Bursts of Fire

by Susan Forest

  She backed away toward the fire.

  He flung back the bed curtains and thrust his feet over the side of the bed, reaching for the bed post as though he were suddenly dizzy. “Who are you?”

  “The Holder’s apprentice,” she said. He had drunk all, or most, of the potion, she was sure. Would it be enough? Or would he merely sicken and recover?

  A sinking regret churned her stomach. She’d done it. Ranuat, Goddess of Murderers and Theives, forgive me.

  Had she?

  He glared at her, and she saw his face clearly in the dim firelight. His complexion was inconstant, like hers. He was a magiel. The old man she’d seen this morning entering the apartment with his retainers.

  “I don’t know you!” Then—abruptly—his anger vanished, replaced by internal preoccupation.

  “You are Chancellor Wenid Col,” she confirmed.

  He gagged. A watery smudge interposed itself in her vision. A ghost, drawn by death.

  It had worked. The poison had worked. “My name is Meghra Falkyn.” Though her face was no longer disguised, he would not recognize her. They had never met, except the one time she’d dressed as a maid and overheard his talk with King Artem.

  His eyes narrowed. “Meghra...” He shook his head. “All of you? Here?”

  What did he— “All of who?”

  He closed his eyes, paled, brought a hand to his stomach. “You’ve come...for your sister?” His words slurred.

  Rennika? Ice flooded Meg’s stomach. She’d left her in the rebel camp—

  He lurched forward, spraying vomit over the carpet and his night shirt. No! He mustn’t vomit it up—

  But— “What do you know about my sister?”

  He slid from the bed to let himself onto all fours, staring in surprise at the stink before him.

  Come for— “Is she in Coldridge?”

  Again, he heaved, and again. “The One God will sweep aside all obstacles...”

  If Rennika was here, Meg had to—

  No. The magiel could not be left alive. Meg would find Rennika, bring her out. But first, she must finish with Wenid.

  Gods, would enough of the poison reach his blood? She cast about the room for a weapon.

  Candlestick. Table.

  —a plate, and the remnants of food. A knife thrown carelessly across bones and unfinished turnip.

  She edged toward the table. Picked up the knife in a trembling hand, palm slick with sweat.

  Wenid stared at the vomit. “It doesn’t matter.” Blurs gathered near him. The spirits sensed he would cross the portal. Soon.

  But Meg had seen ghosts denied as well.

  She took a tentative step toward him. He was still strong. If she came close, he would grab her arm.

  She waited, but he did not move, did not vomit.

  “There is only one God.” His voice rasped. He lifted a hand to his collar.

  Then, unbidden, his stomach heaved.

  She darted in, stuck him below his ribs with the knife, and darted out.

  He crumpled, the side of his face in the lumpy puddle, grasping his ribs. “Rut you,” he wheezed, voice tight with pain, fingers scrabbling at his throat.

  She’d done it. She’d stuck him. Her heart beat wildly. She stood well back, watching him.

  She glanced at the door. Still no sound from the outer room.

  The coals flickered a moment with flame, then dulled.

  Was the wound mortal? Too low...

  He raised himself weakly from the reek, holding his reddening nightshirt to his side. He panted, then spewed again, a massive heave for a bit of spittle. Again, she darted in and stuck him, closer to his gut.

  He grabbed her ankle, his grip hard.

  She tripped backward, yanking her leg from his grasp, fear screaming through her.

  But he moaned and crumpled over the fresh hurt, and his stomach convulsed again. “My...death...”

  A shudder ran through the magiel’s torso. His body stiffened, and he rolled on his side, his face a rigid grimace. He retched again, convulsed.

  From somewhere came a distant whine, akin to the sound of a mosquito. Then, with a clap—the ceiling overhead cracked.

  Meg flinched as a handful of pebbles and a shower of choking dust clattered to the floor. She scrambled to her feet and crouched with her knife, slick with blood, in her hand.

  He wasn’t yet dead. She could see his side rising and falling as he panted.

