She looked down her nose at me and declared, “Curtis Vance, as an ocra, you’ll be burned from this life by fire at nightfall. May the fire cleanse your soul. Do you have anything to say for the records?”
“Only that I’m sorry I gave up the only people who ever loved me because of the Inner Circle’s ridiculous lies. Killing me won’t change anything. It won’t banish magic.” I heard my bravado, but a chilling numbness seeped into my veins, leaving shivers behind.
“Magic is a disease. There is no place in this world for your kind, Mister Vance.”
She walked to the door at the back of the chamber and opened it to beckon the guards inside. They collected me, eyes averted.
I was almost out the door when I twisted and asked, “What if, after you’ve burned all the magic users, the monsters return?”
Anuska paused in front of her desk, her back straight, and in those few seconds, between one breath and the next, I saw fear in her hesitation, in the rigidness of her shoulders. “You know, don’t you? You know something is changing. Do you know about the mages—do you?!”
“Return him to his cell.”
“I’ve seen them. They have the Eye. You can’t hide from this inside the city walls. The walls won’t keep you safe. You’re burning the wrong people! You should be finding the mages, not burning the people you should be protecting! I don’t know how I got the mark. I don’t know how to use magic, but I’ve seen it, and it’s beautiful.”
“Beautiful?” She spun. “No! It is an ugly, vicious poison! Get him out of my sight!”
The chamber door slammed shut between us, cutting off her shout and any hope that I might survive.
May the fire cleanse your soul.
I had to get out of this cell and away from the Inner Circle. I fought against the iron shackles around my wrists—tugging and twisting until my skin bled—but they didn’t give. The guards had taken my coat and all the picks hidden inside, leaving me in just my shirt and trousers.
I couldn’t get free.
These four walls would be my last sight before they marched me to the pyre.
I slid down the stone wall, pulled my knees up to my chest, and stared up at the one tiny letter slot of a window too high for me to reach and too narrow to crawl through. At least there was light.
I had spent too many hours and days of my life trapped in dank cells, alone with my memories and regrets.
In a few short hours, I’d be dead. At least my sister would have been pleased. She’d have seen the justice in a death by fire.
Maybe the fire wouldn’t kill me, like the mage’s claws hadn’t. Perhaps the mark had protected me? I didn’t have the answers, and now it was too late.
I wasn’t getting out of the cell without help, and there was no help for a magic user in the Inner Circle. A magic user could have conjured up something—anything—if they’d had gems. My thoughts strayed to the dagger—my last link to Shaianna. The guards probably had it.
Magic.
It had cursed my life from beginning to end.
I stared up at the little window and tried to swallow my rising panic. Tackling the mage at Agatha’s had been a mistake. I should have run. Then again, I should have run a thousand times before that, farther and faster.
I dropped my head back and closed my eyes, trying to recall what the mage had said. Something about dust and shadows. Riddles were all those things spoke. The same nonsense over and over. Perhaps Fallford knew more. I could hope he’d spoken with his scholarly acquaintances. But I’d never know. Even if he knew where I was, he couldn’t breach the wall. And why would he risk his reputation for the life of a thief? He would probably believe I’d fled with the gem. He’d never know the truth.
I would never know what had happened to Shaianna either, or who she really was. Was this how death always crept up on people, leaving so much unfinished and unanswered?
I got to my feet and paced the cell as far as my chains would allow—three strides back and four across the floor. I always imagined I’d die running from someone or something. It’s how I’d spent my life, so why not die like that too? But to die in the flames? Destiny had a cruel sense of humor.
The guard—Anuska—had known about the mages. Did everyone in the High Guard know? Had they hoped to eradicate them and cull their mass of magic users? Was that why the Inner Circle had banned magic? But what of the Outer Circle, the rest of Brea, the rest of Brean lands? Why did nobody know the truth? Why had magic been confined to children’s stories?
I sank my fingers into my hair. Too many questions. Too much left undone.
