Fire Lines

by Cara Thurlbourn

  The oldest of Tarynne’s Elders, a woman less youthful than Hitra but with a similar smoothness to her voice, thanks Ava and I. She has tears in her eyes as she grips our hands.

  “The girls made of stone,” she whispers. “Thank you. Thank you…”

  “Can you tell us what happened?” I ask.

  The woman shakes her head. “The first we knew of the trouble was when the elephants started calling. We didn’t see who started it. They didn’t come inside the pinnacle. It was the elephants they were trying to hurt.”

  “Maybe it was just a show of force,” says a man with a birthmark on his collarbone. “As in Abilene?”

  “No,” says Kole. “This was designed to hurt.”

  No one speaks, until Alyssa steps forward and says, “If this was Mahg, surely he wouldn’t stop at the elephants. It doesn’t make sense.”

  Garrett agrees. “And if there were others he was trying to hurt…” He glances around at me, Alyssa and the rest of our group. He means us. “Even if someone told him we’d passed through here, we were long gone. If he was hoping we’d return, wouldn’t he have waited in the shadows until we were here?”

  “Unless he wanted to draw us here,” I say, remembering how we chased the smoke. “Perhaps this is exactly what Mahg wanted us to do.”

  The woman bristles and pats at her crop of silver hair. “There’s not a living soul in Tarynne who would betray your visit. Not a single one.”

  Alyssa mutters, “Apart from Mahg’s mother…” Kole bangs his fist on the edge of the pool so hard that the ripples are almost waves, rounding on her.

  “Wait,” I whisper, and then, louder, “Wait!” Everyone stares at me. “His mother…?”

  Kole glares at me.

  “No,” I tell him. “Silvana, where is she? Has anyone checked on her? There’s only one reason Mahg would come here…”

  Kole is already rising to his feet. “… to get information from her.”

  “No, surely not…” stutters the woman with grey hair. But I can’t respond. I don’t have time. The weight in my stomach tells me she’s wrong.

  Twenty-One

  Silvana’s door chimes but doesn’t open when we press the symbol, so we are forced to go through Kole’s dwelling and out onto his veranda. Her archway is dark and silent. Kole pauses. I tell him I’ll go first and he doesn’t object.

  The living room is empty. In the kitchen, an empty mug sits alone in the basin. We pause at the entrance to Silvana’s bedroom, then I push open the door.

  Silvana is lying on the bed, her milky eyes staring at the ceiling. A sandal hangs from her right foot, suspended by a strap that has caught on her big toe. A chain of fingerprint-sized bruises circle her throat. She is not breathing.

  Wordlessly, Kole stands above her. He puts her shoe back on her foot and folds her arms across her chest. Something falls from her hands – the pendant with the cobalt blue amulet, the one that carried Søyen’s message. Kole picks it up and gives it to me. I shake my head but he says, “She would want you to have it.”

  Neither of us wants to leave her but Kole says he must tell the Elders what has happened. I return to his dwelling without him. Below, at the bathing pool, the cleansing ritual should be taking place but the plains are empty. Inside, Tsam is stalking up and down, chewing his bottom lip.

  “Silvana?” he asks as soon as he sees me.

  I shake my head. “Dead. Strangled.” There’s nothing more to be said.

  He lets out a sigh and sits down, hard, on the cushions by the fireplace. Ava makes a small mewing sound and Alyssa punches the wall in frustration. Only Garrett makes no sound. He lingers in the middle of the room, shaking his head.

  When Kole returns, he tells us Hitra is here, Sayah too. “They want to see you, Émi, and Ava.”

  “Now?” I ask, feeling so exhausted I don’t even know how I will stand upright.

  “In the morning. There will be a burial for the ones we lost. After that.”

  I don’t ask how many elephants are gone. I can’t. In fact, I can barely move. My limbs ache and there’s a throbbing in my temples, as if a chunk of me died with the flames I put out. Taking in my appearance, Tsam says we should all try to get some sleep. It’s been a long time since we last closed our eyes and our bodies are on the verge of collapse.

