The Fireblade Array: 4-Book Bundle

by H. O. Charles

  Artemi blinked at him, but then she smiled, if a little nervously. “But that’s impossible. I’ve already been tested. I can’t be... that.”

  “Did they touch your skin?” He held her gaze.

  “I don’t know. I was just an infant. You see, my mother... ” Her voice trailed off.

  “She didn’t survive,” he finished. And no surprise, with a daughter that strong.

  Artemi shook her head and sank to the floor.

  The rain continued to pelt the windows, and seemed to amplify the silence they endured. Morghiad had paused to gaze at his books. It was possible...

  “Most are killed as children. How is itI have escaped?”

  “Your power is hidden. I don’t understand quite how, but it is invisible - it has been masked to any kanaala remote from you. Likely from other wielders, too.” He looked at her closely. She was huddled on the marble tiles, as if crouching like a scared mouse would give her more protection.

  “I’ll be executed, then.” She said it as a statement, as if it were on her list of duties.

  Ilena. Blazes, all he could see in his mind was Ilena. In her last few years, the woman’s hair had been cropped closely to her head to mark her for what she was, and her

  iron-wrought chastity belt had clinked as she walked. But she had been kind and patient, and she had taught him everything about Blaze Energy, even though her own ability had been minimal. She could barely have lifted a blade of grass with it.

  Ilena had been no threat to Calidell. No man would have slept with her, and yet his father had seen fit to have her killed once she had served her purpose as tutor. All of Artemi’s golden fire hair would be cut from her head if she was discovered, and worse would happen to her besides.

  Morghiad knelt down and brushed the waves of hair from her face. It buzzed with her power, though less so than her skin had done. It was as if the fibres held a memory of The Blazes from which they had grown. He allowed his hand to fall back. “Your secret is safe with me. But you must make me a promise.”

  Artemi regarded him in silence. Ilena didn’t have to happen again.

  “You must swear that you will use your power only to protect Calidell and its people.”

  “All of its people? Even the bad ones?”

  Morghiad allowed some surprise to filter into his voice. “It is not for you to decide who is good or bad. EvenI cannot decide that.”

  “You do each time you go to war.”

  “I consider the impact of whatI do, Artemi. I fight to prevent further injustice. Calidell is a just country and it should be protected. It is not a sacrifice you can understand yet, child.”

  Artemi bit her lip, frustration evident on her brow. “What choice do I have? You would banish me otherwise.” Another tear fell from her lashes. “I will only use it to protect Calidell.”

  “And its people,” Morghiad prompted.

  “...And its people.” she echoed quietly. She was... divine like a finely crafted, golden filigree sword, or perhaps a sweet, red apple. Somewhere between the two, he decided.

  “Artemi, you must not take a lover, either.”

  Her eyes narrowed, her muscles tensed considerably. “I see. No lover except, of course, a kanaala? Is that what all this is about? Some ruse to bed me?” She rose to her feet, clenching her fists.

  Morghiad stood, too. He towered over her but she kept her chin high, regarding him as

  levelly as she could. He folded his arms across his chest. “In a few months your ability will outgrow my own. I doubt there will be a kanaala on this earth strong enough for you, myself included. I’m sorry.”

  Artemi dropped her eyes to the floor and turned away from him. The momentary strength and indignation she had held seemed to drain from her stance, and she walked to the stone wall to lean a shoulder against it.

  Silence sat thick and heavy between them like the impenetrable autumn mists of Wilrea’s mountains.

  Artemi’s hand started to move over the smoothness of the blocks, as if she could somehow draw strength from them. She began, “I’d always thought I would have that one day. I thought I would find someone, maybe have a

  few babies... There must be stronger kanaala out there...?” Her voice faded.

  Morghiad unfolded his arms, not really knowing what to do with them. “I have been told not. That life - it is not a luxury we can all expect. Sometimes these things are decided for us. I understand your situation - a part of it, anyway.”

  The focus seemed to return to her eyes once more. “You do not need to worry. I have no desire to wake up next to a dead man in my bed.”

  Morghiad nodded and went to the corner of the bed again, examining the loose sheets. “I can teach you how to wield for good,” he said, “but first you must show me how to fold in the corner of this bed.”

  Artemi stood motionless for a moment, then a smile, bright enough to dazzle creatures of the desert, broke through her gloom. She stepped towards the bed and raised the edge of the sheet. “Like this.” She pulled it taut and placed it in the kahr’s hand. The fire sensation burned through his fingers once more as she brushed them. There was something else there too. “And then you pull it down the side of the bed.” Artemi guided his arms down. “Fold it over to the right, keep that bit tucked in.” She pushed his hands to the correct place and smoothed over the fold he had made. “Now push it under.”

  When Morghiad finished the task, Artemi straightened and admired his work. “Very good. We’ll make a maid of you

  yet...ah, my lord.”

  He suppressed a smile. He was

  becoming far too emotional these days.

  “Is wielding as easy to learn?” she asked.

  “Sometimes. I suppose. I’ve never taught anyone before.”

