The Memory of Fire

by Callie Bates

  I stare at the coin in my fingers. My skin feels numb. Something’s happened. My brother has never contacted me of his own volition before.

  “Jahan?” El says. She’s touching my elbow, but I don’t feel it.

  “I—my brothers—” Sophy gave me a letter from Aunt Cyra. I’ve been holding it all this time. I break the seal, though my fingers are shaking so badly I almost rip the paper. The letter begins with the usual greetings, but my gaze drops straight to the second paragraph.

  I trust that Rayka found you in Eren. That is, I presume that’s where he’s gone. He ran away from the Akademia last week—you should have seen the commotion those military folk made, looking for him. If he is there, give him my regards, and remind him he won’t be granted a second try on his exams.

  A pressure is rising in my ears, swelling my head. Aunt Cyra knows Rayka wouldn’t just disappear, not from the military academy he loves. This isn’t simple concern.

  It must have been Madiya. She must have summoned him. She must have spoken his name—her voice sibilant, commanding, insistent, even if her magic is weak. He must have heard her just the way I do. And he must have finally been unable to resist.

  That, or the witch hunters discovered his secret.

  “Jahan,” Elanna is saying. She’s gripping my wrist; I didn’t even feel it until she spoke.

  “I have to go,” I say. My mind is spinning. It’s two days by sea to the Britemnos Isles. I can get to Roquelle, the port, today. But all the gods, what if Madiya has a new plan? What if she’s not only experimenting on Rayka but doing something even more dangerous with Lathiel, too?

  Elanna’s leaning over my shoulder, reading the letter. Softly, she says, “She doesn’t say he’s been taken by witch hunters…”

  I shake my head. It’s possible, I suppose. But if that’s the case, they’d have a warrant out for my arrest. Sophy’s contact in Ida would have told us that. At least, I think so.

  El lowers her voice. “You’d know if…the sorceress…took him, wouldn’t you?”

  I shake my head, mute as the street performers in Ida. I fumble for words. “How would I know? I don’t know what she’s done to him. If she…”

  I stop. Madiya took my mother’s memories. She erased them utterly. She’s taken my memories, and Rayka’s, and Lathiel’s—maybe not as a whole, but in bits and pieces. Neither she nor my father wanted Rayka to go to Ida. If she’s angry with him, what will she take from him this time? What will be the cost of me trying to save him? Will she punish Lathiel, too?

  “Rayka,” I say aloud. “Rayka!”

  But there’s nothing. Maybe my will isn’t strong enough. After all, Madiya called me her failure. And I ran away from home when I was fifteen. I kept the knowledge I learned, but I’ve spent six years avoiding its practice. Six years hiding what I am.

  If I have to stop Madiya, will I even know how?

  Elanna’s gripping both my hands. “This Madiya is only a woman. You told me she has hardly any sorcery of her own. She has no power, Jahan.”

  “You don’t understand. She—she—” I stare down into El’s face. If I go back to Pira, Madiya could seize me, too. She could steal my memories. She could take the knowledge of Elanna away from me. She could take everything, just as she did to my mother.

  “If you don’t hear from me,” I say, “don’t send anyone after. There may not be anything left of me to salvage.”

  “Yes, there will.” She’s holding me fiercely. “There has to be! Your brother probably ran away because he was worried about failing his exam.”

  I shake my head. She doesn’t know Rayka at all—any more than I know him, really. He’s far too stubborn to give up on the exams. He wanted the blasted military academy. He begged to join it. He didn’t want to laugh with me or talk about the years without me. The years I abandoned him. He didn’t want to say what Madiya taught him, or what she took from him. He just wanted to read about ancient battles and biographies of conquerors. He didn’t even have the knack for making friends with the other students, who’d sneered at his accent and intellectual interests. He wanted to wall himself away from the world. The one time I got him to laugh was when I offered to challenge some of his rivals to a duel. “We could do them in,” he said, and I don’t think he was joking.

  He’s stubborn. An unpleasant bastard, half the time. But he’s my brother, and I can’t leave him to Madiya. Not when she still has Lathiel. I can’t leave both my brothers with her.

