Burn

by Keri Arthur

  Her grumble ran through my thoughts. Don’t like not helping.

  I know. My lungs were beginning to burn, and sweat trickled down my face and spine. The night might be cool, but this uniform was designed to counter the chill that came with flying high by keeping body heat locked within the layers of material. It was never meant to be worn during vigorous activity, and scrambling up this steep hillside was certainly that. Can you ask Ineke what’s happening in that valley?

  There was a pause, then, Earth over strange tanks being removed.

  I swore and increased my speed, slipping and sliding as I surged up the steepening slope. If there were patrols in this area, I was all but shouting my location. But I had to see those weapons before they were taken from the area.

  The top of the ridge finally came into sight. My legs burned, and I couldn’t get enough air into my lungs, no matter how quickly I breathed. It didn’t matter; nothing did except getting to the ridge and seeing the ice weapons.

  The trees abruptly thinned, providing less cover. I dropped to hands and knees, scrambled forward the last few yards, and came out on a ridge that overlooked the entire valley. Either I’d been lucky or Kiva had placed me well.

  The five drakkons circled high above, their scales glimmering whenever touched by moonlight. Their movements were casual, with no suggestion they were on lookout for intruders—but to believe that would be foolish.

  There was at least a squadron of Mareritt on the valley floor, but it was the two who stood, hands raised, at the back of the semi-dismantled earth mounds that protected the ice tanks who caught my attention.

  Mages.

  I didn’t need to see their eyes to know that. The crawl of their power stung the air and pulsed through the ground under my stomach.

  There were three ice tanks here in all—although, aside from the long, needlelike gun, none of them bore any real resemblance to tanks. Or indeed, any other vehicle or weapon I’d seen up until this point. Their fat, round bodies sat on two metal skids, with some sort of chain anchoring them at the rear—a counterpoint to the weight of the nose, presumably. I wasn’t sure if they were constructed out of metal or something else, as it seemed to have a frosty sheen in the cold light of the moon. If it was metal, then Kaiden’s belief they couldn’t work the substance was a false one.

  Movement at the far end of the valley caught my attention. Two vehicles entered; they were podlike up front with a long, flat tray at the back. Obviously, the weapons weren’t mobile...

  The crack of a twig had my head snapping around. I scanned the trees to my right, seeing nothing, sensing nothing. The slight breeze ran past me rather than toward and gave no hint of what had made that noise. It could have been nothing more than one of the tiny honey bears who inhabited these lowland forest areas out foraging for food.

  Or it could be a Mareritt patrol attempting to sneak up on me.

  I carefully edged down the ridge until I was back in the thick cover of the trees, then stood and scanned the hillside again, tension flooding fire through my veins.

  Still no sign of Mareritt, or, indeed, anything else, but I couldn’t escape the notion that Túxn was about to claim her pound of flesh.

  Oma, can you ask Ineke if the Mareritt patrol my valley?

  There was a pause, then, Know you there. Coming. Shall flame?

  No, because then you’ll be attacked by Ineke and the others. We can’t risk that, Oma. I swung the rifle from my shoulder, checked it was fully loaded, and then ran with all the speed I could muster down the slope.

  What if captured?

  Tree branches whipped across my face and stone skittered from under my feet. It didn’t matter. They knew I was here and had eyes in the sky, so there was little point in hiding. If they capture me, follow from a safe distance and see where they take me.

  No help knowing. Can’t talk to Kaiden.

  No. But you can lead him to me. Or if that doesn’t work, you can tell me where I am, and that might help me escape.

  She grumbled. Loudly. Unhappy. Rather flame now.

  I know, but sometimes it’s better to be patient.

  No like patient.

  I smiled and leaped over a log, landing heavily and rather awkwardly on the other side. Pain shot around my ankle, but I ignored it and kept on running.

  I could hear the Mareritt now, and there were a lot of them.

  Drakkons leaving with strange tanks, came Oma’s comment.

  Which didn’t really help me right now. Does Ineke know where they’re taking them?

