Before She Ignites

by Jodi Meadows

  My head spun with the slow descent, but even if I’d wanted to move faster, the guards’ pace would have prevented me. They weren’t in a hurry. Probably happy to keep me in this claustrophobic stairwell, surrounded by stone walls and enemies. Any excuse to torment a new prisoner was a good excuse.

  “Aren’t we lucky?” muttered one of the warriors. “The real Mira Minkoba. I wonder what she did.”

  My neck and cheeks burned with humiliation.

  Another guard laughed. “I bet she threw a fit and tore all her clothes.”

  “Or defaced portraits of her enemies.”

  “Maybe she had a lover the Luminary Council didn’t approve of.”

  They mused for another minute before the fifth warrior spoke up. Altan, another had called him. I called him my nemesis. “The Luminary Council wouldn’t have sent their favorite puppet here without a truly serious crime, like putting the Fallen Isles at risk.”

  I tried to focus on walking, but my whole body trembled with fury and shame.

  “Whatever the reason she’s here,” Altan went on, “we’re under orders not to discuss it, or her, so forget her name and rank. She’s just a prisoner, like all the others.”

  Just a prisoner. Anonymous.

  At two hundred steps, the cool air gave way to warmth, growing over the next fifty-seven. (Two hundred and fifty-seven total.) Finally, we reached the bottom, where everything I’d thought I’d known about the Pit evaporated.

  The stairwell opened into a magnificent hall, with over a dozen ornate pillars from floor to ceiling. It was so high that a Drakontos titanus would have been able to stretch its neck and wings.

  Noorestones lit the chamber at regular intervals along the pillars and carved walls, and shone from immense chandeliers above. Hundreds of tiny stones glowed and glowed.

  Altan prodded at my spine.

  He was my least favorite guard already, because he kept looking at me. Studying. The others’ jokes were uncomfortable, but his attention was more focused. More menacing.

  His face told a story of recent fights, with healing cuts and fading bruises that covered his golden-brown skin. Eleven thin scars marked his right temple, like remnants of a childhood accident. He was handsome in a fearsome way; he had wide cheekbones, a strong jaw, and hard, brown eyes that stayed narrowed under a high brow. Like all the other warriors, his hair was close-cropped, and he wore a leather uniform. Only two iron chevrons were pinned under Khulan’s crossed maces, which suggested he wasn’t important, but there was another pin as well. Some sort of tooth or claw.

  “Walk,” he said.

  Hot, damp air choked me as I started moving once more. Sweat trickled down my spine, making my silk dress stick to my skin. I couldn’t recall ever feeling so subhuman in my life. What I wouldn’t give for a bath. Steaming, clear water. Shea butter and honey soap. A citrus peel on my face. Orange blossom, jasmine, and shea cream in my hair. The sweet perfume of lala flowers wafting through the washroom.

  I hadn’t had a real bath in a decan. It felt like a year.

  Huge panels of chiseled figures watched my shameful walk through the grand chamber. With every step, my mind tracked their size (ten paces wide, at least three times as tall).

  The first panel showed the seven gods as they fell from the stars, streaks of fire shooting behind them. Darina and Damyan faced each other, toes touching toes as they plummeted toward the waves. Their eyes were bright with eternally locked gazes. Khulan had his great mace lifted, his body twisted toward Anahera, the Destroyer. We passed by too quickly for me to properly see the other three, though I knew their poses from tapestries and other depictions of the Fall: Bopha was always in shadow, even as she dropped toward the sea. Harta wrapped her arms protectively around her great, pregnant belly, loose clothes fluttering. And then there was Idris, bent over in contemplation as he ignored everyone and everything.

  Seven gods. Seven islands. Six, if you counted Darina and Damyan as one, which most people did. That made Damina twice as big as any of the other islands. The best. The most important.

  At least, that was what I’d always believed.

  Between the panels, statues of legendary warriors protruded from the stone, as if they were on the verge of stepping out. Their fists clutched the heavy chains used to lift and lower the chandeliers. They sent me loathsome glares.

