by Anna Eluvae
The crowd had almost entirely left, and Dravus was thankful for it.
"The others are in danger," Nemm said as soon as her faceplate parted to let her breathe. She didn't even stop to pick up her sword, and instead began forming a new one as she ran. She crouched down slightly for a leap and was up on the rooftops without so much as hesitating to see whether Dravus would follow. He took off after her as soon as he'd regained his wits, leaving the burning print shop and the dead illustrati behind him. He was half a block behind Nemm, who was racing towards another of the fires as quickly as she could.
* * *
Devodrain had the domain of mist, and he wouldn't have traded it for any other. There was a tendency, especially in the Flower Queen's court, to bemoan one's domain and say in a silky voice that of course someone else had the better domain, for whatever reason. It had taken him too long to understand that this wasn't really sincere, and that people were only saying that they wanted the domain of flowers as a way of insinuating themselves with the queen. He had been told a number of times that mist was a fine domain, sometimes by a pretty girl, and he hadn't realized that it was expected that he would would demure and explain why he thought that Darkheart had the best domain of anyone because of the armor that he could craft. Never mind that Devodrain had no interest in crafting armor, and couldn't really understand anyone who thought that simply making things was impressive. Darkheart could make an elaborate breastplate with enough power to stop a musket, but that armor could simply be bought from Darkheart if you had enough money.
Obviously Devodrain wouldn't argue that mist was the most powerful of the domains; the men of the Flower Queen's court often discussed the combat practicalities of the domains, along with their primary users, and while there were arguments to be made for a few of them, mist was never remotely in the running. Nor was mist the best from a utilitarian standpoint; sound was enormously helpful in speaking to crowds, most of the metallic domains could be used for artisan crafting, and even flower could help to pollinate fields and make rich colors for dyes. Mist couldn't do any of that. Devodrain loved mist all the same. He liked the way it looked, and the way it felt, and the fact that it was one of the more unique domains. There were nine metallic domains, and they were all boring, because all of them were almost entirely the same.
He'd been paired up with Flame, who had considerably more standing than him, both in the real sense of personal power and the more nebulous system of understanding that dominated the court. It had been a complete surprise when she'd volunteered to come with. Their domains were somewhat out of alignment with each other; mist was sometimes called a bastard domain, given that it had overlap with air and water, and water was supposed to be the counter to flame. They moved quickly through the city together, with Devodrain leaving a trail of mist in the air and Flame leaving a trail of flame to match it.
"Does it go out when you sleep?" asked Devodrain as he watched the flames the licked at the surface of her head.
"Excuse me?" asked Flame.
"How do you keep the pillow from starting on fire?" asked Devodrain. He'd been meaning to ask this from since the time he'd first seen her. Devodrain had only been at court for three months now, and only an illustrati for a year in total. He had more questions than he knew what to do with, and had only gotten scattered answers. He had grown up on the other end of Torland, the lesser son of a noble house, and his education had (he felt) been distinctly lacking.
Flame smiled at him, and in answer to her question, the flames on her head died out. She wasn't quite bald; Devodrain could see a bit of stubble there. "That's the first time anyone has asked me that," she said.
"I thought it was something like domain form," said Devodrain. "Houndstooth has the eyes of a dog —"
"I didn't think you were being foolish," said Flame. Her head lit up again, with orange flames curling up towards the sky and illuminating their walk. "Come, I hear someone proselytizing."
They rounded a corner and the conversation went quiet in a great wave, as people noticed their presence and alerted their neighbor. A building was on fire, and it didn't take much to see that it was a church of Laith, one of the smaller ones that served as lesser versions of the great Cathedral. The walls were made of stone, and so it was only the interior that was lit up, as the pews and tapestries turned themselves to smoke and ash.
"I can take over from here," said Flame with a pleasant smile.
The large man standing before the burning church, the one that everyone had been listening to, folded his arms across his chest. "A peddler of narcotics to our queen," he said. "Go no further. This church is a symbol of the corruption at the heart of the kingdom, a seed laid by King Laith long ago." The man pointed to the face carved into the mountain. "Hubris and a disregard for his subjects. Nothing has changed in hundred years time."
"You call the church symbolic. That's a little on the nose, don't you think?" asked Flame. "You shouldn't just call something a symbol, it should be obvious to everyone watching that it's a symbol simply by virtue of what's being done. If you have to explain to people why you're trying to burn down a church, maybe you're just making an excuse for bad behavior. And either way, it doesn't really matter, because I'm going to go put those fires out, and tomorrow the church will be cleaned of the ash." She strode forward, and Devodrain was compelled to follow after her.
The large man moved into Flame's path. His muscles were larger than Devodrain had ever seen on the common folk, and he had a height that spoke of heavy meals or good breeding, possibly both. Still, muscles meant little to the illustrati, and if he so much as laid a finger on Flame, she would be able to burn him to a crisp. Whether that would be wise thing to do in the context of the ongoing civil issues was another matter entirely. Yet as Flame moved to pass him, the man grabbed her around her arm and lifted it up, holding her back.