  And to find him—to save them both—I have to go home.

  “All right,” Elanna says softly. I focus on her face. “You’re going to talk to me every evening. At nine o’clock. Or I’ll think you’ve been imprisoned for lying to everyone.”

  Her tone is gently teasing. I force a smile. “It’s an hour different in Ida. And…Pira.”

  “Then you’ll talk to me at ten o’clock.” She pauses. “Do you promise?”

  “I…” How can I make a promise, not knowing whether my mind will even remain my own? I look into her eyes. I need to remember them as long as I can, but I already know how the memories will slip and fade. I know what it’s like to wake up on that stone table, with nothing but the certainty of loss. Maybe I should have told Elanna everything while I had the chance—about Madiya, and my mother, and how I’ve survived. How I used magic everywhere but here, even if it made her push me away. But it’s too late now. There’s no time.

  She must see some of this in my face, because she lowers her head and gathers my hands in hers. “Let’s make a different promise, then. I promise to love you. I will always make that promise, no matter what.”

  My throat closes. Say it, I tell myself. But what if Madiya takes even this away from me, the memory of love? She’ll take everything from me if she can, and Elanna most of all. She would hate to have herself replaced by anyone else.

  Yet Elanna’s eyes are bright. Her grip is tight on my hands. She’s afraid, too. Afraid of losing me.

  “I promise the same,” I whisper. My throat tries to close, but I force the words out. They’re thin. Inadequate. “My love. To you, always.”

  Her lips tighten. When she kisses me gently, lightly, I think I can taste the bittersweet tang of tears on her lips. Or maybe the tears are my own. I gather her tight against me, feeling the outline of her body against mine, even through the bulk of our clothes. I close my eyes. I have to remember this moment for as long as I can.

  “You will come back to me, Jahan Korakides,” she whispers. “You will.”

  I nod. But I’m not sure either of us is convinced.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Two days from Eren, at high noon, the Britemnos Isles form out of the sun-hazed horizon. I stop pacing the quarterdeck. My hands fall to the railing. The sun pounds, too hot, on my bare head. Six months ago, on my way to Eren with Finn, we passed near the islands. Finn asked if I wanted to stop, but I couldn’t. I told myself our lawyers would rescue Lathiel, the way they had finally rescued Rayka. I told myself I couldn’t abandon Finn to lead a rebellion on his own. But I should have stopped then. I shouldn’t have given in to my fear. Maybe I could have saved both my brothers, then.

  “Rayka,” I whisper. “Lathiel.”

  But it’s Madiya’s voice that drifts into my head. Jahan. Jahan.

  Raw panic squeezes my chest. Around me the sailors whistle and chatter. I feel for the ridged scar behind my ear, the scar I have no memory of receiving. The old, ugly grief claws at me. If this is what Madiya did to me as a child, how much worse will my punishment be now?

  But I can’t surrender to that fear. I’ll strike her before I let her touch me. She’s got Lathiel. And now, again, Rayka. I already know I’m too late. They’re the ones in danger. I have to save them. I can’t run this time.

  Behind me, the sailors shout and point. A school of dolphins flashes past the Celeritas’s stern. The sa
ilors dredge up stories I left behind years ago, about the Britemnosi prince who fell in love with the dolphin-maiden and begged the gods to transform him into a dolphin so they could swim together eternally. Maybe the poor bastard just found Pira as unbearable as I did.

  “You’ve heard the story of Kyros, haven’t you?” one of the sailors calls to the others. I smother a groan. Maybe I should have commandeered an Ereni ship, not the Paladisan vessel I sailed over on. The Ereni wouldn’t know all these damned stories. But then we wouldn’t be able to sail into the harbor unquestioned. I rub my face. I’d almost rather a sea battle than this nonsense about my most shameful ancestor.

