by Ronie Kendig
The high marshal lay on the floor. Unmoving. The only friend he’d had in this accursed place! Drracien threw himself forward with a strangled cry. “No!” He scrabbled to the frail form, glass digging into his knees and palms. “Sir!” Help. They needed— “Someone help!”
Dazed, confused gray eyes rolled to his. A crooked smile twitched the old man’s mouth before vanishing amid a tremor. “M-mercy. I beg your m-mercy.”
Drracien stilled, cradling the wispy-haired head in his lap. “What? No! I didn’t . . . You—”
“F-for your . . . own . . . good.”
“You’re not thinking right. You must’ve hit your head when you fell.” How did he fall? “Let me fetch the pharmakeia.”
“No,” the aged accelerant said forcefully. “Remember what I’ve taught you. Re—member. When . . . darkness calls . . . resist.” Gnarled fingers gripped his robe. “Resist!”
Shouts came from the hall. Banging at the door. In that fiery second, Drracien saw the future. Saw what would happen if the aged and revered accelerant died. No! He could not die. This could not be.
Blame. He’d shoulder blame as he had all his life. He’d be—
“High Marshal, are you well?” came a stern voice from the foyer.
“Go,” Aloing said, and his head lolled to the side.
“High Marshal, open!”
Heart racing, ears ringing, Drracien fought the urge to cry. To cry out. Heavy thudding at the door warned him they’d break through. Arrest him. He’d be sentenced to death by fire—the Lakes.
“High Marshal Aloing!” Dromadric’s voice boomed. “Are you in there?” Voices. Questions. The worst: “Who’s in there with him?”
“Drracien was,” Galaun said.
Hands trembling, Drracien touched Aloing’s throat. “Please.” The only light in the whole of his miserable life lay in his hands. His own tear dropped onto the parchment-pale face—and sizzled. Only then did he notice the gray splotch on the side of the accelerant’s temple.
Singed.
And not just a slight one, but a powerful one that . . . I did this? But how? “I beg your mercy. Whatever . . . whatever I did—truly, I beg your mercy.” Tears blurred his vision. “Don’t surrender your light, sir. Please. I need you.” A sob beat against his chest, demanding freedom.
Eyes no longer saw. Flame no longer burned.
Crack!
The breaking door was the impetus to surrender his grief—for now. Gently but quickly, he laid Aloing on the cold floor. He stared at the old man. “Grant me mercy.”
Drracien sprinted across the room to the high windows, empty of glass.
Crack! Groan!
They were through! He didn’t stop to look. Didn’t stop to give them a chance to kill him. With a leap, he hurtled into the open air.
“There—the window!”
“Drracien!”
He found purchase on the sloped tile roof. His right foot slid out and pitched him forward. He caught himself, listening to the chaos erupting behind him. He could not stop. They would assume the worst. Kill him on sight.
He darted over the rooftops. Jumped to a lower building, his body gliding on the unnaturally warm air. Feet hit, slipping then gaining traction. Without looking back, he sprinted as fast as his mind through this nightmare. What caused Aloing to turn against him?
“Drraaaacien!” Dromadric’s shout boomed across the holy city.
Another jump tossed him onto the ledge of the dorms. One more building over and he’d be in the lower district. Even in the air, he plotted his disappearance. Planned how to vanish into the nothingness he’d been born from. Shed the Ignatieri coat. Meld into the teeming populace of paupers. He hauled himself onto the slate roof, flung out his arms to steady himself, then—
Crack! Tiles spat at him, others dribbling to the road below.
Someone sparked him! He jerked to a stop behind a chimney. Searched the high windows he’d escaped. The formidable shape of Grand Marshal Dromadric loomed like a warning beacon. Frozen by the sight of his order’s supreme leader, paralyzed that the man he’d looked up to, the man he wanted to be like, now believed him guilty of murder, Drracien grasped for a tendril of sanity to understand what happened. Dromadric would try at all costs to kill him. Heart pounding a thousand times faster than the calming drums, Drracien huffed. Tried to swallow against a parched throat.