  No. Oma paused. Will tell when knows.

  Thank her for me.

  Will. Have.

  The noise of pursuit grew louder. They were so damn close now...

  Fire burned across my fingertips. I slid to a halt, swung around, and flung it in a wide arc. Flame leapt from tree to tree until the entire area was alight. It would stop this lot, but there were others. Many others.

  I turned and bolted in the opposite direction, slipping and sliding on various patches of scree and rotting leaves. The harsh rasp of my breathing echoed across the night, mingling with the screams and shouts of those caught in the firestorm behind me. But from up ahead came the sound of a vehicle; one that moved toward the forest rather than away.

  It was a trap, just as I feared.

  I swore and changed direction, scrambling back up the hill. If I could make it to the other valley, if the Mareritt there were indeed leaving rather than simply repositioning their weapons, I had a chance. A slight chance, but a chance nonetheless.

  The rumble of another vehicle came from the tree line above. No escape that way. I swore, abandoned any thought of reaching the other valley, and headed across the hill instead—running toward the tank on the plain rather than away from it.

  I still had some fire left. If I could blast the tank, incapacitate it... The thought died. It wouldn’t help me. Nothing would. I’d be captured no matter what I did, but I’d be damned if I’d make it easy for them.

  Something pinged past my ear and smashed into the tree a few yards ahead. Bark speared into my face as I raced past, drawing blood. I swore again and spun around. Saw the Mareritt in the trees farther up the hill and raised the rifle, unleashing metal hell on them. Gunshots ran across the night, and several Mareritt went down. Bullets pounded into the trees all around me, but none hit me.

  They wanted me alive.

  I wanted them all dead.

  I continued to shoot until the chamber-empty light flashed in warning, then flung fire into the trees, creating another barrier between them and me. My eye started bleeding again, and the pounding in my head increased; I was now roaring toward empty unconsciousness but didn’t really care. I shoved a fresh clip into the rifle, then turned and ran. The heat of nearby flames shimmered across my back, and the stench of burned flesh stained the crisp air. But it hadn’t stopped them. Nothing would. Not until they’d achieved their goal.

  I leaped over another log. Saw movement to my right. Raised the rifle and fired indiscriminately. One Mareritt went down, and two others ducked behind trees.

  Movement, this time to my left. More soldiers. In the trees, shadowing me but not firing.

  They had me surrounded.

  I was theirs. They knew it. I knew it.

  But I’d still be damned if I’d go down easily.

  I reached for more flames. But even as they answered, even as more Mareritt burned, something snapped inside. Pain unlike anything I’d ever felt sent me stumbling. I hit the ground hard and slid for several feet, skinning hands and chin before coming to a halt hard up against a tree.

  I tried to rise but couldn’t. My limbs were heavy and unresponsive, my vision was black, and there was nothing beyond a fierce roaring in my ears. Nothing beyond the fire in my brain and the agony in my soul.

  It was over.

  Eleven

  I drifted in a dark sea of unending pain. It burned through my heart, my soul, and my brain. It came from losing all that I held de
ar and from doing too much, pushing too hard. The occasional strange sound or smell had consciousness flickering, but it was never enough to hold me above that sea. To wake me.

  I’m not entirely sure what eventually did.

  Certainly it wasn’t the absence of agony. My limbs were stretched to breaking point and ablaze with pain, my head thumped so hard that tears dribbled from under closed eyelids, and my heart felt ready to explode out of my chest. Which made no sense. I was captive and unmoving—why would it be pumping so hard?

  There was metal on my wrists, metal around my ankles, and stone at my back. The air was icy, and every breath felt cold against my lips. The scents that ran around me were dominated by the musky stink of the Mareritt, but underneath it ran hints of age and mustiness that stirred memories I couldn’t quite catch.

  There was no sound in this place—no sound other than the harsh rasp of labored breathing.

  Mine.

  Something was very wrong.

