Feir grabbed him and threw him over his shoulders as a lesser man might lift a child. He said something, but Solon couldn’t quite make it out. He said it again.

“Oh, I got about fifty of them. Maybe ten left,” Solon said. “One on the east bridge.” He was trying to remember what Dorian had told him. Something urgent. Something he hadn’t let Feir hear.

Don’t let Feir die. He’s more important than the sword.

“I’m going to have to set you down,” Feir said. “Don’t worry. I’m not leaving you.”

In outrageous hues of green and blue, Khalidoran soldiers were swarming in front of the east gate. Solon couldn’t even remember leaving the garden. He laughed at what he saw. Feir was using Curoch as a sword.

Watching Feir with a sword was more than amazing; it was a privilege. Feir had always been a natural, deceptively quick, unbelievably strong, his movements as precise as a dancer’s. In hues of green and blue and red, Feir demolished the soldiers. There was no extended swordplay. At most, each soldier had time to swing his own weapon once, miss or have it parried, and then die.

Feir cursed, but when Solon tried to follow his gaze, the riot of colors was too intense. The big man lifted him, threw him over a shoulder again, and started running. Solon saw the wood of the bridge beneath Feir’s feet.

“Hold on tight,” Feir said.

Not a moment too soon, Solon latched onto Feir’s belt on either side of the man’s broad back. Feir dodged to the side and his great shoulders rolled. With his feet sticking out in front of Feir and his head merely bobbing along behind him, all Solon saw was a brief flash of Curoch. Feir spun—the right way so Solon wasn’t flung off—and Curoch came up again, then he was running full speed once more. Solon saw three bodies behind them, lying on the bridge. The man had killed three men while holding Solon over his shoulder. Astounding.

Feir said, “Dorian told me our hope is in the water, but not to jump. Look for a rope!”

Solon lifted his head, as if he would be much help in finding a rope while bouncing on Feir’s back. He didn’t see a rope, but he did see a meister behind them, conjuring a ball of wytchfire. He tried to yell, but couldn’t draw breath.

“Damn you, Dorian!” Feir was shouting. “What goddam rope?”

“Down!” Solon said.

With the reflexes of the sword master he was, Feir dropped instantly. Wytchfire crackled over their heads and burst against a dozen Khalidoran soldiers holding the far gate in front of them. Solon went sprawling and was almost brained by one of the great fire pots that guarded the bridge.

The old wytch behind them—from his thickness of his vir Solon guessed he was a Vürdmeister—was drawing magic once more. Feir grabbed Solon’s collar and threw him behind the fire pot. The move put Solon in a safe place, but exposed Feir. This time it wasn’t wytchfire, but something else Solon had never seen. An angry red beam didn’t so much fly as streak through the air toward Feir. He threw up a magical shield and ducked.

The shield barely deflected the beam—again into a soldier running to join the fray—but the force of the magic blew Feir’s shield apart and flung him to the other side like a rag doll. Curoch spun from his grasp.

Drawing on strength he didn’t know he had, Solon grabbed Feir and pulled him into the shadow of the fire pot with him.

Two more meisters were running to join the Vürdmeister and soldiers were behind them. The gate at the far end of the bridge opened and soldiers were pouring through.

Feir sat up and looked out at Curoch, twenty feet away, exposed. “I can use it,” he said. “I can save it.”

“No!” Solon said. “You’ll die.”

The soldiers and the meisters had paused, regrouping, advancing slowly now, cautious and orderly.

“I don’t matter, Solon. We can’t let them have it.”

“You wouldn’t even live long enough to use it, Feir. Not even if you were willing to trade your life for one second of power.”

“It’s right there!”

“And so is this,” Solon said, motioning to the edge of the bridge.

Feir looked. “You’ve got to be joking.”

Over the edge, a black silk rope had been tied to the underside of either end of the bridge. It only extended out below them when the wind blew. Feir was looking not at the rope but at the fall.

“Hey, it’s prophecy, right? It has to work,” Solon said. If only the world would stop flashing yellow.

“It never works out exactly like Dorian says!”

“If he told you that you were going to do this, would you have come?”

“Hell no. And don’t you nod knowingly to me. I get enough of that from Dorian.” Feir looked at the approaching soldiers and meisters. “Right. You first.”

He’s going to go after Curoch. The heroic idiot.

“I can’t,” Solon said. “I’m not strong enough to grab the rope. I’ll die if I go alone.”

Feir stood. “Just let me try—” he reached out with his Talent and grabbed the sword. Instantly, hands of vir crackled visibly over his magic and started climbing toward him. Solon slashed the magic loose with his own.

Spots exploded in front of Solon’s eyes. “Oh, don’t do that. Don’t do that, please. Oh.”

“Let me ride pony-back, Feir.” Solon didn’t have time to explain. The meisters were close.

“I’m crazy, and you’re fat,” Feir said. But he picked up Solon and put him on his back.

“Magically too. I’ve got a plan. And I am not fat.”

For all that he second-guessed plans when they were all safe, Feir knew to obey in battle. He opened himself quickly, and Solon dipped into Feir’s Talent. He lashed himself onto Feir’s back with magical bonds. Then he quickly readied five thin weaves. It still hurt, but not nearly as much as using his own Talent.

“Now,” he said. “Jump.”

Feir leaped over the side of the bridge. The rope was in the perfect place—not because of the wind or the power of prophecy, but because Solon pulled it there with magic. As Feir grabbed the rope, Solon activated the other weaves.

Holes were torn in the sides of each of the fire pots and air inside them suddenly compressed, jetting the oil in the pots out onto the bridge. The last weave dropped a little spark in middle of the oil.

There was a satisfying whoosh. The river suddenly lit orange and white and heat washed over the falling mages.

Then things were happening too rapidly to follow. Feir had caught the rope with both hands and a leg. He immediately flipped upside down. The sudden change in direction caught Solon’s arm across Feir’s shoulder and snapped it. If it weren’t for the magical bonds holding him, he would have dropped like a stone. The rope, anchored on both sides of the bridge, first stretched, bowing down toward the middle. Because Feir and Solon hadn’t made it to the middle of the bridge, that meant they zipped headfirst for fifteen paces. Then the rope tore loose at the castle end.

Solon was watching light explode over them, distantly aware that they were swinging with terrific speed toward the river. The bridge was engulfed in flames leaping merrily into the night. Or maybe that was pain exploding in his head. Then they slapped into something cold and hard.