Shimmer and Burn

by Mary Taranta

  North appears in the distance, haggard and exhausted. He opens his hands, the palms gray. He can’t keep fighting much longer, I realize; the poison is returning, overtaking the magic, making him useless. “Here I am,” he says.

  The woman reaches my hiding spot and I jerk forward too late. She swings her spear and I scramble backward, losing my footing. Beyond us, Baedan and North face off, casting and deflecting spells until the skies light up with the color of magic.

  The woman lunges, her spear striking the stone by my head. I roll out of the way, finding my feet in time to take a swing at her with the knife. She easily sidesteps me, teeth bared in a grimacing laugh.

  She’s baiting me.

  I back away, heart crashing against my ribs. The woman lifts her eyebrows in invitation before her eyes slide past me. She steps back in deference and, heart sinking, I turn.

  “This one’s mine,” Kellig says, grabbing my arm.

  North calls my name. He stands over Baedan, pinning her in place with a spell that makes his whole body quiver. His fingers are forced into a painful fist that drips with sweat.

  Now. He needs me now, and I can’t even move.

  Kellig laughs, damp and sticky, his mouth ringed with the brown bruise of dried blood. Poison has eaten through him and his skin is cracking, flaking loose against my coat. He faced death in Revnik and he chose a monster’s life instead.

  Coward.

  “Third time’s the charm,” I say with faltering bravado.

  “Oh, I’m not going to kill you,” he says. Locking an arm around my throat, he wrenches me toward North just as North looks back, searching for me. It’s only a heartbeat of broken concentration.

  It’s too much.

  Baedan breaks loose of his spell, scrambling back. Her face is discolored now, a mask of shadow and white. One of her silver eyes is black with blood as she spits a mouthful of poison to the ground.

  “Let her go,” North warns, turning his hands toward Kellig. But he hesitates. He can’t risk another spell, not without risking his heart. When his eyes meet mine through the haze of magic that shimmers in the air, there is no accusation, no blame in his gaze, yet I accept it all the same.

  He needed me and I wasn’t there, and now it’s too late.

  Baedan notices the way North falters and she lifts an eyebrow. “So stone-hearted North still bleeds,” she says, mocking him. “Good.” Standing, she reaches for me, and Kellig dutifully releases me into her arms. Holding me by the hair, she pulls my face back so I’m forced to look up at her. Blood leaks from her eye and begins dripping down her cheek, splashing onto my shoulder.

  “Do you know how long it takes your body to turn hellborne in the Burn?” she asks. “Five days. And you will feel every second of it. What do you think, North?” She twists me toward him. “I could put a leash on her and give her to Kellig. He’s always asking for new pets and I think he’s earned this one, don’t you?”

  Don’t, I want to say. Don’t single me out, North. Don’t make me special. Don’t give me power over you.

  “Or maybe I’ll just take one of her eyes as payment for mine.” Baedan pulls a dagger from her belt and dips the blade against my cheek.

  “And maybe one of her teeth,” Kellig growls.

  “Wait,” says North.

  My heart sinks, but Baedan smiles. Shifting her weight, she tightens her hold on my hair as the blade slides a fraction higher. “Formalities first,” she says. “I need your blood to be clean. Or as clean as you can make it.”

  North cocks his head, confused, and she rolls her eyes. “Come on, North,” she says. “We’ve talked enough history between us that you can guess where this is going.”

  Horror creeps across his face. “You’re not going to kill me.”

  “And I never intended to kill the princess,” she says. “Your blood is useless without a heartbeat behind it.” I wince a moment before her icy blade presses against my eyelids. “Your choice, your majesty,” she says.

  A beat of silence, a moment to consider.

  “I need room,” says North.

  Baedan drags me back, out of the way, lowering her knife in the process. I watch, heart in my throat as North sags to his knees, flattening his palms to the ground. He braces for pain, stifling his cries into his shoulder as he leaches poison into the ground, excising enough of the infection that his protection spells can keep the rest back.

