Serafina's Flame

by J. C. Hart

  She pushed aside a branch and stepped through the gap, all the breath in her body evaporated when she saw her village still standing. The houses were different, yes, things had changed, but it was still functioning, still very much there.

  Carmel stumbled backwards, tripping over a branch as she went and plopping onto her backside. She squeezed her eyes shut and tried to pretend that it had simply been a hallucination. It hurt too much to think that it was reality. To believe that others had survived and gone back to reclaim what was theirs, when that possibility had been stripped from her along with everything else.

  Eventually, her breathing calmed. She opened her eyes and crept up to pull back the branch again. The scent of cooking meat was stronger here and her mouth watered. There wasn't much she wouldn't do to be able to walk into the village as if she belonged. To share in an evening meal and give praise to Serafina as if it were the most natural thing in the world.

  She choked back a sob. Natural. Nothing was natural to her right now, nothing but comforting her grandson, nothing but putting one foot in front of the other, and doing as she had promised. If she couldn't stay true to her word, then she really did have nothing. She might as well hurl herself into the flames after Landon and be done with it all.

  What would her mother say now?

  The tears did come then. She turned and fled from the village, back to her dead son, letting the sobs wrack her body in silence, trying hard not to wake Romane with her grief.

  How could they have survived? How could they have rebuilt?

  More importantly, why had no one come for her?

  ***

  Carmel struggled onward in the fading light. She'd left the village behind hours ago, but the scent of roasting meat only just seemed to have evaporated from her nostrils, and the sight of her ghosts, alive and well, was burned into her memory for good.

  She couldn't quench the gnawing sensation of that image. She'd not been able to force any food down since then for fear that it might come back up. Romane, on the other hand, had a fierce appetite and was close to finishing their supplies.

  They would have to stop for the night when she could find a decent place to rest. Everything in her body ached, and she almost thought she would be better to keep walking. Keep walking until she got to the mountain and could relieve herself of the burden that Landon had become.

  Though, after seeing the village of her birth, she felt an increasing surety that Serafina would not accept Landon. She’d been gone too long, had given up hope and faith so many years ago. No matter that her belief had survived. She hadn't actively worshiped since the first week of her capture for fear of punishment.

  But surely that counted for something. Surely. It wasn't for lack of want, but in order to survive she'd had to put aside her heritage, her culture, and become something else.

  Carmel dropped the ropes of the stretcher and sank to the ground. She shrugged her pack off and unfastened the carrier. Romane's head lolled against her shoulder, deep in sleep. She sniffed back tears, not wanting to wake him, and then reached into the pack so she could draw her blankets from the bag to cover them. Carmel curled her body around her grandson, right there on the ground.

  Forest sounds invaded her ears, seeming louder now that the pounding in her head was slowing. She tried to focus on the call of an owl instead of the tension still coiled in her body, but it seemed impossible that anything could help her get rid of it. She felt betrayed, and abandoned, all over again. Not by Serafina, this time, but her own people, her family. How could they not have tried to get her back?

  The logical part of her brain tried to insist that if they knew she was alive they would have come after her, but it didn't change the sense of sadness that threatened to drown her.

  She let the tears flow, and a soft gasp escaped her throat. Thankfully Romane seemed oblivious to her pain, no doubt exhausted by their journey. She was exhausted too, on so many levels, and yet it took what felt like an age for her to finally drift off.

  7

  The sensation of breath on her cheek startled her awake. She shot upright, which made Romane stir and wail, but she ignored him, trying instead to focus on the face next to hers. A scream left her lips, which Romane echoed. The woman placed a hand over her mouth to quiet her.

  "Carmel?" a voice whispered, the Nivaen accent strong.

  Carmel nodded, still trying to make sense of the face before her. It was familiar, now that sleep had fled. The face of one of her ghosts.

  She pushed the hand away. "Sister?" She spoke her native tongue, the word felt awkward on her lips. She licked them, as if it would change the way it tasted. "Aubrie?"

