This was the same half-finished room where I’d met Cassel that morning. I stuck to the right-hand wall, the one furthest away from the magma creature. Not that it made a whole lot of a difference, seeing just how much of the floor was taken up by Tipilej Awki. At least it wasn’t looking at Valentino and me—much. It had way too many eyes to know for sure. But I really got the feeling that most of its attention was on Vanth, and some on Nina.

  Though more and more fat raindrops vaporized as they fell on Tipilej Awki, the floor was only slightly seared by its cws. Guess Nina was cooling it down. If she hadn’t been there—well, she was the one who’d pnned for this, so there was no point in wondering otherwise.

  Vanth couldn’t have survived on his own, though—but as I said, no point in worrying about something that didn’t happen. And listening to him, you wouldn’t have guessed he’d been in any danger.

  “I’m a descendant of that human,” he was saying. Tipilej Awki snapped at him—I don’t know if it was because of his words or because Vanth said that in the same vaguely contemptuous way he said most things. Guess being capable of pissing a mountain off was impressive, in a way. Vanth couldn’t help flinching—and in his pce, it was impressive that he didn’t just run away. I don’t care what he sounded like, nobody with a working brain would fail to be intimidated.

  Slowly, Vanth went down on one knee. Tipilej Awki blinked many eyes at him.

  “So let me make amends,” Vanth said.

  Tipilej Awki rumbled like an avanche, so full of pain and sorrow I almost couldn’t take it. I wanted to throw up. I think it wasn’t listening to Vanth—I hoped so, ‘cause if it did, it didn’t care for his words.

  Tipilej Awki whipped its tail over its head, and my breath just froze in my lungs. A chorus of screams rose from the streets. But before Tipilej Awki could strike, something glowed in the sky, approaching very fast.

  A shimmering, onduting thing. The clouded sun shone ever so faintly behind its translucent form. Its wings spread out almost as wide as that room. It had a serpentine neck, and a tail proudly fanned behind it.

  A bird?

  No, not really.

  A creature shaped from water—a foamy, rippling, scintilting waterfall come to life. That had to be Teferaj Awki!

  The water creature sank its cws into the magma creature, so fast the tter didn’t have time to react, and lifted it into the air, carrying it away. The magma creature turned against its opponent, shing out with tail and cws. It succeeded: the water creature dropped it into the streets.

  I ran to Vanth. “Are you all right?”

  He tried to stand up, but looked a bit shaken, so I gave him a hand.

  “Thanks. I’m fine.”

  He looked so pale against the smear of blood still splitting his face from forehead to chin. I couldn’t find any words. Instead of wasting more time, I grabbed his face, half pulling him down and half standing on tiptoes, and kissed him square on the lips. He clutched my shoulders, at first with a bruising grip, as if he was clinging to the remains of a wreckage for dear life; his mouth tasted of blood. As his hold on me gentled, his tongue probed harder into my mouth. Hungrily. Could he even kiss me out of breath?

  Vanth pulled away. I took that chance to bring him a bit lower and remove his hankie, so that I could take a look at his forehead.

  “Oh, good! Looks like it was Cassel’s blood.”

  He let me wipe it off. “You’re the real cause for concern here.”

  “Yeah, that’s fair.”

  “Then stay close to me, at least.”

  Nina was looking at us. Impossible to know what her expression could be under her cloak of fme. Though I’d guess it was smugness, seeing how she too could evaporate raindrops—as the storm started hitting in earnest, you could see tiny puffs of vapor coming off of her.

  She turned around, calmly walked to the edge of the building, and jumped off. Vanth and me ran after her; Valentino came too. As expected, Nina bounced off the Big Project’s side a few times until she reached the ground.

  “That’s unnerving,” I said. “I can’t really believe she didn’t turn herself into paste.”

  “That’s how you make other people feel,” Vanth put in.

  No crowd had gathered on this side of the Big Project, though even as the mountain gods fought, you could glimpse a few people daring to come take a look at them from ground level. Guess I shouldn’t be the one to call them reckless, but even so, that was more than I dared to.

  Meanwhile, the water creature was harrying the magma creature, as the tter tried to pin the former down. Tipilej Awki had burned an enormous groove into the street; it’d backed itself into a tall building, I think an embassy, and charred the better part of a wall.

  I held Vanth’s hand to comfort him—he squeezed it hard.

  Slowly, Tipilej Awki’s anger had faded, and its sadness had grown. You could even see it in its attacks—they were getting slower, heavier, more halfhearted, right before our eyes. But Teferaj Awki hadn’t lost any of its agility and precision.

