Feudlings In Smoke (Fate On Fire Short Story)

by Knight, Wendy

  “I'm adorable, too,” Cali piped up without looking away from her spell.

  ****

  “Feel better?” Dani asked as they walked back down the dirt street toward their homes. Dani lived three houses down from Will's, in a blue house with flowers out front. His house was white. No flowers. I should add some flowers, Will thought.

  When the developers had dreamed up this village in the middle of a forest in Washington, they must have had some sort of fairy tale in mind. All the townhouses looked like cottages, with the house above the garage. The roads were still all dirt because the construction company had run out of money before they'd finished the subdivisions. Will, with the help of Edren money he shouldn't have had access to, bought the entire village for next to nothing. Then he'd gathered his roving band of Renegades, and they'd created the most powerful wards in the world. The only one who could get through them was Ari.

  The sun was all but set, only a few rays still fought to stay above the horizon. It was Will's favorite time of day. And he'd forgotten to answer Dani's question. “Yeah, I do. Ari will be fine. If she gets in trouble, she'll get out of it. That's what she does. She's very good at it.”

  Dani nodded. “Yes, she is.” She kicked a rock down the road like a miniature soccer ball before looking up, her eyes dancing. “You know what might help? We should plot battles on a map. It might help us know where bigger groups of warriors are. And then we'd know how dangerous an area is for Ari to venture into.”

  Will could have kissed her. If, of course, kissing her wasn't completely out of the question. War first. Help Ari win the war and then you can have Dani. “That is an awesome idea. I can't believe we didn't think of this, like, ten years ago.”

  Dani grinned, her cheeks flushing under his praise. “Well, computers weren't what they are now. Ten years ago the Normals barely had the Internet. I'm not entirely sure the sorcery world had the Internet at all. But I bet both the Family and the Council are using it now.”

  Will raised an eyebrow. In his modest opinion, he was one of the best hackers in the world. If the Family or the Council had a database, he could get into it. Suddenly, his blood was humming with excitement. He could protect Ari from inside the colony.

  Finally, he could do the job he was born to do. The job he'd deserted and couldn't return to without being killed by his own people.

  He grabbed her hand, running his thumb across her soft skin. He knew he shouldn't. He knew she was waiting for him to decide they could be together, and this wasn't fair to her. But he couldn't help himself. He could only be strong for so long. Eventually, even the Guard of the Prodigy broke, just a little.

  They came to his house with its complete lack of flowers and climbed up a very long staircase to the front door. The actual townhouse itself was above the garage. He went straight to his office, where he pulled up a map on his laptop, and then he and Dani spent the next eight or nine hours, well into the earliest hours of the morning, plotting every battle they'd heard about for as far back as they could remember. Every time her dark hair brushed his hand as they leaned over the monitors, or every time she smiled or met his eyes or their hands happened to touch, he cursed the war that kept them apart. One day, Dani. One day, I'll be who you need me to be.

  Chapter Two

  Will listened to the phone ring. And ring. What if she’d been captured? What if she’d been attacked? What if Richard had sent her somewhere and she was trapped? What if— “Will! Hey!” Ari answered, and relief flooded through him. She sounded… happy. With a hint of annoyance. Typical Ari.

  “Hey, baby sister. How's the new school?” He leaned back against the couch, releasing the death grip he had on his cell phone so he could switch to the other ear.

  “It's… okay, actually. I even made some kind-of friends. At least, I have people to sit with at lunch.”

  He cracked a smile. Ari rarely let anyone get close enough that she'd call them kind-of friends. This bit of information made Will all kinds of relieved. “Through no fault of yours, I'm guessing. You're probably doing everything you can to keep them away from you.”

  She didn't answer.

  He sighed, heaving himself up off the couch so he could pace his living room. Sitting still while talking on the phone felt beyond wrong to him. He needed to move when he spoke on the phone. “I knew it. Ari, we've talked about this. You need friends.”

