Drowning in Fire

by Hanna Martine

  Now Keko finally looked to Griffin, who watched her with his lips flattened in assessment. If she wanted, he would tell the story of how he’d actually been the one to face the Source, but she did not will it.

  “No,” she told Bane. “I won’t do that.”

  Because she had not earned it. At least, not in the Chimeran way. A gift alone did not merit such praise. What she did with that gift, however, just might. She had some proving to do.

  She met Griffin’s eyes. He gave her the faintest of smiles and a small nod, and she knew he understood. Because he was extraordinary like that.

  “What I will do,” Keko said, focusing again on her brother, “is cure the diseased. One by one, starting with the ali’i. To reveal myself and my true reason for going after the Source would compromise all of the victims, and I won’t have any of them looked down upon because of a weakness they were powerless to fight. It is their secret to reveal. Not mine to use against them. I will give the same order to the chief.”

  Bane, still on his knees before her, looked like he might try to throw another argument her way.

  “You say nothing,” she said. “Understand?”

  He rose to his feet and bowed with a speed she’d never before witnessed. Not even when he’d responded to the ali’i.

  TWENTY-ONE

  Once again, Keko found herself on the back terrace of the ali’i’s house, staring through the closed glass door at the thick silhouette of the man standing inside. It had been nearly a week since the last time she’d done this. It was night again, the sound of the birds gradually fading and the wind picking up, tossing about the trees. The whole scene was freakishly familiar.

  Only now, instead of harboring threats and pleas, the Queen’s treasure burned inside her body. And she had Griffin at her back.

  “Do you want me to wait out here?” His voice was feather soft near her ear, and it took all her effort not to lean into him.

  She turned, and the shadows loved him. Made him appear mysterious and serious and lovely. She owed him so much—so much she’d never be able to repay.

  “No,” she replied. “Come with me.”

  The inside of the small house was as cool and damp as she remembered. Candles burned on various tables scattered about the dim room, their pillars low, and wax dripping around their bases. Underneath the scent of their lit wicks lingered the odor of phosphorous, the remnants of matches—even though the candles clearly had been burning for quite some time.

  Sneaking through the shadows of the valley to arrive here in secret, she’d been able to pick out the various kinds of fire being wielded by Chimerans, whether she could see the people or not. Each and every instance of flame called to her in a different voice, and she wondered if this was what it felt like to be Griffin with his sense of signatures. And was this a blessing or a curse from the Source? She did not yet know.

  Chief stood in front of the couch, almost exactly where she’d left him. Maybe he’d been standing there for days and days, continually praying for her success. Or her failure. She no longer knew which he valued more.

  As she moved deeper into the room, she tugged aside a flap of her T-shirt. The Source released a serene glow, bright enough to mark her as different. Enough to proclaim her victory.

  Chief gasped. Stumbled back. But he couldn’t go very far because of the couch, and then he wasn’t moving backward at all. He revised his steps, coming forward. Coming for her with wide, unblinking eyes and an outstretched hand.

  Griffin closed in tighter at her back. Bane moved around to one side.

  Keko threw out a hand, and even without inhaling or calling up or commanding her fire, her fingers rippled with a blue-white flame that appeared almost liquid. Chief stopped as suddenly as if he’d hit a wall.

  “You did it,” he murmured, his eyes clear and wet.

  She willed the fire to die, and it obeyed. “I did. Even though you agreed with the Senatus to stop me. Even though you sent Griffin after me.”

  Chief’s eyes closed, and it seemed that in the past few days his wrinkles had deepened, elongated. He looked like he’d aged more since she’d last left here than in the past twenty years combined.

  “I had to,” he said. “Aya overheard me and Bane, and she told us what could happen. I had to agree with her or—”

  “Risk exposing yourself,” Keko snapped. “Yeah, I get it. You’d never dream of compromising your name, but you’d gladly let mine be dragged through the shit. You’d never dream of telling the truth to the Senatus about my reasons for searching for the Source, but you’d let them think that I was this crazed, jilted, selfish Chimeran willing to destroy part of the world just to get a little respect.”

  Chief’s breath hissed through his nose. “I was secretly glad Griffin went after you and not the large company the premier wanted to send. I thought that you’d be able to escape one man. That you’d find a way to survive and succeed.”

  “And heal you.” She let out an ugly, short laugh. “I should let you live without your fire. I should heal all the others and let your shame come out on its own. Watch you go down the way you watched me.”

  Chief blanched. “I gave you that chance before and you didn’t take it. You’re too honorable for that, Kekona.”

  She hated him for saying that. She hated him because he was right.

  “Here’s the thing.” She moved closer, into the candlelight. “I’m not entirely sure I can heal you. It was all a wild gamble to begin with. But if you want your fire back so badly—if you want to protect your name and status—I think you should be the guinea pig, dear uncle. I think I should test out my new power on you first. What do you say to that?”

  Chief looked to Bane, but Bane only stared expectantly at Keko.

  “And if it doesn’t work?” asked the ali’i.

