Fire & Chasm

by Chelsea M. Campbell

  Rathe’s face turns bright red, though he continues to make eye contact with Mara. She shoots him a sly smile.

  We should be in class right now with everyone else. I should be sitting next to Leora, writing out tedious lists of verbs and principal parts, except Church duties trump anything school related. As Father Gratch is so fond of reminding us, we don’t need an education to light candles and sweep out fireplaces. Unlike the other students, who live in the dorms over at the school and whose parents pay for their tuition, we’re here only at the mercy of the Church. We owe them our service.

  My palms are sweating, and I want so badly to lift up my sleeve and check again to see if the scar is really there. But I don’t want anyone else seeing and asking questions. I have enough of my own already.

  Was that wizard from last night in my room? Did he bring me home? The thought makes me uneasy. How would he have known where I live? Unless I told him, but I can’t imagine doing that. The same way I can’t imagine a wizard swallowing his pride and ditching his blue robes in order to step foot on church grounds. Technically, the grounds are open to anyone. But a wizard showing up in official garb from the High Guild is like a punch in the face or a rock hurled through the window. It’s an open act of aggression that wouldn’t be taken lightly, and even late at night, he would have stuck out like soot on snow. Someone would have seen him and raised an alarm.

  And I’m not an expert on wizard magic, but I’ve never heard of a healing spell that works that well, that fast. It shouldn’t be possible. He could have turned me in, too, for trying to murder him. But he didn’t.

  I could have killed him, but I didn’t do that, either.

  I feel like I’m losing my mind.

  So what else is new?

  Two red-robed guys my age, with golden stars embroidered on the edges of their robes to represent the capital city of Newhaven, push open the chapel doors and hold them there. A priest and priestess come in, holding smoking censers out in front of them, making the room smell like cinnamon and herbal tea. The High Priest follows. He’s tall and pale, kind of lanky, with a mop of blond hair that falls across his face. He’s got on his finest robes—or at least robes that look even more fancy and uncomfortable than ours—but other than that he doesn’t really look like a high priest. Missing from around his neck is the pair of flint stones that the Fathers wear. He’s also much younger than I expected. I knew he was a former pupil of Father Moors, but I didn’t realize how recently that must have been. He looks a decade older than me, if that, and I can’t help wondering how he got to his position so young.

  His gaze runs across the acolytes, pausing on me. He must know who I am because a smile passes over his lips, just for a moment. It’s so brief that I wonder if maybe I imagined it. But the feeling of dread it stirs up is real and lingers, prickling in my stomach, even after he’s turned his gaze away.

  “High Priest Endeil,” Father Moors says, bowing his head. “Welcome back to our humble Church of the Sacred Flame.”

  “Welcome,” the rest of the Fathers and Mothers repeat.

  The High Priest purses his lips as he silently surveys the rest of the chapel. “The honor is all mine. It’s good to be back.”

  “Please,” Mother Hart says, gesturing toward the simple hearth at the end of the aisle, “grace us with your most esteemed gift. Call upon the Fire.”

  He nods and proceeds solemnly down the threadbare, faded red carpet, until he reaches the hearth. He kneels in front of it, saying the ritual phrase, “Let the Fire’s light conquer the darkness of the Chasm once more,” and then I understand why he doesn’t have the flints around his neck. He doesn’t need them. Flame bursts to life in his hands and in an instant spreads not just to the kindling—which one of the first-year acolytes must have been up before dawn painstakingly preparing—but to the logs underneath. It’s a rare gift, one that marks him for greatness, a favorite of the Fire. I’ve never seen a flame take that fast. I’m a little bit in awe, at least until he turns around. There’s an arrogant grin on his face, as if he’s waiting for us to ooh and aah in admiration, and he’s ready to eat it all up. Everyone gapes in wide-eyed amazement at the miracle he’s just performed. Everyone except me, because I refuse to give him the satisfaction.

  My left arm aches. I start to rub it, then realize it hurts right where my scar is.

