Firebrand

by Kristen Britain

  She pressed his hand against her cheek. “I am real. We’ve come to get you out.”

  His eyes focused then, and gleamed with tears. “I think you are sent from the heavens.”

  Taken aback, she gently placed his hand on his chest. “Let me undo these straps and we’ll see if we can get you up.”

  She moved along the table to his feet. She raised the knife to cut through the strap that bound his ankle when leather thongs lashed out of the dark and wrapped around her forearm. Her knife clattered to the tabletop, and she cried out as barbs ripped her sleeve and bit into her skin. She grabbed onto the whip beneath the handle. Holding the handle, of course, was Nyssa, her face distorted in the dim light and as nasty as any nightmare wrought by Karigan’s imagination.

  “I did not think you would be up and about so soon,” Nyssa said. “Clearly you deserved a few more lashes. No matter, we will remedy that. Grandmother will not be pleased you cut up her knotwork.”

  Karigan hauled at the whip, trying to loosen its hold on her, but there was only weakness and pain where once there had been muscle strength. Nyssa was as strong as ever, and she started to reel Karigan in.

  “We were waiting for you,” she said. “We knew you would come back for your king.”

  Resistance only strained Karigan’s back all the more, and the barbs only dug deeper into the flesh of her forearm. When she was face-to-face with Nyssa, the torturer grinned, drew back her fist, and slammed it into Karigan’s stab wound. Everything melted away into a gray fog. When it settled, she found herself curled on the floor, her wound screaming.

  “Where is the tough Greenie I’ve heard about?” Nyssa demanded from behind her. “The swordmaster and avatar?”

  Ava-what? Karigan thought numbly.

  “Such a disappointment,” Nyssa said.

  Karigan started to push herself up, but Nyssa kicked her in the back. She screamed and collapsed to her side and was kicked again, and again, and flipped over so that she faced Nyssa. So overwhelmed by pain was she that she could only stare up at her tormentor. Tears blurred her vision turning Nyssa into a monster that loomed above, her whip swinging at her side like a prehensile extension of her arm. She knelt beside Karigan, grabbed her chin in a vicelike grip. She filled Karigan’s vision.

  “I’d finish you off Greenie, but that’s no fun. Besides, Grandmother wants you. And I have a friend who wants a piece of you, as well.” She chuckled. “If you are still alive when they are done with you, I’ll have my turn, and I will make you my slave. Don’t think it can be done? Think again.”

  Nyssa threw her head back to laugh, but stopped short, a quizzical expression on her face. Then she simply collapsed in a heap. Karigan was not sure if it was her own state of mind, or some other force in the universe, but the world seemed to shift beneath her, a thread among the stars changing course. When the sensation passed and her vision cleared, she saw her king standing there, her own knife in his hand, and blood dripping off the blade.

  • • •

  She must have passed out briefly because Enver was shaking her awake. She wanted to go back to sleep. Everything hurt. She tried to push him away, but felt too feeble to lift a finger.

  “Galadheon,” he said, “you must go.”

  “Go where?” she asked wearily.

  “Out of the forest. You and the king must leave.”

  King? And then she remembered. She tried to rise, but pain ripped through her back, and she slumped onto the floor. “Where is he?”

  Enver glanced over his shoulder, then returned his gaze to her. “Dressing.”

  “Dressing?”

  “Yes.”

  Karigan’s gaze wandered and fell on the corpse of Nyssa very close by, her eyes rolled back. Karigan looked away. Dead or not, that woman was going to haunt her dreams.

  The door creaked open.

  “Hurry,” said Lord Fiori. “The keep is waking up.”

  “Stand, Galadheon,” Enver said. He more or less lifted her to her feet, and she cried out in pain and almost fainted away. “I am sorry, but there is little time. You and your king will ride Mist to Nari. Mist will know the way, but you must use your ability. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, I . . .”

  “I am ready.” The voice belonged to King Zachary.