  “They’re immortal, aren’t they?” Right after saying that, I remembered Heruj-tepuy had been destroyed. “Immortal unless someone has an Imperium lying around, I mean. They could crush the entire city without even noticing.”

  “They’re mountains.” Vanth let go of my hand and looped an arm around me. “Are you scared?”

  “Well, yeah. Anybody would be. It’s nothing I can’t handle though.”

  “Hmm.” He hugged me tighter. I rested my head on his shoulder and inhaled the scent of worn leather and fresh sweat. “Everything fine, Sergeant Vargas?”

  “Yes, Your Illustrious Highness. Sorry His Excellency escaped me.”

  Vanth chuckled without making noise. I only noticed because my head was almost over his chest. “You’re not the one at bme.”

  “But it can’t get tired either,” I said. “The magma creature, I mean.”

  “Of course not,” Vanth said. “They’re retives of a sort, though. It may count for something.”

  I held my breath. The water creature had perched on top of a building and the magma creature had crouched down to stare at it, looking a lot like a cat that can’t get a bird. Nina took that chance to approach Tipilej Awki. The eyes on the magma creature’s side shifted to follow her. If that was me, I would’ve ran away. And it would’ve been the right choice, because Tipilej Awki snapped right at Nina.

  The water creature spread its wings and fluffed itself up like birds do when they want to look threatening. Guess Tipilej Awki got the message, because it didn’t snap at Nina again. I think she was talking to it, but we were too far to hear anything, even if the wind hadn’t been so strong. The rain was coming down on earnest now, too.

  The magma creature raised up its head and let out a single, rumbling bellow, so mournful it cut off my breath. Vanth hugged me tighter. The water creature answered its sibling with a waterfall roar.

  Tipilej Awki walked away from us. It didn’t walk too far away, though. The buildings blocked it from our view, and the rain wasn’t helping, but I could feel its anger again. Only an echo of what it’d been before, thankfully. It was taking it out in a specific building.

  “That’s the guard station,” I said. “It has to be.”

  It all ended very fast—maybe too fast. Teferaj Awki flew back to its own mountain and Tipilej Awki climbed back into the Big Project. Nina was riding on its back; before my mind could even grasp that fact, she jumped down. Tipilej Awki slid down the hole it’d burned on the floor.

  “Quick, before the storm ends.” Nina strode into the elevator without a look back, so we followed her. “I don’t know how to operate this thing. Where does it take you?”

  “Where do you want to go?” Valentino asked.

  “Ground floor, I think. Amankay must be there already.”

  Amankay was there, and so were all the other Snakes, who flooded the elevator the moment it reached ground floor. Even the kid, who clung to the skinny asshole almost as hard as I clung to Vanth. Well, whatever works for you, I guess.

  Moreira pushed Valentino away from the aeolipile, so Valentino bumped into the skinny asshole, who gred at him. Of course that wasn't Valentino's fault, but I also don't think that was the issue. He was half out of uniform, but you could still recognize him as a guard if you paid attention, so I guess the skinny asshole hated him on principle.

  At least the elevator reached its destination only a few seconds ter.

  Nina came out first. That room was pitch dark, but her fme cloak glowed softly, and she threw a couple of light spells into the air right away. “Start this thing up, will you?”

  We’d reached some kind of generator, clearly the same one Moreira had turned off not long ago. Tipilej Awki had destroyed the barrier spell for good, so turning the generator on wouldn’t trap it again. But the light globes would turn on again. I suspected that’s not what had brought Nina down there, though.

  “Ah, well—” Moreira stepped next to a wall panel. I couldn’t make any sense out of it, other than there was a pile of cables on the ground, and they apparently should be plugged into sockets on the wall. “See, I don’t exactly understand what I did. But I’m pretty sure it’s not broken.”

  “Allow me.” Vanth made his way through the others. Moreira stepped aside, looking very relieved. Vanth didn’t look at him. He started examining the cables, one by one, and plugging them back on. One of the light spells went to his side.

  The skinny asshole stared at Vanth as if waiting—even hoping—for him to fuck up. Maybe he even thought he’d gotten his wish, because when Vanth was finished connecting the cables, nothing happened. But then, he switched a couple of them around, and the generator buzzed back to life, and the light globes overhead lit up.

  I think I could feel Tipilej Awki’s contented purr coming from the generator.

  “Thanks, young man,” Nina said. “Sara, your turn.”

