Fire & Chasm

by Chelsea M. Campbell

  I wait until we’re alone again, the wizards’ voices soft, unintelligible echoes down the street, before I bring the blade up to Hadrin’s throat. I want to use it so badly—it’s all I can think about. I pull the knife back and touch the flat edge to the back of his neck, taking pleasure in the way he winces and cries out. Not enough to alert anyone inside, just enough to expose his terror and pain. Sweat beads on my forehead and slips into my eyes.

  “My hand is shaking,” I whisper into his ear. “You have seconds to tell me. They’ll never hear your scream. And even if they do, I’ll be gone by the time anyone comes to check.”

  “You know my sins.” His voice wavers. He sounds like he’s on the verge of tears. A grown man, a wizard, reduced to this.

  I grin. “I want to hear you say them. Confession is the path to deliverance.” My arm muscles strain, and my hand twitches, the effort of fighting against the knife’s desires almost unbearable. It’s not just the knife. Some part of me, deep inside, wants to kill him. The same part that remembered his name, but offers no other hints about who he is. Or who I was.

  Am.

  “You sound like one of those damned priests.”

  The knife slips. I can’t help it. It’s all I can do to keep from slicing his throat open. The edge catches the side of his neck. Not enough to drain him, just enough to draw blood. To smell the burning stench of human flesh. The sight of the blood brings me to my senses, just for a moment. Just long enough that I push him away from me and stumble backward.

  He turns toward me, and I’m right, there are tears in his eyes. “It’s my fault,” he says, holding his hands out, palm up. Seeking forgiveness I already know I can never give. “It’s my fault, what they did to you.”

  “In that dark room, you mean. With the chair and the straps and the pain.” With the broken boy who exists in me, somewhere deep inside.

  He nods, and the tears streak down his face. “You were mine, my responsibility, and I . . .” He shuts his eyes, drawing in a shuddering breath. “I let them hurt you. Worse than that, I ordered them to. Even afterward, I should have stopped it. I could have, and I didn’t. But that was the point of the whole project. The whole damned thing! And I was so . . . I thought my work was all that mattered.”

  He goes silent, leaving me to take all that in. I don’t know what any of it means. I drop the knife to the ground, to break its hold, because I don’t have the willpower to sheathe it yet.

  “I have confessed,” he says, his voice choked. “Am I delivered from my sins?” He laughs, already knowing the answer. “We were going to change the world, and all it would have cost was one innocent boy. One who was made to . . . It wasn’t supposed to matter. You weren’t supposed to matter. I wasn’t supposed to care!”

  All the heat drains from my body. Ice water trickles through my veins. The sudden change leaves me colder than it should, making me shiver. “Now you want something from me. Is that why you were searching? Is that why you tortured innocent people?!”

  “When I— When the Guild thought you were stolen from us, we couldn’t just let that go. Not with something so valuable. So dangerous. But I won’t let them take you again, Azeril.” He puts his hand over his chest, where his heart is. And yes, wizards have hearts. I’d be skeptical, except that I’ve seen enough of them, red and raw and bleeding.

  “I don’t need you protecting me. I don’t need you for anything, so why should I help you?”

  “Because the Church isn’t the sanctuary you think it is. And because I need a weapon.”

  I reach down and pick up the knife. I hold it out to him, hilt forward. “You want to borrow mine?”

  “Very funny. But you know as well as I do what our best weapon always was.”

  “You didn’t come to borrow this.” I sheathe the knife, flickers of regret running through me, and I have to force myself to peel my fingers away from it.

  “No, Azeril, I didn’t. I came to borrow you.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  It’s later that night and I’m lying next to Leora, in her bed. It’s not what it sounds like.

  I wish it was, but it’s not.

  She was just falling asleep when I arrived. I’m not supposed to be here, at least according to the school and the Church, but if they really cared about stopping late-night visits, they shouldn’t have put in windows. And anyway, I don’t care what anyone else wants. Not the school, not the Church, and not Hadrin. Leora was glad to see me, and that’s all that matters.

