Before Claire could reach for learth, Marcus bulldozed into Eidan’s side, the crazed Council leader’s knife entering Marcus’s fleshy thigh. The pair fell to the ground, wrestling each other in a mix of blood, sweat and desperate animal grunts. Claire glanced at the tent flap. The pair were so noisy, someone would come inside to check on their leader. Sure enough, one of the soldiers was striding inside, sword at the ready. She had to access learth quickly. Within seconds, Claire had conjured fire at the man’s feet, blocking his way further into the tent. The soldier stared at her with bulging eyes, clearly terrified. Claire let herself smile coldly at him as she let the flames grow higher. With a shout, he turned tail and fled.

Adrenaline pumping as she let her spell flicker out, Claire grabbed Marcus’s cloak and hauled him back, kicking hard at Eidan’s wildly swinging blade. Its edge sliced through her left boot and hit the sole of her foot. She ignored the smarting cut. If she could get Marcus out of the way she could get the fireworks started. Literally. Before those two soldiers came back with reinforcements.

But Marcus pulled away from her and got back in the fray, swinging muscly arms in every direction, forcing Claire to duck. “Watch it,” she said as she narrowly missed another punch. She’d never seen her brother so fuelled by anger, but then they were both members of the O’Connor family, and they stuck together. Besides, his stinging embarrassment at how he had been taken in by Eidan would spur him on. She bit back exasperation. This was no time for heroics. Physical prowess had nothing on magic and if Marcus would just move …

“Get out of the way,” she yelled.

Before Marcus could react, Eidan’s arm snaked towards his ankle. He winked at Claire.

She tried to fling fire to wipe the smirk off his face if nothing else, but it was too late. Marcus and Eidan were so entangled she couldn’t aim for one without injuring the other. “Watch out,” she cried, as Eidan tugged and Marcus fell to his knees at his side.

“Don’t underestimate me, boy,” Eidan spat throwing an arm around Marcus’s shoulder and holding the bronze knife at his throat. The knife scored Marcus’s neck with the sharp edge. Beads of blood trickled across his neckline.

“Stop,” Claire howled, her breathing ragged. “Please don’t kill him.”

“You’d offer yourself in his place?”

“Of course.” She limped over to the pair, ignoring Marcus’s shocked protests.

“Good,” Eidan sneered. He shoved Marcus aside and Claire knelt in her brother’s place. Eidan wrenched her long hair back so that her neck was exposed to his blade. She tried not to flinch. She couldn’t bear to give him a moment of satisfaction. Even so, blackness filled her. If Eidan killed her now, she’d never see Mum or Dad again. She’d never swim in the ocean or paint or go for walks in the National Park. She’d never again exist in her own world.

“I want my face to be the last thing that you see on this earth,” he said as Marcus sobbed from the tent entrance.

Something hot brushed past her neck and she winced, knowing it was the knife. She bit her tongue to stop herself from crying out. Her thoughts were so scattered she couldn’t reach for learth properly. Instead, she pictured her family smiling and laughing at a Christmas lunch as she waited for the end.

But the fatal blow never fell.

“Get your hands off her,” a calm voice came from outside the tent, “or I’ll set you on fire.”

Eidan flung Claire away even as her own heart swelled. She’d recognise that voice anywhere. She got to her feet clumsily, wincing at the pain shooting up from her left foot as she glanced at the open tent flap.

Lord Dorran stood in the entryway, his tattered cloak swaying a little from the wind at his back. His white hair was whiter than she remembered, his wrinkles deeper, but his chest rose and fell with real breath. Somehow, against all the odds, he lived.

“Grandfather!” she cried. No wonder the Saura hadn’t spoken with her on her journey to the Riftlands. The real leader of Dorran House had never truly died.

His face stopped her from sprinting to fling her arms around him. He stepped into the tent. Marcus hurried over to stand beside him uncertainly.

“But you’re dead,” Eidan gasped. “I killed you.”

“You shouldn’t believe everything you see,” Lord Dorran replied, striding to loom over Eidan. “It was my beloved brother Aed you murdered that terrible day. He’s been my double for years.”

“You never said.”

“Luckily. I’ve long suspected there wasn’t something quite right about you.”

“But Maen said you gave him your ring and Lords of Houses don’t do that unless they know their time is spent,” Claire said, pulling aside her tunic to reveal the ring about her neck. “He was convinced … we were all certain you’d died.”

“I led some of the children to safety,” Lord Dorran explained. “I needed Maen and the others to follow you and I knew the Dorran survivors would scatter unless someone stayed behind to help them regroup. I would have reached you sooner if it wasn’t for Eidan’s soldiers rounding up the last of the Dorrans. I had to protect everyone and then get them to safety. By the time I made it to Maellwyn Manor, you were long gone.” He shot Claire a look. “But this is no time for explanations. Move.”

Claire hurled herself aside, just as Dorran sent a stream of flame at Eidan. The Councilman howled as his hand met red-hot heat and the smell of barbecued flesh filled the air.

Marcus broke away from Lord Dorran to join Claire, face white. He grabbed her arms and helped her to her feet.

“Give up, Eidan,” Dorran said. “Call your army off and let my granddaughter finish the task she was born for.”

Eidan’s lips twisted. “No. You want me to give in so you can take over Kelnariat.”

The pair circled each other like uncoiled snakes. Eidan turned to look at Claire as his hand slid into the pocket of his robe.

“Watch out,” Claire screamed.

