The singsong familiarity of the words wrapped around me, the pull of memories separating me from the present. A pair of light does about four inches high formed on my boots, leaping off to frolic, almost hidden, in the long grass before me. Idly, I watched them, my mind tangled in the past. I knew why my parents had given me up to the temple—they were simple people, and unable to cope with a child who had unique abilities—but oddly, I held no grudge against them.
Sandor, though ...
“Eavesdropping?”
The roughly whispered question from behind me caused me to spin around, gasping as I beheld the sight of a boy who had crept up behind me, “Goddess! You startled me.”
I would have mistaken him for a soldier who had not worn a helm, but the spikes of black hair hanging over amber eyes belonged to a boy, probably one not much older than me.
“What are you doing here?” the boy asked, his words arrogant, but there was something about the way he rubbed his arms that reminded me of Dell, the blacksmith’s son, at his most awkward.
I made a show of looking him over, noting that he wore full armor, and had the broad chest and long legs of a fighter. “I could ask the same thing. Who are you?”
“You will answer my question before I answer yours,” he answered with haughty disdain. Immediately, he grimaced. “That sounded just like my father.”
“Is that bad?” I smiled, realizing who he was. “You’re Deosin Langton, aren’t you? The others were saying your father was coming to see Sandor, to beg her for help. They said you were a grand lordling, and ride a great white stallion. Is that true?”
“No, my horse is black,” he said, turning a little pink. “And I’m no lordling! I’m a warrior, like my mother. What are you doing here?”
“Listening to Peebles and Lala. Peebles is the priest in charge of the young children.” I nodded toward the window.
“You can’t be much older than a child,” he said with lofty disregard to the fact that I was almost as tall as he was.
“I’m not a child. I’m a priestess. I was so anointed earlier this year, and I have seen the passing of fourteen years. My name is Allegria.”
“Alla-GREE-uh,” Deo said, pronouncing the syllables carefully, just as if he wasn’t sure if he liked them or not. “That’s an odd name.”
“And Deosin isn’t?” I nudged him with my bow.
He gave a rueful smile. “Most people call me Deo.”
“Blessings of Kiriah upon you, Deo,” I said formally, and drew in the air the traditional grace of Kiriah.
He bowed awkwardly in return. “And grace of the goddess to you, Allegria.”
I turned away from the schoolroom, my stomach rumbling warningly. “Are you hungry?”
He glanced down at the rabbits. “Yes, but those would take a while to cook, and I don’t know how long my father intends to stay.”
“Oh, these aren’t for us. I caught them for Bertilde, the cook. Come on. I have a secret stash of apples that I keep hidden from the younger girls.”
Deo followed without objection, and ten minutes later we were seated cross-legged in the hayloft. I tossed him an apple from the homespun bag I hid from the younger initiates.
“I don’t believe you’re a priest,” Deo said around a mouthful of apple. “You’re clearly a cook’s servant, else you would not be out hunting for rabbits.”
“That shows how little you know about being a priest.” I pushed my hair, ever wild with curls that refused to be tamed, behind my ears and bit into an apple, savoring its tartness. “I’m very good with a bow, and sometimes, I get some rabbits or birds for Bertilde. Why is your father here? The older priests won’t tell me anything, but that’s because they’re all too busy giggling over him.”
“Giggling?” For a moment, Deo looked outraged.
“You know. They think he’s sooo handsome.” I made exaggerated googly eyes and kissing noises before returning my expression to normal. “Sandor says your father’s visit heralds a bad omen, that the dealings of the world beyond the temple have no meaning to us, but I think she’s wrong. I mean, if the world is destroyed by the invaders, then we’re going to be affected, aren’t we?”
“My father seeks a boon to use against the invaders,” Deo said, reaching for another apple.
