Embers

by Ronie Kendig

  “They are but fledglings.”

  “Yes,” She said forcefully. “But they are my fledglings.”

  38

  Thiel blinked. All at once she heard a handful of words spoken, including her own, “Champion.”

  Laertes said, “Fledgling.”

  Drracien: “Apprentice.”

  Tokar: “Warrior.”

  Thiel drew in a breath and darted a look to the tent opening, where she would have vowed someone had entered then exited. But as she did, she only saw Praegur. He gripped his chest and crumpled to the ground with a horrible, guttural sound.

  “Praegur!” She hobbled to him, catching his shoulders in her hands. “Praegur, what’s wrong?”

  “What happened?” Tokar dropped beside them, turned him over.

  Tears streaked dark rivulets through the dirt that had powdered Praegur’s face. Eyes squeezed tight, he made that wretched noise again. He arched his back. His knuckles pinked, fingers digging into his chest. He rocked back and forth.

  “Stop!” Drracien was there. He pinned Praegur’s shoulders. “Remove his hand.”

  Thiel hesitated.

  Tokar grabbed the hand and pried it away, then glanced at the accelerant. “What?”

  Shaking his head, Drracien stepped back with widened eyes. “Nothing.”

  Annoyed with futile distraction, Thiel turned to her friend. “Praegur, talk to us. Please.” She pushed in closer, homing in on his face. “What happened?”

  Though he blinked and his face was still red from whatever seized him, he opened his mouth. And croaked. His eyes went wild. Panic rippled through his features. He opened his mouth again.

  Another croak.

  “Did he hit his head? Is that why he can’t talk?”

  Thiel frowned. Was that possible? To lose his ability to talk because of a blow to the head? She considered her friend. He’d been the most steadfast and patient of them all. “When you fell—”

  He shook his head. Rolled onto his side, once more gripping his chest. Hands propped and aided him as he came upright. He swiped a palm over his face, drying the tears and smearing his face muddy, still grunting. His mouth opened and again an empty word fell out.

  “You can’t talk,” Laertes said, his voice a whisper.

  Praegur shook his head, sagging. He lifted his hands in defeat and question. He unlaced his tunic and lifted the fabric. Cringing in pain, he tugged harder.

  Was it stuck to his skin?

  He craned his head back and peered into his tunic. His eyes widened. He leapt to his feet, mouth open. Ripped off his tunic. Placed a hand near—but not on—his chest.

  “What in the Flames?” Tokar whispered, circling closer. “What is that?”

  Feeling the heat climb into her cheeks for staring at her friend’s chest, Thiel felt more alarm at the sight than anything else. About as large as a grown man’s splayed hand, a marred mess covered what was once smooth flesh.

  “Blazes,” Laertes muttered. “It looks like what Rigar had!”

  “What is that?” Tokar’s voice pitched. “He wasn’t near fire. He didn’t fall against a torch.” He pointed to where the beam supported the lone candle box. “The lantern hasn’t moved. So how did that get there?”

  Thwap!

  Thiel pivoted. Against the black of nighttime in the camp, she saw Drracien’s form hulk away.

  “Double blazes—your leg, Thiel!”

  She spun back to the others. Stopped short. My leg. She had no pain. No discomfort. She hurried to the bed. Quickly removed the wraps, her heart stuttering. The others hovered, their confusion and curiosity as strong as hers. When she unwound the last stretch, the binding fell away. With a swallow for courage, she rotated her foot.

  No pain. Not even an ache. No bruising. No swelling. “I . . . I don’t understand.” She looked up at Tokar and Laertes, then to Praegur, who sat at the foot of his own cot, hand still over his heart, face screwed in pain. As if he wanted to conceal it. Shame blanketed him as heavily as shock covered her. “What happened?”

  “Maybe you were faking.” Tokar’s words sounded small. He sounded small. And he shrank beneath a withering glare she shot his way. He lifted a shoulder. “How am I supposed to know? One second, we’re arguing about helping that singewood, the next, he’s howling, the accelerant is storming out, and you’re healed.”

  “I know what ’vis is,” Laertes said in his thick Caorian accent.

