Trail of Flames

by Marlow York

  Cypress gasped and when I looked up, Anza glared at me from above.

  “So, you are the reason the City attacked my village.” Her voice was icy with hatred. “The reason both my parents are dead.”

  I had no words to explain myself. “Yes,” I said quietly.

  Her face darkened like a raging storm. If Mjoll hadn’t skidded to a stop beside her, Anza probably would have drawn her sword.

  “It’s all your fault!” she screamed. She ripped the cloths from her neck and hair and threw them at me. “It’s your fault my parents are dead, that half of my people are dead! It is your fault I do not have a home anymore!”

  “I know,” I whispered.

  “Valieri, should I stop her?” Saven hissed worriedly.

  “No,” I told him.

  Anza dropped to her knees and clutched the front of my shirt. She punched my cheek once, twice. Cypress grabbed her under the arms and pulled her off while she shouted at me in Grakkir until my ears rang with harsh words. She reaffirmed all the things I’d told myself since the Fiero village had been destroyed. I was worthless, a piece of garbage, and it was my fault that hundreds of people were dead and two clans were thrown to the wind, their fates and futures as uncertain as my own.

  “I hate you! I hate you, you stupid Fiero! I-I…I hate…” To my surprise, Anza’s face crumpled into tears. Cypress released her, and she fell onto her back beside me, sobbing like a child.

  No, not like a child. Like a young woman who had lost her home and everyone she considered family.

  My left eye was almost swollen shut, so I turned my head to look at her with my right eye. She covered her face with one hand. Her other lay limply on the ground beside her.

  “I know,” I murmured. “I hate myself too.”

  A single tear slipped from my eye and dripped painfully down the side of my bruised cheek. Anza sniffled and looked at me, and for the first time she did not glare at me with arrogance. She looked like the person she really was behind that angry façade: someone who had lost almost everything and had not given herself time to mourn. I cried freely, but quietly. We stayed like that for a long time while Saven, Mjoll, and Cypress silently watched over us with concern. They all understood we needed a moment to cry.

  Anza’s hand grasped my wrist. “I hate you,” she whispered, but not with the same conviction she’d had a few minutes ago.

  “Okay,” I said.

  Chapter 11

  Here.” Cypress knelt beside me with a handkerchief.

  I took a deep breath and gently wiped away my tears. My face throbbed and the gash I received from the spiders dripped fresh blood, dying the white cloth. Mjoll’s head rested on Anza’s shoulder, and she held the beast for comfort.

  “We need to keep moving.” Cypress rose, offering his hand to me.

  Without a word, Anza and I stood and brushed ourselves off. I wondered if the others would chide us for our ridiculous behavior, stopping our journey for a fight and a cry. Fortunately, no one said anything. We all silently agreed to act as though the moment hadn’t happened.

  “Are you okay?” Saven hovered over me.

  “Yes.” I noticed Anza speaking to Mjoll with her back to me.

  “Let’s keep heading east,” Cypress said.

  No sooner had the words left his mouth when Anza and Mjoll turned in the opposite direction. “Where are you going?” I asked.

  “Elsewhere,” Anza said shortly.

  “We should stick together,” Cypress said. “Those soldiers could come looking for us.”

  Anza scoffed. “I’m not afraid of a small group of soldiers on patrol.”

  “You should be; we’re the ones they’re patrolling for,” Saven added.

  “Anza, there’s strength in numbers,” I said quietly. “It isn’t safe—”

  “Anyplace where you go isn’t safe!” Anza snapped, whirling around to face me. “I’m better off leaving you behind. I will take care of myself and fight any soldier who gets in my way.”

  I clenched my jaw. Her words stung, but she was too stubborn to hear reason. Much as I wanted to make amends, I couldn’t do it with Anza’s accusing eyes reminding me of all my wrongdoings. “Fine,” I said. “Go your own way.”

  She readjusted the bag and sword upon her back, storming in the opposite direction.

  As she disappeared into the forest, Saven looked at me. “I think she is making a big mistake.”

