Of Fire and Stars

by Audrey Coulthurst

  “I don’t smell anything,” one said.

  “Are you well, Your Highness?” The other stepped forward to reach for Flicker’s reins.

  “Damn it!” I yelled at the tree, and tugged hard on my magic, fueling it with rage.

  Half the leaves caught fire.

  Flicker shied away from the burst of flame, and I dug my heels into his sides. Behind me the members of the Syncretic Circle swarmed into the courtyard, taking the liegemen by surprise. Flicker rocketed out of the gate, hooves sending up showers of sparks against the cobblestones as chaos unfolded behind us.

  Flicker’s snorts echoed through the chill night air as he reveled in the freedom of the darkness and the road before him. He trotted through the city as though he knew our destination, barely contained between my hands and legs. I clutched a handful of his mane, determined to stay on. My legs shook with fear and fatigue by the time we reached the city gate, and I slowed him to as sedate a walk as I could manage. I couldn’t have the guards thinking I was galloping out of town on a stolen horse—especially when that was exactly my intention.

  “Heya!” A guard stepped out in front of me. My hands trembled on the reins as I fumbled for something to say that would give me my freedom.

  “It’s my sister,” I finally burst out. “I have to find her. She came this way in an unmarked carriage.” I said another silent prayer to the Six, hoping that they wouldn’t recognize me.

  The guard looked at me skeptically as Flicker sidestepped.

  “Please, sir, you have to let me go after her.”

  “That’s an awfully nice horse you’re up on, missy,” he said.

  “Yes sir, my father breeds horses. This one is mine because of the ugly white sock, you see. No one would buy him.” Thank the Six for all the small horse-related things Mare had taught me in our days together.

  “All right,” he said, stepping aside. He didn’t look completely convinced, but I wasn’t going to wait around for him to change his mind.

  “They went southeast,” a second guard said quietly.

  “Mack!” the first guard barked.

  “Oh shut it, Brail. She looks too young to be out there, and it’s the least I can do,” he shot back.

  I spared him a grateful look before cantering off into the darkness. Behind me, the tree I had set on fire burned at the top of the hill like a beacon. Another glance showed a line of torches descending from the castle hill—riders coming for us. We cantered faster.

  The night was all shadows after the brightness of the city. I trusted Flicker to keep his footing as we made our way down the road, my eyes slowly adjusting. The moon hung close to the horizon, bright and brilliantly orange in the sky. We cantered until Flicker’s neck broke out in sweat, and then slowed to a trot. Torches no longer bobbed in the dark behind us, but they would inevitably come.

  Eventually a light glowed ahead of us in the distance. When I caught sight of the gray horses pulling it, magic sparked in me and I struggled to keep my hands soft on the reins. I nudged Flicker off the road into the scrubby trees and trailed the carriage until it jangled to a halt. As though Flicker understood, he stood perfectly still when we stopped, his ears pricked in the direction of the carriage. My stomach roiled, afraid that at any moment he might whinny to the other horses and give us away.

  I dismounted and stole closer, Flicker whuffing warm breaths behind me.

  “Make it quick,” Lord Kriantz’s familiar voice said. One of his men jumped out and headed for the side of the road, and the other stayed behind to help pull Mare from the carriage.

  I saw her then, and fury and magic swept through me in a storm that begged for release. Lord Kriantz had had her bound hand and foot, and she fought them as they wrestled her out.

  “Your struggle is pointless,” Lord Kriantz said dispassionately. “This is our only stop before dawn. You’d best use it.”

  I willed him to drop dead, my stomach tight with rage. Mare looked even worse up close, her wrists bloodied by the ropes that bound them. Her head hung, a curtain of hair blocking her face from my sight.

  “Come on!” the second guard shouted, and kicked Mare as she fell to her knees.

  “There’s no time to be wasted.” Lord Kriantz gestured impatiently.

  “She won’t move,” the guard said, kicking her forward onto her face. She fell easily, limp as a child’s rag doll.

  “Make her.” Lord Kriantz’s voice stabbed through me.

