The Fire Thief

by Erin St Pierre

  Please let it not be human.

  “In,” the leader snapped.

  Her face flushed hot, and her eyes burned. She pulled herself up and rolled her shoulders back.

  Just another fighting pit. Just another fight.

  Against a fae.

  She stepped into the tent.

  A table and four black velvet chairs stood in the middle of the space. Porcelain plates heaped with meat and overcooked vegetables steamed beside a jug of dark liquid. Blood? By all the darkness, no!

  Tucked in the far corner of the tent was a bed laden with pillows and furs. Oil lamps lit the gloomy space.

  Not a prison tent then.

  “Lieutenant, keep two guards stationed at this flap at all times, and another two on each corner,” the leader snapped to the dark-skinned, handsome fae.

  “Yes, Captain Radomir.”

  Her stomach lurched. Were they trying to keep her in, or keep something else out? Both, she decided. Better to assume the worst. That’s what Klaus would do. Her heart ached with longing for him.

  The tent flaps folded closed behind the lieutenant. She was alone with the fae leader. Captain Radomir.

  Radomir walked to the table in two easy strides and pulled out a chair. A chin jerk indicated she should sit.

  She crossed her arms over her chest, rolling her weight onto one hip. This was just like the standoff with Averin outside the store where she’d bought her boots, when she’d worked so hard to look bored, intimidating, the underdog waiting to pounce.

  Klaus would be so mad at her right now. She could practically hear him screaming in her ear, What in all the darkness do you think you’re doing? He’s fae! Do you really think this is a good time to assert yourself?

  She pursed her lips, both at Klaus and Radomir, and raised one eyebrow. She let her gaze drag down Radomir’s tall, powerful frame. He carried himself with such preternatural stillness. Did all fae look so … so animal?

  “Start talking,” she commanded.

  Radomir’s smirk widened. He sauntered to a second chair on the opposite side of the table and sat. Grin in place, he loaded his plate with food. “Don’t worry. It’s only stag.”

  She swallowed hard but didn’t sit. Had he read her thoughts? Was that even possible? Or had he heard the stories whispered among humans about fae?

  Even though she was ravenous, she knew better than to eat food offered by an enemy. Especially food that smelled as bad as this did. What if it was magicked to poison her but not him? Poisoned food that tortured her for days was something she could easily imagine this monster enjoying.

  Arms folded across her chest, she demanded, “Where are we?”

  Radomir poured himself a glass of the red liquid. Thick and dark, it stank of stewed fruit mixed with his unique strawberries-and-honey smell. But at least it wasn’t blood.

  She shivered. Since when could she read smells the way Klaus read his newspapers? Worse, even as she stood there trying to bluff her way through the nightmare, her limbs seemed longer than she remembered. Too streamlined. It gave her no comfort that her muscles felt stronger, more powerful. The same animalistic quality Radomir possessed. This body was nothing at all like her body. Could a glamour run bone deep?

  Radomir put his goblet down. “Ealvera War Camp.”

  She’d never heard the name before. What kingdom was it in? Or was it on another continent entirely? Her gnawing hunger evaporated.

  “We’re still in Atria.” Radomir had at least spared her the indignity of asking. He straightened the spoon on his place setting. “At the edge of the Ealvera Forest.”

  Her eyes flicked to the place setting where Radomir had drawn her chair. She inched closer to the table on numb feet. Her fingers rasped on the carved backrest as she pulled the chair out farther. She sat. “Why am I here?”

  “I told you,” Radomir said around a mouthful of meat. “I’m taking you to King Darien Pyreaxos.”

  Her eyes narrowed. “There’s nothing Darien Pyreaxos could possibly want from me. And I’d sooner die than serve a fae.”

  Radomir’s fork slammed down on his plate. Gravy and onion sloshed on the white tablecloth. “King Darien to you.” He hefted his knife and picked at a piece of meat lodged between his perfect white teeth. Sharp canines glinted. Had he done that on purpose? “Don’t get ahead of yourself, little girl.”

  She tried to stop the chill that ran down her spine but failed.

