It Ends in Fire

by Andrew Shvarts

  She pauses, and for just one moment, I swear I can see her lips twitch into the tiniest hint of a smile. “Marlena.”

  “Well, then. I appreciate your service, Marlena. I’ll call on you if I need anything else.”

  She nods. “It would be my honor.”

  The path winds up the hill, through a tall grove of birch trees. Statues of legendary Wizards watch us from the shadows with blank eyes. Dark chittering birds call at us from the branches. I can make out more of the manor above and the buildings around it. Their architecture’s varied, some made of fresh brick and others ancient stone. “Do you live in the dormitories as well?” I ask Marlena.

  “Oh, no.” She shakes her head, like the idea’s unthinkable. “There’s a small village on the island’s eastern coast, beyond the forest. The servants all stay there.”

  “A village?” I repeat. “Is that necessary?”

  Marlena shrugs, which is impressive, given my bag slung over her shoulder. “Working for the Wizards of Blackwater is an incredible honor, and it carries great responsibility. We’ve all dedicated our lives to protecting the secrecy of this sacred place.”

  Gods. A whole village of people, living and dying on this rock, just so the richest Wizards in the world don’t have to carry their own bags. I’ll help them, I decide. I’ll make sure they make it out of this. Marlena especially.

  I walk the rest of the way in silence, to the top of the hill, through an ornate iron gate with BLACKWATER ACADEMY etched on top. The main manor stands before me, all five stories of its elegance. Huge marble columns frame the carved blackwood doors of the entryway. Ornate shingles sparkle on the colossal domed roof. I swear, for one moment, a gargoyle’s head swivels.

  Marlena peels off, walking alongside the other Humbles to carry our bags to the cluster of secondary buildings, the dormitories. I stick with the other Wizards as we pass through the open doors into the manor itself. It’s the most beautiful building I’ve ever been in. Slick marble floors reflect torchlight like the surface of a still lake, golden filigrees line the vaulted ceilings, and the walls are adorned with towering bookshelves and elegantly framed oil paintings.

  I give up on mapping the place out, at least for tonight. There are too many doors, too many halls, too many stairways. It feels like a maze, which makes me a trapped rat. But I follow the others, rounding one corner, taking a short flight up, before passing through yet another set of wide doors into the most elegant banquet hall I’ve ever seen.

  The room is huge, with a high domed ceiling decorated with an intricate mural of the Five Gods above. Dozens and dozens of slick wooden tables sit beneath in neat rows, and students have begun taking seats at their benches. A rotating candelabra sits at the center of each table, its light dancing off the silverware and porcelain plates. Glyphs pulse in glass orbs mounted along the walls, some familiar, others arcane and inscrutable.

  But it’s the food that really catches my eye, not to mention my nose. There’s so much of it, and all of it is amazing. Plates of fluffy, buttery rolls. Trays of sizzling peppers stuffed with minced beef. Skewers of grilled onions and seasoned tomatoes and spicy Sithartic chicken. Bowls piled high with ripe pears and fresh berries and juicy melons. And at the center, a tower of creamy frosted cakes taller than me.

  My mouth waters and my stomach lurches and my eyes actually burn for one second, because somehow it’s this room, this food, that’s bringing the conflicting emotions churning within me to a boil. It’s more food than I’ve seen in my life, combined. I want to eat all of it, literally all of it, and I want to enjoy eating it, because how could I not? I want it so bad, it actually hurts. But at the same time, as badly, maybe even more, I want to scream at the sight, to grab one of those rotating candelabras and burn this whole place to the ground.

  There were months of my life when all I’d had to eat was stale bread and brittle dried meat, months of boiled potatoes and maybe, if I was lucky, a few scraps of cheese. In the forests of Galfori, I’d gotten by on nothing but a stew of stringy rabbit meat for a year. I once went three days without eating. Three days. And here, they have so much food in just this one banquet, enough to feed so many hungry mouths, to fill so many stomachs, and they just lay it all out. Would the leftovers even go to the servants’ village, to Marlena? Or would they just be thrown away?

  No. I push those thoughts down, all the way down. Not tonight. I can be angry tomorrow and the day after that. Tonight, I just need to fit in.