  Kole is the only one who doesn’t pretend to bed down. All through the night, I hear him pacing from the veranda to the kitchen to the living room. At first light, I wrap a blanket around my shoulders and find him down by the lake. He is tinged with sooty residue and an angry burn is emerging from his tattered vest, just below his collarbone.

  I sit down beside him and he starts to talk. “Without you, I could have lost Maya,” he murmurs. “We could have lost all of them. I owe you—”

  “Kole…” My hand hovers over his, not quite touching. “You don’t owe me anything.”

  “The burials will begin soon,” he whispers, shifting closer. The movement and the closeness of his hand make my skin prickle. I find myself wishing I could fold into him. But then I tell myself it is only because I’m exhausted and upset and I pull away.

  Back at Kole’s apartment, Tsam is waiting for us on the veranda. When he greets us, I feel as if he can see inside my thoughts and a clot of guilt lodges in my belly.

  Before we go inside, Tsam says, “I think you need to talk to Ava, she’s… Well, you’ll see.”

  In the living room, I do see. Ava is pacing up and down, pulling at her gloves as if she can’t get them to reach high enough up her arms and clutching her scarf so it covers her mouth and nose. I take a deep, calming breath. Her behaviour is starting to remind me of my mother and I know I don’t have a lot of patience for it.

  When I ask what’s happened, Garrett confesses. “I suggested she take off the gloves, change her scarf…” he says apologetically. In truth, I’d have done the same. They’re dirty and frayed, completely unnecessary now we are past the cold of the mountains.

  When Ava was beside me yesterday, teaching me, holding my hand, she was a different person – calm, knowledgeable, impressive. But now she is a child again, troubled and erratic. I don’t try to reason with her, just tell her Garrett is sorry and that she doesn’t have to remove her scarf or gloves if she doesn’t want to.

  She looks at me like a rabbit in a snare. “You promise, Émi?” she whispers. “You promise you won’t make me?”

  I glance around at the others, disturbed by her fear. Then I take hold of her shoulders. “I promise.”

  “Thank you,” she says, sighing. “Thank you…”

  After that, Ava changes her clothes but keeps her grubby accessories. I change too, and so do the others. Then we wait for the bell that will start the burials. Ava still can’t bring herself to look at Tsam and I’m standing self-consciously between them when Silvana’s pendant begins to glow. It hangs just beneath the necklace Nor gave me, heavier and colder, and I’m stroking it absent-mindedly when Ava gasps and points to my throat. The instant she does, the pendant becomes too hot to bear and I fumble to unclasp it. It is so hot that I drop it and, when it hits the ground, beams of brilliant white light spurt from its surface. I stagger back, holding on to Ava as a moving image is projected onto the wall in front of us.

  We are watching Silvana. She is in her room. She walks slowly backwards, retreating from something or someone. Her eyes are wide and her face is pale. When she bumps into the side of her bed, trapped, she holds out her arms.

  “My love,” she whispers. “It’s not too late to end this. You can stop. You can come home.”

  Despite years of imagining him for my posters, despite knowing he has feathers as black as coal and sharp burning eyes, when Mahg speaks my blood runs cold.

  “Mother…” he says, as though the word is an obscenity. Silvana does not waver. She stands still, keeping her arms outstretched as if she believes that at any moment, her son might fall into them and beg forgiveness.

  “Please…” she says.

/>   Mahg stops beside her, taller, sharper, harder. He laughs. The sound is guttural and hacking. He sits on the bed and pats the mattress, inviting his mother to sit beside him. Silvana does as he suggests and clasps her hands in her lap. They are trembling.

  For a fractured, quivering moment neither of them speaks. Then Mahg sighs and shakes his head. His hair is long, as slick as tar, pulled into a knot that stretches his skin tight over his jagged cheekbones.

  “I know you have been keeping something from me,” he says. “I know the Watchers didn’t divide the stone into four. I know there was a fifth piece, and I know what it became.”

  Silvana’s face remains impossibly still, her eyes fixed ahead.

  Mahg leans closer, so close to her ear that her hair shivers when he whispers.

  “I know Søyen told you where he took his girls.”

  Silvana turns to him and starts to protest but Mahg puts his long dirty fingers over her mouth. His nails are like talons. They scratch her cheek.

