The ending fire, p.1
The Ending Fire, page 1
By Saara El-Arifi
The Ending Fire Trilogy
The Final Strife
The Battle Drum
The Ending Fire
Faebound Trilogy
Faebound
The Ending Fire is a work of fiction. Names, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2024 by Saara Eldin
Map and interior illustrations copyright © 2023 by Nicolette Caven
All rights reserved.
Published in the United States by Del Rey, an imprint of Random House, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, New York.
Del Rey and the Circle colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.
Published in the United Kingdom by Harper Voyager, a division of HarperCollins UK. The map and illustrations by Nicolette Caven were originally published in The Battle Drum by Saara El-Arifi.
Hardback ISBN 9780593357002
Ebook ISBN 9780593357019
randomhousebooks.com
Cover design: Ella Laytham
Cover art: © Adekunle Adeleke
ep_prh_7.0a_148162165_c0_r0
Contents
Dedication
Recalling the Events of the Battle Drum as Told by Griot Sheth
Map
Prologue
Part One: Recover
Chapter One: Hassa
Chapter Two: Anoor
Chapter Three: Jond
Chapter Four: Sylah
Chapter Five: Anoor
Chapter Six: Hassa
Chapter Seven: Jond
Chapter Eight: Anoor
Chapter Nine: Hassa
Chapter Ten: Jond
Chapter Eleven: Sylah
Part Two: Build
The Waxing Fable of Queen Karanomo as Told by Zenebe
Chapter Twelve: Anoor
Chapter Thirteen: Hassa
Chapter Fourteen: Jond
Chapter Fifteen: Sylah
Chapter Sixteen: Anoor
Chapter Seventeen: Jond
Chapter Eighteen: Hassa
Chapter Nineteen: Sylah
Chapter Twenty: Anoor
Chapter Twenty-One: Jond
Chapter Twenty-Two: Anoor
Chapter Twenty-Three: Sylah
Part Three: Assemble
Story Told by Shola, Former Captain of the Entwined Harbor, during the Full Moon When One Cleric Is Nominated to Recall a Tale to the City
Chapter Twenty-Four: Anoor
Chapter Twenty-Five: Hassa
Chapter Twenty-Six: Jond
Chapter Twenty-Seven: Sylah
Chapter Twenty-Eight: Anoor
Chapter Twenty-Nine: Jond
Chapter Thirty: Anoor
Chapter Thirty-One: Sylah
Chapter Thirty-Two: Jond
Chapter Thirty-Three: Hassa
Chapter Thirty-Four: Anoor
Part Four: Brace
A Traditional Folktale Told by Winterlanders to Aid the Rhythm of Their Rowboats
Chapter Thirty-Five: Jond
Chapter Thirty-Six: Hassa
Chapter Thirty-Seven: Sylah
Chapter Thirty-Eight: Anoor
Chapter Thirty-Nine: Hassa
Chapter Forty: Jond
Chapter Forty-One: Anoor
Part Five: Conquer
The Story of the Wardens’ Empire as Spoken by Griot Sheth on the Eve of Battle
Chapter Forty-Two: Ravenwing
Chapter Forty-Three: Turin
Chapter Forty-Four: Ala
Chapter Forty-Five: Kara
Chapter Forty-Six: Niha
Chapter Forty-Seven: Chah
Chapter Forty-Eight: Ads
Chapter Forty-Nine: Teta
Chapter Fifty: Griot Sheth
Chapter Fifty-One: Sylah
Chapter Fifty-Two: Rascal
Chapter Fifty-Three: Yona
Chapter Fifty-Four: Anoor
Chapter Fifty-Five: Shola
Chapter Fifty-Six: Olina
Chapter Fifty-Seven: Sylah
Chapter Fifty-Eight: Retribution
Chapter Fifty-Nine: Anoor
Chapter Sixty: Hassa
Chapter Sixty-One: Jond
Chapter Sixty-Two: Hassa
Epilogue
Glossary
Acknowledgments
About the Author
_148162165_
For Jim, until the end
Recalling the Events of The Battle Drum as Told by Griot Sheth
The spoken word has been transcribed onto the page; the symbol of represents the beating of the griot’s drum.