  He rises to his feet when he’s finished, staggering away from the Burn he’s created. He only makes it a few feet before crumpling, too weak to bear his own weight. I struggle against Baedan’s hold, but she’s stronger than Kellig, and I can’t break free.

  “Give him a knife,” she barks.

  North pushes himself to his knees, wavering. His crooked hands rest against his knees as he tips his head back, swallowing hard, watching Kellig approach with half-lidded eyes. “You’ll have to do it yourself,” says North.

  Baedan snorts. “You of all people should appreciate the value of tradition.”

  “You just need a little help,” Kellig says. “I know these fingers don’t bend so well on their own.” Slamming the knife in North’s palm, he begins forcing the fingers into position. North swears profusely as the color drains from his face.

  Baedan grins, savoring North’s pain as Kellig steps back, leaving North to fumble one-handed with the buttons of his shirt. My heart aches for him, for his frustration, the palpable sense of self-loathing.

  Flushed, North finally tears his shirt open before he wipes his mouth against his shoulder, his gaze sliding to Baedan with a spark of defiance. He’s bony beneath the black he always wears, gaunt and stretched thin. Faded scars cross his body, and a bold but simple compass rose sits above his heart. A spell. The one I helped weaken by kissing him and allowing his desires to bleed out and the poison to sneak in.

  “A bottle,” Baedan calls.

  Someone tosses a vial toward North. It hits his chest and bounces away, and he has to crawl after it.

  Baedan leans forward, eager as North cuts through the soft flesh of his chest, through the heart of his spell—to the cleanest blood in his body. Dropping the blade, he uncorks the glass vial with his teeth and fills it to overflowing.

  “Don’t spill any,” she says in a maddening singsong. “I need every last drop.”

  North spits the cork out in his palm before thumbing it back into the vial. Eyes locked on Baedan, he tamps it firmly in place with a hard knock on the ground. A woman plucks the vial from North’s hands, brandishing it aloft to a round of cheers.

  “Like father, like son,” Baedan says, catching the vial as it’s tossed her way. She slides it in her pocket and releases me. “Bring her,” she orders, turning for her horse, and rough hands grab my arm.

  “No.” North’s eyes widen in protest.

  I resist, breaking loose, lunging for him. He reaches for me but misses my hand as I’m swept up again, thrown over a woman’s broad shoulder.

  “Baedan!” North struggles to his feet but falls again almost immediately. Kellig laughs, pressing him down with his foot, and North flattens beneath his weight, his bent hands twining through the soft moss. “Baedan,” he croaks. “Please.”

  She scoffs, watching him from over her shoulder. “Long live the withered king.”

  I’m thrown onto the back of a horse and steered toward the Burn. My captor walks beside me, holding me in place as we cross the golden boundary, into soft dunes of ash that rise high as the horses’ calves. A blanket of heat enfolds me, dry and hard to breathe, smelling of smoke and thunderstorms and the faraway hint of the sea. I struggle to inhale, only to choke, and the woman laughs.

  “Breathe it in,” she says. “Let your lungs burn.”

  I fumble in my pocket, grabbing the scalpel I stole from Solch, still dulled with Kellig’s blood. Gathering every inch of my strength, I slam the blade into the hollow of the woman’s throat and drag it down until it catches on her collarbone. She howls and stops moving, and I roll
off the horse, hitting the ground in a plume of ash.

  Gasping, I scramble to my feet and start running for North as another man makes a grab for me. I twist out of reach and keep going, but they’re on horses and easily outflank me. I fall back, panting, armed with my only my hands but more than willing to use them.

  Baedan stares down at me, incredulous, and for a moment I think I’ve surprised her with my fight. But nobody dismounts to come after me and I realize it isn’t me that they’re watching. It’s what’s happening around me—inside me.

  My mother’s spell.

  I notice the faint pressure on the underside of my skin, shy as a kiss, before heat spreads across my chest. But it isn’t like the Burn; it’s far more pleasant, like sunlight on a summer afternoon.

  This isn’t right. I should be dying.

