The Fires of Vengeance

by Evan Winter

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

  Copyright © 2020 by Evan Winter

  Cover design by Lauren Panepinto

  Cover illustration by Karla Ortiz

  Cover copyright © 2020 by Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  Map by Tim Paul

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  First Edition: November 2020

  Simultaneously published in Great Britain by Orbit

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  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Winter, Evan, author.

  Title: The fires of vengeance / Evan Winter.

  Description: First Edition. | New York : Orbit, 2020. | Series: The burning ; book 2

  Identifiers: LCCN 2020009321 | ISBN 9780316489805 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780316489782

  Subjects: GSAFD: Fantasy fiction.

  Classification: LCC PR6123.I578 F57 2020 | DDC 823/.92—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020009321

  ISBNs: 978-0-316-48980-5 (hardcover), 978-0-316-48981-2 (ebook)

  E3-20200930-JV-NF-ORI

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Map

  Chapter One Jabari Onai

  Undeniable

  Tools

  Reunion

  Councils

  Leadership

  Odds

  Chapter Two Hafsa Ekene

  Reins

  Fallow

  How

  Shadows

  Chapter Three Equal

  Orders

  Luck

  Names

  Scars

  Chapter Four Spear

  There

  Hanged

  Rest

  Locks

  Grief

  Chapter Five Whole

  Loyal

  Opportunity

  Coals

  Fury

  Chapter Six No

  Fine

  Wounds

  Handmaidens

  Bloodlines

  Chapter Seven Duma Sibusiso

  Legacy

  Seven

  Nchanga

  Fraction

  Chapter Eight Army

  Tales

  Reborn

  Osonton

  Throne

  Giftless

  Tribute

  Chapter Nine Kerem

  Bound

  Alike

  Bodies

  Chapter Ten Wrath

  Quarry

  Price

  Family

  Grit

  Chapter Eleven Intruder

  Leashed

  Authority

  Battles

  Chapter Twelve Palm

  Need

  Burn

  Powerful

  Call

  Dragons

  Chapter Thirteen Sacrifices

  Champions

  Powerless

  Wayward

  Conquerors

  Chapter Fourteen Esi Omehia

  Princess

  Sisters

  Faith

  Fight

  Mothers

  Chapter Fifteen Reward

  Pyres

  Measures

  Thieves

  Chapter Sixteen Sides

  Never

  Try

  Tsiora Omehia

  Glossary

  Gratitude

  The Scale

  www.evanwinter.com

  Discover More

  Also by Evan Winter

  This book is dedicated to Neville Leopold Winter.

  Quiet, stoic, impossibly hardworking, he was quick to laugh and had a joyous smile that crinkled his eyes. He was my father, and he passed away as The Fires of Vengeance was being written.

  Married for almost fifty years to one of the most wonderful women on earth, Neville began his career as a chemical engineer and finished it as a high school teacher. He gave everything to his students, working tirelessly during the week and tutoring each weekend to make a difference in the lives that he could. He certainly made a difference in mine.

  “One of the most important things in life is to complete what you start,” he said to me right before I began to take my writing seriously.

  He never gave me advice, and the one time that he did, it was surprisingly simple. Still, it stuck, and during the toughest writing days, when my story was wholly unwilling to be told, my father’s words kept me going.

  Two books came out of the strength that he gave me, and even with that strength, this novel was not easy to write. So much of this series is an exploration of the relationships between fathers and sons that sitting down to tell more of it often felt like I was being forced to face the fact that my father was gone, and losing him had already blown a hole right through me.

  But reminding myself that my dad was there to raise me, teach me, watch me get married, and see me have a son of my own keeps me moving forward. He was there for me in every way that he could be, and I know that’s not always possible. So, if this pain is the price for having had and being loved by a father like him, then I’ll pay it gladly.

  This book is for Neville Leopold Winter, whom I never stopped calling Daddy.

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  CHAPTER ONE

  JABARI ONAI

  Will he die?”

  The voice woke him, returning him to torture. He knew he was in a hospital bed in Citadel City’s Guardian Keep and that his body had been blasted by dragon fire, but Jabari Onai did not know why the Goddess would keep him alive in such misery.

  He tried to open his eyes, and pain roared across his face in scorching waves. His eyelids had melted and fused together, leaving him to peer out at a world as if from behind a field of long grass.

  He made to speak, to beg Tau or the Sah priestesses and priests to release him from his anguish, but he couldn’t make a sound. His throat was too badly burned to manage it.

  “I won’t tell you he’s going to die,” Jabari heard a woman’s voice say, “but I can’t say that he’ll live either.”

  The speaker moved toward the foot of his bed, and through the jagged gaps between his burned eyelids, he caught a glimpse of her standing next to Tau. She was a priestess of the Sah medicinal order.