  A smile cracked the face of the woman before her, and she sat down, leaving enough space for Carmel to see her clearly. "It is you." Aubrie nodded slowly, her eyes glimmering with tears of joy. "I thought I saw you outside the village, but I wasn't sure."

  "How… I didn't come in. I didn't think anyone noticed me." Carmel frowned, unsure whether Aubrie was alive, or a figment of her imagination.

  "How could I not? You are my sister. I'd know you anywhere." Aubrie waved her explanation away with a hand. "They thought I was crazy, though, off chasing a ghost."

  "Me, a ghost? It's you who is the ghost." Carmel felt a grin of her own begin. She stretched a hand out to touch her sister's face, savoring the worn lines of laughter around Aubrie's eyes.

  "Maybe we're all just ghosts." Aubrie grasped Carmel's hand and brought it to her weathered lips, kissing her palm. There was a wildness in her eyes that Carmel didn't remember, but then who knew what she had been through since the fires that burned the village.

  "I thought you were all dead, or captured. I tried to find you in the city, but I only ever saw Daroch there. I haven't seen him in years though. How are you here?"

  "I used my feet, they are pretty good for travel, you know?" Aubrie smiled. "They left the village to burn." She nodded as she spoke. "But many of us made it away safely, hid until they’d gone, and then we came back. Rebuilt. Kept to ourselves, did everything we could to avoid being seen as a threat." Aubrie licked her lips. "That's why no one came. We couldn't risk it, and we didn't know if you were alive. And then… well, time moves on."

  "It does." Carmel sucked in her bottom lip and then nodded in agreement. There was nothing that could change the past, no words that could remake history.

  "What's under here?" Aubrie asked, dragging the cover off Landon's corpse. Shock crept across her face when she peered down at Landon. "It's the boy, isn't it? He's still as pale as he ever was. What happened?"

  "There was an accident." Carmel didn’t want to speak of it. How strange that the customs of the All Mother overshadowed her, even here. "He asked me to take him to Serafina, so that's what I'm doing."

  Aubrie sniffed, wrinkling up her nose. "He doesn't have long."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Four days. Four days is all you have to get him there. He must be three days dead already."

  Carmel couldn't speak though her lips moved. She counted backward in her head and realized that her sister was right. He had died three days ago. "What do you mean, four days?"

  "It's the new rule, since the village burned. We don't go there often now. You can take it up with her." Aubrie nodded her head in the direction of the mountain. "No time for sleep, if you want to make it."

  "I do, but I'm so tired…" Carmel pressed her fingers against her temples, as if it would help clear her mind. If she didn't sleep soon, she might never make it. But if she closed her eyes… No, it was better to cover more distance now, and rest closer to the mountain.

  "I can help," her sister offered.

  "You'd do that?"

  "The boy is my blood too." She shrugged. "She might not take him, but it won't hurt me to help you get there. Besides, we have some catching up to do."

  "We do, don't we?" Carmel agreed, giving her sister a weak smile. It was preferable to think about that than the possibility that Serafina might refuse
Landon. She had come this far and she would be damned if she failed him. She had nothing left but her word. And Romane. "I guess we should keep walking then."

  Aubrie stood and reached her hand out to Carmel, pulling her into an embrace as she helped her from the ground. Carmel sank into it, eyes closed to keep her tears from falling. They pulled apart, not saying anything for a few moments.

  "Who's this one? Did you have another?" Aubrie tipped her head toward Romane as if noticing him for the first time.

  "This is Romane, my grandson." The boy was still asleep as she wrapped him into the sling and grabbed the ropes for Landon's stretcher.

  "I'll take that," Aubrie said, reaching for them. Carmel paused. Part of her was afraid that if she let someone else carry the burden, even part way, it might not seem that she was dedicated enough. Though, here she was, close to fifty, carrying a baby, in the middle of nowhere, on a quest to burn her dead son. If that wasn't dedication, she didn't know what was. With a wry smile, she handed the ropes over.

