by Lauren Roy
The strangled mewling she was hearing, Yulla realized, came from her own throat. “They’d... they’ll try to dig me out, even if it’s only my body. And then they’ll know you’re a liar.”
“It’s dangerous enough to shift those stones around in the light. They could kill themselves if they try it in the dark. No, Yulla, they’re waiting for the Darktimes to end to look for you. By then it won’t matter anymore.”
Then she gave Yulla a shove and the ground fell away. These stairs had no banister for her to catch onto, nothing to break her fall other than the cold, rough stone from which the steps were hewn. Every hit awakened old pains and introduced her to new ones. The only consolation came halfway down, when consciousness took pity on her and fled.
YULLA AWOKE TO murmured conversation. Pebbles dug into her back, but they were the least of her pains. All the injuries she’d sustained the last few days joined their voices to the ones she’d received in the (fall, I fell, Vedra pushed me and I fell) Her burned hand throbbed in time with the headache pounding at her skull; her elbows and knees protested when she tried to bend them, scrapes on both stinging anew. Nothing felt broken, at least, but she wouldn’t know until she could stand up and test that theory.
A dull ache had settled in behind her eyes. She brought her good hand up to rub at them, clearing away the grime and sleep-sand.
I still can’t see.
No, that’s not entirely true. The ghost of that silver sun with its dark crown flashed across her vision, floating from left to right before it faded. She didn’t know whether to take it as a sign of hope or not, and set it aside for later. She focused on her other senses.
The murmuring, for instance, had gotten closer.
“She’s waking up.”
Yulla didn’t recognize the voice—feminine, maybe her own age or a little older, but not anyone’s she knew from Kaladim. The others were unfamiliar to her as well, a girl’s and a two children whose piping tones made their genders hard to guess. And then, as she sat up slowly, groaning with the effort, one she knew.
“Yulla? Are you all right?”
“Ember?”
“Yes, it’s me.” She felt his heat as he knelt beside her and took her hand. There was something wrong about it, though, swirls of cold eddying through his warmth. The rim of a cup touched her lips; she could feel the seam where it had cracked and been glued back together again. Was it from one of the heaps of furniture she’d seen last time she was here?
“Drink. The squat little witch left a bucket of water at the top of the stairs a while ago. I don’t think the others knew she was doing it, the way she looked.”
Siwa. Yulla sipped greedily. With everything else, her parched throat had been at the bottom of her list of worries. The water was warm and flat, but it might as well have been nectar for how much better it made her feel. She wondered if this gesture—of humanity? Kindness? Guilt?—on Siwa’s part meant the witch-woman could be reasoned with.
“Ask her if she saw him.” This was the same voice that had noticed her waking up. She turned her face this way and that. The echoes bouncing off the cavern’s walls made it hard to tell exactly where the speaker stood.
“Saw who?”
“Our brother,” said Ember. “They took him away from us a couple of hours before they threw you down. It’s... You’ve been out nearly a day. He hasn’t come back.”
“Something’s wrong with her eyes,” said the girl. “Ask her what’s wrong with her eyes.”
Ember’s fingers were a gentle pressure against her chin. She let him tilt her head left and right, up and down. Judging by his breath on her cheek, he was close enough to kiss—if they hadn’t been prisoners of the witch-women, that was, or surrounded by his siblings. “What happened?”
“Vedra caught me. She made me stare at the eclipse.” From all around her came the hiss of water thrown on fire, even from Ember. “I’m all right. It doesn’t hurt.” That wasn’t entirely true. Her eyes felt grainy, like she’d peered into a sandstorm’s fury without a veil to protect her. It was nothing beside her other injuries, or the cold that was working its way into her bones and making them ache. She shifted closer to Ember, but even when he put his arm around her shoulders, it didn’t warm her up. “Why is it so cold down here?”
“It’s that glass up above us, I think. I feel cold air coming down from it sometimes. And the leashes, too. They’re keeping our heat at bay.” Agony tinged his words.
