Ashes and Flame

by Aiden Bates

  “It’s helped,” I said. “But... no. Every morning, it’s back. Or, hell—it’s back by the time it gets dark.”

  “Right,” she said. “Because there is no end to it. Emotions are... chemicals in your brain, and vibrational states in your body. You can take away the energy that makes them vibrate”—she held a hand out, magic hummed in the air, and mist became water, which became a small, misshapen bit of ice in her palm—“but the substance hasn’t undergone a fundamental change. That energy builds back up, and it goes back to being what it was before.”

  She held her palm and the ice out to me.

  I looked up at Rez again, and then reached out to touch the ice. I thought about him, about his smile, about the way he made me smile. About how he touched me, about his patience, about his blind, stupid devotion. I let it hum and grow, and then I poured myself into it.

  Fire snapped around my fingers. The ice melted. I shook my hand, pushed those emotions far away, and made myself numb and still inside. The fire went out.

  “Thus endeth the lesson,” Amy said. She flicked her hand, and the water sprayed off as a gentle mist. She stood. “Every emotion you deny is a blind spot. A dangerous blind spot. I’m sorry you were born like you were. If I could fix it for you, give you the kind of experience with your magic that I have with mine, I would do it in a heartbeat, sugar. But I can’t. It just is what it is. So you have to face it like it is. Other people can afford to be in denial about their feelings. They can repress them, look the other way. You can’t. You do that, and people will die. Unless you want to live out here like a hermit, and that’s certainly your prerogative.”

  Those all sounded like final words. A last lesson, though it was one she’d drilled into me for almost a week now.

  “You’re leaving,” I said.

  She spread her hands. “Darlin', I like you. I even kind of like Rez, though between you and me, he can be a little dense. But he’s nice enough and he’s obviously crazy about you. But—”

  “You’re here because you’re getting paid,” I said.

  Amy nodded. “It is what it is.”

  I had known, of course. She’d made it very clear. But somehow, I just hoped that she would stay. The djinn hadn’t come for me. I was in the open, sitting still, and had been for days, but it had not only not attacked, but if it was nearby, it kept downwind from Rez.

  Probably because three against one weren’t good odds.

  “Once you leave,” I said, “it’ll come. I can feel it in my bones.”

  “Honey,” she said and tossed the bit of glass, “I can’t stick with the two of you forever. I've got a life. And so do you. Or you will, if you can face this. I can’t teach you any more. I can push you, make you do it, but baby, if I have to keep doing that forever then you were never going to be able to do it on your own, and there’s no point. At least now, you’ve got a chance to stand up for yourself, right?”

  “Yeah,” I muttered. “I guess.”

  Amy stood slowly, grunting quietly from the ache in her knees. She held a hand out. “Come on. Get up.”

  I took her hand and let her help me up. To my surprise, she pulled me into a hug. “You’ll do fine,” she told me. “But only if you admit what’s right in front of you. No blind spots. Understand?”

  When she let me go, I gave her a nod. “No blind spots.”

  “I wish you’d stay,” Rez told her a few hours later, when we drove her to the nearest town with a bus station that could take her to an airport to get home.

  Amy groaned. “You two. Look—call me a friend, all right? But I’m a friend that’s gotta make a living. And besides, I’ve got a dinner date in Loup City that I’m twenty years late for. Laleh may be a century my senior, but she doesn’t actually have infinite patience. And you’ve seen her, right? Some other broad’s gonna swoop in and impress her if I don’t move fast.”

  “Oh, I don’t know,” I said. “Seemed to me like she really likes you.”

  “Huh,” Amy grunted, and shrugged. “Maybe so. Guess we’ll see.”

  “Good luck,” I told her. “Um... maybe I—or we—could visit sometime?”

  “Course you can, honey,” she said, and gave me a quick hug. Then she eyed Rez, less friendly and more warning. “Take good care of him.”

  “I will,” he said. “I promise.”

  She looked him over. “All right. I’ll hold you to it. And my new girlfriend might be a powerful djinn so—don’t cross me.”

  Rez smiled, and when Amy offered, he gave her a brief hug as well. “Right. Don’t be a stranger. I’ll make sure Nix wires the rest of the money. Thanks, Amy.”

