Fate of Flames

by Sarah Raughley

  I couldn’t look at it. It was all I could do to listen to the frenzied sounds, recorded on a device woefully insufficient to capture the true horror of that night. I didn’t even dare to blink, because I knew the second I shut my eyes I’d be back there, walking across the hotel lobby, seeing with my own two eyes the remains of human life.

  Instead, I watched Chae Rin, watched as her lips thinned, watched as that healthy red flush drained from her skin. I watched her with tears in my eyes. And when Chae Rin’s eyes met mine, I didn’t look away.

  “You’re an Effigy,” I whispered. “Tell me you don’t feel anything.”

  Blinking the growing wetness from her eyes, Chae Rin looked at me now like she hadn’t before. “Who are you?” she asked after a time.

  My voice shook as I answered. “I’m . . . Natalya’s—”

  “You’re an Effigy.” Chae Rin’s chest heaved. “You’re Natalya’s successor, aren’t you? The next Effigy of Fire.”

  The muscles in Chae Rin’s jaw hardened and set. I tried to think of something to say, some kind of introduction, but there wasn’t anything stronger than this silent moment passing between us like an electric current.

  “Ah,” Chae Rin said, once she’d composed herself. “This must be how Natalya felt when she met me for the first time. We pop up so quickly, don’t we?”

  Chae Rin descended the staircase until we were level with each other. I braced myself for the inspection I knew would come next. Now that it was Effigy to Effigy, I tried my best to hide any weakness that could be picked apart and scrutinized.

  Very unfortunately, I didn’t react quickly enough to block Chae Rin’s quite unexpected, quite hard finger flick to my forehead.

  And it was really hard.

  “Ah!” The shock of pain split through my head, just from one flick. For a second I thought my skull would shatter. Chae Rin’s abnormal strength was as painful as advertised.

  “You okay?” Rhys gripped my shoulder once I began to double over.

  “Y-yeah.” Shaking, I pressed a hand against my forehead.

  “Slow reflexes.” Chae Rin leaned against one of the seats. “Look at her. I didn’t even put my back into it.”

  A terrifying thought.

  “This kid’s not even half of what Natalya was. Probably never will be. Oh, well.” She turned. “Anyway, I appreciate you coming all the way up here to meet me, and I’m sympathetic, I really am, but I’ve already been suspended. Whatever’s going on out there isn’t any of my concern. The Sect can’t just throw me away and pick me up whenever they want. They’re the ones who wanted me off the field. They made their bed.” She stretched her long arms over her head and yawned. “Anyway, just tell Belle to fix it.”

  “This is insane.” Still wincing, I balled my hands into fists. “You saw the video. You saw what’s going on and you don’t care because you’re pissed off at the Sect? No. I refuse to believe that this is all just because of your pride.”

  Chae Rin started to walk off.

  “You’re an Effigy, for god’s sake!” I thought of June poring over books, telling me facts upon facts about the heroes who protected us from the monsters outside our city. “You’re an Effigy! What the hell is wrong with you? Hey! Are you listening to me?”

  I rushed up the steps, but the second I was in grabbing distance, Chae Rin stomped her foot. Immediately, I felt the steps quake beneath my feet. Before I could figure out what was going on, the ground opened up, just enough to swallow me whole.

  Down I fell through the debris of cement and stone, too shocked to even scream, until I crashed onto a mound of earth. Only after rubbing the dirt from my eyes could I peek up through the dust to see Chae Rin’s expressionless face staring back down at me.

  “Shit,” Chae Rin said. “Guess I’ll have to fix that later.”

  UNDERNEATH MY WARM BEDCOVERS, I watched the footage on my phone for the fifth time since waking up this morning: Chae Rin outside a coffee shop in Thunder Bay, Ontario, beating the ever-living crap out of a group of pink-faced frat boys. She’d only been fifteen then, just started her training. I had to dig deep in the Doll Soldiers archive to find the historic post: Breaking: CHAE RIN KIM LOSES HER SHIT (AGAIN)! One hundred pages before it got locked by mods.

