Trail of Flames

by Marlow York

  I knew this peace would be short-lived, but I paused to enjoy the soft rustle of wind in the trees and the chirping of awakening birds.

  “We should meet up with Vondak and Irlav,” Saven said.

  I took a deep breath. “They know better than I how to train people to fight and the Secara don’t need my help. We should move on and let them take it from here. We need to focus on our mission.”

  I sensed Saven worrying he’d said something wrong the night before, but I waved it off before he could apologize. “You don’t have to say anything. You were right. We can’t let anything hold us back.”

  “Okay,” Saven agreed.

  I silently reentered the house, gathered my belongings, and met up with Saven. Together we moved like a wisp of wind across the beaten paths, eastward into the thick forest.

  The cool morning air brought relief from the previous day’s humidity. The path we followed was worn, and we slipped quietly between hanging foliage for the first few miles.

  Then the snap of a nearby branch startled us.

  I ripped my war axe from its sheath and spun toward the source of the sound. “Who’s there?” I barked. “Come out, now!”

  Saven’s tongue flicked the air and he hissed slowly with irritation. “It’s okay. He isn’t a threat.”

  Cypress appeared with hands raised in surrender. “Now I know never to sneak up on you again.”

  My breath came out in a huff. “What are you doing here?” I lowered my axe but didn’t sheath it. Cypress eyed the weapon cautiously.

  His hands dropped to his sides and my gaze fell on the large knapsack strapped to his back. I pursed my lips in irritation.

  “I wasn’t really asking for permission to join you,” he said. “But I figured the journey would be more comfortable if all party members were in agreement.” He looked up at Saven pointedly, whose forehead twitched in his best glare.

  “You need to stay away from us,” I said. “The City is looking for me; anyplace I go is a potential target and anyone near me could be a casualty.”

  “Yes, I understand that,” Cypress said evenly. “But this isn’t just your fight anymore. I’m aware of the consequences and I still want to help. I want the Secara to be free to travel anywhere in the world. I want to open trading routes between all villages so we can work together. Let me help you.”

  His sincerity took me by surprise, and I felt myself soften. I passed my energy to Saven. “What do you think?”

  “He isn’t lying—he feels very passionate about helping his people. However, I still think he could be a burden. He is not trained to fight.”

  “If you want to assist us, you should train with Vondak and Irlav. They can help you become strong,” I told Cypress.

  “So, I’m not strong?” he challenged.

  I looked him up and down. He appeared farmer-strong, not Warrior-strong. “I mean, you don’t know how to fight.”

  “But you can teach me.”

  I suddenly thought of Tarek and what he would do in this situation. “Fine.” I gripped my axe tightly. “Then block this.” I swung the axe upward and watched Cypress’s eyes nearly pop out of his head.

  He dodged at the last second and dove onto the ground. “Hey, wait!”

  I swung again. He rolled out of the way and my axe sliced into the dirt.

  “Valieri, stop!”

  “You wanted to fight, so fight!” I heaved the axe again. Cypress raised his hand, and just before the blade struck his shoulder, vines shot out of the forest and wrapped around my hands and the handle. My arms stopped so suddenly it felt like I’d hit a brick wall. I tugged, but the vines didn’t give. I sighed and stopped resisting.

  Cypress’s face was sickly white. “What was that about?” He panted, staring up at me.

  “Lesson one,” I said. “You survived. Good job.”

  Saven hissed, laughing internally. “Tarek would be proud.”

  I grinned as Cypress rose to his feet. “Does that mean I can come with you?”

  Against Saven’s advice and my own better judgment, I nodded. “I thought you weren’t asking for permission.”

  Cypress smiled and adjusted the straps on his knapsack, then strode away.

  “Um…can I have my hands back?” I called.

  Cypress glanced over his shoulder and flicked his hand. The vines unwrapped and disappeared into the forest.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  By the time the sun rose, we were miles away from the Secara village. We didn’t have a path to follow and all the trees looked the same, but Cypress charged through the foliage as though he’d been there a thousand times. He probably had.

