"Did you set this fire?" Caithe asked.

Faolain threw back her shock of black hair and breathed smoke through flared nostrils. "A nice idea, but no. It was destroyers-magma monsters."

Caithe shook her head grimly. "They boil up everywhere."

"The Elder Dragon Primordus is taking back the world."

A loud moan came from a burning barn nearby. Caithe rushed to the door, hauled it open, and stared within. The hayloft boiled with black smoke, and the threshing floor was mantled in fire. Against the far wall lay a blackened figure that could hardly have been alive-except that it moaned.

Caithe wove among the flames to reach the man and dropped to her knees. His eyes were gone, his face, too-just cracked bark over oozy muscle. His lips were half-fused. "Burning beast… burning beast… burning…"

"I will help you," Caithe said.

"Such sweet words," Faolain whispered, kneeling on the other side of the man. "Hope is like oil on the fires of misery."

"Is my skin peeled off?" the man groaned. "Is it?"

"Yes," Caithe said gently.

Faolain laughed. "Oh, you're cruel."

"They came from underground," he muttered. "They scrambled up. Roaches. Black, with bodies of fire-"

"Destroyers," Faolain said.

"We'll get you to a chirurgeon."

"Chirurgeon?" Faolain gripped Caithe's arm and grinned. "You're doing this for me, aren't you?"

"What? No! It's for him."

"He's dead already. You're only tormenting him for my sake."

"No! I'm not."

Faolain's eyes blazed. "You want me to feel for him. You want me to feel empathy."

"No!" Caithe said. "I mean, yes, of course."

"Help me!" the man sputtered, his lip splitting.

"I will," Caithe said.

Faolain's eyes slid closed, and her jaw clenched. "You can't win me back."