by Sarah Chorn
Of Honey and Wildfires
Copyright © 2020 by Sarah Chorn
All rights reserved.
Cover Illustrator: Pen Astridge
Edited By: Nathan Hall
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
Contents
Prologue
1. The Interview
2. Cassandra
3. Arlen Esco
4. Ianthe
5. Cassandra
6. Arlen Esco
7. Wanted - Outlaw
8. Ianthe
9. Cassandra
10. Arlen Esco
11. Ianthe
12. Cassandra
13. Arlen Esco
14. Ianthe
15. Cassandra
16. Arlen Esco
17. Ianthe
18. Cassandra
19. Arlen Esco
20. Ianthe
21. The Interview
22. Cassandra
23. Arlen Esco
24. Ianthe
25. Cassandra
26. Arlen Hobson
27. Ianthe
28. The Interview
29. Cassandra
30. Arlen Hobson
31. Ianthe
32. Cassandra
33. The Interview
34. Cassandra
35. Arlen Hobson
36. Ianthe
37. Cassandra
38. Arlen Hobson
39. Ianthe
40. The Interview
41. Cassandra
42. Arlen Hobson
43. Cassandra
44. Ianthe
45. Cassandra
Epilogue
Credits
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Also by Sarah Chorn
To Fiona and Cora,
Who have taught me how
messy, complex, and beautiful
love really is.
Just because you are soft does not mean you are not a force. Both honey and wildfire are the color gold.
- Victoria Erikson, Edge of Wonder: Notes on the Wildness of Being
Matthew Esco stood atop a hill, surveying his kingdom.
Well, it wasn't his kingdom yet, but it would be. Soon. Very soon. The sun was rising, painting the world in colors of indigo and violet. Beautiful. A flushed earth, so full of that liquid gold. That shine. It would make him richer than god. And it would help so many.
He was not here to bask in the new day, however. No, he was here to commit himself to a cause. This final act of his would secure his daughter's future, and all of her children, and their children after that. This shine. It was his legacy.
But to keep this find under his thumb, he had to do something horrible. Already other businessmen with big ideas were heading out here to claim this land as their own. Already, people were trying to chip away at what was his.
He refused to let that happen.
This last step was the hardest. It was so… final, and uncertain. Nothing more than an idea that he couldn't let go of. It was a risk, but it was worth taking.
His daughter would inherit it all. When she lived a life of luxury and security, untouchable and immovable, she would thank him for his sacrifice.
This was love, this burning. It was not as sweet as honey; rather, it was a wild thing. A tempest. A raging forest fire. It was hungry, and it demanded. For what would a father not do for his child?
The world was such a fickle thing, hard and merciless. He'd seen so many souls ground under the bootheel of Fate. So many promising lives changed in the blink of an eye. Unpredictable. Insecure. He didn't want that for his daughter. Didn't want her to be at the mercy of turbulent waters or the storms and winds that buffeted a person's days. No, he wanted her to have a safe harbor to call home, and the financial security to last generations. She would not be forgotten, overlooked, or overwhelmed. Not his daughter. He wouldn't allow it.
His mind flashed to his ex-wife, all those years ago. She'd left him, and their daughter Lila, with nothing but empty pockets and each other.
Matthew knew desperation. He knew fear.
It was his daughter's first, wracking cough when the winter chill hit. It was not having the money for a healer. It was not knowing if she would survive the cold months, to see the spring.
No. He wouldn't walk down that road. This moment was not about yesterday, but tomorrow. He refocused his mind on the present.
Lila. He loved her so much it hurt.
He would do anything for her.
Even if it hurt. Especially if it hurt.
The well was open at his feet. Open, with all that shine pooling down low in it, glistening like a rainbow. Like a promise. He shivered.
Shine does that which is in its nature, directed by the wishes and thoughts of its user. The more a person gives it, the more it does. So, he would give it everything he had.
Absolutely everything.
This was his last love letter to his daughter.
Resolve filled him up, hard as stone and just as unyielding. It was time. No more delays. No more memories. Action was required.
The knife was sharp as he drew it over his wrists, being sure to cut all the way down both arms. The bite was cold. Agony filled him up inside. Blood ran from the wounds like lava. Hot and potent. Full of life.
He fixed his thoughts on all the shine under his feet, in what would soon be his territory. No, Lila's territory. He thought of how it belonged to him, and his daughter, and then her children after her. Then, brought his focus to what really mattered: How desperately he longed to protect this place. It would be a little haven, both part of, and away from everything else.
Sanctuary.
All the shine held in the belly of this land, all the wealth that could be made from it, untapped and waiting. It would always, eternally, be hers. No one could ever take it from her. This place would be protected and held.
For her.
Always.
Fate, he loved her.
