Cast in Firelight

by Dana Swift

  “And I don’t answer to illusions.” Before I can even release a spell, the hooded figure puffs into smoke. “Agnierif!” I call to my goddess. Without hesitation an eruption of flames bursts into the air. The flesh-and-blood Vencrin shout and veer back as the bloodred fire roars through the alleyway. The others, the illusions, swoop, and when touched by flame they billow into smoke. Serious and complex black magic.

  With a hiss, spikes of purple magic slice through the fire. Blood. I jerk, but Kalyan reacts faster. He pushes at my shoulder and I barrel to the left. As I right myself, the streaks of purple breeze past, their potential danger sizzling along my arm. I look to Kalyan to exchange a sigh of relief. But I’m greeted with more purple arrows. Impossibly more, coming from another alleyway. It’s a trap. This whole thing was a trap. Kalyan tries to move, to avoid the net they have caught us in. One, two, three bolts slash through the trail of magic glowing from the end of Kalyan’s skyglider. Number four hits his side. He cringes and slumps.

  I see blood.

  And Kalyan falls.

  “No!” My body responds before I even think of twisting or diving. But I’m doing both, wind screaming against my face as I plummet. Hubris digs into my chest. My heart hammers against wood. Kalyan’s wide eyes find mine. We both reach out, our fingers stretching, shoulders straining. Our fingertips knock against one another, but I can’t grasp his. Come on, come on!

  A clap of contact. His hand grips my wrist. I yell as I pull against momentum and gravity. Wisps of red magic slide down my arm and wrap around his. Strengthening. Supporting.

  Too late.

  We tumble against a roof a second later. His skyglider splinters and snaps. The sound of pottery smashing and wood cracking erupts in a flare of noise. I tuck in naturally, but the roof cuts me open. Each clay shell tile bites into my arms, my shoulders, my legs. I roll three, four times and then, finally, stillness.

  Lightning fractures the sky once again and flashes against my eyelids.

  * * *

  Groaning, I rise and search for Kalyan amid the strikes of lightning. One: a crater of shingles. Two: the shards of our skygliders. Three: his slumped body.

  I open my mouth to call to him, but the whoosh and orange tail of a skyglider from above distracts me. He will keep hunting us. On instinct I cast out a sheet of black magic, whirling my hands in broad, clumsy strokes. A screen of red filters off my fingers, painting a picture of our mangled forms. An illusion glides close. Now, not having to convince anyone of its false humanity, the shadow creature wears a blank face, smoke unfurling at the edges. It looks as if it seeped out of a corpse.

  It glides even closer. I freeze. If one curl of smoke, one tendril, touches the red wall, it will break my illusion. The thing sniffs.

  “Mrtywodahsssss,” I breathe, elongating the spell for death until my illusion rises, bubbles. I’m adding an extra layer, splashing the smell of blood and decay into the creature’s gnarled face before it breaks my original screen. The thing shudders and in a whoosh, it flies off. That’s right: go tell your boss of our demise.

  I slump backward, rasping in hiccupping panic. Kalyan! My whole body aches and whines, but I crawl toward him.

  “Kalyan? Kalyan?”

  He’s not moving.

  I feel for a pulse. “Kalyan!”

  “Ah, that sucked,” he wheezes.

  I gurgle between laugher and a sob as I throw my arms around him. We’re alive. We’re bloody alive.

  “Ow!”

  Snapping back, I zero in on the hand holding his side, and the blood pumping between his fingers. “Gods, let me see.”

  Kalyan pulls his hand away to reveal a slash along his ribs, sternum to stomach. “Does it look as bad as it feels?” he asks.

  “No. It probably feels worse.”

  Kalyan slouches with a wince. “Yeah, I’m going to agree with you on that.”

  “Just hold on.” I tear at his kurta, ripping the cloth and exposing the wound.

  “We’ve talked about undressing me like this, Smoke.”

  I keep tearing. “Have I told you you’re one of my worst patients?”

  “But the best partner?”

  I smile at his banter. It’s a good sign. I search on my belt, open a small orb jar, and smear the pink numbing lotion amid the blood. “Ksatleah. Suptaleah.” My magic glows to life and plunges into Kalyan’s skin. “This is going to take some time.”

