Cast in Firelight

by Dana Swift

  “For a while I didn’t think you would pull through,” he says. “I’m glad to see I was wrong.”

  Red flames bristle across my hand and lick up my shoulder. It burns, every ache ricocheting to the bone. I slip one hand behind my back and cast a knife into being, but before I can finish the spell and conjure the weapon, a torture spell snakes through my arm, piercing the swollen flesh through to the broken bone. I crash to my knees, screaming.

  “Careful now. I don’t want to undo all my hard work pulling you off that mountain.”

  I pant on all fours as the pain subsides, but everything still spins. “You? You saved me?”

  “Is that so hard to believe?”

  Yes, that is hard to believe. Disgust worms through me. When I saw those shoes I knew he had come to kill me or at least gloat as I lay dying. But…If he did carry me off that volcano…

  A poisonous fear makes my next words sound pleading. “If you saved me, then you must have saved Jatin too.”

  He laughs. “Ah, so you do care for my nephew. Interesting.”

  I raise my head. Our eyes meet. For what feels like a century we stare each other down. Every piece of information he absorbs is a stab to the gut. I don’t want this murderer to learn one single thing, especially when it comes to Jatin. But it’s too late. Moolek knows his next words could unravel me.

  He turns and steps toward the window, walking past me like I’m nothing. “Lucky for you I needed you both alive.”

  I take a trembling breath. Relief stings my eyes. Jatin. Is. Alive. “Why? Why save us?”

  “I’m sure you’ll figure it out soon enough.” Moolek’s fingers brush the curtains. Everything stills, deathlike. “This is a beautiful view you have here.”

  The ache shooting through my body tells me even standing would be a hardship, but I have to know. I want to hear him say it. Quiet has engulfed the room, making my words loud. “You should have seen it before you destroyed it,” I say.

  “You think it was me?”

  I rise to my knees and slowly, trembling, stand up. “I know it was.” Moolek turns, watching me with little interest. “Erif told me,” I lie.

  I want to see him bleed. I want to see fear in his eyes. Anything!

  At the goddess’s name, he only raises an eyebrow. “Ah yes, I forgot. You had your first death. You talked to the gods. Once you’ve had your fifth I’ll be impressed.” He scoffs. “You still think the gods try to protect us. You do not yet know how the world works. None of you down south do. That’s why you are all so weak.”

  Father’s words echo in my memory. Look to Moolek to see what happens without our powers checked. Soon one starts to think they are God-like. God-like enough to take more than a hundred lives without a second thought. My agony boils over.

  “Agnierif!” I yell, and a bolt of red smoke shoots from my hand and rages toward him, blazing into fire.

  With a flick of his hand, a wall materializes. Then the shield bursts into green smoke and swallows my fire.

  I jump to the side and twist, building a piercing arrow. I throw. But Moolek isn’t where I thought he’d be. Out of the corner of my eye, I see green flaring to my left. As the spear pierces the curtain, his spell hits me in the ribs. I crumble. Pain consumes me, mimicking the burn of my arm throughout my body.

  “Like I said. Weak.”

  Right now, I am weak. I feel it. Burned. Bandaged. Broken! my arm yells at me. The anger doesn’t care, though. It wants to keep screaming. “We are strong enough to stand against you,” I say, my voice a wheeze of pain and hurt. I raise my hand and begin another spell, but a cuff of purple magic flies in the air and hits my wrist, pinning it to the ground.

  Moolek steps forward. “No, you aren’t. You think Erif is on your side, that she grants you some destiny that will stop me? Who do you think granted me the power to activate that volcano?” He pulls up his sleeve and a dense green smoke soars into the air. “And you think it matters that you know it was me?” He laughs. “You failed your royal ceremony, Adraa Belwar. Look at yourself. Hire all the Red Women you want. You are nothing of consequence anymore.”

