text: A prickling skein of power slid across Luna's skin. Luna fell forward, and nearly lost her grip on the bear. Something felt strange, as if she were covered in spider's webbing. She looked back and saw Roh collapsed in the mud, the Tai Mora hunched over him. One of them looked up at Luna, and gestured at her.
  
  A whump of air struck Luna. She toppled. Hit the ground hard. Lost her breath. She rolled right into a boiling, murky pool.
  
  Heat suffused Luna's body, but she did not feel wet. Her face was dry. She sputtered to the surface, splashing. Water rolled off her body in little droplets. She had some kind of protective coating over her. Luna saw the Tai Mora advancing, and gazed across the broad pool. Luna kicked below the surface and swam hard for the other side of the pool, a good forty paces distant. The coating of air around her made her buoyant – staying under the surface was a struggle. She paddled hard for the other side, all the while looking for a root or spur of rock to hold onto, to keep her under and away from their roving eye. Roh must have wrapped Luna in some parajista spell.
  
  Luna came to the other side, exhausted, and glanced back, keeping only her eyes above the water. The steam and roiling bubbles of gas obscured her view, but that was good. It would make it harder for them to see her, too.
  
  Her two pursuers – the others must have stayed with Roh – spoke in loud voices on the other side of the water. Her bear had stopped at the next pool, and watched the Tai Mora with sticky yellow eyes.
  
  The tallest one, broad in the shoulders, gestured across the pool toward Luna. Luna submerged again, treading hard to stay below the surface. She was sweating terribly in the heat; it soaked her clothes, dripped down her face. How long would this spell last? She was going to drown in her own sweat before long. Luna had a sudden urge to urinate. But dying at the hands of the Tai Mora looked a fair bit worse than drowning in urine, right now.
  
  The water was stifling. It was like being stuck inside a cave roiling with steam. Her head crested the top of the water, and fresh air flowed around her skin. She tried to breathe, and sucked in foul-smelling air. The skin was breathable.
  
  She peeked her head up. The Tai Mora were advancing, each taking a side of the pool.
  
  Luna ducked again.
  
  The press of the water made it difficult to breathe, even knowing Luna could. She pushed a single finger to the surface, let it skim the top to refresh her air. Luna took shallow breaths. Waited. She expected hands on her arms, or a great gout of air, yanking her from the water. But Para was descendant now, and they would not use air, but fire. They'd burn her up and leave her a charred husk on the plain.
  
  Seconds ticked by. The air she managed to suck in was warm, but felt stale. She started to hyperventilate. Calm would not come. Luna was drowning, like she had when she fell off the boat in the Haraeo sea as a child – falling, falling into a blackness alive with vast sea creatures larger than any building. Luna thrashed.
  
  But to surface… to surface was death, or worse.
  
  Darkness licked at her; warm and inviting. Her body, starved for oxygen, rebelled. She surfaced.
  
  The protective barrier around her burst.
  
  Hot water soaked Luna's clothes, and dragged her under. She felt no bottom. Luna kicked and clawed for the edge of the pool. She found purchase and hauled herself out. Luna lay on the bank, gasping. She looked for the Tai Mora, but saw no one over the misty swath of the pools. This soaked, she couldn't leave the protective warmth of the hot springs, not until she dried out.
  
  Luna scrambled forward in search of her bear; the bear would have some dry clothes, a blanket, her fire starting kit. She circled the pool once, and saw no Tai Mora, no bear. Luna walked on, fearful to whistle or clap her hands in search of the bear in case the Tai Mora were still close.
  
  No bear.
  
  But she did see the Tai Mora. They were tall figures moving through the mist. She pressed herself to the ground. The air wasn't blistering cold, but it had begun to cool her watery clothes. Luna was already shivering.
  
  The Tai Mora had five bears now. They pulled Luna's and Roh's behind them. She looked for Roh among them, but did not see him before the whole party was swallowed up by the mist.
  
  Luna rolled over and started yanking off her clothes.
  
  She was alone somewhere on the Saiduan tundra, without food, dry clothes, fire, or mount.
  
  As she stripped, she remembered the boat, and the bloated arms of her dead parents.
  
  She had been in worse places than this, and survived them.
  
  Luna wrung out her clothes, shivering in the cool air. She found one of the spindly pines nearby, and hung them out to dry. She unwrapped the book, ensuring it had not gotten wet, then slipped into the warmth of the hot springs. It would take hours for her clothes to dry. It would be night by then.
  
  She closed her eyes. Luna had been in worse places.
  
  If Luna repeated it often enough, she might soon believe it.