  In the grainy video, you could just hear Chae Rin yell, “The hell did you just call me? I said come back here,” before kicking down a lamppost with the amount of effort comparable to passing a soccer ball to a two-year-old. Cell Phone Guy ran for his life just as his feed cut.

  “Only one year into training! Can the Sect control their new Effigy?” Cable news television had eaten it up, and from that point on Chae Rin’s temper became her narrative. It made people understandably nervous.

  One thing I’d learned about Effigies during my years as a lowly fan was that they were stronger than regular humans. They had to be; they were built to fight monsters.

  We. I shifted uncomfortably in my bed.

  It was the sort of deal where you get stronger as you go along. Strength with experience, or something like that. Except Chae Rin was the strongest Effigy by far, even before she started training. The dark purple bruise on my innocent, unsuspecting forehead could attest to that. If anything, it only highlighted just how little the world still knew about the Effigies, despite all the research. Just like the phantoms. So little information out there about the monsters of the world.

  One thing was for sure: I’d have to be very careful the next time we talked. Hopefully Rhys had packed a helmet.

  With an oafish grumble, I dragged myself out of bed, ready to execute plan B. Last night, we’d found a hotel in a quaint, rustic little town a stone’s throw away. Rhys had been checking in when a staff member told me about the fair happening today.

  “It’s a promotional event in town,” he’d explained. “The circus does it whenever they debut shows. Should be going on all day tomorrow!”

  I had to give it a shot. After getting directions, I dumped my phone into my sweater pocket and headed to the fair. It wasn’t a guarantee that I would find Chae Rin in town with the other performers, but if I did, something told me I’d do better on my own. Rhys was an agent of the organization Chae Rin was currently pissed off at, but I was an Effigy like her. Maybe she’d drop some of her guard if we could talk one-on-one.

  Why the hell did Effigies have to be so damn hard to deal with?

  Crossing my arms, I trudged through the town.

  The fair was in full swing. Tons of people packed the streets, delighted by the juggling clowns, the makeshift acts, the rogue balloons, and the stands upon stands of food and merchandise. It was distracting, to say the least. I tried to focus on finding Chae Rin, but after two hours of searching and asking around, it became clear that she wasn’t here. Plan B was a bust.

  “Jolie fille!” said one of the vendors as I approached. “Puis-je vous intéresser à un collier?”

  “Sorry, I can’t understand you,” I told him absently, because I was still a bit distracted by the llama pen I’d just passed.

  The vendor promptly switched to English. “A pretty necklace for a pretty girl?”

  I never understood why some salesmen thought creepiness was the way to rake in profits. A polite “no” was ready on the tip of my tongue, but I stopped once I noticed the row of dolls on the wall behind him.

  The vendor followed my gaze, grinning with all his teeth. “Ah yes, our matryoshka dolls. The finest quality, imported from Russia, carved by the country’s finest craftsmen.”

  Please. I knew better than to believe that nonsense, but the dolls held me nonetheless. Little black-inked faces, red scarves, and flowery dresses painted with fine strokes onto delicate wood. The vendor took one off the shelf and popped off the top. One girl after another after another, each tinier than the last, until the vendor placed the final doll at the end of the row. As it was too small for any loving detail, the painter had opted to give her only a simple stroke that might have been a smile.

  “Do y
ou like them? They are very pretty, no?”

  They fascinated me, the dolls. They drew me to them with their silent siren call. But their beady eyes and painted smiles felt twisted somehow, as if they were hiding secrets from me.

  My skin was crawling. Why? Why were my fingers twitching? My mouth dried, and even still I couldn’t articulate why.

  “Matryoshka,” I repeated.

  It was Natalya who was the Matryoshka Princess, not me. Never once did it seem like a fitting nickname, but it was one Natalya had held on to with pride when she was alive. Matryoshka.

  One girl after another after another . . . locked endlessly . . . helplessly . . .

  A flash of pain shot across my head. I doubled over, my hand pressed against my left temple.

  “Are you okay, little miss?”

  I nodded, but then winced again. The pain beat against my skull, too loud for me to make out the voices now whispering beneath the dull rhythm.

