It Ends in Fire

by Andrew Shvarts

  He blinks at me. “No, I just wanted to drink it.” He pops the cork with his teeth, takes a long swig, and then hands it to me. “But sure. Disinfectant sounds good.”

  “This might sting a little.” I pour it onto the wound, and he hisses through gritted teeth, gripping the bed frame so hard I think it’s going to shatter. With the cut cleaned, I can make out the shrapnel clearly, and I pull out the biggest piece of crystal. It’s a brittle, clear blue, curved like a fishhook, jagged on the end and cold as ice. “Damn. That was a hell of a Glyph Marius hit you with. This wasn’t just meant to hurt you, it was meant to kill.”

  Talyn stares up at the ceiling, nostrils flaring. “You’re sure it was Marius?” I nod. “Good.”

  “Why’s that good?”

  “If it was just some random Vanguard stooge, I’d worry he’d rat us out for killing his two friends,” he replies. I pull another shard out, this one sharp at both tips, and I can feel him struggling not to react. “But Marius? Marius’ll keep his mouth shut.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  “The son of the Senate’s Grandmaster trying to kill a prince of the Xintari Kingdom? That’s the sort of thing wars are fought over. The sort of thing sons are disowned to rectify.” He shrugs and then winces. “He’ll keep it a secret because he can’t risk the fallout.”

  “And we’ll keep the secret, because, well, murder.” Two more shards out, plinking gently into a little metal bowl. “So we all just keep acting like nothing ever happened. I suppose that’s one less thing to worry about.”

  “Until he tries to kill us again,” he says. “And next time, he’ll be a lot more careful.”

  “A problem for another day.” I pull out the last shard and use the scrap of my dress to mop up the thin trickle of blood running down to his wrist. “You didn’t have to come for me, you know.”

  “Yes,” he says, closing his eyes. “I did.”

  My breath feels heavy, my stomach fluttering. It’s like there’s something in the air, something hungry and desperate clinging to our skin, like it’s sweltering hot on this midwinter night. I take his arm in mine, and that’s when I realize I still don’t have my Loci. “Shit.”

  “You can borrow mine,” he says, one step ahead. “In the desk, bottom drawer.”

  I slide it open and take them out, a pair of daggers with golden blades and sapphire-studded handles. They’re the fanciest Loci I’ve ever held, but right now, that’s not what’s on my mind. “You didn’t have them,” I say, which I’d suspected but still can’t entirely believe. “Back there in the snow. You carved those Glyphs with your bare hands. How the hell did you—”

  Talyn cuts me off with a weary sigh. “Not now. Please. Tonight’s been hard enough.”

  “All right,” I say, even though the curiosity is killing me. Instead, I settle back onto the bed next to him, gently placing one hand on the wound and raising his Loci with the other. With a deep breath, I slip into the Null and carve the circular Life Base and the intersecting diamonds of the Growth Form. It’s a Glyph I’ve always struggled with, the form requiring a delicate weaving precision, but it works well enough now. My hand glows a warm green, and Talyn exhales with relief as his pain fades. When I pull it away, the wound looks much better. It’s not all the way healed, because I’m nowhere near that good, but I’ve added at least a week of healing to it. That’s something.

  Talyn seems to agree, because he slides back up against the headrest, running his fingers along the freshly healed cut. “Well, that’s a first,” he says.

  “You’ve never had someone heal you?”

  His brown eyes meet mine, seeing right into me. “I’ve never been hurt enough to need it.”

  The moment is too intense, his gaze too intimate. I can’t take it. I swallow deeply, rising to go. “I should get back to my room. We both need to r—”

  His hand shoots out, grabbing my wrist. “You bashed that boy’s skull in. Killed him like it was nothing.”

  His grip is tight, but I don’t fight it. “You killed the other one.”

  “I’ve killed before.”

  “I have, too.”

  “Is that so?” he asks, eyebrow cocked. “Who are you?”

  “I’m a girl who needs to win,” I respond, and I know that I ought to go now but instead I stay, I let him keep his hand on my wrist, and when he pulls me closer, I let him, falling forward onto the bed, onto him. I’m wildly off the mission here, so far off the plan it might as well not exist. But I barely care. All I can think about is how his bare skin feels against me, the steady rising and falling of his chest under mine, the way our faces are so close I can practically taste him.

