The Fire Thief

by Erin St Pierre

  Averin’s hand swept to his chest. “Wounded, that’s what I am.” His grin belied his pain. “You forget that Trystaen answers to me. His magic is not too shabby, either.”

  Boa’s snigger morphed into a sigh. “And that, Prince Averin Trysael of Zephyr, is why I still deign to speak to you on occasion. You sometimes manage to save the day … after irritating me close to death.”

  Averin gave a mock bow. “I aim to please.”

  A high-pitched wailing jarred Stasha—and everyone—out of their post-victory euphoria. It sounded like an animal in pain.

  Boa swore and spun to the sound. “Frea? Who?”

  That was Frea?

  Stasha turned slowly, dreading what she’d see.

  The archer knelt on one knee beside a fae built like a mountain. Blond hair fell across her face, pressed against her bow.

  Stasha flushed with cold.

  Lukas.

  Frea looked up. Her twisted face echoed the agony of her keening. The bow jerked up and pointed at Stasha. “You did this,” Frea wailed. “You killed him. If we hadn’t come here, he would still be alive.”

  Boa stumbled. Her face resembled sun-bleached bones. The living tattoos danced erratically across her skin. “Not my Lukas. Not him. Please, no.”

  Averin bowed to Boa, low from the waist. “I’m sorry. So very, very sorry.”

  Stasha opened her mouth to add her shocked sorrow to Averin’s words—she hadn’t known Lukas for long, but she had liked him—but Boa brushed her away.

  The same hard, beautiful mask worn on the night Stasha had met Princess Boadicea of Ocea dropped over Boa’s dark face. “Stasha is not to blame for this,” she barked at Frea. “The Pyreack are. Like always.” Boa stomped ahead of them and reached Section H first. By the time Stasha, Averin, and Suren reached the top of the stairs leading into the mine, Boa had vanished into the darkness.

  Chest tight, Stasha took the stairs at a leap. Boa waited for her on the wooden platform. No one looking at the princess would ever guess that she’d just lost one of her closest friends and comrades.

  Stasha wanted to say something—as much as she disliked Frea, Lukas would have been alive if she hadn’t brought them here to free Klaus—but Boa’s posture did not invite condolences. Wracked with guilt, Stasha stared out over the cavern while she waited for Averin and Suren to join them.

  Averin had said to destroy the place, and the humans had taken him at his word. The hundreds of wooden platforms and rope ladders had gone. Broken ore carts littered the narrow pathways. The web of ropes holding buckets had been cut. But it was the black scorch marks that chilled her. That, and the absence of human slaves. Only Boa’s fae ran and fought against Pyreack guards with unerring speed and deadliness on the narrow walkways.

  How many humans had died to achieve this mess before the battle had shifted?

  Had Klaus survived?

  Stasha scrambled to climb down the rickety rope ladder, one of few to survive.

  Averin grabbed her hand. “Let me go first.”

  She blinked in surprise. “After everything, you don’t trust me to take care of myself?”

  “I don’t trust you not to bring the roof down on us if … if things are awkward.”

  If Klaus was dead.

  Heavy with revulsion at her white heat, she didn’t trust herself either. She moved aside and let Averin go first, then followed. She wasn’t halfway down the ladder when Boa snapped, “Pyreack, not on your life am I letting you near her. She may trust you, but I don’t.”

  Suren sighed. “I told you; I won’t harm her. I know exactly who she is.”

  “Yes. A weapon to sell to your king.”

  “No, actually,” Suren said indignantly. “She’s a girl who’s been cruelly and unfairly yanked into a war that didn’t concern her until a week ago.”

  Suren defended her? Her ears burned. She wasn’t sorry she’d rescued him.

  “Pretty words, Pyreack,” Boa snarled. “But I’m sure you had no problem helping kidnap her.”

  Averin offered Stasha a hand to help her off the ladder. She took it and let him pull her to his side, only to have him whisper, “As much as Boa and I respect your judgment, Stasha, Suren is going to have to prove himself.”

  She looked up into serious blue eyes. “He will. Just give him a chance.”

  “Not everyone turns out to be what you want them to be. You have to pick your friends carefully.”

  “Really? I don’t actually remember picking you. Or Boa. You kind of got thrust on me.”