  “Kyros Korakides was a Britemnosi lord!” the sailor is saying. “A great hero! He defeated those wicked old demagogues and claimed the Britemnos Isles for Paladis…”

  Yes, he did. By betraying everyone. He stationed the Paladisan army, in secret, outside the walls of our senate house. When the senators took their seats inside, the Paladisan soldiers fell upon them, surrounded them, and slaughtered them. That is how Paladius the First took the Britemnos Isles, which until then had held out against him with their superior navy. By treachery and betrayal. The sailor doesn’t know the part of the story in which, after Paladius left Britemnos, Kyros was in turn murdered by an unknown assassin. A Paladisan agent, perhaps, or a fellow Britemnosi seeking revenge. So Kyros got none of the riches and titles Paladius had promised him—and neither did his children.

  And that, my father would say, is how we’ve come to be what we are. Disenfranchised. Disgraced. A shame to Mantius’s glorious legacy.

  Mantius, whom I used to imagine picking me up and carrying me away from Pira, wrapped in his black-feathered cloak. How desperate I must have been. Mantius made whole cities vanish and reappear, crossed endless deserts in a day, defeated enemy armies with their own nightmares come to life, but he never returned from the dead. He died in Paladius the First’s siege of Ida, along with too many other sorcerers to count. The Paladisans have spent a long time trying to eradicate us.

  Now we’re rounding the southern tip of Pira, the principal island, and the city comes into view, shining white and ocher in the sun, rows of buildings clinging to the steep hill that plunges into the harbor. Smaller than I remember, but dazzling after the gray stone cities of Eren and Caeris. A thrumming begins beneath my breastbone. This time, I’m going to confront Madiya. I’m going to save both my brothers.

  Jahan, Madiya whispers into my head. I shudder.

  The ship’s captain, Sannas, speaks at my elbow, and I nearly jump out of my skin. “Will we stay the night, sir?”

  I swallow. If I succumb to Madiya, it’s not as if I’ll be returning to the ship. But I can at least hope I’ll succeed. And if I do, I’m hardly going to spend the night in familial comfort with my father. “We’ll set sail when I return—tonight.”

  “This is where your family lives, isn’t it?” he says, too casually. Of course they all know I’m from Pira. In the songs extolling my bravery saving Prince Leontius’s life, they still had to work in jokes about my Britemnosi accent.

  “Some of them,” I say, in a tone that ends the conversation. The captain looks as if he wants to question me further—or demand that we stay the night—but then he shrugs and walks off, calling orders to the crew.

  I sag against the railing. All the gods, let me resist Madiya. Let me be back here, tonight, with Lathiel and Rayka.

  The ship sets anchor, and sailors row me to shore. Their boisterous conversation sets my teeth on edge. They’re glad to be back under the imperial flag, making for Pira’s bustling harbor, to taverns where they can commandeer beer and flirtations in their own language. I stare at the great ships we pass. They’re merchant vessels, mostly, bringing goods from all over the world, some of which will remain in Pira. But little wealth will go up the hill to my father’s house. He claims he can’t turn Mother’s inheritance over to me, despite the terms placed in her will, because of his unrelenting poverty. His lawyer asserts that he can hardly afford to repair leaks in the roof or prune the apricot trees in the courtyard.

  We’ll see about that. I’ll find Madiya, and then I’ll find him.

  We dock. No one on the crowded wharves seems to notice that Ghesar Korakides’s eldest son has returned. I stride past knots of merchants and naval officers. Ahead of me, a bell rings.

  I stiffen. I look closely enough to see a blue uniform, and a bandolier strapped around a man’s back.

  I dive for the narrow street of honey-colored stone angling up between the bright, whitewashed buildings. I don’t dare to pause, even though the witch hunters can’t be here looking for me. Word can’t have traveled that quickly from Eren. Unless they’ve finally discovered the truth about us. Perhaps that’s why Rayka and Madiya have both called me.

  I run up the steps beneath a curtain of wisteria, forcing my sea-sluggish legs to action. I haven’t thought about this street in six years, but my body knows the way. My heartbeat jogs in my ears. I used to race Rayka and Lathiel to the harbor to watch the ships come in. We’d count masts and sails and try to name what types of vessels they were. Rayka always declared he was right even when I could prove him wrong. Sometimes there would be post for us on a ship from Ida—addressed to my mother, in her sister Cyra’s elegant script. I could never work out why Aunt Cyra still sent letters when Mother was never allowed to reply. Father used to burn them all.

