Burnt (Blood and Fire Book 1)

by Michelle Wheet & Lyn Lowe

down a hallway to another strange room. It was identical to the last one. Except this one didn’t have a pile of clothes. Instead, there was a fire pit built into the wall itself. Made out of red and brown stones, it held a fire hotter than any his family would consider keeping in their homes, sucking the chill from his body in an instant. The smoke rolled up through a tunnel of the same stone leading right through the roof.

  There were dark stains on the strange floor. But those didn’t bear thinking on.

  The thin woman was waiting for them there. She scuttled right to him, her sharp black eyes narrowing as she drew close. “You are the one called Kaie?”

  He swallowed hard, trying to sort out what was going on. “Err…yes?”

  She pursed her lips and nodded. Then she pressed her stick of charcoal against the top of his hairless head and drew a big X. Kaie lifted his hand to touch it, but she slapped it down. He got the message but couldn’t begin to guess at the purpose. Once she was satisfied that he wasn’t going to try again, she nodded to the man holding him and left.

  His captor released him and followed. Again, all eight boys were alone and clueless as to what was expected of them. This time there was no whimpering. So that was an improvement. They were all looking at him again though. Waiting to be fed more garbage about the benevolent gods. Or just wondering about the X on his head. He couldn’t tell. Either way, before he could think of anything to say someone else joined them.

  This time it was a woman, though she was no smaller than their last captor. She wasn’t alone. Two other meaty men trailed in her wake as she headed straight for the fire pit. She was thick and unimpressive, the scowl she sent in their direction falling short of intimidating; it just seemed a part of her, like it was her natural expression. But the long metal bar in her hand, that was intimidating. She shoved it into the fire, leaving it there until the tip turned bright orange. When she pulled it out he couldn’t look away from the odd shape at the end of it.

  He didn’t understand at first. He knew something bad was coming from that glowing metal bar but there was nothing to prepare him for what she intended. When the men appeared on either side of him, grabbing his arms and pressing him down, it didn’t immediately register that their actions were connected with her. When she reached down to place her free hand into the middle of his back, pinning him against the floor, things slammed into place. His struggles and screams came far too late and accomplished nothing. And when she pressed the cherry metal against the flesh of his right shoulder, his world exploded in scorching white fire.

  Seventeen

  Kaie only knew he passed out when he was woken up. Cold water fell down on him, thrusting him back into consciousness with sputtering and flailing. His hair…but no. This water didn’t itch. And there wasn’t any left, in any case.

  The woman and her metal bar were occupied at the fire pit. Of the other boys, only two were still standing, all blood drained from their faces. He was grateful, in a grim way, that he was first and wasn’t enduring that extra torment.

  One of the two men was standing over him now, bucket in one hand and a thin white cloth in the other. Seeing that he was awake the man tossed him the latter. Kaie nearly mistook it for a towel. Though it was made out of the same material as his new pants, it wasn’t at all the right shape for clothing. While it was more or less the right size for a shirt, there was only one part that could be considered a sleeve.

  When he sat there staring at it rather than put it on the man grew irritated. A moment later the cloth was yanked out of his hands and shoved down over his head. He winced as the fabric brushed against his right shoulder, but he refused to cry out again. The man’s twisted smile seemed to be waiting for just that and he wasn’t going to give the satisfaction.

  The shirt was odder than he initially realized. He was correct in his estimate. There was only one sleeve. The neck simply continued on to swallow his arm and half his chest, leaving them bare.

  Done with him, the man moved on to the next boy. Kaie was left with nothing to do but watch as one after the other each boy was treated to the same as he was. The last two boys received the searing metal against their right shoulders and he was subjected to the scent of melting flesh once again.

  It was finished in short order. Each boy was handed a pair of soft shoes. Then they were all being pulled back to their driven out the door like the cattle. Once again Kaie was first out and held by the arm with a grip that brooked no argument.

