“You’re not a demon, not yet. And if you were, things would be different.”
They could winter in the hunters’ cave above the town, where she and Pa used to stay when passing through. Kelan would be safer there, and farther from the villagers’ notice. This late in the season there would be few if any Hunters passing through Baarka, and she and Kelan would be left to themselves for the most part. With some supplies from the villagers, she’d be able to set enough traps to get by and supply them for the long trek to Cassia in the early spring.
Sol smiled. She wouldn’t get to celebrate Solstice with her family, but at least she could celebrate it in Baarka. There would be no better way to venerate Pa than by bringing in a Solstice meal, like he always used to.
Her smile faltered. But she’d be spending the Solstice with a Flameskin. Pa would never have approved of that.
“You should hide your red coat in your bag. Will you be warm enough without it?”
He laughed. “Warm? I could walk naked in the snow and still be warm.”
Sol exhaled. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t.”
“You sure?” he asked, and grinned wickedly. When she replied with a glare, he shrugged off his coat and tucked it into his bag.
Sol’s pulse sped as they descended the slope. Food. A warm hearth. Someone to talk to other than Kelan.
They crested the rise and got a full view of the valley, and her heart plummeted.
Baarka was gone. It had been burned to the ground.
Chapter 18
Kelan
Kelan stared at the burned village, at the fingers of black wood jutting out of the snow.
It would have burned beautifully, his pyra hummed. One day we’ll burn a village like this, leaving nothing but ash.
Kelan pinched his lips together and shoved its voice away.
He and Sol crunched through the snow, passing into the center of the village. Baarka was silent, deserted. How long ago had this happened? It was at least before the last snowfall. Had his Uncle Haldur done this, or a different troop of Flameskin soldiers? Had the village been evacuated before they burned it?
Sol was breathing hard beside him. “You,” she said, and turned on him. “You did this. This is the work of demons.”
“I didn’t—”
She shrieked and shoved him into the snow. “Fire only burns. It knows no mercy. That thing inside you is made to destroy.”
“Sol, I’m sorry. I’m sorry for what other Flameskins did, but I didn’t do this.”
He made to stand but she cried out and leapt at him, her fists flying. He tried to grab her wrists, but she twisted out of his grasp.
“You murderer!” she screamed. “These were good people and you killed them.”
“Sol! Stop!” Her fist cracked against his jaw and he threw up his arms to block her.
Anger welled up and burned hot. She’ll burn just as easily as the rest of them did.
Kelan roared and grabbed her by the shoulders. He threw her into the snow and crushed her arms beneath him, pinning her there with his weight. Fire twisted into his mind and filled his limbs, making him gasp with the effort of controlling it. She screamed and writhed beneath him, and the snow around them sizzled and melted.
Kill her! his pyra urged.
Kelan grabbed the manacle from his pocket and smashed it onto his wrist. His pyra vanished, as well as the urge to kill Sol.
Feel nothing. He breathed in deep and let out a shaking breath, and Sol finally fell still.
“Are you done hitting me?” Kelan asked.
She nodded.
He eased off her, wary of her fists. She sat up and turned away from him, toward the husks of the village homes.
Kelan rubbed his bruising jaw. “You got me good. Your pa teach you how to throw punches like that?”
She buried her head between her knees and her shoulders shook with silent sobs.
Kelan rested a hand on her arm. “Sol. . . .”
“Don’t touch me, Demon,” she said, her voice muffled and cracking.
He sighed and shifted away. The cold had started to bite, so he unlocked the manacle and shoved it into his pocket again. He wasn’t like the others. How could she lump him in with every Flameskin who had given in to their pyra? It wasn’t fair. And it hurt because he kept thinking of Sol as a friend, when he knew she never would be.
He stood and walked through the town. The blackened posts of the buildings looked like grave markers, and they probably were. He stopped at one building and looked inside. The front wall of the home still remained, and Kelan stood in the empty doorway touching the brass button on the chain around his neck.
“Let’s check this one,” Markus said, grinning. His pyra spoke through his lips, its voice raspy and dark. Markus was pointing at a house on the edge of the village, the one with the light in the window.
“Markus, don’t,” Kelan said. “There’s no need.”
But there is a need, Kelan’s pyra insisted. There’s always more to burn.
“These villagers killed children,” Markus said. “How can we let such a crime go unpunished?”
“The house is probably empty anyway. Let’s go. Everyone evacuated hours ago.”
Markus ignored him and stomped toward it, and Kelan didn’t stop him. What was the point? That man wasn’t Markus anymore; his pyra controlled him completely. There was no reasoning with Markus, there was only more fire, more burning, more chaos. Markus could understand nothing else.
The Flameskin troop had arrived an hour ago and already the whole village burned. Red and orange flames painted the sky with black smoke. Kelan breathed it in, and his pyra swirled inside him, energized by the fire.
Markus jiggled the door handle, but it was locked. He gathered an orb of fire in his palm and let it coil there before thrusting his fist at the door and blasting it from its frame. The door flew inward, and the people inside screamed.
“Markus!” Kelan shouted.
