they’re going to think you a little weird. Besides, Rudiger would wonder where we got to. We should get back to him.”

“Why do you do that thing you do?” Felitïa asked as they started up the stairs. “I’ve always wondered.” The man and woman whom Felitïa assumed were Corvinian’s parents were a short distance ahead of them, just reaching the first landing and turning to the second flight.

“What thing?” Zandrue asked.

“You know. When you meet people. Sniff them.”

“Why wouldn’t I?” Zandrue said.

“Most people don’t.”

“I’m not most people. People have distinct smells, you know. Most of us pay no attention to them. I prefer to know them.”

“And you remember the smells?”

The man and woman had stopped at the first room at the top of the stairs, and the man was unlocking the door. Felitïa nodded to them as she and Zandrue passed.

“Don’t you?” Zandrue said.

“No.”

“Have you ever actually sniffed anyone?”

“Well no. Not that way.”

“Then how do you know?”

“Well...” Felitïa could sense amusement from Zandrue now that they were away from the crowds and somewhere that actually approximated privacy. “You’re having me on, aren’t you?”

“Am I?” Their room was just to their right now and Zandrue reached for the door handle. “Maybe I am, maybe I’m—”

A massive boom, like thunder only much closer, came from the direction of the common room below and the floor itself shook, knocking Zandrue and Felitïa off their feet. Felitïa’s head slammed into the wall behind her and she slid to the floor.

It took a moment to regain her senses. Her vision swam and her head filled with the panicked thoughts of everyone downstairs. There must have been two dozen or more intense sources of fear more extreme than she had ever encountered. She wanted to scream herself as the panic threatened to amplify her own fear and overwhelm her.

“What the fuck?”

Zandrue’s voice. Felitïa could barely discern it over the panic in her head. “Felitïa, are you all right? What the fuck was that? Rudiger, are you in there?”

There was smoke around her, and she could hear screams now. Screams and yells from below. The fear was overwhelming.

Another boom exploded from below and this time, the floor shook enough to throw her into the air. She collided with the door, which fell inwards from the impact, and Felitïa found herself lying flat.

There was more screaming downstairs.

“What the hell is going on?”

“Felitïa! Rudiger! We have to get out of here now!”

“No shit!”

Felitïa clutched at the sides of the door and pulled herself up into a kneel. Her heart was pounding like it was trying to burst out of her chest, her body shaking, reacting to the fear of everyone else. She closed her eyes and tried to focus on the Room in her head. She had to push them out. Had to push them out now!

Before their fear killed her.

“Felitïa! Felitïa, answer me!”

“She looks in shock.”

“No, this is worse. Felitïa!”

The walls of the Room collapsed every time she tried to put them up. Again, she tried and again, they fell.

“Felitïa!”

“Should you maybe slap her or something?”

“Why the fuck would I do something like that? Gods, her pulse is going crazy. Her skin’s on fire. Felitïa! Felitïa, focus on my voice. Please!”

Zandrue’s voice. Yes, that was what she needed. One presence free of the fear gripping everyone else. One stable presence. There it was. Concern and affection. Some fear, too, but not the same fear everyone else was feeling. That had to be Zandrue. There was another one, too. Rudiger.

She focused on them both.

The walls of the Room formed. Cracks appeared in them, but they held for the moment. She drew them in right up to her and then pushed them out again, pushing away all the presences from her mind.

With a scream, she opened her eyes and stood up, gasping for air.

Zandrue wiped tears from her eyes and threw her arms around Felitïa. “Don’t you ever fucking do something like that to me again. You scared the shit out of me!”

“It was everybody else downstairs, their fear. It overwhelmed me.”

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“What the hell’s going on?” Rudiger demanded.

Their room was full of smoke drifting in from the hall outside. Most of the screaming from downstairs had stopped, but a single scream rose above those remaining. There was a thud and it stopped. “No, please!” someone cried.

“I really don’t want to know,” Zandrue said, “but we better find a way out of here before we’re the next victims.”