  “All right.” Sara stepped next to the generator, rested a hand on it as if soothing a megabeast, grinned big, gnced back at Moreira, and cast a barrier spell.

  Guess Moreira hadn’t been speaking only out of fondness when he said his wife’s barrier spells were good. I only felt it as it was being cast, but it was the sturdiest one I’d ever felt, and in a strangely friendly way. Cozy. I have to say it was better than one of Grandma Cielo.

  The barrier spell fed on Tipilej Awki’s power, spreading far away. In the blink of an eye, I couldn’t feel it anymore. But I was sure it covered much more than the Big Project—with Tipilej Awki’s help, it could go as far as covering the entire city.

  “Well!” Sara took a step back. “álvaro, your turn.”

  The kid disentangled himself from the skinny asshole. He set a trembling hand on the generator, closed his eyes. They opened up almost instantly.

  “I can’t do it.”

  The skinny asshole went to him and rested a hand on his shoulder. A spell crackled between them and álvaro’s face rexed.

  “Try now,” the skinny asshole said.

  “All right.” This time, when álvaro focused, another spell surged up to draw power from the generator.

  Sara caught my eye. “It’s a fixator spell.”

  “I see.”

  The skinny asshole hugged álvaro, and Amankay gave Moreira a good shake—did I mention I was happy to be an only child? I wasn’t paying any of them much attention, though. My mind had begun to drift.

  Fixator spells are the best kind if you want a stable job that pays well. They're the reason why rich people can buy spells cast into metal or whatever. And they're not all that common. At first I did wonder why the Snakes had dragged a teenager into this mess, but it made sense now. They’d needed someone to affix Sara’s barrier spell so that it wouldn’t fade in a couple of days. And most people who can do that, because they have stable jobs that pay well, aren’t the kind of people who fight the government.

  The barrier spell had grown on Tipilej Awki’s power, and the fixator spell had drawn on its power too. So now the spell would stand as long as that generator kept drawing Tipilej Awki’s power. Which is to say, as long as there was a generator and a mountain.

  There was only one problem, I thought. One thing Cassel had never had to worry about.

  The Snakes, and the strikers, and I guess everybody standing out there in the rain, had defied one of the governors personally appointed by the Megarchon. They’d given Letheia VII a very good reason to follow on Letheia I’s steps and destroy another mountain, together with everybody living in it.

  Do you think the original Tomenedra had no protections? All cities did, in the days before the Protectorate. Never mind the capital of a warring empire. That didn’t stop the Imperium. I wasn’t sure a barrier spell could slow it down.

  As I was pondering how long it’d take for the Megarchon to find out what’d just happened, and how fast I could get out of High Tomenedra, I glimpsed Nina leaving the generator room. Without thinking, I hurried after her.

  I’d barely entered the hallway when someone caught my wrist. No need to turn around—I knew it was Vanth.

  “Sorry—”

  “Keep your head down.” He picked me up and ran to the elevator. I ducked just in time to avoid hitting my head on the annoyingly low roof, and he managed to step inside just before the door slid closed.

  Vanth put me down—the elevator roof was even lower than the one in the hallway—as the elevator went up; I clung to him so I wouldn’t fall.

  Nina, who of course was operating the elevator, didn’t pay any attention to us.

  “Do you need any help?” I asked.

  “No.”

  That wasn’t much of an answer, was it? I wanted to argue with her, but the elevator stopped at the foyer, and as Nina got off, I did too, holding Vanth’s hand so he wouldn’t think I was trying to leave him behind.

  The light globes were back on, but I really didn’t want to look around. Naturally, I couldn’t help it. There were at least a couple of corpses. One was the greensuit I’d stabbed; the other one must’ve been Cassel, because he was never seen alive again. And also because that particur pile of human remains had been burned until it was little more than the mound of ashes left after a bonfire is entirely consumed. Guess Tipilej Awki recognized him.

  Nina stood in the center of the foyer and looked up, into the pouring rain—Tipilej Awki had burned a hole on the roof and now the Big Project had the word’s biggest leak. Thunder rumbled not too far away.

  “Good, there’s still time.” Nina reached up, as casually as if she wanted to pick something from a high shelf.

  Vanth pulled me closer to the wall. A light fshed high above, so bright I looked away. The thunder roared even louder, so loud I couldn’t have heard Vanth speaking right on my ear. It boomed against the walls, but the Big Project, unfinished and diminished and all, wouldn’t let itself be shaken. Me, being only a human, was a bit shaken, but Vanth was still holding me, so I wouldn’t let myself be afraid.

  broccolifloret