by Jordan Rivet
For his part, Siv was burning miserable. He hadn’t spoken to Dara in private since the engagement. He had wanted to tell her about it in person, but word traveled too quickly. By the time he saw her, she had adopted a professional demeanor that hadn’t slipped once since. He still hadn’t asked her about what had occurred between their fathers on the day of the Vertigon Cup. They needed to have that conversation, but it would surely be like pouring salt in a wound. Here, Dara, let me kiss you. By the way, I’m getting married. Oh, and do you think your father is a murderer? Thanks so much for the chat.
He hadn’t yet gotten up the nerve to have that particular talk. Dara had been busy anyway. He learned from some subtle questioning of the other guards that she often left the castle when she wasn’t on duty or in training. No one knew where she went. She might be spending even more time with her parents. The possibility left him feeling hollow.
Siv took Rumy’s lead back from Oat as his mother and sister and their guards and servants began the trek down the mountain. Selivia kept turning back to wave, her still-dyed hair floating over her shoulders like autumn leaves, until she disappeared from view.
“I will return to my estate now, Your Highness,” Tull said.
“Very well, my lady,” Siv offered her as much of a bow as he could manage as Rumy picked that moment to lunge against his lead. He was a strong little guy, and Siv had to use both hands to keep him from soaring out over the Fissure.
Lady Tull took three mincing steps backwards. “Shall I come to the castle tomorrow to discuss preparations for our engagement feast?”
“Sure,” Siv said. “Please do.”
When Lady Tull took her leave, the onlookers who had gathered to watch the queen’s departure dispersed. Within a few minutes, Siv, Sora, and the Guard were the only ones left on the road overlooking the Fissure. A wind picked up, howling through the canyon. The queen and the princess would have a cold journey ahead of them.
“Do you wish to return to the castle, Your Majesty?” Dara asked, finally turning to face him. She sounded so formal that she might as well be Pool.
“Yes, sure,” Siv said. “You have anything you need to do while we’re out, Sora?”
Sora shook her head. She was staring after Lady Tull and her retinue as they made their way toward her greathouse, visible through a line of apple trees.
“What’s on your mind?” Siv asked his sister as they started back toward the castle.
“Lady Tull,” she said. “Isn’t it odd?”
“What?”
“How quickly she accepted your proposal?”
“Um, she took weeks to answer.”
“Yes, but there was an obvious strategy behind that,” Sora said. “She was waiting to see whether you could stand up to the Rollendars.”
“And?”
“You didn’t,” Sora said, her round face pensive. “Not really. You made a good start of getting people to like you, but none of the key players had actually thrown their support behind you when she said yes.”
“She’s a smart woman. I’m sure she had her reasons for thinking I’m a good catch,” Siv said wryly. He noticed that Dara had fallen into formation on her other side. Her hair was pulled back in a tight braid, and her blue uniform was crisp and pressed. He couldn’t quite catch her eye.
“I know she’s smart. That’s what I mean,” Sora said. “It doesn’t make sense. What do you think, Dara?”
“The engagement did come out of the blue,” Dara said curtly.
Siv was so surprised at her tone that he stopped short and stared at her. The Guards slowed as well, but they didn’t crowd too close, giving them space to talk.
Dara seemed to realize what she had said, for she cleared her throat, her cheeks going pink.
“I mean, of course it was in the works, but she didn’t look like she was on the verge of accepting your proposal at the carnival. If she was that impressed, why wait until the next day? You could have been engaged before you returned to your rooms that evening.” Then Dara skewered Siv with such a sharp look that he was surprised he wasn’t bleeding. “Your Highness.”
Oh, she was mad. If there had been any doubt before, it was dead and buried. She was mad at him for kissing her. He knew it had been a mistake.
“I didn’t know she was anywhere near saying yes that night,” Siv said. “I didn’t think she would say yes at all. I certainly didn’t expect to be engaged within twenty-four hours.”