“Oh.” I was disappointed. I had hoped that Lord Israel would be seeking aid from Sandor. The thought of being able to leave the temple, of fighting alongside the soldiers, had filled my head like nothing else. On the other hand, perhaps this was just the opening I needed. “Has your father raised an army to fight the invaders? Does he have archers? I’m very good with my bow, and if Sandor gives me leave to fight, I could go with him today.”
For a moment, I thought Deo might laugh, but with a glance down at the dead rabbits, he gave a shrug instead. “I will ask him, if you like, although there are not many women in his company who are not magisters.”
I bit deep into another apple, and offered him a third. Juice ran down my chin, which I wiped off with one hand while pressing his arm with the other. “Would you? I know priestesses do not often go to war, but it is not unprecedented. Sandor herself is said to have fought long ago against the giants that sleep deep beneath the surface, and I have begged for the chance to fight the invaders.”
I kept to myself Sandor’s acid response to my many requests.
Deo leaned back against a beam and said smugly, “I’m going to fight the invaders. I’m going to Genora, and will fight the Harborym.”
“Harborym?”
“That’s the name for the invaders, although no one around here likes to say it out loud. I’m going to free my mother’s people from their enslavement to the Harborym, and I will live there, and my mother will teach me to become as great a warrior as she is.”
I eyed him. “You are big like a warrior. Are you good at it?”
“I am,” he said with absolutely no modesty, and held up an arm. “I train for seven hours a day.”
Obligingly, I leaned forward to feel his biceps beneath the chain mail. Deo suddenly grabbed my shoulder and pulled me closer, his mouth warm as he kissed me. I was startled by the gesture, but not fearful, since the blacksmith’s son was forever trying to kiss me. Deo’s kiss was different from those, though. It was warmer, less wet, and apple-scented. I allowed the kiss to go on for a moment, wondering if this meant that I was smitten with him, before I pushed him back, and picked up my half-eaten apple. “That was nice, but I don’t think you should do that again.”
“Why not?” He looked wounded, and I wondered if that was his first kiss. The fact that his face was hot and red gave truth to that suspicion, but I didn’t want to hurt his feelings by asking. “I thought girls liked to be kissed.”
“Some do,” I said after considering how best to discourage him.
“And you don’t?”
“It’s all right, but it’s nothing I sit up nights thinking about.” I chomped into my apple. “I’m a priestess, after all.”
“What is it you sit up nights thinking about?” he asked.
“I think about what you’re doing.”
Startled, he just stared at me until I took pity on him.
“You get to fight with your father. That’s what I really want to do. It’s why I’d be so grateful if you asked your father if I could join his company.” I tossed my core aside and got to my knees, clasping my hands together in the manner of supplication to Kiriah. “I could fight the invaders alongside you. I’m fast with my bow, and I’ve recently convinced the blacksmith to teach me swordplay, so I’m sure I could pick that up fast enough. And I have a special power—”
“DEO!”
The word echoed through the barn with the power of a cannon shot. Below us, the mules whinnied, while outside, the sounds of male voices ordering the company together brought Deo to his feet. “That was my father.”
“Who has seen my son? DEO!”
“I’ll come with you,” I said, scrambling down out of the hayloft after h
im. “I could come with you now, if Lord Israel likes. Right now. I have my bow here. I wouldn’t even have to go back to my room to gather my things—I don’t have much anyway—if you could lend me a sword.”
Deo ran out of the stable with me on his heels. To my surprise, Lord Israel was already mounted, his face red with fury. What on earth had Sandor done to so enrage him? I glanced toward the temple entrance, but there was nothing to be seen but Feliza, the porter.
“For the love of the goddess, where is my—Deo! I have been calling this past age for you. Come. We will take our leave of Lady Sandor, since she refuses to see reason.”
Deo looked like he wanted to argue but, after a moment, took the reins of his horse and mounted quickly. I hurried to his side, wrapping my fingers around his horse’s harness while I made my plea. “Will you ask?”
Deo looked down on me, his eyes shaded.
“Please,” I whispered, glancing at his father.