  Instead, the world around me comes alive: The ash dissolves, softening into a patch of moss only wide enough to accommodate my feet. It thickens, dotted now with tiny white wildflowers. As my weight shifts and I stagger to hold balance, more moss appears to cradle my foot. A thin line of magic stretches ahead of me, narrow as a thread. Baedan draws away from it uneasily before it tugs on my heart, urging me forward, demanding I follow.

  But where will it go?

  Beneath the pull of the magic is the warning of the poison inside me inching closer, greedy and slick. The thread ahead of me wavers, pulls taut.

  I fly.

  I hurtle over the Burn, over a pockmarked, barren landscape populated by nothing but anger and fear and greed. Dark spires appear, needles on the horizon that thicken, become towers, the corners of a shattered castle nestled by the sea. A forgotten city lies at the base of a broken bridge and I soar over it, landing soft in front of iron gates that rise above me. A man stands on the other side, nothing more than bone wrapped in skin and a bitter heartbeat that echoes in the stones beneath our feet.

  Merlock lifts his head and looks at me. His crown sags and he bends beneath its weight, but his features darken, turn ferocious. “You,” he growls, accusation laced through his voice.

  A shout cracks through the air and the thread snaps, recoiling, throwing my heart against my spine as I gasp, back in the Burn. Baedan stares at me before her eyes shift past me, to a line of guards riding forward on horses. They stop at the edge of the Burn and take aim, armed with crossbows and unfamiliar banners that stand out, vibrant against the sky.

  “Grab her,” Baedan barks, but I take a step back, then another. I begin to run for the guards, my feet hitting the ground barely long enough for moss to emerge before the ash reclaims its place and hides my steps. Someone tackles me and I land on my stomach, immediately cushioned by more flowers.

  North approaches, wasting precious magic and the last of his energy to reach me. The hellborne scatter, but Baedan looks to me one last time, committing my face to memory. I’ll see her again, she seems to say. The guarantee is as good as written in blood.

  Or poison.

  Wordlessly, she turns and rides away, disappearing into the ruins of the nearby village. Staggering to my feet, I race to meet North. We stop just shy of colliding as he takes my arm and we continue to the edge of the Burn, to the safety of the grass on the other side.

  “What happened?” he asks, his hands touching my arms, my neck, my face. “Are you all right?”

  I clutch his arms. “I saw him,” I say, speaking too fast, too urgent, as if the spell is already unraveling “I saw your father, North. He was in the castle in Prevast!”

  North stares at me. “What?”

  Breath hitching, my eyes drop to the spell across his chest, a compass rose to guide his choices. My mother’s spell burns, hidden beneath a thick bandage, but I know what it means now. I am a compass too, and I point to Merlock.

  My mother knew Perrote wasn’t a king.

  “I can help you find him,” I say, and it’s a relief and a burden both, an excuse to stay close to North in the weeks ahead. “But I don’t know how long the spell will last. I don’t know if I just wasted it, or if the infection will destroy it, but—but I want to join your Guard. I want to go into the Burn with you, I want to find Merlock, and I want—”

  “Faris,” he says, and I pause. He touches my face, whisper-soft. “I want everything you do,” he says, before embracing me. I melt into his arms, closing my eyes as my chin slides into place against his neck. “Just one,” he murmurs, kissing the top of my head. “Just once.”

  And then never again, not until our blood runs clean and his heart is free from the danger—the temptation—of mine.

  When we break apart—who released whom?—I brace myself for what happens next. North does the same, hardening his expression, guarding his thoughts. It’s the first stone in the wall we both need to build. Like a buffer of magic, it will have to absorb our heartache before it can infect our blood.

  A soldier all in black hangs back, waiting for North to acknowledge him before he bows and strides forward. He holds a silver helmet tucked under one arm, his sandy hair pulled back in a short ponytail, revealing wide features and a narrow scar on his chin where his facial hair doesn’t grow. While he faces North, his eyes stray toward me with curiosity.

  “We were wrong about Baedan,” North says, all business, fumbling to button his shirt closed. “She doesn’t mean to hold Merlock hostage; she plans to kill him and inherit the magic herself.”

  The soldier’s eyes widen at North’s chest. “She has your blood.”

