The Fire King

by Amber Jaeger

  Bennet quickly wiped the mirth from his face.

  “You have one more matter to attend to before you retire,” he said, glancing at the darkening skies.

  “A pleasant one, I hope,” Lian muttered.

  “It may be,” Bennet said, pushing back his chair. “The girl I brought in is waiting to be questioned. I am sure she is anxious to get home.”

  “What girl?” the king asked, following his captain out of the room.

  Bennet was glad to be leading Lian so he could not see him roll his eyes. “The girl from the border of the forest. I would not have even brought her in but she clocked Ando and you know how he is when his manliness is insulted.”

  “Clocked him?” Lian asked, amused. “That little slip of a girl? Perhaps she is of interest.”

  “I doubt the queen is sending in spies disguised as dirty young women,” Bennet said drily.

  “Perhaps she is, clearly we would not expect it,” he said, following the captain down the stairs.

  “My liege, did I ever tell you that you see spies everywhere, even where some are not?”

  “More than once. Now where is she?”

  Bennet looked to the farthest cell and saw the blanket pulled over the mat with a telltale lump. He clanged on the bars. “Girl, rise, you are in the king’s presence!”

  There was no movement in the cell and Bennet sighed. “I will come in to get you if I must, but you will not like it.” Nothing again.

  He pulled the key from his belt and his sword from its holster. The king stood back, amused as Bennet entered the cell and warily approached the bed. Once at the end of it, he jerked back the blanket and gasped as a bales worth of hay went flying into the air. The bed was empty and so too the cell.

  “Well, where is she?” Lian roared, imaging plots laid against him.

  Bennet moved about the cell quickly, kicking through the hay and flipping the mat over. There was no place to hide, and indeed, she was not hiding.

  She was gone.

  Lian narrowed his eyes at something fluttering near the mat. Bennet picked it up and his jaw dropped.

  “What is it?” the king snapped.

  “A letter,” he replied in a hoarse voice. “Written on your own stationary and stamped with your own seal.”

  Lian strode into the cell and snatched the letter from him. The seal was indeed his as was the paper. And it appeared to be written in the expensive ink he only used when writing to other royals. “I keep these in my private chambers, how did this come to be down here?” Without waiting for answer, he tore the letter open and was shocked to find it addressed to him.

  ‘Dearest Sun King, I thank you for the hospitality but had to get back home. Kindest regards.’ It was unsinged.

  Bennet read over the king’s shoulder. “How could she have escaped the cell? I inspect them myself every quarter.”

  “That is not half the question! How did she get out of the cell, up to my guarded private chambers and then back down here to leave this letter and escape again? Who was this girl?” The thunder in the king’s voice made even his longest friend uneasy.

  “I do not know, my king, but I will find out.”

  Katiyana finally slowed when the hut came into view. She had been running for over three days, looping and back tracking, covering her footsteps and wading up creeks to hide her progress through the woods. She had barely stopped to drink and had eaten only what she could fish out of her pack and chew while sprinting. She was exhausted but the fear that she had been followed and would be caught was abating. With home in sight, she allowed herself to stop pushing and nearly fell into the door of her home.

  It was roughly pulled open by an astounded Cidra. “What on earth?” she cried, causing Adora and the nameless girl to rush to her side.

  “Katiyana, you look frightful,” Adora gasped.

  The nameless girl peered over her shoulder into the darkening forest. “Is someone after you?” she asked in a small voice.

  Katiyana shook her head, not trusting her parched voice to be able to speak.

  “Come in, come in,” Cidra said, pulling her in by the arm and leading her to the table. She poured a glass of water and set it in front of her, impatiently waiting for her to wet her throat enough to speak. “Well? What has happened?”

  Adora glared. “Give her a moment, she looks as though she has run all day and all night.”

  “I did. And more,” Katiyana finally managed to say. “I got to the edge of forest and was ambushed.”

  “By who?” the nameless girl gasped.

  “Soldiers of the Sun King. Apparently it is a crime to cross their border.”

  Cidra’s eyebrows tightened and pulled down together. “I do not remember that being against the law. For what reason could the king have made that law?”

  Katiyana shook her head. “Sula, I suspect. I only know I was looking out at the waves of grass and then I was grabbed.”

  “You let yourself be caught?” Cidra asked doubtfully.

  “Well, no. I fought back. I think that is more why I was brought back to their palace but they certainly were not happy I had come from the woods. Something has happened, Sula has done something to anger them.”

  “Wait,” Adora interrupted. “What happened when you were brought to the castle?”

  Katiyana smirked. “The king ordered me held until he had time to question me. He dismissed me as though I were just some dirty little urchin.”

  “And you explained to him you were just curious?” Cidra prompted.

  Katiyana shrugged one shoulder. “How could I explain that? I certainly could not have explained who I am or where I came from.”

  Cidra nodded reluctantly.

  “So?” Adora asked impatiently.

  “So I left,” Katiyana said simply. “Their locks are terribly simple.”

  Cidra rose from the table and turned her back to stir whatever was cooking over the fire. The tightness in her shoulders belied her unease. “Then I hope your curiosity is satisfied. You cannot venture out that far again.”