  Averin grinned. “And aren’t you glad we did?”

  “Fishing for compliments now?” She stomped out of his circle of warmth before she became too comfortable in his delicious-smelling personal space. “Klaus is waiting. Let’s go. Boa and Suren can catch up.”

  Averin grabbed her tunic and pulled her back to him just as Boa and Suren reached the bottom of the ladder. “And just how are you going to find him this time?” he whispered.

  She shrugged. “I expect they’re hiding. It’s what I would do.”

  “That’s what you’d do when you were human,” Averin said quietly. “Now you have to think like a fae.”

  Aware of Boa and Suren watching their intimate murmuring, she asked, “So what do you suggest?”

  A typical Averin head tilt followed. He pointed across the cavern to where one of Boa’s soldiers crashed swords with a Pyreack guard. “The buckle on the guard’s boot is loose. I can hear it rattling.” He glanced at the walkway to the right of them, where two Pyreack fae tossed fire at each other. With bigger fireballs and better accuracy, the prison guard seemed to have the upper hand. “The rebel just farted. If he isn’t careful, he’ll soil himself.”

  Her eyes threatened to pop out of her head. “You can’t hear those things!”

  Averin’s eyebrows rose. “You sure about that?”

  She wasn’t. “Okay. Your point?”

  “Your nose is my ears. Use it. Sniff the air as we walk. Lead us to the humans.” But instead of letting her go first, he held out his hand to Boa. “Air magic will brush away the scent. Toss me one of your swords so I can clear a path for us.”

  Boa grabbed Suren’s collar and dragged him past Stasha. The princess shoved him away from Stasha and Averin and then hauled one of the swords off her back. She held it out to Averin. “Return it, not like the last time I lent you a sword.”

  Averin grabbed it and hefted it. “Right. One of the other times I stepped in and saved the day.” He and Boa started walking, forcing Suren to trot ahead of them.

  Nose twitching, Stasha followed. A thousand discordant smells hit her. Fire. Smoke. Death. Rot. Human waste. Her stomach lurched, and bile rose in her throat.

  It drowned out everything else.

  She swallowed angrily. Why did her body choose now to betray her? She’d get down on her hands and knees and sniff like a dog if that’s what it took to find Klaus.

  Stomach roiling, she gritted her teeth and sniffed in breath after breath. The smells rolled over her senses like sour wine, soon all merging into one indiscernible mush.

  “Anything, pit princess?” Averin shouted as he and Suren manhandled a broken cart out of the pass.

  She shook her head. “Working on it.”

  It didn’t help that Boa, Averin, and Suren had to clear the path of rebel soldiers and move dead bodies before they could cross. Most of the torches had been ripped off the walls, leaving cloying darkness.

  They were halfway down the cavern, and she was beginning to despair of finding anything definitive in the air when, above the reek, she caught a memory.

  The pine forests back home. Crisp, cold, and sharp. Freshly baked bread, dripping with hot butter and honey, stolen from the Kňazer.

  She skidded to a stop.

  Averin paused. “What you got?”

  “Home. Klaus was here.” She stepped forward. “Definitely.” She walked on. “They came up from below, but then—” She frowned. “Where did they go?” />
  Suren tapped her shoulder. “Check here.” He cupped a small fireball in his hand to light the path for them. She followed the glow and, when the familiar smell sharpened, hissed with relief. Unsure of where she was, she looked around. Another tunnel, one they never would have seen in the dark.

  “Is this right, Stasha?” Averin asked.

  “Yes.” She skipped forward. “Where does this lead?”

  “The rock crusher, where they extract the gold.” Suren’s eyes were hooded, betraying none of his thoughts about his defection from his own kind.

  Stasha bounced on the balls of her feet. “Then let’s hurry.” She darted down the tunnel, smelling not just Klaus but some of the other humans who’d been with him earlier.

  A thick wooden door blocked her path.

  She grabbed the latch and rattled it. Locked. “No key,” she said to no one in particular.

  “Burn through it,” Averin suggested.

  “I suppose that’s what magic is for.” She slapped her hand on the door, determined to use nothing but her blue-green flame.

  Before her fingers began to glow, Suren shoved her out of the way. He glared at Averin. “No. Magic comes at a cost, Stasha. You’ve burned enough today.”

