He pushed more fire out of his hands, and the wall of flames surged behind him. There was plenty of grief and anger to fuel his pyra now.
And that was his third revelation: He wasn’t possessed.
It had tried to seize him when the shackle first came off, but it had failed. And now his pyra was there, but it wasn’t as strong as it had been before.
He didn’t know if it was the prolonged use of the emberstone manacle or his injury, but he had complete control over his pyra once more.
The Flameskin soldiers approached slowly. They could see he was trapped and wounded.
He glanced behind him at the wall of flames, but he couldn’t hear or see Sol. The fire ate at the damp forest floor and licked at the trunks of trees. She had to see there was nothing she could do.
Let her burn. His pyra wanted Sol gone. Sol was the one who had shackled him and cut off his flames and who drew off his pyra so that it couldn’t control him.
The Flameskin soldiers closed in around him. Several had flames sparking in their hands and the others drew their swords. There were at least two dozen of them, and a pair of soldiers held Silas’ limp form.
A man pushed his way through the ranks.
Kelan breathed in sharply and took another step backward.
“Hello, Kelan,” Officer Osten said. “Did you miss me?”
Chapter 54
Sol
Someone had grabbed Sol from behind. She bucked and yanked her knife from her belt.
“It’s me!” Marta hissed.
Sol jerked her mouth out of Marta’s grasp. “You were supposed to go back to the haven to warn the others.”
“I did, and then I came back to help you. Now let’s go.”
“But Kelan—”
“There’s nothing we can do. Don’t waste Kelan’s sacrifice.”
Sol put a hand over her mouth and sobbed into it. How could Marta say that? Kelan couldn’t give himself up for her. She couldn’t let him die.
Kelan’s wall of flame flickered and receded as proof of Marta’s words. Soldiers moved through the flames and used their hands to beat out the fire singing their uniforms.
“There!” a soldier shouted and pointed at them.
Marta tugged on Sol’s hand, and Sol stumbled after her into the darkness. Sol couldn’t think. The only thing keeping her moving was Marta yanking her forward. They ran through the forest and sprinted through the banks of mist.
But they were too loud, crashing through the underbrush and giving away their position. The soldiers chasing her and Marta kept close behind them. The flames in the soldiers’ hands marked the soldiers’ positions in the darkness. Every time Sol glanced over her shoulder, she could see the tiny flames and the manic faces. The lights were closing in around them.
Sol ran. Three steps for every ragged breath. No thoughts but fear and anguish.
Kelan.
Leaves and mud squished beneath their feet and roots conspired to trip them. Branches whipped at her cheeks and flicked dew in her eyes.
Kelan was gone.
The soldiers were closing in on them, drawing in on every side and herding them like sheep.
She had left Kelan.
The lights flickered in between the trees at her right. Marta veered left and pulled Sol with her, and then there were lights ahead of them, too, floating demon eyes that winked at them between the trunks of the redwoods.
Everywhere there were lights. The orange glow illuminated the soldiers’ red coats and their devilish smiles and their dark eyes.
Marta and Sol were gasping for breath. They turned round and round and round. There was nowhere to go. The soldiers were everywhere.
Sol saw an opening in the trees and yanked Marta toward it. Trees whirred past as they jumped down into a small ravine and ran up a slope thick with fallen trees and exposed stones. Mud caked her fingers as she scrambled upward.
The soldiers’ footsteps were muffled by the moss and leaves underfoot, but Sol could hear them. Too close. The orange light cast long shadows at Sol’s feet and illuminated her path.
“Don’t you want to see what we’re going to do to your friends?” a soldier called, just behind them.
They had killed Kelan.
She yanked the dagger from her belt and launched herself at the soldier just as he was gathering fire in his hand. Sol rammed the dagger into his heart, just the way his words had cut through her heart.
They had taken Kelan. They had taken everything.
Sol fell along with the body and sat quivering on the ground beside it.
