The Firebrand Legacy

by T. K. Kiser

  As Carine lifted three plates—apparently Marcel at some point had woken to eat—Prince Giles asked, “Are either of your parents Padliotian, Carine?”

  The question was delicate, since Navafort often skirmished with Padliot. In fact, the princes’ own father had died in one of the border wars. But Prince Giles, despite the severity of his expressions, seemed more curious than accusatory. “Yes, Your Majesty. My father’s parents were from there, but how did you—”

  “Please don’t feed my brother’s ego by being impressed.” Prince David plopped some papers and a book on the table.

  “It’s a mere inference,” Prince Giles explained. “Haven’t you heard of the walled Ponedonian village in Padliot? Like you, they hate magic. They forbid it to enter their city walls. Being so far south, it’s easier for them, but they take it one step further.” His Majesty turned, gesturing to her long hair with his slender finger. “You are familiar with the innate folk gifts, I hope.”

  “Yes, Your Majesty.” Every folk kind but menfolk were born with magical qualities. Carine had always been glad she had been born to menfolk. If she had been born any other folk type, she would have to rid magic from herself.

  “The centaurs have their strength; the fauns have their music…Ponedonians consider those folk types to be half animal. Animals have more hair than menfolk. Therefore, they believe that magic is associated with hair. Every Ponedonian—men and women—keeps their heads shaved.”

  Carine considered their theory. Half-men, half-creatures generally did have more hair than pure menfolk. “Is it true?”

  “That they do that, yes. That magic and hair are associated is anyone’s guess. In my opinion, they’re ridiculous. To swear off magic would be like swearing off color. You can hardly get rid of it. It’s part of the fabric of the earth. You haven’t studied physics, have you?”

  She may not have been tutored in the sciences, but life experience had taught her just as well.

  “Your Majesty is correct except for one thing,” Alviar said. His correctional tone drew a confused frown from Giles. “Magic is the word illiterates use for phenomena they can’t explain.”

  “I was simplifying,” Giles retorted.

  “Physics answers the question: why does nature do that? In a sense, the answer is simple: nature responds to its call, a call from the Etherrealm.” No one had ever explained physics in such terms, but that was the way of dragon fanatics, attributing everything to the realm where dragons lived. “The call is there whether we realize it or not, holding everything together. The call is the reason that tree roots grow down and branches grow up. It’s the reason that everything tossed up falls back to earth. The reason that birds fly south for the winter and the sun rises in the east. Every single thing that exists does one vital thing: responds to its call.”

  Mom and Didda had never really explained why things were. They always answered her questions with: It just is.

  Prince Giles seized an opportunity to make up for his poor word choice. “It would be too simple to study physics if that were the extent of the subject.”

  “That’s true. Scientists delve into lesser reasons for physical phenomena. One theorist explains the rising of the sun as the rotation of a spherical world. And trees grow tall because they receive nutrients from the sun and soil. But all of these valid explanations are mere subsets of the basic call. Everything is prompted by that call.”

  “Do you mean a call in Manakor, sir?” Carine said tartly. The princes and their tutor all seemed utterly enchanted by the killer dragons, their realm, and their fearsome tongue.

  “Indeed,” said the centaur. “No matter how bitter or staunchly opposed you are, Carine of North Esten, that language you hate is buried within the fabric of this whole creation. You can no more escape it than escape your own skin.”

  His brown eyes blazed with serious intensity under that one black eyebrow and bare skin. The folded, burned side of his face perplexed Carine. “I have to,” she said. “That language kills people, sir.”

  Alviar’s eyes softened. “And breathes them into being.”

  But that wasn’t enough. Not for her.

  In the kitchen, Carine scrubbed the dishes until her hands were shriveled and raw. She stacked and sorted, and then retreated under the stairs, but Alviar’s strange explanation and her parents’ terrified faces formed a dark cloud in her mind.

  Alviar and the princes claimed that she could never escape magic. That it was hopeless to try. If that were true, there was no hope for her parents back home. Carine ached for them to be with her. She even wished—to her horror—that Kavariel had come during Festival and delivered the flame.