  Karigan looked over Enver’s shoulder. The king was dressed in buckskin and looked a different man, a rugged woodsman, and the effect was not displeasing. A dead man, relieved of his clothes, lay on the table. Apparently he’d been the source of the king’s new attire. The king gazed back at her, his expression unreadable, and then Enver started to drag her outside.

  “Wait,” she said. She went over to the brazier and tried to kick it over, but even that was too much for her. The king, seeing what she was about, finished the job for her. Coals spilled across the rough-hewn floor and slammed into the wall. She watched in satisfaction as flames licked at the wood.

  Enver drew her away and outside into the dark. The woods were filled with shouts of alarm and barking dogs.

  “Your ability, Galadheon,” he said.

  She held out her hands. The king took her left, his grip warm and reassuring. Enver took her right, and Lord Fiori grabbed Enver’s arm. She had never tried to fade so many people at once, but she did it. Perhaps Enver’s influence helped. They moved awkwardly through the forest, pausing if anyone came too close. People converged on Nyssa’s workshop. Karigan glanced over her shoulder, and firelight shone through the open door. Grandmother, she thought, was not going to be pleased. Despite the pain and exhaustion, she smiled.

  The clamor fell behind as they traveled more deeply into the forest. She was having trouble remaining on her feet, and both the king and Enver practically carried her. After a time, Enver halted.

  “Muna’reyes,” he whispered.

  Karigan, focused on maintaining invisibility, was not even aware of Mist’s approach. She only realized the mare was there when Enver and the king broke contact with her—the king so he could mount, and Enver so he could lift her up onto Mist’s back behind him.

  “Your ability,” Enver said. “Make you, your king, and Mist vanish.”

  “What about you? And Lord Fiori?”

  “Muna’reyes! Tesh, tesh!” Enver cried.

  The mare bounded off, and Karigan grabbed King Zachary around his waist so she did not tumble off. Remembering herself, she called on her fading ability once more and became aware of little else than keeping them invisible, and clinging to the warmth that was her king.

  FLAMES ENTWINED

  Zachary could not see the horse, he could not see himself, and he could not see what lay in the woods around him. He could feel the mare surge beneath him, that her stride was sure and effortless, and considering the natural terrain, smooth. He felt Karigan pressed up against his back, her arms around him in a death grip. Of anything, she was the most real, but doubt that any of it was real remained strong, for whatever Grandmother’s knots had done to him made him question everything.

  The invisibility of the horse, of him, was Karigan’s doing, he tried to tell himself, not some spell of Grandmother’s. It was night, so the dark of the woods was natural. Still, he doubted. Perhaps it was all a ploy to make him think he was free, and at any moment, the truth would be revealed that he was still in Nyssa’s workshop and the torment of pain would begin again. And yet, it all felt so real.

  The horse suddenly burst out of the woods—the world opened up and stars appeared above. Cold air rushed over him. Karigan leaned more heavily against his back, and he placed his hand over hers, which were clasped around his waist. They were icy.

  He glanced toward the sky and detected a large, winged form gliding against the stars. Enver had told him a gryphon would be escorting them. Had he not witnessed the gryphons fighting the aureas slee, he’d be more certain this was all a deception of Grandmother’s.<
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  His very soul exhausted from being so long a slave and captive, his body beaten and tortured, he was slumped over the mare’s neck by the time she slowed to a walk. Before he could rouse himself to stop her from stepping into a wide crevice, she went forward. They did not fall and ended up on an ordinary flat, rocky area. A woman stood there looking about.

  “I know you are there,” she said, “though I cannot see you. Galadheon? You can cease your fading.” The gryphon alighted next to her, folded its wings, and sat. “Galadheon?”

  The horse once more became visible beneath him. He could see his hands. “Nari? Is that you?”

  Karigan groaned behind him, her hands slipping away from him. He did not turn in time to catch her as she fell from the horse.

  “Karigan!” he cried.

