Embers

by Ronie Kendig

  Sparks!

  Haegan stepped back, realization flooding over him like the warmth of a new dawn. He remembered the Parchments, the lessons. He’d been forced to memorize every member of the Nine and the outlying provinces. Thurig’s wife had given birth to four sons. And one daughter. “Kiethiel,” he whispered.

  She smirked. “Ironic, isn’t it? Here we stand on Abiassa’s Throne, two friends, heirs of two kingdoms who hate each other almost as much as they hate Poired Dyrth.”

  Haegan gave her a rueful look. “My father would have me singed for even sharing the same air with you.”

  She laughed. “Mine, too. And my brothers—well, after they beat me, you wouldn’t want to see what they’d do to you.” She rested her hands on the boulder and leaned back.

  Haegan slumped against the rock beside her, his mind a boiling pot of confusion. Something niggled in the pit of his stomach. Something about the princess . . . “Why would you leave your family? Thurig is powerful and his land is fertile. One of the wealthiest of the Northlands.”

  “Wealth, indeed.” Thiel toyed with the tassel of her tunic. “I left because at twelve, I was kidnapped. Held for ransom. What those men did to me as they waited for their blood money . . .”

  Haegan stilled, his blood curdling in his veins. Anger roiled through him as he waited for Thiel to finish, not trusting himself to speak or move.

  “When I returned to Ybienn, I pretended that the—” She swallowed. “That what they did to me had no effect. But I saw”—raw emotion choked her words —“saw what it did to my father. Heard the whispers of the villagers who felt if he could not keep his own daughter safe, how could he protect them?” Glossy eyes met his, her lips curled back in anger. “Just as the prophecy foretold.” A tear broke free. “Shame followed me everywhere. Became my only friend. People knew and avoided me. As if I would dirty them.”

  “What prophecy?” Haegan chided himself—as if some prophecy mattered after her honor had been ripped from her.

  “The Parchments were clear: and the daughter birthed beneath the arch of the Tri-Tipped Flame will bring to those who love her pain, death, and shame.”

  “That could’ve been any daughter.”

  “Oh no,” Thiel said with a hollow laugh. “No, only royal children are born beneath the arch of the Tri-Tipped Flame.”

  “The what?”

  She looked at him, seemingly uncertain. “You jest?”

  He shook his head.

  “There is an arch that bears the image of that constellation. All royals are born there. It is said that Abiassa herself gave birth to her child there.”

  “Abiassa didn’t have a child.”

  “She did,” Thiel said with a growl.

  Tender ground yet again. Haegan steered around it. “But still, another daughter—”

  “No. There hasn’t been a female born to an Asykthian king since”—she shrugged—“generations. Until me. What happened to me, my father’s inability to prevent it, shamed him. Soiled his name. So I left. I left in the night, with naught but the clothes I’d snitched from a servant boy.”

  “Is that why you dress as a boy?”

  “I ended up living with some forest people for a couple of years. Then I . . . joined up with Tokar and Praegur.” She shrugged again, touching her hair. “It’s worked for the last four years, hiding from my family. And men.”

  “Until tonight.”

  She nodded. “I did not realize how much I missed them, my brothers and parents. Tili said to come back, that our parents have never stopped trying to find me.”

  Haegan heard the hurt, the fear in her voice. But hope shifted away the distaste for Thurig and lodged itself in his heart. If a king could not find his own daughter in four years . . . If Thiel—Kiethiel had hidden from her parents that long, mayhap he could find refuge and evade his father’s anger.

  “Are you going back?”

  She frowned. “Why would I? When I return, my shame returns with me.” She drew in a breath and seemed intent on changing the conversation. “Would you go back?”

  “I must. Kaelyria’s life depends on it.” His gaze fell on the glimmer of moonlight in the distance. “Kae told me to go the Falls. She said I would be permanently healed and then she would be restored.”

  “So once you take that swim, you’re going back?”

  Haegan nodded.

  “Sparks,” Thiel mumbled. Then she shifted and held up her palm.

  “What?”

