by Sarah Dalton
Davead’s gaze trailed around the room, at the spilled contents of her bowl, the spilled slop bucket in a puddle of urine and shit, and leaned over his knees to heave. Once finished, he stood, and knocked twice on the door of the Hag’s chambers. The guard opened immediately; he must have been imagining himself locked in the room. It was a trick, it was all a trick.
“Clean up this mess. I want the room empty and clean by tomorrow.”
The guard’s eyes widened when he saw the dead witch laid out on the ground. But the guard’s shocked expression soon dissolved into the relaxed look of relief. The king was not surprised. Sorcerers like the Hag made people tense. Why had he kept the woman alive for so long? Fear, he realised. I kept her alive for fear.
What did he have to fear now? The king walked away, remembering the visions of the girl, and his two sons. What did he have to fear? He should have felt as relieved as the guard, and yet the heavy weight had not shifted from his chest. The death of the Hag had done nothing to alleviate the weight of her prophecy.
Luca
Luca’s feet sank into the ashen earth. He stumbled his way up the barren hill until the lit braziers of the rebel camp were like large orange stars below. The stars above were smaller but no less beautiful, like white embers had been tossed into the sky.
It took him three attempts to slip the iron bracelet from his wrist. The first time, he pulled it to his knuckles, shook his head, pushed it back to his wrist and started back down the hill. After a few yards, he changed his mind and carried on back to the top of the hill. Then he managed to get the iron further along his fingers before pushing it back, with his forehead all sweaty and his fingers trembling. Then he gritted his teeth—tried to tell himself that he was being ridiculous—and yanked the thing all the way off and slipped it into the pocket of his breeches before he could change his mind once again. He had come here for a reason, and he would not leave until he had achieved his purpose.
There, the bracelet was off and he was a Menti, like Tania, and Win, and Nico. If Nico could heal people, that meant that Menti powers were not all evil. An evil God would not give men the power to heal. Though he had to admit that the power to manipulate fire did not seem just or good. Perhaps he would see it differently if he learned how to use it.
Luca stood with his feet planted wide apart and thought about Tania’s words as he started to practice. She told him to concentrate on the power within, so that was what he was going to attempt to do. But it was hard to concentrate when a flush of heat continued to work through his veins, and he saw his brother Matias lurking in every shadow.
“Luca, you are crazy,” he said aloud.
The sound of his voice helped to ground him. He was here, he existed, and he had his iron bracelet in his pocket. It was time to learn what he was capable of.
Concentrate on the power within. What did he have inside him? He had heat. Good. That was a start. He would think about that heat and what it meant. The heat gave him strength; he knew that from the day in his chambers when he thought he might die. But as he thought of how the strength had returned to his body that day, Matias popped into his mind again. NO! he told himself firmly. He would not think of Matias, not now, when he was alone, when the rest of the camp were asleep in their tents. He was up on a hill away from them all. He would not think about Matias, that was folly. What would it serve?
He screwed up his eyes and concentrated on the heat coursing through his veins. He thought of the ash beneath his feet and the volcano that had once spewed its fire onto the foothills. He thought of the power at the core of the great Zean, and the shadow it cast over Xantos. He imagined himself that volcano, with the power in his core, and the ability to erupt at any moment. Volcanoes could not control their eruptions, but he was not a volcano. He was a man, and men could control themselves, or at least most of the time they could. No. All of the time—he could control himself all of the time or else he would learn to.
It was then that he felt the great ball of energy forming inside him. That was it! There! The power had already begun to form. All he had to do was nurture it, to let it come forth. For an instant it surged, and frightened him enough to quell the rising power, almost completely snuffing it out. But then he let a little bit grow, before adding a little bit more, and another bit, until the ball of energy seemed at his fingertips.
Luca took a deep breath, allowing that energy even closer to the surface. Sweat rolled down his temples and down his back, but he did not shy away from the sensation of power as he had when he faced Tania. Instead he coaxed it a little further… and then…
Whoooomph.