Yulla twisted around and touched the collar around Ember’s neck. It felt leathery, stiff. Beneath it, she felt his heat, and those strange surges of cold. She had to pull away after a moment to keep from being singed, but not before she found the place where the collar fastened. “Maybe I can cut them off of you.”
“No.” This was the first girl’s voice, the one who sounded a little older than Kell. “I still don’t think she should touch us.” Feet shuffled over to her, and heat suddenly bloomed, just above Yulla’s right shoulder. “Can you feel this?”
It got uncomfortable quickly, like she’d stepped too close to Hatal’s brick oven. The warmth was pleasant at first, then began climbing into the realm of pain. “Yes, it...” She shifted away before it could burn her like a brand. “I’m sorry.”
“It’s what I thought.” The female voice withdrew. “We can’t...” Her next words weren’t actually words at all. It was the roar of a campfire, the pop-hiss of a match freshly struck. “I don’t know the word.”
It’s the language of fire.
“Dampen?” supplied Ember.
“Right. Yes. Their spells are keeping us from just... melting this place down to slag, but we can’t control it, not all the way. We won’t hurt you from a distance, but you can’t get close long enough to get these off.”
“I can try. I can touch Ember.”
The crackle of dry tinder catching.
Ember’s grip on her hand tightened, then relaxed. “My sister—call her, uh, Char—thinks we should keep away from humans.”
“It’s how it’s always been,” said Char. “And for good reason.”
“We’ve been over this—”
“Yes. You saved her, she saved you. To what good? Here you are anyway, and she’s been through Mother only knows what.”
“I’m right here,” said Yulla. It annoyed her when Kell talked about her like she wasn’t present, and suddenly Char reminded her of her sister. She pushed away from Ember and climbed gingerly to her feet. Somehow she managed not to hiss as her muscles protested the motion. Turning to face the direction of Char’s voice, she hoped she didn’t look the fool. “If your brother’s still alive up there, they’re hurting him. I’ve seen what they did to one of our priestesses so they could trap all of you. They want to draw down Mother Sun herself. It’s going to take more than a bit of bloodletting.”
The image of Anur’s ruined arms came to her unbidden, and with it the priestess’ plea: Promise me you won’t go in the other ritual room. Promise me you won’t even open that door. She was suddenly glad she couldn’t see the leashes, as suspicion wormed its way through her gut. What had the witch-women done to Anur’s poor dead husband Ishem? She remembered how casually Amara had chatted with Siwa while they were stealing the priestess’ blood; could the woman be so unfeeling as to
(flay him)
(nononono)
She shied away from the thought, but not before she remembered one of the more gruesome Brigand Queen stories, where the Scourge of the Seven Sands allied with a warlock who bound his enemies with ropes made of human skin. Abba had refused to read it to them; Yulla had only heard the story once, when Kell stole his book of tales and read it to her by candlelight. The girls hadn’t slept for days afterwards.
Char cleared her throat, snapping Yulla back to the present. Yulla imagined her (in her mind’s eye, a taller, slimmer version of Ember) looking at the ground in shame, though she was likely doing no such thing. But it was easier to keep talking if she imagined the other girl cowed. “It’s these c
ollars holding you here. You can’t take them off on your own, but maybe I can do it. Please.”
“We’re not supposed to go near humans. We hurt them. Mother will be angry.” Char’s voice faltered. It’s a weak argument and she knows it.
“As angry as she’ll be if those humans upstairs kill her children?”
Silence.
“Have they bled you?”
Beside her, Ember stood up. “Yes,” he said. “They did it to me before they brought me down here. The others... They’ve done it a few times.”
“We think it’s why Mother Sun isn’t hearing us. They’re keeping her from hearing anyone’s prayers.” Char sounded chastened. Slightly.
“I’m sorry.” Yulla composed herself the best she could. What she had to say next wasn’t going to set Char any more at ease. “They’ll do worse than that soon. I don’t know what kind of power it would take to draw your mother from the sky, but that’s what they want to do. They want to bring her down here and punish her for what she did to Father Sea.”