Back again, I see? You are drawn to my tales like the audience of a ripping. The blood and gore, the pain and torture.
And then the relief. That is what you come for.
When it all…
* * *
Stops.
* * *
The end approaches, you must feel it cresting the horizon, creeping closer like the coming of night.
But before we venture toward the chaos and the plight, let us take a moment to linger in the colors of yesterday, and the yesterdays before that.
* * *
Let’s start with red, the heat of a burning ember, the shade of Sylah Alyana’s blood.
A voyage taken to lands unknown.
The Tannin taking a toll of souls.
An abandoned port called Nsuo.
Then bam! A cudgel knocks Sylah down.
Wakes in a chattel cart, hands now bound.
* * *
I see you roll your eyes, knowing the Shariha’s chains couldn’t hold Sylah long. And it is true, our Stolen, our assassin, went on the run.
But then came the storm and acid rain, and the manacles of death tightened around Sylah instead.
And who comes to Sylah’s rescue? Remember Jond, our fellow Stolen, a little disagreeable, a lot righteous? He was sent to Tenio as a penance, to be abandoned all alone. But together the old friends fled the Shariha’s enslavement along with Niha, a healer, and made their way to Zwina.
* * *
Eyoh! Gone is the academy of wonders. Of eight blood colors and teachers. Floods have drowned it all.
But look skyward and you’ll see the City of Rain where the councillors of the Academy have made a new home. And here we learned the extent of their power.
* * *
The first charter is the law of growth. The power to grow what is given.
* * *
The second charter is the law of connection. The command of mind communication.
* * *
The third charter is the law of healing, putting back together what was once broken.
* * *
The fourth charter is the law of presence. Flighting from one place to another.
* * *
But once Sylah is healed, there is no aid to be had. Instead, we learn of the Zalaam, whose use of bone marrow has shifted the balance of the world. Earthquakes and acid rain! Floods and tsunamis!
Though, perhaps that is less shattering than the secrets at the center of the Academy…
* * *
The fifth charter is the law of creation. To infuse life into the spiritless.
* * *
Disbanded and forgotten, the fifth charter was once led by the prophet of the Zalaam. Four hundred and twenty-one years ago he was executed, and his community exiled from Tenio. They set sail in eight ships, each segregated by blood color.
Four boats settled on the Volcane Isles, and two the Tannin took as sacrifice to allow the final two entry to the land beyond. A land ripe for the plucking.
Red and blue.
Do you start to see it? The circle we have swum? Embers and Dusters are descendants of the Zalaam.
And the Tannin?
A monster formed by the Academy to hunt down the exiled. Whose nightly movements cause the tidewind that plagues us.
A monster that roams still.
* * *
So, while we linger by the blue shores of the Wardens’ Empire, let’s recall how our blue-blooded fared. Our disciple in the Keep, Anoor Elsari.
The Tidewind Relief Bill taken to the court.
Anoor seeks allies to fortify her thoughts.
Uka’s life blood spilled over dinner.
Gone is the mother, the warden, the sinner.
Accused by her peers, Anoor seeks out the killer.
* * *
Focused on her salvation and not on the tidewind, Anoor stays in hiding while the wardens home in. Only her grandmother, Yona Elsari, seems to understand her, and t
With Anoor distracted, will Yona be the one to help the citizens of the empire?
* * *
Do you see my sly smile? You know something’s a-brewing. And perhaps our Ghosting friend will know. To our very own hassa beetle we go.
A promise from a friend, a promise kept.
Look after Anoor is what Sylah said.
Hassa’s time in the city is spent underground.
But above she finds bodies with holes in their bones.
Together with Kwame she investigates the unknown.
* * *
Bone marrow it was, taken from the hip bone and the back. A slow death, sucking them dry, worse than the rack. Does it remind you of anything I said a few moments ago, the Zalaam’s power rooted in the magic of bone marrow?
But who was it, in charge of the shelters? Whose orders were followed? Who was Anoor’s mentor?
* * *
So we come to the final hue of the story, the yellow of sunlight. Our yellow-blooded member of the Zalaam, raised in God Kabut’s eye.
Nayeli was the name she’d had all her life,
Then claimed she was reborn as Kabut’s Wife.