  The guard nudged her with his toe and followed it with a kick to her side. Magic coursed through my veins, scorching the inside of my body.

  I looped Flicker’s reins over a tree branch and hoped Mare would forgive me for disobeying her lesson to never tie a horse by anything attached to his bit. Seconds later, the first guard’s stream of urine hit the needles on the forest floor only a few paces from where I stood.

  “What the—” The guard jumped back as I stepped into the dim light cast by the carriage lantern.

  “I’ve come for her.” I stared them down, letting magic pool in the palms of my hands.

  There was no fear left in me. If I could have drawn the power of all Six Gods, I would have done so with no regard for the consequences, even though the air around me felt as though it could catch fire with almost no provocation.

  At the sound of my voice, Mare rolled onto her side and struggled to her knees. The shape of my name formed on her lips.

  The other guard drew his sword and looked to Lord Kriantz for direction.

  “Well, well, Princess. Isn’t this interesting.” Lord Kriantz crossed his arms. “You’d best return to the city before anyone finds you missing. If you don’t, perhaps Mynaria and Sonnenborne will ride against Havemont as well as Zumorda.”

  “And you’d best ride straight back to the hell you came from,” I said.

  My body burned white-hot, everything inside me rising to the surface with my anger. They would not hurt her any further.

  “She’s glowing!” The other guard pointed at me, his eyes wide.

  “Let her go.” My voice came out hollow and strangely detached. The magic had taken control of me. Power rose in unstoppable waves, waiting to be set free. I felt myself being swallowed by it, and for the first time, I didn’t try to fight back at all. I reached as far as I could, taking in power from the land and the sky around me. Nothing would remain but destruction.

  “Don’t listen to her—she’s just a girl,” Lord Kriantz spat.

  “But, my lord—”

  “I pay you to follow orders!” he snapped.

  “Give her to me,” I said, taking another step forward.

  “Never,” Lord Kriantz replied. “She’s mine.” He stepped over to where she knelt, pulled her to her feet, and put his hand around her throat. “I can squeeze the life out of her if I choose. Get on your horse and go back to Lyrra and maybe I’ll let her live.”

  As his hand tightened around her neck, the storm within me burst free.

  “Let her go!” I screamed, my words echoing through the trees.

  Instead of holding back, I called on each of the gods who had ever answered me, opening myself fully to the power with no regard for the consequences. A rush of exhilaration took me as the magic flooded in. Fire came easily, sparking between my fingers until my hands blazed as brightly as the sun. Earth was reluctant but formed an anchor. I reached for the stars themselves until streaks of light painted the night sky. And finally I summoned air to guide the destruction home. A furious wind flung off my hood and whipped my hair as I brought down a storm of falling stars.

  The first falling star smashed through the carriage, the explosion knocking Lord Kriantz off his feet. Mare stumbled away from him and collapsed, disappearing into the smoke rising from the smoldering ground. Time seemed to slow as pandemonium unfolded. Everything burned, ignited by the stars I pulled down.

  Shouts were drowned by the thunder of rocks slamming into the dirt, shimmering trails of sparks hissing in their wake. Craters formed all around
us from the impact of the white-hot stones. The two carriage horses reared up in terror, lurching and sending the whole thing over onto its side. Their legs flailed uselessly as sweaty flanks heaved in a tangled mess of limbs. As the storm raged on, they grew still, the smell of singed hair and flesh searing my lungs. Trees ignited and the road itself went up in flames as grass and bushes were charred into ash. From some distant place I mourned the horses and feared what I had become, but I could not stop the storm. It unwound from inside me in a torrent I could not even begin to control, tugging at my own life force.

  Still, my focus remained on Mare, her limp form barely visible in the middle of the road. Love poured from me to shelter her, shunting the destruction away. The storm burned brighter around me even as my vision slowly dimmed and my arms lost all sensation. I stumbled backward and fell to my knees, a hollow opening in my chest. I tried to fight the darkness, but even as I reached for Mare, it took me.