  They'd had the friend discussion over and over and under and around… he wanted her to have as normal a life as possible, and she stubbornly insisted she should follow her destiny and kill everything in sight so she could save him. And save their mother, if he had to guess, although Ari would never admit it. She and Vivian had… issues. One day, though, Ari would realize how very much Vivian had given up to keep her safe. It wasn't his place to tell her, but sometimes he came pretty close.

  She was already arguing with him, and he struggled to catch up, so as to effectively argue back. “I can't have friends, Will. You know that. Not with this…” she paused, and he heard her heave a frustrated, exhausted-with-life sigh of her own, “this life.”

  He knew her better than anyone in the world, and he heard the pain under the frustration and the exhaustion. His baby sister was lonely and sad and she thought of herself as the worst kind of monster. Clearly, it was time he stepped in and made her smile. “I think this life you lead should come second. But hey, that way of thinking is what got me here in the first place.”

  Thankfully, his light-hearted tone made her relax, as he hoped she would. “How are things in rebel country?” He could hear the smile in her voice. The real smile, not the forced one she gave people when she had to be polite. His baby sister rarely smiled. His goal in life, besides keeping her alive, was to change that. One day, Ari would smile on a more-than-once-a-week basis. And laugh often too.

  “Oh, just peachy. Are you coming by any time soon? I am having a serious craving for junk food.” He groaned, nearly drooling at the thought. “Anything not home grown.”

  She laughed, and he raised his fist in triumph. Success. Sadness, frustration, pain — momentarily forgotten. He won.

  They talked for a few more minutes — he told her all the news from the colony and pestered her for details about school and these kind-of friends of hers. He was starting to think maybe things really were okay when she blindsided him with mention of a headache.

  He sat up abruptly, feeling his blood pressure skyrocket. For Ari, a migraine, which she got frequently, could be a death sentence. They debilitated her, made it hard to even sit up or see straight. And when she was hunted by thousands just for being the Edren Prodigy, being debilitated was completely out of the question. “What? Why didn't you tell me? How bad is this one?”

  He could picture her big brown eyes, identical to his own, pleading with him to stop worrying. But since she wasn't here, he could effectively ignore her pleading. “It's not my normal headache. I… um… fell off a ladder. Or rather, I fell off and it landed on me.”

  Will held the phone away from his head and swore. He loved the girl, but sometimes he wanted to strangle her. Then he counted to ten, waiting until his head ran out of steam. “When did this happen?” he demanded. Unfortunately, he hadn't paid close enough attention to the fury of his pacing and stubbed his toe on the coffee table, which meant he had to pull the phone away from his head to swear again. And then he counted. By the time he could put the phone to his ear again, she was already talking.

  He interrupted her. “Did they take you to the hospital?”

  “No,” she said sheepishly.

  “What?” Will ran through an entire angry e-mail he was going to write and send to her school as soon as they finished this conversation.

  “I'm fine, Will,” she said quickly. “I'm just tired. I'll try to get some pizza to you somehow or another, okay?”

  Little weasel, trying to distract him with the mention of pizza. It wasn't going to work. “Ari…” he growled.

  She cut him off. “Will, I pr
omise, if the headaches continue, I'll visit a healer the next time I'm home. I'm due for a visit anyway. It's been over a week since they've wanted me to kill anyone.”

  And bam, the sadness was back and he had to give up being furious with her… and maybe the school too. He hadn't decided yet. “You could always walk away, Ari.” But he knew what she would say — the same thing she always said.

  “I can't. Somehow I have to find the Prodigy and kill him so I can stop the war and set you free. I'll talk to you soon, Will, okay? Have a good night.”

  He sighed, admitting his defeat, wondering what he'd done to get stuck with a sister who possessed such a stubborn streak. “You too, Ari.”

  He dropped the phone on the couch and ran a hand through his hair. He didn't care about the war. He didn't care about the people fighting it. But he did care about Ari and his goal of making laughter a part of her daily routine. To accomplish that goal, he had to stop the war.

