Before She Ignites

by Jodi Meadows

  “They wouldn’t have cared,” Ilina said. “They accused Chenda of feeding information to a Hartan lover.”

  They were quiet a moment.

  “Four extra people is a lot,” Hristo said. “We’ll have to obtain papers and supplies for them as well.”

  The burden I’d placed on them sat heavy on my chest. My decision wasn’t about me alone. It wasn’t just my time in the Pit, the danger I was in. Every extra person I decided to save was an extra weight on Ilina and Hristo.

  “Mira, if you insist on doing this, how would it even be possible? Maybe Hristo can get in, but warriors don’t wear masks down there, do they?”

  “I—”

  Just then, loud thudding sounded on the bedroom door. It was locked, but then I heard the jangle of keys.

  “Mira!” Elbena’s voice carried through the quiet inn.

  Ilina glanced at Hristo, who drew his daggers.

  “Go,” I hissed. “Out the window.”

  But it was too late.

  Elbena and her Luminary Guard burst into the room.

  We scrambled for the window, but it was locked.

  Three metal darts zinged through the room, catching noorestone light.

  The first landed in Ilina’s neck. Then Hristo’s. Then mine.

  One, two, three.

  We dropped.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  OUR PLAN HAD LASTED FIVE MINUTES. THAT WAS possibly a new low.

  I awakened to find myself on a ship. The Chance Encounter, if I had to guess. The sway of the ship on water was unmistakable. Scents of the sea and sweat filled the small cabin, and all around I sensed the groaning of rigging, the thumps of footfalls, and crewmen singing on the decks above.

  Four Luminary Guards stood around the perimeter. All had two daggers at their hips. I’d been shoved in the outer corner, among crates and boxes. One leg stung with blood rushing back into my toes. My face ached worse than before; it felt like the stitches had been ripped out.

  Elbena stood in the midst of the guards, frowning. “I can’t say I’m surprised,” she said. “Given your performance at dinner, this latest betrayal is far too easy to believe. But I am disappointed. I didn’t think you’d recruit others to your cause and risk their punishment, too.”

  Chills swept through me. My wrists were bound and my mouth gagged, but otherwise I had freedom of movement. I could look around.

  Hristo was slumped onto his knees to my right, but his head was cocked, listening. Ilina was on my left, unconscious on the floor. She groaned; she’d wake soon.

  Guilt wormed through me. Somewhere in the back of my foolish mind, I’d thought maybe they had a chance of escape. I’d thought if I did the right thing, everything would be fine.

  Instead, I’d taken them down with me. What kind of friend was I?

  A dangerous friend, Gerel would say.

  “It’s a shame what has to happen now,” Elbena said. “But I’ve discussed it with Councilor Bilyana and our Bophan friends. We have authority over disciplinary actions for your little adventure. I hope you know this gives me no pleasure.”

  She motioned at one of the guards, who removed my gag. Why had they used it in the first place if they were just going to take it away?

  For effect, probably. Elbena liked effect.

  And—apparently—shoving rags of dubious cleanliness into other people’s mouths.

  I resisted the urge to spit the taste of dirt. That would not make me appear strong and capable, and I wasn’t sure I could do it, anyway, what with the gaping hole she’d left in my face. Instead, I pulled myself straight. “Let these two go. They have nothing to do with this.” Out loud, the words didn’t sound nearly as tough as they had in my head. But my throat was dry. My mouth was dry.

  My cheek burned with the gash sliced through. And in the back of my head, all I could hear was Mother’s voice: What if it scars? What then? She’s ruined. Useless. Hideous.

  I wanted to reach for my friends. Ilina would tell me we could hide it, and though I’d doubt hiding something that felt bigger than my entire head was possible, I’d pretend to believe her. Hristo would tell me it didn’t matter because I was still Mira Minkoba, though he would always look at it and see his failure.

  I was the worst friend in the world for worrying about my appearance at a time like this. Because the truth was worse. We were all on the Chance Encounter. The four Luminary Guards loomed over us. And Elbena had a sinister smile that quirked up one corner of her mouth.