Flame smiled at him. "Is this what you think being a citizen means?" she asked. "Burning down churches and threatening women? I don't have any clue whether you think that this is a fight that you can win, because obviously you can't. I'm more interested in what you think you're going to accomplish. Martyrdom?"
"The church burns," said the man.
Flame moved forward, but the man held onto her, and she frowned at his hand on her arm. "I've never liked the smell of burnt hair and melting flesh, but you've left me with little choice."
Her forearm burst into flames from the joint of her elbow to the tips of her fingers, but the man's face didn't change at all, and he didn't pull back from her. Flame's eyes went wide, and Devodrain called out, "Illustrati!", just as the man twisted Flame's arm around and threw her to the ground.
Devodrain wore a rapier at his hip, and had a fair amount of training in single combat, in part because dueling was a popular pastime in Torland — though it was almost never to the death, and instead ended when one of the participants took a minor wound, and sometimes even just when someone got a solid hit against armor. Devodrain began to pull his rapier out with an awkward motion that slapped the sheath against his thigh, and he made the mistake of looking down at it. He'd undone the latch earlier, but it had caught for some reason. When he looked up, the large man was standing in front of him, and bringing hands of fire towards Devodrain's face.
* * *
The smell of smoke filled Dravus's nostrils. He felt sick; he'd just killed a man for the second time. The whole thing had happened quickly, and didn't make much sense. Being an illustrati was supposed to mean that you knew who your enemies were, but Dravus had been given a full list of every illustrati of significant power known to be in Meriwall, and that man hadn't been anywhere on it. It was possible for someone to rise in standing quickly, and it was possible that the list was out of date, but Nemm hadn't seemed to know that they were looking at an illustrati in disguise until just seconds before he'd revealed himself. That meant that the man wasn't local to Meriwall, but combined with the fact that he was in league with the plot against the Flower Queen, that c
ould only mean that he was an agent of the Iron King.
Dravus was a block behind Nemm when she dropped back down to the street, and the fight was already over by the time he got there. Flame's clothes had been burned off her, but she was otherwise unscathed; Devodrain's head was charred on either side, and his hands had been badly burned before he'd died. Laying on the ground, with a dagger stuck in his neck, was another large man whose fires were dying down. He wasn't quite identical to the first man they'd fought, but he was very similar in appearance.
"Get back to the palace," said Nemm to Flame.
"I — we had thought — it wasn't supposed to be a fight — if I hadn't matched his domain, hadn't been immune to the fires, but even then his hands on me —" Flame was shaking slightly, and not making any sign that she was going somewhere.
"Dravus, take her," said Nemm. She had a dagger in either hand. "I'll come to collect her once the threat has passed. Don't let her eat any flowers, because we're going to need her to quell these fires once the threat has passed. Tell Darkheart that we're in a state of war."
"Are we?" asked Dravus.
"Dom, we don't have time for this," said Nemm. "You have no idea how to properly fight these people, just go. Pick her up and carry her if you have to."
"Alright," said Dravus.
Nemm launched herself up onto the rooftops again, and her armor glinted in the firelight for a moment before she disappeared out of sight. Dravus stood mute for a few moments, looking at the place where Nemm had been, and then turned his attention towards Flame.
"Come on," he said. He tried not to look at where the fires had burnt away her clothing and exposed her, then decided that was foolish and only tried pretend that this situation was normal. "We need to go, we're in danger here."
"I was stronger than him," said Flame. "I could feel his hands around my wrists. I could feel him trying to consume me with flames. But I was stronger than him, and it was only a lick of heat against my skin. He could have killed me if he'd had a knife, but he only had his hands, and I could have thrown him to the ground if I had thought of it. Most people don't touch you if you're on fire." She had a far off look in her eyes. The fire on her head had gone out, and she was now merely bald.
"I'll carry you," said Dravus. "Just promise not to burn me, okay?" He said it as a joke, a way to lighten the mood, but Flame had a look of horror and sadness. "It'll be alright," said Dravus.
Flame moved forward and wrapped her arms around Dravus's neck, pulling him into a hug. He knelt down and scooped her up, with his arms touching the bare flesh of her thighs. He steadied himself and began running back towards Grayhull, this time taking the roads so that he wouldn't have to make any jumps with his unwieldy cargo. Flame seemed to weigh nothing at all; Dravus still wasn't quite used to how easy his standing had made certain physical tasks.
"You'll be fine," he said from time to time. The day before, he might have imagined resenting Nemm from racing off and leaving this duty to him, but now Dravus was happy to be saving a damsel in distress. The shape of the story would change later on; in the version that he could imagine himself telling over a five-course meal, Dravus had insisted that Flame needed help, and bravely saved her life when Nemm would have abandoned the poor woman. By the time they arrived at Grayhull, Dravus could almost believe the revisions he'd been penning in his head. Returning to the palace was gallantry, not cowardice, no matter that Nemm was still out there fighting.
