For a Muse of Fire

by Heidi Heilig

  The general spreads his hands with a look that’s almost chagrined—I would buy it if he weren’t the man who led La Victoire. “If you want to go now, I won’t stop you. Maybe you and your parents can swim to Aquitan.”

  That brings me up short. I swallow, an uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach. “Does your offer include a ship, general?”

  “Something better,” he says, reaching into his pocket. I tense, and Akra pulls me back from the edge of the parapet—but rather than a gun, Legarde pulls out a crystal bottle, the size of a fist . . . of a heart. The lamplight filters through the cloudy liquid inside. “With this, you don’t need a ship at all.”

  It takes me a moment to understand, but when I do, I wet my lips. I am not thirsty, but suddenly my mouth is so dry. “A cure.”

  “A treatment,” he corrects me. “Something my daughter discovered. As you’ve seen, she’s rather inventive. And a year ago, she began to look into madness.”

  Air hisses through Leo’s teeth. His mother died a year ago. I take a breath, still looking at the glass. Now I understand the line in Theodora’s letter. But all I can manage is “Oh?”

  “She sent to Aquitan for samples of the water from Les Chanceux. Apparently the healing properties come from the minerals dissolved in it.” The general tilts the bottle so the water catches the light; it glows like an opal in his hand. “A mineral she has since extracted from a well near the volcano. There’s enough in here for a month. Take it. It’s for you.”

  The gleam of the bottle is like a beacon to me—I take a step down on the stair before Akra pulls me back. “A month?” he calls. “And then?”

  “That, of course, is her choice,” Legarde says. “But Theodora’s workshop is here. In the capital.”

  My mind is racing—this is not how I thought this meeting would go. To find what I’d been looking for all this time, in the last place I ever wanted to be. “You want me to stay,” I say. “Why?”

  “You’d prefer to go back to the jungle?” he says, answering my question with a question. “Wouldn’t you hate to leave Leo behind?”

  Blood rushes to my face. Is that why Legarde wanted Leo here?

  “What about me?” Akra says. “Am I to be hanged as a deserter?”

  “You’re not a deserter if you come back,” Legarde says. Then his eyes narrow. “There was a woman in the cell with you. Your mother. She’s welcome too, of course. We can house all of you here. In the capital. In safety.”

  Safety. Isn’t that what I wanted? And a cure . . . or at least a treatment. Is this the moment it all comes together—at last, sefondre? But nothing on this road has ever come free. “And in return?”

  Legarde nods a little, as though satisfied by my question. “I’m glad to see you’re not a fool. Let me tell you, I’ve spent half my life in your country, but there are still things I don’t understand. One thing I do know, though, is that when your kings are weak, your people turn to the gods. You must have heard the stories about Le Trépas. Or do you call him Kuzhujan?”

  My scar prickles, my skin crawls; how bold the general is, to name the monster crouching just beneath our feet. “I don’t call him anything,” I say, but Legarde gives me a small smile.

  “Not even Father?”

  The word is like a punch to the gut—spoken aloud, reality crystallizes. “I don’t know what you mean,” I lie, but Legarde smiles.

  “I’m no fool either, Jetta. I know about your bloodline. Your mother. Her escape. But unlike Le Trépas, you bring life.” He raises an eyebrow, nodding to the bamboo bird. “Your people could use that in a leader.”

  Another twist. This one leaves me reeling. This, from the man who had the sapphires pulled from the old god’s eyes? The man who drove the monks into hiding, who forbade the old ways so that no one could take up where Le Trépas left off? “A leader?” I scoff. “Me? After everything that happened with him?”

  Legarde’s expression turns contemplative; he hefts the flask, once, twice, as though weighing it. “With your madness under control, I think the outcome could be very different.”

  My breath catches at his words—they sound so much like the truth. Of course Le Trépas and I must share more than the ability to bind the dead. My malheur has left a long shadow behind me, all death and disaster. Have I seen my future in the stories of his own tyranny? Could I save more than just myself with a treatment? Is it the madness that makes us both monstrous . . . or only our actions?

  While I hesitate, Akra calls down. “Are you offering Jetta the crown?”