  “The Fire favors us!” the High Priest says, raising his arms toward the vaulted ceiling. It’s part of the fire-lighting ritual, but the familiar words sound cheap coming from him. There couldn’t have been any doubt that the flames would take. It’s a lot easier to get a fire going when you’re using magic. “Now, let me see how your new trainees measure up.” He looks at Father Moors, who nods. Something passes between them, some kind of understanding, but I have no way of knowing what it is. “I may be in need of an apprentice, and where better to find one than at my old stomping grounds?”

  He barely glances at the girls, as if he already knows he won’t find what he’s looking for among them, focusing on our lineup instead. He holds up a hand and lets bright flames appear in his palm, scrutinizing each one of us in their light. As if he’s communing with the Fire itself to judge us.

  I scratch at the scar on my arm, telling myself it’s because of my robe. It’s rough and itchy, especially on newly healed skin. It’s not because I’m worrying about what happened last night, or about the fact that I have another missing chunk from my memory, even if it’s only a few hours, not thirteen years.

  And it’s not because I’m debating whether or not to meet this wizard tomorrow. The answer to that is a given.

  I’m going. I have to. Even if it means—

  “This one looks guilty.” The High Priest is peering into my eyes, the flames in his hand illuminating his face and casting shadows in all the wrong places. His eyes look sunken and his cheeks hollow, like a grinning skeleton considering which one of us to eat first. When he says one of us looks guilty, I think he’s talking about himself, and then I realize he means me.

  Of course he does.

  Soft laughter echoes throughout the room as the people who think they know me express their disbelief. Except Rathe, who tries to subtly make eye contact and elbow me without the High Priest noticing.

  “That’s the acolyte I’ve been telling you about,” Father Moors says, clearing his throat. “The one favored by the Fire.”

  A few of my fellow acolytes glare at me. As if I actually want the creepy High Priest to notice me. Or as if I actually believe for a minute that the Fire favors me.

  “Ah, yes.” The High Priest glances at the knife at my waist, like he’s just now making the connection. But I saw the way he looked at me when he first came in. He knew who I was and the secret I keep. “Tell me,” he says, “do you have anything to confess? A guilty conscience, perhaps?” There’s an edge to his voice, and every muscle in my body goes tense. A smug smile slides across his face, reminding me of a cat with a mouse in its clutches, watching it panic as it knows it’s caught. That it will never break free.

  He’s toying with me. As if my life is a game to him. My insides squirm, and I feel the overwhelming urge to run. But I don’t.

  “High Priest Endeil—” Father Moors starts, but the High Priest interrupts him.

  “Let the boy speak.”

  And suddenly it feels like the whole room is holding its breath, even though only a moment ago everyone was laughing at the idea of me being anything but a saint. If he’s come to expose me, he’s not wasting any time, and I wonder if he’ll really do it.

  I grit my teeth and tell myself he won’t. He just wants me to know that he could. Or at least that’s the hope I cling to as I stand in my finest, itchiest robes, under the whole church’s scrutiny.

  I look the High Priest right in the eyes as I answer him. “I serve the Fire and the Church of the Sacred Flame. I have nothing to feel guilty for.”

  I’ve killed only wizards, and each of them deserved it.

  Understandi
ng flashes in High Priest Endeil’s eyes. A pleased smile replaces the sinister one, and I find myself equally proud and sickened that I’ve done anything to gain his approval.

  “Good,” he says, and then, just like that, he moves on to the next in line.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I’m in the middle of getting changed when my door flings open and Leora storms in. “Az, did you hear? It’s all over, everyone’s talking about it, and—” She blinks, suddenly noticing I’m only in my underwear. “Whoa. Az, what are you doing?!”

  “Me? What am I doing? I’m trying to get dressed!” I’m not wearing my formal robes any longer than I have to. Father Moors might have wanted me to dress up for the High Priest this morning, but he didn’t say anything about what I had to wear after that.