  Fear surged, but there was no accompanying rise of fire. My flames were a twisting, churning mass of heat and anger, but they were somehow chained. I could feel them, but I couldn’t call on them.

  Somehow, the Mareritt had cut access to my one and only weapon.

  How was that possible? How could they retard something that was so innate in every kin? Something that was built into our very DNA?

  I tried to reach for Oma or Kiva, but there was nothing but an odd sort of static. My ability to communicate with the drakkons had also been silenced.

  Perhaps that’s why my head thumped and my heart hurt. Perhaps whatever they were doing to curtail either ability was physically destroying me.

  Was that what they wanted? To destroy me?

  But why bring me here—wherever here was—if that were their intent? Why not simply kill me in the forest, where they had me totally and utterly outnumbered?

  I covertly drew in a deeper breath in an effort to quell the surging fear. If I wanted any hope of getting out of this situation, I needed to keep a calm, clear head. And while my head did feel like it was trapped in a vise and being squeezed ever tighter, I could at least think.

  The first question I needed to answer was, where in the wind’s name was I?

  There was no way of telling without opening my eyes, and something within suggested doing so would not be a good idea. I had no idea why, given this room appeared empty, but until I knew more about the situation and what had happened to me, I wasn’t inclined to ignore it.

  Instead, I turned my attention inward. Not so much on the pain, but the reason for it. The cause of the agony in my limbs was obviously the fact that my arms and legs were stretched wide and locked in place by cuffs. I wasn’t hanging by them—there was a small shelf of stone under each foot, which suggested that while they might be trying to break me mentally, they weren’t intending to do so physically. Not yet, anyway.

  This belief was underscored by the fact that I didn’t appear to have any broken bones. There was also nothing to suggest I’d been badly beaten or even raped, as the women in that pod had been.

  But maybe they were saving all that for when I woke—which was a perfectly good reason to keep pretending unconsciousness.

  There was a bandage of some sort around my right arm, just below the inner part of my elbow. It appeared to be holding something in place, because if I twitched slightly, metal moved inside my vein. A needle—and no doubt the entry point of whatever drug they were pumping into me.

  Were those drugs the cause of the thumping in my head and the galloping of my heart? The reason I couldn’t reach either of my abilities?

  Maybe. It still made no sense, though. I’d cindered hundreds of their men, had caused untold damage to their carefully maintained front of invincibility, and had freed a couple of their drakkons. The Mareritt I knew would not have kept me alive—not unless they had other plans for me... The thought trailed off, and suddenly I knew.

  They were trying to turn me.

  Trying, via a mix of drugs and magic, to make me a weapon against my own people. They’d done it to us more than once. In fact, part of the reason Zephrine hadn’t noticed the coruscations until they were in Arleeon was the chaos and confusion caused by two kin who’d somehow escaped the madness that came with a drakkon’s death, and who’d been found wandering through Mareritten close to death a few days after.

  Just like me, they’d been thoroughly examined by readers.

  Just like me, there’d been no indication of false memories having been inserted.

  And, just like me, they’d been cleared of any interference.

  Had Kaiden’s initial fears about me been right? Was I an unwilling—unknowing—partner in some hideous, Mareritt-designed plot? If not from this time, then from mine? What if my memories of falling from Emri weren’t from the coruscation but rather from a time before they’d even entered Arleeon?

  Just because I remembered flying into the coruscation after Sorrel didn’t mean those fears were pointless, because my presence might have triggered the trap.

  What if the reason I was here now, alive and relatively unhurt, was because they wanted me to be? Because they’d realized their reprogramed weapon was faulty and needed a retune before she returned to wreak havoc on those who now called her friend?

  I couldn’t answer any of those questions, and that was perhaps the scariest thing of all.

  From somewhere beyond my cell came the sound of footsteps. Keys rattled within a lock, and then the door opened. Two Mareritt walked toward me. It took every ounce of control I had to keep pretending unconsciousness.

  “Bio readout?” The voice was gruff, and his heavy accent one I’d only heard a few times in my life. He’d come from the deep south of Mareritten—an area that was riddled with both snow and volcanoes.