  Finally, the words have been spoken, the answer clear. The God of Earth helped him as the Goddess of Fire helped me. He infused the volcano with my magic and then with an extreme amount of green magic he pressurized Mount Gandhak to make it erupt. I stagger under the weight of it all. Especially the words that ring truest: I did fail. I failed the royal ceremony. I failed in saving one hundred twenty-nine people. But how am I still alive? He saved me. Why…

  Something glues together in my mind. That guard said I had killed my people, that I was the threat. Lies, of course. But still, lies that he believed.

  Lucky for you I needed you both alive.

  It’s all manipulation, planned from the beginning. Moolek wants me afraid, not dead, because he needs me. My firelight. My firelight!

  I break the cuff and rise. He thinks I hired the Red Woman. He thinks I am nothing but a royal who—like him—believes I have a right to rule. Erif made one thing quite clear: there is only choice, not destiny. I choose not to cower. He will pay for every life he took, even if that kills me. “So it’s my word against yours. But you forget the truth accords. My people will know what you have done.”

  “I forget nothing, girl. Nothing,” he whispers. Yet, I can tell he holds back a shout. I’ve unnerved him. I’m still standing.

  Without a second thought I rip the bandages from my arm, push back the pain, and let magic flare in a bloodred storm. I ignore my burns, and my feet find their stability.

  Finally, surprise enters his eyes.

  “I won’t forget either. Remember that,” I say.

  A wash of green smoke sparks into the air. I brace myself. I took down a volcano. I can defend myself for a few minutes. A few minutes.

  Footsteps smack the stone in the hall. We both still. I listen, trying to pick out whether they are my father’s hard footfalls and my mother’s quick steps or those of Moolek’s men.

  “That’s my cue. I’ll see you soon.” Instead of firing at me, his magic churns around him like a vine.

  No! I lunge forward, but all that’s left of Moolek is the thick fog of green smoke whooshing out my window. How…What kind of spell was that?

  The door swings open, smashes against the wall, and my parents stand at the threshold. They’re okay. Before anyone can say a word, my mom dives forward and wraps me in a hug. My dad is not far behind. My legs finally give in and the three of us fall to the ground. I sag against them and take in their warmth and reassurance. They tell me of Prisha’s safety, of Riya’s well-being, of Jatin’s healing.

  It’s Mother who pulls away first, staring at my neck. “I thought these were burns,” she breathes, reaching and then hesitating to touch me. I turn until I catch myself in a mirror. Finally, I see what created Moolek’s surprise. Not burns, though the sting is the same, but…my Touch. Above my shoulder the designs continue, now in bright red, swirling in an erratic tangle that skims and brushes over my jawline like tendrils of fire. I choke on a snaggle of laughter because it looks beautiful, and different, and horrible. But it also looks like Moolek’s greatest fear, like I am still a woman of consequence, like I’ve been marked for a destiny.

  War brews with a rumor. Erif said as much, but I didn’t think the next wave of attack would start like this, with word and whisper. After I took back my firelight, Moolek stopped the volcano. He’s dubbed a hero.

  And me?

  As the stories say, I’m a corrupt, evil, power-hungry woman who was vanquished after killing one hundred twenty-nine of my own people. This is meant to break me. Watching green-uniformed men repair my city and bring in supplies. Being spit on the first time I enter the clinic to help the wounded. Listening as my people say Jatin Naupure, who at first was bewitched by my treachery, discovered the truth in time to
help his uncle stop my evil designs. It’s all quite brilliant, actually. This is why Moolek saved me. When a marriage to divide southern Wickery didn’t work, Moolek blew it up instead and gave the world what it wanted—a villain. Mount Gandhak was a contingency all along, though. I’m sure of it. A bomb set with my magic to either control me if I allied with him or destroy me if I didn’t.

  But because I know that, because I know every word spoken against me is a lie, I don’t collapse. At least…not completely.

  One hundred twenty-nine pounds against my skull. My firelight follows soon after like a nagging tangle of unbroken thought. The game was fixed from the start, but I still didn’t play it right. I couldn’t stop Moolek from killing my people. And even though one shouldn’t blame the sword for stabbing, I’m slowly caving in on myself because, with my country thinking I killed them, it feels like I have.

