Pocket Full of Tinder

by Jill Archer

  “I thought you would come down to the rotunda.”

  Cliodna scoffed. “I wasn’t in the mood for a party.”

  “You were in the mood to sit alone in the dark?”

  But she’d already turned her attention back to her mirror. Her arm moved and I wondered if she was brushing her hair. I thought about lighting a fireball so that I could see her but figured it would be better not to disturb her. Only my presence was required, not my interest in whatever it was she was doing. So I walked to the pavilion’s half-wall and stared up at the night sky, wondering what others in my life were doing tonight. After all, Frigore Luna didn’t need to spent with a lover (ahem, look where I was right now).

  I spotted the constellation Leaena and thought of my mother. Rex made me think of my father and Gemini, my brother. Cor, which meant “heart,” made me think of Rafe, but only because we’d searched for the White Heart together last winter. Then I admitted, if only to myself, that that wasn’t entirely true. But you know what? Rafe had bailed on us before we ever got started, which was probably a good thing since I had my hands full with Ari.

  What’s more, there was no Amoris Triangulum constellation.

  And even if there were, I wouldn’t ever wish on it!

  “Such chaotic emotions,” Cliodna said. “I think now would be a good time.”

  “For what?”

  “To paint you.”

  “Paint me?” I sounded like one of her parrots.

  A second later, the pavilion blazed with firelight. Cliodna had lit every single torch held by her shapely caryatids. I saw then that she sat in front of an easel, not a mirror, and that she held a paint brush, not a hair brush. When she saw my dress, her eyes widened. And then she laughed, the sound of it mellifluous amongst the gurgling and burbling, before calling me over so that I could see what she’d been working on.

  She’d painted Cygnus, the swan constellation.

  Looking up to where it would have been in the sky, I understood now why she’d been sitting in the dark. Behind the fiery torches, the sky was a uniform black. But in Cliodna’s painting, it sparkled with color and variation. Whorls of ivory and gold swirled around glowing orbs of light, which twinkled and blinked against a sapphire sky.

  Of course Cliodna was an artist, I thought.

  Together we stared at the painting until finally, she reached forward, plucked it off of the easel, and motioned for me to follow. She led me through several empty artisan areas, past more birds and bird baths, down a long, twisting set of stairs, until we finally reached a locked door. She pulled a key out of her cleavage and opened it.

  I was expecting another studio. Maybe one with a dais or a chaise lounge. Possibly some props or more paint, really anything but what was in there. When Cliodna pushed the light switch, I saw that the space was an enormous gallery, which held what must have been thousands of paintings. They were hanging on every inch of wall space. They were stacked to the ceiling in corners. They were piled five, six, seven feet high on the floor. And each and every one of them was of the same thing – Cygnus.

  I followed Cliodna into the room, glancing from one painting to the next. All of them were as beautiful as the one she’d painted tonight, but viewed in this context – next to myriad more just like them – they looked more foreboding than beautiful.

  Cliodna walked over to one of the walls and leaned her newest creation against it.

  Would she continue painting them until the entire room was full?

  If so, what then?

  Would she build a new gallery?

  Or become a full-fledged lunatic?

  After a few minutes of subterranean stargazing, she shooed me out of the room, relocked the door, and stuffed the key back between her breasts. Then she reversed our earlier route. We emerged on the first floor of the pavilion and Cliodna motioned toward the spot where I’d been standing before.

  She returned to her easel and mounted a fresh canvas. On impulse, I asked if I could see a mirror to touch up my hair and makeup. Cliodna froze only momentarily, but it was enough of a reaction to confirm that Fara might have been right. Cliodna ignored my request and asked instead, “Why did you choose to wear red tonight? It’s an unusual choice.”

  “Frigore Luna is as much about love and warmth as it is about cold and loneliness.”

  Again she froze, her paintbrush an inch away from the canvas. She looked up at me. “Did the dress make you feel love tonight?”

  I shook my head. “No one is going to feel love just because they wear a dress.”

