by Lily Luchesi
This morning had dawned red, and I'd dressed accordingly: a gown of scarlet beaded in pearls of ebony and jet. I’d twisted my golden hair and pinned it like a crown, as though I was entitled to one—as though I believed that. Then I tried and failed to negotiate peace with threats and harsh words. I doubted a single accord had ever been reached that way in the history of the Seven Kingdoms, and if such a thing were possible, it surely wouldn't start with me.
I was Princess of the Fire Kingdom, hot-tempered with a peculiar scorching presence. I had flames running through my veins where my blood should have been, and I wasn't ashamed of it. I was proud of that burning flame inside of me that could not be snuffed out.
Armor in black and bronze had replaced my dress shortly after negotiations had broken down, and I was now as ready as I would ever be to start the inevitable end.
Huron, the last useable port city in all of this cursed country, sat just across a bridge. A bridge which would be little more than kindling beneath my feet if I willed it—but I was trying rather hard not to.
Down a deep drop, dark waves beat at a rocky shore like a war drum. The cliffs further away smoothed out slowly until they reached the cutout bit of bay at the back of the city. Fog filled every crevice from where I stood, to the end of my good vision. It would have been strange for this time of day if it wasn't magic. The fog could not cut or kill, but it could sense, and it could roll.
Our army did not need a net like that to sniff out the magic wielders to learn of those scattered among the mortal men who could drown or drench, or turn tides with nothing but their hands and their angry hearts. We had Lord Bowen Belleford, the bastard.
Bowen could sense every drop of magic even from quite a distance. He would know where that magic had come from, and what it was capable of more accurately than even the person who carried it inside them. He sat atop a horse on my cousin's other side, but I could tell he was staring at me. I kept my head facing forward. Wisps of hair from my golden crown flew about in the wind. I held the reins in my hands and my palms down.
Even the gods didn't know what I'd do when I raised them. Sometimes that fire in my veins had a mind and will of its own.
Camden drew his smoky blade, thicker than his battle-scarred arm, and longer, too, not even counting the hilt with rubies like sparks in the palm of his hand. The sound of it slicing through the air was drowned out by the hiss of my name coming from his lips.
"Cassandra," he said, where anyone could hear him. "Shall we begin?"
My fingers twitched. I could hear the devilish grin in his voice without looking. The Water Kingdom’s soldiers seemed to flinch back. Who needed fire when you could burn someone with the mere idea of it? It reminded me of our childhood—it reminded me of home.
"Burn the bridge," Camden said, but it wasn't meant from a general to his troops, it was meant for me.
And I had to be careful.
There were children in that city and common men who wanted this fight even less than we did. We fought for peace, again and again—we searched for it. The place in time where history would leave us alone, to burn bright without the rest of the world fearing us, hating us.
If only such a time had ever existed.
I didn't believe it ever would, but that didn't stop me from seeking it out.
Sparks slithered from my fingertips like hissing snakes.
Only the bridge, I told my fire. Only the bridge and nothing else.
I pulled my hand into a fist, sparks and all, and then I released it. Bolts of flame-like arrows flew through the gray sky like falling stars. Knowing my target, men tried to intercept them. But no man was faster than a raging fire, and my aim was true.
When my flames hit the bridge, they exploded like cracks in glass, before erupting into a world of chaos and cries.
The Water Kingdom knew they could not save the bridge, so they instead moved to salvage their honor, but there would be no saving that, either.
Without a shout or call, without even a backward glance, Camden ran into battle with his blade in one hand, his other sparked with his own brand of fire magic. With a thundering roar, our men raced after him. For fire and glory, but mostly for the idea of peace.
I sat where I'd started. My mount well-adjusted to the turmoil of the battlefield, did not stir or shake me from the saddle.
Bowen now sat just beside me. He stared boldly at one gloved hand, letting his long hair shadow his face. Yet I knew him well enough to know it was all an act.
"No blood on your hands today, Princess?" He spoke as though he were inquiring about the weather.
It was exactly as he’d spoken to me each time since the day I'd broken his heart.
Deep down, I knew that he would never forgive me for it. It was an odd feeling, somehow both sharp and dull to feel toward my oldest friend. Steel clinked and fire popped, and yet I couldn't dislodge the sound of my own heartbeat from my ears. How could I tell Bowen that my soul was no longer swayed by pure bloodlust? That I was coming to hate it.
"I've become a pacifist," I said, by way of explanation.
Bowen only barked a laugh before fixing his eyes on me. They are brown, I reminded myself, but appeared all black, as if the pupil had swallowed up half his eye.
"You're a lot of things, Cassie," Bowen whispered because the sound of fighting had already died down.
"Don't call me that." He'd lost the right to call me that a long time ago, when one day what we had was no longer enough for him.
"But you are not a liar," he reminded me.
I wasn't lying, not even by omission. I didn't know what was wrong with me, and I didn't know if it could ever be fixed.
"Something is different." Bowen did not balk or try and make me explain.
He pulled his eyes away, though, as if it still hurt him to gaze upon me. "Something is different." He bowed his head. "There's not a single magic-user among them."