  “Give me your hand, tunnel rat.” She grabbed his hand as a warrior would grip another’s, not as a girl might clasp the hand of a suitor. Not that he was a suitor . . . “A pact, Haegan, Prince of Zaethien and all the Nine. We will be each other’s guardians and confidants, holding these secrets until our dying breaths.”

  Something in him warmed, ignited by how easily she conferred her trust upon him. “Agreed. Guardians and confidants. Protector.”

  “I think I have more training than you.” Thiel smiled, and it seemed as if the stars themselves swam around her, for the angle of the mountain and the position in which he stood draped a dark blanket of lights around her. Her face glowed softly in the deepening night, and even with her short hair, the first hint of beauty shone in the girl borne of his father’s enemy.

  “Considering I’ve been a cripple for ten years . . .” He hated to admit it—men were supposed to be the champion for the fair maiden—but she was right. “However, by the Flames, I would prefer not to die at all on this journey.”

  17

  Life could not get more insipid than when training twenty cold-palms. On the raised instruction platform, Drracien Khar’val crossed his arms over his black and white Marshal tunic, ignoring the way the stiff collar poked into the fleshy part of his chin. Eyes narrowed, jaw clamped, he watched the initiates gliding through their calming drills to the steady thump of a large drum in the far northern corner of the cobbled training yard.

  He’d rather be down in the tavern. With a wench.

  Or plucking out his fingernails.

  A boy of eight stumbled.

  “Markhul!” Drracien’s voice carried like the crack of a whip as he pierced the young initiate with a glare. The drums stopped, drenching the yard in a painful silence. The others assumed their ‘steady’ pose, but tension radiated off their weary, sweating bodies.

  Drracien didn’t care. He’d gone through training, too. He’d seen the cost of carelessness. “You’re clumsy, Marhkul,” he said, with a growl. “Master your body before it masters you and someone pays the price.” He motioned to the drummer. “Again. Everyone.”

  Though none dared utter a groan or complaint, several initiates shot the boy a glare. A promise of trouble afterward for extending calming.

  “Begin!” Drracien hopped from the dais and walked the rows of inexperienced bodies. Those yearning for the power of the Flames. It was one thing to even be able to wield—only a select few could—but then to control that ability . . . He eyed their movement, their form that imitated the flow of the Flames. Elementary moves that would one day become more than just hand gliding and fist thrusting.

  Markhul had promise. He did. But the boy was as clumsy as he was young. “Smooth, Markhul!” Drracien stood behind him, towering over the initiate. Tuning his heart to the drum, his eyes to the boy’s forms, Drracien stepped into the calming with him. Guided the boy. “Easy,” he said. “With care. Not jerking.” Eyes closed, Drracien felt his own leveling. Then, like a warm current, he sensed Markhul’s rhythms slow and fall into sync. Calm. Steadied. Controlled instead of controlling.

  “Aye,” Drracien whispered, nodding as the peace returned. Opened his eyes.

  A flutter of material beneath one of the dozen arches lining the southern courtyard snagged his attention. The pale blue robe of the high marshal’s personal attendant distracted him, but he said nothing. He kept his focus on the students.

  “A snap, Dradith. Like so.” Drracien fisted his hand and faced the closed palm toward himse
lf. Then he stretched it out, snapping the wrist at the last second so his fist flashed a spark with the speed of lightning. One of the higher ranks among the initiates, Dradith held the most promise.

  Drracien fully intended to recommend her for a black tunic. When she mimicked his instruction with perfection, he nodded. “Excellent.” He removed himself from the line and signaled Korben to take over as he stalked toward the messenger.

  “Marshal Khar’val,” Galaun, the high marshal’s personal attendant said, his chin and attitude raised. “You are summoned to His Lordship.”

  What did High Marshal Aloing want with him? He gave a curt nod. “I’ll come immediately aft—”

  “The high marshal, he said you are not to tarry.” Galaun’s pocked face remained impassive, but a flicker of arrogance delivered the pleasure he felt at ordering Drracien. “I am to bring you immediately.”

  Anger stabbed Drracien. The uppers were always pulling the leash around his neck tighter than the stupid collar of his tunic.