When the grand marshal’s hands crossed, alarms blared through Drracien. Seconds. He had mere seconds—that was, if he could evade one of the most powerful accelerants on Primar. He launched across the roof. Angled sideways and slid down. Shoved his feet against a thatched roof. Tumbled forward. Used momentum to roll. Then pushed himself upright and ran.
A dead, blistering weight exploded between his shoulders.
Vaulted him forward.
Off the roof.
Darkness loomed.
And he was falling.
18
A friend. He had a friend in Thiel. For how many years had he longed for such a thing—beyond the gray-haired, short-fused accelerant who’d tutored him? Thiel stalked ahead through the unusual darkness under the thick growth of trees that bearded the mountain upon which they’d made their pact.
Shorter than him by a head at least, she had a slight frame. Narrow shoulders and thin arms that belied the strength he’d seen her exert. She may be little, but she was fast and quick-witted.
A good ally. Easily underestimated. Not easily outsmarted.
Thank Abiassa she was on his side.
“Stay close,” she called over her shoulder.
About to retort, Haegan fell silent at the incredible number of campfires dotting the plain. There must be a hundred! “Where’d they come from?”
“Village east of Luxlirien was razed by the Sirdarians. The survivors fled. They were setting up camp when I set out to find you.”
“Find me? I was looking for you!” Haegan hustled closer, navigating around a cluster of tents that hadn’t been there before he climbed the hill.
“Yeah, well, the others and I met in the woods.” Thiel nodded to an older woman tending a pot while her husband pounded tent stakes into the ground. “You weren’t around, so I volunteered to find you.”
“Alone? They let you go alone?”
“I’m a girl, not a weakling, tunnel-rat.”
A sobbing woman caught Haegan’s attention, killing any desire to talk. He could feel the density of the population wrapping cold fingers around his throat. Too many people. Entirely too many. Never thought he’d feel that way before now.
“Sparks, you’re back!” Laertes said when they arrived, pushing from a stump he’d been sitting on. “Knew what with her skills, she’d find you. We got trouble, Thiel.”
Thiel scowled. “What kind of trouble?”
Praegur took a step forward, unfolding his arms. “You’re well then?”
“Who cares?” Tokar muttered, not moving from his sleep sack, where he lay with eyes closed and an arm draped over his face.
Thiel kicked his feet. He shot up like a snapping bowstring, glaring at her and stabbing a finger at Haegan. “Don’t kick me. Thanks to your new sweetheart, we’re back to being dirt poor. And you know what that means.”
“What do you mean?” Thiel said, her words suddenly sharp.
“I mean we’ve been robbed. All because dung-for-brains over there doesn’t have the sense of a halfwit calf.”
Haegan blinked. “I don’t understand . . .”
Tokar pinned him with a glance. “Where are your coins?”
Filled with a sick feeling, Haegan looked to his pack. Once he’d secured it at a shop, he’d transferred the remaining paladiums from his boots to a small inner pocket of the sack. Then he’d neatly stowed his supplies from the day’s purchases on top. Now the sack lay open and lumpy. Unkempt.
Haegan snatched up the burlap and rifled through the contents. Dread choked him.
“You left them in your pack?” All trace of the warmth had fled Thiel’s voice. Her eyes
accused him with an intensity that left him baffled. Yes, he’d lost the coins, but they still had their supplies. They could still make it to Hetaera. Why this sudden fury?
“Bed down.” Thiel stomped to a pallet laid out by the fire. “We need every strong body we can get to earn back what was lost tonight.”
Light danced over Tokar as he lay down again, angrily kicking his blankets into order. “We have to find work tomorrow.”
“Work? Why?”
Laertes sat cross-legged on his sack now, looking up at Haegan from beneath a wheat-colored fringe of hair. “No coins is a big problem if we wanna get to Hetaera.”
“Why?” Haegan asked. “We have supplies—”
“Emata—”
“Shut up and go to sleep,” Tokar growled at the boy.
Irritation clawed up Haegan’s spine, digging its fiery talons into his heart and pride. He swallowed, his gaze sliding over to Thiel, who lay still and quiet, as if she already slumbered. Would she not speak up? Tell them . . .