Rudiger picked up Slay from where it was lying on the bed and unsheathed it in one fluid motion. He rushed into the hall. “Shit, floor’s half gone! Be careful.” Then he disappeared into the smoke.

“I was thinking the window!” Zandrue called after him. “Fuck!” She drew her sword. “We better get after him.”

Felitïa hesitated a moment. Every time she met someone from the group in her “vision” as Zandrue was calling it, violence soon followed. It had happened with Zandrue. With Rudiger. Now with Meleng and Corvinian? She sighed and went after Zandrue.

The common room was directly below, but there was too much smoke to see much through the hole in the hall floor. Only shapes. Many of those shapes looked like people. Most weren’t moving.

“Please!” someone cried.

A large shape moved just beyond where Felitïa could see.

Wings. They looked like wings.

No, that was impossible.

There was another scream, then a thud not too far ahead of her.

She squeezed against the wall and edged round the hole, which was bigger than she had at first realised. It must have run ten feet along the hallway, from near the left-hand wall all the way across. The bottom edge of the right wall was just splinters. The door to room one had fallen away completely, and Felitïa could see that the room beyond was gone as well.

The room Corvinian's parents had gone into. Dear gods.

Felitïa reached the end of the hole and hurried to the stairs. Rudiger was on the midway landing, facing the room room below, and was now just standing there, staring. Gaping.

Zandrue was crouching against the landing wall, hugging her knees and muttering. A body lay on the floor beside her, greasy apron covered in blood. The inn-keeper. His head was twisted at an impossible angle and his jaw had been torn half off.

Felitïa scurried down the stairs and knelt beside Zandrue. “No, no, no. They’ve found me.” Zandrue pressed her knees closer to her chest.

Felitïa turned to see into the room below. The smoke was starting to clear, blown away by the cold air from the open front door. The walls were blackened, but dotted with countless red splatters of blood. The shapes Felitïa had seen through the floor—the bodies—were mangled and burnt. Though there weren’t enough of them to account for everyone that had been crammed into the room. Most must have fled. That was a small relief.

She looked back at Zandrue and let the walls in her head dissolve. The original sources of the fear that had nearly killed her were either dead or had run away, so it should be safe. She needed to know what Zandrue was going through.

Fear slammed her again.

It was more manageable this time, coming from only a few sources. But Zandrue’s was much different than the others. It was the same fear she had detected from Zandrue so many times before—every time Felitïa had ever tried to ask Zandrue about her past.

One of the other fear sources began to mix with determination. Rudiger. He raised Slay just as the large figure moved into view at the bottom of the stairs.

Legends said Volgs had the heads of goats. It wasn’t far from the truth. The creature at the base of the stairs had thick horns that curled like a ram’s. The face was lightly covered in black fur, mixed with grey and white. The fur was thinner around the wide black eyes, but thickened under the nose and around the mouth, longer on the chin like a short beard. The nose and the mouth jutted forward a little almost like a muzzle. The ears were human-like, however—not at all like a goat’s—as was most of the rest of the body.

Except for the massive leathery wings that extended from the shoulders. They were folded up behind the Volg’s back right now, but they twitched slightly as he stepped forward. He was wearing multi-layered black robes that draped low at the back, beneath the wings. In one hand, he held a ball of growing white crystal.

“Rudiger, be careful,” Felitïa hissed, but she wasn’t sure he heard her.

Rudiger took a couple steps towards the Volg, who just grinned. Rudiger was over six and a half feet tall, but even raised by the stairs, he only stood about as tall as the Volg. He raised Slay higher and charged down the stairs. The Volg didn’t even try to move or defend himself as Slay cut straight down.

And collided with an invisible barrier. There was a bright flash of violent energy and Rudiger shot backwards into the staircase with enough force to crash right through it. The lower half of the stairs collapsed like a tower of playing cards. Felitïa threw her arms around Zandrue to hold on to her if the landing beneath them gave way, but although it shook, it held.

The Volg’s laugh cut short as he looked at his orb, which was no longer glowing and had a long crack through it. He said something in a language Felitïa didn’t understand.