  We just lie there for a while, her fingers intertwined with mine, neither of us saying anything. There’s only the sound of our breathing. I think she’s asleep when she startles me, saying, “So, are you ever going to tell me why you’re here?”

  Because I couldn’t be alone. Not with that dark room inside my head. All I got was a flash of it, a scrap of memory brought on by terror, by a wizard putting his hands on me, and now I can’t stop reliving it. It’s a horror lurking in the dark parts of my mind, waiting for me whenever I close my eyes.

  It turns out the dark parts are better left unseen. And High Priest Endeil wants to shine a light on them . . .

  “Do I have to have a reason?”

  She squeezes my hand. “Is this about earlier? Don’t tell me he’s already making you go.”

  Her room is dark, except for the fat pillar candle with three wicks on her nightstand. Its light wavers back and forth against the wall. I turn my face away from her. “That’s not it.”

  “So then why did you come here if . . .” Her fingers dig into my shoulder. “Az,” she whispers. “Just tell me what’s wrong already.”

  “Nothing. Ow!” She pinches my earlobe. I wince and sit up, wriggling out of her grip.

  “Don’t lie to me. Something was wrong earlier and something’s wrong now. And it’s not just the High Priest wanting you to be his apprentice. I know you.”

  Not as well as she thinks. Hadrin said almost the same thing, and it turns out he really does know me. Better than Leora does, and I hate him for that. And I hate myself, for the things I can never tell her. I draw my knees toward my chest, wrapping my arms around them. “I can’t sleep. That’s all. So I’m here, hoping I can stay.”

  She studies my face, chewing her bottom lip. I can tell she doesn’t believe me, but she doesn’t say no, either. “You can’t be here in the morning, when the dorm mistress makes the rounds for wake-up call.”

  “But before that?” Now is all that matters. Because right now, I can’t handle who I am without her. When I’m with her, I see myself through her eyes. A person, not a monster. Not a weapon. Someone worth caring about.

  She nods. Both of us fall silent. And I feel the heat between us again and am suddenly overly aware that we’re in her bed together. And I’ve got her permission to stay. To spend the night with her, and even if it doesn’t mean that, it does mean something.

  The candlelight whispers across her face, caressing the shape of her cheekbone. The end of her nose. Her lips. I can’t help reaching out to touch her, to trace the path of the light. My fingertips brush against her skin, heat sparking to life all over me.

  She sighs softly. Her hand meets mine and covers it, pressing it to her cheek. “Is this what you came here for?” she asks. “Because it’s okay if you did. I thought you never would.”

  Heat seeps into my chest, the warm ache there spreading through the rest of me, and all I know is I need to be closer to her. Closer than we could ever possibly get.

  “Is it?” she repeats.

  I drop my head. “I couldn’t be alone tonight. I saw something again. A memory, maybe.”

  “That’s . . .” There’s a touch of embarrassment in her voice, but mostly disappointment, like she was hoping I’d secretly shown up just for her. “What was it?”

  “I don’t know. Not yet. I might not be who you think I am.” I’m already not. I never was.

  “You’re my best friend.” Her eyes flick away from mine. “More than that.”

  �
�I don’t know who I was. I could have been someone you wouldn’t like.” Someone who was no one until he was a killer.

  “No. I know you, Az. You know you. You could never be someone like that. You just couldn’t.”

  But I remember how she looked at me in the church basement, when I had the knife in my hand. And Hadrin said I was a weapon. The best weapon the wizards had, whatever that means. I didn’t stick around to hear more about it, but I remember the way Father Moors found me, with blood on my hands and dead bodies surrounding me.

  My skin feels feverishly hot. I lean toward her. “I see it every time I shut my eyes. That dark room and the—” My throat closes in on itself, refusing to speak the words. And the straps, the pain, the horror.

  The broken boy in the chair.

  She smooths my hair away from my face, questions burning in her eyes. “What do you mean, the—” She swallows the words back, maybe knowing I won’t answer—that I can’t—or maybe not wanting to know. “Don’t think about it. I don’t care who you were, Az. I don’t. Neither should you.”

