by Jordan Rivet
Siv swirled his wine, the Firelight glinting on it like sunshine on rich mountain plums. He really should host a festival to celebrate the harvest. But it wouldn’t just be for the nobility. He would throw a party for the people—all the people—and show them the kind of king he planned to be.
13.
Training
BERG worked the new Castle Guard as hard as if they were training for the biggest tournament of the season. They had to quickly learn to account for sharpened blades and no boundary lines. He focused relentlessly on defense. Some of the duelists grumbled that the training was too simplistic, but all the fancy attacks in the world wouldn’t matter if your opponent ran you through in the first exchange. Dara was glad to get back into the rhythm of dueling. She had faced down death at the end of a sword herself, and it helped her adjust her perspective faster than some of the others.
The sport duelists were an ornery bunch, and training didn’t go quite as smoothly as she’d hoped it would. They didn’t like taking orders. They had become athletes instead of soldiers for a reason. Dara led the training sessions whenever Berg couldn’t make it, and they complained that she was even stricter than Berg, especially when she made them start their lunges over if they weren’t perfect and run laps around the entire castle—including up and down every staircase. She could still trounce most of them, but she didn’t feel as if she had them in hand yet.
Dara had been relieved of regular guard duty while she trained the recruits, so she rarely saw the king. Siv was busy with his own responsibilities. Occasionally he appeared on the balcony above the dueling hall to check on their progress, but he never stayed long. He still wasn’t officially engaged, and he had to spend time wooing his delicate lady in addition to carrying out the rest of his kingly duties.
Princess Selivia watched the training sessions sometimes, though, and she filled Dara in on the castle gossip. The topic on everyone’s lips was the big harvest festival Siv had decided to host. There would be a carnival in the castle courtyard, and the new duelists’ division of the Guard would make their official debut at the occasion.
“I think you all should have a special name,” Selivia said one afternoon, leaning over the balcony to call down to the duelists, who were resting up after their latest practice session. “And new uniforms! Something to show that you’re a special group.”
Dara eased off her jacket, rubbing her arm where she’d taken a bad hit in her last bout. “I don’t know if that’s nec—”
“That’s a great idea!” called Yuri.
“Yeah, a team name!” Oat said. “I like it.”
“What kind of uniforms?” Bilzar Ten asked skeptically, adjusting the collar of his expensive Morn Brothers dueling jacket over the tattoos twining around his neck.
“Oh, please let me choose them!” Selivia said. “Zala can help me. She has a great eye for color.” She indicated her Truren handmaiden, who was supposed to be teaching her the Far Plains language but seemed to spend more time helping the princess dream up new outfits.
“Shouldn’t it be Amintelle colors?” Dell Dunn said eagerly. “We’re the king’s men.”
“And women,” Luci snapped.
“Wait, what are the Amintelle colors?” Errol Feln asked, scratching at his broad nose.
“Blue, of course,” Bilzar said. “Haven’t you noticed how often our king wears blue coats?”
“Why in all the Firelord’s realm would I notice that?”
“Our king is very dashing,” Bilzar said, looking down his handsome nose at Errol, who blinked and leaned over to whisper to his sister—probably asking her what dashing meant.
“How about we call ourselves the Blue Squad, then?” Oat suggested.
“That’s boring,” Yuri said, throwing a glove at him. “Come on, Oat, you can do better than that!”
“How about the Duel School?” Dell said. The others groaned.
“I wish Vine had come to practice today,” Yuri said. “She’s good at this sort of thing.”
“Oh sure, that’s why you wish she was here . . .” Oat said, throwing Yuri’s glove back at him.
“Hey, I have a great appreciation for all of Lady Silltine’s talents,” Yuri said.
“How about we call ourselves the King’s Men?” Shon said, unlacing his boots with jittery hands.
Luci huffed out a sigh. “We’re not all men,” she said. “How many times do I need to remind you people?”