  “We can’t make her stay and I’m the last person she wants to be around.” I shook my head, adjusting my dirt-smeared shirt. “It isn’t our problem anymore.” Without looking at anyone, I shouldered my bag and turned east.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  It was one thing to know I had caused the destruction of two villages; it was another thing for everyone else to know. My cheek swelled and throbbed with pain, a reminder of everything I deserved to be punished for. Cypress guided our silent group while I fell a few paces behind. Saven kept watch over me, but I dismissed his attempts at reassuring conversation. Instead, I focused on memories of Jenassa’s face. Even if the rest of the world succumbed to the City’s rule, as long as I believed she was alive and safe, I could die happy.

  That night I took first watch again; anything to avoid the nightmares for just a little longer. Saven lay beside me, silent yet attentive, until he eventually drifted off to sleep. I stroked his bumpy scales, trying to ground myself to reality before guilt swallowed me whole.

  Find Jenassa, overthrow the City. Then I can disappear so I won’t hurt anyone anymore.

  Footsteps approached, and I knew Cypress was standing behind me. “If you’re here to make me feel better, you’re wasting your time.”

  He sighed. “Can I sit?”

  “I don’t know. Can you?”

  He snorted and lowered himself to the ground. “I didn’t take you for one to care so much about proper grammar.”

  “I don’t,” I said. “Juliano, my teacher, he was pretty strict about it.”

  I touched the cold metal dagger that once belonged to him. I hadn’t thought about Juliano in a long time, not until I mentioned him to Darvin and Glenna. He’d taught the Fiero children for years, yet my strongest memory would always be his half-burned face begging me to kill him before the City found him.

  “Do you think sins can be forgiven?” I stared at the night sky.

  “I thought the Fiero weren’t religious?” Cypress asked genuinely.

  “We were taught not to be, but knowing that gods exist and there is supposedly some other place we go when we die…” I looked down at my hands. “It makes a person start to wonder.”

  “I don’t think the gods care much about individual sins,” Cypress mused. He slid his hands along the cool grass, as he often did. “The thing about plants is they make you really focus on the here and now. The way you take care of a garden determines what it will look like in a few months, and that’s what you really need to worry about. The big picture. A mistake made today could cost you a plant tomorrow.”

  “What are you saying?” I looked at him.

  “I guess what I’m trying to say is, make the good things count for more than the bad.” He met my eyes. “You can’t change what you are or how others react to it, but you can do everything in your power to make the world a better place. Focus on that.”

  I felt my chin quiver and swallowed to hide it. “Why are you so nice to me?”

  He grinned. “It must be the Secara in me. We know when something deserves a little extra care.”

  I was close enough to see the intricacies of his forest eyes, including their light green flecks. Though I hadn’t seen myself in a mirror for a while, I knew my hazel eyes had tiny specks of red in them. Someone who didn’t know better would think nothing of it, but these were the surest sign of our hidden powers begging to show themselves. Likewise, the energy that hummed between us was something only others with Ancient Blood would pick up on. But this time it was different—stronger, something I hadn’t felt in a long time. Or p
erhaps something I had never truly felt before. I could tell by the way Cypress stared back that he felt something too.

  Cypress brushed a stray hair from my face, careful not to aggravate my bruise. His hand radiated energy in a way that overwhelmed me. I leaned closer, seeing so much within those eyes. Warmth pulsed through me as my heartbeat quickened. I felt his closeness, his care for me so real I wondered if it were tangible.

  Our noses met and I shivered but did not wish to pull away. My skin tingled as I felt him in a way I had never felt a man before. His nose moved and ever so gently our lips met.

  Saven shifted beside me, startling both of us. I jerked back, ripping a clump of grass with my hand. Saven looked from one guilty face to the other, though I wasn’t entirely sure what I was supposed to feel guilty about.

  “You should get some sleep,” he told me. “I’ll keep watch now.”

  He stared at Cypress and hissed slowly.

