Firebrand

by Antony John

  Ananias and I worked the winches that lowered the last of the sails, and the ship kicked in response. It was an amazing vessel. If Dare had access to a ship like this, then surely the other Guardians had as well in the past. It was yet another thing they’d kept from us.

  Once we’d come about and were heading due south, Griffin took over at the wheel. He seemed to relish the opportunity.

  I joined Alice below deck. Kyte’s trail of blood was terrifyingly easy to follow, and with each step I grew more anxious. Kyte’s body had been dragged to the same cabin where I’d left my grandmother Tessa. The mysterious seer had been exiled from our colony years before but had reemerged a few days ago to help us escape the pirates.

  I raised my hand but couldn’t knock.

  “We’ll deal with it,” said Alice reassuringly. “Whatever the history is with Tessa, we’ll deal with it.”

  She was wrong about that. Tessa wasn’t just connected to our colony but also to the pirates who had killed Kyte. How would Kyte have reacted to her in his final moments? Would he have told everyone that Tessa was Dare’s mother?

  “What am I going to say?” I whispered.

  “That you’re sorry.”

  “That’s all?”

  She tapped the door lightly. “Sometimes that’s all there is.”

  In the moments before Rose opened the door, my mind raced through everything that was wrong about this scene: Her father was dead because of pirates led by my uncle; I wouldn’t be able to hold her and console her, because my element hurt anyone I touched. Suddenly I felt like the last person who should be standing before her door, telling her that I was sorry her father had to die.

  There was a click and the door opened. Rose stood in the doorway, eyes red, face streaked with tears. Her hair was a mess, clothes disheveled, but she was still beautiful. Everything about the situation left me tongue-tied.

  She watched me without blinking, arms straight at her sides. She didn’t speak, either, didn’t make it easier on me.

  “I’m . . . I’m so sorry, Rose,” I said finally. “Kyte was—”

  Her eyebrow twitched, such a small movement, but it felt significant. Perhaps she wanted to hear what I had to say about her father, the man who’d tormented me my entire life. Wanted to hear me say how much I’d miss him, when we both knew the opposite was true.

  “I’m sorry,” I said again.

  She opened her mouth but still said nothing.

  The door opened wide and Dennis moved alongside her. Behind them, their mother was kneeling beside Kyte. His body lay on the floor on the very same blankets that Tessa had been using. They were soaked in his blood. I could see it everywhere, could smell it even.

  What I couldn’t see was Tessa.

  “I’m sorry, Dennis.” That word again, sorry. It felt less meaningful each time I said it.

  Dennis took his big sister’s hand and pulled her back—not roughly, but with determination. Then he raised his free hand. From behind me, air rushed past, filling the room. With his eyes still fixed on me, Dennis turned his fingers. A breeze began to circle around them, making their clothes flutter. Faster and faster the air moved, kicking up dust in swirling clouds. The blankets rose too, so that droplets of blood spattered across the walls.

  I couldn’t take my eyes off Dennis. Not even when Alice grabbed my sleeve protectively. Or when, with the slightest flick of his wrist, Dennis slammed the door shut so hard, it crashed against the already splintered frame.

  Rose was only a yard away, but the distance between us had never felt greater. A day earlier, we’d held hands, and I’d dared to believe that we were meant to be together. Now, without a word, Dennis had made it clear how his family felt about me.

  “Give them time,” said Alice.

  I stifled an angry laugh. “Kyte’s dead and Tessa’s gone missing, Alice. I don’t think time’s going to help at all.”

  She swallowed the urge to snap back at me. “Tessa will be on the ship somewhere.”

  Yes, I thought. And I know exactly where.

  I marched to the end of the corridor. Dare’s cabin door was closed, exactly as Griffin and I had left it. I half expected to find it locked now, to discover that I’d dreamed being inside the room.

  It opened just fine. The desk, shelves, and bed were exactly as we’d left them. The logbooks looked untouched. But something was different.

