Hillerod’s matron was binding up the wounded soldiers outside the house, but Sol had taken Kelan inside to heal him. She hadn’t wanted her neighbors to see.
The hunter leaned against the wall, one hand on the knife at his belt. “I followed you all the way from Olisipo, and someone in Vodskov told me you had passed through.”
Sol scowled. “Johan?”
“No. Johan and Anna wouldn’t tell me anything. There was another hunter at the inn who thought he had seen Elo’s daughter.” The hunter swore under his breath. “Jahr told me you had been kidnapped, but I should’ve known no Flameskin could take you. There would’ve been signs of distress if you wanted to be found. Ashes. I should’ve just let you disappear. I lost your trail after Vodskov and then we came straight here. Jahr convinced me that your Flameskin was coming to Hillerod to burn it down. We came through Odslov’s Pass and only beat you by a couple days.”
Sol finished sealing Kelan’s cut and handed him his manacle. Kelan sighed as he strapped it on his wrist again. It would’ve been nice to have it off and dull the pain a bit, but he understood. He didn’t want her family to be afraid of him.
But Carol wasn’t afraid. She sat at the table beside him, watching with interest. Her face was narrow, like Lisbet’s, instead of soft and round like Sol’s. Carol was made of the mountains, like Sol, and had leveled an ax at a trained soldier’s head. He wished he could have the opportunity to get to know Sol’s family and the place where she grew up. He wished they didn’t have to leave again. But now the whole village knew what he was; they wouldn’t let him stay.
The hunter ran a hand through his hair. “And what now? I’ve got blood on my hands, Sol. All to save that filthy demon.”
“You’ll always have blood on your hands,” Sol snapped.
The hunter looked sick.
“Josef, go get your pa and bring him back here. I need to speak to him,” Lisbet said. Sol had inherited Lisbet’s commanding tone. Lisbet wasn’t a woman to be questioned.
“My pa won’t see me. I’ve been banished from Hillerod, and doubly so, now that I’ve shot our own soldiers.”
“So, you’re Josef,” Kelan said, studying him. The suitor Sol had warned Johan about. Josef seemed a likely candidate. Sol saved her most potent hatred for the people she liked best.
Josef glared at him. “Shut up, demon.”
Sol shot up from her seat on the floor and grabbed the front of Josef’s shirt. She slammed him against the wall. “You will not call him that.”
Kelan stood, unsure whether he should intervene on Sol’s behalf or Josef’s. It warmed his heart to see Sol turn her considerable rage on someone else for once, and on his behalf.
Josef yanked his shirt out of her grip and slid away. “I can’t just let him walk away from this. He’s a Flameskin, Sol. He’s dangerous. Your pa would’ve—”
“My pa is dead because of you.”
The kitchen fell silent. Lisbet took a sharp, painful breath. Kelan tried to piece together what this meant and came up with a fuzzy understanding of what had transpired. A hunting accident. Josef. That wickedly fast draw. Josef hadn’t even blinked when he had shot down Jahr. It had happened so fast Kelan hadn’t even been able to react.
Josef slumped against the wall, eyes downcast. “I think of it every day. You don’t know how sorry I am.”
“Sorry won’t bring him back,” Sol said.
“I know.”
Kelan took Sol’s hand and put an arm around her waist. There was grief behind the anger, and she was close to cracking.
“A life for a life,” she said quietly. “Let Kelan live, and the blood you spilled is forgiven.”
Josef met Kelan’s eyes. There was murder in Josef’s gaze. Kelan had seen that look in the eyes of every soldier who had ever lifted a sword against him.
“And what about me? I’ve killed two Tokken soldiers now. They’ll be after my life,” Josef said.
“Your life is your concern.” Sol’s voice was like ice.
There was a knock on the door, and the matron stepped inside Sol’s home. She had gray hair and a face as craggy as a mountainside. Her clothes were stained with the soldiers’ blood.
“I’ve finished,” she said. “They will all live, except the two that have already passed.”
Josef bowed. “Thank you, Matron.”