  Cliodna smirked as if she begged to disagree. I wasn’t surprised, since it seemed every piece of clothing she ever wore was designed to evoke a passionate reaction in people. But passion wasn’t love – or at least passion wasn’t all there was to love.

  “What were you feeling when I first said I’d paint you? Just before I lit the torches?”

  I frowned. This visit with Cliodna was beginning to feel like a creepier version of the sittings I’d had with Sartabella.

  “Don’t you know?” I asked. Maybe Fara’s cloaking spell was shielding me from the worst of Cliodna’s prying.

  “I want to hear what you call it. And who you were thinking of when you felt that way.”

  No way was I telling her that. One, I’d already told her I wasn’t going to talk about Ari. And, two, anyone else I loved was even more off-limits as a topic of conversation.

  So we spent the next hour or so in silence. It was tense and exhausting. Still, I began to think the only ill effect of the night might be tiredness. That is, until Cliodna finished my portrait.

  “Take a look,” she said.

  I suppose I should have known it was a trap. After all, it’s not like I didn’t know how dangerous Cliodna was. She loved to lace pretty with deadly. And she had a penchant for temptation, yet she’d offered me nothing – no food, no wine, not even a seat.

  So I should have been on guard.

  I should have been more careful.

  But the whole time I just kept thinking I’d be safe, at least for the night, because Cliodna had promised not to harm me. I’d forgotten that a Maegester needed to be just as much of a wordsmith as a warrior. My precarious state of safety had been based on the definition of one word.

  Harm /härm/

  verb (sometimes used with object, i.e. victims who should know better)

  1. to physically injure

  2. to intentionally inflict emotional distress

  I walked over to Cliodna’s easel and stared at the painting that was mounted on it. It was the most beautiful portrait I’d ever seen. My first thought was that it couldn’t possibly be me. There was no way I could ever look that… devastating. The red of my dress looked warm and alive against the twilight backdrop. My figure was more sumptuous than the caryatid’s next to me and my expression was infinitely more luminous than the torch she was holding. I frowned in confusion as I realized the portrait was already framed. There was even a nameplate.

  REGINA AMORIS

  Cliodna laughed again, but this time it didn’t sound mellifluous. It sounded malevolent.

  “What do you see?” she asked.

  What did she mean? Didn’t she see the same thing I did?

  Before my eyes, the painting changed in subtle ways. The red of my dress looked angry instead of warm. My figure looked more salacious than sumptuous. And my expression became anguished. Tormented. Tortured even. Rafe’s silver bracelet glinted and a new constellation appeared in the sky – a triangle. But instead of experiencing the anguish and torment I saw on my face, I felt nothing.

  “Cliodna,” I said, squeezing my eyes shut, “this isn’t the portrait you painted, is it?”

  Again that laugh. If there was a hell beyond Halja, it would be full of demons laughing like that.

  “You were a Laurel Crown contender last year, were you not?” She said. “I know racers have to be exceedingly focused on their own targets, but you must remember some of the things the other racers w
ere sent to recover? Unlike you, some of them were actually successful.”

  Oh, Luck, no. This could NOT be happening to me. Past experience had taught me that Luck was cruel. But this cruel?

  “Is that…? Did I just…?” I couldn’t finish my questions. I couldn’t form whole thoughts. My mind was starting to shut down because my heart was turning to stone. In a few minutes, I probably wouldn’t even care that I no longer had the capacity to love.

  Because I’d just seen Eidolon’s Alternate Ending.

  The painting had been Thefarius Ryolite’s target. Centuries old, it had been commissioned by the demon lord Nickolai as a bride gift for his inamorata. But the Angel who’d painted it had botched the enhancement spell. No one knew what the original subject had been because everyone who viewed the painting saw something different. Their only shared experience was that, ever after, they were incapable of feeling love.

  “Your emotions are as chaotic as when you were stargazing earlier,” Cliodna chortled, her tone triumphant. “But I don’t think it’s love that you’re feeling. I think it’s recollection. And your memory is correct. Ryolite was my champion last semester, just as you were the Divinity’s.”