The fire in my veins recoiled.
"No magic-users, nothing but untrained men from country seats, and a bridge this city doesn't need, not really. Not when they have that big port. Even if you burned all the docks to embers, ships still traded here before those manmade eases were ever created."
I could not feel my legs below my saddle—my very middle had gone ice cold and hard. "Why did you say nothing before?" I demanded.
Bowen wasn't exactly known for keeping his opinion to himself, ever. We'd been friends from the cradle, and he seldom stopped giving it readily, and without solicitation.
"You think I didn't try and stop this? When I told Prince Camden my very same thoughts on the matter as we rode here, he clapped me on the back and called me paranoid. Cass, your cousin has a good heart, a big sword, and a strong flame, but he's never going to be a strategist."
The beating pulse in my head had turned into a roar. I scanned the battlefield for Camden and found him among half a sea of felled bodies. He appeared irritated and confused, as if something had been stolen from him.
"Camden will never be the ruler the Fire Kingdom will need," Bowen said, not at all ashamed someone might overhear him.
"That's treason." I swiveled my gaze toward him and spat.
Bowen granted me another laugh before turning back to me. "Well, I did learn from the best." His words were dry and accusatory.
We were surrounded by carnage, and here was this man-child making me roll my eyes like a girl again. An annoyed girl.
"There has never been a Fire Queen," I said. There would likely never be. Not even the wives of the kings past had dared reach for that title. The words were as indifferent sounding to me as I was sure they were to him. It was a fact that I'd lived with for all my twenty years. I'd no more try and change that than try to change the shape of the stars in the sky. It was an untouchable thing.
"Well, perhaps that should change. Everything else is."
A horn sounded out, then another, and the order was given by Camden to return home at once.
But that was when things went wr
ong.
Fire magic, intense but untamed, bled into the air like ink into water.
Bowen and I shared a worried, knowing glance. There was not a living Water Kingdom soldier left standing, and someone had released this blast on purpose.
The wind shifted and carried the fiery sky to the end of the town. It caught the dead winter grass before the stone city wall.
"Shield it!" I shouted at Bowen.
"It's already too late." He sounded hoarse—he must have tried to protect the city before I'd ever said a word.
Camden was shouting, searching for whoever had started the blaze, but Bowen had known at once. And as he raced down the hill into the chaos beneath us, I let my horse follow.
The wall around the city was only a half a wall. It relied on the bridge and the sea for defense, but neither of those things would save them from this fire if it caught, and it did.
Sparks from the grass had flown over the stone walls and lit up rooftops as though the city was made of oily paper. In a second, smoke clogged the streets, and screaming started a duet with a wailing bell.
"What water users do we have among us?" Camden said.
I tried to pull the water from the clouds, but it was burnt off far faster than it could fall.
Unlike other kingdoms, we did not kill the masters of different magics. We nurtured them.
As I pushed that power into my fingertips, the sea called to me and I made haste, taking a sharp loop and kicking my horse.
I heard Bowen say, just before riding after me, that he hoped Marcus Langley had a damn good reason for starting that fire.
Whatever the reason, though, Camden hadn't wanted to hear it, before plunging his blade into the man. That familiar slick-sliding sound refused to leave my head even as the smell of salt overwhelmed everything else.
Flying from my saddle mid-gallop was enough to knock my teeth together but not enough to deter me. I sprinted to the end of the water before jumping all the way in. Bowen was still floundering after me on the sandy beach.
I'd once watched a man pull enough water from a river to make a hurricane, and I tried to replicate the look of it then. The water rose from my armor-covered legs in the waves, through my fingers, and up, swirling in the sky, taking on a dark shape.
The entire sky was an angry red, and I could no longer see the city through the clouds of smoke, but I aimed where I knew it would be and unleashed that power over and over again. Bowen was holding me upright, though I wasn't certain when I'd started to waiver.
He'd lost both his gloves, but his hands were now as cold as the sea, like mine. A few of his fingers helped me fill the stream in the sky. I kept whipping water into storm bands, but his others were like lead anchoring me to the earth.
I could burn for whole days, but other magic drained me quicker than fire ever could.
"That's enough," Bowen said.
But the city still burned, I could feel it. "No," I told him, sprouting more storm clouds.
"Cassie," he said softly. "There's no saving it now."
"No," I repeated.
Bowen ripped my hand from the air, locking that arm against his armored form like a vice.
No.
The waves would have claimed me without him there, I knew that, and I hated him for it.
The fire had won, as we had known it would, but what was the cost?
Chapter 2
The Capital city of Adara appeared tired and worn. Rain had followed us the entire way. Gray skies had punctuated my dark mood until I consented to leave my horse with the Flame Bringers before allowing Bowen to teleport us the rest of the way home.
In one breathless, airless morning, we were standing at the guard station by the main gate. A fire burned in small grates, night hovered, but you couldn't tell by the low light.
If the guards who stood in rows of two by two were surprised to see us, they did not show it.
“You all right?" Bowen asked me.