  Carine turned the short blade of her shoemaking awl in her hand. She had to believe there was hope for her family. She had to believe that one day the three of them would be together again and safe. If there was any way to escape magic—any way at all—Carine would find it.

  Dusting off her hands, she leaned over so her hair spread over her knees like cloth. With jagged motions, she sawed her hair at neck-length. Long reddish-brown pieces lay limply on her lap like feathers plucked from a goose.

  Carine had lost her sister, her home, her parents, and now her hair.

  Taking a breath, she stowed her knife and stood. Sometimes losing everything is the only way to begin.

  13 Cleaning Up

  The next morning at breakfast, Carine carried in a tray of grits and hot tea, per Alviar’s request. His highness Prince Marcel was sleeping, but the twins sat eagerly at the table, reaching for their bowls before she’d even set down the tray.

  “Whoa! What’d you do to your hair?” David asked.

  Heat rose in her cheeks. Now David was acting just like her neighbors, commenting on any change, eager to make fun.

  “I was right.” Prince Giles smirked. “You are a Ponedonian.” Not a compliment, since yesterday he’d called them ridiculous.

  “Shut up, Giles,” Prince David said, watching Carine. “Don’t listen to him.” His voice had round, warm tones.

  Carine should have known better than to enter this room after cutting her hair. She tucked a piece behind her ear, then slightly bowed to the princes.

  “Wait, you’re not upset, are you?” David said as she neared the door.

  “No, Your Majesty,” she lied and shut the door behind her.

  Carine slopped the mop over the upper deck near the stocky captain at the wheel. He ignored her, as he seemed to ignore everything but the horizon and the shifting winds.

  She had carefully done the lower decks yesterday evening, and today the upper deck was her task. Having a job to do was supposed to ease her mind, but instead, the rhythmic work made her meditate on the things bothering her most: that her parents were missing and that she had left them, maybe to die.

  At every moment, she imagined hearing the shriek of an incoming dragon. What she heard instead were hoof-steps.

  There were two ways up to the deck she mopped: a ladder and the long stairs for centaurs. Alviar climbed the long stairs, and instead of turning to speak with the captain, he turned to Carine.

  “As a tutor, I cannot resist the urge to teach a needed lesson. Do you have a moment?”

  Carine nodded, but the subject of yesterday’s discussion left her uneasy.

  Alviar turned to the banister and looked out over the sea. “The truth is, I was not always a hopeful centaur, Carine.” His face shimmered with honesty. His brown eyes glazed with nostalgia. But the scar on his face distorted his every expression in folds and asymmetry. “I was at a bad place in my life, so one year during Festival, long before you were born, I sought out Kavariel, intending to be consumed in his flame.”

  Carine winced. She couldn’t imagine wanting to burn.

  “Kavariel touched down at the water’s edge, destroying half the ships. I cantered all the way from Bastion Park to the port as he blasted the marketplace and boiled the river water. But the strange thing was, when I got up close, I saw that the beast i
s truly beautiful. His scales glitter like silver shields and his eye is like a rolling globe.”

  “But he murders,” Carine said.

  “That’s what I was counting on—until his gaze fell on me.”

  “What do you mean?” Carine still shivered at the idea of approaching a fire-breathing dragon. “He looked at you?”

  Alviar nodded. “Dragons are wise creatures.”

  “Just because they have magic doesn’t make them wise,” Carine said, hanging onto the broom as if in defense.

  “That’s true. It is not because they have power that they are wise. And the power they have is not magic per se, but the ability to pronounce the language of life. Manakor is a deep language, not in tone but in content. Not even learned scholars can pronounce it. One word contains all that will ever be and all that has ever been.”

  “Why are you telling me this?” Carine asked. It was far more information than she had planned for, and Alviar tutored princes, not shoemakers.

  “Like you, I believed many falsities that led me to fear and despair. Fortunately, that dragon looked at me, and it changed everything.”

