Stormfire

by Jasmine Young

  “You’re going to steal Papá’s deathofferings?” The smile vanished from Hilaris’s face. “Aren’t you decent?”

  Hida’s gray eyes misted. “Jaime, there must be another way.”

  Stealing deathofferings was a giant offense to their god, Lord Jaypes. But Jaime stopped believing in the gods a long time ago.

  Deathofferings usually took the form of coins. If they were going to play mountain shepherds out in the wild, they would have a better chance of survival if they could at least barter for food with money.

  Jaime stuffed his hands back into his pockets.

  “There is no other way. Don’t you ever leave the high halls of your villa? If we go into those mountains without supplies—” Jaime nodded at the door, “you might as well just let them burn you.”

  “We can’t take that risk.” Hilaris relit the incense. Its myrrh-like odor choked Jaime’s nostrils. “The Archpriestess has soldiers watching every patio to make sure we aren’t kneeling in prayer to Lord Jaypes. And you want to try to get past her barricade?”

  “You’re unbelievable.”

  Hida Pappas left Hilaris’s side of the room and took Jaime’s hands. Her fingertips were rough as barley husks, but so warm. Somehow, even on this frigid mountain, always warm.

  “My son,” she whispered, “let the winds lead you.”

  It was an old saying from another time, another life, when she lived the glorious days of Old Jaypes. Their country house used to be filled with her songs, memories of Jaypan aphorisms and hymns and folk stories of heroes embarking on odysseys. In recent years, as the stormclouds outside grew darker, she stopped talking about Old Jaypes altogether.

  Let the winds lead you.

  Thickly, he recited back, “I shall find my feet.”

  The storm swirling in his insides quelled. In its place, hundreds of tiny hearts pumped all over his body—in his temples, in his lungs, in his ears.

  For her. I’ll work with Hilaris for her.

  Jaime kissed her pallid cheekbone.

  “I’ll be quick, Mamá.”

  He walked past Hilaris and stopped in the doorway. After a pause, he glanced at his brother.

  “Come on, Lord Hilaris.”

  At this angle, the lamps limned his brother like he was alight. A single tear glistened down his speckled cheek.

  They faced each other, two shades of light under the same flame. It dawned on Jaime that it didn’t matter if Hilaris knew how to read, and orate, and fight with a spear.

  This was his big brother. His brother was back.

  Jaime let go of his breather and forced his hand out of his pocket.

  After a pause, Hilaris took it. Squeezed tightly. The last time they shook like that was another lifetime ago, in the shadows of a stick fort they built together in the Prytaneoin.

  “Okay, Jaime,” his brother smiled. “Let’s go.”

  Chapter Two

  Another surprise hid inside their stable, where Sokrates, their old donkey, snored.

  Hilaris led the courser out by the reins. It was a magnificent gelding with a dappled coat as dark as Hilaris’s hair.

  Jaime’s mouth dropped. “You have a horse?”

  Horses were walking regalia of wealth and power. Most officers of the Free Guard didn’t even own them.

  But of course Hilaris would. What didn’t his brother have?

  Jaime had never ridden one before. His head didn’t even reach the courser’s shoulder—Hilaris had to haul him up into the saddle. With one kick, his brother sent them flying across the daisy fields. Beneath the shadows of dusk, every sway of the knee-high foliage looked like brandishing spears.

  The barrows were east of the double gate leading up to the akropolis, and overlooking a sheer cliff, which would force them dangerously close to the barracks. Like the rest of Townfold, the curtain walls here were patchy at best. As they drew near the town prison, sickness rose up Jaime’s throat.

  Orange blossoms glowed across the stadium grounds. Once, they hosted great chariot races. He’d heard the rumors, but he’d been careful to avoid this side of town.

  Now he saw the truth with his own eyes:

  A pile of human ears spilled over the sand. Countless pairs. Fresh blood seeped over severed skin.

  “Sweet gods.” Hilaris slowed to a halt.

  Jaime’s breathing grew rapid.