He was at Markus’ side with a few strides and grabbed his arm. Markus tried to shrug him off, but Kelan held tight. Markus’ pyra had always been more powerful, but Kelan was bigger and taller.
A mountain woman and three children were huddled in the far corner of the room, and the mother buried her children’s weeping faces in her skirts. The door had blasted across the floor and broken their table. Berries rolled across the floor and broken crockery lay strewn among the slivers of wood that had once been their door.
“Please,” the mother begged. “Have mercy on my children.”
Markus scowled at her. “You had no mercy when you slaughtered the Flameskins in this village.”
“Please, I had no part in it.”
“Markus,” Kelan hissed. “Leave them alone.”
“They killed our own,” Markus said, his hands glittering with fire. “It’s only fair.”
“No!” Kelan roared. He grabbed Markus and shoved him out of the house. They fell onto the ground, punching and yanking and rolling, trying to force the other into submission. Markus’ body sparked and ignited, and fire poured from his hands and arms. The grass beneath him burned and charred to black, and both their coats caught fire.
“We’ll kill them,” Markus said. “We’ll burn their bones to ash.”
“I won’t let you touch them,” Kelan said, shoving him down and pinning him against the ground.
Markus grinned, his eyes wild, as he lurched and fought in Kelan’s grasp, then Markus turned toward the house and fire exploded from his fist. Flames struck the roof, and the thatch caught instantly, igniting the home.
Kelan grabbed Markus’ throat. No air, no fire. He squeezed. Markus gasped and pulled at Kelan’s hands. The fire on Markus’ arms died and went out.
How many times had this happened? How many times had Kelan stood by while Markus murdered innocents in the name of this war?
No more. Markus couldn’t be reasoned with, and Markus would never stop. He couldn’t.
Kill, kill, kill, Kelan
’s pyra hissed.
Markus’ face turned purple and his struggling slowed.
“You’re not Markus anymore,” Kelan whispered his throat thick. “You’re not even human anymore.”
Markus fell still between Kelan’s hands.
The house was on fire, but the family had already fled. Kelan dragged Markus’ body inside and dropped it onto the floor. Berries squished beneath Kelan’s feet. Ashes and sparks flew around the room, and burning thatch fell on Markus’ body. Kelan’s uniform still smoldered, and Markus’ uniform was all but gone. One of Markus’ brass buttons lay at the center of his chest, attached to the remains of his uniform by a blackened string. The button had melted and deformed from the heat of Markus’ pyra, and Kelan tugged the button loose.
Kelan stood in the doorway of the house, squeezing the brass button in his palm until it hurt.
“Goodbye, Markus,” he whispered.
But the body on the floor wasn’t Markus; Markus had died eleven years ago, when his pyra had taken possession.
Chapter 19
Sol
Sol scooped handfuls of snow away from the hatch and grunted as she lifted it. The waning light of day illuminated her path as she descended into the cellar, but she didn’t need much light to see. The cellar had been emptied.
She sagged against the wall and sighed. The villagers had evacuated and taken their food with them. That meant they were alive, somewhere.
But it also meant there would be no food for her and Kelan.
She frowned. Kelan. Sometimes she wanted to hate him so much it hurt. She hated everything he was, and everything he represented. He was the disease Pa had tried so hard to cleanse from the world, in his own way. So why was she keeping him alive?
“Find anything?” Kelan asked. He couched above the cellar door, blocking her light with his broad shoulders. He was wearing his red Flameskin coat again.
“No,” she said, her voice terse. “There’s a few potatoes and onions, but not much else. They must’ve taken their food with them when they left.”
“You think the village was evacuated before it was burned?”
“Yes.”
He exhaled heavily. “Thank the gods.”
She scowled at him. What did he care? He was a Flameskin soldier. His occupation was torching villages and burning their occupants.
“Burning your home during winter might as well be a death sentence,” Sol said. “They would’ve had to hike the rest of the way through the pass, with the elderly and children.”
“And we’re going the rest of the way to Cassia, too?”
Sol climbed out of the cellar and pushed past him, her arms filled with what little food the villagers had left for them. “Yes. And if we’re going to survive, we’re going to have to hunt. Ashes and cinders. I’d give anything for a bow right now.”
“Can’t you just make one?” he asked.
“No. I don’t have anything for a string, and a bow made of unseasoned wood isn’t going to be very good anyway. We’ll use your fire to hunt.”
“I’d prefer not to. Are there any other cellars we can check?”
Sol shook her head. “The snow’s too deep for us to go digging around every house. I knew about this cellar because I’ve been to this home.”
“These were friends of yours?”
“All of the mountain folk are my friends. My pa and I used to hang carcasses in this cellar after we brought them back from our hunts. I’ve spent several weeks in Baarka, when we hunted these mountains. These were good people. Generous. They would’ve made sure we ate and were warm this winter, and now they’re probably freezing in the snow like we are.”
Kelan crossed his arms over his chest. “Stop acting like I’m responsible for this.”
Sol marched through the snow toward the cave above the village. “I don’t know what you wouldn’t do in the name of your war.”
“I fight only soldiers.”
“Don’t try to tell me you haven’t burned villages like this. You have, haven’t you?”