Deo nodded, and turned toward his father, gesturing to me as he said, “There is a priestess here, one who has abilities with the bow—”
“Priestess,” Lord Israel snorted, and put his heels to his horse, calling over his shoulder, “I have had enough of priestesses to last me a lifetime.”
“I’m sorry,” Deo said, watching as the company followed his father. A pale red cloud rose from the dust of the track, drifting slowly toward us. “I will ask again, later, when he is calmer.”
Sadness and regret filled me. Reluctantly, I released my hold on the harness and stepped back, feeling yet again like opportunity was slipping away from me. “Thank you. You won’t forget?”
“I will not forget you,” he promised, and galloped off to catch up with the others.
I didn’t know if I believed him or not. I knew only that I remained trapped, a prisoner of fate.
My shoulders slumped as I turned to the stable, hopelessness making each step feel like a hundred.
CHAPTER THREE
“Master, you have to get up. You’re going to be trampled if you don’t move. There is a rider approaching, and I don’t like this wood. It has a bad feeling about it.”
The man who lay prone across the narrow dirt track did not move. A fleeting memory caused Hallow to remember the time before he had met Master Nix, when he was lost and alone and so hungry he once passed out in the middle of the road.
“And that led me to you, you old reprobate.” Hallow sighed and shook his head before shoving the cart he’d been hauling up a steep bank and onto the thin strip of a verge, in the process disentangling himself from the rope harness that five years before—when he had been newly apprenticed—had been borne by a horse. “Master! For the love of the twin goddesses, you must move!”
It was clear that, once again, Master Nix had drunk himself into a stupor, this time falling off the cart upon which he’d been sleeping.
Muttering to himself, Hallow scrambled back down the bank and dragged the once-famed arcanist from the track, one eye on the approaching rider. “If you ... Kiriah’s love, you weigh more than the loaded cart ... didn’t drink your weight in wine ... erg! It’s like shifting a bag full of bulldogs ... then we wouldn’t have fallen behind ... ratsbane, are you made of anvils? ... the rest of the convoy.” With one last heave, he managed to get his master up the bank and onto the thin strip of grass.
Hallow stood panting a little, casting a glance at the approaching rider. The man appeared to be wearing the armor of a highborn, but these days, it didn’t do to trust appearances.
He brushed the dirt from his hands, his back feeling itchy. It was the woods surrounding either side of the road. They had an unhealthy feel, as if a thousand eyes were watching ... and waiting.
Hallow scanned, for the thirtieth time since descending into the valley, the line of ash and willow trees that spread like a fan from the winding track. The air seemed thicker here, almost torpid, with a profound silence that raised the fine hairs on the back of his neck. Not even the birds he could see in the trees made a sound.
Something was definitely not right.
“The sooner we find Lord Israel, the happier I’ll be,” he told his master, who had rolled a few feet before coming to a halt against the cartwheel. Hallow stood next to him, scanning the woods once again before shading his eyes to watch the approaching rider. “We’ll just let this man pass, and then—by the moon!”
Before his amazed eyes, a scene unfolded just as if it were drawn by one of the traveling artists who used to travel with Master Nix. The rider, resplendent in the white and gold armor of Lord Israel’s army, had just passed into a section of the track where the trees crowded oppressively close, when from them burst a half-dozen men. They were dressed in the green and blue of the Harborym, although only one of them bore the squat, powerful form that Hallow had heard the invaders exhibited.
The men leaped upon the rider, dragging him from the horse, attacking him with fingers curled into claws. Without even realizing he was moving, Hallow ran down onto the track, one hand automatically drawing a protection rune on his chest while the other began gathering arcane power from unseen stars above. The first blast bowled down the five men beating the rider in white, while the second was aimed at the Harborym.
“Goddess grant me the power of stars and moon and heavens,” he chanted, gathering up more starlight, his mind focusing and forming it into the arcane explosion that would end the attackers who were flinging themselves upon the downed rider. “Light of stars. Light of moon. Light of heaven, all before me is dust!”