No. No, she couldn’t, now could she? Break her silence. Bare her secrets. And nor could he. But still—they were friends.
At least, they were on the mountain. Their camaraderie had vanished with the coins. But why did she not defend him? Speak for him when his absence had been in pursuit of her?
But still she lay silent.
A fool he’d been for thinking of her as friend.
You are alone. As it had been since he’d sipped that tart ale at his own Awakening ceremony. Since he’d been ushered into the round, isolated tower of loneliness, thanks to that poisoned cup.
“Bed down,” Tokar muttered. “We start early.”
“Shouldn’t someone keep watch?” Thiel asked.
Praegur stood. “I’ll take first watch.”
Haegan stretched out on his back, staring up at the blanket of stars. They all seemed to agree that they now had to work for more coins. But work meant delay. Longer to reach the Falls.
Where was the purpose in it all? A spark does not ignite without a purpose. How many times had Sir Gwogh’s gravelly voice raked over those words? And yet—here Haegan lay beneath a black night with no purpose and no friends.
Anger spiraled through his chest, unsettling his breathing. Burning his eyes. I just want to matter. To someone. Anyone. For once—just once. He wanted to be of use. Not a blister someone gets after journeying a long while.
Abiassa . . . He searched the sky. Searched the stars. Searched the emptiness of the world around him.
What would Kaelyria say?
“Burn the whine, you singeling.”
Haegan gave a quiet snort, a smile stealing into his face at the memory of his sister. Strong. Confident. She had not tolerated his moodiness then. And he was sure, in light of the reversal of their situations, that she would tolerate none from him now.
There. There is your answer.
Only then did he feel the tingling heat in his body. A strange warming that started at his core and spread through his chest. Like the moment one sips cool water from a chalice and feels it spill through his body. He lifted his head from the cool earth and glanced at his stomach, half expecting to see something glowing there. Instead, he found only the dancing shadows of the dying campfire.
Mystifying.
He lay back and closed his eyes, mentally tracing the warmth as it slid away, leaving an uncomfortable chill. Again the anger surged. Alone. Cold. No possible way to get to the Falls.
I’m holding them prisoner.
Without him, they’d be free to follow their own course, no worse off than when he met them.
Go.
The word burned. Pushed him upright. His heart thudded. Should he? Just leave and head to the Falls? On his own, he would not burden the others.
Yes, he should go.
Haegan leaned forward.
“You’re smarter than that,” came a soft mumble from behind.
Haegan glanced over his shoulder to Praegur and found the gold eyes staring back.
“It’s safer in numbers.”
Haegan slumped. “I . . . I can’t stay here and work. I have—” He severed the words. Stopped himself from giving away the truth.
“Time is never our friend,” Praegur said. “But neither is foolishness.”
“But working to regain all the paladiums ”—Haegan shook his head—“I don’t have that much time.”
“Not all the paladiums,” Praegur said. “Just enough to get us to Hetaera. A couple nights working in a tavern, and combined, we’ll have enough.” He lifted his chin toward Haegan’s sleep sack. “Sleep. Even if you ignore my sage wisdom—”
Haegan couldn’t help but smile at the sarcasm.
“—you don’t want to wander the darkness with the beasts.”
19
“Wake, you fool!”
The hushed, urgent voice drenched the thick sleep blanketing Haegan’s mind. He lurched up, awareness and heat flooding him. “Wha—”
“Quiet,” Tokar hissed.
Haegan swallowed hard, his nerves thrumming.
“We need to leave.” Tokar’s gray eyes blazed with meaning and warning. “Now.”
“Why?”
“Jujak.”
That small word severed any objection or complaint that lingered on Haegan’s tongue. Instantly, his mind cleared and he saw the others working to gather their belongings. Morning had not yet fully crested, bathing the camps in a wash of blues and oranges. Thiel knelt, rolling her blanket and pallet. Beside her, Laertes shrugged into his pack.
