It Ends in Fire

by Andrew Shvarts

  “Come on. There’s no way that’s true,” Desmond says, and just as he does, something rustles in the trees to our left, and he lets out a surprised little yelp. “On the other hand, maybe we ought to walk a little faster? Just in case?”

  I hear the village before I see it. The Blackwater campus is packed with students, but it has a quiet tone: the hum of a library, of people chattering softly. The Humble village, on the other hand, is alive with sound. Even when it’s just a distant set of lights beyond the trees, I can hear the loud commotion of a market square, voices shouting and arguing and laughing, music playing, dogs barking, children running. It reminds me of the docks in Laroc, of the main square in Hellsum, of every city I grew up in.

  The village is bigger than I’d imagined, maybe four dozen little homes, with sturdy wood frames and red-shingled roofs, clustered around a cobblestoned square. I’m not sure what I expected, probably something more ornate or magical, but it’s almost striking how familiar it is: a brick well surrounded by buckets, horses tethered to posts, scruffy cats prowling the rooftops, and the whole thing lit up by the flickering light of dozens of mounted torches. This could be any Humble village anywhere in the Republic.

  Except for the tavern, that is. It stands at the end of the town square, a two-story building as big as half the homes put together. Where everything else in the village is made of stacked wood, the tavern is made of smooth polished brick, with ornate marble windowsills and flowering yellow ivy creeping elegantly down the walls. Music wafts out of its wide swinging doors. A giant swinging sign identifies it as THE BAREFOOT ARCHER, with a woodcut of a sprightly figure holding an oversize bow.

  Humbles are everywhere, and they bustle toward us as we approach. “Greetings, my lords and ladies!” a portly man with a bushy white beard bellows, arms stretched wide. “Welcome to our village! Enjoy the sights and sounds! Grab a scone at the bakery, some new clothes from the tailor, or a drink at the Barefoot Archer. Anything you want, anything you need, just ask!”

  The others laugh, but I fight back the urge to cringe. I can see it even if the others can’t: the way he has to force the smile, the fear dancing behind his eyes. All the Humbles are looking at us like that, from the baker holding out tarts by his wagon to the two children loitering in the shadows. The charade makes me sick. It’s not enough that the Wizards have total power over these people, that they live to serve, terrified of punishment for the slightest failure. No, the Wizards also need this pantomime, these pained smiles, this forced friendship. The powerful don’t just want to be feared. They need to feel loved.

  I’d been so swept up in studying, I’d momentarily forgotten my mission. One minute in this village brings it all back.

  We head straight for the tavern. It’s even fancier inside than out. A sparkling chandelier with at least a hundred prisms spins overhead, casting the whole room in a dancing light. Two wide staircases lead up to a second-floor balcony. A long, slick bar runs along the back, with a half dozen bartenders running it and a massive wall of bottles and barrels behind them. Small, round tables dot the floor, and wide, comfortable booths line the walls. On a wide central platform, a band is playing a jaunty jig: two dancing fiddlers, circling each other as they strum away, while a pair of women back them up on flutes.

  There are at least a hundred people in here, probably more. Blackwater students crowd the tables and jostle for spots at the bar, as servants bustle about with trays covered with cups and goblets. I can make out a few familiar faces: Zigmund is arm-wrestling with that Zartan girl from my Glyphcraft class, while Dean Veyle downs a stein by the bar. Marius is here, too, sitting in a booth with his arm around Vyctoria Aberdeen, her head resting on his shoulder. They’re a couple, I guess. The Grandmaster’s son and the headmaster’s niece. That seems like it could be a problem.

  The one person I don’t see is Marlena, even though it’s packed with Humble servants. Maybe that’s for the best. This way I won’t have to pretend that we haven’t been secretly studying the stolen Glyphs every night.

  “Come on!” Fyl shouts, and she has to shout because the room is unbearably loud. “There’s a booth over there!”

  We pile into the booth, squeezing tightly, and place our orders with a cheerful Humble waiter. Desmond gets some beer; Tish, a glass of water. I barely have time to think about what I want, so I just get the same raspberry sherry Fyl orders. Within moments, the waiter slides back up, laying our drinks out before us. The tavern clearly spares no expense. Desmond’s beer is in a carved metal stein, Fyl and I have pretty copper goblets, and Tish even has an ornate crystalline cup for their water.

