Flamecaster

by Cinda Williams Chima

  Ah, Jenna thought. The lieutenant doesn’t want the healer—or the king—to know what he’s been up to. Well, then. Her da always said that when somebody offers an unexpected gift, it was bad manners not to take it.

  “Don’t be too hard on the lieutenant, Wolf,” Jenna said. “He came to tell me that he’s arranged for a bath, some books, and a transfer out of the dungeon into an actual room.”

  Jenna couldn’t say who looked more surprised, Karn or Adam.

  “Really,” Adam said, looking at Karn narrow-eyed. “That’s . . . difficult to believe.”

  By then, Karn had his sharp’s face back on. He smiled crookedly, acknowledging the deal. “The bath and the books are no problem. But the transfer may not happen until after I get back.” Karn scooped up the dagger and got off a bit of a bow. “Jenna. We’ll speak again.” With that, he went out the door.

  30

  SOLSTICE CELEBRATION

  As soon as Karn walked out, Adam pulled the door shut and swung back around. “Are you all right, Jenna?” he said, his eyes glittering in the torchlight.

  “I’m all right.”

  “He didn’t hurt you? When I walked in, I could’ve sworn that Lieutenant Karn was threatening you.”

  Jenna decided not to share the part with the torch. She saw no good coming from it. “No,” she said. “Not really. Karn seemed eager for answers, but he didn’t get rough, if that’s what you mean. Maybe he’s been told not to hurt me.”

  “It’s hard to imagine King Gerard coming up with a rule like that,” Adam said, claiming the stool.

  Jenna hesitated. “I got the feeling that Karn was down here on his own account, like the king didn’t know he was interrogating me and . . .” She trailed off, distracted by a delicious smell. “Is that food in there?” she said, eyeing the healer’s packages.

  Adam nodded. “I brought you some from the Solstice celebration. Do you feel up to eating?”

  Jenna snatched up one of the parcels and sniffed at it. Roast beef. Sharp cheddar cheese. Freshly baked bread. She was practically drooling on it. Ripping away the cloth, she took a large bite.

  The healer stared at her, surprised, then loosed one of his rare smiles. “You seem to be feeling much better,” he said. “Better than I could have hoped, considering the way you looked yesterday.”

  Jenna nodded, not wanting to talk with her mouth full. She swallowed, then said, “I am much better. I’ve always been quick to heal, but you—you work magic.”

  “Maybe,” he said, hunching his shoulders like praise made him uncomfortable. “I’ll want to take a look at that wound in a bit.” He watched her eat for a while then said, like a dog returning to a bone, “What kinds of questions was he asking? Karn, I mean.”

  “That’s what surprised me. He said he wasn’t here about the Patriots.”

  “Patriots?”

  “The ones in Delphi fighting King Gerard. I thought that was what it was about—that they thought I was doing spying and setting fire to things. But, no, he kept asking me about an empress.” She watched the healer carefully, to see if he knew about the empress already, but he looked as ambushed as she had been.

  “What empress?”

  “Someone named Celestine, from Carthis. Or the Northern Islands. Have you heard of her?”

  He shook his head. “No. All I know about Carthis is, you know, pirates. And that wizards—mages, I mean—came from the Northern Islands. Besides the pirates, the storms are so bad on the Indio these days that we never get ships from there anymore.”

  “Karn said this Celestine was hunting me, and he wanted to know why, and what the magemark on my neck meant, and all about my family. He seemed tweaked that I couldn’t help him.”

  Adam mulled this over. “Does he think you’re the empress’s long-lost daughter or what?”

  “Karn doesn’t know what to think. He knows more about the dagger than he let on, though. He says it’s the kind carried by the . . . by the bloodsworn warriors who serve the empress. He said that nobody survives a cut from those blades.”

  “I knew it was magicked, I just wasn’t familiar with the enchantments.”

  By now Jenna was licking her fingers, having finished off the meat and cheese. “Do I smell a peach?” She looked pointedly at Adam’s bag.

  Smiling and shaking his head, Adam pulled a ripe peach out of his bag and held it out to her. Jenna snatched it and bit into it, the juice running down her chin.

  “Merciful Maker,” she said. “We never get these in Delphi.”

  “Save room,” Adam said. “I brought sugar cakes and wassail, too.”