“The King’s Guard, then?” Shon said, shrinking away from Luci’s glare.
“What about us?” Selivia called down from the balcony. “You’ll guard the princesses sometimes too.”
Yuri leapt to his feet and flung his arms wide, making Selivia giggle. “The Guards and Protectors of the Royal Amintelles, long may they live!”
“How about just calling us the New Guard?” Dara suggested. She still wasn’t sure the name was necessary, but she didn’t want it to get too flowery and complicated. They had a serious job to do.
“It has a certain simplicity to it,” Bilzar said. “We’ll be the new blue, the protectors of our king—and his gorgeous and effervescent sisters—and we will be the dawn of a new era for Vertigon.”
“Hear! Hear!” Dell called.
“The New Guard,” Oat said. “I approve.”
“It’s easy enough to remember,” Errol said with a shrug.
“I love it!” Selivia called from the balcony. “Zala and I will work on your uniforms. They’ll have to be a special blue. You’re all going to look so gallant!”
She and her handmaiden disappeared from the balcony, already chattering about how they’d help the New Guard make an impression by the time of the grand harvest festival.
With all the training and preparations, Dara had very little time to worry about anything else. She hadn’t made any progress at all on figuring out what to do about her parents. She hadn’t seen them in over two months, and the longer she waited the harder it would be to approach them. She had asked Vine to keep her ears open for news of the Fireworkers, but she couldn’t bring herself to explain why. She still hoped it was a problem she could solve on her own.
And then there was the Fire. Dara had taken to skirting around the Fire Lanterns lining the castle corridors whenever possible. The Fire called to her more intensely than ever. When she was tired, which was often these days, she could barely keep the lanterns from swinging toward her as she passed them. The manifestation of her power may have been delayed, but that didn’t seem to have dampened it. Dara still didn’t know what to do with her ability. She couldn’t ignore it forever.
One afternoon after a particularly harsh practice, Dara trudged down to the castle kitchens in the basement for a snack. Most of the duelists had flopped down on the floor to rest as soon as training ended, and she was alone. She snuck some goat jerky from the kitchens and headed back toward the stairs, planning to take a nice long nap before her evening run.
As she walked through the underground corridor, munching on the jerky, she brushed against a low-hanging Firebulb. Suddenly, Fire shot into her like a shock, and the Firebulb went out. Dara gasped and dropped her jerky. The Fire remained inside her, humming and singing along her bones. It was as if the Fire had sensed her blood could contain it. She shuddered at the feeling.
Dara raised her fingers to the still-swinging Firebulb and concentrated. She gathered the molten heat oozing through her veins, pulling it down her arm and into her hand, and pushed it toward the Firebulb. Slowly, the Fire squeezed out of her and back into the metal vessel. Dara slumped as the last of the heat left her. She had to be more alert so this wouldn’t happen again.
She bent to retrieve her jerky. When she straightened, Zage Lorrid stood directly in front of her.
Dara froze. A hundred thoughts went through her mind. She should run. She should draw her blade and warn Zage to stay away. She should pull the Fire back out of that Firebulb and hurl it at him.
Before she could do anything, he said, “So.” Then with
lightning speed he yanked a burning cord of Fire from the stones and cast it at her.
Dara barely had time to yell before the Fire wrapped around her in a hundred threads. She pulled against them, and though the Fire didn’t burn her skin, she couldn’t push through it either. It held her firmly as rope.
“Let me go,” she said.
Zage watched her struggling against the bonds.
“Curious,” he said. “I’d have expected Rafe to teach you how to absorb those threads by now. You must be behind on your training.”
“He hasn’t trained me in anything,” Dara growled. But she stopped struggling. Absorb. She could try that. She concentrated on the thread of Fire around her right wrist. She imagined it connecting with her pale blue veins and being absorbed into them. Slowly, the Fire entered her body, and the first bond disappeared.
Zage immediately lashed another bond in its place. But he was staring at her in surprise.
