It Ends in Fire

by Andrew Shvarts

  My vision flares red and I taste blood and I realize in one rush just how much pain I’m in. Every muscle in my body aches. My face feels singed from the blast. The back of my head throbs from the impact against the parapet, and there’s the matter, of course, of the guy on top of me, the student who slammed me into the ground so hard I’m afraid I broke a rib. Gasping for air, I roll around and see him. Marius Madison.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Dewinter?” he growls.

  I shoot him a bloody-toothed grin, my eyes wild with triumph. “Winning.”

  The final horn blows. The match is done.

  Referees descend on us, hurling Marius off me, jerking me up to my feet and dragging me away. Everyone is screaming, everywhere, in the stands, on the field around us. The professors are trying to maintain order, shouting something about “this all being sorted out,” but they’re drowned out by the din. Marius glares at me with eyes full of utter hate. Behind him, just past the Vanguard fort, I can see a pair of referees loading Dean onto a stretcher. His hand hangs limply at his side, the skin charred like a roasted hen. I’m no doctor, but I don’t think he looks good.

  Groundskeeper Tyms grabs me by the shoulders and ushers me back into the Nethro fort. The referee I stripped is gone; maybe she woke up, or maybe she was carried away. The other Nethros are all in there, looking like survivors of a great battle. A long, bloody slash runs along Tish’s cheek, Desmond is caked in dirt, and Zigmund cradles his left arm, which is obviously broken. At the sight of me, he breaks out into booming laughter, and Tish shoots me a small grin. “We did it,” Fyl says, slumped over by the chest. “We got the gems in. Your plan worked. We actually won.”

  “You didn’t win a thing,” Tyms growls. “Not until the judges decide your play was valid. And good luck with that.” I’d argue he’s being a bit biased, but on the other hand, I guess I did choke out one of his referees. So I say nothing as he slams the door shut, sealing us in.

  “What happened out there? At the Vanguard fort?” Tish asks. “I saw an explosion.”

  I slump down against a wall, wincing as my whole body aches and throbs. “That was Dean Veyle. What’s left of him.”

  Desmond practically faints.

  It takes more than an hour for the judges to come to a decision, an hour of us cooped up in that fort, an hour that feels like a week and a half. A nurse comes by to put Zigmund’s arm in a sling. Tish passes out from exhaustion. Desmond paces so much he practically wears a hole into the floor until Fyl comforts him with an arm around his shoulders. I mostly just slump on the ground. I’m at that point beyond anxiousness, when you just close your eyes and wait for the inevitable. One way or another, it’s all out of my hands.

  The door flies open, and Tyms leans back in. “Come on,” he barks. “Follow me.” We stagger out after him into the light, and the first thing I notice is how quiet it is. The stands are still packed, but everyone is dead silent, the tension so thick it’s suffocating. All of the other contestants in the game are already out on the field, all the ones who can still stand, anyway, gathered around their respective forts. Tyms rushes us out to join the other ten Nethros, the ones who played the previous two rounds, in a neat line. Professor Calfex stands at the front of our group, and when our eyes meet, I can’t read her expression. Admiration? Concern? Distrust?

  Then all eyes turn to the front as Headmaster Aberdeen emerges, pacing down to a platform at the edge of the field. His expression isn’t hard to read. He looks absolutely livid. A tight knot clenches in my stomach. I hadn’t realized Aberdeen would be involved in the ruling. Anxieties race through my mind like invasive species. What if I got something in the rules wrong? What if the judges are biased and don’t care? What if they noticed the tile moving and link it to me? If the judges rule against us, I’m not just going to lose the game. I’m going to be expelled.

  Headmaster Aberdeen clears his throat. When he speaks, his voice projects out of every horn in the arena. “After great consideration and exhaustive review, the judges have reached their verdict,” he says. “The play was valid. With eleven points total, the Order of Nethro is the winner of this challenge.”

  The roar of the crowd is the loudest thing I’ve ever heard.

  CHAPTER 23

  Now

  The next few hours are a haze.

