Embers

by Ronie Kendig

  “Please,” Thiel said. “Can we speak of this in the cave?”

  “No.” Drracien squared his shoulders, though he did not have anger about him. “I would have the truth now before I set my course. If he hurt a member of the very family my order is charged with protecting, then I will turn him in myself.”

  “And risk your own capture?”

  “Securing him would bring me pardon.”

  “Truly, you are not naïve enough to believe that.” Haegan stared at him

  “Perhaps not naïve,” Thiel murmured. “Desperate.”

  Something sparked in Drracien’s eyes.

  “And you want a pardon so terribly, do you?” Haegan felt a strange surge through his chest, as if he could sense what this man felt.

  “Yes!” Drracien’s shout held a distinct scent to it.

  Haegan stepped back, images of his father’s anger curling before him in a wisp of smoke.

  Thiel grabbed the sack of supplies from Drracien’s grip. “I think you should leave. But I’ll take these, since you have broken our agreement and endangered one of our own—because that’s what it was, right, Drracien? As soon as you found out who Haegan was, you wanted to use him to buy your pardon.”

  “Would you not do the same to regain what you have fought so hard for and lost, through no will of your own?” His chest practically pressed into her chin, forcing her to look at him and him alone.

  Haegan wanted to punch him.

  “Then why did you stop? Why aren’t we overrun by sentinels this very moment?”

  Deflating, Drracien turned away. “I don’t know.”

  No one spoke for a moment. Then Thiel touched the accelerant’s arm. “What do they hold over you?” she asked softly. “Why are you running?”

  He turned a bitter gaze on her. “Why are you? Where is your family, fair one?”

  Thiel moved away.

  Drracien stepped into her path again. “I meant no harm, my lady—”

  “No harm?” Haegan growled. “You wanted me captured! You challenge a woman—”

  “You’re here, aren’t you? And is there a reason you will not answer my question, prince? Did you bring harm to your sister?”

  “Why would I harm the only person who saved me from the endless prattling of an aged accelerant who taught me nothing but useless information and skills?”

  “You find education so lowly?”

  “Only when it comes from Gwogh, who seemed to not only know but have lived through every battle and conflict in the Nine since Zaelero himself.” He laughed but his agitation had not lessened.

  Drracien’s expression flashed. “Gwogh.” His face hardened as he advanced toward Haegan. “He was your tutor? Gwogh?”

  Uncertainly rippled through Haegan, and he eased away from the intensity roiling off the accelerant. “Yes. Why?”

  “The why does not matter,” Thiel said, her brown hair riffling in the pre-dawn wind. “We have the supplies. Now leave.”

  “I would go with you.” Drracien retrieved the sack and slung it over his shoulder.

  Thiel froze. Straightened. Lifted her chin. “Why would we allow you to remain when you have inflicted so much damage and tried to sell out Haegan? When you have already proven that we cannot trust you, that you would abandon us as quickly as it is to your benefit?”

  “Neither will happen again. I swear it by the Flames.” Ferocity akin to what had been seen in the Fire King emanated from Drracien. “I am at your service, my lady.”

  Shock held fast to Haegan. That was the equivalent of a lifeoath. “You realize the words you speak are binding at the highest level. No court, king, or ruler, will release you from that oath.”

  “Nor would I ask it.”

  “Why?” Haegan shifted uneasily. “Why would you do this? How can you change from a rogue to a hero in a blink?”

  Drracien clapped him on the back. “Relax, prince. It’s not your worry. I did this for her.” He wagged his dark eyebrows at Thiel. “Someone has to protect her from you.”

  “Protect me? You have done more damage in this clearing than he could do in a lifetime.”

  “How do you—?”

  Just then Tokar burst out of a copse of trees. “Run!” He was halfway across the clearing when he announced, “Jujak!”

  32

  “Go!” Drracien dropped the sack. “North, into the woods. Cross the river, and I’ll follow.” He bent and dug through the contents. “I’ll hold them off.”

  “No.” At the thunder of hooves, Thiel glanced back. “There’s a dozen of them, if not more.”

  “Go!” Drracien shifted on his haunches to Haegan. “I’ll meet you by the river. Get her out of here!”