  “Your mother accepted you coming with us?” I asked.

  “Uh,” Cypress hesitated. “She doesn’t know. Or didn’t. She definitely knows by now.”

  I snorted a laugh. “So not only do we have to worry about the City finding us, now we have Kalea on our heels.”

  Cypress chuckled. “She knew I wanted to go. My mother is very perceptive and it’s no secret I’ve wanted to get out and see the world. That’s why I became a trader in the first place.”

  “Must be a dangerous job.”

  “Especially nowadays,” Saven added.

  Cypress hummed in agreement. “It can be, but I’m careful. We don’t have many allies within a few days’ travel, but we have enough to get by.”

  “People like us?” I asked eagerly.

  “Only two—the Grakkir and the Nordahl. Just normal people live in the third nearest village.”

  “The Nordahl?” I asked.

  “Did we hear that name in Ysolda’s history books?” Saven asked.

  “Those Who Incite the Earth,” Cypress said. I heard bitterness in his voice. “They control the ground itself—dirt, rocks, you name it. An alliance with them was not easy due to disagreements over territory. Disagreements that go back further than anyone can remember, but the Nordahl never let the Secara forget it.”

  “His tone suggests the Nordahl are not the only ones who won’t let it be forgotten.” Saven rolled his eyes.

  “You’re saying we won’t be welcome there?” I pushed aside a low branch.

  “Certainly not with open arms.” Cypress looked at me. “But I assume that won’t deter you.”

  “No. We need every possible ally.” I wished I felt as assured as I sounded.

  We continued for a long time. I could barely enjoy our gorgeous surroundings with such weight from my burden. Cypress didn’t chat. Instead, we walked in awkward silence. No doubt Cypress also had a heavy heart, but I didn’t know him well enough to console him.

  “His feelings are similar to the ones you have felt this entire time,” Saven told me. “He is worried for his people and sad to leave his home.”

  “Since when can you read his mind?” I felt a pang of jealously.

  Saven cocked his head at me. “I can’t. I can only read your mind. Humans are not as sensitive to each other’s feelings, especially the feelings of strangers. Animals are more intuitive.”

  “Sometimes I forget you’re an animal.” I smiled.

  The corners of Saven’s mouth twitched with a smirk. “Animal Gods are more insightful than normal animals.” He cast Cypress a look and sighed. “If you are so worried about him, perhaps you should come up with a conversation?”

  “Small talk…great,” I said sourly.

  “Or we could continue walking in silence for the next three thousand miles.”

  I hastened my pace until I was in step with Cypress. He glanced at me, his hands gripping the shoulder straps of his backpack.

  “Where are we heading?” I asked.

  Cypress looked ahead. “Well, first we need to get out of the forest. We’re heading east, and this forest continues for many miles.”

  “How many is ‘many’?”

  Cypress thought for a moment. “In this direction, perhaps five hundred.”

  My heart fell. The humidity was oppressive; sweat made my clothes cling to my skin
and the air felt thick in my nose. “That’s a long way.”

  “We won’t be traveling the entire five hundred miles. Maybe one or two hundred, if that makes you feel any better.”

  It didn’t. “What lies on the other side of the forest?”

  “Mountains, for the most part,” Cypress said. We both sidestepped to avoid a large rock in our path. “But nothing nearly as steep as Snowy Mountain. We’ll travel through the Boulder Fields as quickly as we can, and beyond that lies the coast.”

  My head perked up. “The coast? You mean, like an ocean?”

  Cypress smirked at me. “Yes, the ocean.”

  I couldn’t help but smile with a pinch of excitement. “I’ve never seen an ocean before. I’ve only read about them in schoolbooks. Are they actually full of salt?”

