Embers

by Ronie Kendig

  “Water? Bah, he’ll be in a cage.”

  “Just make sure. Especially if you want to live.”

  • • •

  Cradled in loneliness and moonlight, Haegan snapped awake.

  No. It wasn’t him who snapped. He had heard something, the crack of a branch. The center fire had burned down to almost embers, though two new logs sat mostly untouched. Ah. Sap must’ve been exposed in the log and crackled. The fire was unattended, hissing and smoking now under the mist from the relentless roar barreling down the Falls. The Jujak were asleep. As were the Ignatieri. No doubt a few sentries were on guard, but otherwise, the camp had bedded down.

  Which made it the perfect time to break out. It was imperative. He could not remain caged and allow them to drag him away from the water tomorrow. Haegan rolled onto his other side, his back to the camp, his face to the bars and the foot of the great mountain that abutted the encampment. He dug his fingers into the damp earth, feeling it burrow beneath his fingernails. Hope pulled at him and he dug harder.

  His finger jammed against something hard. He moved around it. Jarred again. Frustration rose quickly through his wearied body. But he dug. Tried to dig.

  “You’ll get nowhere.”

  Haegan whipped around, pain tightening his back. He cringed and strangled a cry.

  The captain squatted before the temporary prison. “I chose this location for the cages because of the rocks”—he stabbed a dagger into the earth with an unmistakable shink of steel on rock and grinned—“impenetrable. If you can break through there, then you aren’t human.” He held up a tin cup and tapped it against the bars. “It’s grog. Tastes like mud, but it will help.”

  “Nothing will help.”

  The captain slid the cup through the bars and set it down. Haegan accepted it and sipped gingerly, his eyes never leaving the captain’s. The warmth of the brew spread through him, chasing away what felt like a permanent chill. He shivered.

  “She said you were the strongest person she knew.”

  Haegan hesitated, wondering who he meant. Thiel? How could—? He glanced around, his mind racing through possibilities. Had they captured her? Was she in a cage, too? Or had they somehow known each other? She’d known that Ematahri warrior . . . “Who—?” But then he noticed the captain’s eyes again. Really noticed them.

  “His eyes are like the sky before a storm, gray and fierce, cut through by lightning—that’s his scar. So rugged.” Kaelyria’s words made it through the thick fog of pain and defeat.

  “You.” Haegan pulled himself to a sitting position, but the short height of the cage prohibited him from straightening. “You’re Graem, the one my sister—”

  “I hated you.” The captain balled a fist. “I’ve wanted to kill you since I first set eyes on her in that bed.” Torment held him fast as he stared into the darkness.

  • • •

  “I hunted you . . .When King Zireli asked me to hunt you down, I committed my whole life to finding you.”

  “But he said you must return me alive.”

  Jaw muscle popping, Graem pulled his gaze back to Haegan. “Aye,” he said with flared nostrils. “This cage is too good for you after what you’ve done.”

  Haegan lowered his chin. “I agree.” He shook his head. “I never should have agreed. But she . . . she can be so persuasive.”

  Graem snorted. “Aye, I know.”

  “You love my sister,” Haegan said, waiting for a slight nod, then continuing. “Please—know that I never would have—”

  “I know that, too.” Gray eyes stabbed him with finality. “She told me.”

  “Told you what?” Wariness held a tight fist on Haegan’s hope.

  “How she used your love for her against you.”

  All at once, Haegan was relieved and furious. Relieved that Kaelyria had told someone. Furious that this captain knew the truth but had not spoken up for him when the Jujak attacked him. “You can’t say anything . . . ”

  “She broke the laws of the Ignatieri as well as Seultrian edicts by consulting with a stripped accelerant.” Propped on his haunches, Graem swung toward the Falls. “She begged me to make sure you reached the Great Falls. But . . .” He scratched his stubbled jaw. “My orders from the Fire King supersede her petitions. I would lose my commission if I freed you.”

  Futility strangled Haegan as he stared at the waters. So close. And yet it seemed they were eternally removed from his reach. Deafening and yet silent. So strange. “If I do not enter the waters, she may die or be forever fated to suffer the torment of that tower. Is that what you want?” Haegan looked back at the captain.