  She circled around behind his head. The light in the room brightened. Flames, beyond the windows.

  He tried to roll toward her, but feebly.

  She sliced the artery beneath his ear. A spurt of blood arced into the air. Another, spurt, weaker. A third, a burble. She stood watching, panting.

  The ghosts gathered.

  A jolt of accomplishment coursed through her.

  The magiel shuddered then stilled, staring blankly at the dim ceiling where hearthlight and firelight from a burning city played on a painting of the One God in his Heaven.

  Ranuat, absolve me. Meg dropped her knife and fell to her knees beside him. She fumbled at his collar. She pulled out the flat round disc and held it to his lips.

  To give him Heaven.

  Heaven. An eternity of bliss. When he had robbed so many of their eternal rest. Her hand pulled back a fraction.

  She’d killed a man. What would she pay for this act of murder?

  To deny him eternity...

  The token fell from her fingers to the floor.

  The magiel lay still. Meg sat back on her heels. Rennika.

  Thunder cracked, and more rubble fell from the ceiling.

  Sulwyn pulled his mare to a halt.

  There. At the corner of the castle wall, the base of the keep. In the snap and dancing glow of the burning city.

  Rennika pressed herself against the wall as though she held it up with her outstretched arms.

  What did she—

  It didn’t matter.

  Two soldiers, one bloody and limping, emerged from a lane, their breath puffing white into the night air. Sulwyn’s shoulder bled freely and he’d taken a slice to his leg, above the boot. The power of his adrenaline and whiskey was fading, and he saw the men through a haze of fatigue. He pushed his horse toward them, reaching out with his sword.

  The stroke was weak, and he would have touched only air, but the men approaching him were as exhausted as he was. He drew blood across the arm of the uninjured one. The man staggered, stabbed the mare’s ankle.

  Sulwyn’s horse screamed and reared, stumbling to the cobbles, momentarily pinning his leg until she rolled in her agony and hobbled away.

  The men floundered toward him as, with an effort, Sulwyn climbed to his feet.

  Overhead. The whine of a cannon ball.

  The soldiers cast a single frightened glance to the smoking sky, dropped their weapons, and staggered away.

  Sulwyn faltered toward the wall, toward Rennika, his arms outspread to cover her from the blast.

  Stone splintered overhead.

  A crack skittered across the plastered ceiling and the overhead beams groaned as they twisted. Meg had to get out.

  She kept the knife, washed it furiously, scrubbed at her hands and face in Wenid’s basin. The old man’s body stared at her the whole time, the grimace frozen on its face.

  Murderer.

  “You killed more,” she told it and in her own ears, her voice was high and thin.

  The crack split between two stones in the wall.

  What have you done? it accused. You’ve condemned me to torment on this earth forever.

  “You took the people’s Gods from them!” she cried. Yet, in the act of withholding his death token, she’d damned herself. Hadn’t she?

  But did that excuse her?

  She wanted to scream at it, kick it, beat it into disregarding her, into leaving her alone, into closing its penetrating eyes. But the keep was disintegrating and Rennika was somewhere in the castle—

  A chill touched
her shoulder. She whirled, slapping at nonexistent fingers. “You can’t touch me!” she cried.

  But a tale was told of her mother when Archwood fell. That Talanda Falkyn had cursed the carn and its valley, haunting all who’d lain in siege. Could Wenid haunt her?

  By Kyaju, she’d done the right thing. She had.

  But...killing Wenid hadn’t reinstated the people’s access to Heaven.

  What had she got? Revenge for Mama’s death. The satisfaction of holding power over the high king’s magiel; of letting him know before he died that it was a Falkyn who’d killed him. But she hadn’t obtained access to Heaven.

  There was no time for regrets. Time would rebound on her, from her use of magic. She could not be caught inside the castle when that happened.

  And the crack in the ceiling. The wall. Hovered, waiting to devour the keep. Red light from beyond the windows flickered. Like Archwood, that night so long ago, the city burned.

  She poured another Memory Loss into her palm, and stared at the clear crystal. She could swallow this, and the last moments would disappear from her awareness.