“It was really more like twelve hours, Your Majesty,” Dara said.
“That’s hardly fair,” Siv said.
“Okay, we’ve established that it was a surprise,” Sora said impatiently. “But what does it mean?”
“I’m not sure.” Siv knelt to adjust Rumy’s harness. The back of his neck prickled at the thought that his position might not be as secure as he had hoped. He had believed he was making progress. But what if Lady Tull had some ulterior motive that didn’t include the security of Vertigon and House Amintelle, which she supposedly wanted to join?
To his surprise, Dara knelt on Rumy’s other side and scratched his scaly head. She shifted closer to Siv and said under her breath, “Bolden was snooping around the kitchens that night. I haven’t had a chance to tell you.”
“The kitchens?”
Dara glanced up at Sora, but she seemed lost in thought.
Dara leaned a little closer. “Does he know about . . . ?”
“Oh!” The secret tunnel! Siv smacked himself in the forehead, causing Rumy to start. The creature sneezed out a jet of flame, making everyone but Dara take another step away. “Of course. He could have been checking to see if it’s still open.”
“You need to have it sealed,” Dara said.
“I agree,” Siv said. “By the way, is there anything else you haven’t had a chance to tell me?”
Now Dara was the one who started, but she recovered quickly. She let Rumy rub his scaly snout in her palm. “Only theories. I don’t have anything concrete.”
Siv could read her expression plain as day. She was keeping something from him. His mother’s suspicions couldn’t be right after all, could they?
“Well, let me know when you do have something to talk about,” he said. The words came out sounding harsher than he meant them to, but it was too late to take them back.
“Yes, Your Majesty.” Dara stood and saluted. Then she resumed her position amongst the Guard.
21.
Fireworks
AS soon as the king was safely back in the castle, Dara dismissed the extra Guards and headed to her lesson with the Fire Warden. He met her in the underground cavern with his usual dry greeting. As they did every time, they walked to the center of the bridge over the molten Well to continue her training in the Work.
Dara now practiced with Zage every day. He was guiding her through the basic set of Fireworking skills at a breakneck pace. Apprentices normally spent years becoming comfortable with the simpler tasks before learning a specialty. The Fire was used entirely for the production of useful and beautiful objects in Vertigon, so the specialties were along the lines of spinning thread and making decorative inlays from Firegold, shaping steel, and imbuing Firebulbs, Everlights, and Firesticks with lasting heat and light. The craftsmanship of the objects mattered as much as the wielding technique.
But Dara had already decided on the only specialty she wanted to learn. She wanted to be able to suck all the Fire from a place—and a person—as she had seen Zage do. She didn’t want to make weapons that would throw the mountain into turmoil. She didn’t want to wield the Fire against her father. She wanted to be able to neutralize him. Nothing else would more effectively protect the king, and she feared nothing else would successfully counter her father.
Training at this brutal pace was hard, and it left her exhausted each day. She was all too aware of the danger of wearing herself too thin. What if she missed some important detail, such as what Sora had said about Lady Tull’s strange timing for accepting Siv’s proposal? Dara
had been far too distracted by the confusing tangle of her feelings to think there was anything suspicious about it. Of course Tull would want to marry Siv. Anyone would want to marry Siv.
“Concentrate,” Zage hissed.
The bead of molten Fire Dara had been rolling around on her right palm suddenly grew three times in size, picking up power like a snowball rolling downhill. Dara gripped the hilt of her Savven blade in her left hand, trying to regain control of the bead, but it grew hot on her palm. Panicking slightly, she sucked the Fire into her hand, shuddering as it passed into her veins.
“No, no, don’t drop it,” Zage said.
“It’s too late. It—”
“Pull it back out,” Zage said. “Focus.”
Dara gritted her teeth and stretched out her hand. The Fire pooled in her palm again, slowly welling out of the cracks and lines in her skin.
“Good,” Zage said. “Now, make it square.”
Dara concentrated on the ball. Slowly, she started to mold it between her fingers.
