Memories of Ash (The Sunbolt Chronicles Book 2) by Intisar Khanani

place with a portal, the only way to Stormwind. A few quick calculations tell me that even if the mages turn back the moment they reach the empty valley, their horses will be too tired to make the return trip at such a brisk pace.
    As long as I keep going, I should reach Sonapur before them.

I travel through the day, stopping only twice for twenty minutes’ rest. In the late morning, I feel the skittering, skin crawling sensation of the ward at the great deodar cedar triggering. Whatever doubts I might have held regarding the riders evaporate at once. Around noon, the wards on the cottage itself flare. I stumble to a stop with a rush of vertigo, the blood running cold in my veins. Then the wards are gone , their magic blasted to shreds. I bend over, my hands clutching my knees, shaking as my connection to the spell disintegrates. It takes me a few breaths before I can walk on, my legs not quite steady beneath me.
    I reach Sonapur near twilight. Evening flows down into the wide vale, the western mountains silhouetted against the failing light. The great snow-covered peaks far to the north have begun to fade from view. Bright points lie scattered across the plain, twinkling cheerily. The markets will be closing now, the carpet weavers and wool dyers and spinners and shawl makers going home for the night.
    Below me, the river I’ve followed these last few hours widens, pouring into a great lake dotted with lily pads and the faint smudges of lotus flowers. Docks stretch out from the shore, many of them crowded with fishing boats, a few with larger, merrily painted houseboats.
    My path descends to the lake and joins a hard-packed dirt road that runs alongside it. At the edge of the forest, I kneel beside a spindly pine tree and trace a sigil upon it. I don’t put much magic into it; the brush of cool valley air and the rustle of leaves is enough for my purposes. When I walk on, I leave behind a ward no stronger than a glowstone, charmed to alert me to those who pass down the path behind me. Within a day it will run too low on magic to maintain itself, but a day is all I need.
    I follow the road into the town, pulling out my glowstone as night descends. Though Sonapur is settling down, there are still people moving about here. I could easily ask for directions, but instinct tells me the fewer people who remember me, the better. At any rate, I can’t get too lost. If memory serves, all the major roads intersect at the great square where the portal stands.
    As the road widens, the tightly packed mud-brick buildings with sloped wood-shingled roofs begin to spread out and then are replaced altogether by free-standing homes, multi-storied buildings, and well-made workshops. The dirt road is replaced by cobbles. At the last of the buildings facing the great square I pause, leaning against the wall.
    The central area of the square has been designed as a park, with cobbled pathways and benches and a fountain. A row of lampposts bearing glowstones provide ample light to the groups of men seated around game boards of some sort, drinking tea and conversing. They act perfectly normal, but they leave a wide gap between themselves and the boundary wall of the portal, far to the right.
    The portal itself is nothing more than a threshold with neither door nor room to call its own. Instead, a few stones on either side suggest a wall that never was, and the stones of the portal rise between them, straight and simple, the clean work of an expert mason long gone. A low wall encircles the structure with carved gates on either side, the far gate opening directly to the road. No doubt the wall itself is mostly for show, the portal protected by wards to keep trespassers at bay .
    Inside the enclosure stands a mage, his back to the portal, his cloak hanging open to reveal his robes and the hilt of the sword at his side.
    The sentry means that accessing the portal will be somewhat more challenging than I’d thought. I should have expected it, but part