Embrace the Fire

by Tamara Shoemaker

  Chennuh roared with fury at Kinna's pain. He writhed to the side, and his teeth closed around the Ogre, snapping the creature in half.

  Lincoln's voice increased in volume and scale, and slowly, the remaining Ogres dropped their clubs, staring dazedly at their Dimn.

  Kinna slid off Chennuh's back, approaching one of the Dimn who had sat on the ground, leaning against the rock, his empty stare fixed on the blood and charred grass of the surrounding area.

  Kinna glanced up at Lincoln, signaling him to keep singing. The Pixie nodded, shifting into a more comfortable position on the tree limb, his powerful voice still swirling around them. Chennuh subsided into comparative harmlessness, snapping now and again if one of the Ogres moved too much.

  Kinna crouched in front of the Dimn she'd chosen, the flat of her blade lifting his chin so she could meet his dull gaze. “Why, may I ask, are you wandering so far from Sebastian's forces and the rest of his creatures on the Plains? Has the King turned his Ogres into scouts?”

  Emptiness still coated the Dimn's expression. His mouth spilled meaningless words. Kinna sighed, unwrapping the Dimn's fingers from his crossbow. She tossed it toward the bag she'd slung by the rock and prepared to strip the rest of the weapons from their owners, when the Dimn strung together a coherent sentence.

  “Cursed Pixie charms; the clash hurts.”

  Kinna stopped her movements. “Clash?”

  The Dimn squeezed his eyes closed, pain streaking his face. He couldn't answer.

  Kinna glanced at Lincoln, and the Pixie understood her look. He lessened his volume, maintaining a subdued melody. The Dimn's tense rigidity softened, though he still looked dazed.

  “Speak, Dimn,” Kinna commanded. “What clash?”

  “The Pixie lady with white-blonde plaits, beautiful, liquid voice, a Lismarian royal. The orange-haired Pixie in the tree, voice like the ocean. But they command opposites. It hurts. It's agony.” He gripped the spiky hair around his temples in two fists. “Please,” he whimpered, “make it stop.”

  “The Pixie with white-blonde—You came here under Pixie charm?”

  The Dimn only moaned.

  Kinna stood, staring at the Dimn. “This Pixie, did she say who she was?”

  “Noooo,” the Dimn moaned. “Make it stop.” His hands crept over his ears.

  Kinna's jaw hardened. She knew of only one Lismarian royal with hair such as the Ogredimn described—Sebastian's betrothed who had sat on the dais at the Tournament, her cold blue gaze pinning Kinna as she'd entered before stands full of fascinated spectators.

  Kinna leaned closer. “Was it the Lady Lianna, Nicholas Erlane's niece?”

  The Dimn didn't answer, still rocking in pain.

  “What did the Pixie want? What did she command you to do?” Kinna pressed.

  “Attack—attack the fire-haired girl.” The Ogredimn curled his legs against his chest and rolled onto the ground.

  Kinna stared at him. “Why would—” She glanced up at Lincoln, whose lips still issued his charmed melody, but concern crept across his face.

  The Ogre groaned, and Kinna could see she would get nothing further from him. “Go,” she said, pointing to the Plains. “Get you back to your post where you belong. You are defeated here.”

  The Dimn slowly pulled to his feet, languidly motioning to the others, and the survivors of the fray tramped down the slopes toward the boggy Plains. They didn't even take their weapons. Kinna slowly gathered the remaining crossbows, glancing after them thoughtfully.

  As the Ogres and their Dimn darkened among the marshes, Lincoln's voice quieted to stillness.

  When Lincoln dropped from the tree limb, landing lightly in a crouch, Kinna dumped the crossbows in the bag and turned to face the Pixie. “What just happened?”

  Lincoln's easy smile was gone. “It appears that perhaps we may have made an enemy of the Lady Lianna.”

  “But—why?” Kinna exploded.

  Lincoln shook his head. “Your guess is as good as mine.”

  Kinna surveyed the distant camp. The tents were still bathed in moonlight and the glow of campfires, but movement around the perimeter had stilled. Queasiness gripped Kinna's innards. “Linc,” she whispered. “Cedric was waiting for me, and we've missed our chance. The guards are settled in their places.”