  “How?”

  “When his gaze fell on me I felt…my soul stirred. I felt my destiny. Kavariel opened his mouth and breathed. Fire spilled forth, and thank the flames, I caught only the edge of the blast. And,” he hushed in reverence, “along with the fire came a word unlike any other.”

  “What was it?”

  “It was my name. In Manakor, I supposed, but the consonants and vowels had nothing to do with it. I often wish I had remained standing there, to bask in the gift I had just received, but terrified as I was, I fled, my face and hand still burning.”

  He gestured to a burn on the back of his hand that she hadn’t noticed. The skin of his right side was wrinkled, as though there was too much skin for his fingers, all of it cracked and folded. Carine couldn’t bear to look. Her sister had suffered much worse in the same fire.

  “Before that moment, I had never known that every drop of this universe is unified. Everything and everyone has a name, a meaning, and a call. That included me. And that gave me hope. It should give you hope too.”

  Alviar delighted in the memory, and as Carine heard his story, something stirred within her too. But instead of hope, it felt like fear—and then anger.

  “Not everyone is as lucky as you were,” she said, though the observation came out softer and more personal than she had planned.

  “Indeed,” he said, guessing that she had lost someone. “Everyone dies, many tragically. Who can know why death acts when? Our limited folk minds can understand but a drop of water in this ocean.”

  “The world is simpler than you think, sir.” On one hand was goodness and safety, on the other disaster and magic.

  “I can see it in your eyes, young Shoemaker; you think the world is crueler too.”

  Carine didn’t answer.

  “No wonder you’re running away from it.”

  14 A Nice Melody

  It wasn’t long before Prince David skipped up the stairs and interrupted her thoughts. His inch long hair poked in every direction. He didn’t seem to look in a mirror much, not that it would have done him any good. He was the least attractive of his brothers, but his presence was the most comfortable. At least, it had been before Giles and he had labeled her as a freak like everyone else in Esten did. With any luck, he was coming up here to speak to the captain. His dopey smile told her otherwise.

  “Hey,” he said, staring her right in the eyes so she couldn’t pretend not to see him.

  She bowed at the waist to break eye contact and wished his message would be quick.

  He raised his hands in the surrender position, folding his rich surcoat in soft lines. “I didn’t bring anything enchanted—promise.” The prince slowed until he stood right beside her at the banister, and then he folded his hands and looked over the water. After a moment, he said, “Seen any dolphins? Alviar said he’s seen a couple dolphins out here since we’ve been traveling.”

  Carine tried to keep mopping, but after a moment decided it was rude and stood still, smiling politely, leaning on the mop for support.

  Prince David rolled back his head and groaned. “Look, I feel like a total jerk. I didn’t mean to offend you or anything.”

  Carine plastered on a smile. “No need, Your Majesty.”

  “I think your hair looks nice—really.”

  Carine suppressed a groan.

  “I’m making it worse,” he said, covering his face. “I just don’t know; I mean, I love dragons. I never met someone who didn’t—at least, not someone who hates them. First I made you uncomfortable with all that enchanted stuff and then today pointed out your haircut. I’m usually not this obtuse, I swear. Please, just forgive me. Say you don’t think I’m a terrible person.”

  “I don’t think that, Your Majesty,” she said, but it didn’t satisfy him.

  “Look, let me make it up to you.” Prince David’s eyes lit with energy. “I know. Do you like fireworks?”

  It didn’t surprise her that the prince had some with him. They always lit off fireworks at Bastion Park the day after Grievance and when the fencing championship concluded. “I don’t like fire, Your Majesty.”

  “Right, okay.” He inhaled and then snapped his fingers, smiling. “I know! You’re going to love this. Wait there. I’ll be right back.”

  Prince David jumped down the stairs to the lower deck and raced into his cabin, swinging the door shut behind him. Carine watched, her heart softening. The breeze whistled through her short hair, making her neck feel exposed. When he came back a moment later, he pulled a scroll out from under his arm and uncurled it just in time for the wind to pick it out of his hands. The colorful page flapped over the edge of the upper deck and sailed feet above the ship.