  “Gods,” he whispers. “I’ve studied diplomacy under the greatest scholars of the kingdom. I’ve matched wits with tacticians and philosophers. I’ve stared the most gifted liars in the world in the eye and called their bluff. And despite all that, you’re the one person I’ve met who I just cannot figure out.”

  “Is that why you followed me tonight? Because you wanted to figure me out?”

  “No,” he says, his lips curling into the slightest hint of a smile. “I followed you because I was hoping to get that kiss.”

  And then I can’t take it anymore, can’t take being Alayne or a Revenant, can’t hold back the burning inside me. I lean forward and kiss him, long and deep, a kiss that’s desperate and powerful and vulnerable all at once. He kisses me back, his good hand on the base of my spine, pulling me down, my fingertips run along his side, grazing that taut muscle, savoring the slight shiver that runs through him, soaking in his smell of smoke and cardamom.

  He pulls away, forehead pressed against mine. “Are you sure you want this?” he asks.

  “Gods, yes,” I reply, and kiss him again. His hands slide my dress down as he kisses my neck, my collarbone, the base of my throat, as I grasp along him and pull the sheet over us. As the snow gently frosts against the window, as the candles sway and burn, I kiss Talyn and he kisses me. For one night, for one night at least, I forget it all, forget the Revenants, forget the cause, forget my worries and fear and pain. For one night, I just feel.

  It’s more than I could have asked for.

  CHAPTER 30

  Now

  I wake the next morning to the bright rays of the sun, the kind of waking where you just lie there for a good long minute as your brain realizes no, it wasn’t a dream. It feels like it should have been a dream; the idea that I would sleep with anyone at Blackwater, much less a prince, is inconceivable. But no, it was definitely real. The sun is warm on my skin. The ceiling above me is a vibrant gold. And I’m lying naked under a soft fur blanket in Prince Talyn Ravensgale IV’s bed.

  I sit up slowly, even as a part of me just wants to burrow deep under the blanket and never come out. Talyn sits nude at his desk, his back to me, and I really wish he didn’t look so good. He must hear me stir, because he cranes his head back. “Morning.”

  “Hi,” I say, instinctively blushing and pulling the blanket up to cover myself, and I see the corner of his mouth twitch into a tiny smile.

  “How’re you feeling?”

  “I’m good,” I say, and as the words leave my lips, I realize it’s the truth. I do feel good. Really good. My body feels more relaxed than it’s been in years, like it’s filled with light, the tips of my fingers and toes still tingling. Talyn isn’t my first. That was Grenn back in the Revenants’ camp. But it had been different with Grenn, fumbling, quick, a union born more out of loneliness and desperation than real connection. It hadn’t been bad, but it hadn’t been like this. If I close my eyes, I can still feel Talyn’s lips on my neck, his hands running along my side, his breath, his touch.

  I clear my throat, pulling myself back into the moment. “How’re you?”

  “Your healing Glyph worked wonders.” He raises his arm, showing me his bicep, where the wound has been replaced with a soft white stretch of scar. “No Enforcers have come smashing down my door. And the most fascinating girl I�
�ve ever met is lying naked in my bed. So all in all, I’d say I’m doing very well.”

  I snort. “You’ve already slept with me. You don’t have to flirt anymore.”

  His eyes twinkle with mischief. “Oh, the flirting is just beginning.”

  “And here I thought I’d figured out a way to make you stop,” I say, and then I blink because for the first time I notice that he’s not just sitting naked at his desk. A half dozen jars rest on the desk’s surface, ornate ceramic containers engraved with runic shapes, locked tight with thin silver chains. The jar closest to him is open, and I crane my head to look inside where I see… sand, I think? But the prettiest sand I’ve ever seen, a sand that’s a rich dark purple flecked with thousands of points of sparkling gold, a sand that shines like the night sky. “What are you doing?”

  The playfulness fades from his eyes, replaced by something else, something far harder to read. “Now that’s a complicated question.”