“You said the mages have the Eye,” Anuska said from behind the door.
I froze.
The woman who’d delivered my death sentence continued. “What did you mean by that?”
I moved to the door and pressed my hands against the cool metal. “Let me out and I’ll tell you.”
“I can’t let you go.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“The Eye. Tell me what you know.”
“Let me out.”
“The safety of the Inner Circle is at risk.” She paused for so long I wondered if she’d left. “Surely, that is more important than your life?”
“How long have you been a guard?” I asked.
“In my heart, since I was old enough to lift a sword. As employment, nine years.”
“And in all that time, you’ve never wondered why magic is forbidden?”
“I know why. Magic is poisonous. It corrupts.”
“Because you’ve been told it is, not because you’ve seen it?”
“I have seen it … the worst it can do. Your sentence is a mercy.”
“I’ve seen magic outside of Brea. It’s not a poison, and it’s not gone.” I thought of the stone dragon inside its tomb. “It’s slumbering. Waiting.”
“Waiting for what?”
“A better time. How should I know? I think … I think we’ve been lied to for so long that we no longer recognize the truth. The best way to defeat an enemy is to annihilate them from history. Turn them into stories and myths. Something to be laughed at.”
“You know something?”
“I know many things, yes. I wish I knew more.”
A pause. A moment of quiet contemplation. “I was there the day the High Guard burned your parents. I was a guard in training then. I looked up to you, Vance. I admired your bravery. I’ve never forgotten your sacrifice, and I am not alone.”
“It wasn’t bravery that killed my parents,” I replied quietly. “It was fear. Fear instilled in me as a child. Fear of magic.”
“And now? You don’t fear magic?”
“There is no point in fearing something you cannot change. Far better to find a way to use it.” My words caught in my throat. Through all the years and the pain and the fear, I’d never understood my mother’s words. But facing the locked cell door and my own death, I understood them then. “Have you ever heard of the saying you can’t fight fire with fire?”
“I have.”
“This is wrong, and you feel it too.”
“I can’t let you go, Curtis, but I will hear your words. You will die at sundown. Unburden your soul before then. Tell me all you know.”
I wanted to, but my burden might become hers, and what could she do inside the Inner Circle walls? The High Guard would turn on her the moment they suspected she believed anything other than their sacred laws.
I pressed my forehead against the cool metal door. “What’s your first name?”
“Mylene.”
“Why did you join the guard, Mylene?”
“To protect the Inner Circle and keep the peace.”
“And what if protecting those people means breaking the laws you’ve sworn to enforce?”
She didn’t reply immediately, which I took to mean she wasn’t completely dismissing me. I couldn’t hear anything through the door, nor anything through the window but the occasional squawk of a crow, and inside my cell only
the sound of my own ragged breaths comforted me.
“Anuska?”
Nothing.
I sighed. A surge of despair and regret broke through my attempt to remain calm. I kicked at the door, swore, and started pacing once more. It couldn’t end like this. I had witnessed too much. I was not about to die here.
I stopped in the center of my cell and lifted my gaze to the window. I had survived Brea, survived the streets, the workhouse, and the sorceress. Despite all the odds, I’d fought them all. This wasn’t my end. I just needed one small opportunity. It would come, and I’d be ready. The fire couldn’t have me, not yet.
Chapter Sixteen
The sun had dipped far below the central hill by the time the guards escorted me from my cell through the steep, narrow streets to the square, where the pyre waited. Flanked by Inner Circle High guards in all their glorious gold and steel, I stumbled at the sight of the timber platform. The breeze, cold enough to bite my face, carried the smell of accelerant. They used to burn people without it, but it was a lengthy, messy business, so these days, they helped the flames along with tar. Its stench brought tears to my eyes.
The spire’s shadow fell heavily over the platform.
The guards guided me up the steps, my boots heavy and my stomach knotted.
The fire can’t have me.