He didn’t answer.
She turned and glared at him. “Stop feeding me this ash about how you’re different from them. You’re not, Kelan. You’re a demon, and you’ll always be a demon.”
She trudged forward and blinked away the tears that stung her eyes. These had been friends, and where were they now?
When she couldn’t hear Kelan’s footsteps behind her, she glanced back. He had stopped in the snow and stood there, a red coat silhouetted by white.
Sol stormed toward the cave and threw her bag onto the ground. How dare he act like he cared. How dare he try to make her feel bad.
Let him sulk. Let him pretend his feelings were hurt. She had told the truth and wouldn’t apologize for it.
She should’ve left him in the snow. She should’ve been strong like Pa and killed him long ago.
The sun set as Sol rolled out her skins and settled into them. She waited in impatient silence, but Kelan never appeared.
She sat up and listened. Was he getting wood for the fire or what? She tried to gnaw at a potato, but it was frozen solid, so she flung it away from her and crossed her arms.
The cave was dark and silent and still. Where had that blasted demon gone? He had left her to freeze to death. She curled into a ball on the ground. Fine. She didn’t need him. She had never needed him. As the night wore on, Sol tried to ignore her grumbling belly and the shivers that ran through her, but sleep eluded her.
There was a scuffling noise outside the cave.
Sol sat up. “Kelan?”
An owl called out into the night, but she could hear nothing else. Her pulse quickened. Where was he? Had he actually left?
She abandoned her bedroll and stepped out of the cave. In the moonlight everything was white, but a single spot of color blotted the snow below her.
She trudged toward Kelan, sinking deep into the snow without her snowshoes. “Kelan?” she asked softly.
He looked up, but his features were indistinct in the dim light. “I’m not a demon.”
“Kelan—”
“Call me fool, call me Flameskin, call me anything you like, but never call me Demon.”
“Kelan, I meant—”
“I didn’t choose this. We don’t get to choose our parents, or what we’re born to. And every moment is a battle for me. You don’t know what it’s like to have to resist what you are, to fight every day of your life to keep the fire at bay.”
He stood over her, his eyes hard, and angry heat radiated from him. Sol shivered and resisted the urge to lean into him. His shoulders slumped and he pulled her in.
“You’re freezing,” he whispered.
She was stiff in his arms, but she couldn’t pull away. She hated how much she craved the warmth of his body.
“I’m not like the others,” he said. “What do I have to do to prove that to you?”
“I don’t know.”
Chapter 20
Kelan
Kelan and Sol crouched in the snow and studied the birds in the tree above them. Kelan held the manacle in one hand but didn’t touch the emberstone. He took a deep breath and drew on his pyra.
Burn. We will burn them.
He grit his teeth as he pulled fire into his hand and shot it at the birds. The moment flames burst out of his hand, the flock scattered into the sky. The fireball exploded in the branches, flinging snow all around the tree.
“Cinders,” he swore. He hadn’t hit a single bird.
His pyra stretched a tentacle of fire through his arm and into his right hand. It pushed fire into his palm, creating another ball of flame
Burn the tree. Watch it turn to ash.
Kelan shoved his burning hand into the snow and snapped the manacle onto his wrist. His pyra immediately disappeared.
It was getting worse. Kelan exhaled slowly. He couldn’t use his pyra now without leaving it room to take control. First it would be his arms, then his legs, then his mind, and he’d be lost.
> Sol stared at him, tense. “It’s trying to take you, isn’t it?”
“Yes.” He stood and unlocked the manacle once more. His pyra sparked to life and hissed angrily at him, licking his mind with tongues of flame.
You make yourself weak, Kelan. You waste your time fighting me. I will take control. It won’t be long now.
He shuddered.
They tramped through the snow to the tree, but no birds had fallen. “Sorry,” Kelan muttered, half to Sol and half to his own grumbling stomach.
“We’ll get something.”
He sighed. But that meant using his pyra again. He hated using it, and especially in front of Sol. He hated the way she looked at him when his hand sparked, all frightened and judgmental.
“Come on,” she said. “The trail is this way.”
They had left Baarka far behind, and everything they ate now Kelan hunted, but it was never enough for either of them to get a real meal. Sol set a trap every night, too, but they hadn’t caught anything with it. They didn’t have time for their dinner to walk into their laps; they needed to keep moving or they’d starve before they got through the pass.
Hunger was a constant companion, more irritating even than Sol. Kelan’s body was weakening. His pyra compensated for his lack of energy and the shaking in his limbs, but using its strength only gave it more power over him.
Kelan followed her through the snow, straining his ears for noises. Sol was always better at hearing the birds, though, and she knew most of their calls.
“I could teach you how to use the emberstone,” Kelan said. “We’d have more luck if you were doing the hunting.”
She glanced at him. “Are you being serious?”
He shrugged. It was worth a shot.
“Does your pyra . . . talk to you in your mind?” she asked. “That’s what I’ve heard said.”
“Yes.”
“What does it say?”
He couldn’t see her face, but he wished he could. Was this the sort of thing that would make her more afraid of him or would finally help her understand?
Firefrost: A Flameskin Chronicles Novel Page 8