Firewalker

by Josephine Angelini

  “Sorry we’re late,” he said, hugging her carefully.

  Tristan was already bent over Rowan, helping him remove his blood-soaked clothes. He looked up at Lily and smiled warmly. “Hi,” Tristan said simply.

  “It’s good to see you, too,” she told him. “Even though I’ve been seeing you,” she added with a grimace. The other Tristan gave her a strange look, but Rowan interjected.

  “You’ll see in a second, Tristan,” Rowan said through a groan as he peeled off what was left of his shredded shirt.

  “Who’s that?” Caleb asked, pointing to Una. Before she could answer, Breakfast and Lily’s Tristan caught up with them, already apologizing before they had even reached the clearing. They had a couple of bruises and some scraped knuckles, but they didn’t look anywhere near as banged up as Rowan did. He scowled at the two of them, and probably added a few choice words in mindspeak that Lily wasn’t privy to.

  Introductions and explanations were made while Una and Caleb put salve on Lily’s and Rowan’s cuts. Although Lily’s bite wounds and the lashing that Rowan had taken cut deep, they were still only flesh wounds. With no broken bones, severed nerves, or torn ligaments to mend, the salve did its job quickly. It wasn’t nearly enough time for the two Tristans to absorb the fact that they had just met themselves.

  The two Tristans sat across the fire from each other, both of them looking like they’d just seen a ghost. They were mirrors of each other, except that Rowan’s Tristan had streaks of red and black paint on his face, indicating that he had become one of Alaric’s elite fighters, like Caleb.

  Lily knew how disoriented both Tristans must be feeling, but she didn’t want to bring up right then what she’d felt when she met Lillian. She was still too emotional about what she saw in Lillian’s last memory and she knew that if she focused on it now, Rowan would be able to pluck the thought out of her mind easily. Instead, she thought about the pale Woven.

  “Do you guys think Woven can mindspeak?” Lily asked, seemingly out of the blue. Everyone stared at her. “You know, with their relatives if they’re pack animals. I’m wondering because that pack of Woven seemed really, like, together. Mentally, I mean.” The more she talked, the more worried everyone looked.

  Caleb finally spoke up. “A good pack animal is part of a whole. He follows his alpha without question. I guess that could look like they’re reading one another’s minds.”

  “Well, has anyone ever tried to mindspeak with a Woven?” she asked.

  Rowan, Caleb, and the Tristan from this world all shuddered simultaneously like the thought disgusted them.

  “No, Lily,” Rowan said, his lips tight as if he’d tasted something sour. “The tame Woven in the cities are trained to respond to very subtle cues from their masters. But they don’t mindspeak. They can’t speak, Lily.”

  “I know that, but mindspeak isn’t always speech, is it? Sometimes it’s more like a sensation or an emotion that you convey. Or a scent?” She said the last word hesitantly, still trying to describe—even for herself—what she’d experienced. “That’s crazy, right?”

  Everyone nodded and looked at the fire, relieved that Lily could at least recognize how far out on a limb she’d climbed.

  “You’ve lost a lot of blood,” Caleb said sensibly. “And it’s normal to wonder if animals can think when they’ve just outsmarted you with an ambush. Sometimes with the wolf-like Woven packs out west it can seem like what they’re doing is planned, but they’re only acting on instinct, Lily. They’re not thinking or feeling anything.”

  But Lily had felt emotion coming from the pale Woven—fear and awe, even determination. She held her tongue. She didn’t know what point she was trying to prove about the Woven, she just felt like there was more to them, some layer that hadn’t been peeled back yet. She looked at Rowan, sitting to her right. He hated the Woven and hated it even more when Lily talked about them as being anything but the mindless killers he understood them to be. She decided to let it go for now. Again.

  “Lunchtime,” Breakfast said cheerfully. He pulled out his pack and started distributing the food he and Tristan had bought before they got into some trouble with the locals. There was some heavy discrimination toward the Outlanders here in Baltimore. Lily supposed there had been discrimination in Salem, too. She just hadn’t seen much of it because people there didn’t show it when Rowan was around. They were too scared of him.

  “Why do people keep thinking I’m an Outlander?” Breakfast asked as he chewed pensively on a sandwich.

