by JA Andrews
“If you hurt her,” Will said, his voice unsteady.
“I admit I had my doubts she was your sister. Obviously you do not.”
In blind fury Will cast out, found the vitalle of Killien and the guards, and snatched at it, not caring if it killed them. Not caring that the guards would kill him for it. Only caring that he had enough time to destroy Killien.
Nothing happened.
Drawing in the vitalle, was like grabbing smoke.
He stretched his hand out toward Killien. The man was a flaming beacon of energy, even the ring he’d taken from the traitor wrapped around his hand with a blaze of energy, but Will could move none of it.
Will grasped at it again. He’d never had vitalle be so elusive. “What did you do to me?”
The guard behind him grabbed his shoulder again, pulling him back in the chair. Each person in the room was a towering pillar of energy that Will could not touch.
“You don’t think I’d walk in here and put myself at the mercy of your powers, do you?” Killien asked. “If I were you, I’d stop trying to fight, Will. Every guard has orders concerning Ilsa if you try anything…unpleasant. At the moment she knows nothing about you beyond that you are a Keeper. She hasn’t suffered anything on your account. If you cooperate, she won’t have to.”
Will let his hand drop to the table, a coldness spreading through him and he felt more exposed than he ever had on the Sweep. Why couldn’t he touch the vitalle?
Killien considered Will for a moment. “How old were you when she was taken?”
Will almost didn’t answer, but he couldn’t see what it would matter. “Eleven.” Will pushed the word out between clenched teeth.
The Torch seemed to find that answer amusing. “And did you use your magic to try to save her?”
Will clenched his bandaged hands on the table, his anger burning like searing hot coals in his chest.
“Ah.” Killien nodded. “But it obviously didn’t work. And even though you were only eleven, you still blame yourself.”
Will stared at the man’s face, pouring all his impotent rage into the look.
“Ironic,” Killien said with a slight exhale of laughter.
The word caught Will off guard. “Why?” he demanded.
The Torch looked at Will with an odd expression. “Just think how different things would be today if they’d gone differently that night.” Killien heaved himself out of his chair.
“But you’re right about one thing. You have given me what I wanted. The beginnings of it anyway. And if you want Ilsa to stay as safe and happy as she currently is, you’ll continue your translations.
“Tonight,” he continued, “as a little celebration, I’m letting you out of the Grave. Not for good, of course, but for a short time. I have visitors from the Sunn Clan here. One of them is the Torch’s own nephew. For the first time in ten years, the Morrow will be invited to the enclave of Torches.”
Killien face split into a broad smile. “The Sweep is being reshaped. The smaller clans are banding together and things will change, beginning with this enclave.”
Knowing it was useless, Will still cast out and tried to grab at some of Killien’s vitalle. It slipped through his grasp. Will stared at the man who’d become a stranger.
“I need the storyteller from Gulfind to impress my guests tonight, Will. Of course Ilsa will be there. I wouldn’t want to deny you the pleasure of seeing her. You have a few hours to come up with a story.” He walked to the door and paused. “If I were you, I’d make it something spectacular.”
Chapter Twenty-Six
Will went to the door. As Killien and the guards topped the path and disappeared, the flat blue sky settled back down like a glass lid, clear and empty.
A smooth shape glided over the edge of the rift and toward him, Talen’s white chest glinting against the sky. Will held his arm out and leaned his head away as the small bird flapped onto his shoulder. “You’re getting better at landing.”
A thin green shoot swung from Talen’s beak, its roots still entangled in a clod of earth.
“And that’s better than your usual offering of a mouse.” Will let out a long sigh. “Let’s take it to your nest.”
Will cast out toward the bird and found the coil of energy. Even when Talen rested, he was poised to burst into flight. Gently he took hold of the vitalle in the little hawk. There it was, solid, malleable. Will could have drawn it out, shifted it, anything.
Whatever Killien had done to keep him from manipulating energy, had ended. Will thought back over his time with Killien. Had he ever tried to use any vitalle near the Torch? Maybe one of Killien’s rings had the power to stop him, but he couldn’t think of a single time he’d tried. He’d read people’s emotions, but he’d never tried to move any energy.
Will opened up to Talen, searching for the birds emotions. But the hawk had only slight sense of anticipation.
“It seems like I should find some sense of loyalty. Or companionship.” Will settled Talen on back of one of the chairs. “You’re free to leave this charming place, and yet every day you come back.”
He reached out slowly and ran the back of his finger down the front of Talen’s wing. “Things don’t seem to be going well. If you come back and I’m not here…” Talen’s heartbeat thrummed against Will’s finger. “I’m sure you’ll find plenty of mice.”
He sat down in the other chair. “If you get a chance, will you keep your eye out for Rass?” He tried to push the idea of the little girl at the hawk. To resonate his desire to know where she was, but he could sense no change in the little bird. “I doubt anyone’s taking care of her.” Talen turned his golden eyes toward Will, then with a rush of air, winged out of the door, and out of sight.
Will stared at the empty door. “I didn’t think so.”
He dropped his head into his hands. It really didn’t feel like a night for storytelling. He needed something impressive, but easy enough he could tell in what was bound to be a stressful situation.