  Desmond cocks an eyebrow their way. “Just water? You don’t drink? Is that a Kindrali thing?”

  “No. It’s a me thing.” Tish shrugs. “I don’t like the taste.”

  “Well, I do!” Fyl raises her cup high. “To our first week at Blackwater! We made it!”

  “One down, just ninety-nine to go,” Desmond replies, and we all clink together. “I feel like we’ve got good odds of making it to graduation. Well, decent odds. Well, not terrible. That’s something, right?”

  “Speak for yourself,” Fyl says. “You’re the only one here who didn’t make an ass of himself carving an ice sphere.”

  “Tish didn’t!”

  “I got lost on my way to Political Theory, and I was so embarrassed to be late that I just never showed up,” Tish quietly admits. “I’ve missed three classes now. I’m hoping no one notices.”

  “All right. Fine. You win. I’m the only one here who’s going to make it, and I’m going to have to graduate alone.” Desmond raises his stein to his lips and takes a long sip. “Mmm. That’s good. That’s really good.”

  “You’ve got a foam mustache.” I grin and take a sip of my own.

  It hits me like a hurricane. I’d ordered the drink without thinking about it, just copying Fyl. But that flavor. Raspberry sherry. Sweet and tart but still strong, a burn that tastes like summer. It takes me back instantly. That wheat field. That humid night. Sera’s head resting in my lap. The way she smiled. The way she laughed.

  The way her body looked in Von Clair’s manor, trapped under that flaming beam, the way she gasped and sobbed as the flames closed in.

  Shit. Shit. I jerk back, like I’m stung, and the whole table rattles. “Alayne?” Fyl says. “Are you all right?”

  “I’m fine,” I choke out, though no, I’m not really fine, not at all. My eyes are burning, and my heart feels like it’s collapsing in on itself, and I can’t breathe. There are memories I just can’t revisit, memories I have to bury, memories I have to encase in stone and send plunging down to the darkest depths of my subconscious. This is one of them, the worst one, and now I’m thinking about her, and I’m thinking about that night, that terrible night, the night it all went wrong.

  “I just drank too fast,” I say, fumbling out of my chair. “Burned. Wrong pipe. Need to use the bathroom.” The others are staring at me bewildered, but it’s better they think I’m some novice who can’t hold her sherry than they know the truth.

  I stagger toward the restroom, but the bar is too noisy, too chaotic, the band reaching a feverish climax, the crowd surging around me. I push forward and end up slamming right into a burly boy’s back. He lurches forward with a yelp, spinning around, and I can make out beady brown eyes glaring at me from above a mossy beard. Of course.

  “Dewinter!” Dean Veyle hollers, and I can see that he’s spilled beer all down the front of his shirt. “You are a godsdamned blight, you know that?”

  “Sorry,” I stammer out, but I’m still all thrown off, my pulse still racing, my body still afire from excitement. A confrontation is absolutely the last thing I need right now.

  Dean wobbles back, his now-half-empty stein in his hand, wide nostrils flaring. His cheeks are red, his eyes glassy. He’s already drunk, mean drunk, which is impressive given that night just fell an hour ago. “You ruined my shirt!” he yells, and now heads are turning our way, more people
looking at me, which I do not need, which I cannot handle. I need to be alone. I need to get it together. I try to push away, but Dean grabs my shoulder and shoves me back across the floor, and now this is getting really bad because my instincts are kicking in, instincts forged on Revenant sparring mats. My body is screaming to fight, my hands balling into fists, my vision flaring red. And I’m fighting it, because Alayne wouldn’t do that, wouldn’t grab him by the back of the head and smash his face against a beam, but I’m losing that fight and sooner or later Alka is going to take control.

  “Now, let’s all just calm down,” a meek voice says. It’s Jasper, the shy Nethro with the enormous glasses that I met on the first night. “We’re all Wizards here, are we not? We—”

  But before he can finish, Dean shoves him, and Jasper plummets back, falling hard onto the floor. A crowd is forming all around us, gawkers and agitators, shouting and pointing and laughing. That just makes Dean bolder. He turns in a circle, soaking up the attention with an intolerably smug grin. “You like spilling beer on people, huh?” he taunts. “Well, two can play that game!” He winds up his goblet, beer sloshing out and I grimace because I know as soon as it hits my face I’m going to snap and then it’s all over.