“Not with your hands,” Zage said. “That is for children. You must skip that part of the lesson. Concentrate!”
“Yes, Coach!—I mean—Fire Warden.”
Zage made a disapproving sound in his throat. Dara avoided his gaze, her cheeks reddening.
Her fingers twitched, but she resisted the urge to shape the Fire with her hands. She was supposed to control the Fire with her mind, but all she had managed to do so far was make the bead wobble into an egg shape. Zage could control Fire at a great distance. She herself had once managed to throw a bead of Fire like this one and then pull it back toward her, but she had been gripped by panic and driven by necessity. She hadn’t managed it since. It was too easy to think of the Fire as clay or ore to be kneaded and shaped, but it was more complicated than that.
“See the boundaries in your mind,” Zage said. “Don’t picture a cube. Picture a force pushing the ball into cube form. That is the true magic within you. The Fire is only the raw material.”
Sweat broke out on Dara’s forehead, but she tried what Zage suggested. Very slowly, the surfaces of the bead flattened. She pushed those surfaces from all sides, slow, steadily. She breathed evenly as she Worked, the glowing bead burning into her eyes like a tiny sun. Finally, for a brief instant, a near perfect cube of Fire rested on Dara’s hand.
“Okay,” Zage said. Dara was pretty sure that was the closest thing to a compliment she was ever going to get from him. It was a good thing she was used to working with Berg. She released her grip, and the cube melted into a puddle on her palm. Instead of pulling it into her, Dara let the Fire drip off her hand like water and sizzle into the stone bridge.
“Next time you must hold it for longer,” Zage said. “Then we will practice solidifying so it keeps its shape.”
“Yes, Fire Warden.”
Dara released her grip on the hilt of her sword and kneaded her hands, which had grown sore over the past hour. Zage apparently thought it was time for a break, because he left the bridge and went over to the stone water basin beside the doorway without another word. Dara followed and accepted a drink when he held it out for her.
They rarely took breaks during these lessons, and they never chatted. Zage had been serious when he said he was going to accelerate her training. Fireworkers didn’t normally learn like this, but she needed training, and this was all she could get. Besides, she gathered Zage himself hadn’t learned in the usual way, and she had seen what he could do.
“May I ask you a question, Fire Warden?” Dara said.
Zage stared at her for a moment, his dark eyes glittering over the rim of his cup.
“Very well.”
“You spent time in Pendark, didn’t you? In your youth?”
“I did.”
“What were you doing there?”
“Studying,” Zage said.
“Studying Fireworking?”
“You know very well there are no Fireworkers in Pendark. They do not have a source as we do.” He waved toward the Well.
“Then what were you studying?”
“Politics. Literature. Culture. I wished to remain there forever.”
“But you came back to Vertigon?”
“Clearly.”
Dara waited patiently, and finally Zage sighed. “Very well. I began training as a Fireworker as a child, though only for a brief period. I was apprenticed to a Firesmith, but I hated the repetitiveness of my lessons. And I didn’t have any interest in swords.”
His eyes cut toward Dara’s Savven blade, and she laid a defiant hand on it.
“I wished to see more of the world, and I did not like Working the Fire, so I ran away. I traveled all the way to Pendark, where I lived for many years. During that time I attended school and went to the university by the sea.”
“I didn’t know Vertigonians were even allowed to go to the university in Pendark,” Dara said.
“That is what I did,” Zage said. “I never planned to return to the mountain. You recall what Pendark is known for?”
“Watermight,” Dara said. “They say it isn’t as powerful as the Fire, but it isn’t regulated the way the Fire is here.”
“That is correct,” Zage said. “At least about the lack of restrictions. In Pendark the strongest wielders of the Watermight have the power. Political power. Economic power. And they have the magic itself.”
“That’s what my father wants,” Dara said before she could stop herself.