  One of the windows was wide open.

  “What’s going on, Thom?” demanded Alice. “That door was locked last night.”

  “It was unlocked when Griffin tried it this morning.”

  “And you didn’t say anything?” She turned her back to me and studied the map hanging beside the desk. She placed a finger beside the words Fort Sumter refugee colony. “Please don’t tell me that’s where we’re heading.”

  “You know it is.”

  She smacked the desk. “So we’re trusting our future to a map from Dare’s own cabin?”

  Instead of arguing, I walked over to the machine I’d touched earlier. When I placed my hand on it the message returned, but quieter than before.

  Alice didn’t move as the voice instructed us to gather at Fort Sumter, Charleston, South Carolina. I let the message play twice before I pulled my hand away.

  “Why didn’t you tell me about this stuff, Thom? It changes everything.” She returned to the map and used her fingers to make measurements against it. She was planning, just like always. “Even with a small crew, we can just about sail this ship. If there’s enough food and water, we’ll be all right.”

  “What about the Guardians? They’re sick.”

  “Tessa can help them.”

  I leaned out of the open window. “I don’t think Tessa’s here anymore.”

  Alice turned to face me. “What?”

  I closed my eyes and pictured the Roanoke sound as it had looked earlier: relatively calm, a gentle breeze. “I think she’s the one who unlocked the door during the night. I’m certain she opened this window, because it was closed when Griffin and I left earlier.”

  Alice chuckled, but it sounded forced. “Let me get this straight: You think she knew where to find a secret key. And even though she had an injured shoulder, you reckon she jumped out the window. So how did she swim?”

  “She didn’t need to swim. She just needed to stay afloat until the cutter picked her up.”

  “The pirate cutter? Why would they rescue her?”

  I couldn’t meet her eyes anymore. “Because Dare is Tessa’s son. The pirate captain is my uncle.”

  CHAPTER 5

  Impossible,” murmured Alice. She placed both hands flat on the table beside her. “Dare destroyed our colony. He killed your mother—”

  “You think I don’t know that?” I stomped over to the desk and prodded the logbooks. “It’s all right here.”

  She ran a finger along the spines. “If Dare’s your uncle, then the Guardians have known all along. Maybe they know this ship too.” She narrowed her eyes as she ran through the meaning of it all. “We need to get out of this cabin, Thom. And we need to lock the door.”

  “Why?”

  “The Guardians have been lying to us about Dare our entire lives. My guess is they don’t want us to know what’s in those logbooks. If they get in here, they’ll destroy them.”

  “And how are we going to lock the room?”

  Alice pointed to the door. A ring of keys dangled from the lock.

  “That wasn’t there earlier.”

  “Well then, I guess it’s another thing Tessa wanted us to see.”

  Once we’d locked the door, I headed straight to my father. The metal mesh of his cage had been too strong for me to break or bend, but I wouldn’t need to do either if I could open the lock.

  I stepped into the tiny room beneath the stairs and gagged at the rancid smell of vomit
and soiled clothes. Once my eyes adjusted to the low light, I saw the outline of his body lying horizontal against the far wall. I hated that Alice was seeing him like this. My father was a proud, strong man, but Dare’s men had savaged him.

  I fumbled the first key against the lock at the center of the cage. It wouldn’t work.

  “Don’t bother.” My father’s voice sounded empty. “Won’t work.”

  Hearing him speak made me work even quicker. I was desperate to get him out, but angry too. “You sure about that? We found them in Dare’s cabin.”

  He opened his mouth. Closed it again.

  “Why didn’t you say that he was our uncle? Why would you keep that from us?”

  Father didn’t respond at first, just breathed in and out slowly. “The morning after Griffin was born, thirteen years ago, Dare killed your mother. How could I explain that she died by her own brother’s hand?” He swallowed hard. “We couldn’t even avenge her death because he was gone . . . and we had no way to follow.”

  My hands were shaking. Alice slid the keys from my fingers and continued trying them, one by one. None of them worked.