  But he wasn’t there.

  No! He was there—but on the ground. Laid out. As if he’d collapsed. Haegan scrambled to the bars on all fours. “Captain!”

  A mighty explosion of fire shredded the veil of night. Fire raced across the tops of tents, sending soldiers scrambling for safety with shouts and cries.

  Fingers hooked over the bars, Haegan watched as the entire plain collapsed into chaos. A shadow raced from the largest Ignatieri tent just seconds before it collapsed in on itself with a great huff that seemed to fan the flames eating through the Jujak tents. It seemed ironic. Somehow symbolic.

  “Psst!”

  Haegan twisted around to where the great slope of the mountain formed an impenetrable wall. There knelt a hooded figure. Haegan checked on the Jujak lying prostrate. “Pray—tell me you haven’t killed him.”

  “Only a spark.” Drracien worked a hand over the entire length of bars. Heat warbled but did not grow to flames. With knuckles almost touching, he gripped two bars and yanked them outward. The bindings snapped and the poles surrendered. “Come on! Move!”

  Haegan climbed out, unfolding himself and cringing as pain tweaked and pinched his body.

  A warm blanket draped over his shoulder, providing warmth Haegan had not realized he’d missed until the fabric scratched at his neck. He clamped a hand over the left side when it started to slide off.

  “Just keep moving,” Drracien said. “Don’t stop. Don’t look back.” He pointed. “The woods. Go!”

  After the push, Haegan started to glance back and remembered the admonishment. He quickened his pace. “Where are the others? Thiel?” Of course he had to mention her first. “Laertes? And—” He looked toward Drracien, but found no one there. Where had he gone?

  Over his shoulder, Haegan searched the frenzy within the burning encampment for the rogue. Searched dancing shadows. Jujak rushed around with buckets of water, dousing the flames. Tending wounded.

  There.

  Drracien was dumping someone’s body into the cage. Graem’s. Oh, the soldier would never live that torment down. He might even lose a rank or two for Haegan’s escape. He’d be blamed, no doubt. Kaelyria would never speak to Heagan again if Graem were injured. The Jujak would pursue him for all they were worth if he died.

  Let him not be harmed, Haegan silently prayed.

  “Go!”

  Haegan blinked and found the rogue sprinting toward him. He spun and ran toward the trees, holding his side and keeping himself stiff to stave off the pain in his back.

  Drracien barreled past him. “Keep moving! They saw me.”

  42

  Haegan scrambled up the hill, no path to ease the hardship. Lying in the cage, he’d not realized how much the injuries bothered him. Now as he ran to keep up with the agile Drracien, he wondered if the Jujak had done more damage than he knew.

  Or if I’m just a weakling.

  Another name to add to the list attributed to him.

  “C’mon,” Drracien growled, throwing himself up an impossible stretch with one jump.

  Huffing, Haegan considered the steep incline. Vines, bushes, and rocks waited. Wind riffled through the green, waxy leaves. Taunting him. The hill rose almost completely vertical. Passage is impossible!

  And yet the accelerant moved like a panther in his element.

  “I want the prince alive! The accelerant ca
n die for all I care,” came a voice all too near.

  Hand against his side, Haegan planted his foot on a rock that rested nearly at hip height. With a great push, he launched himself upward. Another grunt and strain of his side delivered him up a half-dozen more paces. He hopped to the right. Caught a branch . . . and dangled. Blazes.

  A vice caught his leg. Yanked.

  Haegan lost his grip. Dropped hard against the slope.

  “Come here, you worthless dung!” The Jujak grabbed him by the belt and dragged him down.

  One well-planted foot in the man’s chest sent the Jujak spiraling backward, down the cliff. Haegan scrambled onto all fours and continued like that up the incline, grabbing roots, branches, shoots, or embedded stones to haul himself up. It also kept him low to the ground. Hopefully a little less obvious to the warriors in pursuit.