  No, no, no—

  Before the King’s invasion, torture didn’t even exist in his Kingdom. But vising merchants whispered gruesome stories of the things the Western Kingdoms did to their enemies. The King himself hailed from that bloody side of the world.

  Murderer. King of Genocide.

  This was done under his orders.

  But why?

  Crimson banners fluttered by a notice board the soldiers nailed up. Jaime squeezed his brother’s waist for balance. “What does it say?”

  “I’ll tell you later, when we—”

  “What does it say?”

  Hilaris paused. “It’s punishment for heresy. They were caught worshipping Lord Jaypes—”

  “Gods.” He coughed down his nausea. “Gods. I hope Mamá put away her incense. I told her to stop lighting it.”

  “I don’t know that she ever will.”

  Hilaris spurred his courser forward again. Thunder rumbled in the distance. Jaime grinded his teeth.

  “What did Lord Gaiyus teach you about the King? Why does he hate us so much?”

  “Jaime, they were worshipping the God of Air. The King is a Fire Sage. They were foolish—”

  “A Fire Sage . . . ”

  “Yes, Sages can control one of the four elements: air, water, fire, earth. They’re known for their currents, streams of elemental energy that can crush an entire lochos.”

  Jaime glowered. “I know what a Sage is. Just because I can’t read, doesn’t mean I’m stupid.”

  “The King is a rogue Sage from Kaippon,” Hilaris continued. “The Kingdom of Fire. We’re Jaypes. The Kingdom of Air—”

  “I know, okay?”

  “Which makes it illegal for him to rule over us—only an Air Sage can rule the Air Kingdom. A Fire Sage can only rule the Fire Kingdom, and so on. It’s a holy law the gods declared two thousand years ago.”

  That he didn’t know. But he wouldn’t admit it.

  “To your first question,” Hilaris orated on, “that’s why the King hates us. We remind him he’s sacrilegious carrion, and he cuts out our tongues. Or noses, I suppose now.”

  “He’ll cut out yours if you don’t learn how to stop talking.”

  “The word you’re looking for is ‘pontificating.’ Although I’m only trying to educate you.”

  “Seriously, how many books did Lord Gaiyus stuff into your head?”

  Hilaris laughed. Jaime grinned weakly.

  What a mess.

  The Alairans never bothered to hide their worship—at least, not until today. Before today, the mountainfolk would burn whole firepits of incense in their ancestors’ temples, carve prayers on laurel trees, watch bulls get slaughtered in festivals hosted at the old pantheon below the akropolis. It wasn’t that they were defiant. They just didn’t know any better. A royal lochos hadn’t stepped foot in these fringes for twelve years, and everyone—Jaime included—forgot the King even existed.

  Hida used to pester Jaime to pray in the pantheon, but he always refused.

  “If Lord Jaypes is real,” he challenged, “how come he let a foreign King conquer us?”

  How come he lets the King mutilate us, Mamá?

  As they rode, Jaime’s fear crept up his neck. The torches were blinding against the stormy sky. Daylight was officially over. They had maybe five minutes left before The Burning was called.

  It would take at least ten to get to the barrows and back.

  From here,
the barrows appeared: a dirt path winded up the base of the mountain. They nearly were free from the gorge when a voice rang out behind them.

  “Is that Jaime? And Hilaris?”

  Fear burst in his chest. His brother stiffened.

  They pulled to a halt.

  A young Jaypan waved at them outside the barracks, where a dozen little kids gathered around a brazier. A spear twice Jaime’s height leaned casually by the seething coals—the kind of spear soldiers used to skewer boys of age.

  “Nides,” his brother said quietly.

  Nides Doupolous had volunteered to join the King’s royal lochoi a handful of years ago. That man alone had seen more worldly things than all the elders combined. Most kids thought he was a hero.

  The elders called him a filthy traitor behind his back.

  Nides cupped his mouth. “My two favorite Pappases in the world! And one of them Lord Gaiyus’s favorite, from what I hear! How is that sulky old man?”

  The hairs on Jaime’s arms stood straight up.

  Does Nides know Hilaris is the one they’re looking for?