  “Ah, ah… I’m talking,” he scolds. “It was really very clever to send them to my islands – to hide them in plain sight. Risky, but clever. And I never would have known…”

  His islands? The Spectre must have told him Kole’s story… I look at Kole but his gaze is fixed on Mahg, his jaw set. I find myself praying that Silvana holds her nerve – that she doesn’t betray what she knows.

  “I’d like to tell you I figured it out on my own, but it was pure luck.” He laughs again. “They were in the orphanage, of all places! One of them escaped. But she has been captured and will soon be returned to me.” He pauses, and takes his hand away to rub at his chin. “I still need to weed out the other one though…”

  Silvana’s eyes dart across Mahg’s face. “Why?” she asks.

  Mahg doesn’t answer. He is enjoying telling his story. “My overseers are rounding up the orphans – just the girls. When the runaway is returned, I will use her to lure out her sister.”

  Trying to deter him now, Silvana says, “What if she won’t give herself up? What if she doesn’t reveal herself? Mahg, this will not—”

  Mahg suddenly stands and turns his back on Silvana. “If the second girl doesn’t reveal herself, I will extinguish them all. The sister, too. I’d prefer them to fight with me rather than defy me, but…”

  Silvana’s fingers are interlocked so tightly that her knuckles are turning white. She can no longer look at her son. She knows there is no runaway. No special orphan who will be tricked into confessing.

  “All the girls?” she whispers. “You’ll kill all…”

  Mahg turns back around. He is smiling but it hardens into a grimace. “That’s enough now, Mother. I’m not here to be pleaded with. I’m here to tie up my one remaining loose end. The very last thing that chains me to a life I want to forget.” He moves closer to her. “To a time when I was weak and undervalued…” His hands settle around his mother’s throat. Silvana closes her eyes. Her face reddens. She gasps for air and Mahg leans in. “There is just one more thing you should know,” he whispers. “My father’s death? It wasn’t an accident.”

  Silvana’s eyes spring open and she begins to struggle.

  “I cut off his wings. Thrust a blade into his heart. Watched him die…”

  She grabs at his fingers, trying to pry them from her neck but he towers over her, his hands tightening.

  “He thought he could save me, too. But he was wrong. You were both wrong. So sanctimonious, so naive. You didn’t believe I could be great. You didn’t nurture my talents.”

  Silvana is twitching. Her mouth gapes.

  “But I am great, Mother, and when I have the stone – all of it – I will rule The Four Cities. There will be fire and smoke! Abilene will fall! They will all fall!” Mahg is shouting now. He presses down on Silvana’s throat, and spreads his wings until the room is engulfed by his blackness.

  I look away. The sound of Silvana’s last choking breath seeps into my bones and I fold onto the floor. Ava places her hand on my shoulder. The others lower their gazes and stare at the ground. Kole has turned his back.

  “It’s over,” Ava whispers.

  When I look up, the wall has gone back to being a wall. Kole is so still that I can barely see him breathing.

  Alyssa flicks a finger across her cheek, wiping away a tear. “She was very brave.”

  “And clever,” says Ava. “She recorded the message for us, didn’t she?”

  Tsam nods. “Yes. So we can’t waste it.”

  “Waste what?” I ask, throbbing with a sickening mixture of anger and despair.

  “The opportunity,” he replies. “Mahg thinks you and Ava are on the Islands. So we know we can make it safely back to Abilene. We know we have time…”

  “Back to Abilene?” I say, looking from him to Alyssa.

  Tsam tenses his muscles. “Yes.”

  “But he’s going to kill those girls. There is no overseer, no runaway. No one to use as leverage, no one to come forward and reveal themselves. They’ll die – all of them – if we don’t help.”

  “It isn’t our place to help,” says Tsam.

  Ava helps me to my feet and slots her arm through mine.

  “But we have to,” she tells the others. Her words are thin and meek, as if she isn’t really sure whether she’s saying them out loud, but knowing she is on my side gives me strength.

  “We. Are. Not. Leaving them,” I hiss.