Legacy was such an odd word, full of long, stretching vowels and even longer consonants. It filled his mouth up like wine, heady and intoxicating, demanded to be savored.
His. Hers. Theirs. Forever.
The world was going gray around the edges, soft. He wished he could have seen her one last time. Wished he'd had the strength to tell her what he was about to do. She wouldn't understand. Not yet. Maybe in a few years, she would, but for now, she was too rebellious. Too headstrong. She would only see death, where all he saw was life.
His mind drifted and he pulled it back, locked it down tight. Thought of all that shine, pouring all his desire into this one pivotal moment. Shine. Protected land. Lila. Legacy.
He wasn't afraid.
That was a lie. He was terrified.
Blood. So much blood. He had no idea a body could hold this much. It was everywhere, spattering all over the ground, pouring into that well. All that ruby falling like rain from heaven to be swallowed by that hungry oil below. That promise with teeth, feeding on whatever he had left. Demanding it all, and he was giving it. Freely.
He fell to his knees beside the well. He could almost feel the heartbeat of the world under his feet, sluggish but there, a dull throb at the edges of his senses. His own heart was matching that rhythm. Synchronicity. It was agony and ecstasy. It was the pain of becoming something more. His last, exquisite birth.
He repeated his purpose in his mind. Shine. Protected land. Lila. Legacy.
The world was going dark.
Something happened… a sound, or a moti
on. Something that cut through the ocean-roar of his ebbing life and focused his attention. A boy somewhere off to the side, wide, dark eyes, brown hair already going violet from all that exposure to shine. The boy was watching. Watching Matthew Esco die.
He couldn't be here. He couldn't see this. He was a weakness he and Lila could not afford. He had to be dealt with.
There was no time.
He felt Fate step up beside him, felt its weighty hand on his back, pushing.
Falling, it turned out, felt a lot like flying.
The boy had seen people die. Of course, he had. A person didn't travel across the known world with nothing but a wagon train and hope without seeing death a time or two. He'd helped bury bodies. He'd lit the Fate fires beside each grave, and watched during the long night, hoping he wouldn't have to scare off wolves.
Yes, he knew death.
But he had never seen a man kill himself before. Not like this. Not with a knife so sharp, it looked like it could cut the world in half, nor with such cold, calculating intent. He'd never watched someone bleed out. Never watched their color go from healthy and hale, to gray and pallid, and then… gone.
And if that wasn't horrifying enough, now he was watching as a shape formed. Wispy and ephemeral at first, like a dream, something his eyes hinted at, but couldn't latch onto. He witnessed, cold with dread, as the shape became real and solid, and another man who looked exactly like the dead one took his place on the lip of that same well, feet planted in the hard earth, shoulders back, dark purpose carved into his every line.
Alive, but not. A man, but not.
The boy didn't understand. He didn't need to. Didn't need to know the details of what happened to know it was terrible. The wrongness was in the air all around him. It was a pressure, a chill, like a creeping sickness. Quiet, but no less dreadful for it.
He didn't know what to do. Didn't know how to understand what he saw. That man-not-man stood at the edge of the well, at all that shine now stained with blood, at the dead body, exactly like his own, that was likely floating in it. Staring down, unmoving, not even breathing.
Suddenly, all he could think about was being away from that place, from whoever he'd seen die, and whatever he'd seen born. Away and away. His heart beat like a drum, and his legs twitched. His foot snapped a twig, and the man-not-man looked up, fixed on him and…
The boy ran.
I am here to tell you my story. Here, in this small, lightless room. You want to open me up and examine my beating heart. You desire to know how I came to be what I am.
To understand the end, you must know the beginning. I will dissect myself for you. I will open my veins and I will bleed.
You likely find comfort in the fact that you have me contained. That I am here, waiting for my fate. You have made me out to be a monster. I ask, what is a monster if not a warning against the dark? I have done you a service. Perhaps you will recognize that, someday.
You have not yet realized this ending was inevitable. My path was set for me when I was five. This outcome is not a mistake. You made me.
We may not share blood, but I am your child all the same.
All I ask is that you spare Ianthe.
It is not her fault that I love her.
What I remember most about my father are his hands. Rough and calloused, scarred from a life spent in the mountains trapping and hunting, foraging for his next meal. His next day. I used to run my fingers over them, marveling at the stories that were written into his chapped flesh.
I will tell you this: Home is not a place. Home is an architecture of bones and a steadily thumping heart. Home is where dreams are born, and monsters are put to rest. It is where the soul can unfurl like the petals of a flower and find succor in the golden blush of each new day.
Home was my father’s arms. When I was in them, I knew nothing in the world could touch me.