  “It's never too late,” Lincoln encouraged, squeezing Kinna's shoulder. “Come on, let's go see what we can do.”

  Kinna walked to the Dragon, scratching the bare patch of his heated snout. She pulled in a deep breath, coaching courage into her lungs, her mind turning over the Ogredimn's words.

  Chennuh's smoky irises glazed over. Kinna said nothing as she scratched, her thoughts paging through Chennuh's mind, seeking the creature's thoughts on stealing into camp. There was something off with the Dragon; she couldn't tell what it was, but he seemed edgy, uncomfortable, and restless. His thoughts were harder to read than normal.

  She wished Ayden were with her. He always had some solution, some way to calm the Dragon, to work around his tempers and moods. He'd had years of experience with the creatures in Dragon Hollow's keep, whereas she had only her instinct to guide her. She had achieved psuche with Chennuh, and even she couldn't decipher what was wrong.

  “You still miss him, don't you?”

  “Who?” Kinna knew who.

  “The silver-eyed bloke who put all the rest of us to shame—appearance-wise anyway.”

  “Intelligence-wise, too.” Kinna shot a too-innocent glance at Lincoln.

  “I beg your pardon.” Linc's fake outrage bled through his injured tone. “I am both intelligent and wise.”

  “You do have your moments of brilliance, Linc, I'll give you that.”

  “You're changing the subject.”

  Kinna's mouth tightened. “I have nothing to say about Ayden.”

  “He's the one who pulled you in,

  Just admit, you let him win.”

  Lincoln's rhyme jolted Kinna from her reflections. The quiet magic in his words irritated her. She jerked her hand away from Chennuh's snout, and the Dragon sat up with a grumble of discontent.

  “I did not let him win anything, Linc! He's the one who ... left.” She swallowed the lump that swelled in her throat.

  “How could he stay? With Julian and everything?”

  Kinna shoved her braid over her shoulder. “We could have worked something out. We could at least have stayed friends.” Hurt coursed through her words, ballooning like poison inside her.

  “That would be asking a lot, don't you think?” Lincoln's words were gentle. “Would you stay with him if he had agreed to a betrothal with another?”

  Kinna didn't answer. She turned her attention back to the camp, but her burning eyes blurred the outlines of the tents and cages along the perimeter. She pulled in a deep breath and squared her shoulders. “Let's go get my brother.”

  * * *

  Chennuh soared, invisible, far above the camp. Kinna searched the ground, nervous that the Dragon would block the moon and give away their position. Guards stood at attention around the perimeter of the camp. The commander's tent stood in the middle, the banner bearing the royal crest barely distinguishable above it.

  Kinna shivered as she remembered the nights that had turned into at least a month, a month of tortuous waiting. When they had returned to The Crossings after fleeing the Tournament, she and Lincoln had stolen into the castle under a thick guise of Pixie charm, but they couldn't get close to Cedric. Sebastian's dungeons were guarded by more than mere men and creatures. Seer Fey spells wove the barricades, and even Lincoln's powerful Pixie charm couldn't affect them. As the weeks had slipped by, they had turned their attention to other strategies and ideas.

  “Have you heard from Helga?” Kinna asked abruptly as Chennuh leaned into the wind for another turn.

  She couldn't see the Pixie; Chennuh and anything attached to him were shuttered in invisible refraction, but she could hear the curiosity in his voice. “Not lately. Not since we left her hom
e the last time. Why?”

  Kinna absently stroked Chennuh's heated scales. “I just thought it would be really wonderful if she were with us right now. It's hard to withstand her taibe.”

  “Even she couldn't charm this entire encampment, Kinna.”

  “I know. I just wish—”

  Chennuh pulled sharply to the right, interrupting Kinna's thoughts. She glanced toward the south where Chennuh leaned, immediately asking what was wrong. Though she could pick her way through his mind, and he could do the same for her, she couldn't see the cause of his restlessness. She felt some urgent emotion that rankled deep within him and emerged through frustrated huffs of smoke. She soothed him with a touch. Soon, Chennuh. Focus on Cedric for now.

  Lincoln pointed to the ground far below. “Try landing him in the bog at the back of Sebastian's army.”

  “Chennuh will splash.”

  “They may write it off as a crane. The birds are plentiful here.”