  “I don’t want to be alone.”

  “Then don’t be. Stay with me.”

  She thinks I mean tonight. I do, but I also mean so much more than that.

  I take a deep breath, looking her over, at the way her silky pink nightgown clings to her. Only a thin layer of fabric separates me from her, teasing me with the curves of her body—her shoulders, her breasts, her hips—and all the forbidden places a friend isn’t allowed to touch. “Maybe I shouldn’t.”

  “Az.” She looks me right in the eyes. “I’m going to say it nice and simple. Stay. With. Me.”

  “But—”

  “Don’t make me say it any plainer than that. You don’t want to be alone tonight. Maybe I don’t, either.”

  I smile. It feels like the first time in ages, though I know that’s not true. Tonight’s events have skewed my sense of time, creating a chasm that stretches out between now and before. Before I met Hadrin, before I got a glimpse of who I was. Leora smiles back at me, and in that moment there is no darkness. There is only light, exposing everything about me. Making the dark parts of me disappear. And I’m not a monster—I’m just a boy alone with a girl, and I don’t have anything to hide.

  Could a monster ever love anyone this much? Hadrin was wrong. I was no one before this.

  She watches me, her eyes warm and inviting. I lean in close to kiss her. Finally, after waiting a lifetime. My lips almost touch hers. Almost, but then I hold back.

  Because these are the same lips that would have killed that wizard at the bar tonight with their words. I didn’t know where the words came from, but I knew exactly what they would have done. How much pain they would have caused. The realization hits me like a stone, jarring me out of whatever illusion I was under. These are the same lips that uttered a spell dark and cruel, meant not just to kill, but to torture. And I would have enjoyed it. Even now, I’m a little disappointed that Hadrin stopped me. And Leora doesn’t know. She can never know.

  I pull away from her, shrinking back into the darkness. I scramble off the bed. I don’t know what I was thinking. Even in her light, my shadows still lurk. And without the darkness to hide them, she might see the truth. She might finally see who I really am.

  “Az, wait— What’s wrong?”

  “I didn’t come here for this. I shouldn’t—I can’t—”

  “Stay. Please, just stay.” She’s on her feet, her hand on my arm. Not letting me go. “We don’t have to . . . Nothing you don’t want. Just stay.”

  “I’m not what you think I am.”

  “Yes, you are. Because you’re mine.” She takes my hand. She kisses the spiral tattoo on my wrist. The first time she’s kissed me, and it has to be there. I don’t know what the tattoo means, but I do know it ties me to a wizard. Would she still press her lips to it if she knew that? “That’s what you are,” she says. “You can’t tell me you’re not.”

  No, I can’t. I’m hers. I always have been. For as long as I can remember, which is the only time that counts. “I love you,” I tell her, the secret tearing itself from my chest, leaving me raw inside. Red and raw and bleeding. But it’s a relief to say something so normal, so honest. It’s one secret I don’t have to keep hidden anymore.

  Something sparks in her eyes. Something warm and beautiful. Her shoulders relax, as if she’d been waiting forever for me to say those words.

  I make myself look away. Because the boy she feels that way about, the one she thinks she knows so well . . . He isn’t me. At least, not all of me. “You’re the most important person in the world to me,” I add, “but I shouldn’t stay here tonight. Or any night.”

  Her hands squeeze my wrists tight, sending a shock of fear through my nerves. “Az, please, don’t—”

  I twist out of her grasp, and my hand is already on the doorknob. I’m in the hallway before she can even finish her sentence. Fleeing the scene of the crime, like a thief in the night. A thief who isn’t quite sure what he’s stolen, only that it was valuable, and that his steps are heavier leaving than when he came in.

  “Az, please! I love you! So don’t go. Chasm take you, don’t go!”

  But I do. I keep walking, even though it tears me apart. Even though the heartbreak is excruciating. So much so that it might even block out the screams of the broken boy in the chair.

