Light My Fire

by G. A. Aiken

  Celyn, unable to take this anymore, said, “Elina, wait.”

  “Yes?”

  “Is that it?”

  “I do not understand.”

  “How are you not . . . angry or sad or . . . or something?” The sisters looked at each other, then back at Celyn.

  “I am sad,” Elina said.

  “You are?”

  “Of course. I had two eyes. Now I have one. If something happens to that one, then I will be blind. I will need horse to lead me anywhere I need to go. But not your big Southland horses since I am not plow.”

  The sisters chuckled and again started to walk away.

  But Celyn, who had never really been able to let things alone, tried once more. “Elina—”

  “We are done with this conversation, Celyn.”

  “Yes, but—”

  Celyn’s words were brutally cut off when a chair slammed into the wall a few feet away from him.

  “Were you aiming at his head?” Kachka asked Elina.

  “I was.” She let out a breath. “Guess my life as an archer is over as well. I will need to grub in dirt for berries in order to survive. Like weakest of animals.”

  “When you are ready, we head back to the Southlands. The decadent fools will give you food that you never worked for on plates of gold while the masses starve. So you have nothing to fear. Now, come. Let us eat.”

  “You’re shirtless,” Celyn pointed out.

  “I doubt these people will care but here.” Kachka went to a chair that hadn’t been destroyed and grabbed a blue cotton shirt that someone had put out for Elina earlier.

  Kachka helped Elina put the shirt on. “There. You already look like a Southlander.”

  “If you try to hurt me with words, sister, you do good job.”

  “Do not be so sensitive, sister. It is not like I ripped eye from head.”

  Celyn listened to their laughter echo against the cave walls as they left the room.

  He glanced over at the chair Elina had smashed against the wall. “Well, if anything, she’s definitely angry at me.”

  Elina sat down at a big wood table and Kachka pulled out a chair beside her.

  In their own language, Kachka said, “You shouldn’t be so hard on that dragon.”

  “I don’t know what you mean.”

  “You threw a chair at his head.”

  “You mean I tried to throw a chair at his head.”

  “Do not whine, sister. In time, you will adapt to the loss of your eye.”

  “Of course, I will.”

  “There it is,” Kachka accused.

  “There is what? I was agreeing with you.”

  “No. You were feeling sorry for yourself.”

  “Am I not allowed? It was my eye the bitch took! My own mother tried to kill me!”

  “What do you think sending you into the Southlands to kill the Dragon Queen was, you idiot? She was trying to kill you then, too! I thought you would run!”

  “Well, I didn’t run!”

  “And now you’re missing an eye!”

  “Oy!” They both looked up to see a monk standing on the other side of the table. “Here.” He dropped plates heavy with food in front of them. “Perhaps,” he said, “you two can take time out from yelling at each other to eat.”

  “I am no longer hungry,” Elina said. And now she heard it. She did sound sorry for herself, because that’s how she was feeling. But wasn’t that her right? At least for a little while?

  Kachka dragged her plate in front of her and picked up a knife to cut pieces of meat while she yelled at Elina.

  “Oh, poor you,” she said. “You lost an eye. How you suffer so.”

  “Wow,” the monk said, wide eyes gazing at Kachka. “Just . . . wow.”

  “Do not coddle her, priest!” Kachka snapped. “I am trying to help her!”

  “There has to be a better way.”

  “Do not get superior tone with me. I saw you raise dead, wicked priest.”

  “I’m not a priest and, if I were to be honest, I’m no monk either. And so what if I raise the dead? It’s a skill. Like being a stonemason or blacksmith.”

  “Is she dead?” Kachka asked him, gesturing at the tall Kyvich walking up behind him. “Is she your puppet, necromancer?”

  “No. She’s just my sister.”

  The Kyvich now stood beside him, placing freshly baked loaves of bread on the table. He bent down a bit and placed his face against hers. “Do we not look alike?” he asked.

  “You look nothing alike,” Kachka replied, her mouth full of food.