  Carine dropped the mop and ran down the ladder, watching the flying sheet, fearing it would land in the water below. She didn’t have to know what was on the picture to know that the page itself was valuable. Paint and skills like that were reserved for fine arts and valuable texts. Prince David ran after it.

  They ducked under the mast as the picture flapped around it. Carine jumped, reaching for the paper as the wind died down. The thin sheet caught in her fingers, and she slammed the page to the floor, spreading it out with her hands.

  “Thank the flames,” Prince David panted. “Grandfather would’ve killed me.”

  Grandfather to him was King Marcel to her.

  Prince David put his hands on his knees and leaned over the picture. Carine knelt, hands spread out over the corners. “It’s beautiful,” she said, offering a genuine smile as she caught her breath.

  It was a painting of a Fletchkey chapel. Unlike Navafort, Fletchkey was uncivilized. It was a vast expanse from Navafort’s northern border all the way to the icy poles of the continent. Within that Fletchkey region were dozens of nomadic tribes. Some of those tribes worshiped dragons, a tradition that most Navafortians rejected, favoring instead to pay tribute to lesser beings: Kavariel and the Great Marcels. Even Alviar had hinted that dragons were the Etherrealm’s mouthpieces, not its creators.

  Despite its associations, the chapel was gorgeous, brushed with soft-colored oil paint. There was white for the birch trees that arched in a half-circle, green for the healthy branches that wove together at the chapel’s roof, orange for the tiny flowers that carpeted the grassy floor, and gold for the sun that brightly shone into the chapel through the trees. A guitar leaned against the trunk of one of the slender birch trees that made up the wall. Carine had always wanted to hear a faun song. When fauns played, plants danced, responding to their melodies.

  “You said you liked to draw,” His Majesty said, pleased. He let himself fall back into a seated position. “I hope you don’t hate me anymore.” His eyes, light brown and warm, sparkled.

  “I don’t,” she said honestly. In fact, the extent to which she was starting to not hate him was as inconvenient as it was frightening. Unde
r usual circumstances, she would cut off all contact with someone who interacted so passionately with enchantments. But today, any thought of doing that was extremely unattractive. Despite his hobby, Prince David was the one person on the ship who behaved more friendly than antagonistic toward her, and the consolation of talking to another person was worth more than holding onto frustration.

  “So, do you draw people? Grandfather’s always having his portrait done. I could recommend you.”

  She shook her head. “I just do designs and flowers sometimes. We don’t usually have paper in our home, so I do leather engravings.” She showed off her shoes, elaborately done up in swirls and fleur-de-lis.

  “You made this?”

  She nodded.

  “I used to have those! I mean, not that pair of shoes, but those designs were popular a few years ago. Everyone had them.”

  Carine smiled. When she was nine, her designs went mainstream for three or four months. Their shop was flooded with orders as every eight- to ten-year-old bought a pair. Like all things, the fad ended abruptly, and Didda was left with expensive inventory he couldn’t pay for. It took them a while to recover from their boom, but Carine always remembered the pride she’d felt when she saw so many others, especially South Esteners, flaunting her designs.

  “The artist herself,” he said, “in the flesh.”

  She felt herself blushing so she changed the subject. “I think I’ve seen you fence before, Your Majesty.” Catching herself saying the title, she muttered apologies.

  “Don’t remind me,” he groaned. “Out in the second round, it was mortifying—especially when your younger twin has enough skill to beat seasoned knights.”

  “And Prince Marcel,” she said, letting herself feel comfortable speaking so casually to a prince. “He always wins.”

  Prince David frowned. “Yes, well, he’s the heir. He’s a Marcel.”

  “Glory to the Great Marcels,” Carine said automatically, rolling up the painting.

  David scrunched his nose. “That’s what they say, isn’t it? That’s why we’re here. Grandfather made us leave to protect Marcel.”