  Caleb gave Breakfast a complicated look. “It was years ago—I can’t be sure. Tristan?” he said, turning to his stone kin for input.

  “Yeah?” both Tristans responded. They looked at each other and shared a laugh. The other Tristan spoke first.

  “I think that’s for me,” he said. “What, Caleb?”

  “Forget it,” Caleb said, still shaken by weirdness of the two-Tristan situation. Caleb turned back to Breakfast. “You look like an Outlander I met once,” he said. “But he was a kid back then.”

  “So some Outlanders are white?” Lily’s Tristan asked his other self.

  “Sure. Technically, I’m an Outlander now. I gave up my citizenship and joined a tribe,” Tristan replied, pointing to his painted cheek.

  “Rowan’s mom was white,” Caleb replied. He smiled to himself. “She had red hair like Lily.”

  “You remember her,” Lily said, surprised. Caleb was four years older than Rowan, and they were from the same tribe. It made sense that Caleb remembered Rowan’s mom, even if Rowan couldn’t.

  “A little. Of course I remember River much better,” Caleb said, his face growing sad. “But he fixed my dad’s leg once. Hell, he patched together everyone in our tribe at one point or another. He was a great man. Remember my twisted knee that time?” Caleb turned to Rowan, who laughed under his breath.

  “The infamous gully incident,” Rowan said, smiling in a bittersweet way.

  Lily stared into the fire while Rowan and Caleb reminisced over one of their childhood escapades. Una’s mind brushed against hers, asking for entry.

  Rowan’s dad—that crazy man in the barn—was considered a great man?

  Everyone loved River Fall, Una. The barn and that sequence of events happened in a different version of this world. There was a huge disaster there that hasn’t happened here. Yet.

  Una’s eyes found Lily’s over the campfire.

  What are you talking about, Lily?

  We’re talking about nuclear war, Una. I still haven’t decided what I’m going to do about it. And you shouldn’t know any of this, anyway.

  I can keep a secret. Just please don’t tell me I left my world to come to one that’s about to turn into the “barn world,” okay? I’d rather go back home and do time.

  I swear that that won’t happen here—not while I’m alive. Now hush. I need to think.

  Lily broke contact with Una, sat up straight, and shook herself as if someone had poured ice water down her back.

  “What is it?” Rowan asked, looking around for danger.

  “Nothing,” Lily said, passing a hand over her eyes. “I’m just worn out, I guess.”

  They finished their lunch and struck camp. Breakfast approached his horse distrustfully. While everyone else climbed on their mounts, Breakfast agonized. He couldn’t even bring himself to take the reins.

  “What’s wrong with him?” Rowan’s Tristan asked Lily’s Tristan.

  “He doesn’t like horses,” he replied, smiling.

  “It’s not that I don’t like them,” Breakfast insisted. “I like them just fine in movies.”

  “You can ride behind me,” Una said, shaking her head.

  Breakfast couldn’t even figure out how to use the stirrup, and after performing several rather acrobatic near-splits, Caleb finally took pity on Breakfast and boosted him up into the saddle behind Una.

  “You’ve never ridden a horse?” Caleb asked Breakfast, an eybrow cocked in disbelief.

&nbs
p; “I try to avoid any mammal bigger than me. Most of them have really sharp teeth,” Breakfast replied.

  Caleb got back on his horse, shaking his head. He looked at Lily. Where’d you get that guy?

  I grew up with him.

  He has the survival skills of a napkin.

  Napkins can be useful.

  Great. I can blow my nose on him.

  Lily chuckled with Caleb as they rode out. She was no horsewoman either, but at least she knew how to keep her seat. Poor Breakfast nearly slid out of the saddle every ten paces.

  “How far to Alaric’s camp?” Rowan asked his Tristan.

  “At this rate?” Tristan asked, looking back at Breakfast, who was clutching frantically at Una even though they were only going at a walking pace. “We’ll get there sometime tomorrow, I guess.”

  “So soon?” Rowan asked, his mood brightening noticeably. “I thought you made camp outside of Richmond. We’re still hundreds of miles away.”

  “Alaric had the whole tribe start moving north to intercept our group as soon as Lily contacted Tristan and me,” Caleb said.