  Surprised the accelerant charged him with the task, he jolted. “I should help you.”

  Drracien thrust a hand at him. A puff of hot air bounced off the ground and blasted at Haegan. He stumbled back, realizing he was out of his depth. Again.

  “I see the prince!”

  The words sent Haegan spiraling. He sprinted toward Thiel, shoving her around. Together, they launched toward the woods. As he sped between two mauri trees, he glanced back. And stopped cold.

  Drracien stood in the center of the clearing, now adorned in a red and black Ignatieri cloak. The red and black intertwined flames crawled up over his shoulders and down his arms, ending in an exploding fire burst of gold threads.

  Haegan froze. Not gold threads. Gems! Those were gems encircling the cuffs of Drracien’s cloak. And not just any gems, but the imperial topaz. Which meant Drracien was a marshal, a mere two steps below Grand Marshal Dromadric, who technically equaled the Fire King. But why was he wearing the cloak? He would reveal himself!

  Drracien moved his hands in elegant patterns, swirling in a circle, hands and one leg extended. The elements responded to his dance. A thin circlet of golden light spread out like a halo across the clearing. Leaves overhead rustled as a wave of heat whooshed through them, brushing the hair from Haegan’s forehead and shoulders. An explosion of light shattered the darkness.

  Jujak barreled into the clearing.

  “Drracien,” Haegan whispered, lurching forward.

  “No!” Thiel caught his shoulders, having apparently been as spellbound watching the accelerant as Haegan had been. “He can handle this. We should go.”

  “Right.” But he could not move.

  The horses, large and powerful, pranced around Drracien.

  “Surrender the Flames!”

  The captain with gray eyes challenged Drracien, his presence so intimidating that it nearly squeezed the breath from Haegan’s lungs. This would end very badly.

  A crackling in the air pulled Haegan’s gaze toward the halo around Drracien and the clearing. More shouts from the Jujak, the elite guard circling the lone accelerant, who had yet to pay any attention to the orders shouted at him.

  “When they wield,” Thiel whispered over his shoulder, “it is rumored they are not even mentally in our world, but with Abiassa. Standing before her in the Void. Ignatieri believe they are protecting her or her children when they wield. The gems are said to harness the Flames, focus them.”

  Of course, Haegan knew this—under Gwogh’s instruction, he had gained a basic understanding of what was believed to happen in wielding and with other forces, like Sirdar’s Auspex, though Gwogh had said the latter was darkness—mahjik—not gifting. Haegan’s father was once a high marshal, but he’d never seen his father conjure something like this.

  “Take him!” Raising his sword, the young captain appeared almost heavenly in the power of the ethereal light.

  With a wide arc, Drracien drew his leg straight under him and stood, bringing his right arm behind him then up and over his head until he clapped his palms together with a loud pop.

  The air wavered, warbling like a dying bird, one that seemed to be flying directly at Haegan. His ears popped, spearing him with fiery shards. He cried out, covering his ears and bending in half. Mind addled with pain, he le
aned against the tree, bark digging into his shoulder. He felt a weight drop against him but couldn’t draw himself out of the agony to sort out what happened.

  Shouts and cries of similar agony rippled through the royal guards. That’s when Haegan realized he’d closed his eyes. He opened them, surprised to find Thiel curled against him, her head on his chest, her face pressed against his abdomen. Across the way, Jujak writhed on the ground. The others struggled between holding their horses in check and covering their ears.

  Light drenched the clearing. Crackling and popping resonated through the atmosphere like thunder and rain, but heat and fire. Dark became light. Chill vanished. Dew hissed in response to Drracien’s wielding as he brought both hands over his head again. Then pushed down and out.

  The halo! The halo Drracien created finally surrendered and snapped blankets of fire straight down, sealing off the Jujak.

  “He’ll be captured.” Tokar was at their side.

  “No.” Cringing, Thiel wiped blood from her ears. “He won’t. Drracien knows what he’s doing. Move so that his efforts are not in vain.”