  “Wassail?” Jenna leaned forward, making no attempt to hide her excitement. “You brought wassail?”

  The healer unwrapped another bundle to reveal fancy Solstice cakes, and set them next to her on the bed. Then he handed her the flask and a cup.

  “Ah,” Jenna said. She expertly uncorked the flask with her teeth and poured, then wound her fingers about the cup and closed her eyes, breathing deeply. “Everybody makes wassail his own way. Cinnamon. Cloves. Hard cider.” She took a sip. “Rum,” she added.

  “It’s strong,” he warned her.

  “Good,” she said, and drained the cup. Adam stared at her as she picked up a sugar cake and bit off a corner.

  “I’d go easy on that,” he said. “Poison and alcohol don’t mix.”

  “I disagree,” Jenna said. “This is just what I need. My da owned a tavern. I used to make the wassail on Solstice, and on the Day of the Dead. He always said I made it best.” She paused, lost in wistful memory for a moment. When she focused in on Adam again, he seemed to be staring at her lips. Which made her stare at his, and wonder what it would be like to . . .

  Stop it. You’ve probably got peach juice running down your chin and that’s why he’s staring. She mopped her sleeve across it, just in case. Now he probably thinks you were raised in a barn.

  She refilled her cup, trying to cover her embarrassment. “Are you feeling better?”

  “I am,” Adam said, taking a swallow from the flask. “It always takes a while to recover from a healing. Believe it or not, I’m faring better than usual, since I couldn’t use magic to heal you.”

  Jenna frowned, confused. “Isn’t that what you did?”

  “It’s a subtle difference. In most people, I can use magic to close up a wound or cure an infection or minimize pain—to treat disorder of whatever kind. In your case, that didn’t seem to work. But what I could do was remove the toxic magic that was causing damage, because that wasn’t part of you.” He paused, grimacing. “I’m sorry. Sometimes I don’t know when I’ve crossed the line from a conversation into a lecture.”

  “No, it’s all very . . . interesting,” Jenna said. “You do seem like you’ve had a lot of practice, and some schooling, too, which surprises me. When I first met you, I took you for a soldier.”

  “A soldier? Why a soldier?”

  “Because the king of Arden uses his mages to kill people, not to heal them. Plus, you have the body of a soldier.” She reached out and squeezed his muscled arm, then quickly let go, flustered. “I mean, you didn’t get those muscles stitching up wounds or mixing potions.”

  “I don’t do much of that around here. I scrub a lot of floors, I’m a demon with a mortar and pestle, and I’ve been shoveling a lot of horse dung, too.”

  “There’s never any shortage of that,” Jenna said.

  The healer laughed. “No,” he said. “Especially not at court.” He tipped back his head and drank again, his long throat jumping as he swallowed. “Now,” he said, setting the flask aside and pulling his healing kit closer. “Before I drink too much, I want to take a look at that wound.”

  Jenna sat on the edge of the bed, her blanket draped around her hips. She lifted her shirt up, out of the way.

  Adam leaned forward, reaching around her to unwrap the linen. Her skin prickled at his closeness, the warmth of his breath, the scent of soap that she was beginning to associate with
him. Looking at the top of his head, she could see a faint line where the natural red of his hair met the brown dye. She resisted the temptation to trace it with her fingers, to let him know she wasn’t fooled.

  I know you, Wolf, she thought. Even though you try and keep your secrets.

  Adam pulled the linen away and set it aside. Jenna’s skin pebbled as the air hit her bare middle. Then she felt the warmth of his hands under her rib cage as he examined the wound. Her heart began to thump so hard it seemed he would notice.

  She fought a sudden urge to slide off the bed and onto his lap, wrap her legs around his middle, and—

  Stop it! Still. That idea, once kindled, was hard to put out.

  Think of something else. Name the saints of the Church of Malthus—that would kill anybody’s desire.

  Fortunately—or unfortunately, the healer’s mind was on other things. “Blood and bones,” he muttered, sitting back. “That’s impossible.”

  “What?” Jenna said, breaking out of her fog. She craned her neck, trying to see.

  “Your wound is all but healed. Overnight.” He looked up at her, his expression bewildered, as if expecting her to explain.

  “Well, they said you were a damned good healer, Wolf,” Jenna said.