  “The sachem wanted Lily safely surrounded by all his braves as soon as possible,” Tristan said.

  Rowan looked pleased, but Lily hesitated. Alaric was eager to have her back, and Lily was pretty sure it wasn’t because he missed her.

  There was also a part of her that was insulted. Tristan had called them Alaric’s braves, but nearly all of them were Lily’s claimed. As she thought of them, she could feel them. Her army. They raced to join her, impatient to be near their witch again. She smiled to herself. They didn’t belong to Alaric. They belonged to her.

  “Juliet’s excited to see you,” Tristan added. “She wanted to come with Caleb and me, but Alaric thought it would be safer for her to stay with him.”

  Lily looked at Tristan sharply. Before the battle with Lillian, Lily had asked Alaric to watch over her sister. He’d kept his word, but for some reason Lily wasn’t grateful that he had. The word “hostage” kept echoing through Lily’s head.

  “Lily?” Rowan asked, concerned.

  Alaric wasn’t her enemy, but she didn’t want to make the mistake of assuming he would always be her ally. Especially not if she asked him to dismantle the thirteen bombs. Lily looked at Caleb and Tristan. They both wore Alaric’s war paint. Too many of the people she loved were tied to him. She wanted Juliet away from Alaric, just in case.

  “I wish she’d come,” was all Lily would say.

  “You’ll see her tomorrow,” Rowan said with an indulgent smile. He didn’t even suspect that something else was troubling her. Lily was getting better at hiding her true feelings from Rowan. The thought made her sad.

  They rode deep into the forest for the rest of the day, always on the alert for Woven, and Lily was exhausted by the time they made camp. She’d spent the night before in agony with a dislocated shoulder, and then she’d lost a lot of blood that morning to the pale Woven. Rowan wasn’t in good shape, either. The two of them ate quickly and fell asleep together by the fire while the comforting sounds of their friends’ voices lulled them into a dreamless sleep.

  CHAPTER

  12

  The next day they started at the crack of dawn. Lily’s only comfort was that Breakfast looked even more miserable than she did.

  “I wasn’t cut out for the cowboy life,” he said, rubbing his sore bottom. “But now I know why John Wayne walked like he was holding a grape between his butt cheeks.”

  They all mounted up, some more stiffly than others, and started cutting a quick and quiet trail through the trees. As they moved south, the temperature rose a little. It wasn’t spring yet, but in the area that Lily knew of as Virginia, winter was loosening its grip a little.

  Lily kept seeing flashes of an animal with light-colored fur between the thick brush. She couldn’t see it clearly enough to know what it was, but she could sense it out there in the trees—keeping close, but not attacking. Lily got the feeling they were being followed by the pale coyote Woven, but she didn’t bring it up. She didn’t want to get into another argument with Rowan about it. She knew he’d probably say that if Woven were following them, they would have attacked already.

  They reached Alaric’s camp just after nightfall. As they rode in, Lily could feel a giant weight lifting off Rowan’s shoulders. He no longer had to be on guard every second, and he dismounted eagerly to greet old friends and fellow braves. Lily got off her horse slowly. She felt the awareness of her presence rippling through her claimed. They stared at her with a reverence that made her uncomfortable. The first to come forward was a young woman, barely out of her teens.

  “You saved my husband’s life by making him strong in battle,” she whispered. “Thank you, Lady.”

  “And mine,” another woman said. She rubbed her pregnant belly. “And my child’s life.” The woman said something that sounded to Lily like “meegwetch.” Lily didn’t need to be told it was a word of thanks.

  She smiled and nodded at the women, and dozens suddenly streamed forward, all of them speaking in Sioux or Iroquois or some blend. Lily even thought she heard some French, and an amalgam of languages that she couldn’t even begin to fathom washed over her. They offered her things—clothes, beads, salt, and herbs. Overwhelmed and speechless, Lily looked around frantically for Rowan, and finally found him in the gathering crowd.

  Please tell them it was nothing, and that right now all I want is a nap.

  Let them give you their thanks. What you did by claiming them and climbing on that pyre saved all of their lives. No witch has ever fought with them before.

  Yeah, well, I don’t deserve to be worshipped for that.

  Ah, the price of greatness. Smile and wave, Lily.

