Bursts of Fire

by Susan Forest

  And blood. On her nose and chin, on her hands. Her nose was broken, her body bruised.

  Another dream.

  But—

  Meg held a wrinkled robe up to the fading afternoon light at a window closed in by panes of glass. A new time, a new place.

  Rennika knew this room. The nursery in Archwood Castle, as real as she remembered it. Rennika sat on a cushion on the floor. She looked around the room. Nanna sewed the seams of Janat’s bodice. Her new, yellow silk gown, the day she turned fifteen. The day King Artem’s army attacked.

  Nanna! Though she knew it was a dream and not real, Rennika ran to Nanna’s side and gripped her. She wanted to be held in Nanna’s arms, hold her close.

  Meg went back to her room. “Not until you’re dressed, and that’s after I’m dressed!” She poked her head through the doorway. She put her tongue out at Janat.

  “The king’s army is going to attack us!” Rennika cried. If this was real, if she could choose to run to Nanna, perhaps she could make things that were going to happen—not happen.

  “Turn,” Nanna told Janat. “Rennikala, go sit on your cushion.”

  Janat did as she was bid and bumped into Rennika. “Rennikala! Go sit down!”

  “Nanna!” Rennika held her harder.

  “Are there really going to be oranges at court tonight?” Janat asked.

  “That’s what Cook said.” Nanna snipped her thread, tolerant of Rennika’s desperate hug.

  “Children aren’t going to get any,” Meg called from the other room. “The fruit are small and there aren’t many—”

  —Rennika stumbled. Rain poured down her neck in the inky night, and Fearghus grabbed her elbow so she didn’t fall.

  She was surrounded by shanties. “Which is yours?” Fearghus asked.

  Which? She stared at him, tears welling from her eyes. Where was Archwood? The nursery—Nanna—

  “Rennika?” Fearghus held her upper arms, bearing her weight.

  Gone. Nanna was gone. Taken by an orum. Rennika crumpled into the man.

  “Hush, child,” he murmured, pulling her gently from him. “Which is your home?”

  Home. She wiped her nose on her sleeve and turned in the dark. “There.” She pointed at the shanty.

  Those minutes—seconds—she’d spent in the meadow—the nursery—were real. Real.

  “Rennika?” It was Beorn. “Which shack is yours? I’ve been hunting and calling.”

  “Fool,” Fearghus muttered.

  Shaking, she led the way to her...home. “Janat?” she called, and heard the tremble in her own voice. A hardness rose in her throat. Squatting in the mud, she lifted the flap and entered. She needed Janat to hold her.

  Nanna was gone.

  There was a movement in the familiar darkness. A head lifted from a pallet. “Rennika?” Janat whispered. “We were worried about you—”

  Rennika buried her head in Janat’s shoulder and clung to her, felt the solidity of her flesh.

  “What happened?” Janat asked in alarm.

  How could Rennika explain?

  “Child?” Fearghus called from outside the shanty.

  “It’s Sulwyn.” Rennika lifted her head, joy mixing with fear and grief. “Sulwyn Cordal, Janat!”

  Janat sat upright, and Meg raised her head. “Sulwyn?” Meg pulled her blanket around her shoulders and crawled to Rennika.

  “Where?” Janat pushed Rennika back to see her better in the dark.

  “He’s sick. A cursed wound,” Rennika told her. “At the tavern. He needs medicine.”

  “You’ve seen him?” Meg cried.

  Janat scrambled to her knees, hunting for her shawl, and Rennika was suddenly bereft. She didn’t know what had happened to her while walking back from the tavern. But...

  Was this madness? Mama had sometimes talked strangely, looked at them, at their rooms, like she hadn’t seen them for a long time. People whispered that magiels went mad. When they used magic. Rennika...had used magic. Was she mad?

  She’d seen Nanna. Been with Nanna. Touched Nanna. It had been real.

  She’d lived a moment of her life before it had changed.

  She could go back to that moment. But...how?