  “I’m not going anywhere.” Kalyan falls back and I hover over him, casting, numbing, trying. There is so much blood. Too much blood. But I’ve seen worse.

  After twenty minutes of tedious work, the sky opens upon us and dumps the rain it has been savoring. Each drop breaks open my weakening illusion spell as I focus only on healing. My whole body stings with the water’s contact, every cut yearning for attention. My shoulder throbs. The side of my head pounds. There are two massive tears in my flying pants. Within seconds my clothes are both tattered and adhered to my skin. “Blood.”

  Kalyan casts under his breath and a white halo instantly surrounds us. Raindrops swerve.

  “You need to save your energy,” I say.

  “You need to see.”

  I can’t argue there.

  Kalyan stares off into the distance. “You should have kept following him. He’ll be impossible to trace now.”

  “Like I would have just watched you die.”

  He stares at me, another understanding lining my words. “Careful, Smoke, or I’m going to start thinking you like me.”

  “You don’t make it easy, that’s for sure.” Could there be a more blatant lie?

  He reaches out and touches the side of my head and I freeze. “You’re bleeding,” he whispers, concern lacing his voice.

  Raising my hand I feel the wetness, the sting, the throbbing I finally clue into. Gods, I feel awful. But having someone in front of me that needs my help dulls the hurt. “I’m fine.”

  He frowns. “That’s what you said earlier.”

  “I’m fine,” I reiterate. It’s bad protocol for patients to think the healer is losing it or doubting themselves.

  “You can tell me,” he whispers. “We’re a team.”

  “We are a team. The best team.” At that his hand drops away and his eyes close. It’s only minutes later, but I finish sewing up the slash. It’ll leave a brutal but clean scar surrounded by smaller cuts and blooming bruises. I clench my hand, a limp tingling sensation alerting me of my impending burnout. At least I closed his wound.

  “Kalyan?”

  He groans in answer and then falls silent. The water wall peters out, but the rain has stopped for the most part, only last-minute drops, slow to the party, sprinkling on us.

  “Kalyan?”

  No answer. I check his pulse and bend over his mouth. After a jolt of terror, his breath brushes my cheek. Unconscious, then, too much shock for his body or too many numbing spells from me. Thank Gods. If he had died…

  I push his wet hair from his forehead. He looks kind, even asleep, even in pain. Catching myself smiling I snatch my hand back. Dear Gods, it’s too late for me. I’m in love with him.

  I awaken damp, sore, and with the sun streaking into my face. I adjust, seeking warmth and curling into it. Then last night’s events tumble into my memory. My eyes fly open to find Kalyan: half-naked, one arm around my middle, cuddling me to his side. I spring and flinch and start all at the same time. Shop owners and others hungry to start the day swamp the street below. Carts rattle, goats and sheep bleat, right below the roofline a customer haggles over the price of turmeric. Oh my bloody—

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa, don’t worry. I cast an illusion spell. People are seeing an empty, undestroyed roof,” he says.

  The smear of white smoke shimmers in front of us. “Oh,” I manage.

  Kalyan tries to rise, but cringes and hisses throug
h his teeth. “Oh blood. Yeah, that hurts.”

  “Careful or you’ll rip it open.” My hands immediately go to his side and then realize how intimate…I mean, I tore his kurta open last night. And the other realizations from last night fog my brain. I feel like I’ve been drenched with heat and awkwardness. Or maybe that’s the burnout.

  I whip my hands back. “Do you mind if I…”

  “Check the stitching that saved my life? By all means.”

  I peer at the scar, which is only a nasty stitched line now. It’s as good as, if not better than, my mother’s handiwork. Gods, how much magic did I pour into this? “It’s not infected.”

  He stares at me and I wipe my face and pull back my hair. I’m probably beyond a mess. I wish he would look away and imagine me without the cuts, the bruises, and the sleep deprivation. “What?” I finally ask.

  “Has anyone told you that you snore?”

  My mouth drops open and my face ignites. “Do I?”

