The Fire King

by Marjorie Liu

  “We are still too close to the desert,” he rasped in her ear. “Not much rain, but a great deal of dust. This cloth should keep out the worst of it so we can breathe.”

  Soria tried to work some saliva around the inside of her mouth. Her teeth crunched on sand and grit. “You have experience with this?”

  “Some. Never the luxury of a tent, however. We are fortunate.”

  Soria half laughed. “Really.” Thunder cracked, so close it made the ground shake.

  Karr pressed his mouth against her hair. “Rest, Soria. It will pass.”

  Like hell, she thought. And then she realized something odd about what he had just said to her. She chewed on it for a moment, wanting to make certain that she was right. “That is the first time you have ever said my name.”

  His arms tightened around her. Soria listened to the wind howl beyond the rippling confines of their cotton cocoon, flinched as lightning and thunder shook the air. Hit and fried, she thought—someone will find our strange charred bodies, burned together, molded together: a winged lion and a human woman.

  Slowly, quietly, Karr said, “You are so loose with names. You speak them without thought.”

  “We were talking about you. Not me.”

  His voice was nearly drowned out by a ripple of thunder. “Names are reflections of bond, connection. To know another’s name is to know part of them. To speak it is to tell the world that you have a connection.”

  “Is that a bad thing?”

  “If you do not know one another. Or if you are enemies. It is a violation.”

  She tried to turn her head to look at him, but all she could see in the darkness was the fringe of golden mane. “You told me your name. Unless you lied about it.”

  “No.” He sounded disgruntled. “I spoke true.”

  “Our customs are different. Names are important, but not like that.” Soria frowned. “So why did you tell me your name?”

  “I thought you would not free me, otherwise,” he said dryly. “Unless you have forgotten that part already.”

  She had, but was not convinced by his answer. “You could have lied.”

  “I would not lie about something so fundamental. Tell too many such lies, and they might come true.” He hesitated. “I fear becoming someone else.”

  “I think we all do,” she said, feeling the pressure of the ground against her stump. “Truth and honor. Means a lot to you.”

  “It is the root of what divides us from mere animals.”

  “And yet shape-shifters hunted you like animals.” She paused. “Were all of them dedicated to that task, or just one group?”

  “Enough were involved. It was war, after that night.”

  When the children died, he did not have to say. Soria could still hear their screams, and she shivered so violently her teeth chattered.

  Karr held her closer. “I should have returned you to the city.”

  “No,” she managed to say, though it took concentration. “Those children … were any of them yours?”

  He was silent a long time. “All of them, and none. Most were abandoned by their parents. It was customary to do so. Ours was a temple dedicated to rearing the unwanted. Some of the children, though, belonged to chimeras themselves, those who took human mates.”

  “Not another chimera?”

  “In the same way your crow would never dream of mixing blood with another outside his skin, a chimera would not take the risk of doing the same with another of our kind. Or a pure-blooded shape-shifter. That truly would be a disaster.”

  “You have seen this with your own eyes?”

  “Yes,” he rumbled. “The … baby died soon after birth. It was unrecognizable as anything that could be human or animal. Nor did the mother survive.”

  “I am so sorry.”

  Karr’s chin pressed against the crown of her head, and he changed the subject. “This storm could last for hours. Best if we try to sleep.”

  “Right,” Soria said, as the winds howled. “Dreamy atmosphere.”

  “Hush,” he murmured. His voice was rumbling and soft, as if he was truly sleepy. “I will protect you.”

  He said it so simply, without hesitation or mockery. Soria shivered again, listening to her heartbeat, and the thunder roll through and around her. I’ll protect you, too, she thought. Wishing she had the guts to say it out loud. Wondering what his reaction would be to a one-armed woman telling him—seven feet of pure animal muscle—that she would watch his back.

  “So, you’ve made up your mind?” she asked softly.

  Karr rumbled something incomprehensible, and she added, “About me. Being your enemy.”