Dorran took no notice, laughing as he sketched flaming rings around himself and the other man, barring Claire and Marcus from interfering. “You took everything from me. Or nearly everything. You won’t take my grandchildren too.”

“So sure?” Eidan sneered. He pulled his hand free to reveal another sharp knife.

Unheeding, Dorran smirked and brought both the palms of his hands together as though to finish the Councillor off in columns of purifying learth. Before his palms could touch, the knife left Eidan’s hand and hit Lord Dorran deep in the chest.

Claire shook Marcus off, walking into the silk fabric sides of the tent with her hands pressed to her lips in a silent scream as Lord Dorran spiralled backwards, mouth open in a puzzled “O.” His spell began to gutter out.

Eidan had already darted aside. There wasn’t a moment to lose. Claire held her palm out and reached for her grandfather’s flames, shaping them into high walls that blocked off any possible escape route. Once the council leader was surrounded, she sent fireball after fireball at Eidan’s feet, so powerful that he was blasted backwards into the side of the tent.

She turned her back on him to rush to Lord Dorran’s side. She’d deal with Eidan properly in a moment. For now, he was going nowhere.

“What are you waiting for? Finish him off,” her grandfather screamed, blood leaking from his stomach in a horrible reconstruction of Aed’s death. “He can’t be allowed to live if we’re to save Kelnarium.”

Claire’s feet glued to the tent floor. Tears slid down her cheeks in ashy tracks. She moved a hand forward as though to touch her grandfather, her thoughts racing. Eidan had done terrible things. She couldn’t deny that. But she’d stopped Lotte from murdering his men mere hours ago. Was she a hypocrite to kill Eidan now? Then again, she’d attacked soldiers earlier with magic, albeit in self-defence. She didn’t like it, but perhaps she had no choice. After all, everyone in Kelnarium’s lives was at stake.

“Do it,” Lord Dorran gasped one more time. “He’ll show you no mercy if he survives and our world will die.”

“Hold on,” she whispered, digging her nails into her palms. She was strong enough to do this. She straightened and headed right through the wall of flame, making it part at her presence.

Eidan laughed. “You don’t have the guts to get rid of me.”

Claire stood tall. “I absolutely do. I’m a Dorran.”

She concentrated on the nearest wall of learth, letting herself become one with it, embracing it within and outside of her; hot and red and strong, her limbs tingling. With each breath she felt the heat leap with her mind in a complex dance. Then she sent it raining down on Eidan’s head. His screams set her teeth on edge. The sound of flesh crackling and the scent of it cooking made her want to vomit, but she made herself watch as Eidan’s lips stretched in a rictus as skin peeled and blistered. This man would have murdered her grandfather, Marcus, her friends, and an entire world for an imagined slight. In his madness, he’d left Claire no other choice.

A knife whizzed past Claire’s ear to crash into Eidan’s heart. His eyes turned glassy and his lips moved as though he wanted to say something, then he fell to the burning rug, finally lifeless. Claire let her spell fade away as a heavy hand landed on her shoulder.

“I couldn’t let his death weigh on you alone,” Marcus said in her ear. “He was my problem as much as yours.”

“Thank you,” she whispered as her hand found his. It was horrible, but she was glad they shared responsibility for Eidan’s death. It meant that in Shale, there’d be someone to understand, and she also knew it was Marcus’s way of saying sorry. She closed her eyes for a moment. She wanted to say so much more. She wanted Marcus to know she forgave him. She’d never see him the same way again, but it didn’t matter. He was still her brother. But there’d be time for heavy conversations later. She released his hand, saying, “There’s one more thing I need to do, Marcus.”

As she hurried over to Lord Dorran, blood bubbling at his lips, she thought of the Saura. The elemental leader had been following Claire’s journey, waiting for the moment when Claire would finally take up the mantle of leader of House Dorran. “Help me,” Claire whispered, summoning up every scrap of energy she had left. “Ruler of the salamanders, I call on you now.”

At first nothing happened, then the air grew furnace hot and she felt greasy smoke thicken and settle against her sweaty skin. A soft buzzing filled her ears as the Saura manifested, dazzling Claire with its brightness and its heat. “Please,” Claire whispered to the giant salamander stretching from floor to tent ceiling, bulging eyes simultaneously distant and kind. “Lend him some of your strength.”

We will do so, a voice sounded in her mind, scratchy and dry as old leaves. The other elementals are here too, all helping to distract Eidan’s men. Leave your grandfather to us. It is time for you to do what you came for.

Suddenly, salamanders appeared on the ground, slithering over to Lord Dorran, covering him from head to toe. Their webbed feet stroked Lord Dorran’s forehead and mouth. Their tongues whipped against his shoulders as they crowded over him, touching his stomach. Marcus’s eyes widened as the knife wound closed over in seconds and the colour in their grandfather’s face returned to normal.

“Help him up and follow me to the Rift,” Claire commanded her brother as she pushed back the tent flap to see Melinor wraiths, salamanders, Mer-people and angry little men she took to be gnomes streaming outside Eidan’s tent.

Without waiting to see if he acknowledged her, she sprinted outside. The camp was already in uproar. Elementals pulled up tent pegs, spooked horses, and surrounded gibbering soldiers. Without a clear chain of command, they left Claire alone. Most were too terrified to recognise her, let alone care where she headed. She crammed abandoned strips of meat in her mouth and as soon as she was clear of the camp, ran straight for the magnificent colours and rock-hard plains at the centre of the Rift.