  His eyes crinkle as he laughs. “Just a little.”

  “How long have you been awake?”

  “A while.”

  “And you let me sleep on you?”

  He shrugs. “You burned out.”

  “You’re the one that…Wait, how do you know I burned out?”

  “You get really hot when you burnout.”

  That means he felt my body, pressed against his. I look away, my face flaming.

  “How you feeling?” he urges as if this isn’t embarrassing. As if our act of passing out against each other is nothing unusual. As if I’m not engaged to his raja…Oh Gods.

  I stare at my Touch to avoid his gaze. Red smoke lights up my fingertips. “I’m able to cast, but still pretty out of it.”

  “Yeah, and tomorrow you have to fight.” He rubs his eyes.

  “Blood.” The Beckman fight. Twenty-nine days have slipped by as I shoved it to the back of my mind. Now, tomorrow, I’ll be facing him. “I never want to see another cage caster.”

  “We just spent the night together and you don’t want to see me again? That’s rough, Smoke.”

  “We didn’t spend the night together,” I huff. But it feels like air is trapped in my chest—awkward, light, flustered.

  He gestures to the rubble of shingles and the twigs of our skygliders. Hubris the Second didn’t have a long life.

  “Shut up.”

  He laughs. His side must not be that painful.

  I stand and brush off the dust. “We’re going to have to fix this roof.”

  “And I need to fix my kurta.”

  * * *

  After mending the roof and sewing his kurta with a flourish of green magic, we descend into the street. I need to get home, but I need something else first. Can’t exactly sneak into my room without a skyglider. And I’m not walking through the palace doors looking like this or without Hubris. My parents aren’t that busy.

  It’s an average market day, which means within seconds a swarm of colors and people ambush us. The younger generation of Belwarians wears flying pants, with bright kurtas for males, and blouses and wraparound skirts for females. Saris and vests are still in abundance among the older, more traditional crowds. After that it’s a jumble, with Pire Island’s heavier cloaks and duller coats, Agsa’s pastel palette, and Naupure’s clean lines and silks.

  My burnout disengaged the swirls of purple barrier magic infused into my Red Woman uniform. Now, Kalyan and I both look like black fortes infatuated with their own color. I’m not saying we stick out like sore thumbs, but we should get out of here as soon as possible. Wanted posters line the shop stalls.

  “We’re going to need skygliders,” Kalyan says.

  “I know a guy.”

  He arches an eyebrow. “You know a guy?”

  “What? You don’t?” Having a good skyglider guy is one of the reasons I’m still alive. I mean, Hubris died because I splintered it into a thousand pieces and stabbed a Vencrin. Hubris the Second created enough resistance for us to survive last night’s fall.

  “I’ve had only three skygliders my entire life,” Kalyan says.

  I stop, actually halt in place. The streets keep churning with people alongside me, but I’m at a standstill. It takes a second for Kalyan to realize and swing around. “What?”

  “Three skygliders? Three.” Maybe I misheard. He could have said thirteen or even thirty.

  “Yeah, three. How many have you had?”

  I flounder, but regain a scrap of composure and reengage with the flow of foot traffic. “Ah, a few more.”

  He eyes me. I’ve made a fatal error, I know because he starts grinning. “Smoke?” He elongates the vowel.

  “We have actual important things to talk about. Like what we should be doing next.”

  “Yeah, and we can discuss that as soon as you answer this one question.” He guides me to a stop in front of a silken fish stall. An Untouched vendor with a booming voice calls to us, thrusting scales and the pearly white flesh outward. “One pound one silver,” he pitches.

  Kalyan, like any practiced shopper, ignores him. “How many?”

  “What are you willing to do for this information?”

  His head tilts as if my embarrassing myself acts as proper currency in his book. “What do you want?”

  So many things. For us to not have failed last night. For my fight with Beckman to not be tomorrow. For the world to give us more time. Give me more time.

  I can’t voice a single one.

  “The skyglider shop I like is only a block away.”

  Mittal and Muni’s is your typical skyglider extravaganza. Skygliders, condensed down to their stump form, dangle from wooden pegs. In the far left corner the walls bend and shoot upward for three stories like a hollowed-out tree trunk so customers can test out different skyglider designs.