  Nari rushed over and half-caught her before her head hit the ground. Zachary dismounted. He’d seen Nyssa kick Karigan, but did not know how badly she was hurt. He knew the use of her ability also took much out of her.

  “Help me get her to the blankets,” Nari said.

  They carried Karigan between them, and when they reached a bedroll spread on the ground, Nari said, “Let us lay her down on her belly.”

  “Her belly?”

  “It is best.”

  When they did so, he saw that a darkness stained the back of her shirt, or perhaps it was shadow. Then he gazed at his hands. “Nari,” he said, a quaver in his voice. They were sticky with blood.

  “There is not much we can do for her until Enver returns.”

  “But she’s bleeding—she could be badly wounded.”

  Nari placed her hand on his wrist. “She was wounded a few days ago, yes. The lacerations must have reopened. She needs Enver’s skills. Our meddling will only make it worse.”

  “But—”

  “Peace, Zachary.” She went to the mare, placed her hands beneath her forelock, and spoke softly to her in Eltish. The mare then turned on her haunches and bolted back toward the forest. Zachary half-sat, half-fell beside Karigan. She was shivering and he pulled a blanket over her. He took her icy hand into his.

  “She is freezing,” he told Nari. “We need a fire.”

  “We are too close to the forest.” She knelt beside Karigan and touched her forehead in much the way she had the mare’s.

  Zachary started to remove the cloak he’d taken from the dead guard to spread over Karigan.

  “No,” Nari said. “You, too, need warmth. Food and drink, as well, it appears. We’ve other than cave fungus here.” She removed her own cloak and placed it over Karigan. “Rest while I fetch a waterskin and food for you.”

  “What was done to her?” Zachary asked. He knew she’d been caught in Nyssa’s clutches for a time, but could only guess at what she might have endured.

  Nari gazed down at saddlebags piled on the ground. “It is not pleasant.”

  Zachary swallowed hard. “Please tell me.”

  He expected the worst, and what she told him was bad enough. She explained why Karigan had gone into the forest, how she was captured, and what Nyssa had done to her. A flame blazed in his chest.

  “Gods,” he muttered. The death he’d given Nyssa had been too kind. He gazed at Karigan. Her hair had fallen across her face, and he remembered the severed braid and Grandmother wanting it for something. He brushed her hair away and traced the long cut down her cheek. Why her? Why must she endure so much?

  Nari knelt beside him with a waterskin and what appeared to be . . . chocolate? The scent came to him in an alluring wave, and his stomach churned. He was not sure when last he’d eaten. He had a hazy memory of Nyssa’s guards making him drink.

  “There is chocolate, and what some of your people call hardtack, and—” she frowned in distaste “—dried meat.”

  He drank more than ate, unsure of what his body would accept. Nari left him to watch for the return of Enver. Unable to keep his head up, he wrapped himself in his cloak and lay down beside Karigan so she might share his heat. She shifted against him, seemingly by instinct, and he placed his arm around her so she could use his shoulder as a pillow. Something stirred within him, with her so close, and he took a quavering breath and gazed at the stars. He guessed the horror of what had been done to him, and to her, was still too fresh for it all to sink in. Of course, he could not remember much of his own torment, but his imagination allowed him to vividly picture hers.

  A falling star whisked across the sky and was just as quickly gone.

  Nari gazed down at Zachary and the Galadheon. Enver picked his way over to her while Lord Fiori sat apart pressing a bandage to his wounded leg. They had sent Midnight on to Lady Estral with a note informing her of the success of the mission. The Galadheon, at some point, had nestled her head on Zachary’s shoulder, her body tucked up against his side as though the two had always fit together as water to the shore. They were both deeply asleep.

  “Her wounds need tending,” Enver said.

  “It can wait, I think,” Nari replied.

  “I am a healer,” he said. “I must tend her, and the Firebrand, as well.”

  When he started forward, Nari placed her hand against his chest to stay him and said, “Leave them be. When they awaken will be soon enough. They need rest, and their being together is a different kind of healing.” Despite her words, she still felt his resistance.