  She glanced at Averin for confirmation that she could be at risk.

  Averin glowered at Suren, as if he didn’t agree. “Stasha isn’t like the rest of us.”

  Suren turned his back on Averin. Golden flames spilled from him. He rolled them into a ball the size of his head and tossed it at the door.

  The ball exploded on contact and rippled through the dry wood. Seconds turned to minutes while the door burned.

  Stasha resisted the urge to tap her foot on the stone floor. Compared to how quickly she’d ashed the door into the control room, this felt like an eternity.

  It proved yet again how much wild power she had. Averin and Eliezar were right—once Klaus was safe, lessons on fire control held the highest priority on her to-do list.

  Averin paced like a cat.

  Unable to bear his restlessness, she grabbed his arm. “What? This isn’t like you.”

  “I can hear burning.”

  Boa rolled her eyes. “The door is on fire.”

  Averin gave her a withering look. “Beyond the door. Something big. I can’t believe you can’t hear the roar.”

  Stasha—they all—shook their heads.

  Averin wrapped his hand around her head and tilted her face to his. “Burn this door down. Now.”

  His urgency decided everything. She lifted her hands and willed fire into them.

  Nothing happened.

  Not sure if she were bereft at the loss of her killer magic, or thrilled to be free of it, she clawed for the heat under skin that had become so familiar.

  “Hurry,” Averin pleaded.

  “Schorl,” she stuttered. “I can’t access it.”

  “There’s no schorl here,” Boa said. “If there was, Suren couldn’t have thrown a fireball.”

  The charred door tumbled off its hinges. Heat hit her like a punch. She shivered, suddenly icy cold with fear. She was about to dash to the shadows at the end of the tunnel, but Averin pushed ahead of her.

  A flash of blue-black light, and he took flight, flapping silky black wings faster than she, Boa, or Suren could run. He rounded a corner and vanished.

  Dreading what she’d find, Stasha pumped her legs harder. Now, all she could smell was smoke and charred metal. She careened around the corner and skidded to a halt with Boa and Suren at her heels.

  Liquid gold oozed across the stone floor. It spilled from a fire easily twenty feet high and twenty feet broad, which roared down the middle of the long, narrow cavern, where slaves had crushed the rocks in Piss Swill’s gold mine.

  Manacled and tossed in a heap on the floor, Ivan, Goul, Feral Fox, and Vlad lay perilously close to the gold. Their bodies glistened with sweat.

  Stasha swore. While she and Suren dragged them away from the gold, Boa sent a deluge of water over the fire.

  Ivan lifted his head and moaned. “We tried, Stasha. We really did. Bastard got us.”

  She planted a kiss on his forehead. “You did famously. Thank you. For everything.” She bit her lip, then blurted, “Klaus? Where is he? And did you see a raven fly past?”

  Feral Fox’s eyes flickered in their sockets. “The raven that turned into a fae?” He gulped. “He chased the guards.” He twisted his head to look down the narrow passage between the wall and the rapidly diminishing fire.

  Wrought with concentration, Boa still spewed water. Steam clouded the air.

  “And Klaus.…” Ivan’s voice hitched. “I—I’m sorry.”

  Stasha froze solid. “What are you saying?”

  “There.” Goul rattled his chains. “He’s there.”

  She spun on her haunches. A crumpled shadow lay in the corner of the cavern. “Klaus!” She skittered across the floor to him. Not daring to even breathe, she rolled him over—and screamed.

  The skin on the right side of his body had melted away, leaving nothing but blistered, charred flesh. On the left side, his clothes hung in ragged strips. She touched his tunic, bought with such hope for a new life, and sobbed.

  What was the point of anything if Klaus wasn’t in the world? And she didn’t even have fire to burn this mine and everything Pyreack in it to the ground as punishment.

  Suren and Boa fell on their knees next to her.

  Boa touched Klaus’s neck. “There’s a pulse.” Boa slapped Stasha hard across the face. “Stop that wailing. He’s alive. We can still save him.”

  Stasha snagged in a ragged breath. Boa expected her to follow the example she had set when Lukas fell. Boa had walked away from Lukas to carry on as if nothing had happened. But, perhaps, one night over dinner in the far distant future, Boa would find the will to open her heart to talk about her loss. Her stoicism grounded Stasha.