  “He won’t have left the key,” said Father softly. “I’m sorry.”

  I’d been sure it would work. Sure that we’d be able to release him, get him out so that we could tend to him. Now I was certain that he’d be dead before we reached Fort Sumter.

  “Water,” he whispered, voice growing faint. “Griffin left a canister.”

  I felt around on the floor and found it. It was too big to pass through the tight metal mesh, so I poured it slowly through the top. Father turned his head slightly and opened his mouth, tried to catch the drops as they fell. After a moment, he grew tired and rested his head against the floor again.

  I took the keys from Alice and tried them all one more time. She didn’t stop me either. Just stayed beside me as I cycled through them.

  “Go find Ananias and Eleanor,” Father said finally. “If they combine their elements, they might be able to bend the lock.”

  I didn’t understand what he meant by combining elements. I wasn’t sure the lock would bend, either; the metal was the strongest I’d seen. But with no other way to get him out, I knew we had to try. The alternative was too grim to imagine.

  As we left the room, Alice removed a key from the ring. “This is the one to Dare’s cabin. We’ll open all the cabins we can, but not that one. If anyone asks where we found the ring, we say it was hanging beside your father’s cage. Understood?”

  I gave a nod and went to get Ananias. We needed to explore the ship, and fast. We needed food and a place for everyone to sleep. And Ananias and Eleanor had a job to do.

  »«

  One strike later, we’d opened most of the cabins and removed whatever we could use: blankets scattered haphazardly across the floors, utensils that had slid beneath rickety furniture. Even though there wasn’t much food on board, there was enough dried fruit, peanuts, and herbs to last a few days, which was more than we could have hoped for. More importantly, the hurricane had filled the ship’s water harvester. Once Rose emerged from her cabin, she’d be able to tell us if it was safe to drink.

  Ananias and I entered the final cabin together. “Father wants you and Eleanor to combine elements,” I said, tossing him another dirty, moth-eaten blanket. “He says it’s the only way to break the cage.”

  “I know. Fire and wind. He already asked me.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  He moved beside a porthole and stared at the sliver of barrier island to the west. The sun was low in the sky, bathing his face in orange glow. “I only found out about combining elements by accident, believe it or not,” he said, avoiding the question. “It was a few years ago. Eleanor and I were holding hands. She told me to make a flame. She wanted to see if she could move the air around it—make it dance, she said.” He closed his eyes, savoring the memory—not of the flame, I suspected, but of holding hands. His mouth slipped into an easy smile. “Turns out, our elements combined. She blew that flame three yards. Set light to a bush. I must’ve dumped a beach’s worth of sand on it before the fire went out.”

  Story over, he seemed to become aware of me again. The smile faded.

  “What did you say to Father, Ananias?”

  He shrugged. “I said I couldn’t help him. Not yet.”

  “Why?”

  “Because Eleanor won’t hold my hand anymore. She won’t speak to me, or look at me. She won’t talk to Alice, either. Or her parents. Something is really wrong, and I don’t know what to do. I’ll give her space if that’s what she needs, but it’s like she’s slipping away from me. From all of us.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “I don’t know. Honestly, I don’t.”

  I still wanted him to ask for Eleanor’s help. Kyte, Guardian of the Wind, was dead. Dennis had the element too, but he was in shock. Only Eleanor could do this, and if Kyte was correct, our elements were growing weaker all the time. And yet, as I looked at my brother’s face, I knew I had to let it go for now. It was the first time I could remember seeing him cry.

  »«

  Shortly before sunset, we assembled on deck. The three Guardians, too weak to stand, sat in a semi-circle around Kyte’s dead body. Dennis hugged his mother tightly, crying into her hair, while she stared ahead, unblinking. Rose stood beside her father’s head, staring down at the man she’d spent her life trying to please.