  Artemi moved quickly towards him and wrapped herself around him, so that her head lay against his damp chest. “Thank you... for allowing me to live,” she said.

  Morghiad kept his position fixed. He would have to teach her not to be so impulsive. He unhooked her arms as gently as he could, and it quickly became apparent that her dress was damp where it had touched his rainsoaked clothes. “I will see to it that my room becomes part of your duties. You are under my protection now; you are my concern. I will show you who the other kanaala are, but in the

  meantime you must avoid all physical contact. And stay out of view of my father.” She was far too pretty to escape the fervour the king.

  She looked at him for a while, then dropped her head in acquiescence. Artemi moved gracefully to the pile of laundry she had folded and gathered it into her arms. The way she held them made her look as a queen who had been gifted with flowers. She shattered the image with a small curtsey and walked to the door. “I will see you again soon, my lord.”

  Morghiad opened the door for her, and watched her dissolve into the misty gloom of the halls. He had to do everything he could to keep her safe, he realised. That would be very important for everybody.

  He stamped back into his chambers and pulled off his sodden boots. He had

  wanted to do that throughout the entire encounter, though it would have been a rude gesture to carry out before a woman. Feet free, he went to his book shelves. He had seen her face before. She had to be...

  He pulled out the red leather book again, then another green one next to it, a black one, a fragile brown tome, a pile of green fabric-bound ones and more until they made a disorganised pile on the floor. It was in one of these. He opened the most fragile - the oldest first. The yellowed book must have been thousands of years old. Some of the edges of the pages crumbled in his fingers, and its text described the history of the Kusuru Assassins. He would have to come back to that one later. He flicked through a few of the more modern books. It was somewhere in one of these...

  There was a lengthy book, still nestled on a high shelfabove him, and something tickled his memory about it. He recalled that it detailed a collection of old battles and victories some fifteen-hundred years previously. It was a
stretch to reach it, and when he brought it down, the binding collapsed on itselfand scattered the pages across the floor.

  Morghiad cursed and began sifting through them carefully, but none of them seemed to have what he was looking for. It was only after his second run through them that something caught his eye from across the room. The corners of a rogue sheaf of pages peeked out from under the bed; they must have drifted there after the fall.

  The kahr got on his hands and knees to bring them out, then fumbled through the

  delicate pages with frenetic hands... and found it. He slumped in the armchair and examined the engraving closely. That was Artemi: her dark eyes, even features, the stubborn set to her jaw and cascading gold-red hair. A little older perhaps, but the picture was an accurate depiction that captured a small part of the nature of the real woman. There could be no doubt about her identity. She stood on an outcrop with the reins of her horse in one hand, and two crossed swords were strapped to her back. A dagger was hitched on her right thigh and he could just make out the hilt of a second in her left boot. Her outfit of bodice and breeches was an entirely black affair that clung to the lines of her body admirably. Below the image was the caption, “The female warrior, Artemi, prepares for the Battle of Harend.”

  He wondered at the picture for a moment. The colours were still so vibrant. How was it that a hero of legend had ended up changing his bed sheets? She had told the truth about her age; he knew that from delving into her power. There could only be one explanation: Chronicles made mention of her being vanha-sielu, an old term that meant ‘repeated life.’

  One had to be careful around vanhasielu if they were not aware of their true identity - something to do with their minds not being ready for the onslaught of memories. People with fewer than twenty-five years were not even supposed to know about the phenomenon, but he and Silar had eavesdropped many conversations in their youth. Morghiad’s mind whirred at the

  possibilities. She had no idea what she was, but she could still be a very useful addition to his army. Morghiad gathered together the fallen pages and replaced them in their binding. He hid the split book on the highest shelf.

  For several hours the kahr pored over Chronicles. By the time he had found what he was searching for, the skies outside had blackened and the rain had subsided. He had learned that stories of her went back over fourthousand years, that she had been a queen, an assassin, a soldier and vigilante, amongst other things. She had accumulated admirers and proposals from kings and warriors alike, and typically there would be a fight with her longterm enemy, Mirel, once a century.

  Mirel was also a former assassin possibly one of the Kusurus. If Mirel had been

  as good a fighter as Artemi and a wielder too, it was possible the two could have exchanged identities through history. Morghiad knew well enough that one historian’s account of an event could utterly contradict that of another. Artemi had to be the ‘good’ one, surely? She was always the red-haired one, but could that be an error handed down through the ages? No. Vanha-sielu always had the same name, according to this book. It was something that could not be avoided when their parents came to name them, and others would have trouble calling them anything else. The important information, the piece he was looking for, was on a well-thumbed page. It described a life she’d lived in a long-forgotten province of Hirrah.

  “...Week by week, came the pains in her head,

  The memories of a thousand lives lived once before,

  The echoes of a thousand deaths felt once more,

  Rent apart and then rebuilt our hero’s mind,

  Till one day – twenty-three years, months four,

  And seventy-two hours following her retour,

  The lady lost all consciousness.