  She shrugged. “Nothing lost, as far as I can see.” Except that she was playing a part, because the thought of not being able to cure Ikaika and the others yet to be named made her nauseous with disappointment.

  If this didn’t work, all of Griffin’s sacrifices would be for nothing.

  “There is great power inside me,” she said. “Even I fear it. Control is a flimsy thing and I have to fight for it constantly. I have no idea what will happen when I touch you.”

  Chief’s hands turned to fists at his sides, but that was the extent of his visible reaction.

  “Come here,” she said, and the ali’i approached after only a moment’s hesitation.

  She could feel the Source stretching out to him the closer he got. As though it knew this man had the magic deep inside but could no longer command it. Maybe all the chief needed was a kick-start, a charge. Maybe if she opened up the conduit between the spark inside her and his body, she could feed him enough power to get through whatever blocks the disease had built.

  No time to wonder. No time to doubt.

  Calling the blue-white flame to her hand again without taking a breath, she slapped her palm over Chief’s right pectoral. The little chunk of lava rock—the symbol of the Queen she’d once coveted—bounced on his chest.

  He cried out, his face instantly contorting in pain. His legs buckled. He went down, knees hitting the tile, but she bent forward and held on. Source flame, intense and blue-silver like the dusk, rolled down her arm in waves and sank into the chief’s body, like he was the shore and her power was high tide.

  She had to battle for control of it. It kicked and fought, and wanted free rein to explode into him, but she knew if she did that—if she let it take control—he’d die. She could also feel it working. Could feel the fire pumping back into him, restarting his system, cracking through invisible barriers, and feeding back to him what had been withering inside.

  A long, low moan streamed up out of his throat. His whole body shook with violent tremors. She’d never witnessed such agony—on his face or the face of an
y Chimeran—but he didn’t resist. Didn’t try to pull away. Despite everything he was, everything he had said or done to her, she had to commend him for that.

  The pain and power grew and grew. It got so bad that he ceased making any sound or movement at all.

  In the end, it was not Chief who stopped the flow. Of their own accord, the flames pulled out of his chest and retreated back up her arm, then flickered and died. The second she removed her hand from his skin, he pitched forward, just barely catching himself on his hands before striking the floor.

  A fine line ran between healing and death.

  Bane rushed forward, taking Chief by his shoulders and helping him to sit back on his heels. The ali’i’s head lolled on his neck, his arms limp at his sides, and his chest . . . Bane saw it the exact moment Keko did, and her brother looked up at her in panic.

  Griffin came to her side. “Is that . . . ?”

  It was. Her handprint, charred and black, embedded in Chief’s flesh. Proof that he’d needed healing. Proof that he’d needed her.

  Chief looked down and saw it, too. Bane released him and the ali’i scrambled to his feet, his shaking fingers picking at the edges of her mark like a scab, his face ashen.

  “Did it work?” Bane demanded, the desperate tone of his voice clearly speaking for another diseased Chimeran male. “Are you healed?”

  Chief finally stopped staring down at the permanent charcoal reminder, and lifted his chin to meet Keko’s eyes.

  “Reach for your fire,” she told him.

  Chief drew a Chimeran breath. Upon the exhale, he raised a hand to his lips and blew out a thin stream of gold and orange flame. The tips of each finger danced with gorgeous fire and he watched them with a childlike glee.

  He started to cry. The venerated ali’i of the Big Island Chimerans was crying.

  Between his sobs he inhaled, sucking the fire back into his body. Then he relit his fingers with a laugh, rolled the flame into a ball, and passed it from hand to hand. Holding it before him like an offering, he gazed over its flickering top and said to Keko, “Thank you.”

  She hadn’t done this for him. She did it for all Chimerans, whether they’d lost their magic or not. She did it for the fire itself, the element that wanted to be used by her people. And she did it for the Queen whose dream was finally realized.

  No, she hadn’t done it for her uncle . . . but she couldn’t help but be moved by his reaction. By this reunification. It gave her a tremendous joy and satisfaction to see the same on his face.

  It made her feel completely selfless.

  She sensed Griffin edge even closer, and when she turned her face to him he was watching her carefully.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  The Source sent white-hot waves of power and strength and excitement shooting through every vein in her body. She tried to think of something to compare it to. Maybe sex, if every time could be like that last time with Griffin in the coastal B and B. Perhaps love, if it was absolute and unshakeable. If it were perfect. If it were undeniably mutual.

  But unfortunately, love was none of those things.

  Griffin looked at her with grave concern. She wanted desperately to share this feeling with him, for him to experience the power, the healing, the giving of something to help another in need—but then, it was entirely possible he already knew.

  She didn’t know if she could love him any more than she did at that very moment.

  “Keko.” His voice was a breath, a small, invisible container of emotion she could not dare herself to believe in.

  The brush of air by her ear was his hand as he raised it to touch her. How she wanted that! But she could not chance it. Not when he had no loss of fire magic to cure. Not when she’d seen the great pain she’d caused the chief—and the resulting mark. She ducked out of Griffin’s touch. Not a big movement, but enough to warn him off.

  He sighed and let his hand fall yet again.

