by Shannon Hale
She left the tent only to go to the privy. Sileph picked her up, one arm under her knees, one supporting her back, and carried her into the winter sun. She closed her eyes, leaned back her head, and let the light touch her entire face. The warmth and light made her feel pretty. Her skin tingled and her heart swelled, and she breathed deeply of the cool air that brought the tang of pine trees and warming earth. She had spent most of her life out of doors, and just leaving the confines of the tent felt like going home.
It also made her ache. Inside the plain, windowless white tent, her numb state seemed almost natural. Outside, with the sun and wind and colors and people and fires, she remembered dimly how much she used to feel.
Sileph always arranged to have a woman help Enna at the privy and then returned to take her back to her tent. Once he let her try to walk, holding her arm over his shoulders and steadying her with his other arm around her waist. It was almost fun for the first few steps to feel the rough ground under her thin boots and feel her ankles and knees move. But soon her legs crumpled, the drugged and unused muscles cramped and useless. In that moment Sileph swept an arm under her legs, held her again in his arms, and kept walking as though that had been their intention. Enna wrapped her arms around his neck and held his head close to hers.
Returning to the tent, the washed-out light and smell of close quarters, caused Enna a physical pain. Sileph said nothing as he settled her onto her blanket. She did not let go of his neck, so he knelt beside her.
“I walked,” she said.
“Yes, you did.” He contemplated her face. “Someday, when this is over, we will walk together in Ingridan. It is a beautiful city. Not as harsh and cold as Bayern. It lies by the sea on a river delta. Seven small rivers weave through the city, and there are white stone bridges and white houses and palaces and squares, and when the fruit trees are in bloom all the air is sweet.”
She gasped with a sudden sob. The image was beautiful, and she felt so ugly. “King’s-tongue. I feel sorry for that king. I know how he felt. It’s cruel what his daughter did to get power.”
Sileph’s brow was lined. “People do cruel things when they are afraid. They need leverage against you, Enna. They need a way to be sure you won’t burn the tents around them. That’s why, I thought, if you could teach me how . . . ”
“If you’ll let me go, I’ll take an oath never to . . . to never . . . ”
Sileph’s grip on her arms was tighter, and there was a touch of desperation in his voice. “I can’t let you go, Enna. You have to try. If you can teach me the fire, I can protect you. Once I can wield the power as well, Tiedan will feel safer around you and revoke the order to keep you on king’s-tongue.”
“But there’s the war . . . ” Enna rubbed her eyes irritably, unsure what she should say. When she looked up again, Sileph was watching her shrewdly.
“The war.” He shook his head. “Do you really think I’m your enemy?”
Enna studied his face. Sileph. Enemy. No, she could not reconcile the two.
He straightened, and his manner spoke of the soldier he was. “You deserve to know something, Enna. This war will not last long. We have been allowing the Bayern spies to count our numbers this winter because they cannot see the armies yet to march from Tira. Soon, very soon, Tira will overwhelm Bayern. Don’t resist teaching me the fire because you believe you are saving Bayern. Bayern is already lost. Save yourself.”
He drew closer and smoothed her hair away from her brow. “You are not a traitor, Enna. You are a survivor. All I am asking is for you to show me what you do.”
A way out, she thought.
“Just you,” she said.
“Yes, just me.”
Sileph stayed with her during those hours when the king’s-tongue began to loosen its grip on her mind and before her next dose was due. For Enna, they became the most delicious and grueling hours she had known. The first time she could gather heat to her, she nearly cried out. And then resisting, not lighting the fire for fear of revealing too much, made her sweat and shake. Never had the gift brought her so much joy or forced such a struggle for control.
“Tell me how it works,” he said.
“There’s a place in here”—she put a hand on her chest—“that I fill with heat. Just bringing it inside changes it, then I direct it into some fuel, and it becomes fire.”
“Where do you get the heat?”
“I don’t know. It’s all around. I can’t remember anymore.”
She did remember. Living things give off heat. But she would not reveal all willingly. She tried not to think about that place in her skirt that felt a little heavier against her ankle.
Just as Enna had wished, because Sileph became more hopeful of learning, he put off the drug until later and later. They would sit together in the dark. Through a rift in the tent roof, a little moonlight slipped in and pooled on the surface of the king’s-tongue water. It trembled in its cup like a threat.
Sileph would hold up a stick or piece of straw and say, “Concentrate.”
She did. The later it was, the more she could feel him. Sileph. His heat leaving his skin, brushing by hers, rising against the shaft of moonlight and dispersing into the night sky. The nearness of the heat was intoxicating, and she would close her eyes and just feel it, play at drawing it near, imagine pulling it inside that dead space in her chest and feel the transformation to flame. Resistance sometimes took the little strength she had. Something about Sileph made her believe he was one who could be taught, and he might just be cunning enough to figure it out without reading the vellum.
“I’m sorry,” she would say, and with a sigh he would nod and hand her the cup of drugged water. He always watched her drink it and stayed with her until the king’s-tongue took effect. So that I can’t retch it up, she thought. Or perhaps he just wants to stay. He would hold her until she slept, and his smell and the faraway feel of his hands on her hair made losing herself to the king’s-tongue just a little more bearable.