Guards lined the small square, and filling the gaps, quietly and orderly, stood the people of the Inner Circle, clad in their pristine ceremonial cloaks. Maybe they knew of my family. Most likely, they knew of the boy who’d bravely reported his magic-using parents to the guards. The boy who had grown up a thief and now stood before them, an accused magic user.
Young and old, men and women. Nobody wept. They looked on with the kind of obedience and stoicism of a people who believed this was entirely the right thing to do.
The fire can’t have me. It can’t end now.
The guards walked me to the stake and unlocked the rusted shackles, letting them fall. My heart pounded, and despite the cold, sweat trickled down my neck. Even if I could run, the guards would cut me down within a few strides. And where would I run to? There was no sanctuary inside the wall.
As children, my friends and I had wondered if the pain lasted, or if the mind blocked it when it became too much. We’d seen the burnings. We knew the answer. It wasn’t quick. Perhaps running into a guard’s sword would be quicker.
Anuska saw me eyeing her comrades and lifted her chin by the smallest amount. Her hand tightened on the pommel of her sword. If I ran, she would be the one to kill me.
My parents hadn’t run. They hadn’t screamed until the flames scorched their flesh. They hadn’t even blamed me, though my father’s eyes had never quite met mine once he knew it was me who had given them up. They were good people, and brave, and strong. All the things I wasn’t.
The fire can’t have me. It’s not over. I’m not finished.
A guard told me to step in front of the stake. I shifted to the side, my heartbeat the loudest thing I could hear—until the torches blazed to life. The flames hissed, and the guards lifted the torches high and stepped forward. I found myself thinking of the torch Shaianna had used to illuminate the tomb and how the fire had chased away the dark to reveal the kind of treasure few would ever witness. She had told me she hoped to see the spire one day. I prayed she never did.
I closed my eyes and felt tears crawl down my face.
This is just the beginning, the mage had said. I would not see the end.
A guard pulled my arms behind me and tied my wrists to the post. I opened my eyes, and perhaps because I was thinking of her, my gaze was drawn through the heat haze to a small figure quietly weaving her way through the crowd. A hood covered her face. Her dark cloak trailed in the snow. The only part of her that her collar didn’t cover was her cheek, and there glistened a green teardrop gem.
Hope leaped to life inside. But the guards shifted, the torch flames flickered, and when I looked for her again, she was gone.
“Curtis Vance, you are hereby brought to face the consequences of your actions.” Anuska declared, her voice booming.
I searched the blank faces for her dark eyes, for the way her lips lifted in the secret hint of a smile.
“As a magic user, you have broken our most severe law. The penalty for which is cleansing.”
“Why?” My question echoed loud and clear. The Inner Circle people looked on. “Why must magic users burn? Why do we have this law when the world outside doesn’t believe in magic? Why are we so different? Don’t you all wonder? Don’t you want to see what’s beyond the wall?”
“May the fire cleanse your soul,” Anuska said.
“May the fire cleanse your soul,” the crowd echoed.
The guards stepped forward as one line. The heat from their torches pushed at my face.
“This is wrong! It was always wrong.”
The guards lifted their torches and looked through me. In their eyes, I was already dead.
I looked past them over the sedate crowd. She’s here. I saw her.
“Shaianna?” Her name resounded off the high stone walls and was met by silence. Please. Please be here. Please help me.
The torch fire flickered and licked at the wood.
A screech sliced through the quiet and then abruptly cut off. The crowd and the guards looked to my right, where the townhouses cast long shadows across the square, and there, from the dark, came the mages. They crawled low on the ground, arms and legs rippling, red eyes bright. The crowd erupted in panic, and as the guards rushed to defend the people, they dropped their torches.
“Not possible!” Anuska hissed.
The flames took hold, leaping and skipping over the tar-coated wood. I forgot about the mages, the screaming people, and the clash of the guards’ swords, and focused only on the heat and the flames as they lapped at my legs. Twisting away saved me only moments. Tar-blackened smoke clogged my throat. I wasn’t sure whether I heard other people’s screams or my own, and then a cool blade touched my wrist and the ropes binding me fell away. Shaianna pulled me back from the rising flames and down the steps. All I could see was her black cloak. I stumbled and tripped after her, coughing hard while tears streamed from my eyes.