  Two of my escorts were discussing a card game, completely unimpressed by the surrounding magnificence. “I can’t believe you lost that hand.”

  “I shouldn’t have accepted the bet. Batbayar never loses when an extra shift is at stake.”

  There was a heavy pause. Here, Daminan men might have accused their friend of cheating, but for Khulani warriors, that sort of comment would mean truly questioning their friend’s honor. Even if it had been meant as a joke, there would have to be a trial, a fight, and at least one demotion.

  No card game—extra shift or otherwise—was worth it to these two, so they carried on, keeping any suspicions quiet.

  The warriors opened a huge, creaking door and shoved me through it. I stumbled, nearly losing track of my steps, but my feet remembered the impacts—one, two, three, four.

  Statues filled the tall alcoves along the new hall. These versions of the gods were marble and limestone and sandstone, beautifully carved and terrifying as they struck one another down, or crushed minuscule humans beneath their feet.

  “Look.” Humor edged Altan’s tone. “She’s scared.”

  “Probably worried about ruining her dress,” said another.

  “It’s already ruined.” Altan prodded my back. “Walk.”

  I wanted to shrink up and die, but I walked and kept my eyes on the statues.

  Legend said that when our seven gods fell to Noore, humans all over the world perished in wind and fire. The devoted lived, and made their way across the ocean to settle on the Fallen Isles.

  Of course, our ancestors weren’t really the only survivors. The mainland held dozens of clans and kingdoms, all fighting for control of an enormous continent. For two thousand years, they’d been too busy warring with one another to notice us, but now the Algotti Empire ruled all along the coast. Some said the Mira Treaty was a direct response to the mainland falling under the empire’s banner.

  We passed monuments and chapels and mausoleums, and there it struck me: I’d always imagined the Pit was a deep hole in the ground, nothing but inmates wasting away, but this seemed more like a place of worship. This immense underground complex could only be one thing.

  The Heart of the Great Warrior. The holiest temple of the Khulani people.

  This was worse than I could have imagined. There was no better-protected place on all of Khulan. And the Pit—the deepest prison in the Fallen Isles—was part of that.

  Despairing, I counted my steps (twenty-seven in this hall) and the number of halls (five so far); I couldn’t keep up with all the statues and doors and stairs.

  Then, when I thought the hallways would never end and prison was this, walking and walking for the rest of my life, we came to a narrow, poorly lit corridor with grated doors every seven paces.

  Here the warriors slowed, giving me time to peer into the cramped spaces as we passed.

  The cells held prisoners, condemned to die here as punishment for some crime. There was a young man with white tattoos all over his arms and legs. He huddled on a bench, rocking and muttering to himself. A woman, perhaps my mother’s age, scraped her palms over a wall, as though searching for a hidden door, but her efforts were focused on the wall shared with the next cell.

  One was filled only with the remnants of previous inmates: empty shackles, a worn blanket, and smooth places in the stone. A dark stain splashed across the floor and walls. Dried blood, tinted deep purple in the dim blue glow of aging noorestones.

  A small wooden cup sat in another shadow-filled space, though I couldn’t see the occupant. If there was one. People probably didn’t survive here very long.

  “This one.” Altan stopped m
e at the next cell, the eighth on the right side. There were more beyond, but I couldn’t see them when the other guards blocked my way.

  “You sure you want to transfer?” An older warrior glanced at Altan as he drew a huge ring of keys and stabbed one into a lock. “We’re not short on prison guards.”

  Altan touched the chevrons and claw on his jacket. “I vowed to see this through.”

  “All right.” The door slid open with a loud screech and rattle that echoed down the stone hallway. “I doubt you’ll have trouble. It’s always the fancy ones who break first.”

  I would not break.

  I would not break.

  But as much as I wanted to be strong, the weight of this place was pressing down. The warriors, the immense underground complex, and the shattered prisoners in other cells: I could feel myself beginning to crack, no matter how hard I resisted.

  My heart pounded toward my throat as more keys clattered behind me. The shackles fell off my wrists. And at once, I was heaved into the cell.