  But it never hits me because there’s a hand on his wrist, holding him back. He spins around and there’s Prince Talyn, towering over him, his body relaxed but his eyes blazing with intensity. “No,” Talyn tells him, his voice iron. “We don’t do that.”

  Dean jerks free, his stein flying out of his grip. “Get your hands off me!” he growls, and this was apparently the last straw because he winds up and takes a swing at Talyn’s face.

  Which Talyn casually dodges, listing to the side with incredible speed, his expression calm, even bemused. Dean hurtles past him then spins around and swings again, and again, and again. The crowd hollers and cheers as Talyn weaves around his punches, practically dancing as he slides on his feet. He makes it look effortless, but I see the skill, the precision in each move. He’s wearing a sleeveless purple shirt, its silk loose and billowy, and I can see the muscles in his shoulders tense and relax, see the way his eyes follow and anticipate every one of Dean’s strikes. Talyn isn’t just some pampered, smooth-talking prince. He’s a trained fighter.

  The ninth time’s the charm, as Dean’s fist very lightly grazes Talyn’s cheek. The crowd bellows, and Dean lets out a triumphant whoop. Talyn smiles, too, and then there’s a dark blur as his fist shoots forward in a brutal jab, so fast even I can barely see it, like a striking hawk. There’s a wet crunch and Dean falls back, clutching his face as blood streams out through his fingers. “You broke my nose!” he warbles, and Talyn just shrugs.

  I’ll grant Dean this much. He’s not a quitter. With a primal howl, he grabs a chair and rushes right at Talyn with it raised overhead, even as Talyn leans back, preparing to dodge.

  “Stop!” a voice calls out, and amazingly Dean does, freezing in place, like he’s been hit with a blast of ice.

  The crowd goes instantly silent. Every head turns to the back of the room, to the booth where Marius is sitting, his arm still around Vyctoria, watching the whole thing play out. “Seriously, Dean,” he says. “Enough.”

  Dean listens, dropping his chair. “He broke my nose, Marius!” He jabs a bloody finger at Talyn. “He broke my godsdamned nose!”

  With a sigh, Marius rises to his feet, stepping away from the booth. Vyctoria shoots him an annoyed glance, then takes out a book and starts reading. Marius paces toward us, and I scuttle away, trying to push into the crowd and avoid getting any more involved. “Now, now, Dean,” he says, his voice soothing on the surface, with an undercurrent of menace growling beneath. “You were trying to hit him.”

  “But—he—” Dean sputters, blood still streaming down his face. “Marius, are you serious right now?”

  Marius clasps a hand on Dean’s shoulder. “What’s serious are my father’s instructions that the prince here be treated with the utmost hospitality, to ensure a sound diplomatic relationship between our great nations. And I don’t know about you, Dean, but I don’t think smashing a chair across his head really qualifies.”

  “That chair was never going to hit me,” Talyn says. “Just to be clear.”

  Marius ignores him, squeezing Dean’s shoulder harder. “Well, Dean? I think you owe our guest an apology.”

  “I’m sorry,” Dean says through gritted teeth. Even piss drunk and full of adrenaline, he knows who his boss is. “Won’t happen again.”

  “If it happens again, you won’t walk away.” Talyn takes a cloth towel off the bar and wipes his knuckles with it. “Now then. I think I’ve had enough of your Marovian hospitality. If no one minds, I’ll head back to campus.” He pauses, and across the crowd, his eyes find mine. “Lady Dewinter. Would you care to accompany me?”

  I swallow deeply. One thing’s for sure, I need to get away from this tavern, and Talyn just offered me an out. I turn back to my friends’ table to make sure it’s okay. Desmond’s jaw is hanging wide, Tish’s eyes are as big as saucers, and Fyl is nodding so hard her head looks ready to pop off. Do it, she mouths.

  “Yes. Yes, I would,” I reply. Talyn offers me a hand, and I take it, and we walk out together. I shoot one last glance over my shoulder at Dean hunched over, panting with fury, at Marius studying me with a furrowed brow, at the crowd gaping and gawking. Lying low might not be an option anymore. Perhaps it’s time for Alayne Dewinter to commit to being bold.

