Enna Burning by Shannon Hale Page B

hands. In a quick and desperate move, Finn dropped to his knees under his opponent’s swing and pricked him in the side. The crowd roared anew, but instead of doubling at the pain and allowing Finn to gain his feet again, the Tiran continued in his swing, met Finn’s sword, and twisted it from his hand.
    The crowd gasped. Finn dodged the following blow, but he was now completely disarmed. “No,” came the mutters and cries from all sides, “no, not to us.” Finn tried to leap for the fallen spear, but the Tiran rushed him and cut off contact. Finn was now close to the rope with very little room to run. The Tiran approached. Finn stood on the balls of his feet, his arms held out in a ready posture, his face deathly still. Blood dripped off his forearm and hit the cold ground. Enna thought she could detect its heat. Despite the noise of hundreds of men around her, she could hear her own heart keeping time in her ears. The beat seemed to chant, Do something, do it, burn it, burn and burn.
    The Tiran lunged. Finn dropped to his back and kicked up into his foe’s belly. The Tiran was pushed back but swung around quickly, his sword in a steady arc reaching, diving, circling around, and plunging toward Finn’s chest.
    Enna saw this last movement slowly, the plunge of the enemy’s sword as though it were many swords, the outcome plain before it happened. The enemy on his feet, and Finn, sweet, harmless Finn, on his back on the ground. That was wrong. And all she had to do was pull and push. So simple. So small an action. And so much heat ready, hanging around her in the winter air. And in this slowed moment, reasons raced in her mind. She could help. But she should not. She had sworn that she would not. But if she did not, then Finn would die, and not only Finn, but the war would be lost, the augury spoken.
    So she did. The heat was waiting around her. She pulled it into her chest with a small sigh of pain, then she sent it boiling into the Tiran’s sword, up into the iron hilt.
    The Tiran faltered, and the arc of his sword swerved, just grazing Finn’s shoulder. Finn grabbed the Tiran’s tunic and slammed his forehead into the man’s nose. The Tiran dropped the sword and stumbled backward, blood spilling down his face. Still on the ground, Finn grabbed the fallen spear and hurled it. The iron tip flew through the soldier’s side and sent him to the earth. The crowd went utterly quiet. Enna could hear the Tiran’s labored breath. Finn stood, went to his fallen shield, and strapped it on his bleeding arm. He picked his sword off the ground. Slowly, without glory or fear, Finn walked to the fallen man, hefted his sword in the air, and brought it down across the Tiran’s neck.
    The crowd exploded with noise. Men embraced one another and wept, tore down the rope, and mauled Finn with kisses and thumps. Guards immediately circled the king’s company, shields facing out to protect them in the riot, but even they were cheering.
    Monulf was at Geric’s side. “We’re assured, sire. We fight as valiantly as that Forest lad, and we’ll be victorious.”
    Enna was holding a hand to her mouth. She did not remember putting it there. Had she been holding back a scream? Or was she trying to hide? She looked back on the image of that last struggle again and again—Finn kicks, the Tiran turns, plunges, then falters. To others, surely it would just seem that his balance failed, that his sword missed, and that Finn seized the opportunity to attack. And in all that commotion, she believed no one but her would notice that the leather-wrapped hilt of the Tiran’s sword let off a thin gray string of smoke.
    Enna could not sigh in relief. She felt Isi staring at her.
    “Enna, what just happened?”
    “We . . . What do you mean? We won, Isi. Finn’s all right.”
    “Enna.” Isi shook her head. “Is there something going on that—”
    “No.” Enna looked down, exhaling slowly. She needed to be alone, time to think about what she