  “Your friends were here to rescue you, weren’t they?” She phrased it as a question, but it wasn’t one. “I’m almost sorry your plan failed so quickly. It might have been entertaining to watch you run.”

  I could imagine the scenario she envisioned: us fleeing the Shadowed City, her sending the Luminary Guards and local police after us, keeping us on the move until we were too exhausted to continue. I’d fall first, no doubt. Hristo and Ilina wouldn’t leave me behind, though. No, they’d carry me if necessary.

  It would always be my fault that they were caught.

  “Let them go and I won’t run. I won’t protest.” I hated begging, but if I didn’t do something, my friends would surely die.

  She prowled closer to me and knelt. Her face twisted into a mask of sincerity and compassion. “Mira. This is not a negotiation. We won’t be making a deal. There’s no hope for you—or your friends. By all the gods, you’re so pathetic that I’m almost sorry to tell you the bad news.”

  Dread clutched at my chest, and my fingers twitched—lightning strikes signaling the coming storm of panic. I knew what the news would be. I’d known since the moment I’d realized we were on the ship.

  “I’m having you all separated, of course.” Elbena laced her fingers together and looked from Ilina to Hristo to me. “My dear. You’re going back to the Pit as soon as the tide comes in.”

  “I know.” My throat squeezed, pinching the words.

  “And so are your friends.”

  PART FOUR

  ARTICLES OF LIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  “I SAVED YOUR CELL FOR YOU,” ALTAN SAID.

  By the time I was paraded through the Heart of the Great Warrior, the Pit, and the first-level cellblock, I’d figured out that much.

  We walked by Kason, who hated everyone. Varissa, who thought she was my mother. Kumas, who liked to sing. And Hurrok, who’d tried to kill me.

  “What happened to your face?” My would-be murderer stared as I moved past. “You used to be so pretty.” When he grinned, it was with jagged, broken teeth. I couldn’t tell if he knew my identity.

  If Aaru had told everyone my whole name.

  If the alliances I’d made here were now over.

  My heart slammed against my ribs, harder with every step. It seemed impossible for this shameful walk to hurt more than the last, but it did. My whole body ached with humiliation and grief.

  When I reached Aaru’s cell, I caught only a glimpse of my silent neighbor. He sat on his bed, knees up to his chest, his back turned toward the door. Through his ragged shirt, I could see the ridges of his spine and ribs.

  At my passing, he didn’t look up. He didn’t move as though he’d heard me or sensed my presence. He didn’t want to see me after what I’d done.

  I touched the healing gash on my cheek, fresh shame pouring in. Maybe I didn’t want him to see me, either.

  Altan shoved me into my cell and shut the door. The screech of metal on runners was achingly familiar. “See you in the morning, Fancy.” His gaze darted to my cut, all scabbed over and angry. “Well. Maybe not so fancy anymore. I’ll have to think of something else to call you.”

  A fractured whine caught in my throat. Even Altan thought I was hideous.

  He laughed, reached through the bars, and patted my injured cheek. And no matter how I wanted to turn my head or back away or just move, I couldn’t. He rooted me. Paralyzed me. And no matter how I told my legs to swing, or my feet to shuffle, I remained in one spot
while his palm was near my skin.

  My broken, scabbing skin.

  I counted my own shallow breaths while I waited for this to stop. Six, seven, eight . . .

  “How the high Hopebearer has fallen.”

  Across the hall, Gerel’s head jerked up and her eyes went wide with shock. When our gazes met and she read the truth on my face, her surprise shifted to anger.

  “That’s right.” Altan lifted his voice. “The Hopebearer is just a normal piece of slime like the rest of you. Filth.”

  “I knew it!” From the end of the hall, Hurrok shrieked with joy. “I knew it was her!”

  Altan had been so careful to keep my identity secret the first time. And now . . . Now he didn’t care. Now he knew the Luminary Council wouldn’t come back for me.

  Now I was nothing.