  But Janat plucked a sack from a nail in the wattle of the building that formed one wall of the shanty, and flung on her robe. “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER 18

  Meg dashed through the tavern door, pausing for only a moment as her eyes adjusted from the brightness of the lane. But the innkeeper’s wife put a hand on Meg’s arm, beckoning with a nod.

  Meg followed her to the side of the room, frowning in puzzlement.

  “Dwyn Gramaret arrived last night,” the innkeeper’s wife said in a low voice.

  “The king of Gramarye.” Meg was impressed. “What’s he doing here?” Rumor had it that, within a week of receiving King Artem’s proclamation, Gramarye had capitulated and given up its prayer stone. The Chrysocolla was publicly smashed and King Gramaret disappeared—fled in cowardice from the chopping block. His wife had been killed and his crippled son had been captured. His home was given to King Artem’s young daughter, Hada, only nine years old, to be ruled by a regent until she came of age.

  The innkeeper’s wife shrugged. “I don’t know. But he had news.” She touched Meg gently on the shoulder. “Here. Sit.”

  Bad news.

  Meg sat at a table next to a sunny window and the woman sat beside her.

  “Meg. King Artem has decreed death to all magiels.”

  So. Here it was. Though she’d known it was coming, it still took her by surprise. “Did...something happen?”

  The woman shrugged. “His armies tried to use magiel magic in his unholy war. One of his magiels waited until a critical moment, then cast a spell that helped the uprisers he was fighting. He lost in a rout.”

  The self-proclaimed high king of all of Shangril. Against peasants. A warm pleasure touched Meg’s chest.

  “All magiels are to be hunted and arrested, or killed.”

  The pleasure evaporated. Death. Real. King Artem’s magiel, Wenid, had urged him to do it, back in Coldridge, back in the winter. And now, he’d done it.

  The woman licked her lips. “Meg, if you’re going to come here to visit Sulwyn, you have to come in by the back door.”

  Meg’s attention whipped up. Separation of magiel and worldlings. Like she’d seen in Teshe and Midell. Now, here, in Silvermeadow. Next would come the beatings.

  “You know my husband and I support the men. Support you.”

  “Oh?” The word, the fury, the rage, came out as a tiny choking sound.

  “But if our inn is sacked by soldiers looking for magiels, think what they might find.”

  Too much. Sulwyn. A nest of uprisers.

  Meg bit down on her wrath, schooled her breathing. The innkeeper’s wife spoke true.

  Meg surveyed the tavern. She knew most of the scatter of patrons by name and face, but not all. She’d become complacent. “And Janat?”

  The woman shrugged. “She’s not that wavering. But, yes, maybe her, too. For everyone’s safety.”

  Fury threatened again to spill out.

  The woman looked uncomfortable, and Meg knew the grim set of her mouth had betrayed her rage.

  “Best use Rennika for your messages,” the woman said. “Only come if you must.”

  The back way.

  Meg swallowed her bile and lifted her brows in a shrug of reluctant agreement. The woman was right.

  The wife nodded in relief as Meg raised her hood and left the inn.

  She made her way cautiously through the village, working her way back through the inn’s stable and chicken yard, to the kitchen door. She slipped in, then, and as quickly as dark stairs and sick-chamber silence allowed, hurried to the cellar.

  Sulwyn was alone, reading by candlelight, and Meg found herself pleased that Janat, ever ministering to him, was not there. He lifted his head when she entered. “Meg.” He smiled the smile she had come to love
.

  “How do you feel today?”

  “Better and better.” He set his book aside and, shifting his blanket, used both hands to lift his leg, resting his foot on the floor beside his pallet.

  In the dim light, the redness and swelling seemed to have all but disappeared. She touched the thick, jagged scar that bisected the muscles of his thigh. “How’s your walking?” She sat back and emptied a small pouch of spelled herbs into the mug of water by his side. “And the pain?”

  “Six steps from the stairs to the shelf, and six steps back,” he reported. “The pain’s bearable.” He nodded to the bottle of rice wine on the floor by his pallet.

  She gave him a mock frown and placed her hands on the muscles above his knee as he swallowed the herbs, and waited for his blood to bring the medicinal spells to the injured site. “I’m almost finished the book of poetry you lent me.” She treasured the rare moments she had with him, talking about books.

