Bursts of Fire

by Susan Forest

  Sulwyn swallowed, so as not to choke. The villain raised the revenues to fight his own people by taxing the people he would tyrannize. He repeated the king’s words silently, fixing them in his memory.

  He’d stopped stirring the shaving brush.

  “I will visit Theurgy within four weeks. I trust you will have the military situation under control by that time.”

  Weeks. He resumed lathering the brush. Would Meg’s curse have had time to work by then?

  The king turned to Uther. “Read it.”

  Uther read back the king’s words. Sulwyn turned his back, digesting all he heard. He bent over the soap cup and whispered the spell words.

  “Good,” the king said. “Take another letter.” He eyed Sulwyn irritably. “Where is Ioan?” Sulwyn opened his mouth to reply, but the king waved his words aside and sat in a chair near the sideboard. “Shave me. Be quick.”

  The curse. Now.

  Sulwyn propelled himself into action, pushing the king’s hair back and draping him with a towel, hoping the spell words had taken.

  Uther waited with paper and pen.

  “This one is for Edrick of Storm River. Begin with the honorifics.”

  Sulwyn soaked a towel in the warm water of the basin.

  “Is Edrick duke or regent?” Uther asked.

  “Steward.” The king composed himself. “In these times of civic strife, a levy is imposed on the mines of Storm River. It is required that three cut emeralds of royal quality and with the dimensions of a coin, be sent, with a dispatch, to Cataract Crag.” He laid back and closed his eyes, and Sulwyn applied the warm towel.

  By the Many, the guards must have discovered Sulwyn’s lies by now.

  Uther added the flourishes required by protocol and read the letter back to the king. Light seeped into the room through closed drapes. Piss.

  Sulwyn removed the towel and applied the charmed soap to the king’s cheeks and jaw.

  “By the One, what kind of stinking soap is that?” the king snapped.

  “Healing herbs have been added to protect against curses—”

  “They stink. Don’t bring them again.”

  “Yes, Majesty.”

  “Father?” Uther said.

  The king waved a hand and Sulwyn stilled his razor as the monarch spoke. “Compose a letter to Jace’s regent in Cataract Crag. I want the gems sold—bartered to Aadi, mind—and not for a pittance. By the One, we are scraping the barrels of the treasury to pay for all these uprisings.”

  “Very well, Sire,” Uther said, and he bent diligently over his paper.

  Sulwyn shaved the stubble from the king’s chin, holding his breath to keep from trembling at this latest news.

  The room brightened as Uther read his letter aloud and Sulwyn wiped the dregs of soap from the royal face.

  “Took long enough,” the king complained, glaring at Sulwyn. “Deliver the letters,” he said to his son, rising from his chair. He bellowed for the boy in the other room to bring his clothes.

  Uther left, and Sulwyn cleaned his station, taking his tools to the anteroom.

  One of the guards awaited him, a liveried servant at his side. Hmm. Ioan, would be Sulwyn’s guess.

  “Ioan!” He piled the man with towels, soap and razor, vacating the antechamber as though he expected the surprised man to follow. “Fie on that Fallon. I’m just up from the valley. He told me to be here early for the king’s shave, but clearly he didn’t tell anyone.” Sulwyn led the way, cursing his distinctive limp, to the wash tent, the suspicious guard remaining at his post by the king’s hut in the growing light of dawn.

  “Fallon knows nothing about this!” Ioan spluttered, trotting to keep up with Sulwyn. “You’ve entered the king’s presence without authority!”

  Two or three soldiers were making their way toward the mess tent and half a dozen servants now scurried through the compound. It was getting trickier and trickier to make his escape.

  “Fallon said that?” Sulwyn reached the wash tent. “It’s all a big mistake. Here. Let me dump this water and I’ll meet you inside to explain. I need to take a piss, anyway.” He stepped toward the edge of camp.

  A glance over his shoulder confirmed that Ioan, shaking his head, had stepped into the wash tent.