  “Which means she can forge the blade to perform the sacrifice,” North agrees darkly, shaking out his collar. “That buys us at least a fortnight before she resumes looking for Merlock.” He grimaces, still weak, and the soldier takes a step forward, hand out to assist.

  North refuses with a tight shake of his head, his eyes cutting toward me. “This is Faris Locke,” he says. “She will be vital to our mission to find Merlock, and her safety is priority. Miss Locke”—I flinch at the formality, although I knew to expect it—“this is Captain Benjamin Chadwick, a man with whom I would trust my life. A qualified trust,” he adds, with a pained smile at the memory of Solch’s betrayal. “If you wish to join the Guard, this is the man who says yes or no.”

  With a formal invitation to look at me, Chadwick openly stares and I wilt beneath his tactical gaze. I wasn’t prepared for an immediate interview: All I want is a bath and clean clothes and a chance to mourn the man who turns his back on me to give orders, take command.

  North is gone now, and Prince Corbin takes his place.

  More riders approach over the hillocks, a splash of color that doesn’t match the black and silver of North’s men. My heart quickens in recognition as guards part to allow the new arrivals through.

  Bryn cocks her head in acknowledgment of my surprise, her riding dress draped across her horse, her dark red hair a loose bundle of curls over one shoulder. The man who rides beside her is no less familiar, but far more frightening, arrogant beneath a silver circlet that reflects the beginning of the sunrise.

  King Perrote.

  “Miss Locke,” Captain Chadwick says, concerned. “Are you all right?”

  “What is he doing here?” I ask in a choked whisper. What is he doing here with her, as if she never ran away from Brindaigel, as if she never planned to kill him and he never planned to kill her?

  With a frown, Chadwick settles his helmet further beneath his arm. “May I introduce his majesty, King Perrote Dossel, and his daughter, Princess Bryndalin,” he says. “They arrived in New Prevast yesterday evening, and are the reason we knew to find you today.” His pale eyes slide to North, seeking a reaction. “They come to offer an alliance but they were rather recalcitrant as to the terms. Their incentive, however, is . . .” He trails off, searching for the appropriate term. Only after his eyes land on Bryn does he find what he’s looking for. “Tempting.”

  The ground buckles beneath me. What happened? Did Perrote find her, did he tell her that she wasn’t a princess, that there’s no throne to inherit? A
nd did she tell him that Brindaigel was compromised, that I was still out there and willing to fight? Killing each other would be useless then, but if they worked together . . .

  “Corbin,” Perrote says, and the lack of title echoes through the assembled men. “The bastard prince in his charming robes of office.” An eyebrow arches as he looks down his nose at North in his bloody shirt and tattered coat. Both his hands hang like useless claws at his side. “Ruling Avinea doesn’t suit you any more than it did your father.”

  Captain Chadwick stands taller, affronted, a hand falling to the pommel of his sword.

  “Perrote,” North says, shoulders back, spine straight. Tension rolls off him but his voice remains smooth. “I do hope Avinea has treated you well during your brief visit with us. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to greet you myself when you arrived. I would have given you a . . . very warm welcome.”

  “The welcome we received was quite sufficient,” Perrote says, sniffing. “I didn’t have high expectations.”

  The silence sparks with growing friction, as charged as the clouds above us.

  “Can I presume that Tobek is still alive?” North asks at length, looking to Bryn.

  She snorts. “Alive,” she agrees, “last I checked, but he did lose a lot of blood on the ride into New Prevast.” Her smile turns cold. “Bumpy roads and clumsy horses.”

  “Well.” His voice is tight, controlled, but his nostrils flare and black pulses of poison flit across the back of his hand, fed by his anger. “I look forward to hearing all about Brindaigel and how its resources might best serve its true king. As it is, you find me in a rather inopportune moment—”

  “And its queen,” says Bryn.

  North’s muscles tighten even further. “What?”

  “My father informs me that I’m further removed from the throne than I originally thought,” says Bryn, chin angled high. “And therein lies my problem, your majesty.” Her eyes cut toward me. “I was raised to be a queen and anything less is a waste of my time.”