“What?”

But the man was already up out of his seat with his leather bag, taking Ryn by the arm and pulling him up too. The clerk didn’t even give them a second look.

Outside, the man kept walking, pulling Ryn along by the arm. “Which way is your friend? Where is she? Tell me.”

Too bewildered to protest, Ryn pointed. “Er, that way.”

“Good. We must be quick if she is in as bad a state as you say.” The old man dragged Ryn with him.

“What are you doing?”

“What d’you think I’m doing?” said the old man. “I’m a healer. We need to get to your friend as quickly as possible so I can attend to her.”

“But I thought the healer was behind the door!”

“Yes, yes.” The old man had picked up a jog now, his leather bag swinging on his shoulder, and Ryn jogged alongside him. “My apprentice, Elivenn. He’s about ready to take over from me now, though he can still be a bit clumsy.” Ryn recalled the screams. “When we saw the Empire coming we swapped places so that they would think he was the resident healer. They have their own way of assessing the seriousness of medical ailments you see, and it’s by no means the same as mine. So I pretended to be sick with a minor illness and waited to see if anyone with a serious problem came in whom my apprentice wouldn’t be able to help. And then you did. Now, which way?”

They had reached a crossroads. WIthout another option, Ryn pointed in the direction of the old woman’s house, and they sprinted the final stretch to it wordlessly. The chocobo was waiting patiently, still tied up. Three loud knocks got them in.

Inside, Ryn rushed past the old woman to Nuthea’s bed. “Here she is!” The old woman had provided a bucket, but she hadn’t done much else. “Please, if you’re really a healer you’ve got to do something to help her! She’s been cut, and the man who did it said she’s been poisoned too!”

“Stay calm,” said the old man, arriving at his side. “Poison, you say? What kind?”

Ryn reached with his memory. What had the bounty hunter sad? “Agava?”

“Ajanga?”

“That’s right--that one.”

“Alright. Step back; I need space.”

“That’s him!” said the old woman. “He’s the one who brought her here!”

Ryn spun.

Four black-armoured Imperial soldiers had appeared from the doorway at the other end of the room. They began to advance on Ryn, swords drawn.

The woman’s eyes were dewey, pleading. “I’m sorry…” she said. “Her face is on the poster... They took my son for their army… I need their favour…”

She had betrayed him.

This time Ryn’s hand lit on instinct. He drew it up in front of and across himself and a flicker of flame flashed through the air for a moment.

“Fire!” he shouted at the soldiers. “Get back!”

They stopped in their tracks, helmets reflecting orange.

“Stay back, I tell you!” he yelled, hearing the words as if someone else was shouting them. “I am Ruby-touched!”

The soldiers looked at one another.

“He can’t attack all of us at once, can he?” Ryn heard one say.

“It’s either death here or back at camp if we retreat,” said another.

They looked back at Ryn...

...and charged.

Ryn got his hand up in time to throw fire at one of them, who screamed and went down in a red-hot writhing mess, steam sizzling off him as he hit the floor.

“No, please!” the old woman was wailing. “You said you’d take him quietly! My house! My house!”

Ryn jumped backwards to avoid the vicious swordswing of the first soldier that reached him. Cold terror seized his stomach. He didn’t know if he’d be able to throw fire again.

He dived out of the way of the next swing, rolling clumsily as he hit the ground. As he came up, he caught a glimpse of the healer he had brought with him bent over Nuthea, reapplying a new bandage from his bag, completely focused on his work despite the carnage unfolding around him.

That gave him some more fire.

He broke his limit.

“Stay BACK!” Ryn shouted, and flung out two hands palm open. “FIREBURST!” Billowing flames burst forth from them, hotter and redder than Ryn had ever produced before.

But the soldiers were ready for him this time. They ducked out of the way of the jet of flame, which blasted straight into the opposite wall.

As the fireburst subsided, the flames did not.

Ryn’s body stiffened with horror.

He had set the old woman’s house on fire.

The soldiers didn’t seem to notice or care. The three of them came on at him more cautiously now, step by deliberate step, brandishing their blades up in front of their bodies.

Despite the flames that started to leap up from the far wall and lick the ceiling, Ryn’s heart was cold again. That last projection had used him all up. He wasn’t sure that he could do it again...

“FIREBURST!” he shouted in desperation, throwing out his hands.

The soldiers winced and held up their hands to shield themselves.

Nothing.

“Damn it all,” he murmured. “I don’t have anything left.” I tried, Nuthea. I tried, mother, father, hometown.

The soldiers came on and the nearest raised his sword high.

Ryn could run, but he wasn’t even sure he had the energy left to do that now either, and it would mean leaving Nuthea.

He hung his head and closed his eyes, accepting his end.

The front door of the house smashed open with the noise of splintering wood.

“Death and glory!” shouted Sagar.

“For Imfis!” shouted Elrann.

The soldiers turned to see what was happening, taking their eyes off Ryn.

An explosion sounded, and sparks sprang from the breastplate of one of the soldiers as he was knocked backwards into the wall by the shot from Elrann’s pistol.

Sagar leapt at the other two, twin swords twirling through the air. Soon all three blades sang as they struck and blocked and parried. Ryn stood transfixed. Sagar was a whirlwind of fury.

The soldier Elrann had shot was up again, lurching towards Ryn. Another sound like a short thunderclap, his armour flashed white, and he was knocked back into the wall again. But he shook his head and recovered himself more quickly this time, and came on.

