60Flames whoosh and billow as we take off across the platform, Shar in the lead and me five steps behind. How she manages to navigate through the thickening smoke and spreading fire, I don’t know. It’s as though she has a sixth sense for the flame, twisting and turning through the inferno with an intuition almost bordering on prescience. For my part, all I can do is follow, eyes on her back as we leap pools of sap and skirt piles of debris. Ships loom up through the drifting haze, their gray shells glinting dully in the fire’s glare, forcing us under or over or around them, and still the blaze creeps ever nearer, snaking across the platform in sizzling orange ribbons that eat up the space as fast as we can cover it.

Seconds turn into minutes, and still we run. Heat is pouring up from the platform, drenching me in great waves, and my entire body is dripping with sweat from head to toe. The smoke is so thick I can barely see two meters in front of me, and any sense of where I might be has completely evaporated. Only Shar seems to have any idea of where we’re going, moving through the wreckage with an unerring sense of direction. Is it possible her psychic abilities can read fire? It seems impossible, yet I have no other answer. Something in me says that she is the key to my survival, and should I lose her, any chance I might have of living through this inferno will die instantly.

We sheer around the half-burned shell of a roamer, and suddenly every scrap of faith I placed in Shar is instantly justified. Glinting like silver through the rising smoke is the edge of the platform.

My hopes rise and fall in the same instant. We’ve reached the end of the landing pad, but there is still no escape. Fire licks the edge of the platform, billowing in fountains of flame that only seem to rise higher with every second. I start to slow, but to my shock, Shar suddenly speeds up, hurtling down the hot metal straight for the flames. I’m about to scream her name, certain she must have lost it, when I see it: not a gap, exactly, but a small section where the flames are still only knee-high. I barely have time to let out a gasp before Shar hits the edge of the platform, winds up her arms, and leaps.

My heart stutters as she disappears behind the ring of fire. For one beat, two, my steps falter, unable to continue in the face of the sheer impossibility of making that jump. Then Shar’s head suddenly bobs up just beyond the platform’s edge, and the impossible becomes possible. New determination flows through me. Clenching my fists, I redouble my steps and sprint full-out for the flames. Legs pumping, I run as I never have before, pounding for the edge of the platform even as the flames climb higher. Terror razes through me, rising in pitch with every step as inwardly I scream—

Oh stars, oh stars, oh stars, oh stars!

Then my foot hits the edge of the platform, and I leap.

Heat rises around me as I soar through the flames. Fire licks my legs, scorching and bright, but I barely have time to register it before I’m through, breaking from the blaze in a reckless victory. I hit the ground hard, stumbling and almost falling as my momentum flings me forward. My ankle rolls on the uneven ground, and I stagger several steps, but I manage to stay on my feet. Lifting my head, I scan the area wildly for Shar, terrified I might have lost her somehow during my exodus from the platform, but no! There she is at the forest’s edge, beckoning to me with frantic gestures.

I don’t hesitate but take off after her, bounding across the narrow road and into the jungle. My feet squish against the muddy soil as I frantically try to outrun the blaze, but it’s too late! The fire is already here, the forest set alight by the same burning shrapnel that rained down on the platform, and in her desiccated state, the Rainforest has become the perfect firetrap.

Untouched by the flood, the upper canopy is already an inferno, and despite its recent soaking, the understory is quickly going the same way. Flames snake down through the trees, borne through the damp understory by ribbons of black sap that ooze and flame like slicks of oil, burning hot, drying the surrounding foliage until it, too, catches. Brush fires zoom across the forest floor, crackling and snapping around small pools of water as though they’re not even there, and hanging vines have now become curtains of flame. Shrubs and trees downed by the flood obstruct our way at every turn. We surge through a narrow alley between a massive pair of Ionas and narrowly miss getting seared alive as a streamer of fire shoots down along the soft bark. Still we run, licked with fire one moment and splashed with water the next as we tear through shallow pools and leap flaming debris in our quest for survival.

A loud groaning, low-pitched and popping, meets my ears. I dare a glance up. A huge branch, half eaten by fire, droops from the tree above. As I watch, more flame shoots down its shaft. It judders violently in the wavering smoke, and my stomach flips over.

Craaack!

With a sudden snap, the branch comes down, plummeting through the trees like a wayward comet and crashing to the ground barely a meter away from me. Sparks fly up, and I leap back—too late! A dozen tiny embers sink into my limbs, searing my skin from the inside out. I shriek in pain, but Shar doesn’t even seem to notice the missiles. Already she’s moving to avoid the wreckage, veering around the fallen branch to head east, always east.

