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The ocean of power I had been using shut off, and I dropped to my knees.

“Stop!” I said, my voice weak. “Stop.”

“Airón!” Tallu sounded exactly as I expected, his panic turning the word into a growl, his Dogs responding to the tone of his voice, even General Saxu acting on the knowledge that his emperor wanted someone dead.

“I’m fine,” I said. I pushed myself up to my feet, forcing my knees to steady and keep myself upright. “I’m fine. There’s no need for this. We have a common enemy and are allies, aren’t we?”

“We are allies,” Tallu said, and it should have been an agreement, but all I could hear in his words was the threat of violence, the anger at someone having tried to take me.

“Good.” I turned to the goblins and held out my hand, palm facing them. “The animalia gave me their gift. Do you want to see it, or will you trust me?”

The goblin who had been taking a step toward Tallu and his Dogs hesitated, looking over at the goblin council. The older woman shook her head, and the goblin dropped his hand.

“Good. That’s good.” I wanted to drop down to my knees again, but I knew that would only set Tallu off, and how were we supposed to defeat Bemishu if we were too busy trying to kill our own allies? “Have you tried the skills that the animalia gave our soldiers?”

I looked at General Saxu as I spoke, trying to keep this very tenuous peace in place. Saxu hesitated, frowning down at the goblin at their feet.

The man groaned, pushing himself up. He was even taller than Zoigei. He limped back to the goblin side, and I raised my eyebrows.

“We did that?” I asked.

Saxu looked down at his hands. “I did that.”

Saxu had been a soldier for his entire life. It didn’t surprise me that he had been the one who reacted fastest, that he had moved before anyone else in order to protect the emperor and fulfill the desires of his liege.

But he had been physically weak since the attack on the Mountainside Palace. Even before that, he had been a general and not a fighter for years, since the war against the Northern Kingdom. I didn’t see him taking on a man nearly twice his size.

“Well, it looks as though the animalia have given us their gifts,” I said. The sun was beginning to lift above the horizon, dawn chasing away the dark night. I stepped back, moving between two of Tallu’s Dogs to stand at his side. His fingers flexed, and I knew he wanted to grab hold of me, but he resisted, keeping on his mask of the cold emperor. “My lord, it would be good for our men to be trained in how to use their new strength.”

Tallu dipped his chin. He managed not to growl his next words, although it was a close thing. “With my consort returned to us, we are once again whole. As we will be fighting General Bemishu together, we ask if you will show our soldiers how to use their new powers.”

The goblins leaned close to each other, the leaders of their tribes conferring before agreeing. An older man pointed to a large stone building. “We will go inside for now and show you on the training grounds.”

The goblins surrounded us as we turned to make our way inside. Some walked in front, with most behind. I expected General Saxu to protest the arrangement, but he was still frowning down at his hands. He walked with his stick but put no weight on it.

Inside, the stone building was larger than I expected, and I had no doubt that the animalia’s magic was at play here, too. It was practically a city, and the stone kept the interior cool as mountain caves.

“General Saxu!” One of his commanders rushed forward, and they conferred briefly before General Saxu dropped back to speak with Tallu.

“Commander Kurehi says that they have been treated well. They have been given sets of rooms among the barracks of the other goblins. They have not tried to separate them and they were given food and water.” General Saxu spoke quietly.

“So, even before we were officially allies, the goblin tribes were willing to offer us hospitality,” Tallu said. “Tell your men to ready themselves to train. We will not have much time before General Bemishu arrives.”

The commander rushed off, and the goblins split their own party, half disappearing into the warren of rooms, half remaining with us. Of the Council, only Zoigei remained. He waited, eyes moving over the imperials. When Saxu had gathered all of his commanders and a quarter of his men, Zoigei led the way deep into the building, past massive rooms used for eating and cooking. At the center was an enormous open space. Salamanders took up an entire wall, curled in nooks and crannies on the rock surface.

Their glow lit the rock behind them, reflecting the light back onto the practice field. Zoigei and his men showed Saxu and his soldiers various moves: how to move faster than human eyes could see, how to jump high enough that it was almost like floating through the air.

How to use their new strength to hit a man hard enough that his heart exploded.

As they practiced, Zoigei stepped to the side, his hands resting on his hips as he observed. I approached him.

“We deeply appreciate the instruction,” I said. “But aren’t you afraid that once this battle is over, the imperials will turn their strength on you?”

“No,” Zoigei said. “It is a gift from the animalia. It has thorns. If they tried to turn their strength on us, or on the animalia we guard, they would soon find each blow turned on themselves.”

“You’ve seen that happen?” I asked.

Zoigei didn’t respond, and with his back to the salamanders, his face was in shadow.