One of the younger ones whimpered, the high-pitched whine of a knot about to pop in a campfire.
“Sssh,” Char soothed. “It’s all right, she can come down here. She’s done it before.”
She felt bad scaring the little ones, but there was nothing else for it. “They want to hold her here. Vedra wants to hurt her for sure. The others... Amara might want to kill her. Either way, they’ll kill you to do it.” She held out her hands, palms up, begging. “Please, let me help.”
Char and Ember argued awhile, in that language Yulla couldn’t understand. At one point, he slipped his arm around Yulla’s waist and kept it there. She suspected he did it as much to gall Char as it was to comfort Yulla, but she didn’t complain. Now and then another voice would join in, and Yulla remembered the other voices she’d heard when she first woke. This one—the other girl—seemed to have separated herself from the rest. Her words came from clear across the chamber. Is she afraid of me?
If she frightened the girl, she certainly didn’t frighten the two little ones. Yulla felt other bodies near her. They were smaller, their heat inconsistent even with the collars. A tug pulled at her tunic as someone plucked at it, followed by scrambling, fleeing feet. The furtive whispers of scheming children reached her when Ember and Char paused, then would come another tug, or a tap on her wrist, or simply the sense of someone standing close by, watching. I’m as strange to them as they are to me. She smiled in what she thought was the children’s direction, and wished she had some of Abba’s butterscotch candies in her pockets.
Then Ember and Char’s discussion was done. Even the whispering children went quiet.
“Do it,” said Char, after an eternity. “You’re right. You’re both right.”
Ember let go of Yulla and took a step back. “Me first. I’m not as tired.”
The way he said tired packed a lot of meaning into that one syllable: the others had been captured in the first two days. Ember had spent that time running from the witch-women, but it had still been time where he was free. He’d eaten, he’d burned. He’d had time, while they were in the cave, to let his guard down. Sure, he’d been bled since the witches caught him, but it had taken a greater toll on the others.
Yulla nodded. “I saw rags in here the last time. Old blankets, maybe, or clothes. Are they here still?”
Movement around her as they searched. A minute later, a soft bundle was pressed into her hands. “These?” asked Char.
Yulla pinched the fabric, rubbed it between her fingers. Linen. “Perfect. Will you bring me the water, too?” The younger ones scurried off. She heard it sloshing in the bucket as they carried it over to her. Yulla wound the linen around her hands, wrapping them the way fighters did. She could only do two layers around each of her fingers before she lost mobility, but it would have to do.
When she was done, she tucked the loose ends in and dunked her hands in the water. Wool might have been slower to catch fire, but she needed to be able to feel for knots and seams on the collar, or a thin place she could tear (don’t think about it don’t think about it don’t). Once they were good and soaked, the linen so saturated it clung like a second skin, she stepped close to Ember. “Ready?”
“No. But we have to.” He touched his forehead to hers, briefly. “I’ll control my flames as much as I can. If it starts burning, you stop right away, okay?”
“I will,” she lied.
At first it was easy, tracing the length of that thin leather collar around his neck. She’d seen sturdier ones on dogs, but when she tried to tear it, the strip held. She worked her way around, the feeling slightly muffled by the linen, though the place where it fastened was an obvious lump at the back of Ember’s neck.
“It’s a sliding knot,” she said, and stifled a laugh. To be sure, she counted the lumps again, and again. Aunt Mouse had taught her and Kell how to make them years before, when they’d both come down with Mule’s Sickness. The intricate work of stringing beads for necklaces had distracted them from the harsh, braying coughs that went along with the childhood disease. Yulla could have tied those knots in her sleep by the time she and Kell were allowed outside to play again.
Usually it was a simple matter of sliding one end of the cord off of the loop, but the leather had been pulled so tight it bit into itself. “I have to... I have to pick at it, but I can get it.” She pulled the linen tighter and set to work. The others crowded around her, trying to get a look. Every so often, Char or the other girl chided the little ones for getting too close.