  A ghost of a smile touched his eyes, and he leaned back on his pillow. “Eric Stewart. His works were banned in Pagoras, Midell, and Arcan. Have you read ‘What Man Would Not Wear a King’s Circlet’? That was the first poem my father gave me to read.” His father, who’d advised King Ean on his council of commoners.

  She felt herself blush a little. “Yes, I read that one. And ‘Good For All.’” A warmth spread into his muscles beneath her palms as she pulled the magic of the healing potion forward. “I’d never read poetry like it before.” She tilted her head. “The things those poems talk about. Freedom from want, freedom from fear. Freedom from...coercion. Do people believe such things are possible?”

  “In King Ean’s court, there were some who did. Your king read that book, you know.”

  She gave him a sharp look. “A king? Would read about...sharing power?”

  “When his council was finished its business, my father said, they would discuss such ideas.” He smiled. “Apparently, the debates were lively.”

  “Do you believe in...rule of men?”

  “How much rule?” he countered.

  “’The fish school, leaderless, in harmonious direction’?” she quoted.

  Sulwyn snorted a small laugh. “No, of course not. The One God gave us our kings. But kings can listen to their subjects. I believe in that.”

  She massaged his knee, the magic coming easily, pulling healthy blood from before Sulwyn’s injury into the damaged tissues, though she would need rest and solitude later. The book had made her think. Freedom to choose was not only freedom to search for joy, but also freedom to fail. Freedom from want might be bought at the cost of freedom of speech.

  Sulwyn leaned back on an elbow. “Do you believe in shared rule?”

  “Me?” She darted a glance at him and laughed.

  “Why do you laugh? Commoners can clamor as much as they want for recognition, but nothing will happen until people like you, Meg—the magiels and the kings—give such ideas support.”

  “Magiels live in service to their people,” she shot back. “Mama’s life was devoted to bringing them their death tokens. You don’t know the price she paid—”

  “Shush!” He leaned forward in pain and stopped her fingers on his knee. “A magiel may serve the people’s spiritual needs and yet be unaware of the pain in their bellies.”

  She peered at him in the dim candlelight. He was close to her, his expression at once intense and gentle, and she was suddenly confused about whether the thumping in her heart was from anger or the touch of his hands on hers.

  He released her fingers and slowly leaned back against his cushion. “It is a provocative book. I’m sorry if lending it to you was...offensive.”

  She looked back down at her hands and eased the pressure on his leg. The healing of the herbs was almost complete. She allowed the strength of the magic to subside. “No,” she murmured. “The book was interesting. I have a lot to think about.” She let her hands slide from his knee and covered his leg with the blanket.

  Footsteps on the stairs. Meg turned.

  Janat brought a bowl of red rice and lentil soup and set it on the floor by Sulwyn’s mattress, eclipsing the light from the candle. “I have a message from King Gramaret. He says to call him Dwyn. He can meet with you, Fearghus, and Beorn at supper.”

  Politics. Meg wondered if Dwyn Gramaret had read Eric Stewart.

  “And Nia? I want her there, too.” Sulwyn tasted the soup and grinned his pleasure at Janat.

  “He didn’t mention her.” She blushed at his smile, then raised her head. “Oh, he brought word of Gweddien. Tonore Warrick—do you know him?—reported a rumor that Gweddien was seen in the company of Arcan soldiers. On the road to Coldridge.”

  “Oh, no.”

  Gweddien, arrested? His mother would be inconsolable.

  The fatigue from using the healing magic crept into Meg’s bones. It was time to go before she found herself stumbling and incoherent. She rose and climbed the stairs.

  Janat chattered by Sulwyn’s side as he ate his soup, gazing into her eyes with...unsettling...affection.

  “Have you eaten?” Sulwyn asked Janat when Meg had slipped up the stairs.

  She hadn’t.

  With a wicked grin Janat didn’t understand, Sulwyn gave her a cushion to ward away the chill of the earthen floor and sat on the edge of his mattress, sore leg extended, placing the bowl between them.

