by Shannon Hale
Enna stumbled out of the tent and called Isi's name again. It was only then she understood that not all the heat she was feeling came from inside her. More choked the air of their camp than the horses and campfire could account for.
She could not see well for the orange fog and dim moonlight, but she spotted shapes gathered around their campsite. On the ground a few paces away from her, she thought she saw the lighter tones of what might be Isi's hair. From that direction a wind blew, brushing away the seeping heat, clearing her vision and hearing. What she saw then made her gasp and choke on the breeze.
Isi was kneeling on the ground. Behind her, a man in tattered Tiran blue held her shoulders and a naked dagger against her throat. Around the campsite stood more men, perhaps twenty, some on horseback, some dismounted. About seven held strung bows, arrows aiming at Enna. Two of the soldiers on foot she recognized as the men she had taunted and told to run. They looked nervous. No one else did.
Fools, she thought. Why risk their lives for three horses and meager supplies?
In a moment she could see that she could burn all the bows at once, but not without risk that the arrows would fire anyway and might still find her flesh. She could not burn the man at Isi's back without hurting Isi, but at least she could scald the dagger from his hand. And there would be wind, too, she remembered, and hoped it could take care of all the flying arrows. She had to be clever to avoid burning any more people. Visions of a smoldering battlefield swooped before her and made her shiver as though she could feel hot ash raining on her skin.
Still calculating and eyeing Isi for a clue, she said with some impatience, "Well what do you want?"
"Just you, Enna."
Sileph stepped from behind the line of horses and into the firelight, standing close enough to Enna to reach her in two strides.
"I came back for you," he said.
Chapter 18
His uniform was fraying at the cuffs, and his boots were covered in an inch of dried mud, but his hair was clean and combed and his face smooth shaven, as though he had prepared for their meeting. Standing before his men, she was struck again by how handsome he was and the palpable power of his presence, so unlike that of anyone she had known.
And this incredible man had searched for her, had wanted no one else. His look said that he still needed her, that he would forgive her, that his home would be her home. Her skin ached. Her neck remembered his touch.
"Enna, Enna." A sigh came up from his depths, full of sadness and struggle, and relief. "Enna, at last."
"You've been looking for me?" Her voice squeaked a little higher than normal.
"Yes," he said. "I have been running, mostly, and hoping. I said I would come back for you."
"Enna," said Isi, her voice full of warning.
Enna remembered then that Isi had a dagger against her throat and seven arrows were aimed at her own heart, but she looked back at Sileph, not quite ready to let him go.
"You, you're alive," she said lamely. "I wondered."
"Did you?" He raised his eyebrows. "Thinking of me, were you? Well, many of us did not make it through that one. I do not blame you, Enna, truly. War is brutal. I am just relieved that it is over. No matter now who won. But what has plagued me these past weeks is that you might not know, no matter the outcome, that I still wanted you."
He stepped forward, and she tensed as he put his arms around her shoulders and pulled her in. His smell engulfed her and she felt her knees wobble, but she placed her hands on his chest and pushed him back. He stepped away, though his eyes looked sad.
"Sileph," she said, trying to get an edge back in her voice. "I'm Bayern, and, and whatever you've in mind for us now, it won't work. I burned your army."
"Ah, well, the wisdom goes that what is fair in love is fair in war. We might be even now." He smiled at her. "You do not look battle scarred. You look wonderful."
She blushed and realized she was blushing because her clothes were dirty and her hair was surely a sight. The ridiculousness of that worry stuck in her mind, and as he continued to talk, flattering her looks, her bravery, her power, she found herself unable to be caught up again in the sound of his voice and the longing gaze in his eyes. For a moment she mourned the loss of his enchantment; then she thought about herself mourning it, and it occurred to her that it was all quite funny. So she laughed. Sileph paused midsentence and frowned.
"This is absurd!" She glanced around again, trying to ground herself in the reality of danger and not lose herself to Sileph. There was Isi. With a prickling of her skin, she realized that Isi was not just Isi—she was the queen. They did not know they had the queen of Bayern at their feet. But if they found out? She had to end this now.