  “Why am I involved in this conversation?” the Kyvich asked. “Because I don’t want to be.” She slapped at her brother. “Get off me!”

  No. They might not look alike, but they were clearly siblings.

  “All I’m saying, sister,” Kachka went on, “is that you do not want to end up weak and useless like these Southlanders. Even with your missing eye, you are still worth a hundred of these two-eyed Southlanders.”

  The Kyvich glowered at Kachka, her arms folded over her chest. “You do know,” she asked, “that we helped save this one’s life and we’re now feeding you both?”

  Kachka nodded and reached for the bread. “I do. Thanks for that, imperialist scum.”

  The Kyvich began to say something, but her brother yanked her back by the scruff of her neck.

  “Leave it, Talwyn.”

  Elina pushed her chair back.

  “Where are you going?” Kachka demanded. “You need to eat.”

  “I will. Later. I need to go outside for a bit.”

  Elina walked around the table, but she rammed her thigh into it, completely misjudging the distance.

  “Damn the horse gods!”

  “Don’t blame them,” her sister chastised.

  “You are right. I should blame myself.”

  Kachka slammed her knife down. “No, you idiot!” she yelled after her. “I meant blame our mother!”

  Celyn was still sitting on the bed when he saw the twins walk by.

  “Oy,” he called out. “You two. Come here.”

  The pair stopped, looked at each other.

  “Stop pissing about and get in here,” he snapped.

  The twins walked into the alcove. Talan slid onto the small table, the wood creaking ominously from his weight. Those monk robes hid his cousin’s true physical strength, but Celyn wasn’t fooled.

  Talwyn stood by her brother, arms folded over her chest, legs braced apart, her expression typically sour. As if she found the entire world wanting. But she did have her mother’s glare.

  “Why are you here?” Celyn asked them outright.

  “It was time for our return,” Talan replied, his fingers drumming against the table. It was as if his natural energy were barely harnessed by his big body.

  Celyn glanced down, and Talwyn demanded, “What’s so funny?”

  With a shrug, Celyn dramatically lowered his voice, and said, “It was time for our return . . . for we are the chosen ones!” Then he laughed outright. “I adore your coming-of-doom tone.”

  Talan grinned while his sister simply continued to glower.

  “Look,” Celyn explained, “I have no in-depth understanding of magicks. I don’t follow premonitions. Nor do I care that the entire world insists on calling you and your cousin the Abominations. But what I do care about is that you’ve seemed to create some unholy bond with a She-dragon who should have been dead centuries ago.”

  The twins glanced at each other, and Celyn rolled his eyes. “Please stop having your own little conversations in your heads while I’m sitting right here.”

  “We weren’t—”

  “It’s rude, Talan! And you both know it!”

  Talwyn raised her hands. “Calm down. No need to get hysterical.”

  “I don’t get hysterical. I’m a Cadwaladr. But I do have my mother’s temper when pushed.” He lowered his head a bit. “My mother’s temper.”

  “She called to us,” Tala
n explained. “Brigida the Foul called to us and said it was time.”

  “How long have you lot been in contact with her?”

  Again, the twins glanced at each other, then back at Celyn. Together they said, “Since birth.”

  Celyn closed his eyes and fell back against the bed, his arms outstretched.

  “Oh . . . fuck.”

  Elina found her way through a tight crevice that led to a little gods-made balcony on the side of the mountain. As soon as she stepped outside and took in some fresh air, she began to feel a little better.

  Then, suddenly, she didn’t.

  She hurt all over, but the entire left side of her head from where her eye used to be to the back of her skull ached in such a way that she felt nauseous.

  But that wasn’t what truly bothered her. It was that she’d failed Queen Annwyl and Queen Rhiannon. She’d truly hoped to get something right. For once.

  Elina felt depression and disappointment weigh down upon her. She’d tried so hard and now here she was . . . standing here . . . feeling worthless and . . . and . . .

  Where is that noise coming from?