With quick work, Haegan secured his bundle and slung it over his shoulder. Pushing up and pivoting, he barely saw the shadows of the others skittering into the tree line. A glance around told him most in the other camps had not yet awoken. Two or three women stood over steaming pots, but only the dogs and firelights stirred. He rushed into the trees, giving care to ensure his steps were light and fast.
He listened ahead, uncertain of which direction the others had fled. It would make sense to head north. Toward the Falls. With or without money, he had to get to there. But with each step he took, courage leaked from him like an old water skin. If he had a plentiful store, Haegan would not surrender to the fear that dogged his steps. But it weakened him. Frightened him. Angered him.
A thorny bramble caught his pant leg and clenched, its viney fingers tripping him. The razor-sharp talon sliced his leg. Haegan bit through the sting and yanked hard to free his leg. Defiant, the thorn only seemed to dig in harder.
Haegan picked himself up.
“Down,” Thiel hissed, her hand on his head as she pressed him to the ground.
Chastised like a child, Haegan gritted his teeth. Fought the humiliation and gave no heed to the warm trickle sliding down his ankle. Something in him latched onto the smell in the air. The tingling, prickling sensation rippling across his shoulders and the back of his neck. Through the spindly legs of towering trees and beyond the fluttering leaves, he spied the green and gold uniforms of the Jujak.
An officer shifted into view, motioning and calling out. The knots on his shoulders indicated a captain. Why send a high ranking officer after Haegan, rogue son?
The truth hit him with a painful blow. When it came to Kaelyria and her gift, his father would do everything in his power to track down anyone who hurt her. The lethal precision, the speed with which this Jujak had determined Haegan’s location—it was clear he was one of Zireli’s best.
“Move,” Thiel whispered as she spun away. Half bent, she ran through the trees as elegantly as a deer would navigate the forest, the others easily matching her quick pace. Her brown cloak riffled on the wind with no more sound than a leaf makes.
Deeper into the woods and farther from the Jujak they fled. His heart and mind raced between the thick bark, around the massive trunks that were more like the gnarled fingers of a Drigovudd digging into the ground.
Splash. Squish.
Haegan slowed, glancing down.
“A marsh. Don’t
stop.” Evidence of Thiel’s own displeasure at the swampy water could be found on her curled lips and repeated grunts.
They trudged onward. And onward. Haegan’s lungs squeezed in objection to the rigorous path, but he would make no complaint. With earnestness, he longed to tell her he was not up to the journey. But the argument fell mute before it reached his tongue—would he not have to journey to the Falls? A far more dangerous and arduous path lay before him. He would save his complaints. And his breath.
Heart pounding, he kept pace. Refused to lose her. To be found wanting in endurance. In determination. But his head—it pounded each time his boots suctioned against the muck. His thighs burned with the exertion of prying his boots up with each step. Then came a jarring step. One that made him slip. But then there was stability.
O blessed Fire! He whispered his thanks as they hit the rock path again. Somehow, stepping out of the muck and plodding along the uneven path, the way seemed easier. Quicker. No longer fighting to plant one foot in front of another, they were moving faster. Then Thiel and the others started running. Haegan bit back his frustration. He was slowing down. Growing more tired.
Haegan tripped.
“Just a little farther,” Thiel mumbled. “There’s a cave.”
A child. She thinks me a child. “I’m . . . good.” He hadn’t meant the words to be so labored, so burdened with the exhaustion tearing at his limbs, but it was a futile effort to appear unaffected. “Where are we going?” Haegan lumbered over a fallen oak.
“Hetaera.”
He stopped, causing Tokar to crash into him with a curse.
With a look over her shoulder, Thiel sighed. “What?”
“But we’ve no coin. Tokar said—”
“Would you rather beg off the Jujak?”
He blinked. “Nay, nor would I have us walk till our legs fell off, but you seem bent enough on that.”
Thiel whirled, her face alive and pink. “Ematahri.” Her lips flattened. “That name mean anything to you?”
Startled, he shook his head and a shrugged. “Gypsies.” What else could it mean?
Tokar snorted. “Lawless gypsies. Some of the meanest you’ll ever meet.”