  “As Laleh would say,” she said as she took a step back from us, her bag hung over her shoulder, “no thanks is needed. It wasn’t a favor. But you’re welcome all the same.”

  And then she turned, and left, and it was just me and Rez again.

  Me, and Rez, and the thing between us.

  And the book, which had been slowly tugging at my mind all day, even though it hadn’t been three days since I last sat down with it. “We should get back,” I said. “Book’s calling. And, we should figure out our strategy for when the djinn comes.”

  “Now that it’s back to the two of us,” Rez agreed.

  We got in the car, and headed back toward the desert. It wasn’t a long drive, just an hour. But it seemed to take longer than that.

  Rez kept looking over at me. I could feel his eyes. For five days, we hadn’t talked much about anything serious. Now, it felt like the... well, the dragon in the room with us, shifting uncomfortably from one side of the car to the other.

  “I’d guess it’ll come at night,” I said. “Late. Try to get the drop on us. Or if it’s expecting that we’ll think that, maybe it’ll come as soon as it gets dark. Fuck—I don’t know, if it were you, what would you do?”

  “If I was a murderous djinn assassin?” he asked, throwing me a critical look.

  I shrugged. “Why not? What’s the best way?”

  He sighed, probably hoping we’d talk about the other thing. “If it was me... I’d hang back another night. Make us think we were safe, and make sure that dropping off our other mage isn’t a ploy. I’d observe from a distance, and when I was sure... I’d come from downwind, hit us hard and fast from a distance first, then close in to finish us off.”

  Seeing Rez in the sky lately had reminded me that there was one whole half of him that was a natural predator. The sort that probably once dropped soundlessly from the sky, spewing fire right before those big talons snatched up whatever was fleeing in terror. It was a good strategy. It made sense. It was the sort of thing a predator would think out.

  “Might give me a chance to rest up,” I said. “I’ll set the trap up tonight anyway, just in case.”

  “I’d say that’s a good idea,” he agreed.

  After that, it was just the drive.

  When we got back to camp, Rez made food while I indulged the book. With a timer, this time, like I had a few days ago. It let me off at two and a half hours. Better than three, not as good as two. But at least it seemed to be accepting of the circumstances.

  I was starving when I finished, and Rez had waited for me to eat. “Last of the fish,” he said, handing me a plate. “Last potatoes, too. Suppose we could have gotten more food in town, but hopefully we won’t be here much longer.”

  I ate thoughtfully, and watched him occasionally watching me.

  You can’t have blind spots, Amy had told me.

  The physical part of what we had, Rez and I—it was good. It was a relief. But every time I tried to follow Amy’s advice and embrace the other half of it, the part that made me ache, the part that I couldn’t even name because naming it might make it grow roots or something...

  It was fine for us to have a sexy, pillow-talk conversation about pretending that we were together, that this was the vacation we had imagined. When it was just talk, it was just a game. But now we were here. Alone in the desert. Not a vacation, of c
ourse, but... I don’t know, maybe close to it. As close as I was likely to get.

  “After this,” Rez said eventually, breaking the carefully cultivated silence, “you’ll have a chance to be free.”

  “No, I won’t,” I said, and nodded toward the book that was in the bag that hung, even now, from my shoulder. “I’m never going to be free, Rez.”

  He put his empty plate on the ground, and clasped his hands in his lap. “Right. I know that part. But you won’t have to run.”

  “Yes,” I said, worn out just at the thought of having this talk, “I will. I’ve got the most valuable book, maybe the most valuable object in the world, practically attached to me. Maybe literally attached to me. I’m going to be running for the rest of my life. You can see that, right?”