Marta grabbed her shoulders. “We can’t stop!”
They were bathed in orange light. Soldiers shouted. Marta yanked Sol backward, and they both tumbled into the rotting carcass of a dead tree. They were half-submerged in soil, and everything smelled of rot and earth. The smell crawled its way into her nostrils and mouth. It buried her in decay and darkness. Marta pulled Sol in deeper, and entombed them in the moist, sloping soil and rotting wood.
There was a chink in the trunk that gave Sol a sliver of a view, and it let in the brilliant orange light of a soldier’s flame.
The soldier approached and shouted when she saw the body. Sol still held her oak leaf dagger, dripping with the man’s blood.
Kelan was dead because of her. She had let him give himself up for her and had done nothing to help him. Everything they had fought for had been undone in a moment.
The soldier stepped closer, her boots at the same level of Sol’s eyes. The Flameskin turned slowly, and her flames illuminated the ground. Marta quivered beside Sol and they were both held their breaths, waiting.
The soldier drew her sword slowly. Took another step.
The light went out.
Sol was blinded by the darkness, and panic set in. The darkness. The closeness of the earth. The flurry of Marta’s heartbeat against her side, and the drumming of her own pulse in her blood.
The soldier’s boots scuffed against the ground outside their hiding place, moving away from them.
Marta blew out a long breath and rested her head against Sol’s sweaty back.
The wood splintered above them, and a sword blade crashed through it. Pain shot through Sol’s leg as the blade sliced her calf. Marta screamed.
Sol crawled out of the trunk and limped to her feet. The soldier was still trying to get her blade back, but it had caught in the wood.
But Sol was ready. She grabbed the front of the Flameskin’s coat and plunged her dagger into the woman’s chest.
The Flameskin collapsed beneath Sol and fell onto the ground with a thud. Sol yanked the dagger out and stumbled to her feet, breathing hard.
She would not rest until she had cut every one of their hearts out.
Just like they had done to her.
Chapter 55
Kelan
Kelan’s head drooped as he panted. His hands were shackled behind him around the narrow waist of a tree. Blood dripped over his eyebrow, and he blinked at it, trying to keep it from getting into his eye.
The pain in his arm was nauseating. Every time his skin brushed up against his shirt or the bark of the tree, it felt like it was burning all over again. He hadn’t had long for his pyra to heal him before they had stuck another emberstone on him.
A shadow fell over him.
He looked up through his bleary eyes, and Haldur stood over him, blocking the morning light.
“Where is the haven?” Haldur demanded.
“I don’t know.”
Haldur growled as he backhanded Kelan across the jaw. His ring cut Kelan’s lip.
Kelan spit blood out of his mouth. “I don’t know my way around the Wood. I don’t know where it is.”
It was the truth. He had never needed to know where he was with Sol at his side.
Haldur grabbed him by his hair and pressed his bruised skull against the rough bark. Kelan twisted against his uncle’s grasp, but he was shackled in place and had no flames to fight with. His arm was in agony
.
“Silas, the other boy, knows,” Kelan gasped. “I don’t know anything.”
Haldur let go, and Kelan slumped against the tree and glanced at Silas as waves of pain rolled through his body. He and Silas were both chained to trees at the edge of the Hivid Wood.
A Flameskin Army stretched out in the meadow beyond the Wood. A thousand soldiers sprawled out in the dry summer grass. A pitiful number. All that was left after years of struggling and war.
Silas’ emberstone had been removed, and Silas was in stasis, asleep, as his pyra healed his body. He had been horribly burned, all along his chest, right shoulder, and arm. New skin was growing over the mutilated flesh, but it would be a long time before he would be well.
But it was better that way. If Silas were awake, they’d be torturing him as well, trying to get answers.
Osten approached and saluted Commander Haldur Burke. “Sir, we followed the girls’ trail as far as we could, but it disappeared. We couldn’t find the haven.”