  No one spoke. Someone should have been offering thanks for his life and blessings for his safe passage to whatever lay beyond. But what thanks could be offered for a life cut short? How could we hope for safe passage while his rust-red clothes reminded us how sudden and violent his death had been?

  Rose knelt beside her father and whispered something to him. I couldn’t hear what she was saying. When she was done, Dennis spoke, and their mother, Marin. Finally, Rose and Dennis took Kyte’s hands and tried to lift him. His torso shifted a little, but that was all. Rose gritted her teeth and pulled harder. The body barely moved. In the moment before she let go, Rose let out a guttural cry that split the air.

  It was Ananias who eased her away. It should’ve been me, but I didn’t know what I was supposed to say or do anymore. When Ananias told me to take Kyte’s other shoulder, I did it without thinking. Alice and Griffin took his feet, and together the four of us lifted Kyte from the deck.

  I was dripping sweat, but also shaking despite the warm wind. When we heaved him onto the rail, I felt the full weight of him, the enormity of a life.

  Kyte hit the water hard and disappeared beneath the waves. When he reemerged, he was already several yards away. I kept my eyes trained on the body, shocked at how quickly it disappeared from view.

  “We should return to Roanoke,” croaked Marin. “You all heard what Kyte said: We’ll lose our elements if we continue on this course.”

  I didn’t want to cross her, especially now that she’d lost her husband, but no one else seemed willing to speak either. “Other Plague survivors have managed without elements,” I reminded her. “We will too.”

  She pressed her fingertips against her temples. “We’re not like other survivors, Thomas.”

  “Until a week ago, I was exactly like them.” I signed so that Griffin would understand too. “We can’t take on the pirates. There are too many of them, and they have weapons. If they were willing to risk everything to get to the solution before, they’ll risk everything again now.”

  “The solution isn’t real—”

  “But the pirates think it is,” interrupted Alice. “Look, there’s a refugee colony near Charleston. We can get there in a couple days. It’ll give us a chance to rest. Maybe it’ll be better than what we left behind.”

  I expected Alice’s father, Joven, to have something to say about that. The fact that Alice had suggested it would normally have been reason enou
gh for him to forbid the plan. Now he was silent. He wasn’t even looking at her, but at Eleanor, several steps removed from the rest of us.

  Alice’s mother, Tarn, gave a long sigh. “What if it’s deserted?” she asked.

  Alice shrugged. “Then we’ll settle it ourselves. If it worked once, it can work again. Just like Skeleton Town.”

  “And if there are rats?”

  “Then we have the solution,” replied Alice, without hesitation. “Dare risked everything to get to Griffin. It has to mean something.”

  I stopped mid-sign and glanced at Griffin. I wasn’t the only one either. As he looked from one to another of us, I was sure he was connecting our odd behavior to that word: solution. But either he’d already worked out that he was the solution, or he still didn’t understand. I hoped the latter.

  I shot Alice an accusing look. She had no business revealing that Griffin was the solution. What if the Guardians didn’t already know, and turned on him? We’d risked everything to keep him safe. All I cared about now was finding somewhere that my brother could live normally. But as Alice stared right back, it hit me: She truly believed that Griffin might be a solution to the Plague. Even more surprising, I wasn’t certain that she was wrong. After all, we were the only people who could control the elements. Was it so difficult to imagine that we might do even more?

  Marin interrupted my thoughts. “So how long do we stay in this new colony of yours, Thomas? A week? A month? Forever?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Of course you don’t. How could you? You’re not even an Apprentice.”

  I told myself it was her grief talking, but in truth, she meant every word of it. “Where we’re going, there won’t be Apprentices,” I reminded her. “Or Guardians.”

  “Hmm.” She stared ahead, as if I didn’t really exist. “And that’s what this is really all about, isn’t it? It’s not about the solution, or finding a new colony. You just want us to know what it’s like to live without elements.” She reached for her children’s hands, but only Dennis was by her side. “It’d feel good, wouldn’t it, to take that away from us? To give us a taste of how life has been for you.”