Searching for the Child of Fire, the catalyst foretold,
She ventured across the sea, across the color threshold,
And became Warden, an empire controlled.
* * *
Nayeli, Wife, Yona. Three names she’d had until “grandmother” was uttered, and it was then that Anoor was discovered. Was she the one that the prophet foretold? The one whose Battle Drum will start the Ending Fire proposed?
* * *
Do you start to see the web of the story? The silver threads tying each piece to the other? But one is broken, ripped apart in the middle.
* * *
Kwame, a spectacle, a ripping, no longer with us.
* * *
It was as if the world felt the grief too, for leagues away the Shard Palace fell, and the Queen of Tenio was taken from the world.
* * *
The colors of yesterday have swirled to take shape.
* * *
Clear!
Hassa’s heart torn, like Kwame’s organs. Now alone, she spends her time mastering bloodwerk.
* * *
Red!
Sylah, whose fury inspired the Blood Forged, leaves the battle behind to return to her love.
* * *
Blue!
Anoor’s been caught in the spider’s game. The disciples, her new allies, aren’t what they seem. The Sandstorm and the Zalaam are one and the same.
* * *
Yellow!
The Wife has found the Child of Fire. Now it’s time to leave the empire.
* * *
Do you feel it? Cresting the horizon? The darkness drawing in, the shadows elongating.
* * *
The Ending Fire comes.
Prologue
The tidewind came every night.
It billowed in from the Marion Sea between the clock strikes of nine and seven. A year ago, the hurricane ruptured the evening for only three or four strikes of the clock, but now its presence lingered, wreaking destruction like never before.
From Gorn’s vantage point in the Wardens’ Keep she watched the tempest roll in from the Farsai Desert. Her gaze followed its swirling path from the decrepit buildings in the Dredge in the distance, through the Duster Quarter and across the Tongue that bridged rich and poor—but the tidewind made no distinction between the classes of the Wardens’ Empire. Whether your blood ran red, blue, or clear, the tidewind wielded each gust like a serrated knife, tearing skin from muscle, muscle from bone.
Closer and closer the roiling storm came. It waged war against the architecture of the Ember Quarter and slipped its tendrils through the iron gates of the Keep. But still Gorn lingered by the open window. The promise of death stirred feelings in her chest that had long grown numb.
She shifted her weight, disturbing a stack of zines by her feet. The colorful pages spread across the floor. Anoor’s room was just as she had left it. Where once jewelry and trinkets had littered her desk, now notes and half-finished sentences fluttered in the breeze. The pages were full of Anoor’s dreams for the empire.
But her dreams had been waylaid, and so had Anoor.
Where did your grandmother take you?
The thought felt distant, like it had been whispered across a vast chasm where she had buried her pain. Her fear.
Gorn felt sand strike her cheeks and stick to the tears that flowed there. At first, the sand was a caress, the softest of touches from death, but then tears became blood.
She slammed her helmet closed with a clank. It hadn’t been difficult to have Anoor’s tidewind armor from the Aktibar trials altered to fit her. Just a bribe to the armorsmith and a few measurements. Gorn had paid a little extra to have the green metal reburnished to a dull bronze. She didn’t want the wardens to trace the armor back to Anoor.
Not that she can be traced.
Gorn had tried for a time. She had hired an eru and ridden it all the way to the gates of Nar-Ruta, hoping to follow wherever Yona had taken her granddaughter. But when she reached the edge of the plantations she had hesitated. She watched the Dusters’ welts glistening in the noonday sun as they hacked at the bark of a rubber tree. They fought against sand banks that ran deep into the groves, a testament to the increasing duration of the tidewind. Gorn realized then that finding Anoor was not the path destined for her. Perhaps if she still had Kwame by her side, they could have achieved it.
There was a sharp pain in her chest that felt faintly like grief, but she had hidden it so deep that it had become a dull ache.
Now I am alone and have other battles to wage.
The tidewind slammed into her side, bringing her out of her thoughts. A large piece of whitestone had caught her just below the ribs. Although it winded her, the armor did not suffer damage.
Anoor’s room was not quite as lucky. Gorn watched through the reinforced glass visor as the zines were shredded to colorful confetti and Anoor’s sheets ripped from the bed.