  Why was he being summoned? Another indiscretion? No . . . he’d taken great care these last several months.

  Jaw tight, Drracien met Galaun’s annoyed gaze, then started for the archway. As he made the long hike up the stone stairs, past the Grand Hall, Drracien talked himself through calming. The tugs on his proverbial collar were annoying and plentiful. The accelerants of the Citadel found his quickly rising path suspect. Could he help it that his gift was natural? That he didn’t need the hours upon hours of calming and instruction the way initiates like Markhul did? To him, wielding came as naturally as breathing. But he still had to attend lectures and meditation. Practice and teach. He was here for a purpose.

  What in Abiassa’s Fire that was, he didn’t know.

  He rounded the gilded halls to the high chambers . . . and slowed.

  Tortook Puthago.

  Drracien chuckled. Ah, burning flames. It made sense now. He lifted his chin, threw off the heat kneading his shoulders and neck, and smirked at Tortook. The petulant novice didn’t even acknowledge him. Arrogance.

  Galaun stopped at the floor-to-ceiling doors carved heavily with ornate flames. He nodded to Drracien with a deferring incline of his head. Wait.

  Of course.

  Galaun knocked three times. After a pause, he entered and bowed. “My Lord High Marshal, Marshal Khar’val is here as requested.”

  Hands behind his back, Drracien almost laughed when he heard Aloing’s loud sigh.

  “See?” Tortook hissed as he passed Drracien and aimed for the spiral stairs. “Nobody wants to see you, not even your champion.”

  Drracien flicked his right hand, fingers splayed.

  A spark struck Tortook between the shoulders. The man stumbled. Spun around with a growl.

  “Drracien!” Aloing’s voice reverberated through the marbled corridor, and Drracien knew he was safe from retaliation. Tortook had wanted Drracien’s appointment as a marshal, but he’d never rise so high if Aloing saw him fighting in the hall before his chamber.

  Straightening his shoulders, Drracien entered the long, narrow room that ended in a bank of windows. Sunlight glared through the thin panes and bounced off the highly polished black singewood and glass desk. Ornate carvings climbed its legs and surface, etching the sacred symbols and emblem of Abiassa’s Fire.

  In regal robes that made his shoulders pointed and his waist unnaturally thin, High Marshal Aloing sat in his high-backed chair. Glowering.

  So, no commendations then . . .

  Drracien went to a knee and tucked his head low, right hand extended and fingertips on the black marble, a sign of surrendering the Flames to his superior. “High Marshal Aloing, I present myself for approval.”

  Approval he had failed to gain no matter how desperately he’d tried. It was not his fault he’d been born to a wench who taught him many ways of ill-repute before he’d reach five. Before he’d been ripped from her bosom and thrust into the Heat.

  A low, deep rumble sifted the chilled air for several long seconds. Behind Drracien the doors closed. “How long has it taken to beat you into submission, to teach you to bow when you enter?”

  Nostrils flaring, Drracien focused on his right hand. On the ring of the Ignatieri.

  An answer was expected. And no matter his distaste for certain elements, he would never disrespect the one who had championed him. “Twelve years.”

  “Truth,” Aloing said with another chuckle. “Stand!”

  Surprised at the terse command, Drracien straightened. Placed his hands behind his back, palms open, and spread his feet shoulder-width apart.

  “You know, do you not, Marshal Khar’val that it is against the guiding principles of the Ignatieri to use your gift against a brother?”

  “I do, my lord.”

  “And yet—and yet! Not a week passes without a report of you flinging sparks and bolts as if they were spittle!” Aloing’s own words created a dribble as he came out of his chair. Rail thin, wrinkled with a lifetime of wielding, the high lord could flatten Drracien with a flick.

  But the greater injury was the accusation, the chastisement by this accelerant who had taken an angry, passionate boy under his shield and trained him. Though Aloing was his champion, to say he was his friend would be a stretch. No, an outright lie.

  Still, Drracien hated himself for failing his advocate again. But until the high marshal presented a direct charge, Drracien would not confess or defend himself.