Kelan tried to smile, but it came out as more of a grimace. Sol had gotten away. Sol was safe.
Haldur swore under his breath. “We need those soldiers from the haven.”
“There are no soldiers in the haven,” Kelan said. “You’re wasting your time.”
“Then where have all the deserters gone?” Haldur demanded.
“Dead, probably.”
“You’re hiding an army in there. I know it.” Haldur turned to Osten. “How far is Saint Katrine from our position?”
“She’ll arrive in two days, sir.”
“Katrine?” Kelan asked.
“She’s coming to kill us all. The rest of the Flameskin Army and any Flameskins you’ve got hidden in there.”
Kelan’s mouth went dry.
But Vara had promised to help them escape.
Haldur kicked Kelan in the ribs. “How many Flameskins are in this Wood?”
Kelan had to spit blood out of his mouth again before he could reply. “They’re just children.”
Haldur kicked him again, and Kelan gasped as all the air was forced from his lungs. “The rumors say hundreds. Thousands.”
“There’s no secret army in the woods.”
“Lies,” Haldur spat. “We’ve been sending scouts into the Wood searching for the refugees for two years now, and none of them ever come back.”
“Your scouts were killed by traps or Tokken soldiers.”
Osten stepped forward. “Sir—”
“This is our last stand,” Haldur said. “If we join our armies together, we’ll be able to survive against Saint Katrine.”
This was insanity. Haldur had pinned his last hopes on something that didn’t exist. If Saint Katrine was coming, they were all dead. He could only hope that Sol and the others would see the fires and they’d have enough time to escape.
“Take his emberstone off,” Haldur ordered, nodding to Kelan.
Kelan wasn’t sure if he should be relieved or terrified. His pyra would heal him, but maybe that was what his uncle wanted. He was going to push him so close to death he would need his pyra to stay alive.
“Please, Uncle. I don’t know where it is,” Kelan begged. “Sol always took me where we needed to go.”
Haldur’s eyes flicked up, and Kelan winced. “Your huntress? She’s here?”
Kelan stared at his bloody spittle clotting in the dirt at his feet. He shouldn’t have said anything.
Haldur grabbed Kelan’s burned arm and scraped it against the rough bark of the tree. Kelan screamed as bright, cutting pain lanced through him.
Haldur paused, and Kelan gasped, trying to catch his breath.
“Is the huntress here?” Haldur asked again, his voice cool.
“Yes,” Kelan gasped.
Haldur dropped Kelan’s arm. “She was the reason you left the army.”
Kelan didn’t answer. He couldn’t. He could barely breathe.
“She’s the one you were trying to protect last night.”
Kelan closed his eyes.
Ashes. He just wanted this to be over, to be dead so he couldn’t hurt anyone else. If they found her because he had given them some bit of information, he would never be able to forgive himself.
Sol.
If he had known that yesterday would be his last day with her, the last time to see her smile, to touch her skin and to kiss her lips—
Osten bent down and reached for the emberstone bound to Kelan’s arm, but Haldur held out his hand. “Wait.”
Osten stood. “Sir?”
“The huntress would know the way to the haven.”
“Do you want me to send out scouts again and look for her?” Osten asked.
“No. If she followed Kelan all the way here, I bet there’s not much she won’t do to get him back. When she comes back to reclaim her lover, she’ll lead us straight to the haven.”
Kelan took a ragged breath. Ingrid and Rask wouldn’t let Sol come back for him.
But since when had Sol ever done the reasonable thing?
He couldn’t help but hope there was some chance she would. To see her one last time was all he wanted. But he didn’t wish that at the expense of her life or the safety of the haven.
He groaned and laid his head against the tree. She needed to stay in the haven where it was safe.
Or maybe it didn’t matter. Saint Katrine was coming and would kill all of them.
“Station guards here,” Haldur said, “but keep them out of sight. And have someone exchange the metal shackles with a rope. Same with the boy. Keep them both drugged.”