"Absurd. What fools are we all. You, there," she said, pointing at one of the archers, "you're a fool, too. Put down the arrows, boys. Enna-girl doesn't want to have to burn you." She spoke with light-heartedness, but her pulse pounded in her throat. Please, please, she thought, please put them down. They did not move.
"Enna." Sileph's gaze locked hers. His arms reached out for her but dropped when she laughed again.
"You're a pickled plum, aren't you, Captain? I'll bet your nursemaid fell in love with you as soon as you could talk. I'll bet your da beat you out of jealousy over your ma. I'll bet this little persuasion gift of yours hasn't all been a festival, has it? But it worked on me, I'll admit. I'd've followed you to Ingridan and borne your children and bade my heart beat only in time with yours. But now I just feel sorry for you, Sileph, and I don't want to burn you, so please go away. Now."
Sileph smiled his marvelous smile. "I love when you resist."
"Don't," said Enna, her voice snapping with anger. "Don't try to seduce me with all that 'you're so powerful and so am I' nonsense. I've had enough, Sileph. Go away."
Sileph looked at her, and his expression changed from loving to confused to enraged. He shouted once and walked a tight, quick circle as though looking for something to hit. Then he turned suddenly back to her and pointed, his arm extended. "Do not think you can toss me aside, Enna. I have worked too hard to just let you go. You were going to be my answer, and instead, I lost everything."
He dropped his arms and for a moment looked tragic. "Tiedan blamed me for the loss, saying you only used to burn a tent or two, and you never would have broken your fire loose over our army if I had not held you captive for so long."
"Well, what do you know, at last Tiedan and I find common ground—we both blame you."
Sileph raggedly combed his hair with his hand and cast a nervous glance at the men behind him. He smiled and laughed a little. "I just have not explained, then. I want you to be with me. I promised you a house of white stone, three stories up overlooking a river. It was to be you and me, Enna. If it is not, then I just do not know which of us will live through this."
Enna felt a shift of heat. Someone was moving. In her periphery she saw Avlado, who was never picketed at night, standing much closer to Isi than he had before. Isi closed her eyes as though deep in thought.
"Hmm, let's see, who'll live?" Enna spoke louder and paced a little, hoping to keep their attention. "Your options don't look good tonight, Captain. This just might be a gamble you're destined to lose."
In that moment, Avlado reached over the shoulder of the man holding Isi and sank his great, yellow teeth into the man's hand. The man screamed and dropped the knife. Isi dropped to the ground and rolled away from his grasp as Avlado turned and planted his rear hooves in the soldier's back.
Then there was wind. Enna did not feel as strong a connection with Isi as she had when holding her hand, but even now she could guess what Isi would do, and their wind and fire worked together. Enna targeted the wood of the bows and arrows first, and those arrows that snapped loose flew wild in the gust of wind. One planted itself in the thigh of a soldier. With the flashes of fire, the horses reared and screamed. The soldiers dropped scorched bows and tried to calm their mounts. Others drew swords, which they quickly dropped wi
th shouts of pain. To Enna's relief, she saw that Isi had mounted Avlado. If Enna could not handle these men, if she could not escape without burning them, she hoped Isi would ride straight and safe back to Geric.
Some of the men started to advance on her, swords or no, when Sileph held up his arm. They halted.
"You will not harm her," he shouted. "She is mine."
He met eyes with Enna. He looked fevered, his eyes wet, his face red. He was sweating, and the muscles of his jaw were tight and bulging.
"Do not do this," he said slowly. "Do not make me kill. You know we are for each other. I made you what you are, and you will make me what I am to be. They were necessary lies. Do not let such trifles make you disbelieve that I loved you, Enna."
At his words, Enna felt her heart rip and rage with her blood. He stood before her looking as he ever had, but what she had seen when she loved him had faded, and in its place she glimpsed a desperate, proud, ruthless man. The cracked place in her chest cramped and throbbed, and she felt heat push hard through her entire body. She forced her voice to scrape out of her throat.