  “How do you explain your actions, Marshal?”

  Freed to speak, Drracien expelled a frustrated breath. “You speak of Novice Puthago?”

  Gray eyes burned with indignation. “You know of what I speak!”

  Drracien tucked his chin. “Tortook had a first-year pinned and was bullying him. I told him to stop, but—”

  “But what?” Aloing demanded. “He goaded you? Made you feel inferior? Reminded you of your past?”

  “Yes.” Drracien snapped a look to his champion. Where was this heated chastisement coming from? The high marshal had always been hard on him, but this . . . this felt different. Worse. “Tortook flaunts his placement over others, especially me.”

  “You find him out of order?”

  Saying yes would bring Tortook up on charges. And doing that would only flay open Drracien’s failings. His many failings. “I find him . . .”

  “Abusive in his power?”

  Same crime, different wording.

  “Arrogant and—”

  “Irritating,” Drracien said between clenched teeth.

  “And how did you find yourself tasked as protector and savior to the masses?”

  The high marshal taunted him now. Drracien wouldn’t be goaded. Sarcasm was his specialty. “I guess it’s my birthright.”

  Slapping his hands on his desk, Aloing shouted, “Do you think I care that you made it to this rank in half the time as others?”

  Vexation simmered. The source of high marshal’s animosity evaded Drracien. He’d never been eviscerating. Not like this.

  “Why Dromadric determined you would be granted fifth rating, I know not.” The curl in the high lord’s lip thickened in his words. “Think not for one minute that I believe you merited such a rank or position.”

  Defiance flashed through Drracien. “I worked twice as hard—”

  In a heartbeat, an invisible fist lifted Drracien off the ground. Slammed him into the wall. His teeth rattled, the familiar scent of a singeing in the air. He landed on his backside with a thud. Fury ripped through him as Drracien flipped to his feet, ready for the fight.

  No. Calm.

  He resented the accusations. Struggled to understand. “My Lord, what have I—”

  Another blast flipped him over, knocking him against the wall like pottery. He slid to the ground, groaning.

  Singe him!

  No. No, he would not be labeled an incipient.

  “You are as unruly and foolish now as you were the day you arrived on the stoop!”

  Anger welled, to
rrid and demanding a voice. Breathing through flared nostrils, Drracien dragged himself from the floor, resisting the urge to touch his head where he felt a trickle of wet warmth.

  “You abuse your initiates—”

  “Not true!” Drracien coiled his hands into his fists. No, don’t. Quell it! Calm. Calm.

  “That boy you sparked—Markhul. Just for stumbling?”

  Flabbergasted, Drracien angled his neck forward. “He must learn—”

  Wizened eyes blazed. “And so must you.” Another wave of heat shoved him against the wall. Pinned him.

  Caged. Alone. Wrongly accused.

  Rivers of heat shot through his limbs, digging deeper and deeper into his bones. The riddling pain strangled his focus. His restraint. He howled, a thousand searing knives peppering his flesh. His mind. His very blood.

  Drracien pushed back with his own fire. But the effort was futile. He couldn’t move. Could not strike back. Release me! This was unjust! He had not earned this punishment. The offenses were minor, at best.

  Just like Madri. His own mother never understood his gift. He clenched his eyes and teeth against the memory, against the beatings. Against the taste of blood.

  Anger rising. Power gliding.

  Another howl.

  Glass shattered.

  The bubble that held him popped. He dropped to the floor, confused. The impact thudded up his legs, jarring him as slumped to his knees with another groan. A sudden chill swept around him, cocooning. Any morsel of penitence was gone. Submission vanished.

  A great exhaustion coated his limbs. He braced himself against the cold floor, staring at his fingertips, haloed with a strange glow. Sweat slid down the black strands of hair that hung in his eyes and plopped onto the floor. “What?” he said with a sneer, breathing hard. “Growing tired, old man?”

  No answer came, save the crunching of his own weight on the glass-littered floor as he shifted and came to his feet. Panting, he dragged his gaze off the shards, tracing the path to the—

  Drracien froze. Sucked in a breath.