  “Yeah, but here? Now?”

  “This is my room!”

  “You knew I was coming over after my morning classes, remember?”

  “And you knew I wasn’t there, on account of the High Priest’s visit.” News of him coming here must be all over the church and the school by now. “It’s not my fault Father Moors made us dress up. Not that I should have to apologize for changing my clothes in my own room.”

  It dawns on her that she’s gaping at me, and she bites her lip and looks down. Then she seems to think better of where she’s looking and glances away, her whole face turning red enough to match the robes I’m not wearing.

  The door opens, just missing hitting Leora, and Rathe steps in. He’s still got his dress robes on, though his hair is back to normal: messy and all over the place. “Az, I—” He stops when he sees me standing there in my underwear, with Leora in the room. “Er, are you two finally . . . you know?”

  “Rathe!” A little late, I grab my dress robes off the floor and hold them in front of me.

  “Sorry, Az. Didn’t mean to interrupt.”

  “It’s not what you think,” Leora tells him.

  “Riiight. I was just going to ask if you had any clean robes I could borrow. Letton got gravy on my last good set. But I can see I’ve come to the wrong place if I want anything that’s not dirty.”

  Fire take me. “Will you shut up and get out of here?” I grab my pillow off the bed and throw it at him.

  He moves to the side just in time to not get hit in the face. “All right, all right! I’m going.” He laughs. Then, from behind Leora so she can’t see, he mouths, We’ll talk later, before slipping out the door.

  “Sorry,” I mutter, because I’m not sure what else to say. “He’s . . . He was just kidding.”

  Leora smooths down the sides of her ash-gray skirt, like she doesn’t know what to do with her hands. “Just hurry up and get your clothes on. I have to tell you what I heard. It’s horrible.”

  “You can tell me while I get dressed. Just . . . you know. Look over there or something.” I gesture toward the bookshelf in the far corner. It’s short, hardly taller than my nightstand, and doesn’t hold that much, so that I had to start piling more volumes on top of it. I only have one bookend—an ugly rock with sparkling purple crystals inside it—and it doesn’t do much to keep the books from toppling down to the floor. That’s going to be even more demerits during room inspection.

  “Okay, well,” Leora says, “everyone’s talking about it. It’s an outrage.”

  “What is?”

  “This new royal decree! The king and queen have officially sided with the wizards. To do this to the Church . . . it’s beyond insulting!”

  Like I said before, the Fire doesn’t grant powers to wizards. They have to steal their magic from the life forces around them, sucking them dry. Something the Fire doesn’t approve of. And the king and queen are ordinary people with gifts from the Fire—they’re no wizards—so them siding with those blue-robed bastards feels like a betrayal. Especially since the wizards aren’t known for their kind treatment of people they see as beneath them, which would be pretty much everyone.

  “I can’t believe them,” Leora says. “Now they’re fully backing the High Guild and giving them more seats in court.”

  “Great. That’s exactly what the wizards need—more power over everyone.”

  “They’ve got the majority now—it’s overwhelming. And that’s not the worst of it. They’re giving them authority over the Church! They have permission to search Church grounds at any time. Not just the chapel, but the school, too. Can you believe that, Az?!” She turns toward me, forgetting she’s not supposed to look.

  “Leora!”

  “Oops. Sorry. I just got carried away.”

  “And what do you mean they can search Church grounds? What do they think they’re going to find?” I remember the wizards asking about stolen guild property. They can’t think they’re going to find it stashed away in some church, can they? It’s bad enough that the king and queen gave them permission to search people’s homes. If they’re letting them into the church, too, then they’re pretty much giving the wizards free rein. As if they don’t care what happens to the citizens they’re supposed to protect. I wonder how much of the stolen property the wizards confiscate ends up in the royal coffers.

  “Oh, you didn’t even hear the worst part yet. And what’s taking you so long, anyway? You put a robe over your head and you’re done.”