  Elina heard sniffling. It wasn’t her. She walked along the little ridge until she found a brown-skinned female sitting on a boulder in a simple wool sheath dress, a long fur cloak around her shaking shoulders, and tears flowing freely down her beautiful face.

  “What is wrong with you?” Elina asked. “Are you hurt?”

  The female jumped, surprised to hear another voice.

  “Oh. Elina.” She sniffed. “It is Elina, yes?”

  Elina nodded. “I am Elina.”

  “I’m glad to see you up and about.” She sniffed again. “I am Rhianwen, Daughter of Talaith and Briec the Mighty, Sister of General Iseabail, Princess of the House of Gwalchmai fab Gwyar, Ninth in Line for—”

  “Stop, stop,” Elina cut in before this could go on another century or two. Those of the Steppes might live longer than most, but she wouldn’t live that long. “I need hear no more of your imperialist lineage.”

  Without any rancor, the girl nodded. “Understood. Did Auntie Brigida take good care of you?”

  “I still live. I would count that as taking good care.” Elina tried to scratch her face, but found nothing but bandage. She lowered her hand. “Why do you cry so?”

  “I just feel . . . horrible.”

  “You hurt?”

  “No. It’s nothing like that.”

  “Then what?”

  “It’s just . . . what I did to your people . . .”

  “What did you do to my people?”

  Rhianwen looked up at Elina with strange but beautiful-colored eyes that contrasted strikingly with her silver hair and brown skin. Even the tears that still poured could not detract from the intensity of those eyes.

  “Oh, yes,” Rhianwen said. “You were unconscious when I arrived.” She swallowed and admitted, “I was forced to . . . to . . . kill your kinsmen. The ones who had tracked you and your sister here.”

  “You? You killed them?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well,” Elina asked, “what choice did you have?”

  Rhianwen blinked in surprise. “Pardon?”

  “What choice? If they tracked us here, it was only to kill me and Kachka and turn Celyn into an entertaining pet they could toss our enemies to when they were bored. It was either them or us.”

  “I know. I know. It’s just . . . I wish we could have talked it out instead. I wish I’d had time to reason with—”

  “Reason? With my people? Do you think I would be standing here, Princess of the Fancy House of Dragons, missing my eye and feeling lost and pathetic, if you had not stopped them?”

  Rhianwen frowned. “I can’t tell if that’s praise or an admonishment.”

  “It is neither, foolish girl. It is just truth. Because of you, I still have my life. I still have my sister.”

  The princess sniffed again, fresh tears pouring from her two eyes. But she smiled gratefully. “Thank you,” she said around this new influx of wetness. “It means so much to me that you would say that.”

  Elina looked off, out over the lands she could no longer call her home. And she realized quite suddenly that her sister was right.

  She needed to stop feeling sorry for herself before she started sounding like this pathetic slip of a girl!

  “Don’t worry. She’s not trying to destroy us or anything. . . although she may be trying to destroy everyone else.”

  Celyn gazed up at the ceiling and nodded. “That’s so helpful, Talan. Thank you.”

  He abruptly sat up, his mind going through all the information he’d heard over the years about the twins and Rhian, about them going off to join monks and covens and whatever else for knowledge.

  “What did you do to leave?” Celyn asked them.

  “What do you mean?” Talan asked.

  “You know exactly what I mean. Did the Kyvich and those monks just send you both off with a hearty farewell and tankards of ale raised in your honor? Or are they currently planning their counterattack?”

  “I wouldn’t call it a counterattack. . . .”

  “Gods-dammit!”

  “I don’t think you understand,” Talwyn said, that royal haughtiness she tried to hide coming right to the fore. “My brother and I don’t report to you, cousin. What we did or what we plan to do has nothing to do with you.”

  Celyn slowly stood and walked over to his cousin, staring down into her face. She tried to hide it under all that hair—the same way her mother did—but she was quite beautiful.

  “Perhaps,” he reminded her, “you forget that you are a Cadwaladr. First. Last. And always. The protection of our Clan is and always will be the most important thing. We protect our queen. We protect our people. But we always, and I mean always, protect our kin. Now, I don’t know what your worthless, royal father may have taught you. But I do know that your human and most likely insane mother did teach you that. And I know you didn’t forget it.”