In those last moments before her hands and feet began to feel like leaded fishnets, Enna thought of escape. One night perhaps something would happen to take Sileph away, an emergency, a call from Tiedan. When that happened, she would be prepared to act.
The chance came several days later. Enna was feeling alert enough to sit up cross-legged. Sileph was unaware that this also meant she was able to feel not only his heat, but also the quiet hibernating heat of the grass roots beneath her legs and snakes of heat that came from the guards outside, slithering through the tent flap and up against her skin.
Enna wiped her brow as if she were exhausted from trying to light a fire, though she was in fact tired out from trying not to. It was as though the ghosts of all that had lived pressed against her body and begged for life. She found the sensation a thousand times more pleasant than the numbness of the king’s-tongue.
“You long to do it,” he said. “I know you do. I remember your face when you used to run in this wood sending tents and wagons into flames. Remember that feeling. It could help you. What does it feel like to burn?”
“Relief.”
Sileph nodded as if he understood. “And what about burning as your brother did on the battlefield, a great deal all at once. Is that different?”
“I can’t do more than little fires, a little at a time. Maybe his talent was different.”
Sileph considered, then shook his head once. “No. If he could, then I have no doubt you could as well. You seem to grasp at the fire, trying to control it and still protect yourself. I wonder what may happen if you surrender instead.”
Surrender. The word frightened her.
“He died, you know,” she said. “He died from burning, perhaps from surrendering.”
“If there is a way of mastering it, you will find it.” He smiled briefly.
“Why do you take such an interest, Sileph?” she asked.
“The sooner we can show Tiedan progress, the sooner you won’t have to take the king’s-tongue.”
> “And that’s the only reason? For me?”
He leaned back, resting his arm on the ground, and looked at her unblinking, as though anticipating in advance what her reaction might be. “My father was a soldier in the king’s army. As was his father. I was born a soldier, and if I have sons, they will be born soldiers, unless I can change that.”
He cleared his throat and looked at his hands. Enna enjoyed the rare times when he seemed uncomfortable. One of the things she hated most about her king’s-tongue state was that he could not see her as she was, that he might not know that in will and strength she surely was his match.
“These times,” he said, “they allow for opportunities. I lead a fifty company; that is good for one my age. But I need to win more. You are so powerful, Enna. What you are, what you know, is an opportunity for me. But I also believe it is an opportunity for you, if you are willing to grab it.”
“So, what’ll you get if you become a burning man, Sileph? They’ll give you a spot of land? Or maybe more—a title, a statue in some square, or just the satisfaction that people in the streets will nod to you and give your wife the fatter cut at the butcher’s?”
“I expect military promotion and only that. The Tiran citizens would not know what to make of me, I imagine. We have no fire-witches in Tira, except in tales. And besides, I have no wife.”
Enna raised her eyebrows. “No? And you must be past twenty.” She sighed. “Well, I guess it’s no surprise you couldn’t catch a wife, a boy like yourself who goes around kidnapping poor girls and suffers such a sad lack of charm and good looks.”
“And you, my lady? A husband awaits you at home, or at least a betrothed?”
She gave him a glare that had won her many arguments in the past.
He leaned back a little as if in surprise. “No? But you must be near seventeen. Well, I guess that cannot be helped. It is a shame your mother couldn’t bear a girl with a witty tongue, or at the very least a pretty face.”
“You’re a rogue,” she said with some pleasure.
“Am I now?” He sat up on his knees, his hands full of straw.
She slugged him once on the shoulder and started to scoot away. “Easy,” she said, “what’re you doing? It’s not fair to attack a girl in a weakened state.”
“Oh, I think you are plenty awake, my lady, and I am under orders to test out your weaknesses, for future reasons of torture, of course.”
He began to pelt her with pieces of straw as though they were spears, and she batted them away. His look was one of deep concentration, though she noted the right corner of his mouth was twitching, as though his face fought his resolve not to smile.
“Ooh, that was a good throw,” he said.
She took in a sharp, mocking intake of breath. “You almost got my eye.”
She gathered up the fallen straw and began to hurl it back at him. As she dodged and threw, she found herself laughing.
“Captain!” The call came from outside the tent. Sileph stood, pulling straw from his hair, his demeanor losing all signs of playfulness.
A guard entered the tent. “Sir, you are needed immediately.”
“Yes, Pol.” He looked down at Enna with a frown, then said, “Drink the tea.”
Enna felt as though she had been slapped. Who are you? Which you is you?
“Drink your tea,” he said again. “I don’t know when I will be back.”
Enna snatched the cup angrily, spilling a little on her hand, and gulped down the liquid. It stung her throat to drink it that fast. She could feel her tongue begin to swell.
He watched her throat to make sure she swallowed and then stood there, giving it time to digest.
“You should come now, sir,” said Pol.
Sileph nodded and started to follow him out. He looked back. “I will return as soon as I can, Enna.”
She knew what he meant. He was always there when she took the drug, comforting her as it numbed her body and took away the world. Again she wondered, Does he hold me to make sure I’m properly drugged or because he wants to?