  He sighed, and after a brief moment twisted her around until she lay on her back. He loomed over her. The huge naked man was pressed against her thigh—which seemed somehow more explicit that having him glued to her back. She didn’t know whether to laugh, freeze, or grope him.

  Karr held the top of the sheet with his fist, and reached over to tuck the rippling edges under Soria’s body. Beyond their small cocoon the winds continued to scream, but the air inside was stuffy and growing hot. If had not been for the faint glow of Karr’s eyes, she would not have been able to see much of his face at all, despite the fact that he was leaning over her, close enough to rub noses. Or kiss.

  His left hand lingered on her waist, touching her bare skin in a spot where her shirt had ridden up. She felt fur, and then a golden glow curled from his body like smoke and his sleek tawny coat faded into skin that was only a shade paler. His face shifted into his human visage, though the sharpness of his cheekbones remained, as did the leonine tilt of his eyes. His wings disappeared in a bone-cracking flash of light.

  And all the while, he studied her face. His gaze never left her, and the intimacy of that scrutiny, his utter shamelessness, burned through her heart until she was afraid to breathe.

  “In my other life,” he said slowly, “few humans would interact with my kind—or with the shape-shifters. Those who did had power. They fancied themselves gods, or godlike, with a lineage beyond their own people. I saw this among the Hittites, and in the southern empires which existed from the edge of the great Nile, eastward to the sea. Vastly different worlds. But the roots of how power was perceived were always the same.”

  “I do not believe I am a god,” she remarked dryly.

  Karr smiled. “But you believe we are equals. You have never said so outright, but I know what it is to be treated high and low, as god or monster. When you look at me, though … when you speak to me …”

  “I speak to the man,” she said.

  “As I have always been. Just … a man. No matter how my body shifts.” His hand on her waist flexed, large and warm. “You are a perplexing woman.”

  She tried not to smile. “And?”

  “And, nothing. You confuse me.” Karr’s hand trailed up her ribs, brushing against the side of her breast—by accident or on purpose, she did not know. But her heart lurched, and his eyes flared brighter. “Everything I thought I could trust is gone now, and there are … new complexities. Shape-shifters, humans, my own kind. The question of why I am alive. You.”

  Thunder boomed, but it sounded far away. Winds, however, still battered their tiny cocoon. Soria murmured, “I should be the least of your concerns.”

  “But you are not.” Karr briefly closed his eyes. “I find it difficult to imagine existing in this new world without you, and that … troubles me.”

  She had to clear her throat, and even then her voice sounded awkward, strained. “I can teach you my language. Seems as though you are already on the way to learning it. The rest will come.”

  Karr hesitated, looking away from her. “Yes. Of course.”

  She stared at him, torn, unsure what to say or do. It would be so easy to just let this go. Better that way. Less complicated. Hiding was always safer.

  She thought of Eddie, huddled in his glass cage. Roland, in his tower. The last painful year, hiding in her apartment: no mirrors, a g
rocery delivery service on speed dial, online shopping, the occasional walk at night through downtown Stillwater, when no one paid much attention to an empty sleeve. Slowly, painfully, entering the world again. Until here, in this tiny, flimsy, storm-ridden space, she felt more herself than she had in a long time.

  Soria unclenched her fingers from where they were digging into her stomach. Tentatively, carefully, she touched the strong, lean line of Karr’s shoulder, and then his neck. His expression instantly hardened, becoming almost cruel.

  She froze, suddenly certain she had read him wrong. Heat flooded her cheeks: shame, embarrassment, the keen desire to curl into a ball and pretend she was invisible. She started to do just that, but Karr placed his hand against the side of her face. A firm, gentle touch; it was very warm, his fingers sinking into her hair. His expression, however, did not change, not even when his thumb grazed her mouth, slow and deliberate.

  “This is a mistake,” he rumbled softly—and then kissed her.