  I join Fyl at one of the tables closer to the back. The others are all eating calmly, patiently, normally. A Humble boy comes by, offering wine. I look to Fyl to make sure it’s acceptable, but she’s already downed her goblet, so I take that as a yes and get one of my own.

  The wine hits me instantly, settling into my chest with a soft warmth, and for a moment I relax enough to really take in the room. It’s noisy and bright, thrumming with the chatter of three hundred students, some shouting, some laughing, some clinking their glasses together in boisterous toasts. I crane my head back and for the first time notice there’s a whole second story, a long balcony along the room’s far wall. A few dozen adult Wizards sit there, men and women in elegant robes, stern and scholarly. The professors, I imagine.

  Fyl taps my shoulder, jerking my gaze down. “Hey,” she says, her cheeks a little flushed. “Check him out.”

  I follow her eyes to the farthest table at the back of the room. A young man sits there, completely alone, arms folded, not eating. His skin is a rich black, the darkest I’ve ever seen, and his hair runs down his back in long, thin braids. He’s a good head taller than most boys in the room, and he’s wearing a style of shirt I’ve never seen, a flowing black tunic tied together over a series of clasps in the middle. It’s cut off at the shoulders, and it’s his arms that catch my attention: lean, strong, and covered with intricately drawn lines and swoops that pulse orange like a flickering candle. “Who is that?” I ask.

  “Prince Talyn Ravensgale of the Xintari Kingdom,” Fyl replies. “I heard a rumor he’d be in our class, but I didn’t really believe it.…”

  I blink. I’ve never even met a Xintari, much less a prince. “What’s he doing here?”

  “It was part of that big trade deal Grandmaster Madison signed,” Fyl explains. “An exchange of wards. Some of our best and brightest went to stay with their royals, and they sent him here.” She pauses, popping a ripe red berry into her mouth. “Can’t say he looks happy about it.”

  She’s not wrong. Talyn sits slumped in his seat, his dark-brown eyes scanning the room with a mixture of curiosity and boredom. I know that look. It’s the look I’d have if I didn’t have to pretend to be one of them. For one single moment, his eyes find mine, and his eyebrow arches just the slightest bit with intrigue, and I glance away.

  “So,” Fyl says, dragging out the word into at least four syllables. “Do you favor men or women more?”

  I don’t actually know Alayne’s preference, so I decide to just answer honestly for myself. “Both. Equally.”

  “Mmm. I mostly favor men,” Fyl replies. “And I have to say, the prince there is awfully easy on the eyes.”

  Maybe it’s the wine or the conversation, but I feel my cheeks flush. I haven’t had much experience with romance. There’s not much time for it when you’re fighting alongside the Republic’s most wanted fugitives. I’ve only ever kissed two people: Dina, the flirty daughter of an innkeeper who sheltered us, and Grenn, a scrawny mop-haired recruit who’d joined us at Deneros Point, who’d kept me warm through the night during that wicked snowstorm. Poor Grenn.

  “Is there much of that here?” I ask Fyl. “Favoring, that is. Romance.”

  She stares at me. “We’re three hundred teenagers cooped up on an island for two years with unlimited wine. Are you really asking if people get together?”

  “Fair enough,” I reply, downing the rest of my goblet.

  “It’s half the reason my parents were excited for me to go. ‘Maybe you can meet someone,’ the
y said, ‘someone nice and wealthy, from one of the proper families.’” Fyl rolls her eyes. “Like that’s the best they can hope for.”

  I’m about to say something when I’m cut off by the sound of a dozen horns playing, and the room goes silent. “All rise for Headmaster Aberdeen!” a voice booms from the professors’ row. We all stand, turning to a small platform at the front of the room. A door behind it swings open, and the headmaster steps out, smiling and waving. All the students around me applaud, their faces bright and eager. I’ve heard of Magnus’s reputation and how the Wizards fawn over him: beloved headmaster, brilliant Wizard, advisor to the Senate, famed throughout the Republic for his kindness and wisdom.

  Then I see him.

  My breath dies in my throat.

  He’s aged a bit in the past decade. His pointy beard and curly hair are now a dull gray. His stomach bulges out a little more against his ornate sparkling robe. A leather patch covers the place where his right eye would be. But I recognize him all the same.