  She sat cross-legged on the cushion in the wavering candlelight. “There’s only enough soup for you.” Mama would’ve been shocked if she could’ve seen Janat here, alone, with a man. Nanna, too.

  In reply, he lifted the spoon to her lips, his other hand beneath it in case of spills.

  She leaned forward a little and opened her mouth, the bowl of the spoon touching her lightly, and swallowed. A chill of unexpected pleasure shivered inside her as she lifted her eyes to look into his.

  His finger grazed her lip, lifting a drop of liquid away, and heat—and something else, something wonderful—coursed through her.

  He lowered the spoon, the roguishness in his eyes replaced with...what? Intensity. “Is the door bolted?” he whispered.

  He always kept the door bolted against— “No. Meg couldn’t have—”

  He gave a slight nod, and she scrambled to her feet, her breath coming short in anticipation and curiosity. She ran up the narrow stairs and feeling the bolt in the dark, slid it closed.

  When she returned, Sulwyn had uncorked his bottle of rice wine. Sulwyn, the one the rebels looked up to, the one the conspirators in Spruce Falls respected, with his crooked nose and shock of thick hair, and...

  He filled his mug with the sweetly sharp-smelling drink. He tasted it, and his jaw tightened imperceptibly in the candlelight. He offered her the mug.

  Exquisite expectancy suffused her, just to be alone in his company. Part of his adventure. One of them. She was sixteen, now, and old enough.

  She took the cup and tasted the cool liquid. It was astringent, yet faintly sweet, prickling her throat as she swallowed, its heat dissipating in her in a pleasant relaxation.

  His eyes never leaving hers, he touched her hairline, gently raking his fingers into her thick waves, tracing the line of her jaw. Astonishment tingled every part of her body, her nipples startling with wonder, her groin heating with pleasure.

  Sulwyn drank back the remainder of the wine and poured more for her.

  Gods, she had been a child, before. Older girls, not Meg, but some of the others in Archwood, had giggled with secrets they refused to share, looking over their paper fans at some of the young courtiers. They knew.

  She had known nothing until now.

  She took a long swallow and set the mug aside, giving in to its relaxation and bliss.

  Sulwyn’s amazing hand slipped behind her neck, flooding her with delight as his lips closed on hers. His tongue touched hers, exploding tingles of desire into every part of her body. His strong arms slid her onto the mattress and he was over her, his face half-lit by the candle, his hips sliding over hers, h
is hand slipping down her neck to her collar bone, the soft rounding of her breast...

  She had known nothing, nothing in her life, until this moment.

  The cell below the castle in Coldridge was chill, winter or summer. Wenid, dressed in layers of wool, wore a fur cloak. He’d had a comfortable chair brought down for his vigil, and there was a table with a dozen candles on it, scrolls to read, two goblets and a bottle of wine. He really didn’t know how long he would be here.

  He removed a pouch from his robes. Glim.

  The potion Wenid had created from the instructions in Kraae’s library was a paste which, once he climbed—slowly and painfully, and with much help—to the rocky ridges east of Holderford, he smeared on his eyelids. The potion made the glim visible, flecking the mosses that grew on the rocks among the winter marigolds, glimmering in a dissonance out of step with time. He’d gathered the tiny plants, dried them, and now poured a little of the powder into the bottom of one of the goblets, invisible in the dark. The scroll had been vague about how much to use. He hoped an excess would not be dangerous, though the flick of smudged edges in his vision suggested ghosts were gathering.

  Presently, the guards arrived with their prisoner. The man—boy—was capricious-skinned and tall, though not as tall as Wenid. He was undernourished and not yet fully filled out, dressed in patched but serviceable clothing. The prisoner looked nervously about the small dim room, eyeing the fur-covered pallet on the floor. He shot a fearful glance at Wenid.

  He’d been given a week with the women, both in their joint prison where Wenid hoped dark and fear would drive couples together, and individually in comfortable rooms, but Wenid’s spies told him nature had not taken its course. It was regrettable, for the boy, but time pressed. Wenid had already decided on a name for his project. The loveliest of the winter blossoms. Marigolds.