  They hoofed, once more, through the woods to where a rope bridge spanned the narrowest part of the river. Like the little warrior he was, Laertes scampered across like a mouse, agile and quick. He stood on the other side, cheering Haegan. Though it sounded more like taunting. Haegan tucked aside his fear of falling and traversed the makeshift bridge with slick hands. He’d never been so glad to face a steep, rocky mountain. The trek proved arduous, but there was no time for complaint, even with burst eardrums causing imbalance and difficulty. They pressed on. They had to.

  Haegan’s mind was alive with the images of Drracien . . . the man’s skills. His power. And that invariably brought him back to his sister. She had the gift. She’d been learning wielding. Not that he’d seen her, but she’d shared some of her experiences. The way their father yelled at her for not focusing her mind or her wielding. How, as much as she knew it was her right and a gift, she hated it. How she tired of the studying and practicing.

  “Our father bores me with his lectures on proper handling of the Flames, correct techniques. ‘No, Kaelyria, with the heart. Not the gut.’ Ugh!” She dropped against his bed, her head on his pillow, their shoulders overlapping. “You must save me, Haegan.”

  “Of course,” he said, staring up at the map of the realms Gwogh had commissioned to have painted on the ceiling. “I’ll jump right out of this bed and march down to our father and demand he leave you alone.”

  She laughed, curling closer and hugging him. “You are the hero as always, Haegan.”

  Her laughter had bled into his heart, done wonders for his boredom that, at times, hovered on insanity. She’d hidden from further lessons that day—and many others—by reading to him from the Parchments. She preferred the decidedly dark ones, believing them to be more folklore and symbolic tales of higher truths than actual history.

  He lay in that bed the whole time, listening to her, encouraging her to stay the course, be strong. Trust their father. Learn and be the best Fire Queen she could be. But he’d ached. Ached to be in her place. To have purpose. To belong.

  Hero. She’d called him that all the time, but he was not a hero. Not the crippled prince. Not even now, the able-bodied prince.

  “I wouldn’a let him leave you in that dirty city, Rigar.” Laertes trudged alongside him, a long stick in his hand as he walked down the slope. “We’re brothers, us four, and we don’ leave no one behind.”

  Haegan almost managed a smile—until a thought struck him. In order for Laertes to know about Drracien leaving him in Hetaera, he had to have heard the entire conversation. Including the part about Haegan’s identity. Somehow, he liked that the boy had heard, that he knew and didn’t care. But the others? Did they know? He peered ahead to where Tokar and Praegur walked a few paces in front of Thiel.

  Praegur held up a fist.

  Immediately Tokar and the others stopped. Haegan followed suit, glancing around as his heart skipped a beat, then another, remembering the Ematahri. The Jujak. Ignatieri. Feeling small and insignificant in a world of fighters and warriors, Haegan detected a tingling against his skin. Like tiny sparks. He glanced at his arms. His flesh stood on end, hairs standing out. What was going on?

  “Do you hear that?” Praegur’s brown eyes slid around to them, alive with . . . what?

  “I hear water, like—”

  “The river!” Laertes shouted and spun to Haegan and Thiel. “That means—”

  An exultant cheer went up, but Haegan stood mute. The river. He couldn’t breathe. The Falls.

  • • •

  Cold and damp, the passage offered no forgiveness or comfort for invading its darkness. But Gwogh pushed on, scaling the long widow’s walk that stretched across several buildings, right into what appeared to be no more than a shuttered window. Tucking himself through the small opening tightened muscles he’d long forgotten about. Inside, relative warmth offered no more comfort than the previous passage.

  Gwogh eased himself out of the fold, sensing an ache and twitch here and there that slowed him. He glanced around the room, taking in the long table with ten chairs. The small couch and books lining the east and west walls. A desk below the slanted ceiling windows. Beds built into bunks along the remaining wall. All prepared. All as it should be.

  “Best start a fire and brew some tea,” he muttered. In the small pantry, he went to work digging out supplies. When he had laid them out on the table, he knelt and tugged chopped wood from a small alcove next to the bricked fireplace.

  Carefully setting the wood in the small stove, he soon had a fire crackling beneath two kettles of water. He was about to turn aside when a movement jerked him around. His gaze flung to the corner, where the Deliverer stood, a long, thin sword in hand.