“Damn Imperials!” shouted Elrann. “Their armour’s tougher than I thought! Ryn watched as she quickly clicked off a mechanism on the top of each of her two pistols and shoved them back down her overalls, before pulling out another object. Since when did she have two pistols? “Ryn! Get moving, kid! Make sure princess-girl is safe!” She flicked her hand out and a long, thin, snake-like length of material that shone like metal uncoiled into the air with snap--a whip.

“No!” the old woman was screaming. “No! My house!” She fled for the front door and slammed it behind her.

Elrann ran at the soldier she had been shooting and lashed out with her whip. It whistled across the soldier’s face faster than Ryn could see, and the soldier dropped his sword and cried out, then clutched his eyes where blood gushed out.

“Get to the princess, pup!” Sagar called out over the ringing of steel.

Nuthea! “Right!”

The old man still stood beside her, one hand rested gently on her forehead, the other on her abdomen, his eyes shut. He appeared completely oblivious to the chaos taking place around him.

“Hey!” Ryn said to him. “What are you doing?

The old man opened his eyes, blinked and looked at Ryn with a furrow in his bushy brow, like he had been woken from a dream. “Pardon? Oh. I am healing her, of course.”

A blood-curdling cry of pain came from somewhere behind them. The old man didn’t bat an eyelid.

“Is she going to be alright?” Ryn sputtered.

“I believe so, yes,” said the old man. “We should probably get her out of here, though.” He glanced behind him. “Oh, the building seems to be on fire. And your friends seem to be finished.”

Ryn turned to see Elrann and Sagar standing victoriously, three black figures splayed on the floor behind them. The old woman who owned the house was gone. Behind them was a backdrop of leaping orange and red, like a vision of hell. Thick black smoke filled the room near the ceiling. Ryn’s cheeks prickled.

“Is she safe to move?” Sagar barked at them over the crackling blaze.

“Yes,” said the old man.

“Come on then, you fools!”

Ryn gathered up Nuthea in his arms again, and the four of them sprinted for the door.

But the fire had spread. The front door itself was on fire, repelling them with smoke and heat.

They looked frantically about. The flames were closing in. Ryn’s chest was a vice around his heart.

“Hold on!” Sagar yelled.

He put his hands, still holding his swords, to his mouth, and inhaled, expanding his cheeks.

Then he took his hands away and…

...blew.

A huge gust of air flew out from Sagar’s mouth, making Ryn’s eyes water as it whooshed by. Ryn had to put a foot behind him to stop himself from being knocked over with Nuthea. The gust spread out the flames around the door to the house, pushing them back, and then forced open the door, which flew off its hinges with a crack of wood and tumbled into the street beyond, hitting another soldier who had been running towards the house and bouncing off him.

In the wind tunnel that Sagar held in place with his exhalation there was room to escape without being reached by the flames.

“Go!” Elrann cried.

Ryn shot forwards with Nuthea, aware of Elrann and the old man following close behind him, and was carried along by the air into the world outside.

They stumbled away from the burning building into the street. The chocobo they had taken from the bounty hunter was flapping and cawing wildy, waving its wings around in distress and trying to break its tether to the burning house.

Elrann flicked out her whip and split its rope with a snap, cutting the chocobo free.

The bounty hunter who had attacked them in the woods lay on the grass, now with his hands and his ankles tied, making muffled cries through the gag over his mouth and trying to roll away from the burning building.

And, in the distance, more soldiers in black armour were running towards them, including Biggs and Wedge from the Healer’s House, the old woman in tow.

“Vandals! Sorcerers! They set fire to my house!”

“Hey!” shouted the soldier Ryn remembered as Biggs. “Stop or we kill you where you stand!”

“Stay right there, arsonist rebel scum!” yelled Wedge.

An arrow thudded into the ground in front of them. A warning shot. Some of the soldiers had crossbows.

“I think I’ve got one more in me,” panted Sagar, reaching them and kicking over the bounty hunter with his foot to make him roll further away from the house, “but you’ll have to put me and the scumsucker on the chocobo afterwards, woman.”

“Do you have to be such a jackass that you call me ‘woman’ even when our lives are in danger?” said Elrann.

Sagar didn’t reply, but sheathed his swords and took another deep breath, so loudly that Ryn heard it over the sounds of the hollering soldiers.

He waved his hand to get the rest of them to step out of his way. Then--

“WINDARAAAAAAAAH!”

This time his exhalation was somewhere between a shout and a scream; somewhere between control and pain.

This time Ryn lost his footing, and fell back on his arse still holding Nuthea. His ears popped as an invisible rush of wind tore down the street from Sagar’s mouth, rippling over the ground, slamming back the doors and windows of buildings, spraying dust and grass and dirt up into the air, making a noise like a hurricane as it ripped through Nonts.

The soldiers flew backwards, scattering like ten-pins, some of them flying head-over-heels backwards down the street, some of them getting swept up into the air. Ryn saw the old woman who betrayed him take off from the force of the wind blast.

When the wind subsided, none of the soldiers left were still standing. Most of them had been blown away out of view.

Sagar was on his hands and knees, trembling. For once he didn’t have anything to say.

“Quick!” said Elrann. “Now’s our chance!”

Ryn heaved himself to his feet with Nuthea and the old healer helped him lift her onto the chocobo. He and Elrann lifted the bounty hunter onto it too to lie beside her, still cursing incomprehensibly from under his gag. And finally they helped hoist Sagar, still shaking and silent, to sit on its back. There was just enough room on the chocobo for the three of them.

It cawed and looked at Ryn with its big beady white eyes, as if to say “What now?”

“Quick,” said Ryn, “let’s get out of here while we still can!”