  Radomir’s eyes dropped to her chest, narrowing on something there.

  She clenched the table until she realized he wasn’t staring at her breasts but rather at the chain attached to her amber pendant. It poked from beneath her filthy clothes.

  Radomir pointed at it with his knife. The angle of his wrist told her he knew exactly where to stick that blade and when to twist. “That pendant has been working as a beacon. It’s been sending out signals for a year now. All those earthquakes. Just waiting for someone to find you.”

  The earthquakes—

  Deny. Deny. Deny.

  “It’s just a stone.”

  “Just a stone?” Radomir scoffed. “We suspect it tapped into your powers to create the glamour that kept you hidden for eighteen years. Just another worthless human.” He scoffed at the word human and went back to cutting his meat. “I guess Averin and his little sidekicks saw it. That broke the glamour, to reveal—” He waved his knife at her. “You. The fae you’ve always been.”

  She spat on his fancy carpet. “I am not fae. And I will never serve you.”

  His charcoal eyes twinkled. “Doesn’t matter what you think, little girl. You’re a weapon coveted by nations and kings, and with power enough that the entire continent felt it when you were born. We’ve been looking for you ever since.” He leaned on his elbows and pointed his knife at her. “Then Teagarta was hit with that earthquake. We all knew it was you. It was a race to see who got there first.” His cruel smile broadened. “I beat everyone to it. My men and I searched for you, but we couldn’t find you.” He sniggered and shook his head. “Funny, that, how you were less than an hour away.”

  Her world stilled. Bile rose in her throat. The fae who held her captive and intended to give her to his king had killed Tarik.

  She snatched up her empty plate and—

  Radomir leaped from his chair. And then she was flying.

  She slammed into a thick, wooden tent pole. The plate shattered. Her fingers clawed around a broken shard of porcelain. “Bastard,” she screeched.

  Radomir gripped her hand holding the glass shard. She spat a glob of saliva at his cheek and angled the shard at his ribs. He dodged the spit and tore the glass from her with an effortless wrist flick. It thunked onto the carpet. He grabbed her by the collar and slammed her into the pole.

  Head spinning, she jabbed her knee into his groin. Radomir blocked like he knew it was coming. He rammed his knee into her pelvis. She bit down to keep from screaming.

  His forearm smashed into her throat, pinning her to the pole. Using all her strength, she landed a punch to his abdomen. He didn’t flinch. His free arm wrapped around her wrist and twisted it back until her bones screamed in pain. One more twist, and her hand would crack.

  “I was given instructions not to kill you.” Radomir’s hot breath scorched her ear. “But no one said anything about not hurting you.”

  She hissed, another inhuman, merciless sound.

  A half smile tugged at his lips. “I made no such promises about you.” His arm pressed harder into her neck, almost cutting off her windpipe.

  She managed to croak, “I will kill you for what you did in Teagarta.”

  The pressure on her throat mounted.

  Desperate for air, she clamped her hands around his arm and tugged. His leather-clad arm sizzled beneath her touch. Her hand burned through to his skin. If she could have breathed, she’d have retched at the stench of burning flesh.

  Radomir barely seemed to notice. Face pressed right to hers—it would have been beautiful, she realized,
if it weren’t so void of soul—he whispered, “I suggest you behave, Stasha. My men haven’t seen a female like you in many months. One wrong move, and there will be no one here to help you.” He was close enough to kiss her. “And if you think my soldiers are bad, you have no idea what’s lurking out there in the forest.” His words dropped even lower. “Things that will make me seem as gentle as a lamb.”

  Her lungs ached, begging for air, for release. The edges of her vision blurred. She spat one last glob of phlegmy saliva at him.

  He didn’t dodge this time. His eyes turned feral. He released her throat to slap her face. Her head snapped back, and she folded to the floor.

  It didn’t matter. Regardless of what this bastard did to her, she would make him pay. For Tarik. For Lenka. For Hathrine’s pain. For Klaus. For everything.

  Stasha shifted on the large bed someone—Radomir, she guessed—had tossed her onto. Her cheek ached where he’d hit her. That meant she couldn’t have been out for very long if she truly were fae, as he claimed. Otherwise, surely fae healing would have taken over?