  FORTY-FOUR

  Mare

  WHEN THE STORM CEASED I ROLLED ONTO MY BACK, wrists still bound and bleeding. Scorched earth scraped against my bare forearms, my right arm throbbing between the shoulder and elbow. Some piece of shrapnel had hit me, and the wound hurt like the Sixth Hell. When I finally dared to crack an eyelid open and sit up, bright moonlight sent a stab of pain through my temples. Trees eventually became clear in the corners of my vision, twisting into the dark, and the sharp smell of cinders hung in the cold air.

  My breath caught in my throat as I took in the rest of my surroundings. I sat in the center of a lifeless blast site. The remains of Lord Kriantz’s carriage were scattered everywhere, embers glowing in the wreckage. The fresh grooves the wheels had left on the road stopped abruptly just shy of where I sat, and the destruction extended deep into the trees on the far side of the road, where branches were warped into unnatural shapes.

  But I was alive.

  “Denna?” I croaked.

  Nothing answered me. Even the animals and insects had fled, leaving the night still as death—until a familiar scraping sound came from the trees to my left.

  “Flicker?” I said. My voice came out cracked and stilted as I coughed on ash. I blinked a few times, shocked. My horse stood tied to a tree a dozen paces into the woods. He nickered at the sound of my voice and resumed pawing at the dirt with his hoof.

  I wormed over to the jagged remains of a wagon wheel and sawed at the ropes on my wrists and ankles until I was finally able to shrug them loose. I got up, shaky, clenching my jaw against the pain in my arm. Dirt and gravel dug into the soles of my bare feet. What remained of my dress hung on me in tatters, the edges fringed with burn marks.

  I picked my way through the debris littering the road. Some pieces of the carriage were merely singed, and others charred beyond all recognition. What I at first thought was a pile of wood turned out to be the remains of a person. I looked behind me, realizing that I’d already passed another body. Two more lay closer to the larger carcasses of the carriage horses. My stomach heaved. A blackened arm extended from the nearest corpse, ending in a hand that had curled into a withered claw. On the stump of one twisted finger, a gold ring unmarred by ash glimmered in the moonlight. Lord Kriantz.

  My stomach threatened to rebel, but in my heart, his death brought me nothing but satisfaction. Lord Kriantz’s death meant the tribes united under his banner would likely fall into chaos. Even if Thandi sent a messenger once his people found the remains, it would take time for word of Lord Kriantz’s death to reach Sonnenborne.

  Beyond Lord Kriantz, a crumpled form lay on the ground at the edge of the road, the spill of nearly black hair from the hood of her cloak unmistakable. My heart filled with love and terror. She lay so small and still. I fell to my knees beside her, my head spinning with panic and pain.

  “Denna?” I said, coughing. “Denna?” I touched her shoulder gently and pushed her hair back from her face.

  Her eyes fluttered open, and she blinked at me from beneath heavy lids.

  “Head . . . hurts,” she mumbled.

  “Denna! Oh, thank the Six!” I said. Tears of relief trailed down my face as I cradled her in in my lap.

  “You’re hurt,” she said, noting the wound on my upper arm.

  “Only a scrape.” It hurt a lot more than that, but she didn’t need to know.

  Tears welled in her eyes. “I tried to keep you safe, but I failed,” she said.

  “You didn’t fail,” I said. “You saved me.” I gently pulled her up and kissed both her cheeks as though she was the most precious treasure in the Northern Kingdoms. To me, she was. And in the end, after everything, she had come for me. Chosen me.

  I glanced up to see a row of flickering pinpoint lights bobbing in the distance.

  “They’re coming for us,” I said, stroking her hair. “We can go home now.”

  Denna sat upright and her expression grew troubled.

  “I can’t go back,” she said. “Not after this.”

  “But there will be no war. Lord Kriantz is dead,” I said. “I’ll even stay in Lyrra if that’s what makes you happy, at least for a little while until things are more settled after the wedding.” Watching her become queen might be the hardest thing I ever did, but if she could nearly sacrifice herself for me, it was the least I could do in return.