  Sulwyn limped as quickly as he could up the outhouse path, hoping no one in the waking camp would cast a glance his way. Or if they did, would not question his bucket. Ha.

  The woods, low scrawny things, were an eternity away.

  Sulwyn hobbled, the icy path treacherous beneath his stiff leg and stolen boots. He heard no sounds of pursuit, but did not turn to look.

  Don’t look up, he willed. Don’t look up. Do your duties without noticing anything unusual.

  The trees loomed closer.

  Sulwyn stepped behind the outlier scrubs, still perfectly visible from the camp.

  A shout went up in the distance behind him.

  Piss! Did they have dogs? He hadn’t seen any.

  He hitched more quickly into the larger trees, slipping on a root.

  A figure rose before him—

  Meg.

  She blew a powder in his face and chanted words of magic. “Walk fast,” she said.

  He dropped the pail, increased his gait, almost to a stumbling jog, and she kept pace with him. “I’m betting Fearghus doesn’t know you’re here,” he said under his breath. “What’s the powder?”

  “A spell of concealment, but it won’t work long and it won’t cover our tracks.”

  Better than nothing. He took her hand and, limping, he ran.

  CHAPTER 28

  Meg raced, hand in hand with Sulwyn, through bright strips of cold sunshine and cool shadow, running, limping, dancing down among the hillside’s sparse trees. Snow sparkled beneath their feet and the panorama of the Orumon valley spread below them. After a half candlemark of descent, the trees thickened and they panted along an animal trail paralleling the valley. “I can’t believe it,” Sulwyn kept muttering as she led the way back.

  She smiled.

  His voice, full of wonder, wafted behind her. “Everything, every color is brighter—”

  This was how she felt.

  “The air smells sweeter...”

  She could not erase the foolish grin that had come over her in the grip of his euphoria. He was alive.

  “Better than...better than whiskey.”

  There was no sign of pursuit. “Tell me. Everything.”

  He recounted each breath of the nerve-sharpening moments. She squealed with fright at his story, slowing to walk beside him and hold his hand when there was space, or prance at the significance of the information he had gathered. “And the curse!” she prompted. “You applied the curse.” A subtle spell, the curse would strengthen over the next days and weeks, awaiting chance. Some event would prove fatal, a fall from a horse, a morsel of choking food, a bee sting.

  “We’re wearing away at the king’s treasury,” he said vehemently. “Artem can’t maintain this level of spending. He can’t. We’re having an effect.”

  “And you’re alive! You’ve escaped!” She took his two hands in hers and skipped a jig before him.

  “But I wouldn’t have. Not without your instructions.” He grinned with giddiness at the audacity of their gamble.

  “You had the stones to do it,” she boasted. “To walk into the king’s tent in broad daylight, and curse him, and steal his secrets, and then—walk out! He’ll be dead within weeks. We’ve turned the tide of battle!”

  Sulwyn stopped, panting with excitement. “But you saved me in the end, with your spell of concealment. You’re brilliant!”

  “Me?” She grinned, looking up into his face.

  “Yes. You. You did it.”

  She flung her arms around his neck and fastened her lips to his.

  And he kissed her back. A beautiful kiss. A passionate kiss. Stopped on the hillside, in the snow. Urgent, yet silken...tender and fiery all at once...

  But—

 
; She pushed back, her entire body suddenly aware of his. This was wrong. And...out of place.

  He blinked, face flushed, confused.

  “I...” She shook her head, unsure. “Can’t.”

  Frowning puzzlement, he lifted a fingertip to caress her cheek, and his touch sent a tingle though her body.

  She stepped back from him, as though from the edge of a precipice. What was wrong with her? Hadn’t she wanted this to happen? Yes...she had. From the beginning, she had.

  But things had changed. The image of Janat, framed in the doorway, sack in hand, blotted her vision.

  A look of faint surprise and hurt touched Sulwyn’s features. “It’s Janat.”