"Did you love me most when I was drugged and helpless, Sileph? Did you love me when I was so baffled by the king's-tongue that I actually thought you were a man? You loved a shell, then." Heat seeped out of her, and she let it jump into fire at her sides and back, tearing into the brush around her, the flames clawing at the air. "This's what I am, Sileph. This's what I am! You'd best run or I'll cook you. I'll do it. Run."
"You want me to burn? Then let's do it together."
Sileph leaped forward and pushed Enna to the ground. Before she hit the flames behind her, a quick, hard wind blew through them, sucking the air away and dismissing the flames into ash. Sileph landed on top of her, his hands scrambling for her neck. Burn him, came the thought, but he was too close, and she could not bear to do it. Wind battled his head and threw dirt into his eyes. He knelt up, wiping at them. Avlado's hooves knocked him in the chest. When he fell, Enna regained her feet and stumbled back.
Burn him now, came the thought. She hesitated. He stood and made to pounce again.
From behind Enna, from the dark fields to the north, a voice called. Sileph wavered, and Enna turned.
Finn rushed into the camp, straight at Sileph, and knocked him to the ground. He sat on his chest and punched him in the head twice before Sileph caught his breath and kicked Finn off him, sending him sprawling across the ground. When both men gained their feet, they drew their swords. They exchanged one or two blocks and thrusts, but before Finn or Sileph drove a sword home, before heat blistered Sileph's sword from his hand or burned the clothes from his body, before wind knocked him off his feet, something happened that Enna least expected.
A dagger flew into Sileph's back. He looked up, his mouth open silently. Two more daggers pierced his uniform, and he jerked, then fell, quite dead.
They all stood in silence a moment, looking at the body. Enna stared at the back of his head, breathless, feeling stunned and horrified and relieved at once. A soldier dismounted and took several steps toward the body, his hands up in the air to show he held no weapon. Enna recognized Pol, Sileph's lieutenant.
"Well, that is that," said Pol. Then, gesturing to the body and looking at Enna, he said, "May I?"
She nodded. He took the first dagger from Sileph's back, wiped it off on the dead man's uniform, and slipped it back into his own belt. He drew out the other two.
"I assume from the presence of these two daggers that I was not alone in wishing him gone?" he said.
A few of the soldiers laughed uncomfortably. All glanced around as if trying to figure out who might have been loyal to Sileph and if they would now start a fight in his defense. No one did. Many of the soldiers put away their cooled swords and looked nervously at Enna. Pol cleaned off the remaining daggers as if unaware of the tension.
"We should have done that weeks ago," said a low-voiced soldier, receiving his dagger back from Pol.
"Maybe they will let us back into Ingridan with the captain dead," said another.
"Let us see," said Pol.
They slung Sileph's body over the back of his horse and mounted. Pol bowed stiffly at Enna and said, "I hope we never meet again." They rode northeast.
Finn had not moved. He stood breathing heavily and looked weathered and tired, but he held his shoulders square and seemed ready to fight again if need arose.
"Hello," he said. He wiped his brow with the back of his sleeve. His eyes did not flick away from hers. He did not try to woo her, to flaunt his greatness, so opposite of all Sileph had been. He was just Finn, just happy to be with her again. That was, to Enna, an astonishing relief.
"Hello, Finn." She smiled and laughed a little because she felt herself starting to cry.
He walked to her, and quite unexpectedly, Enna felt shy. This is Finn, she thought. If this moment happens, we can't ever undo it. Then she realized, after all that had passed, that the moment had already happened, and she had been too dim to see.
He reached her and put his arms around her, fitting his face into her neck. She pressed the side of her face against his and let herself cry.
"Enna," he said, holding her tighter. Inside Finn's arms, Enna did not feel like the helpless girl shut up in an enemy tent, or the angry, blazing girl who had confronted Sileph. Now she felt she was herself again, just Enna, just who she wanted to be. His touch told her so.