Sable would be a good choice. An orphan adopted into a traveling theater company, she’d grown famous and wealthy. But after the death of her friend, she’d become disgusted with it all, given her money to the poor, and lived as a simple peasant. Until day she met the man who would be king.
Yes, Sable was long enough to feel epic, intriguing enough to be keep his attention even with Killien and Ilsa there. And since it was older than Queensland, there’d be no way to trace it to the current country. Yes, Sable would do nicely.
The rest of the afternoon passed in excruciating slowness while Will translated runes for Killien. Talen didn’t return, neither did Sora. Or Killien. Even Lukas's hateful glares would have relieved the boredom.
Eventually the shadows inched their way up the rift walls and the sky darkened to black, except for a reddish glow to the west. The wind tore across the Sweep, sending clouds racing past the earliest stars. To the west, the red in the sky brightened. Had they lit a bonfire? The glow stretched wider across the sky and smudge of darkness covered the stars.
Not a bonfire. A grass fire. The smoke grew, piling up in malevolent shadows, glowing with a red-blackness. The guards still stood at the top of the rift. Will took a step toward them, wondering if they’d let him see the fire.
A small figure stepped out from the shadows next to Will. He froze, opening up and a burst of excitement exploded inside of him.
“Will!” a little voice whispered.
“Rass?”
She grabbed his hand. “Come. There’s a big fire near the other rift, you can sneak out.”
He almost laughed, but she sounded so serious. “The guards are still there.”
“Not that way. I have a rope. Hurry!” She tugged him.
He held back. “Wait, I need my bag.” He ran into the hut and grabbed it, tucking Kachig’s book in it too.
He let Rass pull him around the hut and press a rope into his hands. He gave it a hard tug, and it stayed firm. Gripping it sent a thousand tiny da
ggers of pain into his palms, but he set his foot on the cliff wall and started to climb. With each step his feet crumbled away part of the wall. The rope was strangely textured, more like a braid of smooth vines than normal cord. Almost like—
“This is grass!” he hissed down at Rass.
“Of course it is.”
It was unhealthy, that’s what it was. It was unhealthy for a people to have this much of a love for grass. And this little girl was the worst. “How’d you make this?”
“I used grass. Hurry up.”
They climbed above the height of the hut, and the guards stood clearly outlined against the reddening sky, focused by the fire. If they turned, Will and Rass would be clearly visible on the cliff.
Will pulled himself up, inch by crumbling clay inch. It took a lifetime to reach the top where the thin rope spread out into a wide net stretching up onto the Sweep. Will clawed his way over the edge and threw himself down. Wind laced with smoke and ash rolled past him and he covered his mouth with his arm.
A low line of rust-red flames spread across the ground to the west, like an army of fire demons dancing across the Sweep, the wind whipping them closer.
Will felt along the netting of grass, trying to find what the rope was anchored to. He found nothing. It merely spread out and tangled with the blades growing out of the earth. Rass climbed nimbly out over the edge.
“Rass, how did you—?”
She grabbed at Will’s hand. “Hurry!”
“Wait. Where is the rift where the Morrow live?”
Rass pointed at the wall of flames. “Past the fire.”
He took a few steps toward it. In the chaos, could he get to Ilsa?
Rass pulled his hand. “The fire is coming fast. We need to run!”
Will paused another moment. “I have to go back.”
“After the fire!” Rass yanked at him. “You can’t go that way!”
The line of flames spread unbroken to the north and south. He’d never get past it. With a growl of frustration, he nodded. Pulling two shirts out of his bag, he tied one over his nose and mouth, and the other around Rass’s tiny head, then motioned her to lead the way.
The Hoarfrost Range sat to the north, close enough to touch. She ran toward a particularly jagged peak, far enough past the smoke that the snow on its peak glittered moon-white. Will ran after her, his bag bouncing against his back and his legs complaining before they had gone more than a dozen steps. The smoke whipped past them in fits, interspersed with cool night air and the fire rumbled like distant thunder.
He was utterly exhausted and the mountains seemed no closer when the wall of flame reached the nearest hillside, fingers of black and red thrashing wildly into the sky.
Rass stopped and whirled toward the flames. “It’s going to catch us.”
The flames flew toward them faster than they could hope to run. He spun around, but the fire was stretched out across the whole world to the west. There was no escape. Past the thick line of flames, the Sweep was black and charred. They’d be safe on the other side, but they’d be burned alive before the flames passed them.
Stepping forward, Rass closed her eyes and dropped her head down. Her hair fell over her face and she spread both her hands toward the grass between them and the approaching fire.
She was tiny and insubstantial in the face of the fire and the smoke.
“Rass!”
The flames crackled and roared like the rush of a huge waterfall, or a crashing surf. He took a step toward her and stretched out his hand, desperate to pull her away, but she flicked up her hand in a commanding gesture and he stopped.
His breath was hot and damp under the shirt, the sting of smoke burning his throat. There was no going back. The fire was already between them and the Grave. He waited a breath, then another.