It blast from him in a great orange-red jet of flames. It came so fast and so ferociously that Luca fell onto his backside shaking like a leaf. I am a volcano, he thought, and the shame washed over him, cooling his blood. The power he possessed had already taken the life of another. He climbed to his feet and brushed the ash from his breeches. There was a bright spot dancing before his eyes, the after-effect of the jet of flame that had burst from him. Where had it come from? Had it burst from his chest? Had it set him afire for a heartbeat? Or had it come from his hands? When Tania controlled water, she used her hands to direct it. Luca could not even remember holding his hands out. He frowned, trying to run through the actions in his mind. The fire had seemed so close, lying in wait beneath his skin, waiting for him. And now… now he felt content. The trembling of his muscles had dissipated, and the burning fever that had coated him in sweat was gone.
The next time he closed his eyes, Matias appeared but was gone almost immediately, and the usual sickening sense of shame did not trouble his stomach. Instead, he thought of the calm that came from using his power. He thought of the fire growing in a ball, filling him up and seeping into every empty space that Matias’s death had created, burning away his guilt, his shame. Maybe the fire did not have to make him feel worse; maybe it could heal him in a way nothing else could. Maybe he could eradicate those thoughts with his power.
This time, when the fire tried to burst from him, he held out his hands and directed it. The flames burst from his palm, hot, fast, and consuming, pushing Luca back. He watched the flames light up the sky before fizzling out as quickly as they appeared. He dragged a sleeve across his forehead and took a deep breath. There was still the sensation of peace spreading over his body, but his muscles ached in new ways. It was like training with sword and shield for hours, except this was bone-deep and heavy. He sat in the ash until the cold Xanti night-breeze lifted the hair on the back of his neck. He stood and looked down at the camp below. In a few hours the sun would come up, the heat would beat down, and he would have to swing a sword at the other rebels. He would be placed in front of Tania and forced to try to use his powers. Creating the flames on top of a hill by the volcano was one thing, but aiming that flame at Tania was another.
Unless… It was a fleeting thought, but nonetheless he had it. He shook his head; he could not. Then he mulled the thought over in his mind and considered it again. What if he left? Now. The others were asleep, so they would not see him go; they had not seen him climb the hill away from camp anyway. He could take a donkey and ride back to the Golden Bay, or he could climb the Ash Mountain range and look into the mouth of Zean. He thought of the insane story that Nico had told him the other day while they had been pitting olives for dinner.
“Don’t you know about the dragon kings?” Nico had asked.
Luca knew some, but the story was not one that was told in Nesra’s Keep. His father hated hearing about any kind of Menti, though he did enjoy talking about his ancestor, Mithrin, who had taken Nesra’s Keep a century ago.
“They say there hasn’t been a dragon shifter for years, but when the next dragon wakes, so will Zean, and it will cover the world in ash.”
“What happened the first time Zean erupted?” Luca asked.
“Under this ash is a city.” Nico had paused to cut a lemon in two and squeeze it over the olives. Then, he glanced around looking f
or Geraldo, and popped one into his mouth before offering one to Luca. “They all burned.”
As Luca stood atop the foothill and stared down at the camp below, a shiver ran down his spine. They all burned. Perhaps he would not run away to the volcano just yet. Perhaps there was credence to the idea of staying with the rebels and learning more about what it was to use Menti powers. Perhaps that was what he should do.
And so, he put one foot in front of the other, and began the steep descent back to the camp. It was not easy. He had not realised how much his practice had weakened him. He stumbled two or three times, even losing his footing enough to fall to his knees at one point. When he climbed back to his feet, he turned to look behind him, frowned, and carried on.