  His jaw clenched. He looked off over the desert where the sun would be setting in another few hours. “You could stay at Emberwood, and we could—”

  I laughed. I didn’t mean it to sound so cruel, but it did. “You just never think more than a step ahead, do you?” I asked. “Rez, picture this for a second. Picture a whole cult, or one of the cabals, of mages, descending on your weyr with one clear objective to complete at any cost. Imagine them... raising the dead, and raining down fire and lightning, and twisting space and time, and attacking the minds of sleeping dragons to drive them insane, or... or I don’t know, any of the countless things a well-rounded group could accomplish. Tell me that if that happened, and if countless dragons in your family died, and you somehow survived—tell me that you wouldn’t regret bringing me home to meet the family. Tell me that you wouldn’t hate me for bringing that destruction to your people. Tell me that you’d just shrug it off, mourn and then we’d build a house somewhere and carry on with our lives and that when the next waves, and the ones after that come, and come, and beat us down, that you’ll look back on our life together and be able to smile or feel a shred of happiness. Tell me that, and mean it, and when this is over I’ll come to Emberwood with you.”

  He was quiet. Stricken. He stared at me, eyes flat, mouth thin. Stiff.

  “That’s what I thought,” I muttered.

  “Then we won’t go back,” he said softly, and stood to come closer and sit by me. “I’ll stay with you. We’ll run, move around. Hell, we’ll get you an oxygen tank and I’ll fly you over the border. We’ll go anywhere we want. I can get across the Atlantic if I’ve got—”

  He just didn’t get it.

  Well-meaning, but stupid.

  I set my plate down, half-finished, and pulled the bag and book onto my lap. I put a hand on it and looked up at him. “This is a part of me, Rez. Listen to me, and hear me, okay? I’m going to die reading this thing. I’m going to die reading this book. One day, probably just a few years from now, I will sit down, and start reading, and not get up again. Thirst or starvation or lack of sleep will get me, and like everyone else who ever got this far into it, I will fall over, and breathe my last breath onto its pages. Do you really want to be there to watch that happen?”

  “We’ll find a way to—”

  “No, you won’t,” I said and put my hand on his cheek. “You won’t. It’s the fucking manual of the gods. It’s some divine artifact. We’re not going to beat it, we’re not going to figure a way around it. There’s no loophole. And even if we could—you don’t know what I’ve done, Rez. You don’t know how broken I really am, deep down. If you did, you wouldn’t want me.”

  “Tell me then,” he insisted. He took my hand from his cheek, clasped it in both of his and moved to his knees in front of me, looking up with desperation on his face. “Tell me and let me make that choice.”

  “You can’t fix me,” I warned him.

  “I don’t need to fix you,” he breathed against my fingers. “You’re not broken. Not to me. Just... just let me love you, for fuck’s sake, Daniel. Please, just... if I’m going to hurt, then let me hurt. It’s a fair trade. I’m okay with it.”

  He may as well have stabbed me in the chest. It hurt. I couldn’t take a breath.

  “I...” I had to stop. Swallow. Reconsider.

  Blind spots are dangerous, kid.

  “I haven’t seen my parents in twelve years,” I said softly, slowly, each word like a little fistful of jagged glass to get out of my throat, “because the first time my magic... I was with Harry. Our first... the first time we... I killed him, Rez. He died... screaming... and I couldn’t stop it. I couldn’t save him, I couldn’t control myself. I... I was so afraid. So ashamed. I ran. And I tried to... Ivan’s people found me at my worst. And with them, I was party to so much more pain. Ivan used me as his prophet. The one that could read the book without clawing their eyes out. And more people joined him. And more. It’s not some ragtag troupe of misfit mages. They’re out there, right now, doing damage. Waiting for me to either unlock this thing, or for the djinn to get to me and keep me from interfering—which I can’t even do, because the thought of trying terrifies me. I am broken, Rez. You can call a pile of ceramic shards a beautiful vase, but it’s still broken.”

  Tears had clouded my vision and stained my cheeks. If Amy hadn’t worn me out that morning, I might have blown up. As it was, I heard a faint sizzling sound, and realized that my tears were boiling on my face.

  What I wanted was for Rez to let me go, turn away, and agree that I had done terrible things. That would have solved my blind spot. I could have taken that and turned it into powerful fuel. If he could just let me be alone again, I wouldn’t have to face the alternative. I willed him to do it. I pushed at him with my thoughts, wishing that I could shove against his heart. Go away. Hate me. Be disgusted. Prove me right and let me just go back to running. Running, I understand. Hiding, I know. I can do those things. This other thing that you want, Rez—I don’t know how to do that. All things I couldn’t make myself say out loud.