I force myself to follow, though my heart pounds with terror at the near miss, but it’s getting harder now. My legs are burning, and my lungs can’t seem to get enough air. Black smoke hangs over us like a shroud, trapped in the understory by the flaming canopy above, and each breath is a fight. Everywhere I look is flame and fire, fire and flame, and it’s all I can do to keep my tear-ridden eyes on Shar. Intent on her, I completely miss the slick of mud, foot flying out from under me before I even know what’s happening. My spine rattles as I hit the ground hard. Winded, I lie in the mud for several seconds, unable to concentrate enough to even stand up. I’m so tired, so very, very tired. My eyelids flutter softly. If I could just close my eyes for one second . . .

CREEAAAGHHSSH!

I jerk back to wakefulness as something large crashes to the forest floor off to my right. In an instant, I’m up on my knees, driven by the terrifying realization that I almost fell asleep in the middle of a forest fire. Even with the puffer sponge, the smoke is getting to me, searing down my trachea and burning through my lungs, and I’m not sure how much longer I can last. The fire has gained on me in those precious seconds I spent on the ground, and now whole trees are collapsing, their burned trunks crashing down under the sheer weight of their flame-ridden branches. The hideous destructiveness of it all is like a nightmare come to life, and yet if that falling tree hadn’t woken me . . .

Refusing to finish the thought, I force myself to my feet. I’m so lightheaded now that it’s all I can do to stand, and no matter which way I turn, I can’t see Shar anywhere. The smoke is too thick, and the flames are too close. Dizzy from the lack of oxygen, I brace myself against the as-yet-unburned bole of an Iona tree, uncertain whether I can keep going without Shar, uncertain if I even want to keep going anymore, and that’s when I see it, emerging from behind the shifting smoke: a sparkling blue band of salvation stretched out across the sea of fire.

The river.

Hope reignites in me in a single instant. This is where Shar was taking me. This is where my one hope of survival lies.

Marshaling the last of my strength, I push my body forward. Shar is gone now, disappeared somewhere within the roaring flames, but it no longer matters. All that matters is that strip of blue and the sanctuary it offers. Clenching my hands into fists, I take a deep breath and race for the river.

I’m not sure how I find the strength to run those final meters, but somehow I do, dragging myself through the flames like one in trance. All thought is gone now, driven underground by pure bodily instinct as muscle, bone, and sinew move in perfect harmony toward a single goal. The world around me blurs, and then fades, ebbing away into insignificance until all that’s left is the blue of the river in my eyes and the sound of my breath in my ears. Onward I move, loping in time to the beat of the universe until I don’t know where I end and it begins.

It’s the sound of the rushing water that finally breaks me from my trance. I stumble out of the trees onto the bank, blinking rapidly as I struggle to refocus. My vision snaps back with a vengeance, higher brain function returning in an instant as I realize: I’m here!

But the fire is too.

Dismay fills me as I realize that even the mighty Shoqua isn’t immune to the blaze. Already the water burns, its roiling surface dotted with patches of black sap flaming in oily pools, while along the bank burning foliage crumbles and falls in a deadly rain. Between the falling debris and the fast-flowing current, the Shoqua isn’t much safer than the forest—but it’s all I have.

Shucking off my armor, I crouch down on the bank and grab hold of a nearby root sticking through the dirt. Then taking a deep breath, I jump.

Water closes over my head in an ashy rush. I suck in a breath, relieved to find that the puffer sponge still functions despite all the soot it has absorbed. Even this close to the bank, the water is deep—too deep—and only my grasp on the root keeps me from sinking even farther. I struggle against the current, trying to stay beneath the safety of the surface without getting swept away. The water is warm, almost hot, and the recent flood has only made the currents stronger. Again and again they strike me, buffeting me every which way as they seek to dislodge me from my precarious perch. A particularly fierce wave hits me, and my hand slides down the root.

My heart clenches. In desperation, I try to tighten my grip, but the wet root is slippery, and my body is completely exhausted. The currents keep coming in endless waves that batter and bludgeon me, and despite my best efforts, I can’t hold on. Slowly but surely, my fingers begin sliding again, slipping down the root one inch at a time.

I kick over onto my back, trying to lessen the amount of surface area the currents can hit. My progress temporarily stops. For a long moment, I just lie there, twisting and turning beneath the surface while overhead fire and ash rain down upon the river. Through the rippling waves, there’s something strangely beautiful about it all, the devastation transmuted into sublimity by this watery lens, and I find myself thinking of Lia. Is she up there somewhere, looking down on me in my final moments?

I can only hope so.

A sense of comfort comes over me at the thought of her up there, waiting for me. I watch the embers drift and fall, alighting atop the waves like stars in shimmering sparks of gold and red.

Then my strength gives out, and the river takes me away.