Her burnt fingers felt it the moment Ember’s control started to slip. It was like that first hot bath after staying out in the sun too long—he hadn’t warmed up too terribly much, but the burns said otherwise, like she’d stuck her hand into a firepit. Yulla bore it as long as she could, gritting her teeth and digging at the knot, but finally she had to pull away.
“You tried,” said Char, the disappointment ringing clear. “We’ll think of someth—”
“Bring me the water,” said Yulla. “I can do this.”
She thought they were going to refuse. A score of arguments rose to her lips, but then Char sighed and the bucket scraped along the stone. “It’s next to you,” she said.
“Yulla...” Ember caught her wrist.
She wrenched it away and bent to soak her hands again. Maybe it was a good thing she’d been blinded—if she could see his face right now, she might falter. “Don’t.”
He didn’t balk when she straightened and returned to her work. She was grateful for that, especially since the re-soaking didn’t stop the pain in her burnt fingers from flaring up again right away. Ember was getting hotter. Calmly, now. Picking haphazardly at the knot would only make it worse, she knew. The smell of steam was replaced by the acrid scent of scorching cloth. Yulla began pausing every few seconds to shake off smoldering flecks of linen, or to plunge her hands back into the bucket. The tepid water soothed her burns, but she didn’t let herself keep them there long—the more time she took, the less control Ember would have.
She picked and picked, imagining Aunt Mouse’s neat knots in her mind, feeling for any loose points in the leather, starting again. Soon the heat got too much for her good hand, too. It throbbed in time with the injured one, but she couldn’t afford to stop. Yulla gritted her teeth and wished she had something to clench between them.
Finally, finally, one of the loops pried free. From there it was an easy matter to unravel the rest of the knot. Ember gasped as the collar fell away. Yulla’s sense of pride and relief was cut short as he stumbled off to the other side of the chamber, his tread heavy on the stone. Fear shoved the other emotions away—had taking it off triggered another spell? Had they woven a trap into the (skin) leather?
A flash of heat washed over her, then a hot breeze in its wake. “Ember?” She stumbled forward, seeking him out. “Ember!”
“I’m all right,” he said at last. “It got shaky there, at the end. But I’m all right.”
; I did it. He’s not hurt. There weren’t any traps. Her knees buckled with relief. She didn’t want any of the Fire Children to think she was too hurt to continue, though, so she did her best to make it look like she was simply kneeling down beside the bucket to adjust the linen wraps and dunk her hands once more.
“Char? Come to me. It’s your turn.”
“No. The little ones next. I’m going last.”
“You aren’t.”
Char’s voice had come from just above her. Yulla took her good hand out of the water and groped for the girl. She found Char’s knee and tapped at the back of it until Char leaned down.
“Look,” said Yulla as softly as she could. “Look at my hands.” She couldn’t see them, but from their stiff, swollen feel, she had a pretty good idea what Char would be seeing. “I can only do one more. Ember and I are going to need you if we’re going to fight. You’re the eldest? Or at least the one in charge?”
“... yes.”
“The three of us getting out and getting help is our best chance. Will you trust me on that?”
The girl was quiet for a long moment before she spoke. “You’ve earned Ember’s trust. You came back for him—for all of us—when you could have run. And your poor hands...” Char’s touch was nearly as gentle as Ember’s had been. She took Yulla’s hand in her own and wound a new layer of linen over the old. “I’ll follow your lead.”
“Good,” said Yulla. “Thank you.” One last soaking, and she got to work on Char’s leash.
HER HANDS WERE two lumps of red hot agony by the time she was done. Ember had been right about how tired Char was, how little control she’d have over her flames and her heat. Yulla had untied the sliding knot as fast as she could, but still the linen burned away. It never quite caught flame, though whether that was Ember’s doing or Char’s, she didn’t know. Either way, bits of ash fell away in smoldering chunks until there was nothing left to protect her skin.