  “That’s not the problem. Thandi told me he would make me answer for my crimes even if we married. And in addition to coming after you and ruining his plans for war, I freed the Recusants,” she said.

  “You did what?”

  “Without them doing their smaller magical workings, the ambient magic in Mynaria has grown wildly out of control. They help keep things in balance. But Thandi might also be angry that at one point I suggested I marry you instead of him. . . .”

  “You crazy girl.” I kissed her again, this time on the lips. The softness of her made my insides swim and dulled the pain in my arm. She sat up and returned my kiss with longing so intense I could taste it. The thought of a life without her felt impossible, and I no longer knew how I’d thought I could leave her behind.

  “I think I have to go to Zumorda,” she said when she finally pulled away. “Karov told me it was the only way to get training for my Affinity. If I’m remembering my geography, this is one of the main trade roads. There should be an inn not too much farther ahead. I’ll go there and then onward to Zumorda. There’s enough traffic on this road that I should be able to get close to the border with one of the traders headed south for winter.”

  I smiled a little in spite of the pain. Denna must have been the only person in the Northern Kingdoms capable of recalling details from trade maps after being half fried to death by magic.

  “You can’t go to Zumorda alone,” I said. “If you thought Lyrra was bad, all the tales I’ve heard of Kartasha are worse. And we don’t even have rumors of the Zumordan crown city. The streets could be paved with the bones of foreigners, for all we know.”

  Denna took my hand in hers. “When I got on Flicker’s back and rode out of the city, I thought this would be as simple as saving you, even if I didn’t know precisely how I would do it. But now I am afraid. Because this magic is so much bigger than I am. I thought it would kill me, and it’s only thanks to the Six that it didn’t kill you. It has to be tamed. If I stay in Mynaria, it’s likely that I’ll be punished for this. And even if I escape that, no one will ever feel safe around me.” She gestured to the destruction around us.

  I understood then that she had to go. And if I loved her as much as I said I did, I had to let her.

  “All right,” I said, and stood, wincing. “Flicker and I can carry you to the inn. I’ll come back and deal with them.” I jerked my head toward the torches in the distance. “Someone has to tell them you’re dead so you aren’t followed.”

  Though I kept my voice steady and strong for her, inside I had already started to crumble. Liegemen would come. When I spoke to them of Denna’s death, my tears would not have to be feigned. One look at the liegemen’s unifo
rms would crush me with the thought of Nils—and everything else I’d lost tonight.

  Denna squeezed my hand with gratitude in her eyes. We scavenged all the silver coins from the charred remains of Lord Kriantz’s men and clambered onto Flicker’s saddle. I set Flicker off into a smooth canter with Denna nestled between my arms. Owls ducked from tree to tree alongside the road, hooting their mournful calls into the shadows. Part of me longed to forget the inn, turn off the main road, and find a quiet town somewhere that we could disappear to. I wanted to build a house with my own hands far away from the crown. But even though the girl in my arms would no longer be a queen, she was something greater than I could begin to fathom. Her life wasn’t meant to be small.

  The inn was as short a ride as Denna had promised. When she slid down from Flicker’s saddle, my arms felt unbearably empty.

  “So this is good-bye,” I said.

  “Make sure they take Lord Kriantz’s ring,” she told me. “I think he was somehow using it with golden thread to create fire. I saw him do it with Nils, and King Aturnicus’s jacket was stitched with golden thread that could have been ignited the same way.”

  Nils. His name brought a stab of grief that felt like a sword driven through me. My best friend had died trying to protect me, only to have his body defiled to further Kriantz’s attempts to frame Zumorda.

  “Nils deserved better than that,” I said, choking up.

  “Yes,” she agreed. “Hilara may know who to ask to decipher how it works.”

  “I’ll make sure they take it.” The ring could answer questions about Lord Kriantz’s methods. Perhaps once they unraveled its mysteries, it could be buried with my father so that both he and Nils could rest in peace.

  “One last thing. If you see my mother . . . please tell her I forgive her.”

  “I will,” I said, gathering the reins to turn for home, knowing my heart would be left behind.