  “He’s only survived this long because he’s Noble,” she said. “Their bodies can withstand more and they heal faster than us, but the damage that was done to him … it’s a miracle he’s sti
ll breathing.”

  “He’s a fighter,” Tau said. “He’s always been one, and if you can give him any sort of chance, he’ll take up the fight and do his best to win it.”

  “We won’t give up …,” she said.

  Jabari heard a chair being pulled across the floor. It creaked when someone sat in it.

  “I’m here, Jabari. It’s Tau and I’m here.”

  “He can’t hear you,” the priestess said. “The pain … we’re giving him herbs to help him rest. It’s too cruel otherwise.”

  “Will it disturb him, if I’m here?” Tau asked.

  “No,” she said. “We should all be so lucky to have someone with us at the … at a time like this.”

  Jabari heard footsteps. The priestess was leaving, and when the sound of her shoes tapping against the floor faded, Tau leaned over him to take his hand. He did it gently, but it didn’t matter.

  Pain exploded from Jabari’s burned fingers, and unable to make a sound or resist, he stared through the holes in his eyelids at his friend’s scarred and worried face, hoping beyond hope that Tau could see enough of his eyes to recognize the light of consciousness in them. Tau didn’t see—he kept hold of Jabari’s hand—and desperate for any relief, Jabari sought refuge in his other senses. He caught the scent of leather, bronze, and earth from Tau and struggled to pull comfort from the familiar, but his agony made room for nothing but itself.

  “I want you to know you did it,” Tau said. “You’re the man you always wanted to be. You don’t need the blood of a Greater Noble to be an Ingonyama, not when you have their spirit, their courage.”

  He could hear Tau choking up, and that hurt too.

  “Jabari, no matter what comes, I’ll make certain the Omehi remember you for that.”

  There was silence for a while, and though his mind was slow, sluggish from the herbs, in his head, Jabari was screaming. The burns demanded it.

  “It could have been different, neh? If not for the testing?” Tau said, whispering. “Feels like a thousand lifetimes ago. I just wanted to see you succeed, but when has the world ever cared what a Lesser wanted?”

  Jabari would never forget that day. Tau had sparred with that spoiled brat, Kagiso, bloodying the fool in front of Guardian Councillor Abasi Odili. He’d been stupid enough to injure the Petty Noble, and Odili, intent on seeing the Lesser repaid for the insult, tasked Kellan Okar to remind Tau of his place.

  Refusing to let his son face the already legendary Indlovu initiate, Aren fought Kellan Okar instead, losing his hand in the bout. It was a tragedy, but Jabari, like everyone else, could see that Kellan was trying to spare Aren’s life, and it could have ended there. It should have ended there, but Tau picked up his father’s fallen sword and aimed it at Kellan’s back.

  Stupid. There were Lessers and Drudge everywhere, and they all saw what Tau did. He’d threatened a Noble and Abasi Odili couldn’t overlook that. The guardian councillor had Tau’s father killed and then he called off the Indlovu initiate testing, threatening the stability of Kerem as a fief.

  In just a few short breaths, a personal tragedy had become a disaster, and it only got worse. On the march home, Tau attacked Lekan, accusing Jabari’s brother of being responsible for Aren’s death, and twice in one day, Tau forced the hand of his betters. It had broken Jabari’s heart to do it, but the only way he could save Tau from himself was to remove him from Lekan’s reach, and so he banished his lifelong friend from Kerem.

  Tau’s voice pulled Jabari from the memory. “They killed my father and I was going to make them pay. I was going to join the military so I could challenge each one of them to a blood duel. I wanted to kill them and it was the only way I could do it without the Nobles coming for my family.”

  If Jabari didn’t know how the story ended, he’d have sworn he was listening to the ravings of a madman.

  “I thought I could become enough of a fighter to challenge and best an Ingonyama like Dejen Olujimi,” Tau said, and as if the man’s image was etched in his mind, Jabari could still see the soldier who’d killed Tau’s father.

  Dejen Olujimi had been more muscle than man. Dejen Olujimi had been one of the Omehi’s best fighters…. Had been.

  “I was so angry,” Tau said. “I went to see Lekan before leaving the fief.”

  That part Jabari had not known, and he felt his breath come faster.

  “I went to tell him that when next we met, I’d kill him for his part in my father’s death.”

  For the first time since waking, Jabari’s pain pulled back.

  “Lekan came at me with a knife. He’s the one who gave me the scar,” Tau said, letting his fingertips brush the mark that ran from his nose to his cheek. “I fought him. I—I defended myself, and … he died.”

  He died. That was how Tau put it. He died. The words boomed in Jabari’s head like a war drum.

