Bursts of Fire

by Susan Forest

  “I saw other parts of my life that night.” Meg’s words grated on Janat’s ears like the croaks of a raven. “From using magic. I’ve been trying all day to make sense of them. There has to be something, a clue.”

  If only she’d stop talking. Janat pushed away Meg’s words and peeked over the outcrop protecting them from the eyes of those below. The soldiers were still there, patrolling outside the castle, warming themselves at campfires. If only they could sneak past King Artem’s guards. King Ean—Mama, everyone—was safe inside the castle walls. If only they could just get back inside, they’d be safe, too.

  “Are you listening?”

  Janat huddled against the rock rib. The jagged projections dug into her palms. She felt sick.

  “Janatelle. I asked if Mama did the same with you.”

  “No.” But...yes. Janat hunched away, disquiet churning inside her. Mama had taken Janat to her room. Made her touch a bit of old root.

  “You have to tell me.”

  It was horrid. She couldn’t talk about it. What Mama had said. Couldn’t think about it. She had to think of...

  “Janatelle!”

  “Stop!” The words boiled out. “Don’t you understand? Mama even said King Ean didn’t believe her. The other magiels didn’t believe her. Can’t you see, Meghra? When she talked to you, the madness of using the Amber was on her. That’s why she told Nanna to get us these stupid rags to wear, that’s why she told merchant whatever-his-name-was to take us away.” She wanted to shake Meg. “Nanna’s right. Mama talks nonsense after she’s been in the grip of magic.”

  “It wasn’t nonsense.” Meg’s voice was cold as the stone beneath them.

  Janat held the toes of her boots, glaring at the shale, trying to get the words under control. “I wish she’d just stay in her chambers until she’s normal.” She covered Rennika with her shawl and dragged the little girl onto her lap. Rennika’s small body was soft and warm, squirming fitfully in her sleep. Janat scowled at Meg. “Sometimes I hate her.”

  Meg’s face grayed, as if she’d been slapped.

  “Why does Mama have to use it?” Janat lashed out. “She sleeps for days, after. She can’t stop crying. We never see her.”

  “You know why she uses the prayer stone.” Meg’s words smashed against Janat like the bitter wind whipping down from the mountains. “For death tokens. To keep the city safe from orums and other beasts. For prosperity. For health.”

  “It scares me, Meghra! When she’s like that.”

  Meg seized her hands, held on as if Janat were going to jump up. Bolt. Maybe she was.

  “She’s not Mama.” Janat wept. “She says things that aren’t true. Can’t be true. I don’t—”

  “What? What did Mama say to you?”

  A crushing tension trembled her chin, and she pushed her jaws together to still them. Rennika woke, shivering, and cried.

  Meg looked like she wanted to slap her. “What did she say, Janatelle?”

  “She said...she said the king lost his mind. He’s demented.”

  “Which king?” Meg pressed.

  “King Artem. From Arcan.”

  Meg sat back.

  Finally, Janat had shut her up. But still, her eyes drilled into Janat’s face. Janat smudged her streaming tears across her cheek with her sleeve. “Then she made me do magic. Meghra, it was awful—” And after, Janat had vanished from Mama’s warm room and found herself shivering in falling snow, clinging, terrified, to a rocky ledge.

  “What did you see, Janat? After you did magic?”

  “Nothing. More of—” She flung an arm out. “This. Crawling on rocks. I don’t want to crawl over frozen rocks.”

  Meg pulled Janat’s shawl close around her, almost a businesslike attempt at solace. “We are the magiels of the House of the Amber Prayer Stone.” Her words were quiet but strong. “Someday, praying for death tokens for the people of Orumon will be our duty. We have to survive. Whatever Mama saw coming. For our people.”

  Survive.

  Janat covered her ears and hid her face on Rennika’s back and Rennika squirmed and whimpered. Night was on them, snow was coming, they had nothing to eat. “I want to go home. I want Nanna. I want my own room and my bed.” King Artem’s men couldn’t mean them harm. They were magiels.

  “We all want to be safe in our beds. But we’re here.” Though Meg’s words softened, they brought no comfort.