  No efforts made by friend or family,

  Could serve to awaken poor Artemi,

  They feared her death was nigh

  Following another three days still,

  The woman awoke: she’d come ashore,

  No longer sister, lover or daughter for,

  The red-haired Artemi was now, ever more,

  The great and fearless warrior.”

  Twenty-three. That meant he had just over five years before she reclaimed her identity - the point at which she would be ready for her memories. He recalled the victims of his eavesdropping mentioning something about madness or worse if a vanha-sielu was forced to remember early. He examined the illustrations in Chronicles for a second time. They all depicted a red-haired, dark eyed

  woman in various costumes which could be interpreted as his Artemi. The resemblance was vague, however, as if the picture had been copied from a copy or had simply been drawn from the words.

  The facial features could have been anyone’s. Perhaps that was a good thing ifa young Artemi happened upon stories of herself.

  She would have some incredible tales to tell once she remembered. Morghiad could not help but feel a tingle of excitement at his discovery. Artemi was the fourth Blaze stream and she was a real, living legend.

  Artemi huddled in her red blanket, and rubbed her feet against the mud floor in an effort to fight the cold of her chamber. Her whole life had changed course in a matter of moments, and it seemed beyond belief that she could be one of those women so reviled in Cadra. She did not want to be hated - she was sure she had not done anything worthy of being executed for.

  Perhaps she could escape to another country, but if she left, her father would be alone in Cadra. He often said how he treasured her as a gift from her mother, how he needed her. And now she knew that she really had been responsible for her mother’s death. It was possible that this new duty to Calidell could be her payment for that particular crime. Artemi allowed herselfto weep in silence. It was a disaster. Her father would never forgive her for it!

  “Are you alright, child?” came a hearty voice from her left. Caala was leaning into her chamber with a candle held aloft. Her wide hips almost filled the entrance, and there was something about her that gave the impression of invincibility.

  Artemi forced a smile. “I’m fine, thank you Caala.”

  “You bloody well are not, lass!” The woman bustled in, skirts brushing against the

  walls as she knelt next to Artemi and held the candle to her face.

  Artemi tried to push it away. “It’s nothing to worry about. Please.” She knew she could not hide the tracks of the tears on her cheeks, but hoped that Caala might stop fussing anyway.

  The older woman clenched her jaw tightly. “Oh follocks! This is my doing. He did something to you, didn’t he? That blasted kahr, thinking he can take whatever he likes. I’d always thought he was different. If I get my hands on him...” Caala’s face darkened visibly as she mumbled the rest.

  “He hasn’t done anything to me, Caala. Honestly.” Artemi held Caala’s gaze and huddled tighter, pulling her knees closer to her chin.

  Caala grunted and shifted to make herself more comfortable, and then set the candle on the floor. “Don’t think to protect him. You cannot be in love with the lad already. He may be very pretty and handsome and the rest of it, but he’s still a man and I can promise you he’s not in love with you, no matter what he says.”

  Artemi furrowed her brow a little. “He hasn’t misbehaved with me. He certainly never said he cared for me. I met him and he was polite. That is all. Besides, I don’t think you can call a man with a stone for a face handsome. There is barely any life in it!” Lord Forllan could smile at least. He had a very nice smile indeed.

  Caala searched her face for a moment, confusion evident. “If it is not him then what?

  You’re usually made of tougher stuff than this. Tougher than the rest of us. Hah!”

  Artemi thought hard about her response. She could not tell Caala what she was, not with the reputation wielders had in this place. It would be too much of a burden to place on her friend’s shoulders. “Why must you assume it’s a man? I’m just finding it hard to adjust to this new lifestyle, that’s all.” This c
ould serve a solution to her next problem... “In fact, the kahr took pity at my mood. He’s offered to lend me a book if I return to do his sheets again.” The lie was small, though it still left a bitter taste in her mouth.

  Caala narrowed her eyes. “Are you sure you haven’t taken a shine to bloody Kahr Morghiad? I mean, if I were a few years younger I’d probably... well... Not that he’d be

  interested.” She put her hand in her pale brown curls. “Anyway, I suppose you’ll be wanting to take over my duties in his chambers?”

  “He is much too grim for me.” Artemi smiled at Caala’s blushes. “But yes, if I may swap a few of those days with you, I should be most grateful.”

  “As you wish, lass.” Caala rose. “ButI expect to be given a look at those books as payment.” She gave a cheeky smile and left.

  Artemi considered her situation once more. The rain had begun to drip from the light well again, and it had soaked the floor beneath. Could the place ever fill with water like the tales of the Great Floods of several millennia ago? In those times, houses had turned to aquariums and palaces to submerged networks of caves, while the weakest civilisations had

  simply been washed away by waves that were several-hundred feet high. She hoped that it wouldn’t again, and not in her tiny cell, at least until she had the ability to blast it to vapour with fire. Could a wielder do that? Perhaps this could be turned into a good thing, after all. She lay on her side and closed her eyes. The wails were sounding particularly loud again.