  "Thank you." She nodded, not sure what expression would match the clash of thoughts and feelings in her brain.

  Aubrie grinned and set off to the mountain. So many questions hovered on Carmel's lips, but she wasn't sure whether to ask them. Were their parents still alive? Did Aubrie have children of her own? Grandchildren? Each answer would string together a picture that she wasn't sure she wanted to see. All those links to her past. Maybe, just maybe, it was better if she didn't know.

  8

  By morning they stood at the base of the living tree bridge that spanned the gap between the forest and the mountain. Boiling water gurgled below them and Carmel wasn't sure she was ready to cross.

  "Here." Aubrie handed her a knife, its edge gleamed in the dawn light.

  "What do I need that for?" Carmel asked, frowning.

  "Cut here." Aubrie slashed across her palm with a finger nail. "Offer it to the river."

  "I don't remember doing this last time." Carmel tried to keep the waver of nerves from her voice, but didn't quite manage.

  "Last time, things were different. Just trust me. You don't want to anger Serafina, not when you have so much weighing against you." Aubrie grabbed her hand and forced it flat. "Well?"

  Carmel snatched her hand back and ran the blade against her palm, wincing as blood welled up. She stepped to the edge of the cliff and watched as her pitiful offering fell down to the water below. The drops were caught in an eddy and diluted rapidly, becoming no more than a dull pink in seconds, before disappearing completely.

  Aubrie watched carefully, then gave a nod. "I think we're safe." She reached for Landon's ropes, but Carmel snatched them up.

  "I want to be the one to take him across," she said. It felt right, somehow. This was her promise and she should be the one to take him the final distance.

  "Then let me take the baby," Aubrie offered.

  Carmel shook her head. "No. I need to do this. Please, I just… I need this." She swallowed hard and brushed her hair back from her face before standing tall and taking a deep breath.

  Aubrie nodded again, laying a hand on Carmel's shoulder and giving it a squeeze. "Come on then."

  Her thoughts crashed around her head as she stepped out onto the bridge, like the waves in the water below them. It was told that Serafina had commanded the trees to reach out across the water from the mountain, forcing them to grow at speed so she could walk into the forest without dousing her flames. This was how she came to the people, bringing them fire and warmth, and so this was how the people came to her.

  Bile rose in her throat. She swallowed it down, but the tang remained. She was so close now. Landon was so close. In just a few hours Serafina would declare her will.

  Carmel stopped in the middle of the bridge and glanced at the forest she was leaving. She could still go back. She could turn around and find another way to remember Landon. She looked at Romane, who was just beginning to stir. She could see Landon in his features, even though he looked more Nivaen than his father. What a strange happening, to have him throwback to her heritage. His bane—the color of his skin—the opposite of his father's. If only this was the child she'd had back then, maybe her family would have come to find her.

  Aubrie had already explained it though. They'd assumed she was dead, like she them. Mutual ghosts. They might well ask the same; why had she not tried harder?

  The answer was obvious to her. She'd had no choice. She was as good as a prisoner of war, captured and displayed like a trophy. Lucky in that she was beautiful, exotic to her captors, so much so that it wasn't long before a wealthy man had taken her as a mistress and given her a place caring for the children of his estate.

  She knew she was luckier than some, who'd met with less kind fates, but that hadn't meant she was happy. Jernesh, her master, had been more than she could ask for. Though there was nothing he could have done to make her feel at home, his kindness had allowed Landon a better life than Carmel could ever have hoped for, and a marriage beyond his means.

  But she'd burned that bridge. All she had left now was Romane, and her promise.

  "Come on," Aubrie called. Carmel turned to see that her sister had reached the other side. It didn't look so different from the forest, not really. So why was it so hard to make her feet move?

  Romane emitted a low whine and for a moment she considered stopping there to feed him, but she knew that would only delay the inevitable.

  "When we get to the other side," she said, keeping her voice soft. "We'll stop then. Nan needs a rest, anyway." She gripped the ropes of the stretcher tighter and put one foot in front of the other. Her head swam at the movement and she tried to recall how long it had been since she'd last eaten.

