Before She Ignites

by Jodi Meadows

  And mostly, I sank beneath the crush of understanding: we’d both defied our governments and tried to do what was right. The Luminary Council’s betrayal was one thing, but the Twilight Senate as well?

  I’d been naïve to think my parents would be able to persuade the Luminary Council to free me, or that the Pit would take prisoners just temporarily. The Pit was for life.

  No one was coming to get me.

  I WAS ON my own.

  If I didn’t want to stay in the Pit the rest of my life, this dark threat of Altan’s hanging over me, I needed to do something about it. I needed to escape before he could pry out more secrets.

  But not right now. It was almost dark, and I didn’t want to be caught in it.

  First, I found my silk square and fastened it over my hair. Second, I checked to make sure my pillow and blanket were under the bed, where they belonged.

  “Are you all right?” Gerel sat on her bed already, arms looped around her knees. Showing off, clearly. The normal sleeping location held no terror for her, after all.

  “It doesn’t really matter, does it? I can’t change anything.” The words came out colder than intended.

  “You spent all last night crying and kept me awake. So yes, it matters. You need to learn to overcome your fear, that way the rest of us can get some sleep.”

  My chest stung from her comment. I hadn’t spent all last night crying. Just . . . some of it. “Sorry to inconvenience you. Try sleeping during the day while I’m working.”

  Before she could respond, I spun around like I had somewhere else to be. At that moment, the lights went out.

  Panic stole my breath. The darkness disoriented, but I kept my numbers: I took the two steps to my bed, knelt, and scurried to the safety of that small space.

  Down the hall, Hurrok opened his lungs and released his terror into the hall. The sound echoed, filling the cellblock like liquid. As much as I hated his screaming, it was a reminder: this was normal darkness, filled with other people. This was not alone darkness. Isolated darkness.

  Still, I found myself counting, gathering my numbers until there was nothing else.

  I made it to five hundred and eight before I registered the heat of Aaru’s hand on mine. He was tapping, telling a story.

  ::Wait,:: I said. ::Will you start over?::

  The screaming man stopped at last, leaving behind an aching silence.

  ::Very well.:: From Aaru’s quiet code, I couldn’t tell whether he was annoyed or not.

  “Sorry.” Mother would have had a fit if she knew how often I ended up apologizing to an Idrisi boy; she’d have said it was beneath me. Unless, of course, I was being the Mira, and I needed to be gracious to everyone. But then I’d have been in trouble for not paying attention.

  ::Why?::

  “I was rude. I wasn’t being attentive.”

  ::You were scared.:: He petted my fingers, as though brushing the fears away. It was such a simple motion, but it made my heart pound with a painful yearning. ::I would have stayed if I could have.::

  “You saved me,” I whispered. “When you came back, you saved me.”

  Before he could reply, I scooted toward the hole, forcing him to pull his arm back to his side. It was most comfortable for me if I let him be the one to reach through the hole, but after my days in the dark, pressing my arm through for his cup of water, I knew how uncomfortable that was.

  So I moved closer to the hole and slipped my hand through in offering. A breath played across my upturned palm. His mouth was so close; if I stretched my fingers, I could touch his face.

  I didn’t move.

  He did.

  It was just a rearrangement of limbs, adjusting his position, but for an instant, his face brushed across my fingertips. Mouth? Cheek? Nose? It was too brief to tell. But still, my heart raced.

  Then, warm, rough skin slid the length of my fingers. Our hands curled together for a moment before he turned mine over and drew me in a fraction farther. His mouth grazed my knuckles before he released me.

  My hand stayed there, suspended in the air. I wanted to act, to map his features with my fingertips, but what if this wasn’t an invitation? What if I ruined everything?

  “Mira.” His voice came soft, and in little puffs across my knuckles. He’d kept his strange pronunciation: Meer-AH.

  I moved. And I found his eyebrow, his temple, and a sharp line of his cheekbone. I traveled downward and met the curve of his top lip, and there I could feel the rapidness of his breathing.