  Tokar turned to Laertes, who stumbled to a cot in the corner. He’d gone pale. Seemed unsettled. His gaze roved the ground for several long seconds as he shook his head back and forth.

  Thiel went to him and lowered herself to the dirt. “Laertes? What is it?”

  His light brown eyes came to hers as Tokar eased onto the edge of her cot and Praegur watched, sweat beading on his upper lip. “I heard the tale.” His eyes bulged. He jumped to his feet. “O blazes-singewood-seared-brain-and-all-the-Flames!” He turned a circle muttering about the sage and readers. “They was just stories what they told.” He froze. Looked at them. Then turned again, wagging his head. “They was just stories,” he repeated, shaking his hands in emphasis. “What with the reader having no hair and no friends, we thought him addled and all.”

  Tokar huffed. “Laer—”

  “But he wasn’t. No, he wasn’t smushed in the brain. He was right.” Laertes gave a firm bob of his head. “He was right and we couldn’ see it. Cuz that’s wha’ peoples do—they want to feel good about themselves, so they make fun of o’vers.” He spun to them, his sandy blond brows tied together in a panicked knot. “We didn’ know. How’s we supposed to know?”

  Tokar balled his fist. “Laertes!”

  “Ain’ no call to go shouting at a boy just ’cause he took awhile to figure things out.”

  Thiel caught his shoulder and crouched to look him in the eye. “Laertes. What? What are you talking about?”

  “How could I ’ave been so stupid?” He cradled his head in his hands as he gave them a strange expression, as if he couldn’t believe something. His mouth opened, but he said nothing. Then he flung a hand to the back of the tent. “We ’ave to help ’im.”

  “Who?” Tokar growled.

  “Rigar. Him what’s the prince!”

  “Why?” Thiel went to a knee, now looking up at the boy. “Help us understand, Laertes.”

  “How would you know what we need to do? You’re just a boy.” Tokar stood and paced to the front of the tent.

  “Yeh? I might be a boy, but I got eyes and ears whats heard things you ’aven’t!”

  “Laertes,” Thiel said as calmly as she could, turning him away from Tokar, who was as agitated as all of them combined. She stole a peek at Praegur, who had laid back on the cot, feet on the edge, knees pointing to the canopy, his arm over his eyes, and the other hand still holding his chest.

  O Abiassa, we are falling apart!

  “Reader.” She licked her lips, drawing the boy back to her cot and sitting down with him. “You said something about a reader?”

  He nodded, his blond hair rippling beneath the tease of lamplight. “And the sage. You can’t forget him what got the smarts.” He wrinkled his nose. “The reader has smarts—he can read the Parchments—but not what the sage has. He tells us what the Parchments mean.”

  “Parchments.” Thiel felt herself sinking into treacherous waters with the talk of Parchments. Because that meant prophecies. Which meant religious—Ignatieri—high-handedness.

  “Which ones?” Tokar stood over them, intensity radiating through his face, making him appear more annoyed than usual. When Thiel shot him a questioning glance, he shrugged. “You know how those things can be.”

  Yes, all too well. In part, ‘those things’ had been why she’d fled her home and family.

  “The Parchments what tell of the world’s future.” Laertes lifted his arms and made a wide arc, as if mimicking the planet. He then paused, frowned and rubbed his head. “Or was it what told of . . .” He bunched his shoulders
and held them tight against his neck. “I can’t remember what one it was. I just knows it was told. And it done gave me terrors for weeks!” His hands motioned in his hysteria. “The Lakes of Fire spilling over like a raging sea in a storm. The ash what choked the sky. And the people. The Fierian what over’frows the king and brings the ageless war to the Nine.” He swallowed and shook his head, his young face filled with timeless fear. “We ain’t gonna survive this. Not if they take him. Not if he lives.”

  “What?” Tokar was listening now, his head craned toward Laertes at an angle. “You said ‘not if they take him,’ then ‘not if he lives.’ Which is it? Is he supposed to live or die?”

  Laertes’s eyes bulged and his mouth gaped. “Thems the words the sage spoke!” He dipped his head as if trying to remember and started mumbling. “‘The Fierian true . . . when he lives and dies—’” He shook his head. “No. No, that ain’ right. It was, ‘the Fierian true went to die, but he lives.’” Letting out a long groan, Laertes fell onto the cot. “I can’t remember.”