  “I’m not supposed to be here.” The words came out before I could stop them. Sharp. Desperate. Pathetic, really. After everything else, reaching my cell shouldn’t have been the thing that tipped me over the edge of hysteria. But it was. The cell was too real.

  “Everyone says that.” Altan accepted the key from the leader, a tall man with three chevrons and two claws under the crossed maces. “Thank you, sir. I’ll take good care of her.”

  A shudder tore through me and I rushed for the door, but Altan drew it shut so fast the metal rang along the runners.

  The other guards snickered. “This one will be fun.”

  What did that mean?

  My fingers curled around the gritty, flat bars as a sob choked out of me. I wasn’t supposed to be here. None of this was my fault.

  “I’ll see you soon, Fancy.” Altan’s smile made his eyes even narrower.

  Dread knotted in my chest: a telltale collapsing of all my fears into a single writhing mass. Blackness fuzzed along my peripheral vision, crawling inward to blind me. It made me light-headed. Dizzy. I couldn’t catch my breath as my whole body started to shake and sweat. The heat boiled up from my insides and buzzed in my ears. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t hear.

  I had to stop this, but the panic was overwhelming. Too powerful.

  A headache pulsed at my temples, echoing around my skull and down the back of my neck. Everything—absolutely everything—hurt, and the more I became aware of the various ailments, the worse it became.

  In vain, I patted my clothes for calming pills, but the amber bottle had been taken from me on Damina. There was no way to stop this horrible foreboding.

  One of the guards laughed as they walked away.

  Focus. I had to focus.

  I sucked in a deep breath. A second. Then a third. It cleared my vision, at least, though it didn’t ease my racing heart or the smothering sense of doom.

  I counted the number of bars across the door. Seven. Then the lumps in the stone floor between my cell and the opposite. Nineteen.

  That helped.

  Across from me, a girl with deep-brown skin and shorn hair sat cross-legged in the center of her cell, her eyes closed and her face serene. How could she be so calm?

  I stared at her, hoping she’d notice my arrival. Maybe talk with me. Distract me. Tell me that none of this dread and doom was real. But she didn’t look up. The other prisoners were mostly blocked from my view.

  And this dread and doom was real, wasn’t it? I was in the Pit. Trapped. Far from Ilina and Hristo. Far from the only people who knew the truth.

  I pried my fingers from the iron grille. Ugly ruddy marks circled my wrists where the metal shackles had bitten into my skin. Mother would have been furious. What if it scarred?

  The thought of Mother made me stagger back, deeper into my cell, as the crushing terror descended again, harder than before. My heart battered the inside of my chest, too hard, too fast, growing thunderous in my ears.

  On Damina, prisoners were given time to wash and a change of sturdy clothes before they were locked away, but I’d received no such decency. My possessions had been taken from me upon my arrest. Hairpins, jewelry, and anything else that could be used as a weapon—everything was confiscated.

  In the holding cell on Damina, I had nothing but what I was wearing—a once-beautiful wrap dress and matching slippers—and that was all I was permitted. I’d padded into the interrogation room in my wrinkled clothes, my hair wild, and a rank odor coming off me.

  I knew why I’d been left there, though, sitting in my own stink for two days. It made me look deranged. Like a liar. Because of course filth and lies went hand in hand, and if I was a liar then I needed to look the part. Mother had surely protested, but when one’s enemies included the entire Luminary Council, certain dignities were stripped away. Like bathing. Like looking human.

  Like a trial, though I’d begged and insisted and demanded one.

  Another sob exploded out, and I crumpled to the floor, palms flat on the stone, my forehead resting on my knuckles. The knot of horror grew until it filled every part of me. Fingers and toes and the tips of my hair. It swarmed around me. There was no escape. No respite. No calming pills. No hot bath with soothing oils.

  Alone. Abandoned. Apart from everyone I loved. All because of one act of trust. One truth. One horrible mistake.

  My head throbbed as the tears fell and fell.

  Maybe they would drown me.

  BEFORE

  Nine Days Ago

  AFTER THE SENTENCING, ILINA AND HRISTO WERE permitted to visit.