  I remember a few scattered images: the Nethros lifting me up on their shoulders, the crowd swarming the arena, the professors shouting and arguing, the heat, the din, the light. I remember my heart thundering against my ribs, the world throbbing red and black, the pain and exhaustion and exultation and relief. I remember the world growing dark before collapsing hard onto the grass.

  I awake in the infirmary, a long stark-white building at the far end of campus, in a firm bed hidden behind a billowing white canopy. I can’t see the other students there, but I can hear them, other victims of the Balitesta game. The room hums with moans and groans, a few scattered sobs and other more awful sounds, hacking gasps and crunching bone. There’s a bandage wrapped around my head, holding a gauze to the cut in the back, and my skin is glowing a soft, sparkling green. Healing Glyphs. Good ones too, because all those aches and pains are gone, replaced by a floaty numbness.

  “Welcome back,” a voice says.

  I roll over. It’s Talyn, sitting in a chair by my bedside. He’s still wearing his gear from the Balitesta game, dirt-stained leather, and he looks rougher than I’ve ever seen him, with messy hair and a long gash running along his forehead. “What are you doing here?” I ask.

  “I wanted to make sure you were all right. You fell pretty hard back there.” His lips twist into a playful smirk. “If you died, I wanted to make sure I was here to hold your hand and hear your dramatic last words.”

  “You’re out of luck then, because I’m definitely not dying.” I sit up. A dull pain flares in the side of my temples, but otherwise, I feel fine. “Are you even supposed to be in here?”

  “No.” He shrugs. “That’s what windows are for.”

  I have to fight back my smile. “You didn’t have to come here.”

  “I know. But I wanted to.” He slides forward, extending me his hand. “Now, are you going to lie there for another hour until a nurse comes to check on you, or do you want me to show you just how I did it?”

  Now the grin’s too strong to fight. I take his hand, savoring its warmth, and I let him help me up out of the bed. My body aches but I can still move well enough, and we sneak out of my canopy, ducking behind a pillar and then sliding out through an open window. We’re on the first floor, but the window is still up pretty high, so Talyn goes first and then helps me out, one hand firm on my hip and the other holding mine. He’s strong, deceptively strong for that lean frame.

  Once we’re both on the ground, he steps back and offers me his arm. “Now then. May I have the honor of escorting the glorious victor back to her dorm?”

  “Only if you promise never to call me that again,” I say, and slide my arm through his, and, Gods help me, I love how he feels. We stroll side by side over the cobblestone paths of the quad, passing between the other Orders. It’s a bright night, the moon a wide, round disk overhead, but most of the other students are indoors, recovering from the day’s events. The few who are out stare at us, pointing and whispering. I try not to make eye contact, try to just keep going, but it doesn’t matter. The days of lying low are done. This is my path, whether I want it or not.

  Two students walk past us, wearing cloaks in Vanguard gold, and they glower at me with so much hate I almost expect a fight to break out. “I take it the Order of Vanguard is not pleased,” I say when they’re out of earshot.

  Talyn lets out a low chuckle. “Oh, they are very much not. Marius is absolutely livid. After you fainted, he stormed off the field, red-faced, shaking. It was glorious.” Talyn’s blinding white smile shines through the dark. “I’d recommend watching your back, though. They’re not going to let this go.”

  “That’s the price
of winning.”

  “You didn’t just win. You served them the humiliation of the century. You made history.” It sounds like he’s making a joke, but when I look at him, he’s absolutely sincere.

  “Please. It was nothing.” I’m actually embarrassed. Why am I embarrassed? “I found a loophole in the rules and I took advantage of it, that’s all.”

  “You found a loophole in a seven-hundred-year-old game. That is very much something.” He stops, turning to me with his head thoughtfully cocked to the side. “Look. I’m no model of modesty. I’d like to say I hold my own cleverness in pretty high esteem. But I spent a month poring over Balitesta strategy and didn’t come up with anything half as clever as you. The boldness of your vision, the confidence, the way you moved out there…” He shakes his head, and there’s something in the way he’s looking at me, in the admiration, in the respect, that makes my breath stop in my throat. No one’s ever looked at me like that. “You were like a Goddess.”

