Evelina's POV
We rode the last stretch at a gallop, and even before we cleared the final line of trees I could smell it, smoke thick enough to catch in the back of my throat.
Zoren had already pulled ahead of us, and by the time we broke into the clearing he was already off his horse, shouting orders I couldn't fully make out over the noise.
The main hall's east wing was burning.
Not the whole building, not yet.
Guards were already working a line of buckets from the well, passing them hand to hand faster than I would have thought possible in the dark, water hissing against stone and doing almost nothing against flames that had already climbed past the second window.
Someone shouted for more hands. Someone else was dragging a scorched crate away from the building entirely, coughing