  “Miss?”

  “Thanks,” I said quickly. “I should go now.”

  I stumbled forward, but the pain kept pounding against my head, relentless. I shut my eyes to block it out, but by the time I pried them open again, I wasn’t at the fair anymore.

  Scenes passed by like a torrent of wind, rushed and bewildering. Disoriented, I stumbled along, but I couldn’t feel the cobbled street beneath my sneakers.

  It was wet. I looked down. No street. I was standing in a shallow white stream. Hot. And in front of me—a red door, deep in the mist. Grand and imperial. Magnificent. But fleeting. It vanished as soon as it’d entered my vision.

  What the hell was going on? I held my head, every part of me trembling. I’d felt this before. At La Charte. In Brooklyn. After Saul’s diseased lips had violated mine.

  Last time, I saw a girl sleeping in her study. This time I was in a beautiful penthouse, sleek and modern with its white settees and trendy pop art. A stylish and glamorous apartment. The very same one featured on an entertainment news show about three months ago.

  That is, when Natalya had given them the tour.

  I was in Natalya’s apartment in Madrid. And there was Chae Rin by the fireplace, leaning against the wall. Her arms fiddled with something behind her back.

  “Anyway, don’t see it as something to feel embarrassed about.”

  It was Natalya’s voice, her Russian accent.

  Except they were passing through my lips.

  I could panic only on the inside; my hands were moving without my say so, as if they weren’t mine at all. They took the top off of a crystal decanter on the shelf and poured scotch into a tiny glass. I couldn’t even stand the taste of alcohol.

  “Like I said earlier, Chae Rin, just think of it as a learning experience.”

  “Uh, y-yeah, okay. Thanks, Natalya.”

  I’d never seen Chae Rin look this nervous before. And the guilt in her eyes—naked guilt. It was hard to ignore.

  The ring . . . The whisper came from deep within me. This had happened before too, during Saul’s attack. A voice whispering to me from inside me. But this voice was distinctly different. It was Natalya’s. This time, it was Natalya whispering to me. . . .

  “Chae Rin?” Natalya’s voice was beyond my ability to control. “Is anything wrong?”

  At this, Chae Rin jumped.

  Fire suddenly enveloped the memory in an unforgiving inferno. Grabbing my throbbing head, I stumbled backward, out of Natalya’s body, out of the apartment, out of Madrid, until I felt my feet splash back into the white stream.

  No, this was all wrong. I didn’t want this. I had to get back home.

  I shut my eyes. It took every bit of strength I had, but I managed to forcibly detangle myself from the trap of my own mind, dragging myself back into reality step by painful step. I collapsed, gasping for air as I finally forced my eyelids apart, dizzy and disoriented.

  Thank god. I was back at the fair, crumpled on the ground in front of a pretty shocked circus performer. It was a little weird how she was tied flat against a brightly painted wooden target, but I didn’t question it. Not at first.

  I saw the glint of the blade in the knife thrower’s hand before I realized I should be screaming.

  “Bougez!” he screeched behind me.

  People probably didn’t stumble in front of his target often, but I still hoped his circus instincts would be sharp enough to keep him from letting a knife fly while I was in his line of fire, a sitting duck. Thankfully, the knife stayed in his raised grip.

  But he’d had help. There was a guy standing next to him, his hand wrapped around the knife thrower’s trembling wrist. The guy was perfectly calm, but the performer definitely wasn’t, and judging by his panicked eyes, I could guess that if the young man hadn’t grabbed him in time, I’d have gotten a brand-new hole in my head. It was only when the performer’s shock wore off and his arm slackened that he was let go.

  As for the guy, he was really tall and thin, his chic, angled face, long, frail limbs, and shaggy hair reminding me of one of those Eurotrash models who always looked like an industry party away from rehab. The tight-fitting jeans and plain white shirt secured the look.

  This was the guy who’d just saved me from an accidental skewering.

  “Are you okay?” he asked in an accent I couldn’t recognize. There was a bit of Russian in it, but unlike Natalya’s it sounded as if it’d been sanded down and scratched away over the years, blending with too many things that made it now indecipherable.

