see, she could feel it in her own spirits and from the window against her cheek, but she forced herself to look anyway.
Down below, all of Zarin seemed to be pulling in. The white buildings were leaning as though the stone itself had doubled over. The glittering strip of the river, still fragile after its breakdown the day before, was pulling back in its banks, its water swirling into whirlpools so large Miranda could see them even at this distance. Strangest of all, though, were the people.
Everywhere she looked, the citizens of Zarin were on the ground. Spirit deaf or wizard, they’d all felt it just as she had. She slumped against the window. Something vital had died; she knew that fact as clearly as she knew her own name, but what? What in the world could have done this?
“The Hunter.” The Tower’s voice was little more than a whisper, but Miranda could feel the strain in the gold collar at her neck and the ring on her finger.
“Easy,” Miranda said, layering the word with power. “Who’s the Hunter?”
Even with her calming weight pushing on it, the Tower’s answer was almost hysterical. “Our protector. Our hope. Our wall. We are defenseless, and they are coming. They are coming!”
The Tower finished in a deafening wail, and then the floor under Miranda’s feet began to buck.
Without hesitation, Miranda opened her spirit and slammed her will down. She slammed it through the Tower’s ring, hammering their connection until she was panting from the effort. She could feel her own bound spirits cringing from her fury, but she dared not let up. The Tower was the great bedrock spirit beneath Zarin. If she let it lose control, the city could be destroyed.
The seconds ticked by as she kept up the pressure, sweat rolling down her face. She pushed until she felt she was going to throw up from the strain, but she never let her will slack. Slowly, inch by inch, she felt the Tower relax, and then finally surrender. She kept the pressure up a moment more before pulling back into herself.
“Thank you,” the Tower rumbled, and his tone said he meant it.
“You’re welcome,” Miranda panted. “Now, who’s coming?”
The Tower’s voice began to tremble so badly that were it human Miranda would have said it was crying. “I can’t say,” it whispered. “The Lady forbids us old spirits to speak of it. She wishes it forgotten. Even now…” The Tower shuddered. “I cannot act against her edict. All I can say is that the Hunter was the wall that held back the black tide. Now he is fallen and they are coming. They are coming.”
“Easy,” Miranda said, pressing her spirit down again. It was a gentle, soothing pressure, not the hard slam she’d used earlier, but it worked. Miranda let out a grateful sigh. She didn’t think she could manage something like that again.
“If you can’t tell me, that’s fine,” she whispered, petting the Tower’s chain like it was a frightened puppy. “I’ll find out another way. Can you at least tell me what’s about to happen?”
She got the strangest feeling that the stone was staring at her as it whispered.
“The end.”
Miranda shot up from the floor and marched to the door, tearing it open with a bang. Outside, Krigel was curled under his desk in a ball. She dropped to her knees beside him, shaking him by the shoulder.
“Krigel!”
The old Spiritualist looked up, his eyes glittering with terror and newly shed tears. “Rector,” he whispered. “What happened?”
“I mean to find out,” Miranda said, helping him to a seated position. “I need you to listen and tell me where the panics are.”
Locations, she needed locations. Needed to know where to send her Spiritualists to get things under control again. But Krigel was just staring at her, his eyes wide and confounded as if she’d asked him to recite all the kingdoms of the Council in alphabetical order.
“Krigel, please,” she said. “We have to move now or this is only going to get worse.”
“Yes, but…” Krigel’s voice trailed off as he stared at her in disbelief. “Can’t you hear it?”
“No,” Miranda said, fighting to keep her temper under control. “The Tower’s presence in my mind muffles the spirit’s panic. You know that.”
The old man looked down, his face falling as he stared at his limp hands.
“Come on, Krigel,” Miranda said, shaking him again, gently this time. “I need you. Tell me what we’re dealing with.”
“I thought you’d be able to hear it,” he said. “Even muffled, I thought—”
“I can’t,” Miranda said. “The Tower does it to protect me. That’s why you’re so important. Close your eyes and listen. I need to know where the panics are so we can send Spiritualists to calm things down. That’s our mission now; that’s why we’re here. We’re going to serve the spirits and get them what they need. Now, where are the panics?” She hoped there weren’t too many; she was getting frightfully shorthanded.
“Everywhere,” Krigel said at last. “Everything is panicking. Besides your voice, all I can hear are screams.”
Miranda cursed and threw out her hand. The Tower answered at once, opening a hole in the stone wall to the outside. The blast of wind nearly blew them both over, but Miranda pulled herself upright, grabbing the stone and looking out over Zarin. She almost didn’t need to. The second the wind hit her, she heard it.
The air itself was screaming, the wind crying in terror as it blew in mad circles. Down in the city, the buildings were wrenching themselves apart, timbers splitting like matchsticks as the stones below them rolled in fear. The river was flooding madly now, filling the lower part of the city with crazed muddy water. Even the Council’s fortress was twisting. One of the seven golden spires toppled as she watched, screaming as it fell, and Miranda had to press her hands over her mouth to keep from screaming herself.
The Tower was right; it was the end. Zarin was tearing itself apart like Izo’s town had, only there was no demon running through its streets, and this was far, far larger. So large she didn’t know how to begin to fix it, assuming something like this could ever be fixed. All at once, the searing sense of loss hit her again, but this wasn’t grief for the death of the unknown, beautiful, irreplaceable thing that had struck her earlier. This was a closer tragedy, a pain that ground her heart to dust. Everywhere, in all directions, the spirits she’d given her life to serving were in a mad panic and she could see no way of making it right. The world was ripping itself to shreds right before her eyes and there was nothing she could do.
The need to cry almost overwhelmed Miranda then. She wanted nothing more than to throw herself on the floor beside Krigel and let the bawling sobs ride through her. But even if this was the end of the world, she was Rector Spiritualis still, and she had work to do.
But just as she bent down to try and get Krigel to sit up so they could start regrouping, she felt a familiar prickle on the back of her neck. She froze halfway down, eyes darting to the twisting city below. No, she thought with a frown. It couldn’t be.
That was her last thought before Etmon Banage’s open spirit landed on Zarin.
His will fell like an iron weight, and wherever it landed, the panic stopped. The twisting spirits lay still, frozen beneath Banage’s pressure as a deep, deep silence fell over the city.
For five breaths, Miranda stood dumbstruck, and then she clenched her fingers around her glowing rings. “Where is he?”
The Tower’s answer was joyous and immediate. “Front promenade.”
Miranda nodded. “Take me there.”
The words were barely out of her mouth when the floor opened beneath her feet.
She fell like a stone, hurtling past the floors. The descent was over in seconds, the Tower slowing her gently before setting her down in the corner of the Court’s enormous entry hall. Miranda was running the moment her feet touched the ground. The newly repaired red doors sprung open for her before she reached them, and she flew down the stairs into the wide promenade that led from the Tower to the city proper.
All around her, spirits were bowed under the pressure. Even the laurel trees that lined the Spirit Court district’s broad streets were bent over like they were bearing up under a deep snow. Miranda saw none of it. Her eyes were fixed on the tall figure standing at the center of the empty road, his hands spread in front of him as though he were waiting to receive a heavy burden, his gray-streaked black hair falling limp around his tired face.
“Master Banage!”
The name flew from Miranda’s throat as she charged into him, arms flying around his chest and squeezing