  It was as simple as that.

  Since Dani had been at his place so often lately, helping him plot battles on their map and going over what this information meant, he hadn't had a chance to see if he could find any Carules traces on the Internet that he could hack. But tonight she had gone to help Ward's wife with their new baby, so he was on his own. He could snoop for Carules traces on the web all he wanted. He didn’t imagine she’d have a problem with it, but he didn’t want to risk it. Just in case. Plus, anything she knew could put her in danger.

  He didn't need to hack into the Edren world. He had a spy there already. Although there was a chance that even she didn't know everything that went on in the Family. A very small chance, but a chance.

  He settled at his desk, shaking the mouse on his three different computers, one with two monitors. “Wake up, my pretties,” he muttered, drumming his fingers impatiently until they hummed to life. He had work to do — work that actually paid money and kept the colony running. He was, in his humble opinion, amazingly good at his job, and his online company was growing faster than his colonists could keep up with. But that work would have to wait while he played hacker for a while.

  Feeling optimistic, he did an online search for Edren and Carules. And found blogs. Blogs. Sorcerers, who were supposed to live in secret, blogging about their magical lives. He felt like smacking them in the forehead. Luckily, there were only a handful, but it still took him over an hour to read all their posts, muttering under his breath about their stupidity the entire time. On the bright side, he found three more battles to add to his map.

  Beyond the blogs, though, there was nothing, as he'd suspected. So he dug deeper, winding his way through obstacles designed to stop him — to block him out. Instead, they only amused him.

  He was so involved in his fun little project that he didn't hear Dani come in several hours later. It was past midnight when she leaned on the back of his chair, looking over his shoulder. “Whatcha working on?” she asked.

  He could feel her breath against his neck and felt the flames in his blood burn to life. Not now. Not now not now not now. He pulled his mind back against his reckless thoughts, he blinked hard and tipped his head up so he could see her face. “I'm hacking.” He grinned.

  She laughed, leaving his chair to find one of her own. She hauled it across the room and settled next to him. “I wondered why you were up so late. Any luck?”

  Will turned back to the screen, trying not to notice the barest hint of her floral perfume, or the way her dark hair shimmered in the lamp light. “With the Edrens, yes. Because I know them personally and it's easier to dig things up once I've found their trail. But the Council…” His voice trailed off and he shrugged.

  She tucked rebellious strands of dark hair behind her ear and dragged his keyboard closer. “I know some of the Council member's names. Will that help you?”

  Would a name help him? Oh yes. Will could hack into the highest government databases in the country. He could create a virus that could end the online world as it was known… if he were evil. Which he wasn't.

  But still he stopped her, grabbing her hands off the keyboard. “Dani, this is treason to your Council.”

  She raised an eyebrow at him like he'd lost his mind. “I'm a Renegade, Will.”

  “I know, but—”

  She shook her head, cutting him off. “They are hunting me, Will. I swore to never fight again and they want to kill me for it. If I can help stop them, I'm going to do it.”

  Will studied her for several seconds, hating the thought of her being in danger. Dani was tough, he knew that. But that knowledge didn't help. She was the only constant thing in his life. He'd left his family behind. He rarely saw Ari. Through everything, Dani was there. If something were to ever happen to her…

  “Nothing will happen, Will,” she said as if reading his mind. Maybe she was reading his mind. He'd heard that Carules had seers. He'd never met one though, so he had no idea how to tell if she was or not. He squinted, looking for seer qualities… He’d never actually met a seer before. They had never needed asylum in his colony.

  She waved her hand in front of his face, smirking. “Hello?”

  “I'm here!” he cried, jerking his attention back to the office. He scrubbed his face with his hands and stretched. “I think sleep is calling for me.”

  She rolled her eyes, leaning back in her chair and crossing her arms. “It is not. You're just trying to make me forget I was about to help you.”

  He chuckled. “Well, sorta. But I really am tired. Can I walk you home?”