Once they had gotten past the guards and to the planning room they'd been using, Flame practically collapsed into the Flower Queen's arms. Darkheart twitched his mustache and stared at Dravus.
"It's war," said Dravus. "Nemm feels that the Iron King has made his move. The fires in the city were started by the agitators, but a few of the men stirring up trouble are illustrati as well. There was something off about them."
"Murderers," choked out Flame.
"War with the Iron Kingdom?" asked Darkheart. "We can't have it. There are treaties in place, and besides that, everyone knows that the Iron King hasn't been seen in at least a year. Why would he attack us from his death bed?"
"As much as you might not like it, it's happening," said Dravus. "Torland has allies that can be brought into the war, enough that the Iron King will be forced to fight a war on too many fronts at once." He tried to think of what Nemm would do. "We need to send out letters as soon as possible, so that help arrives in time. It's not an outright war yet, not until we have some proof, but we can present the evidence."
Darkheart frowned. "You are not in charge here," he said. "My queen is." He glanced to the Flower Queen, who had Flame's head in her lap. The queen's head was lolled back and her mouth was hanging partway open. If not for the fact that her hand was petting Flame's bald head, Dravus might have thought the queen was either sleeping or dead.
"Is there a way to sober her up quickly?" asked Dravus. "Something we could give her to bring her into her right mind? I'm sure that you've had need for that a few times." He was getting desperate for some action he could take to make everything better.
"You are being indelicate," said Darkheart.
"There's a war out there!" Dravus shouted, all pretense of civility and etiquette forgotten. "Homes and businesses are burning, and people are risking their lives for the queen, and she doesn't care at all!"
"She cares too much," said Darkheart with an icy gaze. "She indulges herself because it's the only way to cope with the enormity of running this country day in and day out." He sniffed. "Another outburst and I'll have you removed."
Dravus wanted to hit the man, but the doors opened up once more. Lexari and Nemm stepped through.
"A half dozen illustrati of flame," said Lexari. "Each with their own enhancements, taller and more muscular than they should have been by rights, with thickened skin and, if I'm not mistaken, bones more dense than they should have been."
"Your apprentice says war," said Darkheart.
"Worse than war," said Lexari. "Bigger than war. A half dozen illustrati, all with the same domain? The Iron King has done his best to manipulate fame, to take the lessons of Laith and apply them on a larger scale in order to gain valuable troops. He's been more than willing to have children tested. Yet the sheer expense involved in raising so many illustrati and sending them here for subterfuge … it's not right."
"I listened to one of them talk," said Nemm. "If he was a spy, he was a good one. There was no trace of a foreign accent; these were Meriwall men through and through. That makes it even stranger. I might be able to believe that the Iron King was willing to expend the resources to create so many illustrati from whole cloth, but I don't believe that he would choose men from within this country, especially given how many he would have to test in order to get six of the same domain."
"But the danger is over," said Darkheart. "You beat them back —"
"We killed four of the six," said Nemm. "They killed four of ours in turn. The other two were long gone by the time we reached those fires, but they're still out in the city, and for all we know there might be more. People are looting businesses, throwing rocks through windows and dragging merchandise out. The unrest has turned to simple crime that the guards couldn't possibly handle, if they weren't engaged in it themselves. It will take time for order to be restored, and it's not going to happen tonight. There's a storm on the horizon, which will help with the fires, and we need to go back out there, but the danger has not passed by any stretch of the imagination. War is coming, if it's not already here."
"There is an explanation for the men of flame," said Lexari. "One I've been mulling over." He paused to look around the room. "Someone is using the Harbinger's knowledge."
* * *
Kendrick Eversong was having a wonderful day.
The duel had gone pretty much as well as could have been hoped for, and the Council had sprung into action immediately afterward. The fires would draw in the illustrati, and the element of surprise would mean that many of them would die. The men who had
volunteered to light those fires were at great risk, but they had known that when they had signed on for the benefactor's process. Kendrick's own part wasn't without dangers of its own, but he'd played his role to perfection, and nothing more could be asked of him. He wasn't entirely pleased with having to make a new life in the Iron Kingdom, but Torland would become part of the Iron Kingdom soon enough, and then he would be able to return, if perhaps not in the guise of Kendrick Eversong. No matter. That wasn't his real name anyhow.
The benefactor's pretty assistant came into the small room that Kendrick had been holed up in and bowed slightly. She was a silent woman, and an illustrati in her own right. Earlier, she'd healed Kendrick of the wounds that he'd sustained during the duel, fast enough that Kendrick found it somewhat alarming. It had taken a while for him to cotton on to the fact that she must have been a beneficiary of the benefactor's process as well; the benefactor had never gone into detail, but at a minimum it seemed that the benefactor had the ability to change a person's domain. How the silent woman had been selected for the domain of flesh was as yet a mystery, one to add to the growing collection he'd had ever since the benefactor had shown up.