  Free her from imagined haunting.

  Free her from memory.

  Free her from what she had done. From the pleasure it had given her.

  It was so small in the palm of her hand. So innocent.

  But she had committed murder. She had.

  She closed her fist on the spell, and removing the vial of Confusion from its concealment, hastened from the room.

  She would not erase memory of what she had done.

  Rennika sat in a padded chair in a plain but comfortable bedroom with stone walls and rich tapestries and carpets. The canopy bed was raised from the floor, and its matress was undoubtedly made of wool and feathers. Through a glass-paned window, a brilliant sunset faded over distant mountains. There was no sound but the distant sigh of the wind and a stream nearby.

  She wore a simple but thick robe of good Highglen wool, stained, like her hands, with blue and red and yellow. A stink of tannery clung to her and to the room.

  A future...her future.

  Highglen.

  CHAPTER 42

  A ladder toppled, crushing a score of attackers.

  Huwen made his way along the parapet amid cheers from his men. Finally, a gain. Encouraged, his men renewed their ferocity.

  Another ladder fell, and another. His archers rained arrows down on the peasant fighters before they could raise their shields. A wind sprang up, and the shafts of the attackers were blown back, failing their marks, while royal bolts flew on guided wings. The soldiers cheered.

  The rebels’ fiery machine exploded, killing dozens of their own. The battle, as by a miracle, had turned.

  And Huwen knew what his brother had done.

  He clamped his mouth closed. Wenid was supposed to have joined him, here on the ramparts. But the battle had called Huwen away, kept him occupied—

  Wenid and Eamon had defied him.

  Huwen caught an archer by the shoulder and the man dropped to one knee. “Majesty.”

  “Send a page to fetch Prince Eamon to my apartment. Tell the page to instruct my brother that I will brook no excuses.” Exhausted by Heaven or not, Huwen would see him. He considered sending for Wenid as well, but he had no stomach for another confrontation like this evening’s. Huwen would send soldiers to arrest him.

  The archer hurried away, brushing past a courier rushing in the opposite direction. Uther.

  “What news?” Huwen asked.

  Uther handed him a paper, his face grim.

  The seal of the Holder of Histories. Huwen broke the wax and read.

  Wenid Col was dead.

  Colm could not believe what was happening. Or...he could, and it sent dread into the pit of his stomach.

  A candlemark after midnight, the tide of battle reversed.

  They’d breached the outer walls and entered the city, but now, against the castle wall, their ladders were repulsed. Capricious winds deflected missiles from their marks. Royal weapons struck true.

  Magic.

  Behind the castle walls, a mighty prayer had been granted. Meg must have failed in her mission. Which meant she was imprisoned or dead.

  Colm, directing replacements to take up the ranks of the fallen, looked to Orville’s machine, moved now to the middle of the street before the castle’s main gates. If only this monster, though made of metal by mere men, could defeat their enemy. It was their one hope.

  Another ladder was repulsed. No matter the heart and skill of the uprising attackers, it was they who found uneven ground to trip them, blows missed or squandered. Imperial ranks pushed them back, forcing hand-to-hand combat against the city wall.

  Then word came from the troops attacking the castle on the east. Dwyn Gramaret had taken an arrow to the chest. Fearghus, just visible, mounted, consulted a courier. Did he know?

  Colm roared at the stars to drive away the image of his rebel king toppling from his horse, lost to sight beneath the melee. Sulwyn was nowhere to be seen.

  Swinging his blade, Colm spurred his beast. Touching the death token at his neck, he urged his men forward. But the result was a weak gain followed by a deeper loss as men fell back to a rain of bolts, buoyed by the wind to unprecedented range.

  Magic.

  The steam trebuchet coughed, spouted fire and clouds, and exploded in a deafening burst of flying metal brands. A crater appeared where it had once stood, surrounded by a writhing mass of bloody bodies.

  The gates opened. Swordsmen poured out, flooding the square. The uprisers’ cheer fell to silence.