  “The Elders will help them,” says Alyssa. “If we tell them—”

  “Alyssa, don’t. Just don’t.” I turn back to Tsam, trying to soften my voice, to reason with him. “The Elders will say it’s too big a risk. They’ll leave those girls just like they left everyone in Nhatu to fester and die. You know they will, Tsam.”

  “I’m sorry, Émi. The answer is no.”

  I bring my face closer to his. “You don’t control me. You don’t tell me what I can and can’t do. I’m going, with or without your help.” We stare into each other’s faces, neither of us willing to back down.

  Finally, Garrett pulls at my shoulder. “Vote,” he says, “we should vote.”

  “Fine,” snarls Tsam, stepping back. “Those in favour of going to the Islands…”

  I raise my hand instantly, Ava is slower but once she has voted Garrett does too.

  “And in favour of going back to Abilene…”

  Tsam and Alyssa lift their arms. Kole stands in the archway, silhouetted against the brightening dawn sky. “It is my lie that led to this. No more lives can be lost because of it. I am going to the Islands.”

  Tsam lowers his hand, juts his wings out, and back, and out again.

  “Alright,” he says eventually. “We’ll go.”

  The first toll of the bell shifts us into motion. Tsam may have conceded, but he is certainly not a willing team member. It feels as though a chasm has opened up between us. I don’t know how to cross it or how to pull him back to my side, so I try to focus on what needs to be done. We have no supplies. Our packs were lost in the avalanche, so all we have are the things in our pockets or on our belts. But there is no time to plot, or plan or even study our map. Kole says we must slip away straight after the burials because Hitra and Sayah will try to stop us if they discover what we’re doing.

  So by the twelfth toll of the bell we are already descending the steps to the bathing pool.

  There are no graves – the deceased are laid out on the earth so that they can be kissed by the sun’s warmth and by the grass and the wind. Ten elephants, Silvana and… my breath falters… and Bael. Tiny, smiling Bael who tussled with Niri and called me ‘Miss’. He looks like a doll. It’s as though he’s playing a game. Surely at any moment, he’ll open his eyes and jump to his feet, laughing. But he doesn’t.

  As the elephants emerge from the caves and form a circle around their dead, I feel myself wavering. I sense Kole moving a little closer to my side, almost as though he knows. But then he leaves me. He walks to Silvana and kneels beside her. Niri folds himsel
f down beside Bael. Ten Taman join their ten absent friends, and someone starts to sing. It is not like the singing I’m used to hearing. It’s not joyful. It is like grief has been given a voice of its own. The solemn notes vibrate off the limestone walls, filling the sky and our hearts.

  Each body is washed. Gently, delicately. Kole strokes Silvana’s arms and face with a square of damp white fabric. When he’s finished, he rests it on her face. Niri is trying to do the same, but he’s struggling. He is too small, too uncoordinated, and Maya looks like she is breaking with sadness for him. Kole helps him, in the end. He takes the cloth from the elephant’s trunk and wipes Bael’s hands, feet and cheeks. The singing continues and I feel like I am fracturing at my edges. I’m not sure I can stand to be here a moment longer; it hurts too much.

  Then the ceremony ends. The Taman rise. Niri retreats to Maya’s side, and the elephants lift their trunks into the air. The singing reaches its crescendo then fades away. The silence it leaves behind feels louder than any song. We stand for a long time, some praying, some crying. Then the bell rings again and the crowd melts away.

  I find Hitra and Sayah. They are on the veranda with Tarynne’s Elders, waiting for us to bring Ava to them. Before they can see us, we disappear into the sea of Taman and Healers at the steps and, instead of ascending them, we go west, quickly, past the caves.

  We travel along the underside of the pinnacle under the cover of trees and shrubbery, heading north, away from Tarynne, away from Abilene. And towards Mahg.

  Twenty-Two

  We have stopped in a cluster of trees. There are still some hours left before sunset but we are exhausted and, with Tarynne and the Elders safely behind us, we agree to rest and get our bearings.

  I am arranging some kindling to make a fire when I hear a shout from Kole: “What are you doing?”

  I turn and see Maya lolloping towards us, swinging her trunk in Kole’s direction. He runs to her and strokes her just beneath her shoulder.