  His mother had cried for days when they found the body at the bottom of the stairs. An accidental fall, they’d been told, a slip after too much drink. His mother had cried and cursed and become withdrawn. She’d lost a son and a piece of her soul that day.

  “I fled to Kigambe, tested in the Ihashe trials, and made it into Jayyed Ayim’s scale,” Tau continued. “I was lucky, and just like you said, there’s no better umqondisi than Jayyed.”

  Jabari prayed for the strength to strangle the Lesser he’d called a friend and treated as an equal. His brother hadn’t been perfect, but no one was. Lekan had just needed a chance to grow into himself and his responsibilities, but that chance was taken away when Tau stole him from the world and from his family.

  “I gave my life to training. I was determined to be enough of a fighter to find justice for my father’s death. It was the only thing that mattered before I saw Zuri in Citadel City.”

  Jabari’s pain was back and the medicine in his system called to him, offering him oblivion, if he’d take it. He preferred the pain. He wanted to hear everything Tau had to say.

  “She saved me, Jabari. The life I’d made wasn’t worth living. Finding her in this city saved me.” Tau paused.

  Tau let go of his hand and Jabari thanked the Goddess. It galled him to lie helpless while his brother’s murderer coddled him.

  “It was here that I had my first chance at Kellan Okar. I was goaded into a fight with him in one of the city’s circles. I wanted to tear his insides out and thought I could do it,” Tau said. “I’d already learned to fight with two swords, and I was good, very good.” Tau laughed, bitterly. “Kellan destroyed me,” he said.

  He should have killed you, Jabari thought.

  “I’d given every waking moment to my training. I’d become the strongest fighter in the Southern Ihashe Isikolo, but I was still no match for him. Zuri had to save me from him, and I had to flee this city like a runaway Drudge.”

  Because you’re no better than one, thought Jabari.

  “I’d given my life to become the fighter I needed to be, but it wasn’t enough,” Tau said. “I had to give my soul to the cause too. So I did.”

  Jabari didn’t understand, and he waited for Tau to explain.

  “What I discovered is more curse than gift, and it’s there, waiting for any foolish enough to reach for it. You see, we all have demons,” Tau said. “I just learned to use mine.”

  He was speaking in riddles.

  “My scale, we made it to the Queen’s Melee, and it was the first time Lessers would compete in it in a generation,” Tau said. “I was part of the improbable and, Jabari, I’d become the impossible. I was finally ready for Kellan Okar, and then I learned that Queen Tsiora had brokered a secret peace treaty with the Xiddeen, threatening everything I’d worked for.”

  Tau must have been uncomfortable with where his story was going. He kept shifting in his chair, making its legs scrape the floor.

  “Scale Jayyed fought well and we made it into the semifinals,” he said. “We were matched with Kellan’s scale, your scale, and just like that, I had my first real chance. I could kill Kellan in
the tournament and it’d be nothing but an unfortunate accident.”

  More chair shifting.

  “You saw me there. You know I abandoned my sword brothers to get to him,” Tau said. “I gave up the family I’d found at the isikolo for revenge, and when I held Okar’s life in my hands, I hesitated. I didn’t kill him when I had my chance, and then my chance was gone. Kellan Okar lived and we were knocked out of the melee.”

  Jabari had been stunned when he saw what Tau had done to Kellan. He’d thought the Greater Noble to be invincible, and the idea of the boy he’d grown up with doing that to Scale Osa’s inkokeli was unthinkable.

  “The men in my scale hated me, and Zuri and Jayyed tried to tell me that Kellan wasn’t to blame for my father’s death, but I wouldn’t listen, and there was no time to be convinced. The Xiddeen invaded.”

  Jabari remembered it, the sound of the horns that night.

  “It made no sense; peace was so close,” Tau said. “It made no sense until I found out that the queen’s Royal Nobles had planned a coup and betrayed her. They refused to submit their civilization to those they saw as savages. So, instead, they attacked the Xiddeen in secret, using a dragon to burn tens of thousands of their people to dust.

  “The invasion wasn’t the Xiddeen abandoning the peace treaty. It was them retaliating for the slaughter we visited on their women, men, and children,” Tau said.

  Jabari didn’t want to hear about why the hedeni had done what they’d done. It didn’t matter. He’d lost sword brothers that night. Omehi had died that night.

  “In the battle in the Fist, Jayyed, Chinedu, and most of my scale went to the Goddess,” Tau said.

  It had been the same for Jabari’s scale. They’d been massacred.

  “The Xiddeen had us beat and we fled, retreating to Citadel City, hoping to find safety there. What we found were Odili and his traitors trying to kill the queen,” Tau said. “You remember, neh? We fought alongside each other then, in her defense.”