  Though I wanted to continue this exploration, I withdrew. I couldn’t tell if he was nervous or upset, excited or panicked, so I pulled my hand back to the neutral territory of the hole.

  He didn’t say anything, aloud or otherwise, but when his hand pressed into the hole with mine, some of my worry melted away. Maybe he hadn’t minded.

  “I’ve decided,” I whispered.

  He waited.

  “I don’t want the story.”

  He drew back just a breath.

  Oh. He thought I was rejecting him. This. Whatever this was. “I mean . . .” I cursed my lack of Daminan gifts. I didn’t have the right words. The right tone. “I want you to tell me about you, not just any story.”

  Two, three, four heartbeats. And then: “Me?”

  I echoed his words from before. “I want to know you.”

  More heartbeats raced between us. Eight, nine, ten. “Really?”

  I cupped his hand in both of mine. ::I want to know everything about you.:: My face heated. I hadn’t meant to be so obvious, so pathetically fascinated by this strange and silent boy.

  But if he noticed, he chose not to embarrass me. ::What do you want to know?::

  ::Everything. Anything you’ll tell me.:: Oh, by the seven Fallen Gods. And all the Upper Gods, too. I couldn’t trust my mouth not to speak without my mind’s direction, and it seemed I couldn’t trust my hands, either.

  Aaru chuckled, both aloud and by drumming his fingers in a quiet-code laugh. ::Narrow it down, curious fr—::

  He didn’t finish the last word, and suddenly that was what I most wanted to know about. But he’d stopped his sentence for a reason, so I chose another question. ::Are you close with your family?:: It seemed like he must be, and I’d always wondered what that was like.

  ::They are everything to me. When we escape, I will return to them.::

  And leave me. It shouldn’t have surprised me, or stung, because we’d known each other only eighteen days. He had to help the people he loved, and I had to rescue the dragons before the Algotti Empire got hold of them.

  Still, the thought of losing him opened a deep loneliness inside of me. I’d been wrong earlier, when I’d thought I was on my own, because at this moment, I had Aaru. He’d wanted to escape all along, while I’d been content with mere survival while waiting to be rescued. I’d thought my release was imminent and there was no reason to act.

  But I could not wait for change. I had to make change.

  Aaru opened my hand, trailing his fingers from the hollow of my wrist to my palm. ::What are you thinking?::

  ::I’m going to help you see your family again.::

  His breathing hitched, and the way his fingers grazed mine felt like a smile. ::How do we begin?::

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  THE NEXT DAY, I STOPPED EATING DINNER.

  Well, mostly. I ate just enough to convince the guards and other prisoners that I wasn’t doing anything wrong, but then I pulled out strips of silk I’d torn from the remnants of my dress, and wrapped bread and fruit and slabs of fried meat. Everything went into my pockets and down my shirt.

  “What are you doing?” Tirta hissed as I took my tray to her window. “You’re going to get in trouble again.”

  “The Book of Love says to ensure our neighbors have enough to eat, and my neighbors are in need. If I can help, I should.”

  “Is it Gerel?” Her frown said she disapproved.

  “If I try hard enough, she will like me.” Surely Tirta could
understand. This was a basic Daminan need: without friends, without love, we could not be whole. I might not have had the divine gifts that made people want to like me, but that didn’t mean the desire wasn’t there. “But also for the boy in the cell next to mine.”

  Tirta’s eyes widened. “Do they mean that much to you?”

  If I told her how much I wanted to escape, and about my alliance with Aaru, she’d protest. Instead, I whispered, “Please don’t tell anyone.”

  “I won’t.” And, because she was Tirta and she was kind, she slipped a small container of water through the window. It wasn’t much—a few swallows at best—but I could give it to Gerel; Aaru had his cup.

  “Fancy!” Altan roared from the far side of the mess hall, and I sucked in my stomach as far as I could, as though I stood a chance at hiding all the food stashed inside my shirt.

  His eyes narrowed, but if he noticed the bulge, he didn’t mention it. Instead, he escorted me back to the first level without speaking. Or, rather, with the sort of expectant quiet that hinted he was waiting for me to speak first.