  Cypress took the hint and stood up, holding in a laugh. “I’m going to lie down. Over there.” He pointed to the other end of the campsite, looking at Saven when he spoke.

  I sniggered while Saven glowered at me. “Don’t look at me like that,” I told him.

  He shook his head and stared into the distance, listening and tasting the air for signs of danger.

  I lay in the grass with my arm as a pillow. My first kiss. I smiled and touched my finger to my lips, as though I couldn’t believe it happened. For a moment, I forgot about everything else and sleep quickly overcame me.

  I’d barely slipped into slumber when Saven hissed sharply. I bolted upright. “What, what is it?”

  Saven raised himself up tall and flicked his tongue. “It’s Mjoll.”

  Moments later, I heard the thumping of heavy paws. Bushes rustled and the mountain lion burst into the clearing, startling Cypress awake. “What’s going on?”

  Mjoll panted heavily and blood darkened her paws.

  “What happened?” I asked. “Where is Anza?”

  The goddess looked up at Saven, growling and grunting through her gasps. “An ambush,” Saven said. “Anza was poking around where she shouldn’t have and was taken captive.”

  Despite my distaste for Anza, my stomach clenched with surprise and worry. “Was she taken back to the City?”

  Mjoll shook her head.

  “She’s being held in a soldier encampment a few miles from here,” Saven translated. “It was too heavily guarded for Mjoll to break through their defenses. She had no choice but to run.”

  Mjoll growled, showing her teeth. I couldn’t get into her head like Anza, nor did I understand her words like Saven, but I imagined how guilty she must have felt to leave her companion behind. “I’m sure you did what you could. If it’s as heavily guarded as you say, then you were right to seek help.”

  The mountain lion’s ears flicked backward and she hung her head in disgrace, but she didn’t growl.

  “So, we’re going on a rescue mission?” Cypress said.

  “One that wouldn’t have been necessary if someone had listened to us,” Saven added bitterly.

  I sighed slowly. Whether this was out of guilt, repentance, or because I felt comradery for Anza, I knew we had to save her. “Yes. Everyone, prepare for a fight.”

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Cypress pressed his hand to a tall maple tree and closed his eyes. He concentrated, tilting his head to the side. “He says there’s about a dozen men,” he murmured. “Just beyond the next hill.”

  “I smell a campfire,” Saven observed. “Perhaps they aren’t concerned with being hunted.”

  Mjoll growled softly.

  “At least five of them are injured,” Saven translated.

  “So that’s five injured men and seven able-bodied soldiers,” I calculated. “Were they wearing black armor?”

  Mjoll shook her head.

  I remembered the metal armor worn by the men who came to Edgewood. “Strange. Perhaps they reserve their precious armor for special occasions,” I said sarcastically.

  Cypress and Saven both glanced at me, surprised by my dark humor. “It might give us an advantage,” Cypress added.

  “We’ll need to be sneaky, but quick,” I said. “Even with gods at our side we’re still outnumbered, and we have no idea what sort of weapons they have.”

  “Sticks and lightning,” Cypress said.

  I shot him a quizzical look.

  “That’s what the trees said. The men carry sticks and lightning.”

  I thought about the guards who used to patrol the Fiero village. “Batons and clubs, perhaps?”

  “I think it’s best if we don’t find out,” Saven said.

  I nodded. “We’ll plan our own ambush.”

  We needed to get to the campsite undetected, which could prove difficult. No one wanted to separate the group, but together we moved too loudly, and there were too few of us to race into the site for a sudden attack. Even if we could, anything that raised attention could find its way back to the City. Subtlety was our best strategy.

  I crept up the small knoll from my side and peered through the thick branches obscuring my view. Several men surrounded the fire, while the injured must have been inside canvas tents. A few stood along the outskirts, eyes searching the darkness for someone like me. I couldn’t see Anza anywhere, so I assumed she was inside a tent as well.

  Something growled within the forest, opposite the campsite from me. A high, raspy scream startled several of the men below, and even though I expected the bobcat’s call, I twitched in alarm.