  “Cursed fae.” After Radomir almost crushed her windpipe, the words were little more than a croak. “Curse every single one of them.”

  Someone cleared his throat.

  She whipped around. The dark-skinned lieutenant with the pretty, pointed face stood at the tent flap. His baldric bristled with blades. As did his waist. He even had a sword slung across his back. He stood so unnaturally still that if he hadn’t cleared his throat, she wouldn’t have noticed him.

  Her skin crawled.

  He’d been watching her sleep.

  A snarl ripped from her throat. “Creepy, or what?”

  The lieutenant blinked.

  Yes, fae. She may be the underdog here, but that didn’t mean her bite wasn’t just as bad as his. Especially in this horrible fae body.

  “You’re to wash and dress. Captain Radomir’s orders.” The lieutenant gestured a perfect hand to a copper bathtub that had replaced the table.

  What a wonderful sight! Heated by a brazier of glowing coals, steam billowed from it.

  “We have a long journey ahead of us,” he added.

  Oh, to lower her sweat-and-mud covered body into the bath, but the lieutenant made no move to leave. Was he here to ogle her? One of Radomir’s soldiers she’d be thrown to if she didn’t behave?

  She glowered at him, then at the bathtub, and at him again.

  He didn’t even twitch.

  Bath time would have to wait. She forced her features into something as close to pleasant as possible. She was sure it looked more like a grimace. “What happened to my friend? The boy with the brown hair and the lame leg at my village?”

  “The one you bargained for?”

  “Yes.” She held her breath.

  “The captain never breaks his word.”

  She wasn’t sure if that was comforting, given the things Radomir threatened to do to her. “So he’s safe?”

  The lieutenant nodded at the bath. “I told you to bathe.” He rolled a fireball between his palms.

  “And I asked you a question. Is. He. Safe?”

  A long pause. “He was when we left him.”

  She sighed with relief. “I have no other clothes.”

  He nodded at the foot of the bed. A dark blue woolen dress and a thick blue cloak were spread over the fur blanket. Her eyes almost popped out of their sockets. She’d never worn a dress in her life. They were for ornamental women who lived in cities and never lifted a finger to do anything other than summon servants. Or that’s what Martka Gabika had always said. Faced with dressing in one, she agreed with the sour old woman.

  But it did make her wonder how the Pyreack fae saw her. A weapon to be dressed up like a doll? Without answers to all these questions, she had no hope of winning here. Time to woo her guard.

  Voice sugar sweet, she asked, “What’s your name?”

  A short hesitation, then a quiet, “Suren.”

  “Hello, Suren.” She shot him a sultry smile, the kind she reserved for tricking idiot boys like Ivan. “I’m Stasha. But I guess you know that.”

  Suren’s head bobbed, as if startled. His fireball snuffed out. “I know who you are. We all do.”

  “Right. I’m your new secret weapon.” She placed a finger on her chin and fluttered her eyelashes at him. “Any idea of what I’m supposed to be able to do?”

  Suren rolled an even bigger fireball. “The king knows. That’s all that matters.”

  She huffed a breath. “So, the king.… Where exactly does he hang out?”

  Suren frowned.

  A warning to moderate her tone. “I mean no disrespect. I’m just trying to understand why he wants me.”

  “King Darien has his court in Phyrturq.” Suren walked to the bath and swirled the water with a long, slender finger. “Temperature is perfect. Don’t waste it. A good night’s sleep is what you need now.”

  She ignored the hint. “And that’s where we’re going tomorrow?”

  A snorted laugh. “We have to cross Ocea. But first we have to get to Logral. That should take about three days at the most. Maybe five if we’re slow.”

  Logral, on the border with Ocea, was even further away than Reupa. So Radomir hadn’t lied when he said they were still in her home kingdom. And neither had Klaus’s newspaper when it had claimed that Pyreack was swallowing her land.

  But if they were only three days from Logral, they had to have traveled at least four weeks to get here. She had not been unconscious for a month.