“What do you mean he hasn’t trained you?” he said softly.
Dara glared at the Fire Warden, thinking fast. He knew she had the Spark, the innate ability to Work the Fire. It was too late to hide that now. But what else had he figured out? And what was he planning to do to her now?
“I only recently found out I have the Spark,” Dara said. “My father doesn’t know.”
“He doesn’t know,” Zage repeated. There was something like wonder in his voice.
“Release me,” Dara said.
“We must speak first,” Zage said. “Tell me. What do you know?”
“About what?”
“Your father.”
Dara frantically tried to absorb more of the Fire holding her in place, but Zage only added to it, pulling more molten power from the castle walls. He did it automatically, continuing to study her with those glittering black eyes. Zage would tell the king what she could do. Siv would wonder why she’d kept it a secret, wonder whether she knew anything about a bottle of Firetears that had shown up in the castle a few months ago. Her heart stuttered painfully. Was there any way out of this?
“I don’t know anything for sure,” Dara said. “But I think my father is a danger to the king.”
“Indeed,” Zage said. “And you?”
“The king is my friend,” she said. “I want to protect him.”
“So you say.”
“If you don’t believe me, then what do you think I’m doing here?” Dara tugged at the bonds again. She was now holding quite a lot of Fire inside her as she absorbed the threads Zage sent at her. The trouble was she didn’t know what to do with the Fire next. She had mostly seen Fireworkers making objects. She didn’t know how to truly wield the power.
“I have long thought you were biding your time,” Zage whispered. “Rafe is a patient man, and I thought it clever of him to position his daughter in such a manner. But I’ve wondered of late what was taking you so long.”
“My father didn’t position me anywhere,” Dara said. “I want to stop anyone who would hurt the king.”
“But this ability.” Zage watched her as if she were a strange creature from the Lands Below. “I was led to believe you lacked the Spark.”
“I did.” Dara finally stopped struggling and let some of the Fire drain out of her. It was easiest to direct it through the metal of her sword. It passed through the blade and dripped back to the stones. “It started this summer. I didn’t have a chance to tell my father about it before . . . before the Vertigon Cup.”
“And you’ve decided to keep it a secret now?”
Dara met Zage’s eyes. It was time to gamble. “I don’t think my father has the kingdom’s best interests at heart.”
“I must agree on that point,” Zage said. “But whose interests do you have at heart?”
Dara swallowed. She couldn’t believe she was spilling her secrets to Zage Lorrid, of all people. But she was trapped. Her fate depended entirely on what he decided to do with what he already knew.
“Siv’s,” she said. Her breath constricted as she voiced the truth. Zage must hear her heart pounding. “Not the king, not the kingdom, not the Guard. It’s Siv that I . . . that I care about.”
Zage sighed, long and low. “I see,” he said. The bonds of Fire disappeared from around her wrists.
Dara sagged, rubbing at the warm spots on her skin as the last of the Fire faded back into the stones.
“Are you going to tell him?” she asked.
“Which piece of information?”
“Any of it?”
Zage frowned. “I had hoped to learn the identities of all your father’s allies before sharing my findings with the king and preparing for a confrontation. I must admit I expected Rafe to move against me first. I shored up my own defenses instead of protecting Sevren as diligently as I should have. That is a mistake I shall carry on my conscience forevermore.” Zage glanced around the corridor, which was darker now that he had stopped wielding Fire to hold Dara in place. She remembered that he’d been close friends with the old king. It must be why he was concerned about the safety of Sevren’s children. His devotion went beyond that of a subject. Still, she couldn’t forget that it was that same friendship that led the king to pardon him for what happened to Renna in the first place.
“I think my father wanted you to be publicly denounced,” Dara said. “He knew King Sevren wouldn’t do that.”
“Yes,” Zage said, his expression calculating. “But Rafe wants more than vengeance against me. Removing King Sevren was the first step of a far more ambitious scheme, I fear.” Zage considered Dara, and she resisted the urge to look away from his gaze. “Perhaps you can help me, if you are as loyal to the king as you say you are.”