  “You cheated,” I whispered. “At the rota fortunae ceremony. You shaped a poison ring. But that wasn’t your best weapon. Eidolon’s Alternate Ending is.”

  “But it’s not a weapon, it’s a gift. Surely you can see that? In fact, it was Nickolai’s bride gift to me. I was its original subject. He wasn’t content with a mere portrait of rara avis. No, Nickolai wanted more. Always more. So he had an Angel cast the spell Fairest over it.”

  Again that laugh.

  “My engagement portrait was the most magnificent and terrifying thing I’ve ever seen. But gazing upon it spared me centuries of heartache, romantic angst, and conflicted agony. Who wants to be tormented by the miseries of love? Honestly, Noon, I’ve granted you a boon.”

  And that’s when I knew I deserved my alternate ending. Because I’d known how dangerous psychotic demonesses could be and I’d made a deal with her anyway. The question wasn’t whether spending Frigore Luna with Cliodna was worth another year at Megiddo. It was whether losing the ability to love was worth another year at Megiddo. And the answer was definitely not. But was it too late for me?

  In the past, I’d gotten myself out of worse situations than this by using unorthodox tools and weapons. So when I began to feel magic that was darker and more suffocating and loveless than Malphia’s had ever felt, it gave me an idea.

  Yes, it was an idea that carried some element of risk.

  But what choice did I have?

  Life was about one step backward and two steps forward, right?

  Love was about taking chances and dealing with the potential heartaches, wasn’t it?

  So I remembered the spell Fara had cast over me that day when I’d nearly succumbed to Malphia’s magic. It was the same spell that Tenacity had cast over me just before I came here – Ichabye. I started whispering it.

  “Night’s dark shades will soon be over. Still my watchful care shall hover.”

  “What are you doing?” Cliodna hissed.

  Was I trying to cast Ichabye?

  You bet I was!

  No one knew better than I did how difficult curses were to remove. I was desperate.

  “Let your battle cry be Ichabye.”

  And then I kept repeating the word “Ichabye” over and over again like a mantra. Like a ward against the cold and loneliness. Each time I said it, I remembered someone I loved.

  I’ll be with you.

  I even remembered myself. There were a million and more ways to love and I wanted to experience each and every one of them – regardless of the anguish or torment I might suffer as a result. Because love was life.

  I backed away from the easel and opened my eyes. The sky was pink. Twilight had given way to sunrise.

  I fled the vile Cliodna and the evil Eidolon’s Alternate Ending and scrambled down the steps of the ancient amphitheater, stumbling, tumbling, frantically murmuring Ichabye, Ichabye, Ichabye…

  Did it work?

  Was I cursed? Again? With something worse? Something that wouldn’t kill me, but would instead require me to live a loveless existence?

  Ari was waiting for me at the bottom, just outside the rotunda. From the dark circles under his eyes, it looked as if he’d stood against that pillar, watching, waiting, and worrying, all night. When he saw me, he straightened and I ran to him, my heart and arms wide open. I launched myself at him, uncaring of whether we crashed to the ground or not.

  We didn’t.

  “Ari, I…” But I was through with words. I clasped his head in my hands and lowered his face to mine, kissing him deeply, reveling in the feelings of warmth and love and relief that swirled around us, each of them, all of them, redder and more alive than the cursed shade I’d just escaped. And then I grabbed his hand and headed toward my chambers.

  Frigore Luna might be over, but I still wanted and needed what he’d originally offered.

  17

  FITTINGNESS

  Ari’s hand burned in mine. I was fairly certain, if I looked down, that I’d see flickering wisps of fire where our fingers ought to be. It wouldn’t have been the first time. But I didn’t look down. Not because I was scared, but because I really wanted to make it to the bedroom before I lost control. It had been months since I’d unintentionally destroyed anything beyond my alarm clock.