  Glancing up as he progressed, he couldn’t see Drracien or the others. Had they fled? He wouldn’t blame them. No sense in all of them getting caught because of him. But they had just risked everything to save him. Why would they…?

  He shook off the irrational doubts. He must move. Haegan grabbed a vine.

  Shards of pain ratcheted down his arm. “Augh!” He jerked his hand back, realizing too late that it was a thorny vine. Blood dribbled down his arm. He He tore off a length of fabric from his tunic and wrapped his hands before navigating in a zigzag pattern to ease the incline.

  Shouts below startled him, and he swung around to see a particularly young and agile Jujak spring from the bushes not too far behind.

  Haegan sucked in a breath.

  A streak of fire whistled past. Down the slope.

  “Auggghhh!”

  Turning from the stricken Jujak, Haegan searched the foliage above and finally spotted a blur of black. Drracien.

  A few more pain-numbing drags up the hillside and Haegan found the earth leveling out. And the dampness heavier. The air colder. Huffing, he pulled himself over the small ledge and took a moment to catch his breath.

  A sound warbled in the air stilling him.

  “Down!” Drracien shouted.

  A second too late. A jav-rod whooped at Haegan. The iron head seared his shoulder. Haegan twisted and threw himself to the right. Sprinted across the almost-even ground. Through a thick bramble of shrubs and trees growing defiantly in the difficult terrain. He burst into a small clearing and stopped short, the darkness broken by a strange gap in the canopy above, which allowed the moonslight through. The others were there. They were all there. Including Thiel.

  “Yeah!” Laertes pumped a fist.

  Tokar grunted something.

  Thiel leapt at him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders.

  Surprise froze him for a second, but the overwhelming pleasure of being hugged made him smile. Tens years a cripple, he missed hugs. Feeling her warmth against him, her shaking form, he closed his arm around her. And squeezed. Pressed his nose into her neck. Breathed the relief that he was safe.

  But then . . . yeah, he’d be a liar if he did not admit that the embrace gave him a hope he did not deserve. Made him too aware of her softness.

  Without a word, she pushed back. Chin tucked as if she’d embarrassed herself. “Tunnel rats should know how to run faster.”

  “They should. And climb impossible heights.” A smile barely made it out.

  “We need to move.” Drracien touched his shoulder. “Should we tend this now?”

  Haegan had forgotten about the slice from the jav-rod. “I’m well. Let’s go. I can’t let them stop us.”

  “We won’t,” Drracien said.

  They hiked single file behind Drracien, who navigated the mountainside as if it were a bricked path. But Haegan had not forgotten the words the accelerant had spoken. We won’t. There was something in the way he’d said that. As if . . .

  Haegan drifted back in the queue, positioning himself more evenly with Thiel. Holding her had scattered coherent thought. “Where are we going?”

  She gave him a slight smile. “Up.” This route wasn’t easy, and her uneven breathing told him it was difficult for her as well.

  “Drracien is leading.”

  With a nod, she smiled. “He found a way.” Then she frowned. “What’s wrong?”

  “The mark on my back—it means something. A high marshal warned the Jujak about me.” He scowled, thinking . . . worrying. “I think Drracien knows.”

  She caught his arm. “Wait. He’s not leading us to an ambush. He’s leading us to a haven.” Her eyes were bright beneath the moons. “I’ve seen it. I think you’ll be pleased.”

  “I already am.”

  She blinked, met his gaze for a long second, then glanced down.

  Had the words truly escaped his lips? He should give care. Plying her affections was cruel considering he would be on his way back to Fieri Keep tomorrow. Healed.

  Would he truly and forever be healed? He had never before hoped for the affection of a woman, for who would love a man who could not perform duties within the realm and produce heirs? It meant humiliation for them both.

  But tomorrow, he would be set free.

  The branches and brambles gave way to rocks and moss. Haegan slowed when a foot whooshed out from under him.

  “We’ll rest here,” Drracien announced, unshouldering a pack.

  Where had he gotten that? “Should we not keep going?” It was harder to talk up here, the noise of the waterfalls swallowing sound.

  Pointing across a span of twenty hands, he grinned. “Soon.”