  Magnus Aberdeen, headmaster of Blackwater, is the man who killed my parents.

  CHAPTER 6

  Now

  In that moment, I don’t think. I don’t choose. My body moves of its own volition, carried in a trance by a lifetime of bottled rage. I rise from my seat, ignore a startled Fyl, and make my way forward, through the banquet hall, past table after table, toward the podium at the front. Toward the man standing there. The man I’m going to kill.

  The world around me is a dull roar. The past, the future, my plan, my purpose, all of it has faded into a pounding red throb. I don’t care about being Alayne Dewinter anymore. I don’t care about Whispers or the Revenants. I don’t care about living to tomorrow.

  He’s alive. The Wizard who killed my parents. The man who took everything from me, who set me on this path. The bastard, the murderer, the monster. I don’t know how, but he’s alive, and he’s right there, just half a room in front of me, smiling warmly as he soaks in applause, not a care in the world.

  He’s going to die. Now.

  My heart slams against my ribs. My blood roars through my veins. My hands flit to a table, grab a serrated knife. I’m not going to use magic on him. No, that’d be too quick, too easy. I’m going to drive the blade right into his chest and watch him bleed out. I’m going to stare into his eyes as he dies and whisper my name in his ear.

  Twenty-five feet away now. Twenty. Fifteen. I take stride after stride, drawing closer and closer. No one’s noticed me. Every eye is on the front, on him, the murderer. I’m not a person, not then. I am an arrow fired from a bow ten years ago, hurtling toward its inevitable destination. I’m going to die here, I know that. But I’m going to die satisfied.

  Headmaster Magnus Aberdeen still hasn’t noticed me. He’s turned to the side, toward the balcony with the other professors, a hand raised as he beams in their adulation. His eye is twinkling, beard crinkled in a warm smile. He has no idea the shadow that’s coming for him, that’s about to end him, that’s about to drown that smile in a torrent of blood.

  Ten feet. This is it. I turn the knife over in my hand, steadying its point. I swallow my breath. Magnus’s head turns to me, just a little, his gray eye finally seeing me, widening just a bit in suspicion. I draw back my hand and—

  Someone collides with me, hard, from the side, and I tumble down onto the banquet hall’s floor. My wrist hits marble, and the knife goes skittering out of my grip, sliding under a table. The room goes silent as every head swivels our way. Something cold, wet, and red pours onto me, soaking into my dress. Blood? No. Wine. I scramble back, instinctively, and see the face of the person who ran into me, staring back in horror. Amber eyes. Jet-black hair. The Humble servant girl, Marlena.

  “I am so sorry, my lady!” she says, frantically dabbing at my dress with a cloth. “I—I was merely serving wine—I didn’t see you coming.”

  It’s like I’ve been wrenched out of a dream, like I’m being dragged up above the surface from the depths of the sea. The world comes back in a rush: the smells of the feast, the dancing of the lights above, and the voices, so many voices, chattering, whispering, laughing. I feel the penetrating heat of a thousand eyes as every single person in the room stares at me, and that certainty I’d felt just a second ago curdles into cold dread. I’m exposed. Trapped. Vulnerable.

  But the focus isn’t on me. “Girl!” Headmaster Aberdeen barks. “Watch where you’re going! You’ve just ruined that young lady’s dress!”

  “Forgive me, Headmaster!” Marlena begs, terrified. “It won’t happen again. I promise.”

  I don’t know what to do. Everything’s happening too fast. The knife is still lying there, just a few feet away. I could grab it and still follow through, leap up and plunge it into the headmaster’s chest. Even with everyone watching, they couldn’t stop me in time. But I can’t pull my gaze away from Marlena’s, from the terror in her eyes, the way her hands tremble as they dab at my dress, the way her slim collarbone rises and falls with every breath. She’s a part of this now. If I strike, everyone will assume she was in on it, a distraction. She’ll be tortured. Killed. Probably her whole family, too. And it’ll be my fault.

  I can’t do it.

  “Groundskeeper Tyms,” the headmaster growls, and the surly bearded man from the ferry, the one who’d demanded to see my Mark, steps forward. “Please see that this Humble is duly punished. Ten lashes.”

  The man, Groundskeeper Tyms, grins. “My pleasure,” he says, striding forward to jerk Marlena up to her feet as she gasps.