  Cypress laughed, his mouth opening wide, face turned toward the canopy above us. “The water is salty, yes. However, I wouldn’t say an ocean is ‘full of salt’.”

  I chuckled, feeling embarrassed. I was glad I didn’t have to pretend to be a proud, stone-faced Grakkir Warrior anymore. For a moment, I felt a sort of comradery I hadn’t felt since the last time I saw Sarrenke. Only that time, both of our hearts were filled with sorrow as we said goodbye.

  “Try not to think about it,” Saven chimed in. I could tell he was missing Sarrenke too. She had always been kind to us, even when I was a new slave to the Grakkir and hated them with all my heart. Perhaps our closeness stemmed from the fact that we were essentially Tarek’s servants, but I knew we also empathized with each other. We both had lost our families and found a new kinship together.

  As the sun passed from one side of the sky to the other, we eventually stopped to rest for the night. Though the trees were still thick, we easily saw the sky.

  “Do you think we’ll be spotted if an airship passes overhead?” I asked Cypress.

  He looked up. “It’s possible. But I have a remedy for that.”

  I watched as he stepped over to a tree, a massive creature that must have been hundreds of years old. Cypress pressed his palm to the rough trunk and breathed slowly. The highest branches shifted, and soon the trees nearest to it also swayed in a sort of dance. The branches bent until the trees reached for each other. The sky above us darkened under the canopy, and a moment later we couldn’t see the sky anymore. Even if something passed overhead, they wouldn’t be able to spot us from way up there.

  “That’s better.” Cypress admired his work.

  I looked at him, frowning. He made it look so easy to move an entire tree. “So how does it work, exactly?” I asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Do you manipulate the plants to move the way you want them to, or is it more like commanding them to do what you want?”

  “A little of both, I suppose.” He shrugged. “Some of my energy goes into the tree, and in that way, it’s like I take over its mind, so to speak. I can tell it which way to move. But I can also make them grow.”

  “Make them grow?” I asked.

  “Remember when I said the Secara have green thumbs?”

  I nodded, imagining the huge garden in the center of the village.

  “We can use our own energy to encourage the plants to grow. Most of the time it’s best if they grow naturally, but we can persuade them to grow larger or faster than they normally would. Think of it as spiritual fertilizer.”

  I envisioned the thriving garden. Though the climate was perfect for the forest to grow, I did find it unusual that so many different types of plants were maturing with equal success. It was more than just good gardening techniques; the Secara were using their powers to make the plants grow in an unnatural habitat.

  “Is it like that for you?” Cypress asked.

  I looked at him. “Well, fire isn’t a living creature. It doesn’t require life energy—or whatever you call it—for me to manipulate it. But it does require a lot of effort on my part. When I first started using my powers, even moving a tiny flame on a candle tired me out. I once pulled a fire from a building, but I passed out afterward.” I remembered the City’s attack on the Grakkir village, and how the villagers scrambled unsuccessfully to bring buckets of water from the lake to their burning homes. “I’ve never really thought about how I do it, to be honest.”

  “I bet that was quite a sight,” Cypress said.

  I started to nod but stopped myself. “Well, it was until I fainted.”

  Cypress chuckled. “Do you think it would be safe to start a campfire so we can cook something?”

  I looked at the darkening sky above us. “No, I don’t think we should burn anything. The trees are pretty thick here, but we’ll be more visible at night anyway.”

  Cypress nodded. “Fair enough.” He pulled two large folded leaves from his backpack. “Cold sandwiches it is.” He passed one to me.

  “I’ll go hunt for something in the forest.” Saven glanced at Cypress, then back at me. “As long as you feel safe on your own.”

  “I’ll be fine,” I assured him. “Go find something to eat.”

  The massive snake nodded and slithered away. His dark coloring made him blend perfectly with the trees until I no longer saw him, but I could still feel his presence.

  “You know, I’ve always admired the bond between a Grakkir and their Animal God companion.” Cypress chewed thoughtfully. “They say your bond is the strongest thing in this world or the next one. Even stronger than the bond of a mother and her child.”