She frowned at him. “You have done a great harm to Hillerod. The Tokken Army will not look kindly upon us for this.”
Josef let out a long breath, and his eyes flicked toward Kelan. “I’ll take full responsibility for it. And I’ll take the soldiers back to their camp in Skive once they’ve recovered.”
“And Sol?” the matron asked turning toward her.
“I won’t go back to Cassia.”
“No,” the matron said gravely. “You belong to the mountains. We will protect you, even if it must be from our own army.”
“But what of Hillerod?” Josef asked. “If the Cassians don’t march to our aid—”
“That’s why I came back here,” Sol said, “to warn the village about the Flameskins.”
“We’ve always known they would come,” Lisbet said. Her eyes were hard, made of the same stone as the mountains.
“And what will we do?” Carol asked.
“What we’ve always done. Survive.”
“Saint Katrine has arrived in Tokkedal,” Kelan said. “She might be able to come to your aid before the Flameskins arrive.”
“The demon speaks,” the matron said and scowled at him.
“He’s not a demon,” Sol insisted.
“He has the face of a man, but he has no humanity. Do you forget whose daughter you are? You dishonor Elo’s memory.”
“I never forget whose daughter I am,” Sol said. “I never could, not as long as the mountains stand. But my pa was wrong about Flameskins.”
“Wrong?” the matron demanded. “Who destroyed Baarka? Who has burned our mountains and killed our people?”
“But—”
“No. They are all the same. They are not human, however much they may look like us.”
Sol stepped in front of Kelan, clinging tight to his hand.
“You know what must be done, child.” The matron turned to Kelan. “Will you come quietly, or must we use force?”
“No! You can’t hurt him,” Sol cried, her voice twisted with pain. They had backed up against the wall. Kelan had no weapons, but how could he hurt any of these people, Sol’s family and friends? If her village turned against him, what could he do but give himself into their hands?
“He’s not human, Sol,” Lisbet said. “It is no sin to end his life. It’s a mercy.”
“Mercy,” Sol hissed. “It’s murder. He has a heart and a soul just like any of us.”
“You would call Elo a murderer then?” the matron asked.
Sol breathed in sharply.
“He did what none of us had the courage to do,” Lisbet said softly.
Sol shook her head. She was breathing fast. Kelan held tight to her.
“Twelve Flameskins he killed,” the matron said, her voice low. “Twelve that were corrupted beyond redemption, tainted by fire. Twelve hearts he cut out. And when his arms grew too tired from the cutting, he held the others down so Oscar could finish.”
Sol pressed a hand to her mouth and gasped.
Kelan swallowed. “Sol’s father killed Flameskin soldiers?”
The matron scowled. “We thought they were our own, but they were tainted like you. Demons. Faces of children and mothers and friends, but they were cursed with flame. They were not like us.”
Sol’s father had killed Flameskin children.
Kelan gaped in horror at the dark faces of Sol’s mother, Hillerod’s matron, and the hunter. They would do the same to him, hold him down while he screamed and cut his heart out so they could burn his body.
“It’s a blot on Pa’s memory,” Carol said, her voice thick. “Sol says Kelan is not corrupted, and I believe her.”
“A blot?” the matron cried. “He was braver than any of us. You are too young to understand. Too young to remember. You were a child when this war began.”
“But why must they be killed?” Carol demanded.
“King Anton Bruun was widowed thirty years ago, and his daughter, Princess Vara, was left motherless. The grieving king remarried, a beautiful woman with a heart of black. She bore him but one child, Princess Ingrid, a sister to his own heart-sick Vara.”
The tale spun from the matron’s wrinkled mouth like a well-worn path, smooth from frequent use. It was one Kelan had heard many times, but now it came from the enemy’s lips.
“Twenty years the queen kept her secret as her heart burned black within her. Twenty years she hid her pyra from her king and kingdom. But a heart as black as that could not be hid forever. In a fit of passion, her pyra overcame her. Her beauty turned to burning, and King Anton and Princess Vara nearly lost their lives.”