  Haegan frowned.

  Thiel’s hand slipped into his as she walked by. “Come. It’s not visible from here.”

  At her touch a surge like the lightning that had buzzed his tower rushed through him. He followed her another half-dozen paces and stopped short. There, to his left, the raging waters of the Falls erupted from the ledge beneath his feet.

  “It’s a straight drop,” Thiel said, shouting to be heard.

  “To death?”

  “It’s only about forty or fifty feet.”

  “I’ve spent a lifetime with Parchments and figures—that’s enough to shatter a man’s legs, if not his entire body!” Though he laughed, Haegan did not find the idea of a person jumping—The healing waters.

  He turned to Thiel. “You expect me to jump?” He glanced down . . . down . . . “Into that?”

  She held both of his arms. “Think, Haegan,” she strained to speak loudly without shouting, then drew him back across the ledge to the others. Drracien had managed to build a fire, but with the humidity in the air, Haegan didn’t know how.

  Regardless. They wanted him to jump. To his death. Or to his life. To healing. “I’d die as soon as I hit the waters. If you’re dead, it won’t revive you. Will it?”

  Drracien clenched his jaw.

  “I appreciate—it is with great respect that I decline. I know you went out of your way to find a way, but . . .”

  “What other way do you have, princeling?” Drracien was on his feet. “The Jujak will kill you if you return to the clearing. The accelerants will attack at first sight because of that—” Drracien clamped his mouth shut.

  “That mark.” Haegan tensed and squinted at the accelerant. “You knew about it, didn’t you? That night with the healer. You saw it. That’s why you left.”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “It does!”

  “What matters is if you don’t jump, you don’t get to the Falls. There’s no way around to the other side. It’s guarded from here. And if you try to go down, they will capture you, and, depending on who captures you, kill you!”

  “Why can’t he just step into the stream behind that wall?” Tokar asked.

  “Because, the prophecy surrounding the Kindling includes the touch of the sun on the waters.” With a nod to the stone wall, Drracien shrugged. “Sun won’t penetrate stone.”

  Haegan pushed his hands through his hair and held his head. He looked to the others, who watched him. They’d been through so muc
h because of him. They’d fought hard. They’d run harder. And now they wanted to him to jump off a cliff.

  • • •

  Haegan met her gaze, and she saw the way he wilted seconds before he pivoted and stalked away.

  “I’ll talk to him.” Thiel hurried after him. She followed the snapped twigs and branches to where he sat on a rock. It reminded her of the night he’d spied on her, seen her with Tili. When Zicri had pinged him, and she’d had to invent a lie to protect him and the creature. She hiked up next to him and stilled. The view was unobstructed. She could see for leagues—even the lights of Hetaera. The paleness of the moon bathed the vast landscape in blues and grays.

  “It’s beautiful,” she whispered as she sank beside him, legs crisscrossed.

  Haegan said nothing. Just stared.

  “I’ve heard tales of people jumping from greater heights and living.”

  “That’s unlikely for me.”

  “You must belie—”

  “I can’t swim.” His cheek twitched. His chin puckered in and out. Again, he raked his hands through his hair. “Why? Why must everything be so difficult and complicated? I just—I was happy there. In that stupid bed. With my tutor. With hours of boredom that made days feel like years. I was no threat to anyone or anything, save the dust that would have surely overtaken the attics were I not situated there.”

  Her lip tweaked upward but not into a full smile. He’d never spoken so openly of his life before the tunnels. It pained her to hear the truth of his existence.

  “I don’t know what’s happening to me.” He twisted and snapped a twig. “The high marshal warned the Jujak not to let me enter the waters. Called me a scourge. Insinuated I was a danger to those around me.” His blue eyes came to hers. “Since I met you, that is all I have been to you, Thiel.”

  “No!” She shook her head. “If you knew my life before we met, you would know the falsity of those words. I have been in danger, one time after another, since I was twelve.”

  “Again, for your pain, I am sorry.” He motioned to the Falls. “But I can’t swim. So even if I survived the jump and got healed, I’d drown.”