  She finally smiled, after staring him down for several more seconds. “Fine. But—” She snatched the keyboard away and her hands flew over the keys, typing in a name and a city — Charles Bitworth in Detroit. She hit enter and stood up, grinning triumphantly. “There. Now you have all the information you need. Walk me home, Will.”

  ****

  Will and Dani worked for several more days, slowly narrowing down the biggest threats in the country for Ari to walk into. Trying to find the Carules database took longer, so Will worked on it when he could. He was up early, swearing loudly at yet another block, when his phone vibrated next to him. He snatched it up as soon as he saw that it was Ari.

  “Hello?”

  She paused, just briefly, and that pause told him everything he needed to know. “Will? Can you send me a shroud?”

  She was going into battle, again. On her own, without her Guard to protect her. Will thought he might be sick. “Again?” She didn't answer. “How about I open a doorway and you just come to me? They—”

  Ari cut him off, using brusqueness and anger to hide her pain, he knew. “Will, I don't have much time. Can you send a shroud to me or not?”

  He thought over his options — he could tell her no, and she would go anyway. He could tell her yes, wait 'til they opened the doorway and wrestle her through to his side. In that case, he would have probably ten seconds of comfortable breathing left before she punched him in the stomach and went back out. He sighed. Or, he could open the portal, send her the shroud, and offer her the only help he could. “Yeah, I'll send it. Open your doorway in ten…”

  He silently counted down until he got to one, matching his numbers to hers, and then his hand swirled through a saldepement, a spell that would open a doorway between its two casters. It had to be done at exactly the same time, which made it difficult. Most Edrens couldn't do it — in fact, in all of Will’s life, he’d never met or even heard of another Edren who could do it, besides him and Ari. Almost all the Carules warriors could, though. Luckily, Will and Ari had both mastered it, or he would never have gotten pizza. Or seen his sister, even.

  He was right, he saw, when the doorway shimmered open in front of him. Ari stood before him, dark hair shoved into a braid, her face hard and her eyes blank. Right now, she wasn’t his sister — she was the warrior. Will knew the only way to hold on to her sanity was to do everything in her power to keep her Normal life separate from her other life — going so far as locking her heart away in the
deepest corners of her soul, where it wouldn’t break. To do that, she shut down one when she had to face the other. Without a word, Ari held out her hand and he threw his shroud spell over her, and for just a second, he saw her eyes stray to the townhouse behind him. Pain flashed across her face before she shut down again.

  “Thank you,” she whispered.

  He shook his head sadly, his heart aching for his baby sister. “Be careful, Ari.”

  And then she was gone and the doorway was gone and his chance to fight by her side was gone. Don't be ridiculous. If those warriors out there got a glimpse of you, they'd know immediately who you are. You'd be dead before you even got to the battle. Still, it hurt, and the worry nearly ate him alive. He paced the house for hours, back and forth, wearing a path in the carpet. Dani came and watched him for a while before life called her away, and still he paced. Also while he paced, he ran his hands through his wild hair, so he knew he looked like a multicolored beast, but it was on the list of the least of his worries. Finally, with nothing else to do, he went back to trying to find the Carules files.

  When his phone rang again, his heart finally stopped its constant pounding, and for the moment he was pretty sure he would not have a heart attack at such a young age. “I'm alive.” Her voice was listless and, if he didn't know better, slightly drugged.

  “What happened?”

  “I went in. Killed everything. Saved the day.” She didn't sound happy about the saving the day part. At all. As if reading his mind, she said, “I'm okay though. Just need sleep.”

  She was alive. That was all that mattered. The Edren Prodigy had survived another battle, another tempting of fate. “Call me if you need me.”

  “I will, big brother. And Will?”

  “What's up, buttercup?” he asked, and heard her chuckle.

  “I love you. You're the best big brother ever.”

  The words were so completely unlike Ari that he was taken aback for several seconds. “I love you too. Get some rest.”