I didn't know how the bastard had ever gotten used to traveling like this. It felt as if my lungs were simple paper sacks someone had forced all the wrinkles out of, and my legs felt worse.
I stamped to force the blood back into them, but the impact only made my bones ache.
"Fine." My teeth were locked, but I hoped he understood the sentiment. If I had to open my mouth again, far uglier words were likely to leak out.
"Let's get moving then." Bowen pushed past me.
Thankfully, he didn't comment on my blatant lie. It was always hard for me to guess if he was going to be a right prick or not.
The city was silent, a gray shadow of its usual self. Still, it did not rain, yet the streets were deserted as if it was. Doors were shut, vendors’ stalls closed early, if they had ever even opened at all. Safety was premium, even in the capital that had not seen combat in over a decade.
And when that happened…
I shivered at the destruction that had been brought here the last time. There were still cuts among some patches of the main wall, and even scorch marks on many of the older bricks.
Even all these years later. I had been so young then. Yet that kind of horror attached to a soul, though they'd tried to shield the children from it. There was no way to avoid it all.
Bowen did not try and lighten the mood. Bowen didn't even glance up from the ground, but I knew he was taking in the state of the city, listening, absorbing. I took the lead back from him when he wasn't paying attention to me.
He had claimed that Camden was not a good fit to be King because he hadn't understood that something was wrong about the last campaign. Well, what was it saying about the royal line that I hadn't, either? Still, I could feel very much that something was wrong here.
There should have been kids playing in the streets, music, life.
The city looked like a boneyard, and it was all my fault. An empty town, because my heart wasn't full of enough fire to keep the other kingdoms at bay.
I could hear the rain before it reached us. It came down behind us in ribbons, and made the smell of the town float away, replaced with a fresh, clean scent that would never stick around.
I was never any good at being behind walls. I wasn't sure how my grandfather had endured it for so long, crown or no. I could never be Queen. Not because Camden's father had been the eldest, and he was the true heir. Not because we did not make Queens, but because I could never sit upon a throne. My place was blazing a trail on the battlefield, and I wasn't sure where I'd be when that was no longer needed of me.
If such a time would even come.
For a while, I assumed I'd die before reaching old age, but now I wasn't sure which prospect I dreaded more.
Bowen sighed, flipping up his hood to keep his dark and wild hair dry.
"You won't melt."
I let the water run down my face in wayward little rivers. The golden crown atop my head had long since been mussed. Most of it tumbled down my shoulders like a wet blanket.
"You never know,” Bowen gave a short chuckle, “I could."
It sounded severe, but my heart ached at the idea that this was Bowen joking with me. That things had been so awkward and tight between us for so long, this was the best of it.
"Because you're so sweet?"
My voice was mild, and so was his. I wasn't even sure who we had become anymore, but I knew it wasn't who I thought I'd been when I'd played soldier with him when we were eight and ten. I wondered if he remembered that, too.
More guards were posted in the city center. I could still feel their eyes on us as we made our way to the castle half a block further. They were the only souls we saw, with swords or staffs, and raging rivers down their shiny armor. The rain pounded harder the further into town we went.
"If you were a real lady," Bowen began, but it was a waste to roll my eyes because he couldn't see me behind him.
If you were a real lady—it was a game we used to play in bed, and even before, we'd let ourselves have that with each other.
"If you w
ere a real lady, I'd have to give you my cloak. But you don't look like a lady now, there's mud on your fingers, and you look no prettier than my cocker spaniel if she were half-drowned."
There was mud on my hands. I'd gotten it when I'd fallen into the sand at the beach, and it was now caked beneath my nails.
My old nurse, who still had a tendency to hover, was likely to take a fright if she were to see me before I was cleaned up. I supposed that was Bowen's roundabout way of telling me we should probably sneak in.
"There are two hours before the council meeting.” I shrugged. “I'll have plenty of time to make myself presentable." Although, I wasn't even sure Bowen could hear me. Thunder had begun to clap loudly behind us.
Bowen coughed. "I don't think two hours is enough to make you presentable, Cassie."
I whirled on him then. Fire in my eyes, though I knew from the face deep within his hood that he wasn't afraid of it, that he wasn't scared of me. He knew me too well, and he was calling a bluff I hadn't even known I was making.
He smiled at me, happy to be under my skin in the only way he could.
"This is sad, even for you." I was not smiling.
We were in front of the castle in another three steps. The gate here was down, but the fire had been burned out by the endless rain. The guards stood stiffly as we made our way to the entrance. I was starting to think it would be faster if we swam. The sky had gone from gloom and gray, to danger and green violet.
The guards slinked away when they noticed it was me. I expected them to demand were my escort was. To inquire about the prince. I supposed those were things I had to look forward to once I was inside the palace.
It wasn't as grand as some of the other kingdoms, for he did not delight in grandeur. We wanted solitude and valued our fire and our children, which for us were one in the same. We would do anything to make sure the light of that next generation was able to grow into a bright light of its own. It was our way, but today that philosophy seemed as tired as the town.
The door was barely shut behind me when I was pounced on.