  A heaviness settled over her heart, but Katiyana agreed. “I know.”

  “Do you?”

  “Yes,” Katiyana said wearily. “I just wanted to see something more of the world than this forest, know something more.”

  “Did you learn anything?” the nameless girl asked quietly.

  Her hands flexed into the tabletop and she had force herself to relax, to push her anger back. “Yes, I did, but not enough. Sula truly is still reigning in my father’s throne. And whatever she has been up to has angered the Sun King greatly.”

  “But you do not know what?” Adora asked.

  “I cannot imagine all of the evil things she is capable of, so no, I am not sure what she did.”

  “Well, perhaps we can find out through much safer means,” Cidra offered.

  “Like dressing up as little men and trading rumors for goods?” Katiyana asked. She tried to keep the bitterness from her voice and nearly succeeded.

  “We do what have to,” Cidra said sharply. “You would have been dead a long time ago if you had not found us and stayed here.”

  “I know, I just wish my life could be bigger than this.”

  “Be grateful you have one at all.”

  “I am,” she said sullenly. “It just is not what I had thought it would be.”

  “It usually is not,” Cidra snapped. “Do you think any of us like hiding out here while life passes by? While everyone else goes about finding love and creating real homes and having children, spending their time with friends and loved ones?”

  “We are all well aware how unpleasant the circumstances are,” Adora cut in. “We all have somewhere we would rather be but cannot. So stop sniping at each other.” Her words were harsh but her voice was kind and they all went to bed that night feeling sorry and alone.

  Lying on her mat, Katiyana thought over the small new details of the world around her that she had learned. She went over the expanse of the big s
ky, the giant clouds and the waving grass, all of it imprinted on her mind. It had been beautiful and open and wide and she wanted desperately to go back and see more. But the weight of her circumstances pressed in from all around and with tears streaming from her eyes, she put away her new memories and hopes before rolling over to pretend to sleep.

  The next day was not as hard as she had thought it would be. Adora made breakfast while she and the nameless girl went out to bring in more wood for the fire. Cidra had already pulled up a basket of mending that needed to be done and sat squinting at frayed hems and worn fabric. The air was cool and fresh and the faint smell of wood smoke was on the gentle wind. The nameless girl caught her tiny smile. “Some days I feel trapped and some days I feel free, but nothing really changes, just the way I feel.”

  Katiyana looked up from small dry sticks she had been gathering. “Will you stay here forever?”

  “I will stay until it is time for me to go.”

  Katiyana straightened up from the ground, curious about what the normally very quiet and reserved girl was saying. “And when will that be?”

  “I am not sure. I think perhaps I will know when the time is upon me.”

  The woods were suddenly silent and still and gooseflesh raised on Katiyana’s arms. “And how will you know that?”

  The girl with no name shrugged. “I will just know.”

  Katiyana spent the next several days quiet and pensive. The other girls left her to her thoughts as she moved through her chores in a fog. She gathered wood without really seeing it, hunted and set traps and cleaned her kills. She wondered if her time to leave would ever come and how would she know when it was. Would she miss her chance? Would she miss the other girls?

  Feeling trapped, she laced up her boots and mumbled a vague excuse about needing more tinder before she set out in the woods. It rankled, knowing she could not travel west as she wanted to, could not go to see the big sky and the clouds.

  Instead she moved south, not even pretending to look for firewood. An hour passed and she knew the girls would begin to worry she had not returned. Frustrated, she turned to make her way her way home then snapped back as something caught her eye. Further out into the forest, tacked to a tree, was poster.

  With her face on it.

  Her breath hissed in through her angry grimace and she took off to rip the paper from the tree. It was a Wanted Poster.

  A breeze of wind cooled the sweat that sprung up on her brow as she stood frozen, staring at the fairly accurate sketch of her face adorning the poster.

  A far off fluttering made her whirl and she spied its source- another poster tacked to a tree. She raced to it and yanked down another one, identical to the one in her hand. Another gentle gust came through the trees and Katiyana spun to take in the gently flapping posters attached to trees as far as she could see in every direction.

  The other girls wondered where she had gone when breakfast was ready and she had not returned. By mid-morning they were worried and by lunch, Adora was in a panic.

  “We have to go look for!” Adora was insisting again.

  Cidra held her hand up, her mouth pressed into a thin, firm line. “She needed to clear her mind. She is struggling with many things. They cannot be cleared away in a ten minute walk.”

  “Perhaps she left,” the nameless girl said in a small voice. “None of us are meant to stay here forever.”

  Adora spun to fix her flashing eyes on her. “She would not leave without a good bye.”

  The thump of the door hitting the rough wall caused them all to jump. Katiyana stomped in and kicked the door shut behind her. None of the girls said a word as they took in her pale face and red cheeks. Her hair was matted to her scalp by sweat and with her shaking hands she clenched a tall stack of papers.

  “Katiyana?” Adora asked gently.

  “He papered the woods with these things,” she bit out.

  “Who?” Cidra asked as Adora hesitantly reached for the top most paper. As she looked it over, her face paled and she slowly brought up a hand to cover her mouth. The other girls crowded over her shoulder to see and both their eyes widened in surprise before blanking in fear.