  I’ve been avoiding Jatin. I told him not to visit. I can’t force my heart to stop caring, but I also can’t prevent my brain from naming all the reasons we shouldn’t be anything more than partners. So I don’t face it. When the entire kitchen staff, Willona at the helm, brings me one of Jatin’s letters, I thank them and fold it away to their chagrin. Zara and Prisha have thrown themselves into clinic duty. Everyone works as I heal, trying to shield me from more spit in the face, hurled insults, or worse, an assassination attempt. Like old times, long before murder entered our lives, I find the only person willing to talk through the rumors instead of skirting around them is Riya. And I can always find Riya.

  She wrings out a clean towel and wipes her father’s forehead. “You know, I think people were always suspicious that firelight cost next to nothing. It’s easier for them to believe you planted firelight in their homes and betrayed them than old-fashioned goodness.”

  I release a hefty sigh. “I want people’s first assumption to be Belwar’s goodness, not its gangs, drugs, and corruption. Now they think those things of me.”

  “Well, right now you are only one of those things. You aren’t a Vencrin drug addict using Bloodlurst to amass power. At least”—she raises her eyebrows and smiles—“not yet.”

  I give her a look. “Funny.” She’s only half right, though. Some so-called witnesses are coming forward to say they saw firelight being shipped by the Vencrin, which links me to the drug ring. Where were those witnesses when I was scouring the streets as the Red Woman? And moreover, why is darkness so much easier to swallow than light?

  “Pravleah,” I conjure over my mother’s spell.

  “Thank you, Adraa,” Riya whispers.

  “You don’t need to say anything. He’s the only patient who isn’t repulsed by me.”

  Riya stares at her father. The towel drips. “He was right, you know. That new Touch of yours. The ceremony. People’s love. None of that makes you a rani. But to me, what you sacrificed…” She looks up. Before I can, Riya rises and falls on me, hugging me close. “I’m sorry,” she says with a squeeze.

  I hold her fiercely, clinging to her and noticing she wears a red choli, as if no matter what is said I still became her rani that day. “I’m the one that should be sorry. I shouldn’t have kept any of it from you.”

  She pulls back. “You should know it was all just…” She glances at her father.

  Guilt. Blame. Responsibility. Any of these words can fill in what she will say next, but it’s the accumulation of all three. Something unnamable that has been crackling at my skin for days. And since I know what she means, I interrupt her. “I know. You don’t have to say it.”

  Riya lets out a laugh. “Thank Gods.” She hugs me again. “But do hear this. If it’s us against the world, Adraa, I’ll be there beside you, as your friend.”

  I feel myself smiling for the first time in days. “I already knew that too.”

  * * *

  It’s my mom who heals me. My leg broke, but my arm shattered. So instead of Zara or any other mender, it’s my mom who comes every day with new bandages. We revert into a healer-patient relationship until the day I’m staring out the window at the ash and she breaks the thick silence with, “I’ve never told you much about my life on Pire.”

  I turn so quickly that the bandages she’s using to rewrap my arm are yanked from her hands, and sharp stabs of pain run up my shoulder.

  “Careful,” she warns.

  “You never wanted to talk about it. Never.”

  “Yes, well. The culture there is…” She pauses. “It’s rough for girls, the gap between men and women more apparent. My father cried at my birth, that’s one of the first things I learned as a child. I was told he wept in despair at having his first child born female. The only way a woman could become anything of real value was being a healer, so I became the best healer in the entire country and then I left as soon as possible. Your father thinks he chose me, but I pushed for our arrangement, made myself be seen. He was so funny and handsome, but I also saw Belwar as my only chance to both escape and prove myself.”

  I look at my mother straight-on. The bend in her nose has never looked more prominent. By twelve, I had stopped trying to learn how she broke it and why it was never set. Had she refused to answer or had I stopped asking?

  “Society tells us that as women we need a man to be something. We don’t. And I’m so sorry, Adraa. I forced you into marriage and leadership. I had such doubts when we trudged toward Azure Palace that night and yet I didn’t try to convince your father it was too early for you. We hadn’t even seen what you could become.” She tucks my plain right hand between hers. “Then I allowed you only one path, your father’s and my path. And I almost killed you in doing so.”