  The night air is brisk, a pleasant change from the sweltering heat of the tavern. We walk through the village square side by side and don’t say a word until we’re out of earshot, alone on the trail. With every step, I can feel my heart slowing down, feel the panic and the anger fading. Finally, when we’re deep in the woods, I turn to him. “Thanks for the help back there. My night was bad enough without getting soaked in beer.”

  Talyn glances down at me with a low little laugh. “I wasn’t worried about the beer. I was worried about you. I saw the look in your eyes. You looked ready to kill him.” I find myself staring at the curve of his long, lean neck in the moonlight, the tiniest traces of stubble on the underside of his chin. “Honestly, I was probably going to end up punching that boy no matter what.” He glances down at his knuckles, still flecked with blood. “My father told me to play nice and make friends. But I doubt that goes for loudmouthed bullies.”

  What can I say? I like him. “Well, Dean’s from a rival Order, anyway. I think you’re supposed to be enemies. Are you making friends in the Order of Javellos?”

  “The Order of Javellos,” Talyn repeats. “The problem with an Order full of students chosen for their cunning is that every single one thinks they’re the smartest person in the room.”

  “And you?”

  Talyn grins. “Well, I’m actually the smartest person in the room.”

  I can’t help but laugh. I don’t know what it is about Talyn, but something about him relaxes me. With all the others, whether it’s Fyl or Desmond or even Marlena, I still have to pretend, to keep up the front of Alayne. But it’s like Talyn sees right through it anyway, like he sees the real me. So I can just be myself. “You don’t seem to like it much here.”

  “Is it that obvious?”

  “Very,” I reply. “Is this school not up to your princely standards?”

  “Well, no, it’s not, but that’s not the problem.” We cross into a wide glade, and the moonlight hits him just right. The runic symbols are still painted onto his arms, but they’re faded, duller, like a mural after a rain, an afterimage ghosting across his black skin. “The truth is, I miss my home,” he says with a sigh. “I miss the desert heat on my face. I miss floating in the salt lakes. I miss the singing of the dawnswallows and the taste of elderfruit. I miss the smell.” He shakes his head, and the little silver beads at the ends of his braids tinkle like a wind chime. “Look at me, getting all sentimental.” He glances back my way. “Do you miss your home?”

  I know he means New Kenshir
e, but I think of that little apartment in Laroc, the one by the beach, the last place I saw my parents. Find the truth behind the lie. “More than anything.”

  Talyn nods. “I don’t fit in here. I don’t like the chill winds, the cold stone, don’t like the way the trees seem to follow me. And the people, the other students…”

  “You don’t like Marovians?”

  “I don’t like these Marovians,” Talyn says. “The constant squabbling over status, the obsession with rank and perception, everyone smiling those shark smiles while thinking about how they can knife one another in the back. Every single thing we do is a competition, and for what? A pat on the back from the headmaster? Pah.” Something flits across his face, a real hint of anger. “And the servants back there, the way they’re treated? Forced to grovel before us with fear in their eyes, terrified at every turn that they’ll be lashed or killed. It makes me sick.”

  Talyn has been full of surprises, but this is probably the biggest of all. “You don’t have Humbles in the Xintari Kingdom?”

  For once, he doesn’t have a quick reply, choosing every word carefully. “Things are different in my home. Those without magic, the Humbles as you call them, are protected by the law as much as we are. Wizards may not hurt them or mistreat them, and there are grave punishments for doing so. In the kingdom, the Humbles are not servants but fellow countrymen, who may live their lives as they please.”

  “But… you still rule,” I say. “The Wizards, I mean. You’re still in charge.”

  Talyn blinks, for once surprised. “Well, yes,” he says. “It’s the will of the Gods, after all.”

  I say nothing, turn away, let the moment linger in silence. Because of course. As different as Talyn is from the others, as much as he seems to understand me, he’s still a Wizard, a noble, a prince. As alike as we might be, there is still this yawning chasm between us that I can’t imagine how we’d begin bridging. He might be charming and handsome, he might have those impossibly deep eyes, but in the end, it’s not me he’s flirting with. It’s Alayne. And I can’t forget that.