“No,” Kelan moaned.
Haldur bent down and met Kelan’s eyes. “We’ll find out how true her love is, won’t we?”
Haldur took Kelan’s skull between his hands and smashed it against the tree. The world was pain and blackness.
Chapter 56
Sol
“Absolutely not,” Ingrid said. Her eyes were furious, and her body was stiff. If she wasn’t wearing an emberstone, she probably would’ve sparked at the edges.
Marta stopped her foot. “Kelan and Silas will be killed if we don’t—”
“They might be dead already,” Ingrid said.
Dead. Sol squeezed her eyes shut.
Ingrid shook her head. “No. You’ve already put us in danger. You don’t know that they didn’t follow you back to the haven.”
“We aren’t fools,” Sol said. She leaned against the other wall in the shadows, not looking at any of them. “I made sure we weren’t followed, and we took the long way back. We didn’t leave a trail.”
Rask scowled at Sol. “She should be executed for trying to leave the haven.”
“I believe she’s already received punishment enough,” Ingrid said.
Punishment.
Yes, that was what it was. The gods were punishing her for squandering what she had in exchange for a past she couldn’t let go of.
She and Kelan should’ve been in their bed last night, asleep. If she hadn’t wanted so badly to say goodbye to her family, Kelan would still be alive.
“Come on, Marta,” Sol said, and grabbed Marta’s hand.
Marta wrenched her wrist free and turned to Ingrid. “How can you just abandon them like that? You love Silas!”
Ingrid sank onto a branch beside Rask. “I love all my children. And I won’t endanger all of them to save one.”
“It’s a betrayal. If you had been taken, Silas would’ve come for you. He would’ve come for any of us.”
Ingrid stood. She wore her grief with an erect spine and anger burning in her eyes. “You will stay here, Marta.”
“I won’t. You can’t force me to stay. I’m going after Silas.”
“Then you can’t come back. If you lead them back to the haven, you’ll get all of us killed.”
Marta grabbed her bow from the ground and stormed out of Rask’s dwelling. Sol trudged behind her.
They passed between rows of wraiths who hung off the eaves and leaned against the railings and str
addled the tree branches. Everyone was there. They had all listened. There were few secrets in the Flameskin haven.
“Silas is really gone?” one girl asked, her lip trembling.
Azalea pushed through the crowd and grabbed Sol’s legs. She burrowed her face into Sol’s mud-streaked pants.
“I’m going after him,” Marta said. She grabbed a quiver from one of her companions and looped its strap over her shoulder.
“You said Silas was already dead,” Sol said.
“But we don’t know for sure. How can you just give up on Kelan?” Marta demanded.
Sol strode away, taking the rope bridge back toward her dwelling.
“Sol!” Marta chased after her, along with an entourage of Flameskins.
Sol ignored Marta. Her head was pounding. She was numb. She couldn’t think. She couldn’t breathe.
She reached their home and stopped outside to stare at its broken roof and the crumbling curtain of leaves that served as their door.
They were supposed to make a new door together yesterday.
She dropped onto her knees outside the door and muffled a sob.
“He wouldn’t have given up on you,” Marta said.
“He gave himself up!” Sol shouted. She stood and whirled on Marta. “You were the one who convinced me to leave him.”
“That was last night. We were outnumbered, and your emberstone was empty.”
“And how is it any different today? There’s an entire army camped on the edge of the Hivid Wood.”
“If they have Silas, and if he’s still alive, it’s only a matter of time before they find us,” Marta said.
“And if they catch any of the rest of us trying to rescue him, it’s the same thing. We can’t risk exposing the haven.”
“We have to rescue Silas.”
“You just told me he was dead!”
“What if there was a chance Kelan was still alive, and you let him die because you didn’t come for him?”
Sol took in a ragged breath as she twisted the ring around her finger. No. She couldn’t start hoping. She couldn’t hope and then have to grieve him again.
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