There was nothing but the stars above him: no clouds, no bats, no birds, nothing but the breeze. And when he checked behind him, there was nothing but the great mound of Zean, and a few shivering trees. Yet his skin prickled with the sensation that he was being watched. The breeze gathered, whipping up loose ash into the air. Luca pulled the collar of his jerkin closer to the skin of his neck and hurried on, ignoring the ache in his muscles. Now he realised that coming out here at night had been a mistake. Tomorrow morning he would be exhausted and Geraldo would want to know why. The man would know, he always seemed to know. Luca hated his scrutinising gaze, and the way he smiled as though he knew everything. Sometimes Luca wondered whether Geraldo was all-knowing, like someone with the sight. He certainly seemed to know everything, and he always used Lucas’s alias “Ludo” with complete and utter derision as though he knew it was a false name. God only knew what awaited Luca come the morning.
He hurried down the hill with his breath rasping from his lungs. It was folly to travel so quickly down such a steep and twisting path, but Luca could not stop turning to look behind him. More than once he felt he had seen a shape darting through the shadows. What if the Ash Mountains are haunted? he thought. What if I am being stalked by a ghost, the ghost of the dragon kings? He shook his head, pushing the thoughts from his mind. They were stupid—the thoughts of a boy, not a man who had escaped from Nesra’s Keep and come to Xantos to aid rebels. He was not a boy any longer and he should not think such things. Yet, as he walked towards the gold-orange braziers, Luca had to force himself to remain at a sensible pace and not sprint down the rest of the hill like a skittish pony.
The sight of the camp calmed his pounding heart. He saw his tent coming up on the right, the one he shared with Brother Axil. He saw Geraldo and Nico’s tent further up to the left. That sight brought him no comfort—all he could think about was the day he saw Geraldo branding his son and forcing Nico to heal the wounds. He’d had little love for Geraldo before he witnessed that, but now he had nothing more than contempt for the man. Luca knew what it was like to have an indifferent father, but a cruel one must be even worse. Nico did not deserve to be treated that way.
Luca continued down the hill towards his tent. He was a few yards from the large canvas now, and he was ready to collapse onto his bedroll. But his relief was short-lived when a low growl sounded behind him. Luca froze. He had heard rumours that mountain lions dwelled in the Ash Mountains, but the others had always said that they did not dare come near the camp. The growl rumbled like thunder behind him, and Luca slowly turned to face his follower with his heart hammering against his ribs.
It all happened so fast that Luca did not understand what had happened until it was over. The mountain lion lunged for him, and he flung out an arm to defend himself. Heat surged from him, throwing him down onto the ground. He turned his head away from the bright white flames that hit the mountain lion in mid-air and burned the beast to a crisp.
But the flames did not stop at the lion. They burst forth from his hands, hitting the canvas of Tania’s tent. Luca leapt to his feet and threw himself at the tent, beating the canvas with his arms, shouting “Fire!” at the top of his lungs over and over until his throat was raw. Tania came hurrying out of the tent, and the next thing Luca knew he was doused in water atop a collapsed tent with half the rebel camp staring at him.
It was Geraldo who pulled him roughly from the wreckage and set him back on his feet. “Fire wielders,” the man grumbled. “A complete pain in my arse.”
Reva
The stories went on long into the night. There were no names, no faces, just stories, the same ones over and over again. Reva fell asleep holding a girl’s hand, but in the night it slipped from hers and she dreamed of Nesra’s Keep. Her bare feet slapped against the tiled floor as she sprinted through the corridors, speeding around the corners with her gown flowing out behind her. Her fingers traced the carved cornices, the fine tapestries, and the large stone sills beneath the arched windows. It was exactly like the keep in summer, with bright sunshine filtering in from the warm southern sun, and sea air fluttering tapestries along the wall. The guards stood sentry to the throne room with their scarlet capes draped elegantly from their shoulders.
“I am late,” Reva whispered as she threw open the heavy doors into the throne room.