  I turn away, because I have to. “You’re flattering me.”

  “I’m not,” he says. “But it looks like this is where I must leave you.”

  We’re at the steps of the Order of Nethro, where the heavy blackwood doors are shut. The two of us stand there, and I think neither of us wants this moment to end. “Right,” I say at last and reluctantly let go of his arm. “Thank you for coming to see me.”

  “Anytime,” he says, and with one last nod of his head, walks off back into the night.

  I let out the deepest possible exhale. There is so much I’m feeling, so much to process, and all I want to do, more than anything, is collapse onto my bed.

  So of course when I throw open the doors, every single student in the Order of Nethro is gathered in the common room. “Congratulations!” they all shout at once, a wave of cheers and hollers so loud it nearly knocks me back.

  I was only in the infirmary for an afternoon, so they must have been busy. The hall has been set up for a grand party. A giant hand-painted banner reading HOUSE NETHRO WINS hangs across the ceiling. The dining tables are covered with carafes of wine and trays of bread and cheese and delicate strawberry sugar cakes. The regular lanterns have been replaced with multicolored ones that spin on little clockwork axes and bathe the whole room in dancing light. Given how red everyone’s cheeks look, I’m guessing they’ve been celebrating for a while.

  “Alayne! ALAYNE!” Fyl pushes her way through the crowd to me. “Oh, thank the Gods you’re here!” I stagger back, because it’s a lot, but Fyl grabs me and jerks me into the room. All the Nethros crowd around me, patting my back, clasping my shoulders, and in the case of one especially drunk girl, planting a big kiss on my cheek. Tish winks at me from across the room. Zigmund grabs me in a bear hug and lifts me off my feet. And Desmond scrambles up onto a table, raising his goblet high as he wobbles on his feet. “To Lady Alayne Dewinter! The new captain of the Order of Nethro!”

  I turn to Fyl. “Captain?”

  “We’re supposed to spend the next week figuring out who our Order Captain is and having a vote and all that. But in this case, we all agreed it was pretty obvious.” Fyl shrugs, a shrug so big I have to wonder how many drinks she’s already had. “We did it, Alayne. We won! And we never would’ve pulled it off without you. You’re amazing.”

  “Oh, Gods, oh, Gods,” Desmond says as he staggers up, and he is very drunk. “My father is going to kill me! And you know what? I don’t care!” He turns back to the rest of the hall, throwing his arms out wide. “I! Don’t! Care!”

  “He’s going to care tomorrow,” Fyl says, and puts an arm around my shoulders, hugging me close. “When my father finds out I was part of the winning team, he’s going to absolutely lose his mind. I almost don’t want to write a letter just so I can tell him in person.”

  “Good for you,” I say, and I try to smile, but I’m feeling something new, a stab of guilt that I have no business feeling. This is the happiest I’ve seen Fyl, the most confident and outgoing. And it’s because of me, because she believes in me, because she believes in us. She has no idea who I really am.

  I down the goblet in a massive swig.

  The night’s a blur. I dance with Fyl as a lanky boy plays the lute, twirling her around the floor until we both collapse. I arm-wrestle Zigmund and lose disastrously. At one point I slump on a couch with Tish as they explain the nuances of Kindrali Isles politics. I drink another goblet, and another, and a shot of a green liquor from Zigmund that tastes like horseradish and makes every inch of my body burn. The world slips away in a warm, hazy blur, and I flit from corner to corner, from person to person, laughing and chatting and vanishing into myself.

  Is this what it’s like to be one of them? To grow up surrounded by this kind of camaraderie, this luxury, this uninhibited, unabashed joy? To not worry about when the next meal is coming, to not dread being discovered, to not have that simmering undercurrent, always present, of hate and rage? To just go through life without seeing the injustice and the suffering? To go through life without pain?

  To be loved?