  “Is it?”

  With a heavy breath, he presses two fingers into the jar, just barely skimming the surface. When they come out, they glisten purple with that strange, beautiful sand, and he very delicately runs them down his arm, leaving a spiraled trail in their wake. So that’s how he applies those runes. “I could tell you that I’m just painting my arms in the traditional Xintari style. Or I could do something far more reckless.” He trails his fingertips down to the inside of his wrist, weaving the trail around it like a bracelet. For just one second it glows bright, a soft pulse of power. “I could tell you the truth.”

  The air between us is charged again, a tension I can feel in my bones. We already crossed one threshold last night, but there’s another still standing, the most guarded of all. I’ve still got my secrets from him. And he has his from me. “I suspect we’ve already crossed the point of recklessness,” I say at last.

  “That we have,” he replies, finishing one arm and starting on the other. “I imagine you’ve already figured out that my magic is different from yours.”

  “You don’t use Loci,” I say, remembering the way he cut through the air with his hands. “The ones in your drawer, that you use in class…”

  “A deception, to fool the Marovians.” He closes the lid on the purple jar and opens another, this one filled with a dust that burns red like the hottest sunset. “I can use Loci. But I don’t need them. And I don’t have a Godsmark, either.”

  “Oh. Right.” I hadn’t thought to check his body because I was distracted by… his body… but he’s right. There’s not a tattoo on him. “So your magic comes from that dust?”

  He nods, even as he delicately traces a spiral onto the back of his hand. “If you Marovian Wizards are to be believed, your Gods honor you with the gift of their blood, that it may run through your veins and grant you their power. But in the kingdom, things are different.” His jaw tightens. When he speaks, his voice is low, guarded, barely above a whisper. “Our Gods live deep below the ground, in a vast palace at the heart of the earth. They whisper to us in our dreams, gift us with the flow of water, with the sprouting of trees, with sparkling gems and precious gold.” He finishes his hand and screws the jar’s lid back on. “And they gift us with this.”

  “Magic dust.”

  “Gods’ Ash,” he corrects. “The most powerful element on earth, stronger than any blade, wilder than any hurricane.” He slides the jar back along with the others. “At the center of the kingdom is Mount Xanrea, a great volcano that reaches into the depths of the world, down to the lands of the Gods themselves. Through that mountain, the Gods bless the people of the Kingdom with their offering of ash.”

  “So it’s like Godsblood, but… on the outside?” I try to sound merely curious, even though my mind is reeling at the possibilities. “You put the ash on your skin, and then you can slip into the Null? And it just comes out of this mountain?”

  “No.” He shakes his head. “It doesn’t just ‘come out.’ Gathering it requires a descent into the mountain’s depths, a treacherous climb down a sheer wall of rock, over boiling pools and molten stone. Making that climb is a rite of passage for all royals when we turn sixteen. Some return in glory, with a bounty of ash, an offering for the kingdom. Others die.” He swallows hard, staring down at his hands. “And some, well, some are too cowardly to even make the climb.”

  “Talyn…?”

  He looks back at me with a smile that radiates pain. “When my day came, when it was my turn to descend into Xanrea, I failed. I don’t know why. I’ve fought, I’ve killed, I’ve stared death in the eye and laughed. But looking down into that darkness, into that smoke and ash and heat… I couldn’t bring myself to do it. I couldn’t will my body to move. I stood there for an hour, and then I gave up and fled. The shame in my father’s eyes…” He turns back to the ash with a heavy sigh. “I lied to you, Alayne. The night we met. It’s not an honor for me to be here. It’s a punishment. A humiliation.” He arches back in his seat, dropping his voice to make it old and brittle, his father’s voice. “If you can’t honor our Gods, if you’re not worthy of our ways, why don’t you go live with the heathens, hmm? See how you like it there!”

  There’s so much to take in here, I don’t know where to begin. “I’m sorry, Talyn.…”

  He clears his throat, and all at once he’s back, the cocky, smiling prince I’ve seen all this time. “Don’t be sorry. In every setback, there lies opportunity. And I’ve found it here. With you.”

  “Oh?”