  Altan laughed as he walked away, keys jangling in his fingers. But at the cells next to mine, he slowed his steps just a fraction and glanced in. “You two, as well? We’re going to have so much fun together.”

  Then he was gone.

  His spell released.

  I staggered backward and lifted my fingers to my cheek, like I might be able to wipe away the contamination of his hands. But I couldn’t even touch my own skin; I didn’t want to feel the rough line of Elbena’s retribution.

  A sob of misery choked out of me, but I wouldn’t cry. Not now. Not when I needed my strength the most.

  So I just whispered, “I’m back,” and let my hands fall to my sides. My voice sounded strange, pulled sideways because of the cut; I couldn’t open my mouth very wide without feeling like I might tear it open. “I’m back,” I said again.

  Back on Khulan. Back in the Pit. Back in my cell.

  Back in my own filthy misery and memories that fizzled to the surface with every passing minute.

  My cell was the same as before. Small. Dim. Disgusting. Three walls. One grated door. One bed that doubled as a bench, and one sewage hole. It was almost enough to make me wish the voyage to Khulan had been longer, but we’d made it back in eight days—same time as it took to get to Bopha.

  All totaled, I’d been away from the Pit for eighteen days. And now Hristo was here, in the cell next to mine. Ilina was next to him.

  I could tell who was where by the muffled grunts—Hristo was testing the bars of his door, but the metal gave only a weak rattle in response. After five more clatters, he kicked the grille. Heavy footsteps suggested he backed away, but I could imagine him glaring at the door, biding his time before he tried again.

  I wished Ilina were the one closer to me. Maybe, if we tried hard enough, we could reach between the bars and touch fingertips.

  Or maybe that would be dumb, since it was my fault we were all here to begin with. I should have let them take me out of the Shadowed City when they were ready.

  But no. I’d protested. And now we were all three in the Pit, and my face had been sliced open, ensuring Elbena and the Luminary Council would never have need of me again.

  I wasn’t exactly the smartest person in this cellblock, but I probably wasn’t the stupidest, either. I knew what this meant.

  We were never.

  Ever.

  Getting out.

  Altan would see to that.

  “Yes, yes,” muttered Gerel. “You’re back. Hopebearer.” She was sitting cross-legged in her cell, her glare like steel. “I knew you were dangerous.”

  My gaze dropped to the floor.

  “I see you brought friends.”

  “Not on purpose.” My voice shook.

  “I should hope not, but I suppose I don’t really know you, do I, Mira Minkoba?” She glanced toward Aaru’s cell, and a vision of his back filled my mind. Turned away. Not looking at me.

  Hating me, probably.

  “I thought it was better if no one knew.” I bundled my hands inside my dress. It wasn’t the gold-and-white gown I’d worn to the ill-fated state dinner, but a simpler thing of pale blue cotton with nacre buttons down the front. The other was probably sitting in a trash heap now, covered in my blood.

  “Better for you,” Gerel said. “The rest of us? Well, what did it matter if we got hurt because of our association with you?”

  “I didn’t want anyone to get hurt.”

  “Great job.” Again, she glanced at Aaru’s cell. “You know, he hasn’t spoken since they dragged him out of here with you. He hasn’t spoken one word.”

  The memory of Aaru’s scream flooded me. Then the darkness, the silence, and the way he’d been unable to make sound come out of his mouth. I remembered him shaping my name on his lips—and nothing happening. His voice had been shredded into a useless memory, but he should have regained it by now.

  Right?

  “He hasn’t even gone to work like you planned,” Gerel went on. “He couldn’t stand up for more than a decan because of the wounds on his feet.”

  My stomach dropped.

  “This is your fault. Altan and the others might have been the ones to do the actual harm, but it never would have happened without you. They knew you liked him, so they tortured him to hurt you. It could have just as easily been me, you know? It probably should have been. I could have handled it better. But then, they knew that, too.” With those venomous words still stinging through the air, Gerel climbed to her feet and turned her back on me.

  A moment later, Ilina said, “You were right, Mira. These people were absolutely worth trying to rescue.”

  I hugged myself as a pale whine forced its way up my throat.

