Facing the Fire

by Carol Beth Anderson

  She nodded slowly, then looked out at the yard. He raised his brows and watched her until she turned back to him. “I suppose murder is unforgiveable, because the victim can never come back and offer you the gift of absolution.”

  He’d never thought of it in those terms, and he didn’t much like it. But she was right. His shame deepened as he realized he’d considered himself unforgiveable in the eyes of society and in Sava’s eyes (if such a being existed), but he’d never even contemplated his wife’s inability to forgive him. “Exactly,” he finally muttered, like she’d spoken something he already believed.

  “I’m trying to get this straight,” Jenevy said, “and if I sound condescending, it’s not intentional. But are you telling me that because you did something very, very wrong, you’re no longer able to do anything right?”

  He stared at her. “I didn’t say—” But he paused, because perhaps that was what he’d said, in so many words.

  Jenevy watched him and bit her bottom lip, like she was working hard to figure him out. At last, she said, “It’s not my desire to justify anything you’ve done, and we can’t pretend the consequences of your actions aren’t enormous. They’re growing by the day.”

  He lifted his eyebrows, shaking his head, hoping his unspoken message was clear. This isn’t helping.

  Her eyebrows rose too. “I’m not done. You may have ruined your life, Ash, but Konner’s the one who stole it. As long as you keep wallowing in what you did, he still holds power over you. But if you’ll stop stewing in your shame and start fighting, you’ll have a depth of purpose that just might make you unstoppable. I can’t promise you redemption. But it’s not too late for you to turn away from the darkness you’ve created and work with us to bring in some light.”

  Jenevy started to reach out to him. Then she caught herself and, with a small smile, pulled her hand back. She stood and walked inside.

  Ash ran through the lawn and down the first several feet of garden paths. Then he sat against a scratchy hedge, buried his face in his hands, and cried.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  I adore the magnificent attractions Tinawe is known for, from the old courthouse with its hand-carved marble columns to the Mellow River Bridge, the longest in the nation. Oren has no such man-made spectacles to entice tourists.

  But Oren has a beautiful forest. A crystal-clear lake. And fascinating people who keep my attention longer than the greatest marvels of engineering or architecture.

  -From Small-Town Cormina: A Midwife’s Reflections by Ellea Kariana

  The Golds, Jevva, and Benisa were enjoying another pork roast from their favorite butcher, Kogar. Tavi’s father sat next to her, as he had every night since Ellea had been taken a week before. He didn’t say much to his daughter, but she knew he was there to comfort her. She appreciated it.

  On this night, however, Jevva looked distinctly uncomfortable. Every seven minutes, the midwife house filled with the full-throated screams of a woman in labor. Jevva hadn’t even wanted to be there when his own children were born, and he jumped each time the screams began.

  The Golds, however, were used to such things. “Five minutes apart!” Jenevy said when the screams began again. “At least she’s getting closer!”

  Tavi gave her father an innocent smile. “Good news, isn’t it?” She held back her laughter, seeing the grimace on his face.

  The screams had just ended when they heard pounding at the front door.

  “Might be another woman in labor,” Tullen said, giving Jevva a mischievous grin. “They’ll be screaming in harmony soon.”

  Jevva managed a chuckle that sounded more like a cough, and Tavi gave in to her own laughter. It felt good to laugh; her spirit had been heavy all week.

  The door to the dining room swung open. It was one of the Gold apprentices. He’d just left with his companions twenty minutes earlier, and judging from the great, gulping breaths he was taking, Tavi guessed he’d run all the way back to the midwife house.

  Narre, who sat closest to the door, stood. “What is it?”

  The student’s eyes were wild as he said, “I stopped at a shop to get my mother some salt. There was a man in there, a big man. He looked like a blacksmith or something. When I paid, he was watching me, and he said, ‘Nice bracelet.’ He went outside, and when I left, he tried to grab me. I got away, but then he chased me. He didn’t stop until we saw a safety officer. Then he ran the other way. I came straight here; it was closer than my house.”