  “I’m fine,” she said to Griffin. Then she turned to the ali’i who was still playing at his flame as though he were a child just come into his powers.

  Bane had locked his hands around the back of his skull again, and he stared with undisguised horror at the askew black handprint on Chief’s chest.

  Keko went to her brother and said low, “They’ll all be marked. If they want to be cured, they’ll have to wear shirts to hide it.” No other way to keep it secret, not in their culture of bared skin. “They’ll have to make the choice. No magic or a scar.”

  Bane unlaced his fingers and turned to her. “But you will get no choice. If the people find out about the disease, they’ll know about the cure. They’ll have to know about you.”

  She saw the devotion in his eyes, what she’d seen when he’d fallen to his knees once before. “I’m still no Queen.”

  He tightly shook his head. “That’s not for you to decide.”

  But it was for her to believe.

  “Bring me Ikaika,” she said, deliberately changing the subject, “and let him be the first to make his choice.”

  Bane pressed both fists to his chest, a gesture of worship usually meant only for ceremonies involving legends of the Queen. The ali’i, seeing this, stiffened but said nothing. He could not, after all. Not when he was no longer the most powerful in the valley.

  Bane hurried out. Keko moved to stand before Griffin.

  “You know about Ikaika,” she said, “but not the others. I think, for the sake of their privacy and the sanctity of our culture, because you are Ofarian—”

  “I’ll go.” Griffin glanced at the ali’i. “My oath still stands, Keko. My word and my stars are yours.” Then he turned and left, the latch in the glass door making a soft click that sounded far too loud in the dense, silent room.

  A short while later, Bane returned with Ikaika through the shadowed and secret back entrance, both men slightly out of breath. Bane’s eyes glimmered in anticipation. Ikaika’s brow furrowed in confusion when he finally saw Keko.

  “I know about your fire,” she told Ikaika without preamble. When the warrior threw a harsh look at Bane and then a fearful look at Chief sitting on the darkened corner of the couch, Keko held up a hand. “Your general said nothing. It doesn’t matter how I know. You’ve lost your magic. But I can give it back.”

  Ikaika sucked in a breath. His eyes kept darting toward the ali’i, and Keko gestured for Chief to come out of the shadows.

  “I can give you back your fire,” Keko said, beckoning Chief even closer, “but you will be marked. As the ali’i is.”

  Ikaika gaped in horror at the handprint, and then in clear shock at the face of the man who wore it. “What then? Will I be sent to the Common House?”

  Chief replied quickly. “No. I’ll think of something to explain the mark, but in the meantime, you have to hide it.”

  Keko could not think about honesty or shame or pride or worthiness just then. Those were for Chief to weigh and live with, and if he could roll over and sleep soundly at night knowing he was covering up something he would have easily used against any other Chimeran just a year ago, then that was his issue. He would never admit to the weakness himself, and she chose to be grateful that it meant she would not be called out as Queen.

  She just wanted to make her people whole again. It was not about the power. Not anymore. She was not marking her subjects or declaring herself above them. She was giving back what was rightfully theirs.

  “Do it.” Ikaika stomped to Keko, looking every bit the fierce warrior he’d proven himself to be. “Do it now.”

  He grabbed Keko’s arm and slapped it to his bare chest, just below the band of white beads around his neck. The Source fire responded immediately, blue-white flame surging from her body to his. Only this man did not fall to his knees as Chief had done. Ikaika remained standing, fists balled tightly at his sides, veins and sweat popping out all over hi
s body. His head dropped forward and his jaw shook, but he never faltered. Not even when it was finished and Keko fell back.

  Bane came free from the granite stance he’d assumed in the corner, stalked across the room, and grabbed Ikaika’s shoulders, forcing him to look up. The two men stared at one another, Bane’s fingers digging into the slick brown skin where Ikaika’s tattooed shoulder sloped up to his neck. Then Bane softened, leaning forward. Their foreheads and noses touched in a delicate honi—the sharing of each other’s breath and well-being. The exchange of life.

  When they exhaled, a flicker of flame escaped each of their lips, mingling in midair, and then their mouths came together. Brief, but full of passion.

  Chief turned away, but Keko could not. She’d never seen such naked emotion in her brother, had never known him—or any Chimeran, really—capable of such stirring intensity. And that had always included herself.

  Until she’d met Griffin.

  It was Ikaika who stepped back first, even though Bane did not seem to want to let him go. Ikaika looked to Keko with such awestruck gratefulness that she could not help but smile in return.

  “Bring me the others,” Keko ordered Bane gently, before Ikaika could name her Queen. “One by one.”

  • • •

  Twenty-two afflicted Chimerans. Twenty-two of her people—from all status levels and born into every major family—walked shaking into the ali’i’s home believing their ultimate secret had been exposed and that they were being delivered to him for punishment. Twenty-two made their choice. And all twenty-two Chimerans stumbled away from Chief’s house bearing the handprint of their cure beneath a shirt.

  She had not allowed one of them to call her Queen, though she’d seen the name shining in their eyes and dancing in the restored fire on their tongues.