  So maybe I got what I came here for, after all.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Rathe gapes at me as I stumble into class the next morning. I haven’t slept—maybe a few minutes here and there, but otherwise, nothing. I have a pounding headache and my eyes sting.

  I motion for him to scoot over and then slump down next to him at the long wooden study table in the back row.

  “What in the Chasm happened to you?” he whispers. “Man, your eyes are bloodshot.”

  Mother Hart is at the chalkboard in the front, writing out a sentence for us to diagram.

  The king and queen were lied to by those insidious wizards.

  “I couldn’t sleep.”

  “You missed candle service this morning. Father Moors is going to have your hide if Father Gratch doesn’t get to you first. Your room didn’t pass inspection again—big surprise there—and you’ve been missing chores lately. One more offense and Father Gratch says the Council is going to have to do some ‘reevaluating’ around here.”

  I clench my fists under the table. I so don’t need this right now. It’s bad enough the High Priest is trying to bully me into becoming his apprentice—though it’s been more than twenty-four hours, and he hasn’t made good on his threats, unless this reevaluation was his idea. But I doubt it. Father Gratch has had it in for me since the day I got here.

  My chest feels heavy, regret over what happened last night still clawing at me. I glance around the room, taking in the scattered acolytes in red robes like me and Rathe, and the regular students, here purely for school, in their crisp ash-gray uniforms. I look for Leora’s dark-reddish-brown hair . . . but I don’t see her.

  “She’s not here,” Rathe whispers.

  “Where is she?”

  He wrinkles his forehead. “You’re asking me? I thought you were the expert on that.”

  So she didn’t show up for class. I can’t blame her—I almost didn’t, either. But I dragged myself here because I wanted to see her, even if I was pretty sure she wouldn’t want to see me. Or talk to me ever again.

  Is that why she’s not here? So she doesn’t have to be in the same room with me?

  “Cheer up,” Rathe says, clapping me on the back. “She’ll get over it.”

  “You don’t even know what it was.” I swallow back a bitter taste in my mouth. I should have stayed with her. I tore a secret from my chest and instead of handing it to her on a silver platter, I threw it at her and ran.

  I love you.

  “Well, she’ll probably get over it. Is that better?”

  My eyes are bleary. I rub my palms against my face and wish I’d got
ten some sleep. But then again, maybe it’s better I stayed awake. I can’t imagine my dreams would have been anything but nightmares.

  Last night flashes through my mind. She loves me. She wanted me. To spend the night, to sleep in her bed, to . . . to stay with her. I picture the warmth in her eyes when she looked into mine. I should have kissed her. I don’t know what’s wrong with me.

  Except I do. Because as soon as I imagine her loving me back, I remember that shock of horror. The moment when the monster almost kisses the girl, and she has no idea who he really is. He looks into her eyes and falls for the image he sees of himself. Of the way she sees him. But it isn’t the truth. There’s something evil and broken inside of me, and her loving me doesn’t change that.

  The classroom door opens, and for a second I perk up. She’s just late, not avoiding me. I picture her walking in, glancing over at me, angry but worried. Hurt but forgiving.

  But it’s not her. Just Bran, a fellow acolyte playing messenger. He bows his head, greeting Mother Hart, who pauses in the middle of writing her next sentence: Given recent events, it’s clear that the king and queen both have their heads up their—

  “I’m here for Azeril,” he says. “Father Moors needs to see him in his office right away.”

  Great.

  Mother Hart sighs at me, as if she’s been expecting this. “Go,” she says, waving me toward the door.

  I exchange a look with Rathe, who mouths, Nice knowing you.

  Bran waits until we’re in the hall and the door is closed before saying, “Father Moors is so pissed at you.” He sounds happy about that, like it’s the most exciting thing that’s going to happen all day.

  It probably is, but I still glare at him. It turns into a yawn, and I wonder if anyone would notice if I didn’t come back to class. If, after Father Moors is done chewing me out for missing candle service, I could just slip back to my room and sleep.