“If the queen had been allowed to wear an emberstone, her pyra could have been controlled,” Kelan said.
“There is no controlling the fire inside a Flameskin,” the matron spat. “Fire knows only destruction; it breeds only corruption. Princess Ingrid was tainted by the same fire as her mother.”
“King Anton slaughtered his own wife and child!” Kelan shouted. “He could’ve saved them, but instead he killed them.”
“There is no redemption for Flameskins,” the matron said, her green eyes dark. “That was why the king ordered killed any man, woman, or child that bore the corruption of a pyra.”
“The children had no choice in their heritage. They didn’t deserve death.”
The matron scowled. “Your kind rose up like the plague they are, washing through our land like a wave of flames. Burning everything in their path.”
“We had no choice. You would have me give myself to you to be killed? You’ll cut out my heart and watch me burn. How could we not fight back?”
“Now all of Nordby burns, all five kingdoms. And it’s because we weren’t strong enough to destroy you when we had the chance. Not like Elo. He heard the king’s decree and he did what we could not.”
Kelan shuddered. “You couldn’t kill them because you knew in your heart it was wrong.”
“But the gods heard our prayers and gave us the Saints,” Lisbet said. “They will destroy you, all of you. The Burning War will be over.”
Kelan shivered. Maybe it really would be over. Haldur and Nilsa had both thought so.
“I will not let you take Kelan,” Sol said.
The matron turned to Josef, but he only sighed. “I can’t. I’ve already taken too much from her.”
He slid out of the house without a backward glance and the matron huffed after him. “Josef!” A cold wind snapped at the curtains and girls’ skirts until they could get the door closed again.
Sol let out a heavy breath and squeezed Kelan’s hand. Kelan’s life had been bought with her pa’s blood. What a strange twist in the lines of fate.
Sol turned to her mother. “Let him stay here one night.”
“Never,” Lisbet snarled.
Kelan sighed inwardly. He had hoped . . . . No. He had never had grounds to hope that her family would accept him. Sol seeing him for who he was had been nothing short of a miracle.
He brushed his thumb along her jaw. “I’m used to sleeping out there. I don’t mind.”
One of Sol’s younger sisters threw her arms around Sol’s waist. “Don’t go again. It’s so hungry when you leave.”
Kelan’s heart tore in two looking at them and their gaunt faces. They needed Sol. If he took her away from her family, what would happen to them?
But what would become of him without his mountain queen?
Sol knelt and hugged her littlest sister. Kelan swallowed, trying to keep his heart from lodging in his throat. He had never had a family like this. He had never had a home where he was wanted and missed. Maybe once, but that had been stripped from him as a child.
Lisbet threw the door open. “Get out.”
Sol moved in front of Kelan. “No.”
Her mother stared at her for a long while as the cold wind blew into the house and whipped her hair.
“You are not my daughter,” Lisbet hissed. “I always knew you were not of this world.” She stalked out of the house and slammed the door behind her, leaving them in an aching silence.
Sol’s face crumpled as Carol ran to her and wrapped her arms around her.
He was making Sol sacrifice all of this for him. And her family would suffer without her.
It was selfish. He knew it. But wasn’t love always a little selfish? He would give anything to be with her, but he wouldn’t settle for anything else.
“She doesn’t trust me,” Sol said.
“I’ve found that it takes a long time to earn the trust of a mountain woman,” Kelan said.
She made a face.
“I don’t want to cause any trouble for your family.”
She sighed. “You can stay here tonight, and my ma can sleep over at my aunt’s. But tomorrow—”
He nodded. This was their life now. Never staying in one place for long. “I know. Tomorrow morning, we leave. I’m sorry we can’t stay.” This would be a difficult goodbye for her.
She bit her lip and stared at the floor.
“We’ll come back, once the war is over and it’s safe for us,” he promised.
He wasn’t sure what that would mean, for the war to be over. It would end either when the Flameskins found a way to destroy the Saints and repaid the innocent bloodshed with fire, or the Saints finally destroyed the last of the Flameskins. But neither of those outcomes led to him being welcomed back to Hillerod. And if the Saints triumphed, he would be hunted. Would there ever be an escape for him?