  For a moment she barely felt his lips; her heart was hammering, making her dizzy; and a rush of tingling heat poured through every inch of her body. But his mouth pressed harder, his fingers dragging across her cheek, and Soria surged upward to kiss him with every ounce of strength in her body. He made a small, pained sound but did not break away, just met her with equal force, his hand grabbing her waist to pull her tight and close. There was not much between them. She could practically feel his pulse against her leg.

  She broke off first, drowning for air, and the two of them lay together, cheek to cheek, breathing so ragged that the winds whipping around them sounded gentle in comparison. Karr was very nearly on top of her, his scent rich and warm with sweat. Every bit of her ached to feel more of his touch, but she held still, trying not to think, trying not to do anything except simply savor what she had been given—and what she had taken.

  “Why,” Karr asked slowly, his mouth pressed to her ear, “have you no mate?”

  A thrill raced through her, followed by heartache. “What makes you think I do not?”

  “You told me yourself that you have been alone.”

  Soria closed her eyes. “And you? Who did you leave behind?”

  “Friends. I never took a mate. Some humans would have had me, but for the wrong reasons.”

  “Because you are so handsome?” she asked, smiling against his ear.

  He made a small, strangled sound: laughter, she realized. His hand tightened around her waist. “No one ever said so. I believe it had to do with family desires for powerful alliances, or a belief that future generations would be enriched with the blood of gods.”

  “So you could have had a princess.”

  “Many,” he said, and this time she felt his smile, which was warm on her cheek. “Several of my kind were not so circumspect. They took such offers seriously, though with humans of lesser status. I was a leader, and so those who ruled would deal only with me.”

  “Those humans never approached pure-blooded shape-shifters?”

  “Few shape-shifters interacted with humans, unless it was to use them as slaves. Some felt we should do the same, to swell our numbers in battle. But it would not have … been right.”

  Soria had trouble imagining any of it. “Things have changed.”

  “So it seems.” Karr pulled back, just enough to look into her eyes. “There can be nothing between us, Soria.”

  She studied him for a moment, trying to understand what was going through his mind, considering making a joke, as there was very little between them anyway—and something not so little. But she had a feeling any attempt at humor would not go over well.

  “Because I am still your enemy,” she said.

  “No,” he replied, closing his eyes.

  Is it my arm? Soria wanted to ask, but she could not say those words. “Fine. A kiss is nothing, you know. Human women are very liberated nowadays.”

  Karr sighed, pressing his brow against hers—an intimate gesture that was not lost on Soria, and that only fueled the simmering quiet hunger she felt for him, which ran deeper and stronger than anything she had ever known. It was not just lust, but a sense of homesickness that his presence eased; a comfort in being around him that she had only become conscious of at the lake, after leaving Erenhot. And even then she had not allowed herself to think much of it until now. No man, not even Roland, had ever felt like home—a better home than the one she had left.

  Karr fingered one of her braids, staring at it with particular tenderness. “The storm is fading.”

  “Easier to talk about the weather than what just happened?”

  “I cannot want you,” he whispered, almost as if talking to himself. “It is too dangerous.”

  “For you or me?”

  He met her gaze again, golden eyes glowing faintly. “I was not murdered. I asked to be killed. I committed suicide. My friend ran me through with my sword because I asked him to. Then I was buried alive, left to bleed out in the tomb where I was found.”

  Soria stared, unable to speak. Karr turned his head, looking away from her. “I lost my mind. It happens, among my kind. We lose ourselves, sometimes permanently. When that happens, we have two choices. Exile, or death.”

  She was still hung up on the part where he had committed suicide. “I think I just lost my mind. Exile or death? For going a little crazy? That makes no sense.”

  “We do it to save lives,” he rumbled dangerously. “When we break, our animal natures overcome us. All instinct, no thought. We kill. We hurt those we love. And we are nearly impossible to stop once we start. That is why the shape-shifters fear us. We are … unpredictable.”