  After she lost her memories, I smuggled the letters past Father and read them aloud to her. I thought they might bring something back to her. Aunt Cyra would tell her about the gardens at Aexione, and some understanding would light Mother’s face at those words. But then it would be gone as quickly as it came.

  I pause, looking back, my breath coming hard. No witch hunters pursue me.

  I climb through the upper market. After Mother died, when I was fifteen, I stole money from Father and came here. I bought an astrolabe, compass, and maps. We had just put my mother in the ground, and the vendors had looked at me with silent pity, the child of the poor, broken woman who’d fallen off the cliffs to her death. They didn’t know I’d lost my mother years before that. Or that my father had finally given me the key to freedom: a sailboat. I kept it in a little harbor beneath our villa, reached by a path rendered precarious by darkness. Twice, as I ran, I slipped. But I didn’t fall, and my boat was waiting for me, tucked up on some rocks below the gate. With each scrape as I pushed it into the water, I was sure someone would hear me. Father and Madiya would find and stop me. Rayka would tell on me; he’d refused to come. He was too afraid of what Father and Madiya would do to him, if they found out.

  But they didn’t find out. Or perhaps they simply didn’t care.

  Between maps and sorcery, I made the crossing from the Britemnos Isles to the mainland, and worked my way over to Aexione. By then I was a shaking, trembling shell of a boy, deep in withdrawal from the opium Madiya had forced on me for most of my life. But Aunt Cyra took me in and brought me back to health. And though I think of my brothers every day, I’ve never dared to come back. Until now.

  Perspiration slicks my spine as I climb to the crest of the hill overlooking the city. Behind me, Pira drowses in the cradle of sky and sea, the facet of a blue jewel. The street’s grand houses are interspersed by riotous gardens and the occasional vineyard. A bird trills. A group of well-dressed servants hurries past me, talking and laughing, and some distance ahead there’s a man being carried in a sedan chair. Another Britemnosi lord, wealthier than my father.

  Who would guess, in such a tranquil place, what Madiya has done?

  The road curves onto a rise, and I swallow hard at the sight of my father’s villa. It’s at the end of the road, where the hillside crumbles to the sea. Beyond the villa is the blue lip of water, where my mother fell to her death. To the right lies the green smear of the holly oak forest. The shoulder of Mount Leda, where Madiya’s cottage lies.


  As I stand there, a whisper of silence comes up behind me. It’s strange. Concentrated. Alert.

  I swing around. Hope pounds bright through my veins. Is it—?

  But no boy stands behind me on the road. I see no one. Yet I can still feel someone there. A small, intent presence.

  “Lathiel?” I whisper.

  The silence evaporates. I’m alone, sweating, heart pounding, on the road to my father’s villa. I scared him away.

  Jahan, Madiya murmurs into my mind.

  I hesitate a moment longer. But Lathiel is so completely gone that I wonder if I invented his presence.

  I swallow hard. It’s time to find her. I’ve stopped by the track that cuts away from the main road, toward the holly oaks. I can’t seem to move forward. But then I think of what Elanna said, about Madiya being only a woman. She’s right; Madiya’s power was clipped and cauterized by the witch hunters long ago. One of the few abilities she had left was the power to give us magic. So why are my hands still shaking?

  I duck onto the track, passing along the vine-creeped wall to where the old olive tree still hunches over the crumbling stones. I swing over the wall and onto the holly oak path. The stillness is absolute: a green, tranquil warmth beneath the leaves. It smells just the way I remember. Dry. Sweet. Like home.

  It shouldn’t comfort me, but it does.

  I pass through the holly oaks to the stream that rushes down from Mount Leda, splashing from stone to stone in a pattern my body recalls exactly.

  Jahan, she whispers.

  I slow. There, just beyond the swaying branches, are the terra-cotta tiles of Madiya’s cottage.

  I let instinct take over: I am the wind among the trees. A hoopoe, flitting between branches. Let her look out and see nothing, even if she already knows I’m coming. Has Lathiel warned her?

  I don’t feel the silence. I don’t feel anything but my pounding heart.