  If they landed in the bog, they would be closer to the gaol than if they were to go to the more heavily guarded southern flank and try to slip between guards. Once they were off Chennuh, they would be visible again as well.

  Chennuh didn't wait for Kinna's approval. Agreement with the Pixie sparked in his mind and he circled to the left, slipping silently through the air, his mirrored wings slicing downward as he approached the marshy waters.

  Chennuh had sensed Kinna's hesitation. When he splashed to a landing, he forked his wings downward, immediately halting forward momentum, and only a small wave broke before his scaled body.

  Kinna held her breath as she waited for shouts from the army perimeter, but none sounded.

  “No worries, m'lady,” Lincoln whispered. “I'll sing anything to sleep that comes our way.”

  “Unless the whole army finds us.”

  “In which case, I'll sing our way up to the gallows and spit in Sebastian's bearded face.” His voice was only half-teasing.

  Kinna dropped to the ground, immediately moving into visibility. Lincoln appeared beside her.

  “Your hair's a bit of a beacon, you know,” he murmured, and Kinna grabbed her mantle's hood, raising it over her head, tucking her braid securely beneath it.

  “What about yours?” she hissed. “Orange isn't exactly camouflage.”

  Lincoln shrugged his own hood up. “Point taken.”

  The nearest set of guards marched along the perimeter. They had turned away from Kinna and Lincoln, beating a rhythm toward the southern flank. Lincoln waited until they were at least half a fieldspan away. “Go,” he murmured, and they waded toward the tents, entering the line without drawing attention to themselves.

  Kinna squeezed her mantle's hem, removing the excess moisture. To their right, about a fieldspan away, cages vibrated with the movements of the creatures within. To the left, scores of tents pitched the Plain's sodden floor. On a slight rise near the center of the ranks, she could see the Commanders' tent. West Ashwynd's royal flag waved above it. Beyond it, toward the back of the encampment, another tent with the black symbol of a gaol emblazoned its banner.

  Kinna's heart thudded; Cedric was so near. “The guards?” she whispered to Lincoln as they kept their pace slow and sedate between tents. “There will be several; we missed the shift-change.”

  “I'll handle them,” he answered. His voice was brittle. He's afraid, Kinna thought, a shiver spiking her spine. She'd rarely seen him this tense.

  Men huddled around campfires, few even sparing the pair a glance as they passed silently by. Kinna was never so thankful for the cover of her hood, or the fact that several other Dimn and soldiers wandered freely between tents, many wearing mantles in the cool, crisp air.

  When they finally neared the Commanders' tent with the gaol beyond it, she stopped short, and then stumbled backward behind a tent.

  In the opening of the Commander's tent stood a familiar figure, his chiseled features as cruel as she had remembered. His horse stood nearby, still saddled, lathered from a hard ride. Attendants scurried around him, ducking his harsh commands.

  King Sebastian had arrived.

  * * *

  “Three cheers.” Linc's flat, dead tone twisted the sarcasm even deeper into his words as he stared at the King. “Just who I wished to see here and now.”

  Kinna peered around the corner of the tent, shaking her head. “What do we do, Linc?”

  “I'm just the Pixie; you're the one with royal blood,” he whispered.

  “Doesn't mean I know what I'm doing.” She glanced back toward the perimeter. “Perhaps I should have Chennuh create a distraction.”

  “Can you reach that far? Will he hear you?”

  Kinna tossed her thoughts toward the blackness, searching for Chennuh's answering ones. She soon found his familiar thought patterns, but they weren't focused on what she was expecting. She frowned.

  “What?”

  Kinna ignored him, her hand fisting into the thick canvas of a tent corner. “Linc, look,” she whispered hoarsely.

  Far down the row, in the muck of the Plains to the southwest of the regiment, a milling crowd of horses, wagons, and other conveyances took up the outer fringes of the camp. Sentries guided would-be soldiers up the aisle toward the Commanders' tent, loud calls pulling the people into formation.

  Lincoln gripped Kinna, pulling her backward, even as people swarmed around them, pushing and prodding them toward the Commander's tent. “It's the recruits,” he called in her ear, “mixed with forces from the Three Maids. This is what your fiancé was preparing for when last we saw him.”

  “I knew he was coming, but I didn't expect recruits.”