  At the front of the building he was handed off to a scowling woman wearing a shirt and pants like his own. The cut of the shirt was a bit different, covering her chest more effectively than his own, but otherwise they were the same. Not like the other men and women handling them thus far.

  The woman appraised him with an unattractive squint and a sniff of irritation. “You’re Kaie then?”

  It was making him nervous, how concerned they all were with his identity. No one else was getting charcoal on their foreheads or being asked their names. But what was the use in lying now? He nodded.

  She sniffed again then scooped up two bags from the ground and dropped them into his arms. One of them smelled distinctly of meat and set his mouth watering. The woman gestured to her left. “Stand there. You lot are hard to tell apart when you first get out.”

  Kaie did as he was told, waiting patiently while she handed out two bags to each of the other boys. Then she grabbed his arm, just like the others before her, and steered the line away from the building.

  He didn’t see much of the place. There were some buildings in the distance to the north and a clump of trees too organized to be natural to the southwest. Most of what he saw was massive fields of corn and wheat – ones that took his breath away. The woman didn’t give him much of a tour. She marched them past the wheat field, to the east.

  The whole area was a mockery of a village. Homes, twelve of them, built into a large stone hill. They were all built out of a shoddy, pale wood that looked for all the world like it was pieced together in an hour. Only two walls for each building, the back of the houses using the hill and the front covered up by large, worn animal skins. There were odd stone constructions, looking a lot like the strange tunnel coming out of the fire pit in the room he just left. There were two for each house, one on either end, and a few of them were spewing out smoke.

  There was a well between the sixth and seventh. The road leading to it from either direction was little more than mud. There were small patches of green between some of the homes. He couldn’t see for sure but they looked like gardens. Sad, small little gardens.

  The woman directed him to the first house.

  “This is East Field,” she said to the group. “This is where you live. You’ve got food for half a month. You will not receive more until that time is up. Don’t ask for it. Don’t steal from your housemates or anyone else. Don’t leave your homes unless someone comes to get you. Don’t fight and don’t burn down your homes. I am Boss Josephine. If you need anything, find me. Don’t need anything.”

  Then she shoved him through the hide wall of the first building.

  It was even smaller inside than out. A big part of that was because the building was divided by a shoddy birch screen and some carefully hung blankets. But he didn’t doubt it would be a small space regardless. There was hardly room for two people to lie down. For the first time, Kaie was grateful that he was small.

  Across the room a form stirred. He didn’t notice the unconscious body when he first took in the space, but he couldn’t miss it now. He didn’t recognize her when she first crawled out from underneath the four blankets. Her head was bald and all the color was leeched out, leaving her skin as pallid as the strange clothes they were both wearing. But when she turned her dark hazel eyes on him Kaie saw all the features he spent his childhood memorizing. “Amorette!”

  Her eyes filled with tears and in an instant she was on her feet and flying into his arms. He folded her in against his chest, noticing the painful pull in h
is shoulder and taking great care to avoid hers. For a while they just stood like that. He felt her tears spilling onto his new shirt and the shudders running through her small frame as she cried but there was no sound to accompany them.

  He wished he could cry with her. It felt wrong that he wasn’t. She was mourning their family, their lives. He should be joining her. Sojun surely would be in his place. But Kaie couldn’t summon up the tears. They weren’t there. He was just empty.

  She pulled away slowly. He would happily keep her wrapped up in his arms. Maybe forever. But he could see the questions on her face, in her eyes. Stupid of him, to think he would be enough. That she wouldn’t ask the question that would rip him up all over again. And then she would hate him, because he couldn’t even manage to cry.

  “Where is he? She told me…That woman who came to see me, with the big dress, she said she would give me Sojun if I cooperated. She said she wanted you. I didn’t think…”

  Kaie dropped his gaze. “He took my place. She came for me. Like she told you. But he wouldn’t let me go. He made her take him instead.” He should tell her the rest, the part where he was offered the chance to give the two of them some small piece of happiness. The part when he hesitated. The part where he didn’t stop it.

  He