“I don’t want my father to be hurt,” Dara said.
“Doubtless Siv felt the same way.”
Dara felt as if she’d been slapped. She knew. She burning knew how Siv would feel about it. But if he sent her away for what her father had done, it would leave him vulnerable.
Perhaps Zage recognized that too, for he said, “Our king needs loyalty. If you can give him that, I will keep your secret for now. But you must help me. Perhaps a reconciliation with your parents is in order, at least temporarily. We must learn how much support they have.”
“I know,” Dara said. She had been putting off this course of action, but she needed to go home eventually. Her mother’s shouts as she left the last time stabbed at her like a Fire Blade. She took a steadying breath. “I need to talk to my father. It’s the only way. But if I’m going to help you gather information on his allies, I want something in return.” She met Zage’s eyes, daring him to say no. “I need you to teach me how to control the Fire. I have to be able to hide it around my father, and I can’t do it alone.”
“I don’t have time for an apprentice.”
“I don’t have any other options, unless you know another Fireworker you can trust absolutely. It sounds like you’re having a problem with trusting them at the moment.”
“I suppose I am,” Zage said. He sighed, the sound as dry as a desert wind. “Very well. I will teach you to mask your power.”
“Good. And I’ll tell Siv the truth. But I’ll do it in my own time.”
“We have an agreement, then. Come to my greathouse tomorrow when you have finished your duties.” Zage wrapped his cloak closer and strode away without another word.
14.
The Fire Warden
WHEN Dara arrived at the Fire Warden’s grand marble greathouse the following day, she was already tired from practice. Berg had them doing agility training that morning. This involved shuffling side to side as a partner tossed a glass bottle full of wine in random directions for them to catch. They had to change directions at a moment’s notice or risk missing the catch and shattering the bottle on the floor. At the dueling school, they used to do this exercise with soft bags full of sand, but Berg wanted to impress upon them the seriousness of making mistakes.
As a result, they spent half the practice cleaning broken glass off the
floor of the dueling hall, and they all left smelling like wine. The other duelists decided this was a sign they should go carousing together to christen the New Guard with wine and song. Dara skipped the team-building activity to show up for her first Fireworking lesson.
She stopped before the grand Fireworked doors of the Fire Warden’s greathouse. She had never been inside. Even before Renna’s accident, Dara’s parents had disliked the Fire Warden for how he doled out the power of the mountain. It was one of the things that had kept Vertigon peaceful for so long, but her parents believed the strongest Workers should have unlimited access to the power.
Dara had already declared her opposition to them when she joined the Castle Guard, but she still hesitated before knocking on their oldest rival’s door. She was driving a wedge further and further between her and her family. Unless she could get them to abandon their ambitions, she would never be able to return home.
But knock she did. Dara had started down this path, and she meant to finish it. Besides, she wanted to know more about how to use this strange and wonderful ability she had discovered. It had been devastating to attempt to draw on the Fire as a child and feel nothing. She still hardly believed she could Work after all, and she couldn’t help feeling excited about the possibilities.
An elderly butler answered the door and led her into the Fire Warden’s greathouse. It was an austere place, as cold and severe as the Warden himself. Everything was made of marble and ebony and edges. There wasn’t a soft line in sight as they crossed the high-ceilinged entryway. The butler led Dara to an iron door on the far side and unlocked it for her.
“He’s at the bottom,” the man said. Then he ushered Dara through the iron door and locked it behind her.
Dara swallowed her nerves and descended deep into the realm of the Fire Warden.
The stairs were slick marble, eventually giving way to simple stone. It took quite some time to get to the bottom, and Dara grew warmer with every step. She was getting closer and closer to the Well, the burning core of Vertigon Mountain. This was the source of the mountain’s power and industry, the very reason their founders had built their city atop the sheer peaks. And Dara was about to touch it.