  “I have to find it first.” My blankets are still tangled up on the floor, and there are dirty clothes everywhere. I don’t have any clean robes to put on—Rathe would have been out of luck even if he hadn’t walked in on us—and somewhere in this mess is my usual, more comfortable set. But what I’m really looking for is my bloody shirt from last night, so I can hide it before she notices and starts asking questions I can’t answer.

  “Well, anyway, the wizards are saying it’s the Church.” Her voice gets a little quiet, more serious. “You know how someone’s been . . . How the wizards have been— Oh.” She gasps, putting a hand over her mouth. Her jaw trembles, and then she marches over to me and grabs my left arm. “What is this?!”

  “Nothing. I thought you were going to give me some privacy?!”

  “Why? So I wouldn’t see the horrible scar on your arm?!” She stares at the white line on my forearm, one hand gripping my wrist, like she’s afraid I might flee at any moment.

  And I might. I want to. Even though it’s her, and my skin tingles where she’s touching me, and part of me wants her to never let go. But my heart is pounding, and the back of my neck prickles with sweat, and I don’t care if she sees me naked—I just don’t want her to see this.

  “It’s not so bad,” I mutter. “It’s hardly even there.”

  She’s shaking her head. “Fire take you, it’s over a vein. There would have been a lot of blood. So much, and . . . This wound matches the shape of your knife, Az. And I’ve never seen it before.”

  “You don’t know about all my scars.”

  “Oh, yeah? You have one on your ankle from that time you fell two years ago, when you were climbing that apple tree behind the school.”

  “When you dared me, you mean.”

  “And then there’s all the ones from before I knew you, like the one on your shoulder. And the little lines that run across your stomach. And then there are the scars on your wrists.”

  “No. There aren’t any on my wrists. You know about all the ones under my clothes, but my wrists? You get those wrong? I know where your mind has been.”

  Concern fills her eyes. “Maybe they’re not normal scars, but the tops of your wrists . . . they’re darker, like . . . like from a rug burn that never quite healed.”

  I shake my head. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “Don’t tell me you never noticed.” She tightens her grip on my arm, digging her fingers into me, and it’s all I can do not to jerk away from her.

  “Because there’s nothing to notice. There isn’t. It’s my body. I would know.”

  “Az, look at them. Look at them and tell me you don’t see it!”

  “I don’t.”

  “You�
��re not even looking!” She pulls my arm up, holding it out and making me look, so I can’t not see the slightly darkened band that mars my skin. She’s right—it looks like a rug burn, like it got really roughed up and then never healed all the way. I’m not sure what scares me the most, the fact that it’s there or that it never registered before.

  I don’t say anything—I just gape at my own arm in horror. I hate the way my head is spinning, and the way my insides feel jumbled, as if I’m falling. As if someone pulled the ground out from under me.

  “It could be anything,” I tell her, and even to my own ears I sound desperate, panicked. “A birthmark or something. It’s just like that. It always has been.” It’s barely there, the darkness. I never noticed it because it’s nothing. It doesn’t mean anything.

  But if it doesn’t mean anything, then why does looking at it make me want to throw up?

  “So, how do you explain the identical mark on your other arm?” Leora asks. “And your ankles. You have the same thing around your ankles.”

  I have to close my eyes, so I don’t see. So I don’t look down at my feet and see that she’s right about that, too.

  “You didn’t not know, Az. I knew. There’s no way you didn’t.” There’s a waver in Leora’s voice, a tremor of fear that mirrors my own. “This whole time I’ve known you, I thought you just didn’t want to talk about it. Chasm take you, how could you not have seen?”

  “I saw,” I lie. “Of course I saw.”

  But I can tell that neither of us believes it.

  Leora’s quiet for a while, and then she says, “What about the scar on your arm? I know you, and that wasn’t always there. Something awful happened, and you kept it from me. I thought we told each other everything.”

  “It was nothing. Just an accident. I didn’t want you to worry about me.”