  I’ve been coming here for years. But memory pulls to a year ago, when Mr. Burman bought me Hubris the First. Before that I ran through skygliders recklessly, to an extent I refuse to admit to Kalyan. Mr. Burman had held the skyglider aloft and said, “We are going to name this one.” It had done the trick. That is, until Riya’s and my world caved in. So as bells chime at our entrance, the smell of freshly crafted wood and pangs of nostalgia hit me with full force.

  “Say, if it isn’t my best customer,” Mr. Mittal announces. He calls me that—best customer—because he forgets my name, forgets everyone’s name. He’d probably forget his partner Muni’s name, if it weren’t painted on the sign beside his. Sometimes I’ve wondered if it’s an act or if that’s why Mr. Burman took me here. Today, though, I’m just going to be grateful and for once not question his forgetfulness or make a sarcastic remark. He zips toward us, hovering on the skyglider he uses to be able to see over the countertops and glide to the vaulted ceiling and flying tower.

  “Hey, Mr. Mittal.” I bend and press my forearm to his. “I need another one. Actually, make that two.” I jerk a thumb to include Kalyan.

  “Already?” His eyes widen. Of course this he remembers all too well.

  I peer at his fingers, three of them wooden. How can a wizard criticize me about crashing a skyglider when three weeks ago he had only two magic-infused wooden appendages? “Huh, what happened there?” I gesture.

  “Ah yes.” He flexes his hand and then stuffs it into his pocket. “We can all be clumsy at times. That’s why you are my best customer.”

  I fake-laugh. “I appreciate the nonjudgmental attitude.”

  He slaps the counter in approval. “Right, so what’s your weapon of choice?”

  “The best you’ve got.”

  He mock frowns, jumps back on his skyglider, and whizzes three stories up the tower. “How vague. Have I taught you nothing?”

  “Come on, Mittal!” I yell up the tunnel. “You’re going to make me go through the whole elementar
y checklist?”

  “If it helps you not lose another one of my babies.” He pouts, swiveling between selections and inspecting different skygliders.

  I sigh and roll my eyes. He’s a feisty little seven-fingered man. But by the gods how I love this place.

  I finally notice Kalyan examining the front display case, one hand pressed to his torso.

  I’m by his side in two seconds flat. “Are you okay? Did it reopen?”

  “I’m fine. Just sore.” He glances at me. “And yes, I’m sure.”

  I guess my urge to inspect remains apparent. Kalyan even releases his hand like that’s proof. For the record, that’s never proof. The memory of him pushing me away flashes. Him falling. The blood.

  What it would be like to choose my own fiancé? I know that can’t happen. And I still can’t bring myself to tell him the truth either. The moment he finds out who I am is the moment I lose my best chance of discovering what’s happening with my firelight and destroying the Vencrin.

  But I already gave up the plan, and the surefire way to discover those answers for him, didn’t I?

  “What would you do if you weren’t a guard?” I whisper.

  He slowly lowers his hand from the nearest skyglider. “No one has asked me that before.”

  “Really?” A guard has the ability to choose his or her destiny. Riya has talked about guarding since she was ten, and some Touched put all their energy into one type of magic to ensure their forte. It’s a valued occupation, and because of its reputation and stability no one is forced into service. I’d think Kalyan has it easier than me, who’s clutching onto lies like they’re safety platforms.

  “Yeah, no one. It was expected my whole life. Family business.” He faces me. “What would you do if you didn’t serve the Belwars?”

  I’m silent for so long I’m sure he thinks I’ve ignored the question. And I almost do, but then the words spill out. “I didn’t cast until after my ninth birthday. And it took me another year to be able to generate magic in my right arm as well. So flying was a big deal. But even now I wouldn’t say I love flying. I love skygliders.” I brush the silken fabric tail of Mittal and Muni’s first creation, a very simple skyglider with no curved handholds or streamlined extension, but still so much craftsmanship. “In a simpler life I would be an inventor like Mittal, and maybe one day create something that can fly on its own for the Untouched, for those trapped on the ground.”