  Talwyn’s eyes narrowed dangerously, but before this could escalate, Talan stepped in front of her, blocking her and Celyn from each other’s sight.

  “Now,” Talan said calmly, stepping back and forcing his sister to do the same, so that there was space between them and Celyn, “we did make an . . . unauthorized departure from our companions of the last few years.”

  “And you brought company.”

  “We did. I brought Magnus, and Talwyn brought Gisa and Fia, but we have our reasons for that. And it had to happen. We had never planned to stay with either the Brotherhood or the Kyvich forever. They knew that as well as we did.”

  “But the leaving still wasn’t easy, was it?”

  “No. But I doubt the Brotherhood would ever consider coming for me.”

  “And the Kyvich?” Whom Celyn had always considered much more of a threat than a bunch of wizard-monks.

  “I’ll tell you—” Talwyn began.

  “Shut up,” her brother quickly cut in. “We don’t know yet.”

  “That’s just great.”

  “I understand your concern, Celyn, but this is what we had to do.”

  “This is what you had to do? Not come back to your family but associate yourself with Brigida the Fucking Foul?”

  Talwyn marched around her brother. “Maybe I need to make it clear to you, cousin, that—”

  Talan caught his sister by her hair—right at the crown, too—and yanked her back, twisting her around while he kept his focus locked on Celyn.

  “What my sister means to say—”

  “Get off me, you bastard son of a bitch!”

  “—is that we will unfortunately have to wait to see the outcome of our dealings with the Kyvich. But have no doubt, cousin, that the three of us will handle it. We will not let our decisions hurt the family.”

  “It may be too late for that.”

  “Ow! Talan, get off me!”

  “All I can ask is that you trust us.”

  “And Brigida the
Foul?”

  “I will tear the skin from your bones if you don’t unhand me!”

  “Brigida is kin, Celyn. And like you said,” Talan went on, ignoring his sister, “she, too, is a Cadwaladr. First. Last. And always. The protection of our Clan is and always will be the most important thing to her.”

  So this one was sneaky-smart like Gwenvael, throwing Celyn’s own words right back in his face. Impressive little bastard.

  “Fine,” Celyn said, seeing no point in continuing the argument. “But I’ll tell you just as your grandfather Bercelak tells me when the queen threatens to twist an Elder into a scale-covered knot . . . handle it. Understand?”

  “We do.”

  “Like hells we—owwww! Stop it, you bastard!”

  Talan gave that smile that promised nothing but trouble. “We’ll take care of everything.”

  “Good.”

  Talan watched his cousin walk out of the alcove. Damn. Of all the Cadwaladr kin who could have ended up here, why did it have to be Celyn? Even his sister Brannie would have been better. She was amazing in battle, but when it came to politics, she was wonderfully uncaring.

  But Celyn was more like his father than he realized. He could see long-term implications that others among their Clan could not. And that made Celyn . . . an annoyance.

  A punch to the upper arm had Talan finally releasing his sister. She rubbed her head where he’d held her and snarled, “What did you do that for?”

  “Because when you get angry, not only do you threaten, you bloody talk too much.”

  “I do not!”

  “Talwyn . . .”

  “Oh, all right.”

  “Just . . . calm down. He’s got other things to focus on.”

  “Like what?”

  Gods, his sister could be oblivious . . . to everything. Or at least anything that didn’t have to do with battle and what they ultimately had to do.

  “Like the little Steppes girl with the missing eye. Remember her?”

  Talwyn waved her hand dismissively. “Oh, she’ll be fine!”

  “She lost her eye! At her mother’s hand!”

  “Oh, poor her! She lost her eye. Boo-hoo!” Talwyn blinked. “What’s so funny?”

  Talan went to his sister, wrapped his arms around her, and hugged her tight while he continued to laugh. “This is what I missed so much. Those monks were no challenge to me. But you, sister, you are a challenge.”