  “No.” Yes. No. It should have been Janat; it should have been Meg’s loyalty to her sister. But...it wasn’t that at all. “I thought...” What had she thought? She thought she could love him. Yes. But...

  She didn’t.

  “I’m sorry,” he apologized. “You must think I’m...” He shook his head. “A scoundrel.”

  “No. No...” He was glorious. Brave. Strong. Gentle. A rush of remorse overtook her at causing him pain.

  “Janat and I...” He shrugged, and his expression grew distant, sad.

  “I know.” She did. It’d been clear to anyone with eyes. He had left her sister long ago. But...“I don’t love you.”

  He frowned again, looked down, shuffling in the snow. Nodded without conviction.

  She tried to take his hand, and he didn’t resist, but did not grip her back. “I like you, Sulwyn. I admire you.”

  “We should go.” He limped slowly down the track.

  “It’s the war.” She felt a need to explain.

  “You don’t have to—”

  “I want to. Sulwyn, I want...I want so many things.” She followed him, spoke to his back. “I want to please my mother. Become magiel of the Amber.” Though Mama had planned for Rennika to assume this mantle. “I want to serve my people. I want to serve my king. I want to see the work we’ve all put into this uprising succeed—”

  He stopped in the snow. “You will.”

  She stopped behind him, still facing only his broad back.

  He turned. “You have power.” He held his jaw tight, and the lines of silver on his cheeks broke her heart. “You will. Do all those things.”

  He shook his head at her one more time, then turned and stalked down the hill in the snow.

  Sulwyn had left as part of a small contingent to report his findings to Dwyn. Meg stayed with the camp, continuing to make potions to support the harry-and-run strategy.

  She was writing out the curse Sulwyn used on Artem, on an unused corner of a page in her book, when Fearghus lifted the flap on her tent.

  She finished a line. “I’m packed,” she said without looking up. “I’ll put this book in my saddle bag.”

  “It’s not that.”

  She turned.

  The upriser captain’s stance was uncomfortable, silhouetted against the gray day. “I just came to tell you. You did a good job.”

  She blinked.

  “You were right.”

  She opened her mouth to thank him but had no words.

  “Keep up the good work.” He nodded and left, letting the flap drop.

  She sat back in her camp chair. Fearghus. Fearghus who thought she was nothing. A tool for creating potions and perhaps someday for magical prayer. To be kept in the background.

  A warm glow spread through her. She could contribute. Her power was respected. She was one of them.

  Coldridge.

  Janat descended the dark stairs from the street to the tavern beneath the potter’s shop. The door had been propped open; this, and a crack of a window, allowed smoke from the fire to escape when the stopped-up chimney would not. In spite of the smoke and chill draft in the tavern, however, locals, strumpets, refugees, and the occasional traveler crowded in for the cheer of good company and strong ale.

  Sulwyn had told Janat to stay away from the cities.

  Piss on Sulwyn.

  After leaving Wildbrook, Janat had traveled at night from village to village, hiding during the day, unable to find work or respite from stares and whispers. When she reached Coldridge, she realized what she hadn’t when she’d first come here with her sisters over a year ago: that cities were riddled with holes where misfits—including magiels—could hide. Even thrive.

  Janat slipped into a dark corner of the ale house. She’d made an arrangement with the owner to sell charms for a share in the fee. There were those who didn’t like the persecution of magiels which created a barrier to accessing spells. The harsher the soldiers became, the more willing taverners and landlords were—some of them—to shelter her. Knitting by the feel of her needles in the dim flicker of candlelight, she waited.

  After a time, the proprietor’s serving boy brought a girl to her corner. The girl, homely by any standards, stood self-consciously behind him.

  Janat smiled at the girl—not much older than herself—as the serving boy disappeared.

  The girl looked uncomfortably at the tables close by.

  “Please, sit.” Janat moved over on her bench.

  Looking about, the girl slid beside her and bent her head low. “The innkeeper says you know a magiel?”