  “Oh, how scary. Sit down,” Narre said, holding out a chair for the boy.

  He sat and gave in to the tears Tavi had seen shining in his eyes. Narre comforted him, and soon he was calm enough to say, “My mother’s been so scared. I’m the only Blessed in our family, and we hear about these killings almost every day now. If I go home and tell her about this, she’ll never let me out in public again!”

  “I’m sure you’re scared too,” Jenevy said quietly.

  He nodded and cried harder. “He almost got me! His hands grabbed my coat, but I pulled away.”

  Tavi looked around the table. She wasn’t the only one with sympathetic tears in her eyes.

  “Do the rest of you hear such stories often?” Jevva asked.

  “There have been rumors, but this is the first time I’ve heard such a thing first hand,” Tullen said. “The other students we work with have told us how frightened they are. One of them even knew one of the victims.”

  “I have a sun-blessed client who sent me a message last week,” Benisa said. “She was scheduled to come here for a check-up, but she was too frightened to leave her house. I visited her instead, but I’m not ashamed to admit, I’m frightened too. I keep my bracelet tight on my arm so it never slips beneath my coat sleeve.”

  “It’s been the same at the parish hall,” Jevva said. “Frightened parishioners have been coming in daily, so many that the shepherd asked me to help him counsel them. I’ve tried to assure them they’re safe on the streets. Officer Andisis told me most of the murders are happening in people’s homes.” He turned to the young student. “Your experience is terrible, but it’s not typical, at least not yet. People are safer on the streets than they are sleeping in their bedrooms. Of course, that means Blessed all over the city are now afraid to go to sleep at night.”

  The table fell silent. Everyone seemed to have forgotten their food.

  Jevva spoke again. “I know our main goal is to take down Konner and his people. But if Blessed are living in fear, I want to do something to help.” He gestured to the Golds. “I’m also gravely concerned about those of you whose faces are papering our city. I’ve seen the posters everywhere I go.”

  “They were posted outside and inside the shop I visited,” the student said.

  “We’re careful,” Tullen said. “None of us except Sall and Ven have left the midwife house since the new posters went up.”

  “And the patients who come in here never see you?”

  The Golds’ silence and shifting eyes answered his question.

  “I’m sure you trust your patients,” Jevva told Benisa, “but the offer of a reward may be too tempting, especially if a family is desperate.”

  “I suppose we should stay upstairs all the time, then,” Reba said. She didn’t look happy about the idea, and Tavi was anxious just thinking about it.

  “A woman’s nervous family member could see you if they pace up and down the stairs,” Jevva said.

  “But what can we do about that, Papa?” Tavi asked. “Are you saying we should lock ourselves in our rooms?”

  “I’m saying we need to protect the people of Savala who are frightened, but we need to protect all of you, too. You need a better base of operations than this midwife house. It’s far too public. I have an idea of how to solve both those problems. However . . .” He paused, looking uneasy. The woman in labor cried out again, her voice shriller than ever. Jevva closed his eyes briefly and let out a small laugh. “I wasn’t sure how you’d react to my suggestion, but if y
ou can tolerate that screaming, you can probably tolerate anything.”

  “What are you thinking?” Tullen asked.

  Jevva hesitated again, leaving Tavi to wonder what could be so bad that her straightforward father wouldn’t just state it. He took a drink of water and said, “Have any of you visited the catacombs on the outskirts of the city?”

  A couple of people laughed, but Jevva’s face remained serious.

  “The catacombs? Where all the ancient bones are?” Wrey asked.

  “Precisely.”

  “I visited there years ago,” Wrey said, “and it was quite the attraction. It’s not exactly private.”

  “You visited the public portion,” Jevva clarified. “The area beyond that is closed to the public. A small group of shepherds maintains the private portions, out of respect for the dead. We can move all of you into the private areas, with room to spare for a number of frightened Savalans. We’ll have to be extraordinarily secretive, but I think it will work. You’ll still be in the city, and if you need to leave for any reason, you can do so at night, when the public tunnels are closed.”