  When she faced Boa, her tears had dried, replaced by desperate hope. How she wished that hope would shift the icy dread in her core. “How? Tell me what I must do. Anything.” She clutched Klaus’s charred tunic as if her life depended on keeping him close.

  “I need to cool him with cold water and then get him to the healers.” Boa lifted her hands. But then, her eyes widened, and she sucked in a breath so sharp, it whistled between her teeth. Her hands dropped to hang limp at her sides.

  “Then do it,” Stasha pleaded. “What are you waiting for?” Her fingers were colder than they’d ever been. Stiff and aching, she flexed them, but it didn’t help. She looked down and gulped.

  Hoarfrost crept across her hands.

  By all the darkness! How was this possible?

  Yet frost crackled up into her arms, turning them white. Crisp with ice, Klaus’s tunic crunched under her touch. She jerked her hands away from him and tumbled back on her heels.

  Suren swore. “Sta—”

  Boa flew at him. Her hand clenched around his throat. “Tell anyone what you’ve just seen, and I will kill you.” She looked over her shoulder at Ivan, Feral Fox, Goul, and Vlad. “Same applies to you. No one says a word about that ice. It never happened.”

  Suren’s arms flew up and knocked Boa’s hands away. He croaked, “As if I would. Stasha’s my friend. Sort of. I know what will happen to her if this gets out.”

  Transfixed, Stasha stared at her hands, and then at the jagged ice crystals clinging to Klaus’s tunic. Surely ice was as dangerous as fire for someone burned as badly as he was? But ice was nothing more than very cold water.

  “Not good enough.” Boa looked at Stasha with a mix of horror and awe. “No one should have two powers. If Suren’s foul king finds out—”

  Not interested in Boa and Suren’s argument, she placed a tentative hand on Klaus’s burnt flesh, willing water and not ice out of her fingers. Instead, hoarfrost spread across his blisters.

  He whimpered.

  She was about to demand that Boa spirit him away to the healers when Suren hissed, “Princess
Boadicea, you forget that I’m a mere conscript in this war. My mother and four sisters are back on our farm with no help to plant crops. If I go to them, I will be hunted down and killed for desertion. They have no magic either. My father made sure of that when he bound all of them to him and stole their powers.”

  Suren’s bitterness reached Stasha. She dragged her eyes away from Klaus to look at him. His face was shadowed and brooding, and his body shook. “Not that it helped him. He still died in this endless war.” Suren thrust a hand at Stasha. “She can change all this. I know it. You know it. So, if it gives you peace, I pledge you my sword. My magic. Everything I have. I will fight at your and Stasha’s side. Anything to just go home to my family.”

  Boa’s mauve eyes swirled. She blew out a long breath. “My army is made up of many such stories.” She folded her hand over Suren’s and gripped his wrist with her tattooed fingers. “I accept your pledge.”

  Suren dipped his head. “Thank you.”

  Stasha croaked, “That’s good. But what about Klaus? We must find Averin and leave. Now.” Her eyes flicked to Feral Fox, Ivan, Goul, and Vlad. “They need help too.”

  “Averin.” The way Boa said Averin’s name frightened Stasha. The princess leaned in so close that Stasha could see flecks of dirt in the pores of Boa’s otherwise flawless skin. “You cannot tell him what happened here.”

  “But he’s Averin!” she objected.

  “Do you even know why he wants you in Zephyr?” Boa asked urgently. She looked down the passageway where Feral Fox had said Averin had gone, as if expecting him to reappear at any second.

  “No. Not really.” Stasha dug in her tunic for her amber, needing its comfort. “Do you know?”

  “I have my suspicions.” Boa grabbed her arm. “Shush. He’s coming.”

  “But.…” She wasn’t sure she wanted to hide another thing from Averin. A frown creased her forehead. Maybe Boa had a point. With all the time she’d spent with Averin, he could have given her the reason he wanted her badly enough to risk his life and his father’s disapproval by coming to Angharad. Yet he hadn’t. She’d made him a deal she could not—would not—back out of, but that didn’t mean she had to trust him if he didn’t trust her—regardless of how much he made her pulse race. “Boa, get me and Klaus to the healers. Right now.”