  "Come on!" Aubrie called again.

  "I'm coming," Carmel called back, taking another step. "I'm coming," she said again, to herself. She glanced up at the mountain, now looming over head. It would take several more hours to reach the top, but surely there was time for a rest. She took another step, and then another, keeping her eyes on the branches of the trees beneath her feet. They had woven together, though the broiling river below showed through gaps here and there. It was not the right time to be unsteady on her feet.

  A hand gripped her forearm, and she looked into Aubrie's face. Her sister was smiling her half crazed grin and nodding. "You made it." Aubrie led her off the bridge and Carmel collapsed once her boots hit solid ground.

  "I need to rest."

  "And eat. We both need to eat." Aubrie rubbed her belly. "We can't rest for long, though. Not if you want to make it in time."

  "I'm aware of that," Carmel said. She closed her eyes and leaned back against her pack. Romane squirmed against her chest and she knew she had to change and feed him, but she just didn't have the energy right now.

  "Come here," Aubrie whispered, drawing him from Carmel's chest.

  She sat up, reaching for Romane. "No. I should—"

  "You should rest," Aubrie said. Her voice was firm, and she gave Carmel the stare that their mother was famous for. "I have children of my own, you know. And grandchildren too."

  "You do?" Carmel leaned back and closed her eyes again. She still wasn't sure she wanted to know, thinking that any knowledge might poke larger holes into the gaping wound in her history. "How many?" she finally asked, trying to picture her sister with a gaggle of children, but she was so far removed from the life she'd grown up in that she couldn't form an image.

  "Three of my own, and six grandchildren now. I know a thing or two."

  "I'm sorry," Carmel whispered. "I'm sorry that I didn't ask. I'm sorry that I've been gone so long. I should have found a way…"

  "There is no need for should-haves." Aubrie paused and Carmel forced her eyes open. "We have time now."

  "We do." Carmel nodded. "Thank you for coming after me. For helping me bring Landon to Serafina."

  "He might only be half our blood, but if this was what he wanted…"

  "I used to tell him all the old legends,
all the stories about how our life was before. I know he longed for that, though he made the best of our situation. Better than I could ever have expected."

  "I bet it's that moon white skin of his." Aubrie smiled, and Carmel felt her lips curl up in return. This was something she had missed. Speaking of the dead as if they weren't really lost. You couldn't disrespect someone who was coming back. "We need to find some food. Are you read to move?"

  Carmel pushed herself from the ground, leaving her pack there. She glanced at Landon's stretcher and gnawed at her lip. "I don't want to leave him."

  "We'll be quick, we just need enough to get us up there, and afterwards it's all downhill."

  Carmel nodded, though she felt uneasy about letting Landon out of her sight. "All right. Yes, it will be easier." She let out a sigh and turned from her son. "Let's go." Aubrie offered Romane to Carmel, but she shook her head with sadness. "I'm so tired."

  "I know," Aubrie said, giving her a sympathetic smile. She led them into the forest, calling back over her shoulder in her most casual voice, "Do you remember Hanna? She's still in the village, she married Trenton, and they've had a few babes of their own. And little Vana isn't little anymore."

  "And our parents?" Carmel asked, finally feeling brave enough. Aubrie's head dipped and silence ensued. "The fires?" Her sister's head bobbed. She was as old as their parents had been, back then, when they died, but she felt like a child again as the confirmation of their passing swooped down on her. She stifled a sob, swallowed down the ache in her throat and brushed half-formed tears from her eyes.

  "Here." Aubrie stopped and a moment later turned towards Carmel with a handful of deep purple brayberries. "These are good."

  A smile tugged at Carmel's lips. "It's been years since I've had them straight from the tree." She stepped forward, tugging a handful of her own from the bush and shoving them into her mouth. They were sweet and tart, and she closed her eyes, savoring the freshness of them. "Oh my, they are good." She reached for more, but Aubrie grabbed her arm.