  “So are we supposed to help him? Or kill him?”

  Thiel jerked. “We are not going to kill Haegan! He’s our friend. We protect him.”

  “But if protecting him kills us . . .”

  “No, we can’t hurt him,” Laertes said, gripping at Tokar. “If we hurt him, we will be cursed!”

  “Stop it! That’s—you have singewood for brains if you believe that.” Tokar pushed him away.

  The tent flap snapped back and Drracien stepped in, a spicy wind with him.

  Thiel struggled to see his face in the waning light and glow of the torch. She stilled at his knotted brow and taut lips. The ferocity . . . “What is it?”

  “You are all loud enough for the entire camp to hear!” Wind tussled his black hair into his eyes as he tossed his cloak aside.

  “You rescued us just in time from Laertes’s insane ramblings,” Tokar said as he moved to a separate cot.

  “They ain’t insane. They’re written. Parchments, what they are.” Laertes turned to Drracien. “We have to help Rigar.”

  The accelerant considered him at length through narrowed eyes.

  “Drracien? Is something wrong?”

  He retracted his gaze and gave a long sigh. “The boy is right.”

  Tokar jumped to his feet. “What do you know? This isn’t for you—”

  “I know the Parchments.” Drracien’s expression and tone darkened. “You forget—besides lessons in wielding, an accelerant’s primary task is to learn the Parchments. Learn them to be guided by them.”

  “Guided.” Thiel wrapped her arms around herself, sensing a chilling turn. “Guided how?”

  “To use the wisdom of the four elders who wrote them to guide our decisions and actions.”

  She angled away, both wanting and not wanting to hear his thoughts. Fearing that the accelerants were dividing yet another life from love and friendship. “And what do those precious Parchments say of our situation? Does it speak to the incredulity of this predicament? To a venture to the Great Falls on behalf of a friend who intended to find healing and now finds tragedy?”

  “You are good at enlarging a situation.”

  “Our situation remains unaltered. And you have succeeded in not answering my question.”

  Drracien relented. “We should help him.”

  “But he’s being held by the Jujak,” Tokar objected.

  “And even if we goes in there and help him, we can’t just escape with him. He has to make it into them waters what have healing power.” Laertes pleaded with a long look to Thiel. “Ain’ that right?”

  With a reluctant nod, she said, “It’s a fine mess, but if we abandon him now, he’ll likely die—”

  “He won’t die—”

  “Do not negate my position.”

  “I only meant—”

  “Hear me out. If we abandon him, Haegan will be returned to Fieri Keep.”

  “Which is under siege,” Drracien said.

  Thiel hesitated. “You know this? When we left Seultrie, the Unelithiens hadn’t reached the city yet.”

  “Overheard the Jujak,” Drracien said with a half nod.

  Thiel’s stomach tightened. “Then it is more important than ever that we get Haegan out of there. He cannot be returned to the keep.”

  “But his sister . . .”

  Thiel clapped her hands over her head, frustrated. “I don’t know the answers. Everything feels defeated or useless.”

  “It’s not useless,” Drracien said. “I haven’t sorted all the facts, but I believe Haegan is Touched. Or protected. He is marked by a Deliverer—Abiassa does not send those without a very deliberate intent regarding the person. They do not act but at Her hand.”

  “For an accelerant on the run, you seem to believe their mash,” Tokar growled.

  “I believe,” Drracien said. “In Her. Not in them. At least not all of them. And if you want to tear me apart, fine, but it needs to be later. We are out of time.”

  “Why?” Thiel asked. “What’s wrong?”

  “The Great Falls. Haegan must go to the waterfall. If he is who . . . who I think he might be, it will be revealed there.”

  Curiosity and a large chunk of dread spread through Thiel. “Who do you think he is?”

  “The Fierian.”

  Thiel scoffed. But isn’t that what Laertes’s rambling referenced?

  “That bumbling, awkward coward? No way.” Tokar laughed. Then laughed some more. “If he’s the destroyer of worlds, then we’re singed.”