  In the anteroom, he paused before opening the cellblock door. We stood alone in a small room, me with a bundle of contraband food stuffed into my shirt, and him with his arms crossed over his chest. “This is your chance to tell me what else you know.”

  My heart thrummed in my chest. Last time he’d confronted me outside the cellblock, he’d left me in the dark.

  “I don’t know anything.” The words came breathy. Scared.

  He sighed and opened the door. Voices threaded through the hall, bringing a slight measure of relief. “All right,” Altan said. “Have it your way.” Finally, I was deposited in my cell, along with the dark sense that he had something terrible in mind.

  As soon as he was gone, I divided the food into three even parcels, then took the first one under the bed. “Aaru.”

  He was already there. ::Mira,:: he tapped, and then switched to speech. “I have questions.”

  “About?” A thread of worry spun through me. Had he figured out my identity?

  “How dragons make fire.”

  Oh. Now that I was happy to answer. “Take this. Then I’ll tell you more than you ever wanted to know.” I pressed the package of food through the hole.

  A moment later, he peeled open the layers of silk. “Mira.”

  I waited.

  “This is too much.”

  “It’s not nearly enough.” When I slipped my hand through the hole to his side, flashes of last night played through my mind. The way his skin had heated under my fingers, the quickness of his breath, but mostly the in-between moments, when we’d finished discussing a topic and hadn’t yet found a new one. I should have pulled my hand away. Or he should have. But neither of us did.

  And now, his hand breezed over mine again. ::You need to eat too.::

  ::I should have been bringing food for you all along. I get plenty, and allies share resources.:: I scooted out from under the bed before he could protest further. “Gerel, I hope you’re good at catching.”

  “Keep it.” She crossed her arms. “After we were moved out, Aaru told me about your alliance, but alliances with you are too dangerous. It’s not worth the risk.”

  “Don’t you want to”—I dropped my voice—“escape?”

  “I want to live.”

  “This isn’t living.”

  She glared, and I almost backed down, but warriors admired strength. She hadn’t said anything about the way I mimicked her exercises, but there was a sense of approval sometimes. She didn’t talk with me the way Aaru did, but she liked me better than the previous occupant of my cell and she was glad I wasn’t dead. That was something.

  “Fine. I’m not really hungry, but toss it over.”

  I did. First the bundle of food, the ends of the silk tucked into a fold so it wouldn’t come undone, and then the small water pouch Tirta had given me.

  The food was gone before I realized she’d even opened the bundle.

  “I have another,” I said. “For Chenda.”

  In the cell next to Gerel’s, Chenda looked up at the sound of her name. But she didn’t move or reach out for her food.

  “Pass it to her.” I tossed Gerel the third package, and though she tried to hand it around the bars, she was resolutely ignored.

  “I don’t think she wants it.” Gerel eyed the bundle like she’d gladly dispose of its contents.

  “We should share it,” I said at last. I wouldn’t accept defeat, though. This would not be my last overture of friendship. “If Chenda won’t eat it, then we should share it with the others.”

  “You have food?” asked the singing girl down the line. Kumas. “I love food.”

  Gerel frowned, but she said, “Yes, Mira brought food for you all. Make sure you share it evenly.”

  There wasn’t much food to split between four people, and it would be a challenge to toss the parcel from cell to cell without spilling, especially since most of the cells weren’t currently occupied.

  Gerel barked dire warnings about what would happen if they dropped food, or if the guards caught them, or if they even whispered about what I’d done. Miraculously, everyone swore to keep silent as they took some of the food and passed the rest on.

  After several minutes went by, filled only with quiet moans of food-induced pleasure, the silk square came back to me. I pulled out a knot, and a smooth brown pebble fell to the floor: a weight, so the cloth could be tossed.

  “Good job,” Gerel said. “They’re yours now.”

  That hadn’t been the point of bringing food, but I hoped she was right.