  I barely remember racing through the atrium, entering my chambers, and shutting the door. But with the click of the lock, my world went from hazy to uber-focused. Ari pulled me over to the edge of the bed, but instead of tossing me onto it, he paused beside it.

  “Does this mean ‘yes’?”

  I shook my head and swallowed. “I can’t marry you.”

  “Yes, you can.”

  “But I won’t.”

  He rested his right hand on the swell of my hip. I could feel his restraint. How much discipline it took for him to talk instead of take. Ever so slowly, he moved his hand up the side of my torso until his thumb hit the soft curve of my breast. His gaze sharpened as he gauged how much effort he might have to exert to bend me to his will.

  Not much, I’m afraid.

  My face flushed immediately and my pulse started pounding. I’m sure, given the intensity of his stare, that he can’t have missed the throbbing vein in my throat. My chest rose and fell with my breathing, which now felt labored. I wasn’t hyperventilating. I was panting.

  This was embarrassing. Wasn’t I worldlier now than when Ari had last tried these tricks on me?

  I was more sophisticated now. I was smarter, stronger…

  Hungrier, hornier…

  “Go ahead,” I said.

  I meant it merely as permission. But the tone of my voice and the tilt of my chin suggested a challenge. Ari answered it as if I’d thrown down a gauntlet. Without any further encouragement, he lowered his mouth to my mark. The shocking sting of his kiss there made me stiffen and gasp. The sheer-illusion fabric provided a barrier, but it was gossamer thin and barely acted as an impediment to his marking me with another signare. Not that I cared though – about either the pain or the portent of possession. I was too far gone with the pleasure of it.

  Ari rained scorching-hot kisses along one of the red rose vines on my top while his magic ran roughshod over Fara’s defensive spells. They popped like bubbles seared by a wild, inexorable wind. His hand splayed against my back as he pulled me closer. I said his name, my voice somewhere between a stuttering croak and a contented moan. I couldn’t help it. Ari was hard and soft in all the right places. Both the man and his magic fit me perfectly.

  He lifted his head and stared at me, looking dazed with arousal and inamorata-lust (a new phrase I’d just coined to describe the near-unbearable sensation caused by feeling your own partner’s aching, all-consuming need for you). I pushed his cloak from his shoulders and realized his left arm was in a sling. Remembering ane
w exactly when, where, and how he’d broken his arm – wing – my signature pulsed with regret, tenderness, and lingering irritation over the fact that he could have prevented the permanent effects of his injury.

  But the irritation gave me the willpower I needed to break free from his embrace. I walked over to a chest of drawers and slipped off Rafe’s silver bracelet. It didn’t feel right to wear it anymore, knowing what I was about to do with Ari. I’d never declared my feelings for Rafe. And Rafe had only said he loved me once. Even then, I hadn’t known for sure.

  Neither of us is sure anymore if my feelings for you are real. Right? That’s what you’ve been thinking about and wondering… Well, this will give us a chance to sort things out.

  Sort things out apart, you mean.

  Were we ever really together?

  I shook my head, ridding it of the unwanted memory. I didn’t want to think about Rafe right now. Wouldn’t.

  I’d just saved myself from Eidolon’s Alternate Ending by reminding myself there were a million ways to love. I knew with absolute certainty how Ari felt about me. And how I felt about him. I didn’t want to keep him waiting and wanting and wondering what role he would play in my future.

  So I placed Rafe’s bracelet on top of the chest and turned around to face Ari.

  His expression was guarded. His magic was a little more banked than before.

  I wasn’t going to make him ask what taking off the bracelet meant to me. And I didn’t want to tell him again that, no, I wasn’t going to marry him. That I wouldn’t. Ever. So I told him the next best thing. That I was his. Just like he was mine. And that he could mark me with his signare again and that would have to do.

  He stared at me for a few moments, his earlier arousal and inamorata-lust replaced by something that was much more difficult to define. It was something that was beyond intractable. It was something akin to a bone-deep rejection of how the world worked. It was something that felt like Ari would defy Luck himself if he was denied what he wanted.