  Weariness washed through Janat and claimed all her bones. “It’s not fair.”

  “No.” Meg put an arm around her shoulders, blocking the persistent wind. “It’s not.” She looked up at the stars, screwing up her face as if she would cry.

  They only knew dresses and dancing. Children’s games. The garden in the castle.

  A snowflake settled on Meg’s shoulder.

  Rennika burrowed into Janat’s belly. “I’m hungry.”

  The complaint brought tightness to Janat’s own stomach, but she was almost glad.

  At Rennika’s words, Meg seemed to shake off whatever despair had come over her. Slowly she released them and climbed to her feet. “We’re all hungry.” She looked down at the walled city again.

  The wind calmed, then, but frost filled the air.

  “Let’s go.”

  “Where?” Janat lifted Rennika from her lap and helped her up. The girl could barely stand.

  “If the king’s men found a way up from the valley to attack the back gate, there’s got to be a way down.”

  Janat was doubtful. Such a way would be steep. She looked down at the soldiers and pulled her shawl tighter. Crusts of old snow had slaked their thirst, but not filled their stomachs. Still, they had to leave this ridge. They needed to find a place to sleep.

  “We’ll go to the saddle that connects Archwood to the main mountain range.”

  Where they’d tried to go last night after their escape. Where King Artem’s soldiers had most likely come up from the valley. “Where the shrine to the Many Gods is.”

  Meg tugged the mittens more tightly onto Rennika’s hands and the girl wept sleepily. Ranuat, the constellation of the seven murderers surrounding the bright merchant star, peaked over the horizon.

  “But if that’s how the king’s soldiers got here...” Janat felt compelled to argue, at least a little. “The path will be guarded.” Arguing with Meg felt easy, reassuring. The way things were supposed to be between them.

  “Likely.” Meg looked tired, almost beyond caring.

  “We’ll be arrested or killed.”

  Meg nudged Rennika. “Then you can tell them King Artem would not want us harmed,” she said, and her voice was wry.

  Janat followed Meg down the slope, almost smiling at the jab.

  The wind blew, cold. In the faint light of the pearly river of stars, Meg picked her way across the rock slide.

  To their left, the peak they’d clung to since fleeing the city fell away to a wide ridge that led to scree slopes, rising again to lose themselves in a range of the Gods’ impenetrable mountains. On either side of the ridge, forests marched down the steep slopes to the valley. They must find a way along the slopes of shale between the mountain’s upper cliffs and Carn Archwood’s fortress walls to reach the ridge.

  Gradually, they made their way across the slopes. The city was unlit except for a few torches scattered at long intervals along the wall. Below its parapets, blurred shadows of men lay or sat around small fires, or patrolled, scanning the fortress.

  Their footsteps crunched, loud in Meg’s ears. Rennika slipped and cried out, and she and Janat crouched by the little girl’s side, still as hares, silent, watching. How could the men not suddenly turn and raise the alarm and loose arrows in their direction?

  And yet, there was no change in the darkness below.

  Breathing again, Meg nudged Rennika to her feet, and they continued their agonizing journey.

  They reached the bottom of the rock rib. The king’s men were still in sight, disturbingly close.

  They stopped. Only a fe
w feet below, a well-worn path in the scree wandered from the city along the open, windy ridge that linked the peak where Archwood perched to the Orumon mountains. The ridge was wide and exposed to all eyes; the only trees were huddled in a series of gullies dropping away on both sides. The dark would be treacherous on the high path, but right now, it was their only friend.

  Beneath the city walls, the soldiers were mostly quiet and still. King Ean’s sentinels stood on the walls, and the Delarcan men paced below, each watching the other.

  Meg moved forward, crouching, holding Rennika’s hand, and Janat followed. It was only a moment before they were on the path, and the ground felt more solid than it had since they’d left the city. Their feet were quieter here than on the sloping scree, yet still perilously loud. As much as she wanted to run, Meg kept to the same quiet creeping as before.

  The path along the ridge descended gently, and then climbed, becoming steeper as it did so, leaving the forested gullies behind. When Meg peered back, they had moved behind a shoulder of the mountain and she could no longer see the campfires of the soldiers or the towers of the castle.