  The room we’d been given had three noorestones and one window that took up most of one wall. Luminary Guards wearing off-white linen uniforms strode through the hall on the other side, not paying attention to us. At least, I didn’t think they were. Masks covered the lower parts of their faces, while deep hoods shadowed their eyes.

  I wished I had something to hide my eyes, too. They burned with hot tears, and my face felt puffy from hours spent crying in my cell.

  “We don’t have long.” Ilina’s voice was tight as she placed her bag on the table and began removing combs and bands and moisturizers, but this hardly seemed like the time. “They said we could say good-bye, and I thought . . .” She lifted a comb.

  “You’re not my maid. That isn’t your job.”

  “Let me,” she said. “As a friend.” She was trying not to cry, so obediently I sat and swallowed back my own sobs as she combed and pinned and spread passionflower-scented cream through my hair.

  Hristo stood nearby, his arms crossed over his chest while he watched.

  “I don’t think I’ve ever done your hair before.” She began twisting strands into flat ropes that would stay put for days—longer, if I was careful. “I wish I had. I just—I don’t understand.”

  I couldn’t bring myself to speak.

  “How can the Luminary Council do this?” Ilina twisted and twisted my hair so tight it hurt. “I thought they would listen to you. How could they let—”

  Hristo held up a hand and shook his head. “Someone could overhear.”

  Ilina kept working until my head had twenty-five tiny, flat twists and one of the Luminary Guards banged on the door to signal their time was up. “Can’t we make some kind of appeal?”

  “There wasn’t even a trial.” I stood to look at my friend and memorize her features: her warm brown skin, bronzed from so much time in the sun; her small nose, which she joked had been stunted from her parents poking it so much when she was a child; and her long black hair, usually in practical braids, but loose and straight today. My ache for her would be immeasurable. “An appeal is pointless. Besides, if you go to the council on my behalf, they’ll wonder how much you know.” And I’d worked too hard to keep Ilina and Hristo’s names out of all this.

  “I hate them,” she whispered. “They’re traitors. Every one of them.”

  I reached, and then she was hugging me tight enough that I couldn’
t breathe. But I didn’t stop her or ask her to ease up, because this might be the last time we held each other.

  “This isn’t good-bye,” she whispered by my ear. “You are my wingsister and I will come for you.”

  “How?” The word felt hollow. Hot.

  “I will drain the seas and march there if I must.”

  The guard banged on the door again. Thud thud.

  I wanted to sob with gratitude. “Bring LaLa and Crystal when you do.”

  Ilina pulled back, her hands resting softly on my shoulders. “Mira . . .”

  “Now isn’t the time.” Hristo’s face twisted with concern.

  “Tell me.”

  Thud thud.

  “They’re gone,” Ilina said. “They’re not in the drakarium. They’re gone.”

  My heart stopped. Gone like the others?

  The door crashed open and two Luminary Guards thundered in. Just as Hristo and Ilina vanished from my view, I heard Ilina call out, “You are my wingsister!”

  CHAPTER TWO

  I WOULDN’T ALWAYS BE IN THE PIT.

  Ilina’s vow still echoed in my head. And my parents were surely doing everything in their power to secure my release. The Pit was a life sentence, but all my life I’d been an exception. I was Mira Minkoba. The Hopebearer. The Luminary Council needed me.

  Didn’t they?

  Ghosts of anxiety still urged me to scream and cry, but I squashed them. There was nothing useful about letting the panic take over if I could push it back. The facts were these: I was here, on Khulan, and in the Pit. There was only one thing I could do now.

  Survive.

  All I had to do was wait until my parents got me out of here. The Luminary Council would see reason.

  If I wanted to survive, I needed to fit in.

  The Drakontos mimikus was one of the more misunderstood species. Lots of people thought they mimicked other dragons to mock them, but the truth was that their scales changed color, their voices changed timbre, and their movements shifted to match the dragons’ around them for protection. They weren’t very strong on their own—as far as dragons went—but if they looked like another species, other dragons were less likely to pick on them.