But the room was not the long hall she had expected. There was no king, no throne or dais, and no frescos painted high up onto the arched ceiling. Instead, she stepped gingerly into a small, dim room. Her arms groped around to help her find her way through the darkness. She knew she should go back, but instead she stumbled on blindly until a flame ignited, lighting her way through the dark. Reva walked towards the light until she realised what she was walking towards.
Luca stood holding a candle. He was wearing the same fine doublet and carried the same sword as the last time she had seen him, right before she was taken by Francis Unna at the king’s court. He was older now, with shorter hair and bruised skin beneath his eyes. They were sad, she thought, even though he was smiling and beckoning her towards him. She lifted her skirt and ran towards him, but Luca always seemed just a little bit further away.
Then she woke.
There was a tense atmosphere in the hall that morning. The other prisoners shifted, shuffling straw around the stone floor, or cleared their throats as they rose to start the day. Reva rubbed her eyes and regarded the other women. Nothing had changed. She sighed. Perhaps the stories they told did not mean as much as she thought they had. She climbed to her feet and dusted straw from her roughspun tunic before heading to the doors to wait for the Sisters to unlock them. When the doors swung open and air rushed into the stuffy room, the prisoners all stepped into a line, queuing for a piece of stale bread and a cup of water like they did every morning.
Tightness worked its way through Reva’s chest. This was not living. This was some other existence where a person was reduced down to nothing but hollowness. She was not a person anymore, she was a thing who cleaned up shit and scrubbed floors and harvested crops. Her entire existence was measured in the amount of olives she picked at the end of the day, or the cleanness of the floors stepped on by the Sisters. Last night was supposed to change everything. They were supposed to be together now, not apart.
She ate her bread and drank her water—though she took no pleasure from either—and set to work in the sty, shovelling the dirt away. It was later in the day, when she dragged the cart filled with muck out of the courtyard and over towards the fields, that she noticed the change. There was laughter. For the first time since Reva had been imprisoned in the camp, she heard the sound of laughter coming from other prisoners and not the Sisters.
They are talking, she thought. They are talking and making jokes. It worked!
As she dragged the cart along the path out to the crop fields, Reva nodded and smiled to the other prisoners. They nodded and smiled back. It was small, but it was a victory, and the tightness compressing her chest began to fade away.
The rest of the morning flew by in a blur. Reva worked mostly alone, but she enjoyed hearing the sound of murmuring threading through the prison. There were more smiles than she could count, and hushed giggles intoxicated the women. Sister Valeria walked around the enclosure wi
th a deep frown furrowing her brow. She lashed out with her whip at anyone giggling. She barked orders to the prisoners, hissing when they dallied. It was after a lunch of broth and damaged apples that the punishments began.
As Reva came into the courtyard from scrubbing the floors of the guard tower, she found the youngest strapped to the post in the centre of the courtyard, her tunic shredded and blood seeping from wounds up and down her back. Reva dropped her bucket and brush to run to the child when a crack sounded and her back burned.
“Where do you think you are going?” Valeria barked.
Reva turned to face the woman. “What did you do to her?”
“Punished a thief,” Valeria said with a smile playing at her lips.
“It was one tomato,” the child croaked.
“You did that for the sake of one tomato?” Reva was sickened.
Another crack sounded out through the air. Reva winced, but this sound came from the distance, though it was unmistakeably the sound of a whip hitting flesh.
“Get back to work!” cried another Sister. She towered over a woman cowering in the corner of the courtyard.
Reva tried to take a step forward but Valeria placed a bony hand on her shoulder and dug into her flesh with her fingernails. When Reva attempted to shrug the hand away, the grip tightened.
“Can we not take a moment to catch our breaths?” Reva asked. “Must you work us to death? We are no use to you dead.”
Valeria spun her so that Reva came face to face with the bulging eyes of the Sister. “There are more of you. There will always be more of you, and we can round you up like dogs whenever we want. You think you are special, merchant girl, but you are not. There are a dozen Menti girls waiting to be rounded up and put in chains. I can replace you whenever I want.”