  Diagonally from me, Chenda was standing at her door, leaning around to get a look at Ilina, Hristo, and finally me. Her cheeks were sunken and her eyes hidden in dark circles. Even the copper tattoos seemed dulled.

  Once, she’d been radiant. Now, she was muted. A candle burned down and drowning in its own wax.

  “I went to Bopha,” I told her. “I saw Dara and the Shadow Spires and the High Tower.”

  “Why?” Chenda’s voice was raw, and just as hollow as the rest of her. In spite of her previous rank, she’d been given no special treatment here. “Why did they want you?”

  “They wanted me to say what you would not.”

  She blinked slowly, like even that much movement was a challenge. “Did you?”

  “No.” I held her gaze. “I would not.”

  “Mira refused.” Pride filled Ilina’s tone, and defensiveness. “Right in front of everyone at the dinner, she told them love does no harm. And then, when we tried to sneak her out of the inn where they were keeping her, she refused to come with us. Instead, she thought she had to rescue all of you too. But I can’t imagine why. No one here seems to appreciate her.”

  “Tirta is nice,” I offered. “But she’s in a different cellblock.”

  “And that helps us not at all.” Ilina’s pacing sounded on the floor—eight, nine, ten—and then she kicked the metal lid of her sewage hole, making it scrape the stone. “This place is disgusting.”

  Chenda turned back to me and nodded slowly, deeply. “Thank you, Mira.”

  “It didn’t make a difference. They only listen when I say what they want to hear.”

  “That, too, I understand.” Her mouth tugged up in one corner, not quite a real smile, but an attempt, perhaps. “That is the way of the world for us, isn’t it? Valued, but in the way a painting is valued. Moved around. Shown to guests. Talked about and talked about, until one day a smudge is discovered. Then we are discarded.”

  “We are not paintings, Chenda. And from now on, I won’t be treated like one.”

  This time, she did offer a smile. A real one. “Neither will I.” But the way she said it was more like acceptance.

  Because we were ruined, both of us. My cheek slashed open. Her whole body withered with some sort of illness.

  And now that I looked at my neighbors, really looked, I could see that Gerel was skinnier than before. Aaru’s spine, too, had stuck out in ridges of bones, protruding through his shirt. They’d all lost weight, because even the mea
ger amount of food I’d sneaked for them had made a difference.

  I faced the wall I shared with Aaru and waited seven thumping heartbeats, and then I tapped my palms on the sides of my thighs: short long, short long, short long short, short short long. ::Aaru?::

  The quiet code came slowly, awkwardly, since I hadn’t practiced much while I was gone, but if there was one thing I could do, it was remember numbers.

  No response. Maybe he hadn’t just stopped talking out loud, but talking in quiet code, too.

  My heart sank as I dropped to the floor and crawled under the bed. There was the hole in the wall. Our secret place. “Aaru?” My voice was soft.

  Still nothing.

  He didn’t crawl under with me. He didn’t reach through and take my hand. He didn’t acknowledge my presence.

  “Can you blame him?” Gerel asked, almost thoughtfully. “After he was punished for being your friend?”

  “No,” I said, even though Aaru had forgiven me for what Altan had done. It was my name that was the problem. My omission. “I don’t blame him at all.”

  I SPENT THE night thinking.

  Mother would have laughed, because I was never much of a thinker, she said, but that was what I did. I slept under my bed, caught in a weird sensation that I’d never actually left. Like the trip to Bopha had been nothing but an especially vivid dream. Still, I had the mark where Elbena had cut me. That was proof enough.

  And all my thoughts came down to one fact: if I didn’t do something now, I’d never leave.

  We’d never leave, because I’d come back for Gerel, Aaru, Tirta, and Chenda, hadn’t I? And I’d inadvertently brought Hristo and Ilina with me.

  Maybe . . . If I could get all my friends moved into the second level, with more food and better accommodations, they would be strong enough to escape with me. I just had to figure out how to make Altan agree to it.

  I must have fallen asleep, at least briefly, because the noorestones were lit when I opened my eyes.