He kissed her cheeks and her hair, his eyes shining as though he could scarcely believe it.
She put her hands on his cheeks to see his face, her thumb covering the scar he had received at Sileph's hand.
"You're so good, Finn. So good."
"I can be better," he said. "You'll see, Enna."
After a few minutes Isi returned, though Enna had not noticed that she had left, bringing Finn's horse in tow. She kept her eyes on the ground until Enna said, "Oh, it's all right, Isi."
Isi looked up and smiled. "Good evening, Finn. How's your mother?"
Chapter 19
The going was slow and painful. Enna never felt fully recovered from the struggles with Sileph, and the fever stormed inside her. Sometimes from halfway within a dream, she heard Finn's desperate voice—"Isi, please, she's so hot, you've got to wake up"—and then Enna would feel a breeze help push back the orange haze.
Once she dreamed of Sileph and saw again the moment when fire raged around her and she yelled that he loved a shell. She started awake, breathless, afraid that she was dead. Even in sleep, she was aware of the fever tugging life from her, but awake, she was conscious of Yasid looming on the horizon like a dangerous storm cloud. The fever, and the death it promised in its steamy breath, frightened her as much as the thought that she would live to reach Yasid and be cured. With fire blazing around her, she had said to Sileph, "This is what I am." Without the fire, what would she be?
But relief was palpable when Finn was near. With Enna lost in a fever haze and Isi tormented by wind, Finn became their caretaker. He cooked for them and scouted their path through bogs and stony hills, following as best he could Isi's old map. When Enna was especially sick, he tried to get her talking to take her mind away or asked Isi to tell stories. Or, at the worst moments, he took her in his arms and sang in his dry, low voice silly songs about swimming rabbits and no-tailed squirrels.
Their journey was further slowed by the river Suneast that had obviously swollen since the map had been drawn, and they spent three days looking for a crossing. After the Suneast, they followed a road beside a stream, occasionally meeting travelers with hair nearly as dark as the Bayern and skin the color of polished cherrywood. Finn caught fish and hare and traded some of his meat catches for dark, flat bread.
The other travelers did not speak their northern language. To no surprise to Enna, as often as Isi was well enough to stand and walk she was practicing on the southerners the language of Yasid outlined in her book.
"It takes some listening to figure out how they speak and get the accent down, but
I think I've about made it out."
"You would," said Enna. "You're amazing. Here's the extent of my gift of languages: Over there!"
"Over there," Finn shouted without looking up as he cleaned the cookpot.
They laughed, then had to explain the story to Isi, and Enna quickly found in the telling that it was not so funny to her anymore. She stopped speaking and looked away, shunning the various burning images awash in her mind. She had that haunting feeling again that if she just looked over her shoulder, she would see remnants of her handiwork—smoking tunics, blistering faces, mouths open to scream.
"Enna," said Finn.
Enna knew that, though terrible, the memories could not haunt her so fiercely if she did not still harbor the longing to burn. The thought of losing her intimacy with fire hurt almost as much as how it now burned her blood and skin.
Then at last, over two months from leaving the palace, they passed the border of Yasid and into Quapah, the first town. What first appeared to be a stone city wall proved to be built from bricks the color of the sand. The houses and buildings were smooth structures with small, high windows. Everything was pale and brilliant, flashing back at the sunlight and burning the eyes.
Isi asked a woman where to find the tata-rook, the fire worshippers. She wrinkled her nose as though she smelled something rotten and pointed beyond the city wall and grazing goats.
They led their horses across the scrubby grasses of the goat pastures, over a rocky ledge, and onto smooth, fine dirt again. Just at the sight of a rambling building, Enna felt her stomach squeeze tighter in dread. It was tidy and well laid. A stacked rock wall surrounded fields of green plants, vegetable fronds sticking their heads up through the pale soil, and rows of corn, cotton plants, and fruit trees with lustrous green leaves. This land was so much warmer and drier, and so much more open to the strikes of sunlight than the forest she knew, Enna marveled that anything grew at all.