  Suren seemed to notice her confusion. “You were spirited here. Or, at least, very close to here. We traveled the rest of the way on horseback.”

  Spirited. Like in the stories the Martka told about how fae disappeared with their prey amidst light and pain. The pain part they had right, the light, not so much.

  “Not that the Kingdom of Ocea still exists. It’s ours now.” Suren said ours as if that included her. Her lip curled with distaste before she could stop it. “Even with your gray eyes, you’re a Pyreack fae, Stasha. That makes you one of us.”

  Why did her eye color matter?

  Suren glanced out the tent flap. “That’s why I’m telling you this. It seems only right.”

  So he had a different view to his captain. Interesting.

  “I’m still getting used to being a … a fae, let alone a Pyreack fae.”

  “I saw the captain’s arm.” Suren’s voice was barely a whisper. “You branded him with a perfect handprint. No doubt that you’re Pyreack.”

  “I hope it hurt like seven lashes.”

  Suren grimaced. “Truth? Fire shouldn’t affect any of us.” He rolled another fireball to prove the point. “But with you.…” He looked at her through hooded eyes. Like he was afraid of her. Was that why he was rolling fireballs? And why did she even have fire magic? And how could she use it to escape before they crossed into Ocea?

  She pulled her feet up onto the bed. The sad state of her beautiful boots made her gasp. The red-stained leather was scarred, and the soft wool insides were rough with grit. She grunted as she unlaced them. These boots were supposed to be part of her quest for hope. Fat lot of good they’d done her.

  At least she still had her red ribbon.

  She ran her hands along her braid to find it. Filthy and hard as rope, her braid was caked with mud and not her precious finery.

  Her heart stuttered. Then she let out a long sigh. All things considered, it was hardly surprising that she’d lost Tarik’s gift. The last time she’d seen it was right after the fight with Averin, when she’d stuck it into … her pocket!

  Hands shaking, she dug for it. Her fingers brushed the smooth satin.

  It had survived! Hope wasn’t dead!

  She was meant to escape to rescue Klaus, and to avenge Tarik by killing Radomir.

  She froze. Never before had she wanted to kill a human. Not even when the Martka had tossed her in lockup for a week for stealing food to stop her and Klaus from starving to d
eath. Or when the Kňazer had tried to burn her alive.

  She tossed her shoulders back. Radomir wasn’t human. He was fae, and he’d killed Tarik and had threatened to burn Klaus. That put him on par with rats. Such vermin didn’t deserve to live. Not that killing Radomir would be easy. Any information she could glean would help.

  “Why’s the journey so long if you can spirit?”

  A guttural growl rumbled from Suren. “Get. Into. That. Bath. You smell like a sewer.”

  The hair on her arms and the back of her neck rose. She was pushing her luck with this animal, and that risked raising his suspicions. But something was stopping them from traveling to Logral in a matter of seconds. Perhaps that could work in her favor.

  “Your captain mentioned terrors in the forest. What lurks there?”

  The sound of marching boots outside the tent reached her. Fae spoke and shuffled about. The guard changing?

  Whatever it was, it wiped all expression off Suren’s face. He pointed at her bathtub. “Enough talking. Last warning. Get cleaned up, or I’ll scrub you myself.” But instead of leaving her, he folded his arms and watched her.

  Her eyebrows rose. “My bath time is your spectator sport?”

  “Captain Radomir doesn’t trust you. He said I was to stay here until you’re done. And then I’m to put that on your ankle.” Suren gestured to the floor next the bathtub. A schorl chain curled around a manacle lay on the carpet.

  She choked on her own saliva. “You’re chaining me like a dog?”

  “Can’t risk you trying to escape during the night.”

  “I thought you said I was one of you … us?”

  Suren shrugged. “Captain’s orders.”

  “Tell your captain for me that he can bathe in his own piss before that happens.” She lay back on the bed and closed her eyes as if she didn’t have a care in the world. Meanwhile, her super-sharp ears monitored Suren’s reaction.

  He huffed. “Stasha, don’t make things harder than they need to be.”

  Eye still closed, she said, “Harder for whom? Me or you?”