  “That sounds wonderful,” Narre said. “Creeping through tunnels full of bones in the middle of the night.”

  “It’s definitely creepy,” Ash said. “But Tavi’s father is right. I’m surprised none of us have been turned in yet. We can’t stay here, and I can’t think of a better place than the catacombs.”

  “I can think of about a hundred better places,” Reba murmured, but she tempered the statement with a resigned smile.

  “How would we get there?” Tavi asked.

  Her father’s eyes met hers. “Very carefully.”

  Two nights later, clouds covered the entire sky. Sall left at two o’clock. Ten minutes later, Ven followed him. Five minutes after that, Tavi, Tullen, Sall, Narre, Reba, Ash, and Wrey sneaked out the same way.

  Sall had mapped out their path the previous night, choosing a roundabout route made up of the least-populated and most poorly lit streets.

  Tavi and Tullen activated their hearing gifts. She focused her magic on Sall’s voice, and he listened for Ven. The authorities didn’t know what Ven and Sall looked like, so the two of them had agreed to watch out for safety officers and other people along their route.

  The rest of the Golds stayed in one pack. They knew it looked odd for seven people to travel together at that time of night, but they all needed to hear the warning if their lookouts saw a safety officer.

  Unfortunately, Sall and Ven didn’t see the safety officer patrolling a street perpendicular to their route. They had no way to know she’d enter the road they were walking on, just in time to encounter the rest of the Golds.

  “You’re out late,” the officer said.

  Her lantern light reflected off the hand cannon strapped to her back. Tavi’s breath quickened, her scarf absorbing the sound. She grasped Narre’s hand tightly.

  “Just walking off some wine,” Tullen replied cheerfully.

  The officer didn’t smile. “Unwrap the scarves.”

  Tavi froze, as did her companions. All except Ash. He strode straight up to the safety officer and unwrapped his scarf. “It was excellent wine, but we’re headed home now,” he said. Then his face relaxed into a grin Tavi had rarely seen on him since he’d joined the Golds nearly a year before.

  She’d forgotten how gorgeous he was when he smiled like that. Impossibly gorgeous, with perfect features formed by magical hands. That smile somehow made him look both roguish and trustworthy. Tavi had never felt an ounce of attraction to him; in her eyes, he’d always be the person who’d captured both her and Narre. But if she didn’t know him, she would have been utterly captivated by him.

  The safety officer, however, didn’t swoon or giggle. Instead, she held her lantern even higher, right next to Ash’s face. His smile didn’t falter as she studied his features. And then she spoke the words they all dreaded: “I know who you are.”

  She followed that statement by lifting her fingers to her lips and letting loose a piercing whistle. From some distance behind her, another whistle sounded, and a third a split second later, from the opposite direction.

  Everything happened quickly then. Wrey stepped out and said, “Pardon me.” The officer looked over, and her mouth widened when she saw Wrey’s gray eyes. She swung the lantern back, like she was about to throw it. But she didn’t have time; Wrey’s gift rendered her unconscious, and she fell.

  She might have cracked her head on the cobblestones had Ash not caught her, an action Tavi found surprisingly humane. But the woman’s grip on her lantern failed, and it crashed to the street, the oil inside spilling and catching fire. Ash dragged her out of the way of the flames, and the Golds ran.

  They were followed by shouts and footsteps from the approaching safety officers. After darting between two buildings, the Golds emerged into a dark alley. One of the officers followed, yelling at them to stop. They reached the end of the alley, and Reba, who was at the head of the group, turned right. Just as Tavi was about to follow her around the corner, a loud BANG echoed through the space.

  Behind Tavi, Jenevy cried, “I’m hit!”

  Tullen turned and ran behind Tavi, back into the alley. Seconds later, he caught up to Tavi again, Jenevy in his arms. He could have run ahead of them all with his gifted feet, but instead, he stayed in the middle of the pack. No one at the catacombs could help Jenevy. Some of the Golds could.