Carol threw her arms around Sol with a sob.
“Oh, Sol,” Kelan murmured. It broke his heart to see this. He had to believe that they’d come back, that this wouldn’t be forever.
She pulled away from her sisters and buried her face in Kelan’s shoulder. “What will happen to them if I leave? There must be some way you can stay.”
“You know I can’t.”
“No,” she sobbed.
He wiped the corner of her eye with his thumb. Please don’t make me go alone. Please don’t let this be our last night.
But what else could be done? He would be killed if he stayed, and the mountains owned Sol. They had stolen her heart long before Kelan had arrived. He could no sooner take her from the mountains than he could pluck a cloud from the sky.
His heart plummeted. He had known this would happen, despite his desperate wishes. He and Sol were never meant to share the same path.
Sol would travel these mountains for the rest of her life, but not with him. She would lie alone beneath the snow-burdened canopies and the star-strewn sky where they had once lain together. She would walk alone in the brilliant light of the winter sun, treading through the diamond carpet of ice at her feet with no one beside her.
He trapped her against his chest, holding her tight. He hoped she would never forget. That she would remember each night spent next to him, each place they camped, the clearing where they danced, the place where the bandits had spilled his blood onto the snow.
Because he would never forget.
He pulled away from her to look into her face. “When the war is over and it’s safe, I’ll come back.”
Her eyes went wide and her breath caught. “No.”
He turned his head. “I can’t take you from them.”
She gripped his arms tight between her hands, forcing him to look up into her burning green eyes. “No, Kelan. You keep telling me to let go, but I won’t. Not now, not ever.”
His mouth opened, and he couldn’t speak.
Her shoulders sagged, and she turned to meet Carol’s gaze. “I know I promised Pa I would take care of our family, but I have to go with Kelan.”
“I know,” Carol said. “Don’t worry
about us. We’ll manage.”
Kelan ran his thumb along her jaw and ensnared his fingers in her hair. “You would give all of this up for me?”
“If they won’t let you stay here, then I won’t stay, either.”
“Truly?”
“Are you even listening to me? We have bags to pack and clothes to wash, so stop being an idiot, and—”
He pulled her in against him, and their lips met. One of her sister’s let out a little gasp, and Kelan smiled as he kissed her, pressing his hands tighter against her back.
She wasn’t letting go, and he wasn’t, either. Because she loved him, enough to leave her family and her mountains. Enough to dig her heart out of the snow and give it to him to hold. Enough to thaw the ice that ran through her veins and make room for fire.
The door slammed open, filling the room with cold air once more. They broke apart. She was flushed and beautiful, and he couldn’t look away from her. But then her smile wavered as her eyes darted up. A cry escaped her lips as a pair of hands grabbed Kelan from behind.
Chapter 42
Sol
“Stop!” Sol screamed. Kelan was torn from her arms, and she scrambled after him, trying to catch his hands.
He struggled against his assailant and smashed his head against the low table as he was wrenched toward the door. Two more neighbors appeared in the doorway and grabbed him as he thrashed. Sol ran at one of them, a burly woodchopper named Oscar, the same woodchopper who had kept their fire burning all winter after her pa had passed.
And now Oscar was wrestling Kelan across the grass toward the pyre he had built in front of their house.
She grabbed one of Oscar’s arms, digging her nails into his skin. “Let him go!”
Oscar knocked her aside, and she landed hard in a patch of dirty snow. But she was up on her feet again and running toward them. Other men had come to help. Kelan kicked at them and shouted, but they grabbed his arms and legs, stretching him out and pinning him to the ground.
Oscar drew a heavy knife from his belt.
“No!” Sol threw herself across Kelan’s body, clinging tight to his neck. Her chest heaved as she held back a sob.
“Sol!” Kelan cried. “Don’t! They’ll hurt you!”
Firefrost: A Flameskin Chronicles Novel Page 21