“Impossible,” Zandrue muttered.

The Volg gave a loud guttural roar and moved towards the wreckage of the staircase where Rudiger lay.

Felitïa let go of Zandrue and stood up at the edge of what was now a crooked ledge. She clenched her fists and stared hard at the Volg, releasing the spell with more strength than she would have ever considered using on anyone else.

The Volg screamed as she convinced his mind that he was burning to death.

Elderaan would have never approved of a spell like this. She had never been sure she approved either—until now—but she had researched it in case she ever encountered the Darkers again.

It was taking a lot of energy from her, but she kept it going, willing the Volg’s mind to think he was dead. To die for real.

“Will-Breaker!” The Volg swung his right arm in a wide circle and pulled back with the other.

Damn.

“Zandrue, look out!” Felitïa let go of the spell and threw herself over Zandrue to shield her.

There was heat at her back, but the explosion she’d expected didn’t happen. What the hell?

Felitïa rolled over and looked up.

A ball of fire hung in the air just in front of Zandrue, unmoving.

What was happening? Was Zandrue doing this? How?

No. Zandrue was still lost in her fear.

“Leave here.” Another voice penetrated the din. A male voice, Felitïa thought, but higher pitched than most men’s. “Now. Or I kill you.” The voice had an accent that Felitïa couldn’t place.

She crawled forward and peered over the edge where the stairs used to be.

Jorvanultumn.

The sixth figure, the one as wide as it was tall, began to clear in her head.

In the doorway stood an Isyar. His wings—the reason for his width in her head—were spread and...not exactly flapping, but moving like they were directing the snow and wind swirling around his pale body. At points, it was difficult to distinguish where his body ended and the snow and wind began. He held one hand outstretched towards the ball of fire that still hung in the air just in front of Zandrue.

The Volg raised his arms and slapped his hands together in a loud clap. Two spears of stone hurtled at Jorvanultumn. The Isyar merely waved his free hand in a gentle circle, and both spears broke into countless small stones that then broke into sand. The sand joined the swirl of wind and snow that was getting larger with more collected from outside.

“Taste your fire,” the Isyar said and pulled his outstretched hand inwards. At the same time, he stretched his other hand forward. The ball of fire shot backwards and the tempest around him whipped forward, both colliding with the Volg in an explosion of fire, ice, and stone.

The Volg screamed. And screamed.

As the smoke and debris cleared, the Volg stumbled forward. Much of his wings had burnt away, revealing the thin skeletal framework beneath. The fur on his face and short beard was completely gone and the skin underneath was a mixture of red and black burns. His robes smouldered, but were still mostly intact. Their thickness was probably the only thing that had kept him alive.

The Volg stumbled for the doorway, trying to run. He didn’t make it far. More gusts of snow and ice whirled around him, lifting him fully off the ground. The Isyar stepped aside, guiding the winds with fluid movements of his wings and arms, and the Volg floated towards the doorway.

“I am sorry,” the Isyar said as the Volg floated past. “You had a chance. But you kill too many.”

The wind and snow carried the still screaming Volg through the door and then up, out of sight.

Felitïa pulled herself to her feet and went over to Zandrue, who was still cowering against the wall. “It’s all right,” she said. “It’s over.”

A soft, but sickening thud came from behind her. Felitïa glanced back. On the street outside, the mangled remains of the Volg lay splattered over the cobblestones. Felitïa didn’t want to know how high he had fallen from.

The Isyar had knelt on the ground and was staring up to the sky, muttering something. From what little Felitïa knew of Isyar, she was fairly certain he was praying.

She turned back to Zandrue, who had not snapped out of her delirium.

“Impossible. Impossible.”

“Zandrue, listen to my voice,” Felitïa said. She lowered her eyelids half-closed. “Just listen to my voice. It’s time to sleep.” She tilted her head slightly and released the spell. Zandrue’s fear faded as her body went limp. Fast asleep.

Felitïa leaned forward and kissed her on the forehead. “Everything’s going to be okay.”