  I almost snickered but held back. “They must say a lot of things about the Grakkir. The City always had very strong opinions about them.”

  “That they’re dangerous savages who can’t be trusted?” Cypress’s eyes looked into mine.

  I hated to hear things like that, especially after living alongside the Grakkir and calling their village my home for so long. “You aren’t wrong,” I said. “About the City’s opinion, I mean. They taught the Fiero to hate the Grakkir, but they never even called them by their name. They were always ‘savages’ or ‘wild people’. To the City, they didn’t deserve to be called by their rightful name.”

  “Why do you think that is?” Cypress asked.

  The way he looked at me suggested he was expecting a certain answer but wanted to know exactly what my thoughts were.

  “Because they didn’t want us to sympathize with the Grakkir or think of them as people,” I said in a low voice. “Their choice of words was meant to make us to hate and fear them. The City wanted us to believe that anyone who wasn’t from the City was a bad guy. Anything to make them seem like the good guys.”

  I looked away from him and bit into my sandwich. Growing up, I hadn’t known the City had spent so much effort manipulating the Fiero into believing what they wanted us to believe. Every school class was biased, not based on honest history. The world’s history had been kept a secret from us. We were, for all intents and purposes, a rug under the City’s feet. The Grakkir had taunted me for it; the Fiero had become a joke to them. I worried the Secara felt the same way. Did the other villages also think so little of us?

  “The City is very powerful.” Cypress interrupted my thoughts. “Most people think of power just as physical strength. They obviously have that, with all those airships and soldiers under their command.” He bit into his sandwich and chewed for a long time. “But what most people don’t realize, is that they are powerfully persuasive. My people and the Grakkir like to think the Fiero were stupid and weak to let the City feed them lies for thousands of years. But I’m certain if it had been any other clan living that close to the City, they would have turned out the same way.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  He looked at me. “Dependent on the City and their goods, for one thing. It was easy for them to bully your people into trading only with them. Or, maybe it was convenience that caused your people to depend on them. For all we know, your people may have still had their powers when they became allies with the City. Over time, maybe they relied on their power less
and less, until it became like a vestigial organ. Something small and useless.”

  I had never once thought of the City and the Fiero as “allies.” That would have suggested we were on equal terms. Instead, we were more like their children, entirely reliant on them for food, protection, medicine, and all the other things we couldn’t make or find on our own. “I think the Ancient Fire was suppressed forcefully.”

  Cypress gave me a surprised look. “Why do you think so?”

  I looked towards the sound of Saven gliding over the cool forest floor, his belly satisfied with some sort of woodland creature. A quick scan of his mind told me it was a deer. When he scanned my mind, he knew exactly what we had been talking about since he left.

  “I once believed we needed the City. I even longed to go inside the walls and see for myself what it was like. I’d heard it was astonishing and glamourous.” I smiled sadly and shook my head at my younger, more naïve self. “But after everything I’ve seen and experienced, I think the Fiero were bullied and controlled. I think their powers were outlawed, and I’m sure people were imprisoned or killed for using them. The Ancient Fire didn’t become a vestigial organ; it became a shrunken and wasted muscle. Eventually it was never used, and it just disappeared.”

  Cypress frowned, his eyes sympathetic. “Makes the City sound a lot worse when you put it like that.”

  I nodded. Over a year ago I never would have thought of the City that way, so cruel and oppressive. Now, I struggled to remember what it was like to think of them as a protector.

  Saven gently bumped my shoulder with his snout. I reached up and stroked his nose. He was worried about me, but he was also thankful I no longer felt any admiration or affection for the City. They were the enemy now. No matter who or what we encountered further up the road, the City would always be the main enemy.

  “It’s getting late,” Cypress said. Night had fallen around us. The air was still moist, but the temperature dropped significantly from the lack of sunlight.