In this memory, his hands are wrapped around the reins of a horse. He’s got me tucked up against his chest, and I listen to the thud-thud of his heart as the sun sets. Strands of his violet hair tickle my cheek. I wrap a bit of it around my fingers, entranced by the way it shimmers as though made of crystals, catching the light and reflecting rainbows.
He was as luminous as the moon, lighting the night of my life. I worshiped him.
That is what I remember of my home. His hands, the gentle sway of the horse, and his heart singing against my ear.
We were traveling toward the Boundary, though I didn’t know it then. I have a feeling we’d been wandering for a while, over vast, untamed distances, but I remember none of it. I just know that a moment before we crossed, Da wrapped his arms around me and whispered, “Hold tight, Cass. We’re going through now. You hold on. We’ll be okay.”
I was too young to hear the desperation in his words. Too naive to hear the worry. The Boundary loomed before us, keeping the shine in, and everyone else out.
I felt his muscles tensing. Coiling. Waiting. Anticipation hung on him like a shroud.
I remember what the Boundary looks like. A rainbow shimmer in the air that reached up to the sky until my eyes could no longer follow it. When we passed through it, I marveled at the shine on my hands, coating my body. I felt Da shiver behind me, a pained moan ripping through him.
I felt nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
The other side of the Boundary was much like the one we’d just left. Sagebrush, waist-high, scrubby trees, brown dirt, hard rocks, a dry riverbed, mountains in the distance and not much else. Not so much as a cabin or campfire in sight.
Da stopped his horse and slid off, before helping me down. He was pale, his body shaking. He had one hand clutched over his heart. “I hate that damn Boundary,” he said. “Never gets easier.” And that was all he spoke of it. He eyed me and then nodded. “You’ll do, Cass. Come help me set up camp.”
That was our first night within the Boundary. I helped gather wood while Da lit a fire. We ate a dinner of hardtack and stared at the moon until sleep claimed us. It was much like any of the other nights I’d endured recently. It was life, boiled down, and mine.
We had to travel for three days before we got to the first sign of civilization. Three days of quiet tension, of Da, grunting and muttering to himself. He did not seem happy, but then, I don’t think I ever remember him being truly happy. He was a quiet man at the best of times, even more prone to it when he was brooding, and I let him keep his peace, and I kept mine, watching the world pass us by. Watching my father’s hands on the reins of his horse, so steady and sure.
I marveled at myself and I marveled at the world around me. Everything seemed so much brighter, so much more alive. We were setting up camp and I was turning this way and that, watching the sun paint the world with all the colors of the rainbow, simmering just like my Da did. I must have made some small noise, for his voice broke through my reverie. “It’s brighter here,” he said, “because the shine is in your blood. It’s part of you, and so this land calls out to welcome you home.” His eyes were on me, full of sorrow.
We got to a small cabin late at night. Smoke rose from a stone chimney, blotting out the stars. Da got off his horse and let it have its head. It would stay close. The creature was as faithful as the sun. He took hold of my hand. I realized, for the first time, that my father was anxious. I had seen this expression on him once before, long ago. The pinched lips, the way he kept running his hand through his hair, a nervous twitch to all his movements. His voice was hard, but his gaze was soft when he said, “Cassandra, you behave yourself.”
I nodded.
We walked to the cabin and he rapped on the door.
“Who’s there?” A man shouted from inside.
“Chris,” Da replied with a grunt. “Come to see my sister.”
Shock tore through me. I had no idea Da had a family. I didn’t know he had a sister who lived in a cabin. I had no idea that he had people who weren’t born on the back of a mountain. People who weren’t wild, like us.
The do
or was flung open and a woman threw herself out of it, wrapping her arms around my da, sobbing against his shoulder. She had pale violet hair and skin, and bright eyes. It was impossible not to see their relation. Their shared blood was evident in their high cheekbones, slightly slanted eyes, and broad shoulders.
They held each other under the moonlight. Held on to each other and whispered. I felt awkward. Uncertain. Thrust into this strange world, I had no way to know what was expected of me, and so I stood and watched them whisper and cling to each other, silent and still as the night.
My gaze drifted, and I saw small heads peeking out from behind a concerned father in the doorway of the cabin, a boy and a girl, both a few years older than myself. I smiled at them, but they did not smile back. They edged away from me, as though I was sick, and they could catch it by looking too long.
“And who is this?” Annie finally asked, pulling away from Da and eyeing me.
“My daughter,” Da replied, coughing. “Cassandra.”
“Daughter,” Annie said, turning the full weight of her regard on me.
I realized then that I was an outsider being thrust inside. I was something that did not fit. I did not wear a dress, rather some buckskin pants and a tunic my father had bartered off some other mountain man. On my feet, I wore soft slippers of animal skin. I was not neatly combed, my clothes were torn and stained by mud and offal both. Likely, I stank.