  Tavi didn’t know where they were going; they were still following Reba. Perhaps she didn’t have a plan either, but whatever she was doing, it worked. The officer who’d been close enough to follow couldn’t catch up after firing his hand cannon, and five minutes later, the Golds were sure they’d lost him. They stopped behind a building to look at Jenevy’s injury.

  Tavi activated the magic in her hands, which provided enough illumination for her and Reba to examine the wound. It was on Jenevy’s thigh, and there was a shocking amount of blood. Tavi swallowed her gorge.

  Reba, however, had trained as a healer. She was calm. “Someone hand me a scarf,” she said. “Preferably clean.”

  Wrey gave her scarf to Reba, who used it to wipe the blood away as Jenevy cried softly.

  “It’s a graze,” Reba said, “but it’s deep. Tavi, can you heal it?”

  “I might be able to stop the bleeding,” Tavi said, “but I can’t completely heal something that deep.”

  “What if Ven helped you?” Reba asked.

  “Yes! Yes, that might work.”

  “Stop the bleeding, and Tullen will carry her the rest of the way,” Reba said. “Once we get in the tunnels, you and Ven can do the rest.”

  Wrey took Jenevy’s hand. “Do you want to be awake for this?”

  Jenevy moaned and shook her head. A moment later, Wrey’s eyes were illuminated with gray magic, and Jenevy’s body went slack with sleep.

  Tavi’s glowing hands pressed against the wound. She nearly fainted when the thick blood oozed through her fingers. But she forced herself to focus on what her magic was telling her. She sensed the broken blood vessels that were leaking Jenevy’s life onto the ground, and she closed them as well as she could. The wound was still gaping, but most of the bleeding stopped. Tavi wiped her hand on an unsoiled end of Wrey’s scarf.

  “Can you still hear Sall?” Tullen asked her.

  “I lost my magic when I heard the hand cannon,” Tavi said. “I can try to find him again.” She sent the magic from her hands into her ears.

  “I can still hear Ven,” Tullen said. He picked up Jenevy, and they all walked through the dark streets again.

  Tavi couldn’t find Sall with her hearing magic; she thought he might be too far ahead. The next half hour was one of the longest of her life, but they encountered no more safety officers. When they arrived at the dark entrance to the catacombs and Tavi saw her father and Les Andisis waiting, she held back tears.

  “Is Jenevy all right?” Jevva asked.

  Tullen didn’t answer the question,
instead asking, “Where’s Ven?”

  “Inside,” Jevva replied.

  “Take us to him.”

  Assisted by Ven’s amplifying magic, Tavi healed the wound. New flesh and muscle grew underneath her fingers. A few seconds after the healing was complete, Jenevy woke. She didn’t remember what had happened, and Tavi thought that was for the best. Jenevy hopped up, a carefree smile on her face, and Ven led her through the catacombs toward the others.

  Tavi sat back against a wall made of rough stones and sighed in contentment. Healing such a serious injury had felt remarkably good, despite the blood.

  Her father, who’d watched the whole thing, sat next to her. “I think Sava himself healed her through you,” Jevva said.

  Tavi turned to him and held up her blood-encrusted hands. “Maybe he did. Do you think he could provide me with running water to clean this up?”

  Jevva laughed. “No running water, but we do have clean water and washcloths. Let me show you around.”

  Tavi stood, anxious to see their new home. She’d paid no attention at all as they’d entered.

  “This is the public portion.” Jevva pointed to their right. “Shine your light on that wall. It’s called The Hand of Savala.”

  Tavi did so and gasped. It was a wall made entirely of meticulously stacked bones. In the middle was a massive hand formed from stacked human skulls.

  “Where did all these bones come from?” Tavi asked.

  “From generations of Savalans,” her father said. “A hundred years ago, the city cemeteries were literally overflowing. Floods would wash up decaying bodies that had been buried on top of other bodies. So these tunnels were dug out, and the bones were brought down here. Some say the catacombs contain bones from as many as a hundred thousand people.”

  “It must have taken years to excavate this and move all the bones,” Tavi said.