  No. Not for me. I rise to my feet. “Apologies, Headmaster, but it’s my fault, not hers,” I say, and I hear an odd murmur run through the room. “I was careless. I ran into her. Go easy on the girl.”

  Headmaster Aberdeen looks at me, seeing me, really seeing me, for the first time. His beady gray eye meets mine, taking me in, scrutinizing. Could he somehow recognize me?

  No. He glances away with a bored shrug. “Fine. Five lashes,” he says. “Now can we resume the banquet, please?” He smiles wide, welcoming, and the room is effortlessly his again. “I do believe I have a rousing speech to give!”

  Everyone laughs, a booming roar. I can barely breathe. The crowd turns back to Aberdeen as he begins his big welcoming address, but I can still feel some eyes on me: Fyl, flushed with vicarious embarrassment; Marlena, grateful, even as Tyms drags her away; and at the table right next to me, Marius Madison himself, shooting me a knowing “told-you-so” smile.

  I don’t know what to do. But I know I can’t be here anymore, not with these people, not like this. Not if I want to preserve my mission. Not if I want to preserve myself.

  I rush away, between the tables, toward a pair of glass doors at the hall’s west end. I push through them and out onto a balcony, a curved ledge with an ornate railing overlooking the forests to the east of the school. The cold night air washes over me like a torrent and I gasp, and I think it’s the first time I’ve breathed since I saw Aberdeen’s face.

  He’s alive. How? How is he alive? He was in the house when my father’s wards went off. He died screaming, burning, I know it, I know it.…

  But here he is, alive all the same.

  He must have shielded himself, somehow. He made it out. He’s been alive this whole time, safe within these walls, gaining power, growing stronger. While Sera and I starved and bled and fought, while my parents lay still below the earth, he was alive, drinking the finest wines, eating at banquets, giving rousing speeches while basking in praise and adulation. While I lost everything, everything, he was alive!

  I want to scream, to cry, to snap the railing clean off and hurl it into trees below. I want to tear the bricks out of the walls, to plunge this island into the sea, to set the whole world aflame. I want to—

  “Too much to drink?” a voice asks from behind me.

  I spin. The boy from before, the prince, is there, leaning back against the doorframe with one knee bent. He holds a small chalice in a broad hand, watching me with am
usement. The absolute last thing I want to do right now is talk to a stranger, but I’ve already made myself suspicious enough, and at this rate it’s clear that a moment alone is an impossibility. I pull myself together with a breath. I become Alayne.

  “A little.” I force a laugh. “I suppose I’m not used to a vintage this strong.”

  “That’s funny. I was just thinking it was surprisingly weak.” The boy takes one last sip of his wine, then rests his chalice on the railing as he walks toward me. “I’m Talyn. Talyn Ravensgale IV, technically, but I doubt there are other Talyns here.”

  “Alayne Dewinter,” I lie. He steps forward, bathed in soft moonlight, and I get my first good look at him. He stands a good two heads taller than me, his body the kind of lean that suggests hidden strength. His hair hangs in dozens of neat braids, and the finest hint of a beard decorates his jaw. His cheekbones are angular, his chin sharp, and his dark-brown eyes, flecked with gold, sparkle softly as he sizes me up.

  More than anything else, though, I’m drawn to his arms. It’s not just that they’re nice arms, though they’re definitely nice, lean but toned, with wide hands decorated in silver rings and long veins pushing against his forearms. No, it’s what’s on his arms that I’m fascinated by. Runic symbols, dozens of them, spiral around his biceps, complex and bright. From across the banquet hall, I’d thought they were tattoos, but I can see now they’re something else. They’re drawn on, I think, in some kind of soft colored dust, a dust that shines gold and blue against his skin, like stars in the night sky.

  I strain to remember everything I know about the Xintari Kingdom, which is embarrassingly little. They rule the continent far to the south, across the Everwarm Sea, a land of vast deserts and towering volcanoes. They’re rich, I think, richer than Marovia, but also secretive, isolated, negotiating with the Republic through a single ambassador. And they have Wizards, powerful ones, ones the Senate fears. The Republic has never tried to conquer their lands, which speaks to their strength more than anything else.