“Out of my way,” Shaianna ordered in that gloriously commanding voice of hers.
She was here. She’s come for me.
I blinked my stinging eyes and saw Anuska blocking the narrow alley, sword out. Shaianna stepped closer, her dagger clasped in her right hand. She was quick, quicker than an armored guard. Shaianna would kill without hesitation.
“Wait,” I wheezed. “Don’t kill her. Anuska, let us pass.” I gripped Shaianna’s shoulder. I couldn’t hold her back, not in the condition I was in, but Shaianna may listen.
Anuska’s eyes narrowed. Behind us, screams persisted, drawing the High Guard’s eye. Duty called to her.
“Your people are dying,” I told her. “They need you there, not here.”
“This isn’t finished, Curtis.” She brushed past us, heading toward the fire in the square.
When I turned back, Shaianna was already a few strides ahead, her cloak flaring as she marched away. “Shaianna, wait. Those people need help—”
“They shall burn—or not. I do not care, thief.” When she realized I wasn’t following, she half turned and fixed her green-eyed glare on me. “They would have watched you die. I will not go back. Come.” Her snarl softened. “Let them go or let me go. Make your choice.”
You will make the wrong choice, thief.
My feet were already moving forward, but not to follow. “You’re not heartless, Shaianna.” I paused, fighting to breathe around the burn in my chest. “You think you are, but you have it in you to help them.”
“Why should I?” she asked.
“Because they don’t know any better.”
She stepped back. Her eyes searched mine, and for a moment, I thought fear showed on her face, but then relented with a small nod and headed around an alley c
orner, back toward the pyre.
I staggered a few steps and fell against a wall. The alley tilted and the night sky slipped sideways. Eventually, the screams faded and the breeze no longer carried with it the smell of smoke. Minutes later, or hours, Shaianna returned in silence, grabbed my arm, and led me into the fragile night.
“How did you know?” I asked, although I didn’t much care for the answer while Shaianna’s cool hands ran over the burn on my arm. I hadn’t noticed I was hurt until we had taken shelter in a hayloft. Once we’d stopped running, the pain had rushed in, dragging exhaustion in with it.
I kept my gaze cast out the open window, pretending to admire the fabulous nighttime view of Brea’s Inner Circle and the vast, impenetrable wall between us and freedom. In reality, all I could think about was how Shaianna’s featherlight touch soothed the heat of the burn and how she was here. She could have been halfway across the sea by now, free of me and Brea. Why had she stayed?
She bent my forearm up, keen eyes observing—in an entirely clinical manner—how my muscles moved. She turned my arm and gently examined where the fire had bubbled my skin. All that remained now were a few fresh pink scars. She took my hand and stroked her fingertips over the scar across my palm.
I remembered her kneeling opposite me, our bleeding hands clasped together, her words mere whispers—magic on her lips.
She slowly lifted her gaze, peering through dark lashes, and I knew she too remembered our last moment together. I had kissed her in the tomb and wanted to again. I would have already if I could have summoned the energy. To see her again, here, like this? It seemed too coincidental, too surreal, as though this were a dream and I had died on the pyre.
“You are healed.” She released my hand, rose to her feet, and turned away with a swirl of her cloak.
I flexed my arm, testing the pull of new scar tissue, and watched her in the corner of my eye. Standing guard, she cast a striking figure against the sparkling Brean cityscape visible through the loading door.
There was too much to say—so many questions I had thought of in the weeks since the tomb—but I couldn’t remember any of them. I leaned back against a stack of pallets and knew I should thank her. I closed my eyes against the sting left over from the noxious smoke. When I slept, and it would be soon, the nightmare would return, and this time it wouldn’t be air I fell through, but flame.
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