  Lily wanted to throw something at Rowan’s head. He grinned and abandoned her there with Breakfast, Una, and her Tristan to help her accept gifts. In between polite smiles and gracious nods, she watched Rowan as he made his way to Alaric. They embraced each other like brothers and immediately left with the other Tristan and Caleb to talk privately in Alaric’s carriage. Lily frowned, feeling like she should be the one to talk to Alaric.

  “Lily!” Juliet called as she zigzagged her way through the crowd.

  Lily gestured for her sister to join her. “Juliet! I’m dying over here.”

  Juliet laughed as she hugged Lily. “I’m glad you’re back.” She pulled away and scanned Lily from head to toe. “You look like hell.”

  “Save me?”

  “Can’t. You have to stay here and take it like a big girl. We’ll talk later,” Juliet said, still grinning from ear to ear. She looked good. Her dress wasn’t fancy, and the turquoise beads around her wrists were a far cry from the sapphires she used to wear, but her cheeks were rosy and her eyes shone. Juliet hugged Lily one last time and then negotiated her way through the crowd toward Alaric’s carriage. Lily noticed that the guards flanking the entrance let Juliet enter without a second thought.

  After an hour of accepting presents, two older women came forward and coaxed Lily and Una away from the crowd. The women brought them to a steamy tent that had two large tubs of heated water in the middle. The old women started peeling Una’s and Lily’s dirty clothes off them.

  “How do you say I can undress myself in Native American?” Una asked, blushing furiously.

  “No idea,” Lily replied. “I think we’re just supposed to go with it.”

  The woman gathered up the dirty and torn clothes and left Lily and Una to bathe. The soapy water was fragrant with dried flowers, and Una and Lily gladly scrubbed every inch of their filthy bodies before settling in for a long soak.

  When they were dried and wrapped in clean robes, the women led Una one way and Lily another. Lily was taken to one of the larger armored wagons, rather than a tent. She noticed that flowers and fruit had been laid on the steps up to the door. It didn’t seem right to just step over it all. As she was shuttling the gifts one bunch at a time into the carriage she heard Rowan’s voice
behind her.

  “You can just leave it,” he told her. “We’ll do that in the morning.”

  “Good! I’m so tired,” Lily replied gratefully. She noticed that Rowan’s clothes were different and his hair was wet from a bath. He looked calm and relaxed. His gaze slid up one of her bare legs, still pink and dewy from her long soak.

  “Not too tired, I hope,” he said quietly. Lily started up the steps, suddenly shy, and he followed her into the carriage, watching the way her body moved under her loose robe. He closed the iron-studded door and came toward her slowly.

  Lily looked down at the heap of melons in her arms and back up at him, feeling ridiculous. “My last armload was all flowers, which would have made me look wildly sexy. But of course you show up when I’m carrying cantaloupes.”

  He dropped his head and his shoulders shook with quiet laughter. “My funny Lily,” he said, looking up and smiling warmly at her. He started removing the fruit from her arms one piece at a time.

  There was something in his eyes that Lily had never seen before. Lily felt a flood of familiarity from him and understood. This carriage—its furnishings, smells, and its small proportions—were second nature to him. Rowan’s apartment in the city was slick and luxurious. It showcased his impeccable taste and appreciation for beauty, but it wasn’t where his heart resided, and Lily’s world had been foreign to him in every way. Rowan had known since he first arrived there that he didn’t belong. But this little carriage with its homespun quilts and worn cushions was his home. He was surrounded by people he trusted and languages he had spoken as a child. He was safe, and it was okay for him to be his most vulnerable self.

  Lily’s arms were finally empty. Nothing stood between them. Rowan’s hands shook a little as he slid them under her robe.

  “This is the first time I’ve felt like I’m not going to lose you,” he said, barely touching her as he moved his hands over her body. “I don’t have to let you go.”

  “No,” Lily whispered.

  He kissed her like they were starting all over again. He didn’t assume he knew what she liked, or allow himself to get caught up in the moment and rush to the finish. He listened to the little sounds she made and paid attention to the pressure of her body against his, and when he did finally pick her up and carry her to the narrow bed, it was because she couldn’t stand on her shaky legs anymore.