  Then I see her. Marlena. She kneels at the far end of the room, framed by a throng of guffawing students, wiping up some spilled wine with a dark rag. Our eyes meet through the fray, and it’s like the sight of her is a splash of cold water, sobering me instantly, jerking me out of that glow. These aren’t my real friends. This isn’t real love. And I’m not Alayne Dewinter.

  I need to get out of here.

  I jerk my head at her, and she gets the message, responding with a curt nod. “I need some fresh air,” I say to no one in particular, and push my way through the partying crowd, out the doors, and into the night.

  The air is cold, bracing, and I welcome its bite. The rest of the campus has gone dark, the courtyard lanterns out, and there’s no noise save the rumblings of the party. I pace toward a bench and sit down, closing my eyes, in part to let the cold wash over me but also because the world was starting to spin a bit and I need it to stop.

  There’s a rustle of motion and I look up to see Marlena sliding onto the bench next to me. “Oh, good,” I say. “I wanted to talk to you, but I didn’t know if you could get out of there.”

  “It’s fine. Everyone in there is too drunk to notice a missing Humble.” She turns to me, one narrow eyebrow perfectly cocked. “I’m just impressed you were able to make it to a bench.”

  “I’m not that drunk,” I protest, gently resting a hand on her shoulder. “I’m just a little pipsy.”

  She looks at me, at my hand on her shoulder, then back at me. “You just said ‘pipsy.’”

  “Okay, I’m drunk.” I pull away, leaning my head back against the cold metal of the bench’s railing. My stomach feels warm, and every word takes just a little too much effort to get out right. “Too drunk. Should’ve been more careful.”

  I’m starting to realize that having this conversation drunk is a bad idea in and of itself, but she doesn’t react. “Please. You deserve to enjoy yourself and relax. After what you did today?” Her features are hard, her face lean and angular, but when she smiles, it’s like she’s someone else altogether. “Honestly, I didn’t think your plan would work, but you pulled it off. You won against all odds. You were amazing, Lady Dewinter.”

  “Call me Alk… call me Alayne,” I get out. I don’t know why, but it somehow feels like less of a lie. “And I couldn’t have done it without you. Your lessons, your help with the rules, all of it. This is as much you as it is me.”

  “No. I helped you learn but you’re the one who took the field. You’re the one who actually did it,” she says, head tilted to the side. “Maybe it’s foolish but I really believe you can do this. I believe you’re going to win the Great Game. I believe you’re going to take me out of here.”

  The sting of guilt I felt earlier is now a lance, driven clean through me. The admiration of Fyl and the other Nethros was bad, but even if I let them down, they’d still go on to lead privileged, happy lives. But there’s a desperation in Marlena, an i
ntensity that rattles me to my core. She’s bet it all on me. If I fail and let her down, if I somehow get caught and this gets traced back to her, she’ll die a brutal death. This stranger who’s barely known me has staked her life to mine. “Why?” I ask.

  “Why what?”

  “Why are you doing this? Why are you risking everything?” I feel bad asking, but I’ll feel worse not knowing. “What is it that you’re so desperate to run away from?”

  There is a long pause, incredibly long. I can see her brow furrow as she thinks, see her eyes dart around as she considers the possibilities of what to say. She breathes deeply, her chest rising and falling, and at last she speaks. “I’m not running from anything. It’s what I’m running to,” she says at last, gazing off into the dark of the distance. “I’m running to freedom. I’m running to be me.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  When Marlena speaks, her voice is tight, choked, like it’s hard to even get a word out. “I was born on this island, like my mother before me, and her mother before her,” she says. “Born under a contract that obligates me to serve here. Born into this life. From the minute I could walk, all I knew was service. Washing dishes. Dusting shelves. Carrying water and serving food and changing sheets. Girl, bring me a drink. Girl, sort my books. Girl, girl, girl.” She spits the word like it’s poison. “And if I did everything right, if I tried my hardest and was the brightest and the best, then I could earn a spot at some professor’s side, transcribing his lectures and sorting his books. That was the most I could ever hope for, the most I could even dream of being, the most I could ever aspire to. Being a slightly better servant.”

  I breathe deeply, and the moment has changed, become heavy, somber, raw. “Marlena…”