  AARU AND I made a short list of ways to prepare for our escape:

  1. Help allies by feeding them.

  2. Get stronger by exercising with Gerel.

  3. Learn about the layout of the Pit, and especially its exits.

  4. Behave for the guards so they wouldn’t suspect anything.

  5. Look for opportunities to escape.

  It wasn’t much, but given our limited movement within the Pit, the sharp knife of constant hunger, and our general lack of experience in great escapes, it was what we had. As if it were a dream that might slip away if we didn’t discuss it, we spent the next decan polishing our plan until it felt real.

  And in the pure blackness after the noorestones went dark, I found Aaru’s hand, and we talked until we fell asleep.

  “I ACCEPTED THE job.” Aaru’s whisper slithered through the dim space as I passed him a bundle of food through our hole. “Start tomorrow.”

  A bright spark of hope shot through me. “Good. That gets us one step closer.”

  He made a faint noise of affirmation.

  “We’ve been here a month and a day now.”

  Again, another noise—a barely audible hmph.

  “Three decans and a day,” I said. “Thirty-one days.” Thirty-two for him, if we wanted to be accurate. Which my brain did.

  Another hmph. Now he sounded a little annoyed. Of course he knew. Idris had the same calendar as the rest of the Fallen Isles.

  I pulled back to the actual conversation, forcing my numbers to the background. “This is going to make a difference.”

  “We will escape.”

  Progress was slow, but we’d agreed from the start that we needed to be careful. Deliberate. We’d get only one chance, and we needed to make it work.

  Fortunately, we had Gerel. She didn’t really believe we’d accomplish anything, but she played along. She knew the Heart better—she said—than any other trainee in her group, so she was able to give us a full list.

  There were three exits:

  1. The one I’d been brought through (it opened into a small grove of trees outside the city).

  2. The exit for dragons (which I’d suspected, but now I had confirmation).

  3. An exit into Warrior’s Circle (very public, not ideal for escape).

  I’d have preferred to map the routes in my head myself, counting steps and intersections, but my
movements were carefully monitored. Gerel’s instructions would have to do.

  And now Aaru was going to work, too.

  That meant he would be allowed out of his cell every day. He’d get to move around. Exercise. Eat. It wasn’t cleaning, like me, though. He’d been selected to work in the forge, where prisoners helped build the great chain links of the God Shackle.

  Neither Aaru nor I had even half a clue about what the God Shackle was, so Gerel had rolled her eyes and explained that it was part of the Khulani solution to the Great Abandonment. Decades ago, when it was first noticed that there were fewer dragons than ever, the Khulani people had begun work on the immense chain—to literally bind their god to the seabed.

  It seemed horrible to me, but the Warrior and the Lovers had such different views. It was probably a comfort to them.

  ::We will escape,:: Aaru repeated in quiet code, as I shimmied out from under the bed to distribute the rest of the food.

  I glanced at Chenda, but her back was turned toward me, as usual. Even so, her changes were evident. Her braids looked ragged. Her copper clothes gathered snags and rips. Her perfect skin turned blotchy and blemished.

  It was more difficult to see into her cell than Gerel’s, but sometimes as I walked by to and from work, I caught Chenda running her fingers across a tattered sleeve or down a long braid, like she could smooth the hairs back into position. She mourned her beauty. I understood. And that was why I kept trying to befriend her, no matter her rebukes.

  Again tonight, she didn’t accept any of my food, but when the package went down the line, a few cheers went up. “Mira!” shouted Varissa. “My daughter the food bringer!”

  Shortly after I’d started bringing food, Varissa—the woman who thought she had a daughter but didn’t, and thought she was from Bopha but wasn’t—decided to claim me as her daughter. I didn’t particularly want to be caught up in the fantasies of troubled minds, but resistance posed just as many problems.

  I’d learned to give Aaru-like grunts when Varissa talked about our lives. She blamed our incarceration on a theft of mercy; apparently, we’d stolen bread for a homeless child with a magical singing voice and a box full of kittens. For that small crime, we’d been sentenced to the most horrible place on the Fallen Isles. At least, that was usually the story. The other story she liked involved a palm tree, a duck, and twenty-seven officer jackets “borrowed” from the town militia.