  “My head,” I whispered, but even whispering was painful. I still couldn’t speak. My throat now felt alien to me, hoarse from the sensation of carrying someone else’s words. I could only look up at the young man, at his delicate face framed by pale gold hair.

  “Move!” said the female circus performer behind me, still tied to the target. That was when I finally noticed the knives sticking out of the wood, inches away from her skintight leotard.

  “Yes, move!” It was the knife thrower this time. “You should not be here. We are in the middle of an act!”

  Evidently. Crowds of people were gawking at me. My chic rescuer, on the other hand, looked seconds away from bursting into laughter. He was probably just some kid who’d passed by the right place at the right time. Luckily for me.

  I looked around. Perhaps it was because of the crowd, but I couldn’t see the doll vendor. I couldn’t even remember leaving his stand. How did I get all the way here? It was like I’d been sleepwalking. . . .

  “It’s time to get up,” said my rescuer, but my legs refused to cooperate. I flopped uselessly on the ground.

  “Miss,” the knife thrower prodded, but the young man’s chilling stare stopped him dead. I wasn’t even sure if I’d seen it correctly. Its joyously murderous glint, in one moment dangerously clear, vanished the very next second, leaving a cold void in his catlike eyes.

  This guy wasn’t normal.

  The knife thrower must have felt it too, because his arm seized at his side.

  “This young lady seems to be having some trouble.” I could smell the blood off his pleasant smile. “Please be kind and give us a moment.”

  Leave, in other words. The knife thrower was too quick to oblige, turning to the audience and apologizing in French and English. He was probably too shaken to notice the knife slipping from his hand and landing on the soft earth at his feet.

  “I’m sorry.” I slurred my own apology as the crowd began to dissipate. The female performer slipped out of her binds pretty easily and joined her partner in scurrying away to explain the situation to one of their colleagues.

  “Never mind that.” The young man shifted the scarf around his neck. “Are you okay? Let me help you up.”

  “No, it’s okay,” I said as urgently as I could. Gently batting his hand away, I’d just started to crawl off when he grabbed me by both arms and lifted me. I managed to stay on my feet this time, but the grip that kept me steady was the same one I was trying to get away from.

  “Growing up, I was tol
d never to reject help when it’s freely given,” he said in a friendly enough tone. “Or you may not be as lucky the next time around.”

  His grip tightened.

  “But then,” he continued, his thin lips red with Cheshire mischief, “Natalya never believed in luck.”

  Wincing, I looked up at him, too shocked to speak.

  With a long finger, he trailed a line down his sunken cheek. I was close enough to hear the scratch of his nail. “Do you?”

  The knife thrower’s last blade flew, digging its point deep into the wood behind us. The golden strands falling from Creepy Guy’s head were the only physical proof of just how close he’d come to death.

  Apparently, that amused him.

  “Aidan,” he said.

  Rhys stood where the knife thrower had been, his hard gaze fixed on the mysterious boy.

  “Maia, get away from him.”

  I didn’t need telling twice. I’d already taken advantage of the distraction, pushing myself away from him.

  The boy laughed as I stumbled back. “This is curious. Where did you come from, Aidan?”

  Rhys jerked his head toward me. “Tracked her phone.”

  My hands found my cell phone in my pocket.

  “Aidan, come on, don’t look at me like that,” the boy said. “You know I’d never do anything to her.” He tilted his head. “Unless I was ordered to. But that’s just the job, right?”

  I swallowed.

  Rhys stuck his hands into his pockets, but even then I could tell that they were balled into fists. “Vasily.”

  The young man leaned forward. “Yes?”

  “I’m really not a fan of clichés. But touch her again and I will kill you. I’m serious.”

  At this, somehow, Vasily looked positively gleeful. “You can’t. You don’t have any more knives.”

  “I always have more knives.”

  When Rhys took a step forward, Vasily raised his hands in defeat. “Okay, okay. I was only helping her out.” And he laughed again. “Why always so dramatic?”