  By the Gods, they’d done it. Meg’s heart raced and her breath came short in silent jubilation. She’d done it! Brought her sisters off the mountain, past the soldiers.

  But they weren’t safe yet. Calming her pulse, she led them ever upward through bitter wind, finally, to a stone wall. The shrine to the Many Gods.

  Snow began to fall.

  An orum chased her. Rennika ran from door to door in the great hall, but all were locked. She searched for the shrine, knowing she would be safe there, but the hall was full of snow and no matter how hard she pushed against it, she could make no headway. Then Nanna flew up into the air, and—

  She was lying on polished marble. Why had Nanna allowed her to fall asleep in the ballroom, rather than putting her to bed properly? Rennika would have something to say to her about this. The floor was damp and hard, and Rennika still wore her clothes.

  Yet, beneath her worries, she was filled with a deep sense of contentment, as though she was in Nanna’s arms, and all was well.

  Rennika opened her eyes a slit. Gray light and chill air filtered from some open door onto a wide mosaic floor. She smelled snow.

  This wasn’t the ballroom in King Ean’s castle in Archwood.

  Rennika sat up. Janat crouched over a small brazier in the center of a low-ceiled, roughly triangular chamber. Curving muralled walls with multiple openings led to small alcoves for personal prayer and reflection. There were no windows. None were needed, for the physical world was irrelevant here. This was a shrine to the Many Gods.

  Rennika crept to the brazier and huddled next to its warmth. Janat gave her a dipper full of sweet, cold water.

  “Where’s Meghra?” Rennika’s small voice echoed from the marble walls.

  “Praying.” Janat’s whisper shushed around them.

  Yes. Of course. Rennika prayed every day before she ate. She could feel the holiness of this place.

  Through a wider opening in the complex of niches, the far wall was lined with steps to arched doorways. They were on the lowest level of the shrine, the level devoted to the prayer stone of the Amethyst.

  “This isn’t the shrine in the great hall.”

  “This is the Holders’ shrine.” On the mountain. “It’s safe.” Janat shrugged, to qualify her comment. She held a hand out, and even though Rennika was too big for such comfort, she crept into her sister’s arms.

  “I want Mama,” Rennika said softly. She tried to shut out the image of Nanna’s sudden flight in the claws of the orum.

  Janat’s embrace tightened. “So do I.” Then she pressed her lips together and pushed Rennika back, looking at her as though judging her worth. “Mama made you look like a worldling.”

  “How?” Rennika wasn’t sure if Janat was trying to tease her. The comment sounded as though it could be an insult, and yet she’d said it like a fact, with no meanness in her voice.

  “Before you were born.” Janat pushed Rennika off her lap. “She picked what you would look like. Strong magiels like Mama can do that. Meg’s skin blurs time like hers, I’m in the middle, and your skin is easy to see clearly, like a worldling’s.”

  Rennika decided it was an insult. “I’m a magiel. Like you. Like Mama.”

  “I know.” Janat didn’t rise to the fight. Her voice was quiet; she seemed—curious. “And you opened that back gate to the carn, with no potions or spell words. And you did it without being taught how.” Her sister peered at her as if trying to see inside her head. “That’s a lot of power. More than me or Meghra. But—she made you look like a worldling. I wonder why.”

  Rennika couldn’t stop the tears. “No, she didn’t!”

  “There’s nothing wrong with having steady skin.”

  “Yes, there is! Take it back!” She hit her sister.

  Janat shrugged and turned back to the fire.

  CHAPTER 4

  Huwen Delarcan’s practice blade punched the padding on Gweddien’s chest, and the older boy fell back onto one knee in the dust, parry defeated.

  “Got you again!” Huwen stepped back, exhilarated, sweat dripping from his heavy, tousled hair. The late summer sun was hot; though far away, beyond the fields of golden grain, snow laced the mountains. He signaled his squire to unbuckle his thick padding. “Bring water,” he told the page.

  Gweddien Barcley climbed to his feet, breathing heavily through his nose, using his wooden sword as a crutch. “I was too hot!” he said by way of excuse, sloughing his own soft armor before the second squire could step forward.