  Hilaris returned a stilted smile.

  Nides’s cuirass jangled as he waved a hand. “I was just telling the kids my best war story yet. Come, join us!”

  Jaime glanced in the direction of Champion’s Square, obscured by hundreds of thatched houses.

  A live burning hadn’t happened on Mount Alairus since Jaime lived—and here Nides was telling one of his war stories?

  Was this a joke?

  He has to know the truth. He came marching here with the Archpriestess. Maybe he also knows we’re trying to run.

  But resisting Nides would be even worse than refusing to stay. If they said no to him, he would demand to know why. Or he would show offense. And then not even a banestorm could stop Nides from calling the soldiers on them.

  “Let’s stay for his story,” Jaime whispered. “We don’t have a choice.”

  Hilaris’s lip pursed, but he reined his courser around. Jaime’s shoulders knotted together. They were riding in the opposite direction of the mountain path, away from the barrows. Time was flickering out. Any moment now, the soldiers would seize Hilaris and chain Jaime and his mother to the pyre.

  “Good man.” Nides smiled as Jaime dismounted and joined the back of the crowd. “So I was just telling everyone about the time my battalion marched with the King’s vanguard.”

  Drory, the six-year-old with the cowlicks, crossed his arms. “Story, story, just tell it already!”

  “And I saw the King raise fire.”

  Gasps.

  Jaime raised a skeptical brow. “You saw the King draw a fire current?”

  “I was there the day he burned Thessalona City to the ground.”

  The excited whispers of the other children fell mute.

  “Impossible.” Hilaris spoke with practiced calm. “No one can burn down a City-State, not even a Sage.”

  Nides just laughed.

  “No, no, I heard about it,” Drory whispered. “My daddy said it was a rebel, uh, stronghold.”

  “The King is what the epics say he is,” Nides said. His beady eyes fixed on Hilaris. “It only took one current. Before he raised it, a man could feel it in the air. A deep, bone-chill cold stirred in our hearts. It felt as if the whole earth was moving, coming alive with energy enough to make the skies collapse. We swore it would be the end of the world that night. And then . . . ”

  “And then?” Drory gasped.

  The light of the coals tossed Nides’s face into angular shadows. A chill ran down Jaime’s spine.

  “Then a sheet of fire rose from his body. Four gods, it was massive: a tunnel of great light split the clouds open, tens of times higher than the city gates. The men believed he had opened a doorway between our world and the gods’. The King rode a league away from the rest of the lochos, but even at a distance, the scorching heat cooked us inside our corselets. And when he released it . . . ”

  The crowd went dead silent. Nausea liquified Jaime’s insides.

  “Thessalona bled inside flames. One thousand feet in height, and half a mile wide—puff!” The children gasped. “Gone. One hundred thousand lives dead. You could even hear the screams of rebels and their families.”

  That’s why the elders said Sages can’t be defeated. Holy skies. Forget the royal lochos. How does Hilaris think we can escape the King?

  “Cool,” Drory whispered.

  Nides laughed. Just as he was opening his mouth, a snowy horse and a shortspear tore through the firelight. The children screamed. Hilaris yanked Jaime out of the way.

  “Have you no decency?”

  Julias Markus, Commander of the Alairan Free Guard, towered over them.

  Jaime went still.

  He was just over five and a half feet, but he marched as if the Kingdom’s stormwinds billowed at his heels. The earthy smell of myrrh clung to his flesh. The few reckless Alairans who still dared burn incense did it with their windows sealed shut. But Jaime heard from village murmurs that the Commander had positioned his incense holder on an open windowsill. Kept a stick burning the entire time the lochos marched the streets.

  Nides greased on a smile. “Please explain, Commander. Why is telling tales indecent?”

  “Making merry on the eve of a burning is, boy!” Julias snapped. “And what tales are these, that you teach our children to revere fire? Where are your loyalties?”

  The children were quickly dispersing. Hilaris tried to leave with them, but Jaime grabbed his chiton and nodded at the soldiers watching the scene from the barracks.