  “They must have picked them up on the way. Look, Dryaddimn with their creatures, Unicorndimn with theirs. They're recruits from the Clans they passed through to get here.”

  Kinna eyed the stream of people who blocked them from the gaol.

  “Kinna?” Lincoln's voice cut through the hubbub. “What do you want to do?”

  He was asking if she wanted him to sing; it would perhaps be their most effective tool. He could pull out all the forces of his Pixie magic to try to make a dent in the crush around them. It might work, temporarily. It might even let them run free back to the bogs and make an escape on Chennuh's back. But the captors would know that she was here, and Cedric would forever be beyond her reach.

  Kinna shook her head. “No, I have an idea.”

  Linc immediately frowned. “And what's that?”

  “We're signing up for active duty, Linc. The recruits will be able to move around inside the camp without suspicion, even close to the gaol tent. And it's the only way we can get from here to there without being noticed.”

  Lincoln considered her words. “And your mark?”

  A Pixie mark had never stayed on Kinna's skin, and she would be required to show her mark for registry in the King's forces. “Concentrate all your magic on the one who takes our names.”

  A hard ball of nervousness gripped Kinna's stomach as they found a place in line and moved slowly forward to the lists on the tables. In the Commanders' tent at the top of the rise, Sebastian sat on a chair, his attention on a mess of unfurled parchments in front of him. Kinna silently begged him not to look up. She slid her hood farther forward so it shaded her face.

  When they at last reached the tables, a quill lay beside a scrawled-over parchment. The man behind the table glanced over Kinna and Lincoln. “Is this your Pixie, Dimn?”

  “Aye.” Kinna's fist bunched her mantle in front.

  “Sign your name here, and show me your mark.”

  Lincoln's voice washed across the table as Kinna bent slowly to sign a name on the parchment. She dipped the quill in the ink and signed her mother's middle name: Katya, Pixiedimn. She sent a repentant prayer to the Stars for forgiveness. When Katya, Pixiedimn never arrived for her appointed work, it would bring disgrace on her mother's name. It's all for Cedric. My mother would do no less.

  She straightened and set down the quill, waiting
for the man to force the issue of her mark. The man's eyes were empty, however, and with a brief, dazed nod, he handed them their identification necklaces and motioned them to the side. “Pixiedimn quarters, please. You'll find your supplies in your tent.”

  Lincoln quickly pulled Kinna back into the crowd, moving them toward the fringes. “Kinna, there are too many eyes. Let's get back to Chennuh before this gets any worse.”

  “No.” Kinna stopped in the shadow of a tent. “I mean, yes, I want to get back to Chennuh, but first Cedric. We haven't come this far to give up now. We can move around without standing out, at least for a little bit.”

  “We can also fight and die here. Come on, Kinna, let's just go.”

  Kinna shook her head. “No. Cedric, now. That was the whole point of coming, and we're too close to give up.” She glanced up the hill at the gaol tent. Guards were posted at all four corners of it, their swords drawn as they stood silent and unmoving. Kinna wished the tent would flap open in the night's breeze, just enough so she could glimpse her twin to make certain that he was okay, but the night was still and the only disturbance came from the new recruits as they hurried off to their quarters.

  Lincoln finally gave in. “Well, come on then. They'll wonder why we're standing here doing nothing ... Katya.” The impish glint in his eye was back. “Shall we tell Julian your change of name?”

  “What?” Kinna gasped.

  Lincoln nodded at a point over Kinna's shoulder. She whirled.

  Julian had arrived at the table, bending over it to check the Pixie lists. Behind him, massive lines of more soldiers streamed across the Plains from the distant foothills of the Rues. Julian's Pixie Division Three had arrived. The tall, dark Pixie was easily recognizable with Sage's turquoise hair just behind him.

  Kinna wrenched her arm from Lincoln's and stepped behind a tent, tucking her hair more securely beneath her hood.

  “You could always shave your hair,” Lincoln commented. “I've a good hand with a knife; perhaps you'd allow me?”

  Kinna threw him a look that withered and turned with the other enlistees for the Dimn quarters. As she and Lincoln hurried along, Kinna breathed quiet whispers to him. “From what I could see, Pixie quarters are set up on the far side of the gaol tent. Julian may be nearby, and we may need your magic to try to keep him fooled.”