  “You—” Huwen poked Gweddien’s chest with a finger. “—don’t spend enough time with your swordmaster.” Huwen’s heavy quilting came away in the squire’s arms and he stretched, enjoying a moment of cool air before his sweat dried. The page filled his mug from a dampened clay pitcher, and Huwen savored the chilled water.

  “I have spells to learn. Competing in games is for princes.” Gweddien gulped from his mug and poured the remainder of the water over his head. Then he grinned mischievously.

  Huwen caught his meaning and grinned back, anticipation crawling pleasurably under his skin. “You have the magic herbs?”

  Gweddien cast a surreptitious glance at the swordmaster across the yard consulting the smith. “We can heat a bowl in the back of the armory,” he said under his breath. “My tutor was up late. He’ll be asleep before I can recite two histories. Can you dodge yours?”

  “Eamon has missed two lessons. Our tutor will let me come to the garden to read.” He wiggled a brow. “I just won’t say where in the garden.”

  “After lunch, then,” the magiel promised.

  Huwen tapped his friend on the arm with the flat of his blade. “Mother’s probably eating in the garden. Let’s see if there are any shaved meats.” He tossed the blade to his squire.

  Gweddien was taller than Huwen by half a head and, at eighteen, his senior by three years. But with Huwen’s older bastard brother gone off with Father last week to investigate a dispute in the hinterlands, and his younger brother Eamon so ill—and his other brother and sister only little—there was no one for the prince to spend time with. The servants’ children didn’t learn the warriors’ arts, knew nothing about the world, and half the time had to scamper off to serve, or run errands. True, there was a gaggle of boys in Holderford of noble birth and time to hunt or game or wager with him, but they were toadies. Gweddien would be the powerful magiel of the Chrysocolla Prayer Stone in Gramarye someday, and more Huwen’s equal. He was glad Gweddien had come to Holderford for the summer.

  Mother’s garden was one of Huwen’s favorite spots. Father’s castle topped a cliffy promontory overlooking the confluence of the Arcan and Faolan rivers in a wide, fertile valley. Steep approaches, a long view across the plains, and a natural spring bubbling into a deep pond within the castle walls had made the location ideal for the castle’s original builders—warlike men who defended keeps from
one another’s raiding parties all across Shangril.

  But from the time the One God gave prayer stones to his six mistresses, peace had reigned in Shangril. Huwen’s forefathers had been chosen to bring the people’s petitions to the magiels, shimmer-skinned children of the One God and his worldling mistresses, and to protect the magic wielders as they used the prayer stones to travel to the seven Heavens to deliver those prayers to the Many Gods. The castle walls still stood, but for hundreds of years the gates had been open, manned only in ceremony. The life spring of water within the walls nurtured a garden of weeping trees and soft grasses and bright flowers. Wars were not fought in Shangril, and skill with a sword or bow was only celebrated at games, or used to emphasize a point of honor.

  Huwen and Gweddien stepped from the stark practice grounds ringed by stables, smithy, and storage sheds onto the grassy path that wound between shady trees and trimmed beds. The light shifted and dappled here, and the air gentled with the scent of ripe fruit and evergreens.

  Ahead, through the lace of leaves, his brother Eamon crouched on the edge of the pond.

  Odd.

  Eamon rarely ventured out of doors anymore. Huwen had given up trying to do things with his younger brother, or even to talk with him about the histories they learned from their tutor. Eamon would look at him with those unsettling eyes, long and deep, and then shake his head as if to say Huwen knew nothing. It was unnatural in a boy of thirteen. Huwen wasn’t the only one who’d come to avoid the strange young prince since he’d recovered a few weeks ago—unexpectedly, magically—from his long illness. Father’s magiel had disappeared from the castle the next day, to be replaced by a stranger.

  But now, as peculiar as Eamon had become in recent days, something about his posture on the bank of the pond made Huwen’s pulse speed. Where was their tutor?

  Huwen loped toward the boy.

  His brother tipped forward, over the water.

  “Eamon,” he screamed.

  The prince slowly, inexorably pivoted, touched, then slid into the dark depths.