He released the energy of the starlight, watching with satisfaction as it smote the men who were clawing and beating the rider.
Only the Harborym remained, and just as Hallow turned his attention to him, and began the chant once more, the Harborym released a wave of red power at him—chaos power, Master Nix had called it—but all Hallow knew was that it was made of pain.
Agony washed over him, seeping into his pores, digging with sharp, stabbing spikes into his flesh and blood right down to his bones. He fell screaming, instinctively calling on the power of the moon and stars, but it was midday, when the starlight was at its weakest.
A shadow loomed over him, blotting out the light of Kiriah’s sun, the squat, thickset shape of the Harborym filling him with loathing. These beasts, these monstrous invaders, had murdered his village before being driven from Aryia’s shores, slaughtering his parents and siblings, and every living being, in the process.
Except him. He alone had survived, and that only because he had been out in the fields watching the swallows.
A bird had saved his life, only for it to be lost now, in the dirt lane of a foreign land, with a drunken master, and an unknown rider. It all seemed rather ridiculous when you looked at it that way.
“I did not survive the purging of Penhallow only to die like this,” he roared, throwing upward the power that he’d gathered from the weak starlight. It knocked the Harborym back, allowing Hallow to get to his feet. Although every ounce of his being hurt, he pulled from his scabbard the sword he’d named Nightsong, and raised it high.
The Harborym lifted his hands, a red light glowing between them, clearly about to fire more chaos magic, but at that moment, a miracle happened.
The Harborym’s head went flying to the right, bouncing off the trunk of an ash tree, leaving an unpleasant red smear on it. Hallow stared for a moment at where the head had come to rest (fittingly, in a pile of rabbit droppings), before turning to look at the man who stood before the crumpled body of the Harborym.
“Nicely done,” Hallow said, slowly lowering his sword.
“Thank you. I wouldn’t have had a chance if you hadn’t distracted him first.” The man limped forward, blood staining his white armor, multiple cuts on his head and arms freely bleeding, but other than that, he looked relatively hail. He was tall and narrow of build, but clearly had the strength needed to behead a Harborym.
Hallow narrowed his eyes on the man. His savior had golden brown hair, with ey
es a similar tawny color, both of which marked him as a Fireborn, but that wasn’t what stirred deep memories too ethereal to grasp.
He gave a mental shake of his head, and turned to survey the five inert bodies.
His savior did the same. “Didn’t hear them coming. Treacherous bastards. I’d be dead now if it weren’t for you.”
“I’m happy to help a fellow Fireborn,” Hallow said. “But I’ve never seen men like these.”
“That’s because they aren’t men—they are Shades.”
“Shades? They are spirits, then?” Hallow nudged one with the toe of his boot. “Are you sure? They feel all too real.”
“Shades are not spirits, although if they could reason, I’m sure that would be their dearest wish.” The man eyed him curiously. “Shades are the result when the Harborym are finished enslaving Starborn. You have blue eyes.”
Hallow blinked his very blue eyes. “I do.”
“But your coloring is wrong for a Starborn.”
“I am an arcanist.” He wondered if he’d have to explain how prolonged manipulation of arcane power changed the eye color of the practitioners to blue, but evidently his savior was a learned man.
“Ah, that would explain it.” He dragged two of the bodies to the side of the road. “These must be a scouting party.”
Hallow assisted, asking, “Are you with Lord Israel’s army?”
“You could say that.” The man turned and whistled for his horse, who obediently trotted up and nosed him in the back. “I am Lord Israel. And the name of my brave defender is ... ?”
Hallow, in the middle of sheathing his sword, stared for a moment. “My lord, I had no idea. I would have come to your aid sooner, had I known—”
“You saved my life,” Lord Israel said with a wry smile. “You killed five Shades, and distracted the Harborym so I could separate him from his head. There is not more you could do to aid me. But I do not know who you are.”
Fireborn Page 3