  “Not destroyer,” Drracien said with an edge to his words. “The Reckoner.”

  Thiel pressed her fingers to her forehead.

  “What’s the Reckoner?” Laertes asked.

  “Forget it.” Turning away, Tokar pushed both hands over his short-cropped hair. “You don’t need terrors again.”

  “I ain’t had terrors since I was a lit’le boy!”

  “Look!” Thiel snapped. “I don’t care if he is”—O Abiassa, say it’s not so—“the Reckoner. Haegan is our friend. That’s what matters. And he needs our help. He’s a good person. And he would give his life to help any of us. We need to find a way to free him.”

  “Do I get a vote?” Tokar growled.

  “Not if you’re going to disagree,” Thiel said. “It will take all of us to free Haegan. But we have to not only get him out, we have to hide him until he can enter the pool.”

  “How?” Tokar stuffed his hands on his hips, his jaw muscle flexing. “The Ignatieri—”

  “Will be busy with their rituals. A little fire and water are all Haegan needs now.”

  39

  Hands tied and tethered to the horn of the captain’s saddle, Haegan stumbled along behind the horse and rider.

  “I say make him walk the whole way,” Mallius grumbled from his mount.

  “What report would there be of us if we returned the prince to the Fire King half-starved and feet worn off?”

  “It’s what he deserves.”

  Haegan started to look at the thick warrior but diverted his gaze.

  “Laejan won’t be happy about us taking one of his horses for the traitor prince.”

  “Nobody is happy about this,” the captain mumbled, shooting Haegan a sidelong glance. “Traitors deserve to be flogged then hanged.”

  A half-dozen Jujak coalesced around their captain as they plodded up the hill. After a steep descent, Haegan side-sliding to maintain his balance, since his hands were bound, they broke into a clearing. Five hundred paces separated him from the Falls. His hope soared—could he break free and make it?

  Movement in the foreground drew Haegan’s eye to the row upon row of tents standing between him and his goal. The Ignatieri. The other Jujak. And just as quickly, his hope faded.

  As they trod toward the center of the camp and stopped in front of the large command tent, a tall, lanky form ducked beneath the opening. When he straightened, Haegan hauled in a breath.

  “General Laejan,”
the captain greeted as he dismounted. He passed Haegan’s leash to Mallius, who jerked Haegan toward himself.

  Laejan wasn’t the giant General Grinda was, but he was fierce, no mistaking. Especially when one saw the scar that traced the side of his skull. “Word came that you were hunting a traitor.” Large brown eyes fastened onto Haegan. “I see the king’s trust was not misplaced.”

  The captain clapped a fist over his chest and gave a curt bow. “You honor me.”

  “I only state the facts.” Laejan smoothed a hand over his bald head. “Why are you here, Captain? Why have you not sped on your way?”

  “A horse, sir.” He motioned to Haegan. “The journey is several days at a hard clip. Much longer if the prisoner is not mounted.”

  “Indeed.” Laejan glanced to the Jujak at his right. “Secure the prisoner.” He pointed to a large post in the middle of the camp, then nodded to the captain. “We should talk.”

  The captain turned to Mallius, and a silent message zapped between them. Mallius handed off Haegan’s rope to another.

  As Haegan watched, they vanished into the tent.

  “Move,” a Jujak barked as he hauled Haegan to the middle of the camp. There, he secured the ropes to a wench gear. Soon he was positioned so his arms wrapped the pole, forcing him to nearly hug the wood. A position that tugged on the wounds he’d incurred at the river with Thiel and compounded the splitting headache the captain’s punches had inflicted.

  He stood there for what seemed hours, so many that he no longer felt his arms, and his legs seemed to have a thousand ants crawling on them for the way they prickled and burned.

  I am a prince! The thought rolled through Haegan’s mind over and over. Both as a chastisement against his treatment by his father’s best warriors and as his own judgment exerted against himself for being in this position.

  He should have refused Kaelyria.

  It seemed especially cruel to place him in the middle of the Jujak camp so he could see the warriors going through their drills, practicing and sparring. He’d wanted nothing more as a boy than to one day rank among their numbers. Even chained and humiliated, the lingering ache of that dream taunted him.