Zage raised a thin eyebrow. “Yes. I believe it is. He has a great talent, and he knows that if it were a pure contest of strength he would prevail over most if not all of the Fireworkers on the mountain.” Zage peered into his water goblet for a moment before continuing. “When I was in Pendark, I witnessed for myself what can happen when a few powerful sorcerers wield their magic unchecked. Many people can use the Watermight in Pendark, but they war amongst themselves every few years until the strongest emerge.”
“They have a war every few years?” Dara knew about past wars from her schooling, but they had felt as distant as the Bell Sea in peaceful Vertigon.
Zage inclined his head. “Indeed. The strongest rule over their dominions within the city, constantly fighting to strengthen their positions. The king is all but powerless. The districts not directly under the protection of a Waterworker are rife with crime and poverty. The Workers rule over their petty fiefdoms while the city suffers. Those who can’t access the Watermight use more and more drastic and violent means to seize power for themselves in their own ways. A territorial war broke out while I was there, and the city streets ran with blood and water and salt.”
“So that’s why you believe so strongly in this system.” Dara nodded toward the carefully regulated channels of Fire spreading out from the Well. “You don’t want any Fireworker to become too powerful?”
“I know what can happen,” Zage said. “I do not wish that on Vertigon.”
Dara sipped her water, which had grown warm, and thought about her father. Was that really what he wanted? Every schoolchild learned that Vertigon had been peaceful since the reign of the First Good King, but the Fireworkers had warred in ancient days. Dara hadn’t realized the extent of the struggles other lands had seen—and were still seeing—with other kinds of power.
“Why did you return to Vertigon?” Dara asked.
“The war proved enough adventure for me,” Zage said. “And the Fire called me back. You must have noticed that once you begin to touch it you can’t simply put it aside. You could have pretended you never discovered your ability. Instead, you asked me to teach you.”
“I want to make sure my father—”
“You know that isn’t the only reason,” Zage said softly. “That is the problem with power. Once you touch it, you must have more. And power is at its rawest form in the Fire.”
Dara didn’t answer. She knew what he meant about the Fire calling to her. But she didn’t want to become enslaved to it. She didn’t want to become her father.
“We’d better get back to work,” Dara said.
“Indeed.” Zage set down his stone cup and didn’t look at her as he strode back to the center of the bridge.
22.
Scouting
ZAGE became more willing to talk to Dara the more time they spent together. He occasionally went off on tangents about the history of the Lands Below and the substances of power wielded by their people. He was a teacher at heart, and Dara didn’t think he actually enjoyed Working the Fire. In a way, that made him less dangerous than her father.
As Dara’s abilities progressed, Zage set her ever more challenging tasks. They began working with metal, and she learned to melt and shape steel, guiding the Fire into it with both her hands and her will. She now felt confident that she could keep from drawing on the Fire accidentally.
With this new level of control, she visited her parents more often, but she didn’t manage to overhear anything of much use. Guilt still crawled through her at the thought that she was spending time with the man who had caused her sister’s death. Even though Zage had opened up lately, she hadn’t brought herself to ask him about the Surge that had killed Renna a decade ago.
As soon as she was certain she wouldn’t accidentally draw on the Fire and expose herself, Dara decided to pay another visit to the mysterious cavern on Square Peak. She needed to count the duelists training there, but more importantly, she wanted to figure out what huge Firework had been taking place in the smaller cave on her last visit.
She chose her most reliable men to accompany her on the scouting mission: Oat, Yuri, and Telvin. They changed out of their Guard uniforms and left the castle under the pretext of going for a drink in a tavern. They crossed the Fissure on the little-used Pen Bridge. Dara thought they wouldn’t be seen, but she forgot to account for one detail: Pen Bridge was in full view of House Silltine.
Dara and the three men didn’t even make it across the bridge before Vine caught up to them.
“Dara, Dara, I can’t believe you’re going off without me. Shame on you!” Vine sang as she reached them. She wore flowing trousers and a short brown coat embroidered with swirling green vines. Her dark hair was pulled up in a hasty bun.