The instant he left, Enna scuttled to the corner of the tent and scratched up a flap of ground cloth. She jabbed at the back of her throat, vomited the clear liquid onto the ground, covered it up, and lay down before anyone came in to see her.
Some of the drug was already in her body. The dry, green taste of the king’s-tongue seemed to coat her completely—the taste was a film on her eyes, the chapped skin on her fingertips. Her hands felt heavy, and a mild dizziness made it difficult to keep her eyes open. But she could still think, and dreams did not entangle her into fiery darkness. The mild effects would wear off soon, and then she would disable Sileph somehow (that thought still made her uncomfortable) and flee, burning her way out if necessary.
Enna curled up, trying to ease a sudden stomachache. Get out. That had been her thought all along, but now that the possibility neared, anxiety plucked at her. Where could she go? She had left nothing behind—she had tried to set fire to the queen, her closest friend, and she had nearly gotten Razo and Finn killed on their last raid. Leifer was dead. She knew she could not bear to return to the Forest again, the uneasy fire pulsing inside her, making her feel useless and small unless she burned. And if what Sileph said was true, if Bayern had no chance against Tira? Then there was no more home.
Enna cursed and slammed her fist against the hard ground. Her drug-numbed hand vibrated peculiarly. She looked at it as at a strange object and wished that she had somewhere to run.
There were more shouts outside. She was often too drugged to be curious, but now the noises tugged at her attention and her mind played at figuring them out. Not battle preparation. Not a celebration. An intruder, she thought.
Just then Sileph entered the tent. She sat up quickly as though she were caught doing something wrong and then remembered she was supposed to be drugged to unconsciousness. Weak dizziness took her, and she exaggerated its effects.
“Enna.” There was eagerness in Sileph’s voice, but also caution. “Enna, I have found our leverage. I have found a way to make them feel safe around you without the king’s-tongue.”
Her eyes widened, but she did not speak. She reminded herself, You’re drugged. You’re nearly asleep.
“It is good for us,” he said. “Before you see what’s waiting, you must remember that.”
He picked her up like a baby and carried her out of the tent.
The first thing she noticed was a fire. It was night. She had not been around live fire since the night she razed the gallows. It was so beautiful in the dark, like gold cascades falling up into the air, dripping with heat and light. And she felt it, too, and recognized the desire that seeped from its center, the desire to stretch and grow and consume and be freed. It was her desire. She was the smoldering embers in the pit.
The night was very cold, and Sileph’s arms gripped her as though he wished to warm her as much as to hold her up. He walked a short distance, stopping before a gathered group of soldiers.
“Here is our answer,” he said.
Her eyes still burned from staring at campfires, and here it was dark. She focused on what stood before her until her eyes grew accustomed to the night. Slowly, the people’s faces resolved into clarity.
Standing between the soldiers, their hands tied behind their backs, their faces swollen and bloodied, were Razo and Finn.
Chapter 14
Their swords were gone. They breathed hard as if they had been fighting until moments ago. Razo had a scrap of cloth tied around his mouth—Enna did not doubt he had been cursing and shouting. And his hair, of course, stood straight up. A soldier beside him held a dagger at the point of his jaw as if prepared to slice his throat clean open.
Finn’s mouth was uncovered, and his labored breath came rasping from his throat. In addition to his hands, his ankles were tied with rope, probably to stop him from kicking. Two men held his shoulders. Both Razo and Finn watched Enna, and their eyes were sad. They had come here, she knew, for her
.
“No,” Enna said softly.
“It is all right,” said Sileph. “This is our chance, Enna.”
“How dare you?” Finn spoke out with a rage that surprised Enna. “If you address her, you call her ‘maiden’; she’s not Enna to you!”
A soldier punched Finn in the belly. While he was doubled over, they gagged him with a filthy cloth someone pulled from his tunic.
“Let them go.” Enna pushed her way out of Sileph’s arms and landed on her feet. She wobbled, and Finn lurched forward as though he would catch her. Sileph grabbed her shoulders to steady her. She struggled out of his grip and fell to the ground.
“Listen to me,” he said quietly, crouching beside her, “their presence gives you power now. You won’t have to take the king’s-tongue.”
“But they can’t be punished for me,” she said. “They didn’t do anything.”
“They tried to sneak into a Tiran camp armed and outfitted for sabotage. They knew full well that—”
“No, they don’t know anything. They’re just stupid boys.”
Enna saw Finn flinch at her words, and she rose unsteadily to her feet. “No, I didn’t mean that. I just meant it’s not your fault, it’s mine, and I need to fix it.”
She started to walk to Finn, unsure what she could do, just wanting to free them. Sileph grabbed her arms and held them behind her back.
“I will not let you hurt yourself for these boys,” he said quietly in her ear.
“Let me go,” she said. She felt dizzy, intoxicated, out of control.
“Take the prisoners to a holding room, double guard,” said Sileph.
“No!” Enna in a rage grabbed at any loose heat that would heed her and pulled it into her chest. The cold hollowness filled with heat and nearly burst, sending shivers through her body. Enna gasped at the pain.