  “I disagree.”

  “If you want to help, sing.”

  He looked rebellious.

  “I see what is in your eyes, Enver of Eletia, and it is not just the watchfulness of the tessari. What was the council of the Alluvium thinking when they sent you out into the world alone?”

  “I do not need others.” His tone was defensive. “My discipline, my control, is sound. I have mastered my instincts.”

  “You are entering your first age of unfolding. You’ve no idea the power of accendu’melos. Discipline is not enough. You need others around you to help you control your urges.”

  “I can master my own urges.”

  It was an arrogant statement, Nari thought. She glanced down at the Galadheon sleeping so innocently, so peacefully. “You hear the song of her spirit. It calls out to you. Her scent fills you and you must be near her. Is this not true?”

  Enver did not answer.

  “Hear me now, Enver of Eletia, this one is not for you, and perhaps for none of this Earth. You know as do I, her god of death has claim of her. A claim greater than even that of her king. You see it, don’t you? She is marked, and by more than just her god.”

  “She is used.”

  “Are not we all in some way? With her, however, it is by the hands of greater powers.”

  Enver turned. “Very well, I will wait.”

  She watched as he walked over to where Lord Fiori sat. He had not liked her words. She still did not understand why the council of the Alluvium would send him out alone, especially when he was so young and close to his first unfolding. It was dangerous. Dangerous for him, and even more dangerous for the object of his desire. And, dangerous to the one who might be considered a rival. Her gaze fell on Zachary.

  Humans, in her experience, only saw Eletians as peaceful and balanced. They did not see the more primal side of the Eletian nature, especially when one scented another in the deepest sense, heard that other’s song. The drive to bond and mate was fierce, the act often savage, wanton, especially among the young who possessed less control, and it could last for days. For Eletians, it was not just the melding of bodies, but an empathic joining of emotions and thoughts, as well. If Enver should undergo his first unfolding in the presence of the Galadheon and she was unwilling? It did not even bear imagining, especially with her in her weakened state.

  Nari was old enough to have attained great control long ago and no longer succumbed to such drives. Life in the cave of the aureas slee had only enhanced her discipline.


  Enver did show signs of remarkable control now, but in time? He had a gentle nature, but that would not restrain him during his unfolding. She shook her head once more at the poor decision of the council to send him out alone, then caught herself. Eletians were nothing but deliberate in their decisions, even if their motives were opaque, their intrigues more convoluted than an epic ballad celebrating the disparate lineages and extended families of the Great Houses. With their eternal lives, those Eletians who engaged in intrigues played a very long game, as had her sister. It occurred to her that this “mistake” was intentional, whatever the consequences. Intrigues and machinations, signs and portents, wove the fabric of Eletian custom and polity.

  If Enver losing his discipline in the presence of the Galadheon was the intent of the council, to whatever end they desired, then she could only agree with Enver that the Galadheon was being used, and so was he. Nari could tell the Galadheon did not hear the song of Enver’s spirit as he heard hers, which would make his unfolding all the worse, for she’d be an unwilling participant.

  The one whose song she did hear was Zachary’s. Nari could see the bond between them as a fusing of her living light with his, with no room for Enver. Zachary’s shone in a range of blues that revealed coolness and peace, but could easily give way to fire. Hers was an appropriate green, though tinged with brown and a sickly yellow, indicating her wounding. Her green, not surprisingly, was also disposed to fire. As for the dark wings that shadowed her, they were other, and separated her from all who walked the Earth, including the one with whom she’d bonded. It was no wonder, Nari began to think, the council of the Alluvium had taken an interest in the Galadheon, and no doubt it was something of the powers that surrounded her that called out to Enver.

  Nari started away, but glanced back when she heard a stirring. Zachary’s eyes fluttered open, and he looked as if to ensure the Galadheon was still there with her head on his shoulder. Her hand rested on his chest, and he placed his over it; then he closed his eyes and sighed with contentment. Peace as Nari had not seen before settled over his features.