  “He is looking for you!” squeaked the girl with no name. “The Sun King! And he has offered a reward.”

  “They were everywhere,” Katiyana said, her voice thick with fear and anger.

  “But why?” Adora asked, still frowning at the paper.

  “I suppose I angered him by escaping,” she said guiltily. She did not, could not, add in he probably had not appreciated having his nose rubbed in it with the incendiary letter, not to mention he manner she had acquired the stationary or how she had placed it to be found.

  “It says you are wanted for questioning but it does not accuse you of a crime. That is a good thing, right?” Adora asked, her voice pleading.

  Cidra squinted her eyes and cocked her head. “It is unsettling he is looking for you, but no one even knows to point him this way. No one besides us has seen you in years.”

  The nameless girl slid the poster from Adora’s fingers and laid it on the table before going to fetch a smudge stick. They all leaned in close and watched as she darkened the brows and under the eyes and filled in the shadow of a growing in beard and mustache, much the same way Kat did to her own face. Finally she sketched a deep hood and a thick scarf to cover the hair and dainty throat.

  Katiyana’s’ stomach plummeted. “Someone will know,” she whispered. “The eyes, the nose, they are unmistakable.” She groaned and collapsed into a chair. “What am I going to do?”

  “You could run, find somewhere else to hide,” Adora suggested desperately.

  Cidra pursed her lips. “Perhaps—”

  “You should go to him,” the nameless girl said. Adora and Cidra both whipped their heads around to stare at her in shock but the girl ignored them, totally focused on Katiyana.

  At first the words did not even seem to make sense but as she slowly emerged from her panicked fog, they did.

  “This is my time to go, is not it?” she finally asked.

  The girl with no name shrugged. “Only you can answer that question.”

  “You will be taken prisoner,” Adora protested and Cidra nodded in agreement.

  “I am not going to stay here and endanger the rest of you. What will happen when he finally finds me and everyone realizes we were not who we seemed? Besides, I am not going to go from hiding to captivity. I shall respond to the king’s request, but shall do it on my own terms, not his.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  The sun was just filtering in through the draperies in the king’s room. Even still mostly asleep, he turned his face to the light and the warmth, a small smile playing at his mouth. He had a long stretch before opening his eyes to the new morning.

  The little urchin sat perched on the carved foot board of the bed. Lian froze under the covers and stared at the ghost of the girl. Only the gentle moving of her hair in the breeze from the cracked balcony door proved she was real.

  He was not afraid and he was not angry, he was lost in a new emotion somewhere between annoyance and admiration.

  “What do you want?” he finally growled.

  Katiyana raised an eyebrow, the first movement she had made.

  “What do I want? You are the one looking for me.” She threw the thick sheaf of wanted posters up in the air.

  The king watched them flutter and sail down to cover his bed but she just watched him, never taking her eyes from his.

  “I was expecting to find you in manacles in my dungeon, not perched atop my bed frame like some demented bird.”

  Katiyana did not rise to the baiting. “I do things on my own terms. Your poster said I was wanted for questioning. Here I am.” She spread her arms wide. “Ask, and perhaps I shall answer.”

  “Do you mind if I dress first?” he asked dryly, then kicked his sheets up over her face and dove for the end of the bed.

  Blinded by the bed clothes or not, she rolled t
o the floor and when he followed to pounce, it was onto an empty sheet. Lian growled and swiped a massive arm under the bed.

  The tiniest of creaks alerted him and he rose and spun towards the open balcony doors. “Stop!” he commanded.

  Katiyana stood nimbly on the balcony railing. “I am not yours to command,” she said. “I came to answer your questions and instead of asking them, you attack me.”

  “I am in charge here,” he roared and at that she laughed.

  “Are you? You are standing in your skivvies, shouting at a girl you cannot catch, and if you could, you could not keep.”

  His face and chest flushed a deep red. Her eyes lingered on his broad chest and heavily muscled shoulders before snapping them back up to his. She had seen few men during her time in hiding and certainly never one like him.

  “Who are you?” he demanded.

  “That is a question I will not answer. Try another.” Her own cheeks were flushing and she cursed herself for admiring the man. His body might have been exquisite but he had the temperament of a badger with a sore tooth.

  The king glared and she could barely see his stormy eyes through the slits.

  “Try another I said. I will not stand on this thin railing all day while you have a temper tantrum.”

  The king’s nose flared and Katiyana wondered for a moment if she pushed too far. But finally his face relaxed the tiniest bit and he backed away from the open door. “I suspect if the queen had sent you to kill me, you would have tried by now.”

  “If I meant to kill you, you would be dead by now.”

  The king raised an eyebrow. “There are guards just outside my door. If I shout for them, you would be caught in a second.”

  “Only if they are better at catching girls than you are.”

  Lian was silent for a moment. “Bennet caught you.”

  Katiyana bristled. “I did not know he was there. And besides, I did not stay caught. Now, are you going to tell me what you want? You littered my forest. It took me forever to pick all those papers up.”

  Lian picked one up off the bed. “You say you gathered them all? And you will not tell me who you are? Is your identity something you guard so jealously?”