  Instead, impossibly, infuriatingly, he held tight to my hand. He sank back onto his ass to sit, and pulled me with him. With tenderness that made me want to hit him, he pulled me into his lap, and because I was weak and couldn’t fight him or myself, I let him. He cradled me close, pressed my head to his chest. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “For everything that’s happened to you. I can’t imagine. But I still love you, Daniel. I’m sorry, but I do. I’m not going to leave you. I just can’t. I’m not that smart.”

  “No,” I muttered. “You’re not.”

  I pulled back from his chest, and looked up at him. He seemed like he might kiss me, but he waited, watched me. “I don’t want to love you back,” I breathed. “It hurts, Rez.”

  “I know, sweet boy,” he said.

  “You’re an asshole,” I muttered. “You didn’t have to do this to me. You just did.”

  “I couldn’t help it,” he said. He was moving closer. Breathing harder. “I knew I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t stop.”

  “Why couldn’t you have just left me to die?” I demanded, or tried to—my voice was weak, my throat sore with a knot that I couldn’t swallow.

  “Because,” he said, his lips so close I could feel the electricity leaping between my skin and his, “the moment I saw you, I knew I was already falling.”

  He kissed me, soft at first, and then harder as I dug my fingers into his neck. I bit his lip, hard, but he didn’t pull back. There was blood, but what did he care? Shifters healed. Still, he was soft, even while I was hard and tried to be jagged and painful. If I had been made of thorns, he would have ignored the sting like he did now. His arms crushed tight around me, held me. It hurt. My heart screamed, resisted. Friction.

  A blind spot.

  Fire poured out of me. It burned in a steady halo that engulfed both of us. Clothing burned, catching and fluttering away on the hot currents. If I made myself numb, it would stop. But I didn’t want to. It was already out, and the screaming had stopped, and Rez held me close as the fire washed over him, around us.

  “You can’t burn me,” Rez said, his voice mixing with the rushing, crackling sound of the fire.
<
br />   We were naked except for the fire. I stroked his cheek, and sparks flew from where I touched. He didn’t even flinch. Something inside uncurled. Stretched out. Took a breath for the first time in twelve years.

  He kissed me again. “I’m with you,” he said. “Be with me, Daniel.”

  “Why?” I asked him.

  “Because,” he said as he slipped an arm under my knees and rose, lifting me up, “I can’t want anyone else. I want you. I want... I want you to be my mate.”

  “You’re killing yourself,” I warned me. “You know that.”

  “I don’t care.” He was carrying me away from camp. We burned like a pyre. The fire roared, reached, snapped in the air.

  There was no point in trying to push him away. I tried. He just wouldn’t go. He sank down on a patch of sand, on his knees, and pulled my legs around his waist. “Be my mate,” he breathed. “Burn with me, sweet boy.”

  He was hard, even in all this. His cock pressed against mine, alerted me to it, woke me up. A different fire burned, seemed to feed the fire in the air. It burned hotter, turning yellow. Blooming out from us like a flower. Rez kissed my neck. “Please,” he begged. “Please, Daniel. Be my mate. I’ll keep you safe. I’ll never leave you. I’ll run with you if we have to. I’ll always be there, if you’ll just be my mate. Ask me to claim you, make you mine, make me yours.”

  His teeth grazed my shoulder near my neck. Nerves there trembled, and my head wrenched to one side as if I couldn’t even help inviting more. “Rez...”

  “Burn me,” he begged. “Burn me hotter. Brighter. Say yes. Be mine.”

  He bit down, but not hard. His tongue lathed my skin, unburned as the rest of him, and his arms hugged me close. His hips moved, and his cock ground against me. Every bit of sweat that might have made us slick was gone, and my own cock was harder and straining against his.

  Everyone knew what mating meant. Everyone knew that shifters claimed, and kept. That once they gave that bite—that was it. One shifter, one mate. Ever.

  He was committing to just a few years, and giving up any hope of taking another mate when the book finally took me from him. And I wanted to tell him no, but it wasn’t what I felt. I wanted to belong. To be his. For him to have me, to protect me. It was wrong. It was selfish. I didn’t deserve it.