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Calm down. Think, Petra.

Cold sweat began to seep from my pores as I made it to the last bucket, the calm beginning to slip away. “Stop!” I called to Belin. “It has to be quicker!”

Belin stepped back, his eyes wild as he tried to figure out what the hell was going on. I stared at the water in the last bucket, my blood still diffusing through it. I centered myself again, slowed my breathing, and willed the water to move, ripple, slosh over the sides.Something.

“Petra,” Belin warned, drawing his sword as the Vacants came nearer. I ignored him, sinking deeper and deeper into the solace of my mind.

Please.

Nothing. The last of the clear water went red, my haggard reflection looking back at me. I’d been mistaken. Whatever I thought I found in myself wasn’t there at all. I’d wasted time and blood thinking I could save every Vacant.

Belin’s eyes were still on me, and I nodded to him in defeat. He sheathed his sword and reached for the last bucket, heaving its contents through the air. I told myself that any Vacant saved was a triumph, forced myself to find peace of mind in that–

The bloody water stopped midair, hovering over the Vacants closest to us. It just…stopped.

Belin’s face melted into shock, and so did mine. But I kept centered, my vision focused on the red-tinged water that floated just above their heads.Holy shit. I raised a hand, willing the water to rise higher in the air, and it followed.

Who was this? Idros, Saint of Storms? Onera, Saint of Miracles? Frankly, at the moment, I didn’t care who it was, because ultimately it was me who was doing this. I raised my other hand, silently commanding the winds to rise along with it, the water beginning to spin and twist as a whirlpool formed in the air above us. Faster and faster, because if what I was thinking was possible, this could actually work.

Blood loss and power exertion were hitting me, but I couldn’t stop, not yet. I willed the water on the ground — the water that had already been thrown — to rise, and it obeyed, joining the whirlpool, making it grow and expand, hovering over the crowd of the Vacants that remained in the barracks. The power that rushed through me now felt like a river, cold and clear and serene on the surface with a raging current waiting beneath. Quiet, steadfast power.

I did it. I’d unlocked whatever it was within me. This was afurious calm.

Thunder crashed outside, the ground shaking with the noise. It was like a command. I dropped my hands and all at once, tiny droplets of bloody water rained down. Even though my blood had been diluted, the screams and screeches of the Vacants stopped, replaced by a shocked silence. But I didn’t have time to revel in the victory as I remembered that there were Vacants throughout the entirety of Taitha, that the Vacants in the barracks were a fraction of what awaited me.

My feet were moving before I knew it as I bolted out the door. The night sky looked like crushed charcoal, angry clouds rolling in from every direction, the moon and stars nowhere to be seen.

“What’s going on?” Nell shouted over the raging thunder.

I didn’t answer, instead looking straight to the sky, wondering how the hell I was going to accomplish what I was planning to do next. But I didn’t have time to think. I pulled my blade once again, running its edge across my other wrist. This cut was deeper, and I flinched at the pain as I watched the blood run down my forearm and drip off my elbow.

“This is what I need to do, isn’t it?” I screamed to the clouds.

The city shook with thunder as lightning forked across the sky, and I lifted my arm, sending my blood flowing to the clouds on the wind I commanded. The liquid bubbled and twisted as it rose higher into the sky, the lightheadedness unending as I lost more and more blood. This wasinsane, but it could be just insane enough to work.

As the edges of my vision began to go murky, I let my arm drop. I couldn’t hold it up any longer. The clouds swallowed my blood, a low rumble of thunder sounding over the city as the people I’d already healed filed out of the barracks.

The clouds churned angrily, the smell of oncoming rain hitting my nose.Please let this work. I nodded my head, and the sky opened up with rain, dropping so heavy that it almost hurt my skin. I just prayed to the Saints that it had been enough.

As if on cue, doors opened on both sides of the street, Vacants bursting out of cottages and townhomes and shops after hearing the commotion outside. I watched as they stumbled back into their bodies, realization hitting them as they stood in the rain, every trace of leechthorn suddenly gone. I knew the same thing was happening on every street in Taitha.

My knees hit the ground. It worked. Somehow, some way, it worked.

With that knowledge, I let the head-spinning exhaustion overcome me, wishing with everything that I’d soon hear the voices of Katia and Rhedros.

Chapter 37

I opened my eyes to blackness.Yes, exactly where I’d hoped I’d be.

“Katia? Rhedros?” I pushed the words out through a dry throat.

“We’re here,” Rhedros answered, his booming voice anxious.

“It’s him, isn’t it?” I asked frantically. “The Saint of Pain?”

Only silence answered me for a moment. “The Saint of Pain walks among you, yes.”

Anger swept into me. “Care to explain, Rhedros? Isn’t Noros one ofyours?”