  “My father loathes the Marovians, but he hates Grandmaster Madison most of all. He thinks of Madison as a petty tyrant, a detestable brute who insulted him when they met, who dared to threaten our kingdom with war if we didn’t open up to his trade deal. When I realized his son was here, among us, I antagonized him just on principle. But you… you’ve shown me the way.” His teeth shine a dazzling white as he grins. “If Marius and his Vanguards lose the Great Game to a Xintari, it’ll be a profound humiliation, both for him and Grandmaster Madison. They’ll both be shamed publicly, their power and status undermined. And I’ll be able to return home in glory.”

  “That’s what this is about,” I say with dawning realization. He’s not just here as an observer or a diplomat. He’s playing his own game, working his own mission. Everything he’s done, every choice he’s made, every word he’s said, is in service of this, of regaining his status, of advancing in his own kingdom. Like everyone else here, he’s climbing a ladder, even if it’s an entirely different one.

  I don’t know how to process it. My mind is reeling with too many conflicting thoughts and emotions, a tempest of contradictions. There’s too much to consider, too many layers of strategy and nuance. “Is that why you talked to me? Why you became my friend? Why you kissed me?” I ask, trying to get my bearings. “Because you knew I hated Madison, too?”

  He rises and crosses over to sit next to me on the bed, gently taking my hand in his. “At first, yes,” he says. “But then I got to know you, Alayne. I got to see the real you—fierce and brilliant and driven, full of fire and fury.” He smiles now, a real smile. “I like you, Alayne. And I don’t like most people.”

  “So what does that make us?” I ask, and I’m not even sure what I want the answer to be. “Allies? Friends?”

  He raises my hand to his lips and kisses it. “Believe it or not, I don’t normally do this with my allies.” He laughs. “And only occasionally with my friends.”

  “Seriously,” I say, even though I’m fighting back a smile.

  He nods. “Look. I’m not going to claim this is simple, and I’m not going to make promises I can’t keep. I’m here for myself, and I’m pretty sure you are, too. We’re both ambitious, we’ve both got our own agendas, and we both badly need to win this game. Right now, we stand together, but there will come a day when we find ourselves in each other’s paths. We both know how the world works.”

  The world shouldn’t work that way, but now’s not the time for that. “But until that day comes…?”

 
“Until that day comes, I’d like to be your ally, and your friend.” He runs a hand through my hair and leans forward, his lips almost touching mine, his breath soft against me. “And maybe just a bit more. If you’ll have me, that is.”

  I feel like I should chafe at his honesty, that I should be wary of someone so willing to admit his agenda is purely his own. But the truth is, it’s a relief. Because it’s so much easier if our default is at a remove, if the walls are built in, if I can have his touch, his warmth, without having to bare who I really am, without having to worry about hurting him. We can just be allies, friends, occasional lovers, brought together by a fleeting shared cause. And that can be enough.

  “I’ll have you,” I reply, and he leans in to kiss me for one long, intoxicating minute, and then he pulls away, forehead resting against mine. “Now. It’s almost time for morning classes, which means I need to get dressed. And as much as it pains me to say so, you do, too.” He leans in again, kissing me just barely, an afterimage ghosting on my lips. “Will I see you again soon?”

  Now it’s my turn to kiss him. “It’s a promise.”

  CHAPTER 31

  Now

  Classes are a blur. I try to focus, I do, but memories of last night keep racing through my mind. The way Talyn looked at me when we danced. The fury in his eyes as he saved me from the Vanguards. The way his hands slid down my side, the caress of his lips on my skin. Gods, what have I gotten myself into?

  Finally, the afternoon rolls around, and I make my way to the library, because if there’s one thing I can force myself to do it’s research this Maze of Martyrs and how I’m going to beat the other Orders at it. I’d hoped to do it alone, because I’m still not quite myself, but a voice calls my name as I walk across the quad.

  “Alayne. Alayne. Alayne!” I turn to see Fyl, bounding across the grass toward me with an enormous grin on her face. Right. There’s no avoiding this.

  “Fyl,” I reply. “I’m guessing you had a good time at Founders’ Day?”