  She tried to respond, but nothing came out except a small choking sound. Words had fled her, utterly. Karr tightened his jaw and lifted the edge of the sheet. Silver light trickled in from the hazy sky. He had been right: the dust storm was losing strength. Soria, however, was not yet ready to face the world.

  “You committed suicide,” she managed to say, though the words cut her—the idea of this strong man, with his strict code of honor, taking his own life. “What did you do that you could not live with? Who did you hurt?”

  He gave her a sharp look, and—

  Whatever he was going to say was interrupted by a loud, piercing blast: a gunshot. Soria scrabbled for the edge of the sheet. Dust-heavy wind hit her face the moment she poked out her head, but she wiped her eyes and covered her mouth and nose, scanning what little of the grassland was still visible. Everything seemed covered in a yellow-gray sheet of dust. Even the sky was leeched of color.

  “I do not see anything,” she said, just as another gun blast rocked the air behind them. For a moment she froze, feeling like a little kid: pulling the blanket over her head to keep the demons out. But she flung back the sheet, keeping tight hold of it as the cloth rippled in the wind, and stood on shaky legs to look around.

  Her eyes instantly burned with flying dust, and it was hard to breathe. Karr tore a strip from the sheet and tied it around her nose and mouth, standing in front of her to block the worst of the wind. Soria gathered the remains of the sheet against her chest, and did the same with the jogging pants.

  She heard a third shot, but still could not see where the noise was coming from. Karr said, “Wait here.”

  “No—” She began to protest, but he had already begun to run, dropping low to the ground in a burst of golden light. His body transformed as he moved, fur rippling over skin, and within moments a lion took the place of the man. He raced from her, surrounded by the thick, choking haze. Soria stumbled after him, unwilling to be left behind, flinching as the sky flickered with lightning. She did not call out to Karr, not even when he disappeared completely within the storm. Just kept pushing forward, hoping she was going in the right direction.

  Within moments, though, she saw a shadowy figure loping toward her: a lion with glowing golden eyes. Relief poured through her heart, more than she expected. She had not realized in that moment how frightened she was of being left alo
ne in this place.

  Karr rubbed up against her left side. “Take hold of my mane. Do not let go.”

  Soria wrapped the sheet and pants loosely around her shoulders and chest; then she sank her fingers into the coarse hair surrounding his leonine face. Sheena, queen of the jungle, she thought, eat your heart out. “Thank you for coming back.”

  His tail lashed through the air. “I should not have let you out of my sight. All we have here is each other.”

  He said it so easily. Soria tightened her fingers in his mane, wishing she had her other hand to shield her eyes, and tried to keep pace as Karr began moving quickly across the dusty grass.

  The storm had eased—the winds were weaker, the haze less blinding—but it was still treacherous and painful. Soria let go of Karr only once, and that was to pull the bloodstained sheet over her head, wrapping it securely until she felt like a character out of Lawrence of Arabia. The dust, however, was still alive, getting beneath the cloth into her mouth and nose, and beneath her clothing as well.

  Another gunshot split the air, along with something else that could have been a voice but was ripped away by the wind before she could hear it completely. Karr tilted his head, staring, the muscles all along his body sliding lean and hard beneath his sleek fur.

  “What is it?” Soria asked.

  A growl rose from his throat. “I smell sheep. I will frighten them like this.”

  A golden glow spread over his body. Soria watched the transformation, trying to understand even a little how it was physically possible. She heard joints popping, but as with Koni, there was no accounting for the difference in mass, or a transition that was smooth as falling water—one minute one shape, one minute another—with nothing between but light. Until Karr stood beside her as a man.

  “You are made of magic,” she said, and then flushed, knowing how stupid that sounded.

  But Karr seemed to treat her words seriously. “We are all made of magic. What else can account for life?”

  Science. Molecules and electrical impulses, and a complex biological formula of here and there. Except, she thought, science might as well be magic. Just another word for invisible forces making things happen.