  “What is that?” someone said.

  “Sounds like a wild cat,” another man said.

  The scream rose from the forest again, this time closer and to the left of me. Mjoll’s second bobcat ally had moved into position.

  “You think it’s going to come into the campsite?” the first man asked.

  “Probably not.”

  A low growl responded.

  A few men nervously touched the batons at their sides. I felt pinpricks of energy to my right. Though I couldn’t see the snakes, I knew they were slipping along the shadows into the campsite. Their targets were the injured men in tents, but anyone else who was distracted by the bobcat could become a victim to their venom if they got too close.

  The next bobcat scream was closer, and soon echoed by a second. More men turned to the forest.

  “Do bobcats hunt humans?” someone asked.

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Maybe they aren’t bobcats.”

  “That big mountain lion is still out there.”

  “It’s too wounded to come back.”

  Several voices muttered nervously, not so sure about that.

  “For the love of—” A decorated soldier stood up and pointed to three men. “You three go check it out. Kill the bobcats quickly and get back here. We don’t have time for nonsense when we have patrols in the morning.”

  The men raised their batons and disappeared into the trees. As their footsteps faded away, I noticed the snakes slipping out of the tents. It was unlikely anyone was aware the injured men were slowly dying while the rest of them worried about bobcats.

  “Saven, can you find Anza’s scent?”

  Though I couldn’t see him, Saven’s energy rose from somewhere behind the tents. “She’s in one of these, but I can’t figure out which one. Too many scents are blending together.”

  An earth-shaking growl echoed through the forest, followed by several screams. Everyone bolted upright.

  “It’s the lion!” someone cried.

  “Kill it!” the commander shouted.

  The men raised their batons, only to watch them shoot backward into the forest. They were too distracted to notice the roots entangling their weapons until it was too late.

  Mjoll rushed out of the trees, her mouth stained with blood. She leapt on the nearest soldier, grabbing his neck and breaking it in one swift motion. I hurried into the firelight and slammed my axe into a man’s shoulder. Their armor was
nowhere near as strong or sophisticated as the black armor, so I easily found weak spots. Blood poured from his arm and he was defenseless without his baton. An easy kill that I took no pleasure in committing, but the time for regret was long past.

  Someone grabbed me from behind and lifted me off the ground. I fell onto the hard dirt and quickly rolled out of the way before a heavy boot could come down on my head. I jumped to my feet and noticed Saven looming over my assailant, who still had his baton. I lifted my chin. “Better watch it.”

  His brow twitched with confusion until he followed my gaze. He hardly had time to scream as Saven grabbed him around the middle, easily piercing the metal armor with his fangs. I had neither the time nor the desire to watch. Instead, I hurried into the nearest tent in search of Anza.

  I opened the flap and saw only a dead man on a cot, his ankle bleeding through two small puncture holes. I closed the flap and moved to the next tent.

  A man roared as I opened the flap and kicked me right in the stomach. I fell onto my back, the wind knocked out of my lungs. I gasped feebly and reached for my axe, which had fallen to the ground a few feet away. The soldier stood over me, his leg poised to strike again. At the last moment, a tree root ripped from the ground and wrapped around his neck, pulling him straight up into the air. His legs flailed and he choked for air while the root squeezed harder.

  Cypress rushed to my side and helped me stand. My stomach ached where I’d been kicked, and I struggled to catch my breath.

  “Are you okay?” His eyes searched mine.

  I could only nod. I gestured to the next tent and hobbled towards it. The entire campsite was filled with the energy of a bee swarm as the men attempted to fight off the two gods. With no weapons and only human strength their numbers gave them no advantage over Mjoll and Saven.

  When I opened the next tent, my heart lifted at the sight of Anza—alive but bloodied, bound, and gagged—then fell just as quickly when I saw the leader of the group holding a knife to her throat.

  His forehead was bleeding, but the man still grinned. “The City will pay a heavy reward for the three of you.”