  Nides glanced at the spear pointed at his chest, then back up at the Commander. “I’m stunned by your bluntness, old pappos. Are you saying you oppose the King?”

  “Watch yourself.”

  Nides reached for his sword-hilt. “Is that how you address a commissioned soldier of the royal lochos? You, a foreman of peasant militia—”

  The older man backhanded him.

  Jaime’s jaw dropped.

  Nides fell onto his elbows, one hand holding his bleeding lip in shock. “I’ll tell the Archpriestess!” he squealed.

  “Pray, tell her.”

  The soldiers were rushing over in a wave now. Blazing in the light of the brazier, Commander Julias glanced back at Jaime.

  The lump in his throat grew. Julias Markus wore his dark hair parted in half, cut to his shoulders, with a short beard that stopped at his larynx. Jaime couldn’t for the life of him grow a beard, but he tried multiple times to grow out his hair the same way. Discreetly, he even tried to braid a few strands—Julias’s braids made him look kingly, gritty—until Peri laughed at Jaime for looking ridiculous. In his fantasies, Commander Julias would adopt Jaime the way Lord Gaiyus did his brother.

  He’s staring at me, not Hilaris.

  For some reason, he knew this was important.

  “Jaime,” the Commander murmured, “get your mother to the Sky Pass. Quickly.”

  He nodded, thrill sparking through his body. Suddenly, it felt like wings were attached to his heels. He waved at his older brother to follow. While the soldiers surrounded the Commander, they remounted and dashed away in the direction of the barrows.

  A lonely switchback led them into the northeastern wild. Kingpines towered above them, smelling of mint. Jaime breathed them in deeply. Some of his adrenaline eased. Out here, the snow-capped peaks in the distance looked like the silver thrones of kings.

  The sky flashed.

  “Storm’s coming,” Hilaris said.

  Jaime glanced back at him, queasy. “A storm’s always coming.”

  They ascended higher, sailing over curtains of golden broom. Wild rams pranced out of their way. He peered over the mountainside, its scruffy surface aslant from this angle. To the west of Townfold Village, the Estos River vanished into a
waterfall just beyond the main gate.

  It seemed like an eternity had passed before they reached the escarpment overlooking the barracks. Countless barrows speckled the hard soil, stretching all the way up the basaltic shelves and into the marbled skies.

  “Over here!”

  Hilaris knelt before a gravestone. He read the etching aloud:

  Hektor Pappas, 1936-1983 E.T.

  His brother’s face fell somber. Although he’d never met Hektor, Jaime squeezed Hilaris’s wrist for comfort.

  Hida said she found Jaime at the foothills, unfurled in a brush of lettuce weed. Hektor had died in the war just one month earlier. Despite barely being able to feed herself, she took Jaime in as her own.

  Since that day, whenever he asked who his blood-father might be, Hida skirted the question.

  Jaime was certain it was Commander Julias.

  So many things pointed to it—how the Commander always overpaid for Hida’s shabby textiles. All the times he snuck her food, money, and supplies with his payments. The way his stone-gray eyes would land on Jaime’s, and stay there, every time they passed each other. And the resemblance. They bore the same square face, long nose, thick bed of wavy hair, even the same egg-shaped hairline.

  “You remind me of someone I used to know,” Julias told him years ago.

  “Who?” Jaime whispered.

  But the Commander wouldn’t say. Aside from tonight, it was the only time they ever exchanged words.

  “Move out of the way, I’ll do it,” Jaime told his brother.

  Although the coffin would be several feet under the earth, deathofferings were placed inside the headstones. Jaime lifted the top open. Hilaris hesitated, then helped him.

  His fingers scratched something hard. Jaime hauled it up and pried the lidded vase open.

  Two pouches sagged with coin.

  Hilaris was religious and refused to touch it, so Jaime wrapped them up in his himation. He was about to close the three-legged vase when Hilaris gripped his arm and pointed at its bottom.

  Dappled stormlight passed over another object, round as a coin, and the size of his closed fist. It was nearly invisible in the dark.