  The general raises an eyebrow. “Why shouldn’t she have it? The Boy King has vanished and the city is burning. I need someone to quell the rebellion before the whole country goes up in flames. I know you love the public eye,” he adds, turning to me. “What better place for you than a throne?”

  I try to imagine it then—a kingdom for a stage—but I cannot suspend my disbelief. This isn’t my role; I do not know the lines. Then again, how much power did the Boy King ever have? Legarde would never let me rule.

  The thought is a strange comfort. Could I trade my independence for a treatment? For a life of luxury, for my family’s safety, for a life here in my country? Maybe even a life that could include Leo . . .

  Put that way, it doesn’t seem so terrible. I squeeze Leo’s hand; it’s warm in mine. But what else would I be trading away—and who is the man I am bargaining with? Legarde, the Shepherd, who flies a red wolf on his banner. The leader of the armée. The one who gave the orders. The one who would have sent me to the questioneur.

  My stomach twists at the next thought. How did Legarde put together a past I only just discovered? What would make Papa tell? Fear creeps up my spine like a spider. “I want to see my father first.”

  Legarde hesitates. “You must remember, he was shot on the ship. He’s still weak, and I can’t carry him alone.”

  Akra digs his hand into my shoulder, holding me back from the stairs. “You’re not going down there,” he says, but beside me, Leo laughs a little.

  “Is that why you asked for me, Legarde? So I could act as your pack mule?”

  Legarde’s face is neutral, carefully so. “Send the boy down then,” he calls—to me, not to Leo—and my heart breaks a little. “We can make the exchange.”

  But Akra reaches out with his other hand, grabbing Leo’s jacket before he starts down the stairs. “Papa’s dead,” he whispers. “He doesn’t want an exchange. He wants a new hostage.”

  The words are like a coal in my throat—dropping through me, melting my core away. But I know Akra’s right. How had Legarde known Leo would serve the purpose? Had it been so clear when the general had asked me where Leo had gone? When I had lied to protect him?

  “Back to the bird,” I whisper, but the general must have seen my look. As we turn from the stairs, he raises a hand toward the heavens.

  At his signal, the last few stars arc out of the dawning sky. It takes me a moment to realize they are bottle bombs—glass jars full of oil, stoppered with burning rags—thrown by soldiers clinging to the roof.

  “Shoot him!” Akra shouts as the glass smashes against the stone. Oil spills from burst bottles. Glittering shards prick my skin. The flame engulfs the dry bamboo of the bird in a rush of heat. In a panic, the hawk takes wing, writhing in the air, a blazing star as she spirals through the sky. But she cannot outfly the fire. Her body breaks apart in falling embers scattered across the dark expanse of the temple grounds, and like a comet, her soul spirals free into the blackness of the sky.

  But the oily blaze has covered the platform too, and more bombs are raining down. The fire forces us to the stairs, toward the plaza, and as we stumble across the stone, at last Leo draws his gun. But Legarde only turns, disappearing inside the arched doorway of the darkened temple.

  “Let’s get out of here,” Akra says, tugging us toward the overgrown garden, but then, from the shadows of the tangled vines and the old stone statues, soldiers appear.

  They line the edge o
f the plaza, a dozen men, their rifles pointed at the three of us. Together they step closer, and closer still. “They won’t shoot me,” I say, though it’s more a prayer than a fact. I shove the boys behind me, trying to stay between them and the soldiers as they scramble up the stairs. “Get inside! Get Legarde!”

  The fire has spread all the way down the stone steps, and the line of soldiers keeps me from fleeing across the gardens. They advance slowly, herding me toward the temple. And what is waiting inside? Will the boys be able to find the general—to subdue him? To take him hostage and get us out of here? Or did he have more soldiers stationed in the temple?

  Desperately I cast around for something that can help us—an errant soul, or a vengeful one—but nothing comes close to the mouth of Hell’s Court. Against my pounding heart, the little paper butterfly rustles, as though the soul inside would flee if she could.

  My foot falters on the stairs. Perhaps I should let her.

  I pull the paper from my dress and toss it onto the oily flames. As the page blackens and burns, the little soul bursts free, hovering. In an instant, I have Leo’s knife in my hand. A drop of blood on the blade, then two on the hilt as I draw the symbol of life on the worn ivory handle. In a flash of bright light, the blade begins to hum in my palm. I open my hand and let her fly.