  Never before have I truly considered telling my parents, especially my mother, that I’m the Red Woman. It has been a secret I never wanted them to know. Their wrath, their lack of understanding, and their guaranteed forbiddance kept me on guard. I could foresee it all unraveling before me at the slightest mention. Yet, right now, it falls to the tip of my tongue.

  “Mom, it’s okay. I wanted it. I wanted to be a rani. I wanted to change Belwar for the better. I even wanted to marry Jatin one day. But now—”

  “You can still do those things.”

  “But I failed.” The words ring ugly and then burrow, allowing a nasty seed of negativity to spring forward and grow. I failed. Failed.

  “You saved the country. That isn’t failure. And you will continue to save us.” She lifts my head, casting a calming pink mist as she wipes the tears from my cheek. “That’s what the Red Woman fights for, right?”

  I freeze, the flush of shame turning cold. What did she just—

  “You—you know?”

  Her small smile says enough. Her nod says even more. She knows. She knows and she’s not yelling.

  “How…?”

  “First, I’m your mother. Second, I’m much more than a medic around here. Who do you think hired Beckman? Who do you think sent Hiren and those trusted guards the night of that raid? Half of the people who line up outside the clinic are informants.”

  My Gods! I jump to my feet and pace. My mother…my mother…this whole time…“So basically you’re telling me you not only know my secret but also everyone’s in Belwar?” What had Prisha once said? Mom was trapped in the clinic, treated as a woman obligated to create potions and nothing more?

  She rises. “Maybe not all of Belwar.” A pause, a small shake of her head. “Please, don’t think you have failed because even with all my intel I didn’t know about Mount Gandhak or your firelight. That day you came to the palace with Jatin I knew you must be on the hunt for Moolek and I stopped you, guided you to the clinic out of fear. So if anyone has failed, Adraa, one could point the finger at me.”

  I’ve always thought my mother only cared how I was presented to the world. But this? This is way more than beauty and etiquette. I shake my head, trying hard to realign what I know. “I don’t blame
you. I feel like a part of me should be mad, but after everything that’s happened…” Something hits me then and I whirl around. Beckman was her man. She protected me and yet…“But now I’m sure you’re wrong. You think you allowed me only one path, but you let me find myself out there.” My mother allowed me to understand I was fierce Jaya Smoke as much as I was Lady Adraa Belwar.

  She presses her hand to my cheek, smiling. “Well, I’m quite fond of the Red Woman.”

  I hug her and for one crystal clear moment the failure and the rumors and the devastation slip away and I’m just a witch. Not a deformed heir drowning under expectations. Not an innocent monster sinking under blame. A witch, accepted for being and rising above both. I can feel the power in that.

  “And, Adraa?”

  “Yes?”

  “I like your partner too.” Mom lays Jatin’s letter on my bedside table. “You taught him well, by the way. If he ever wants to work in the clinic he has my approval.” She holds up a small jar, nods, and places it on the bedside table with a light clink before she closes the door behind her. I walk over out of curiosity at first, and I’m not disappointed for my effort. A note tied around the jar’s lid reads Thought you might need this soon. Unscrewing the cap, I find the potion I taught Jatin to settle my cramps. Good Gods. He makes it hard to not love him.

  When I can finally face it, I rip open the envelope and peer at the words: To the girl who has many names, but favors the color pink above all others.

  Below that it’s blank.

  “Gharmaerif,” I cast, and with heat illuminating the message, I read my first real love letter.

  The vigil is held two weeks after Adraa and I climbed Mount Gandhak and she reclaimed her firelight and saved us all. I stand on the volcano, alone. Layers of black sludge wrinkle the landscape. Down below a forest of trees spreads horizontally, a sea of broken stumps with no sign of greenery until it reaches the ocean, where the mountain slips away. From up here I have a perfect view of both Adraa’s and my cities. From here I can see just how far the ash fell and the lava flowed. Brocade banners flutter over both cities, memorials to the fallen.