A swirl of flame spun up from the grass in front of them, like a demon tearing out of the earth, showing Rass in stark relief. She clenched her hands into claws, rotated her palms up, and like a giant heaving a mountain, she hurled her hands toward the roiling sky.
The ground in front of them exploded.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Dirt and grass thundered into the air. Will spun away, throwing his hands over his head and crashing to his knees. He grabbed Rass, pulling her back, leaning over to shield her from the earth crashing down around them.
When dirt stopped pelting him, he looked up.
A swath of turned earth cut through the leading edge of the fire. Strings of grass wafted down through thick, swirling dust.
The two of them sat in a gap of darkness. Flames blazed past on either side, driven east by the wind. A wave of heat rolled by, and they were behind the fireline, kneeling in a world of blackness and soot. All around them thin trails of smoke rose like wind whipped spirits.
Rass shifted, sinking back against his chest. Her eyes were closed and her shoulders heaved with thick, heavy breaths.
He cast out across the wasteland, but there was nothing left living but roots. No plants above the ground, no animals, no people as far as he could sense. The line of fire racing eastward was a gash of bright energy.
Rass’s shoulders slowly settled down into regular breathing and she pushed her dusty hair out of her face. She looked like a creature made of earth. The shirt around her face was caked with dirt, and the skin by her eyes was rough with more. Bits of grass stuck out of her hair.
Will pulled the shirt down off his face and stared at her.
“You’re not just a little girl.”
She pulled her own shirt down and quirked a curious smile at him. “I’m a pratorii.”
Will waited for her to say more.
“I have no idea what that means.”
“Pratorii. I am the grass.” She tilted her head as though considering the words. “Or the grass is mine.”
A memory triggered in Will’s mind.
What are the elves? he’d asked Ayda during the weeks he’d spent in the Lumen Greenwood.
We are the trees. She’d spun and thrown her arms out. The keepers of their souls.
Will touched a lock of Rass’s dirt-caked hair. It was thin and straight and stiff. Like grass. “You’re an elf?”
Rass considered this for a moment. “The tree elves are our cousins. They are silvii, we are pratorii.”
“So…a grass elf?”
Rass grinned up at him. “Yes.”
It seemed so obvious. She didn’t look like she was from Queensland. The wide eyes, the sharp chin, the cheekbones: she looked like a smaller, wilder version of a tree elf.
Will stared at her, stunned. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
Her smile faltered. “I thought you knew.”
“I didn’t even know grass elves existed.” He gestured to her little grey shift. “I thought you were just an odd little slave.”
“Roven slaves don’t live in the grass.”
“I know, that was part of what was so odd.” He frowned at the fabric she wore. “Don’t tell me that’s made of grass.”
She plucked at the edge of it. “The veins that run down the grass blades can be woven together into anything.”
Will shook his head and laughed. “It all makes perfect sense, now that you say it. Are there many grass elves here?”
She nodded. “There’s a lot of grass.”
“You know, I have spent a lot of time over the last few weeks imagining rescue scenarios. Never once did I include a grass elf.”
Rass puffed up a bit and gave him a proud smile.
Will looked at the long line of fire, a hundred questions circling in his mind. “Does the fire hurt you?”
She let out a small laugh. “Only if we’re foolish enough to be in its path. Fires are as good for the Sweep as rain and sunshine. It burns away the ghosts of the old grass and feeds the new shoots. But most fires are small, and easily avoided.”
The gap of flame that had passed around them had closed, and raced eastward unimpeded.
Will cast a side
long glance at Rass. She was an elf. The idea was both shocking and utterly fitting.
“That was well done.” He pointed to the upturned earth.
Rass pushed herself up and shook her hair out, dislodging dirt clods and small bundles of grass. She set her fist on her chest and gave Will a small bow before breaking into peals of laughter. A swirl of smoke enveloped them and her laugh turned to a cough.
“We should keep going,” she said.
Will hesitated. “I need to go back. I need to get someone.”
Rass shook her head. “The entire clan will be on guard. If you need to go back, wait until the fire’s out. You’ll never get close without being caught again.”
Will knew she was right, but it was still frustrating to tug the shirt back over his face and follow her north. They’d find somewhere safe to regroup, then he’d figure out how to get back for Ilsa.
With the fire racing away, the world sank into blackness. His boots kicked up ash. All of the grass was gone. Will glanced down at Rass walking silent beside him. “Are you…all right?”
She looked up at him, her brow drawn down questioningly.
He waved his hand at the wasteland around them. “The grass,” he began, not knowing exactly what to ask.
“Last year’s grass was dead. The fire passed quickly and the roots are fine. New grass will grow soon.”
Question after question popped into his mind. “Can you talk to it?”
She considered the question for a moment. “The grass talks to me.”
When she didn’t continue, Will bit his lips closed to keep from laughing. “What does grass have to say?”
“It tells me about the weather and where the herds are. If the ground is wet enough. How hot the sun is. Where the Roven are.”
“How much of it can you hear?”
She looked at him as though the question made no sense.
“Can you hear the grass near your feet? The grass on an entire hill?”
“All the grass is one.”
Will stared at her. “The roots of each connects with the others, so the whole world is an endless living thing,” he quoted her from the first day they’d met.