  Quicker than an assassin, she darts through the circle of soldiers, dipping toward each as though they were flowers. Red blossoms bloom from the pale skin of their throats. Blood . . . so much blood—black in the light of the fire, smelling of copper and iron and heat. My own courses through my veins as I watch the stains spread on the pavers. The soldiers fall like fruit left to rot on the vine.

  Sickened, I turn from the sight, stumbling up the steps, but the knife buzzes back toward me, circling like a pet waiting for praise. Reluctantly I hold out my hand, and she settles there, sticky with gore. I wrap my cringing fingers around the bloody hilt as I step into the darkness of the temple.

  “Leo? Akra?” I falter when the stench hits me—too familiar: the rancid scent of death and despair. I hear it too—the screaming man, the prisoners gibbering. There is the black altar, there the stone god; he looms over me, his empty lamp in his hands. The jailer is gone. Instead, another sight, also one I’ve seen before.

  Three prisoners lined up kneeling—and Legarde, holding the gun. At first the scene is so like that night outside La Perl that my mind turns around, trying to convince me that nothing has happened since, that I can go down a hall behind me and find the girls in the theater, and Leo at the bar. But Leo is here, alongside my brother . . . and Papa.

  He is slumped in a heap on the floor, and my heart stops when I see him, but he is alive. Broken, bleeding, but alive. His hands are bound, his face and hands swollen and bruised, his eyes lost and hollow. Blood and saliva run from his mouth; his swollen lips are stretched around a grimy cloth tied between his teeth. But he’s alive. He’s alive, he’s alive.

  “I can kill at least one of them before you cut my throat,” Legarde says, nodding at the knife in my hand. “Would you like to choose, or let it be a surprise?”

  “Let it be Leo,” Akra says through his teeth. There is fresh blood on his shoulder, a gunshot wound—and his face is pale, his mouth twisted in pain. “The bastard wouldn’t take the shot when he could.”

  “Let them all go,” I say, too loudly. “Please.”

  “Drop the knife first,” Legarde says, and I do. It clatters on the stone, rattling a little. Be still.

  “Will you let them go now?”

  “Kick it over here,” he says, and I obey without a word. The blade slides across the stone. The general puts his boot on it, and his tone changes, to one of nearly professional curiosity. “How many of the men outside survived?”

  I don’t want to answer—I don’t want to make him angry. But my silence is enough. He raises his eyebrows.

  “I see,” he murmurs. “The ones from the roof will be down shortly. They’ll take you to the palace.”

  Now it’s my turn to be surprised—I hadn’t expected him to keep that part of the deal. Is he more reasonable than I’d hoped? Could I bargain with the wolf who styled himself a shepherd? “And my family?” I say, almost breathless with hope.

  Legarde looks down at the men before him, lined up in a row. “Three hostages is too many. I only need one.” My heart sinks in my chest as he nudges Papa with his foot. “This one’s too far gone, of course. But I only expected you to bring the boy. Your brother was an unexpected bonus. After all, romance can burn hot and flame out.”

  He turns the gun from Leo, to Akra, then back, aiming at the center of his forehead, just below the dark curl of his hair. My voice falters. “You wouldn’t kill your own son.”

  “Of course not.” Legarde cocks the pistol. The sound . . . so soft. But it rings out like a drum strike. “But my son isn’t here.”

  I have no response, but Akra does: a gob of spittle that lands wetly on Legarde’s boot. Wrinkling his nose, the general swings the gun back to Akra, but in the split second when his aim is off, my brother explodes upward, driving his injured shoulder into Legarde’s stomach.

  The general grunts, staggering back, leaving the knife there on the stone as he brings up his gun. Thunder cracks . . . lightning flashes . . . someone screams “No!”

  My voice? The shot was so close, so loud; it rings in my ears like a bell tolling. Akra falls to one knee, his hand over his chest. His face is sallow; blood pours through his fingers. As he slumps forward, the knife springs into my hand; when Legarde reaches out for me, I bury the blade up under his ribs.