  “Acute.” The reply came from the right side of the room and not from either of the men who’d entered. The third man had obviously been here the entire time, meaning my instincts had been right. “Respiratory distress, blood pressure, and heart rate at dangerous levels.”

  “Any sign of awareness?”

  The other man hesitated. “There is some level of consciousness evident.”

  “And her psi talents?”

  “Successfully restrained.”

  The gruff man grunted. “Mage? Opinion?”

  Someone stepped forward, and then fingers touched my forehead. Fingers that were cold and pulsed with power.

  Magic, not ice. Slithering into my brain, riffling through my thoughts.

  May the wind help me...

  I held still, fighting instinct and the need to react, to kill. My life might well depend on them not knowing I was fully conscious.

  But it was a damn hard task when those skeletal fingers of darkness clawed further and further into my brain. What was he seeking? I really had no idea, because it didn’t feel anything like the process of being read. He didn’t appear to be mining or even altering my memories.

  Whatever he was doing, it went on and on.

  The pounding in my head became steadily worse. Every breath was now short and shallow, and my heart ached. Literally ached.

  The mage continued to delve, poking and probing the remaining area of ice in my brain; his magic swirled around it, testing and tasting it. That ice and his power were very similar in feel, and it made me wonder if the ice in my brain had in fact been caused by the magic within the coruscation.

  What if it was a product of this time? What if he was now adjusting whatever commands or memories lay behind it?

  Would I even be thinking this way if he were?

  I didn’t know. I just didn’t know.

  “She’s about to go into cardiac arrest,” came the monotone voice to my right.

  “Get the infusion ready,” the gruff voice said. “Mage? Anything?”

  “If she has been reprogrammed, whatever her task was has been accomplished. I see no remnants of it.”

  Oh God... had I been right? Had I been the tri
gger that had trapped and destroyed Sorrel and all the graces? I didn’t want to believe it, but there was no escaping the possibility.

  “Meaning the magic remaining is Mareritt in origin?”

  “Yes, but it is old, not new, and has the feel of the coruscation.”

  His words made me feel no better. Just because he couldn’t feel any reprogramming didn’t mean I hadn’t been. Didn’t mean I couldn’t be once again.

  The man in charge grunted again. It was not a happy sound. “Suggesting she’s not, as some believe, a half-breed born with the kin ability to flame but rather an escapee from the coruscation?”

  “Again, unclear.”

  “Do you have an opinion either way?” There was something in the commander’s tone that suggested he and this mage did not get along.

  “Her mottled skin is one of the inherent signs of a half-breed—”

  “I’m aware of that, mage.” The commander’s voice was curt. “That’s not what I asked.”

  “The blood of kin still runs through many today. It would not be unexpected for their ability to flame and even communicate with drakkons to make a reappearance in a new generation.”

  “Even in a half-breed?”

  “Yes.” The mage hesitated. “As to whether she’s an escapee—none who flew into the coruscations on the Day of Victory would have had this mottling. Half-breeds simply did not exist back then.”

  How ironic, I thought distantly, that the one thing I hated might be the one thing that saved me.

  Not that survival was in any way guaranteed. Pain radiated down both my spine and my arm now, and my gut churned. Breathing was almost impossible, and the voices of the Mareritt appeared to be getting farther and farther away.

  “Then how do you explain the remnants of old magic in her mind?”

  “I can’t; the possibility she’s an escapee remains—and she certainly matches the description of the woman in the strange uniform found within the Red Ochre tunnel.”

  His words had memories stirring... Stumbling along a roadway that seemed to go on forever, and rain. Never-ending rain that soaked me to the skin and made me shiver despite my inner heat. A mountain soaring above me, deep red against blue, blue skies. Then a tunnel entrance, half hidden by sheeting water that was colder than ice. Staggering, delirious with tiredness, along the dark road that cut through the heart of the mountain. Then lights, bright lights pinning me, capturing me.