  “You have summoned the Nine.”

  The daunting voice buzzed in Gwogh’s head as he swallowed. With a slight bow, he searched his heart to make sure he had not erred, that he was not performing this act to please anyone but Abiassa. But even as he weighed his motives, a sound came through the walls. Already, the Council were coming through the hidden passages of the city. Each would take a different route as a precaution. A protection.

  Aware he had not yet answered, he said, “I have.”

  The man-yet-not-man seemed to melt into the shadows even as he said, “I will remain.”

  His heart stuttered. “I beg your mercy, sir, but the Nine will be reluctant to converse openly in your presence.” As if their words and intentions could be hidden from Abiassa.

  “They will be unaware.” His voice had come from everywhere, yet nowhere. How . . . how did they do that?

  A few moments later, the first council member slipped through the secret door. “So it was you, Gwogh,” came a nasally voice, nonplussed.

  Refusing to be irritated by the man’s rudeness, Gwogh gestured to the table. “Welcome, Aoald.”

  The Caorian representative grumbled and took his seat at the table, hands folded, round face pinched beneath a scowl. “Saw Griese and Voath in the city. They’ll be along soon.”

  Witnessed entering the city. That might be a problem.

  “Seems . . . stuffy in here. As if the room is already crowded,” Aoald said, sniffing.

  Gwogh refused to let his gaze drift to where the Deliverer stood, instead busying himself with preparing the tea.

  Over the next ten minutes, the council room indeed became crowded. First to arrive were the pair Aoald predicted. Right behind them, even before the door could close, came Adek, a burly accelerant and one of their youngest, and his mentor, Bæde. Traytith and Kedulcya slunk in almost unnoticed from the southern panel. Kelviel was the last to join them.

  “This is most unusual,” Kedulcya said, her Kerralian accent thickening her words. “Two meetings within a cycle. We risk exposure.”

  “I’m afraid it was imperative.”

  Voath threw back the cup of tea. “Strange goings on are plaguing
the realm. Word came from an Ematahri clan just inside the border that dozens of its warriors were wiped out in an explosion.”

  “What’s unusual about that?” Adek asked, his arms muscular and his beard long. “There are explosions all the time—miners, people trying to make a new way over the mountain without paying a tax or being enslaved.”

  “Why have we not remedied that yet?” Kedulcya asked. “The Ematahri gain in power and usurp the rule of Zireli.”

  “Explosion—with no explosives. A bright light,” Voath explained.

  “Traytith overheard whisperings of a Deliverer walking the woods around the Way of the Throne.”

  “Deliverer,” Aoald muttered as he shook his head. “They’ve been gone since Zaelero the Great made peace and unified the Nine.”

  “Kelviel,” Gwogh spoke up. “You’ve been quiet.”

  Lifting one shoulder in a shrug, Kelviel pursed his lips. But even as the others went on, mentioning everything from raqine to Drigovudd, Gwogh watched as the Hetaeran representative maintained his silence . . . his gaze continuously drifting to a particular corner.

  “So,” Bæde said pounding a fist on the table. “Enough prattle. Why are we convened?”

  Gwogh rose to his feet. “My brethren and sister”—he nodded to Kedulcya—“I’ve called you together because . . .” Would they think him a fool? Again? “I think you should be aware of events I have witnessed firsthand, and ones I believe will be forthcoming.”

  Adek barked a laugh. “What? Will you tell us the Fierian is coming?”

  Piercing the man with a glare provided little satisfaction. “Yes.”

  Silence gaped.

  Then just as swift, laughter mocked. Adek laughed again, this time bellowing. Bæde joined him. Though Griese gave a laugh, he shifted, uncomfortable. Traytith and Voath remained unmoved—as did Aoald.

  “By the Flames, Gwogh, have you lost your mind?” Aoald shook his head, his thoughts revealed. “The Fierian is more myth than truth.”

  “The day we believe what Sirdar speaks is the day we are useless as a council.” Gwogh’s anger crested. “That day—this day, if you are earnest in your mockery of Abiassa’s Parchments—we are nothing more than over-gifted accelerants, who should be singed by the very breath of Abiassa!”