  His eyes go wide. He coughs. Blood flows like a spring down my arm—mists on my face, a hot spray; I am bathed in it but not cleansed. I stagger as he slumps against me, trying to lift the gun again, but I slap it out of his hand.

  It clatters to the stone. Legarde slides down beside it. His spirit leaves his body in a rush of golden light—but it is not the only soul standing before the altar of the King of Death.

  Akra, my brother. His body is pale on the cold floor, but his spirit is bright as a fire beside it. There is blood on the stone. Blood on the bodies. Blood on my hands. So little of it mine. But enough.

  Death is too good for Legarde.

  With a snarl, I reach out and take the general’s soul by the throat. There. The statue. I slap my other hand on its black surface, marking it in red, and push the general’s spirit into the stone. The akela writhes, twisting, but my rage is too great, my blood too strong. My own wild laughter rings in the vault of the temple as his soul slides struggling into the bleak darkness that will last a thousand years, but not half so long as mine.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  The song is back in my head.

  I can hear my brother singing it. It even echoes in the cavernous stone temple, differently than it did in the field, when I first imagined his voice those years ago. But he is dead. Now he is truly dead. His body lies on the floor, his soul standing beside it, and as I listen to the sound of his voice, the akela turns to walk out the door.

  That is what breaks me—I can’t bear to watch him go. And before I can think better of it, I drop to my knees beside his prone form and trace the symbol of life on his skin. His soul hesitates, as though ready to refuse the offering—but the pull is irresistible. A flash of light, a moment of stillness. Then under my hands, Akra’s body trembles, and he draws a breath so loud it seems to tear the air in two.

  A fresh gout of blood bubbles from the wound as his heart begins to beat again. I rip the shawl from my waist and press it to his chest, trying to stanch the bleeding as his teeth chatter like dice in a cup. Air passes through his blue lips—first in a hiss, then in a groan. When he opens his eyes, there is a pain in them deeper than my own. “I’m sorry,” I whisper, suddenly afraid. “I’m sorry.”

  But his eyes slide shut again, and I don’t think he can hear me. And then, with a deep rumble, the temple itself shudders.

  At first I am sure it is the
god himself, ready to strike me down. It was too much—to steal my brother back from Death right before his blank stone eyes. A betrayal. An abomination. This is madness. But then, with a crack like thunder, a rift shoots across the crook of the stone god’s elbow. Another breaks the bend of the knee. It is not the god, but Legarde.

  Dust and gravel hit the floor as the spirit moves in his new stone skin. Desperately, I try to lift my brother, but he screams like I’m killing him all over again.

  “Leo?” I say, my voice shaking. “Help me.”

  There is no response, so I turn. Leo is standing over the general’s body—his father’s body. His own face is just as pale. Are those tears in his eyes?

  “Leo?”

  “What?”

  “We have to get out of here. Please.” I slip my shoulder beneath Akra’s arm, but I lose my balance as he slumps back against the stone. His blood pulses weakly through the silk of the shawl. “Please!”

  Another deep rumble strikes the temple, and a chunk of stone tumbles from the shadows above and smashes to pieces. That finally moves Leo, and he comes to my side, helping me lift Akra halfway to his feet. “Where are we going?” Leo murmurs, and I look at him.

  “Le Livre?” It is not a question, but a request—and it is a very long moment till he nods. “Get Papa. Please.”

  “We can’t carry them far.”

  “Just out of the temple, so we’re safe.”

  He presses his lips together, but he goes to Papa, lifting him cradled in his arms. With Akra draped around my shoulders, we stagger out of the temple. Behind us, the statue creaks and groans.

  Blocks of stone bounce down the steps as we stumble to the plaza. I try not to look at the bodies of the soldiers—at their fleeing souls, glowing through the tangled temple gardens. But as we gain some distance from the temple, other spirits appear, drifting close to my blood. We stop near the garden wall, breathing hard, and I pull a vana into each of Akra’s shoes, to lighten the load, and another into Papa’s shirt. It’s been torn nearly to rags, and while his eyes are open, his face is vacant. I cut the ropes around his wrists and ankles, but he will not stand on his own. When I pull the gag from his mouth I have to stifle a scream. Even in the dim light, I can see the ragged stump of his tongue.