  Janat undressed and hurried under her covers. The butcher’s garret was chill and drafty in winter. Her stomach was full and she’d dropped five chetra into the mug on the table under the window. In the faint starlight shining through the attic window, Janat counted the coins in her mind. Five more, and she could stay another week. Another week closer to Mama’s promise.

  That was, if she didn’t spend three on a bottle of whiskey, which she was sorely tempted to do. A nip after breathing in the smoke of the ganja she’d brought from Elsen floated her away from hunger and filth and loneliness. It took away bitter memories of her losses. Her mistakes. The disappointment she’d become.

  Mama’s promise.

  So far away.

  Or not so far away, perhaps. Eight weeks. Janat would follow Mama’s plan: go to the tarn above the king’s posting house on the road from Coldridge to Archwood. Mama had been interrupted before she could say why, but it must be to meet someone. Why else might she send them there? There could be no other reason. And who would they meet? A prince. It could only be a prince, with the prayer stone. Of course. But which royal could it be? Janat couldn’t think how the Amber could come to a tiny mountain lake, but Mama had arranged it, so it must be. And then everything would go back to the way it was supposed to be. Janat only needed to survive until then.

  And, tonight, she’d struck a bargain with that girl.

  Women usually wanted love philters, or remedies, or potions to ensure the health of a child. Men sometimes wanted love potions, too—particularly the young men—and curses, or protections for their businesses. Janat played guessing games, trying to determine what each customer wanted. Wondered, too, if one young man or another looked at her with interest. But none of them was handsome. None was clever, or quietly honorable. None of them was Sulwyn.

  Janat shook away the thought. She could not imagine lying with any man but Sulwyn.

  This young girl. She wanted a curse.

  Janat had been taken by surprise but not for long. The curse had been to kill a baby in the girl’s belly before her father found out.

  Janat had wondered what led to the girl wanting to kill her baby. Did she have a lover her father didn’t approve of? Or had she been attacked, like so many Janat had known?

  A curse to kill a baby without harming the mother was a delicate thing. It could be made of simple ingredients, but the best ones used magiel magic, which would mean Janat would be unable to work for a time as she recovered from disturbing her time stream.

  Such a curse should bring in at least five chetra, maybe more.

  Janat huddled under her covers, trying to stay warm.

  Five chetra. To live a week longer. To subsist through the winter, until spring.
/>
  CHAPTER 29

  The night had been cold and temperamental, but the morning’s half-light crept onto the mountain, clear and still. It was King Artem’s forward sentries, used to long stretches of watching a dead wall, who saw the refugees first, staggering through the snow.

  In the stone hut that Father had reserved for his captains in the advance camp, Huwen Delarcan tossed aside his blankets, waking in the dark before sunrise with an inexplicable sense of foreboding. When the sentry came to him, he was already awake. He dressed and plunged into the crystal dawn, still fastening his yak skin coat.

  He hurried forward with the sentries to help the skeletal people, dressed in rags, blue with cold. For a city the size of Archwood, the straggle seemed pitifully thin. This was it? After a year and a half, the carn had been defeated—without a battle? “I’ll inform His Majesty,” Huwen told the sentries, and hastened back to wake his father and his generals.

  “Assemble a forward company. Archers, infantry, and war machines,” Father ordered his commander. They stood, silent, in the mountain’s shadow under a brightening sky. “Bring up the troops from the lower valley.”

  “King or magiel must be dead, then,” the commander said into the pristine quiet, “with no one to wield the Amber.”

  “I’ll secure the prisoners,” a captain suggested. At Father’s nod, he turned to his lieutenant. “Fetch me a scribe and I will interrogate them.”

  In short order, a company was assembled with Father at its head. Huwen marched at his side, and Uther came behind. They trudged through snow and disquiet, along the narrow treacherous road, and gathered before the city gates as the sky sharpened to a profound cerulean.

  The parapets were empty, the tall stone walls, silent and still. The gate stood open, and no sentry challenged them. The main road through the city was devoid of people. Even starved dogs or rats still lurking in the shadows had become wary.