  Then, defying the Gods, Orville’s cannon, standing almost alone in the far battlefield, landed a true shot on Coldridge’s keep.

  The ancient structure crumpled as though built of sand.

  The boy lay on the floor, working at the belt holding his wrists behind his back, his breath a ragged rasp, his throat beneath his death token collar, bruised. He stared up at Meg.

  Thank the Many, he lived. Had he swallowed her charm of forgetting? Meg knelt by him and showed him the knife. “Cry out and I’ll stop your voice with this.” Her hands were trembling and she wasn’t sure she could carry out the threat. But then, she hadn’t thought she could stick a knife into Wenid.

  The boy, eyes huge, nodded.

  She pulled back his gag. “The magiel has my sister. Where is she?”

  Terror of a different caliber flicked across the boy’s face. “I don’t know,” he whispered. “I swear—” He was sensible, at least. Perhaps she hadn’t managed to administer the Memory Loss.

  An explosion burst overhead and a beam in the ceiling cracked, angling down into the chamber. Stones smashed to the floor, bouncing, shattering. Meg ducked and shielded her face from the spray of shards and pebbles.

  The boy’s brows shot up. “He has cells. Dungeons.”

  Yes. Of course.

  “I can show you.”

  She rolled him over and, untying the sash, hauled him to his feet. She fastened her fingers on the back of his collar. “Go.”

  A crack shuddered through the keep. The floor beneath Meg’s feet lurched. She and the boy stumbled before they could catch their balance. The corridor was eerily empty, several doors standing open. She gave him a shove, and he scrambled for the stairs.

  Holding the smooth railing, she raced down the sloping marble steps behind him. The livery she wore was blood-soaked, but blood would not make her stand out. Her skin and gender would, though. If need be, she had a spell of Confusion. She didn’t know how long she’d spent in the dungeon, or in Wenid’s apartments, but through the window the blazing city was still swathed in deep night.

  An ear-shattering boom shuddered through the keep. The stairs sighed, and leaned further, rubble raining on them. Meg and the boy bolted down the next flight of stairs.

  A massive block of stone dropped silently from a great height above them. Meg yanked the boy back, throwing him to the wall and covering him with her body. The block sm
ashed onto the steps below, shattering into a spray of cutting shards. A fragment of marble struck her back as shooting splinters of stinging rock splashed across them.

  “Go.” She hauled him to his feet and propelled him around the broken steps as another block landed behind them.

  They reached the main corridor. Servants and courtiers ran toward the entrance.

  “This way.” He dodged left through a door and down a spiral into the dark. “Here.” He stopped by a niche and grabbed a handful of candles. “Can you light them?” This was no time to question use of magic. She did.

  At the bottom of the stairs, he pointed to a short tunnel. “There’s a door. At the end.” He took a step back. “Please, my ma—”

  She registered the boy for the first time. Only a boy. “Yes. Go.”

  He turned and sprinted up the stairs.

  She stepped to the end of the tunnel. The door was locked, but it yielded to her touch.

  Within, a single candle stub guttered in a tiny cell. A man knelt over someone lying on a low bed. He wept.

  There was no time for his grief. “Is this my sister?”

  The man rocked back and forth against the bed, moaning softly.

  Meg came closer. A woman in a fine dress curled into a ball on the bed under the man’s protective arm. The woman wept as well. Not Rennika.

  —Janat?

  Meg fell to her knees beside the man. “Janat?” She shook her. The woman’s face was buried in her hands, but her form, her hair...

  The woman’s body tightened and her keening deepened.

  “What’s wrong with her?” How had Janat come to be confined in Coldridge? And where was Rennika?

  The man did not reply. The man...Gweddien? How—

  The keep had collapsed under Orville’s cannon. They couldn’t wait on whatever grieved them. “Can she walk?” Meg demanded.

  Neither the man nor the woman responded.

  Meg fixed her candle to the table and pushing Gweddien aside, pulled the woman to her feet. In the flickering light, she saw her tear-swollen features. It was Janat.