  “I’m good, but I’m not that good.” Adam shook his head, biting his lower lip. “The area over the wound is hard, like—like armor. Or scales. I’ve not seen anything like it.”

  “That always happens when I get hurt,” Jenna said. “It . . . crusts over like that at first, then goes back to normal.” She shrugged. “Strange.”

  The healer ran his fingers over the wound. “I don’t see any reason to wrap it up again. It’s better protected than anything I could do.” He pulled a jug of water from his kit and warmed it between his hands, then washed the area and allowed it to air-dry. When he finished repacking his kit, he set it between his feet, but made no move to leave. He seemed to be wrestling with himself.

  “What?” Jenna leaned forward so she could look into his face.

  “Would it be all right if I took a look at your magemark?”

  “Why not?” she said with a sigh. “Everyone else has.” She turned half sideways, scooping her hair up and arching her neck so he could see. He sat next to her on the bed and leaned in close to look, brushing his fingers over the symbol, raising instant gooseflesh.

  “Can you feel that?” he asked.

  She nodded. “Maybe I’m just used to it, but it feels like my own skin.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like this,” he said. “Like . . . like metal and jewels set into the skin. Did you have an injury there in the past?”

  “It’s been there as long as I can remember,” Jenna said. “I’ve tried to—to pry it off, but it’s as permanent as any other part of me.”

  “Do you know what the symbol means?”

  “Everybody keeps asking me, and I don’t know. Based on what’s happened so far, I’d say it means trouble and bad luck.”

  “And you were born with this?”

  “So I’m told.”

  The healer was studying her, eyes narrowed, rubbing his chin, as if she was a puzzle that he couldn’t work out.

  “What?” she said, brushing at herself, thinking maybe she’d dropped something.

  “Why are you telling me all this?” he asked bluntly. “You don’t know me. Why should you trust me?”

  Jenna could tell that he was asking himself the same question—if he should trust her. He’s a wary wolf. As well as lonely. I wonder why.

  She reached out and took one of his hands in both of hers, feeling the buzz of connection between them. “You’re wrong. I saw you yesterday. I saw the red-haired boy and the man lying dead in the snow and the gray wolves.” When he said nothing, doubt trickled in. “Are you saying that you didn’t see me?”

  When he stiffened and shifted his eyes away, she knew that he had.

  So she pressed him. “What did you see?”

  He breathed in, then released the words bottled up inside. “Too much,” he said. “Enough.” He paused. “Those—those images I saw.” He stopped, cleared his throat. “The little girl, and the boy, and the king of Arden . . . were they true?”

  “They were true,” she said, a catch in her voice. “The boy—his name was Riley. He was fifteen, and I was twelve.”

  “I’m sorry, Jenna,” Adam said softly. “I’m sorry that happened.”

  She turned to face him. “I punched the king in the nose,” she said, fierce tears leaking from her eyes. “He bled, and bled, and bled . . .” She trailed off. “That was the beginning. I’ve been fighting back ever since.”

  “Since twelve?”

  “Do you think I wasn’t a grown-up, after that?”

  “I see your point.”

  “You’ve had losses, too,” Jenna said. There was a question buried in there, but he didn’t take the bait.

  “Yes,” he said. “I suppose I’m still walking that line between life and death, trying to choose which side I’m on.”

  “I want you on my side, healer,” Jenna said.

  “And . . . I want to be,” he said. “It’s just . . .” He searched her face. “How do you ever really know a person?”

  Jenna ran her fingertips over the back of his hand, tracing the veins. “Not everything is a lie, Wolf,” she said. “Sometimes you have to believe what you see.”

  His head came up, as if she’d startled him. Leaning forward, she slid her arms around his neck and kissed him on the lips. For a moment, he resisted, then surrendered. It was a long time before they broke apart.

  31

  THE EMPRESS’S GIFT

  It was becoming an ordeal—getting in to see the king. After only three days away in Baston Bay, the change in procedure was striking. Lila and Destin submitted to the pat down, the interrogation, the magery—all before they even entered the small council chamber. The mage on duty, Marc DeJardin, scowled as he rooted through the crates full of flashcraft.

  “More chains for the enslaved, Barrowhill?” he said when he’d finished.

  “You may not approve, but it’s a living,” Lila said. “Somebody has to do it, so it might as well be me.”

  DeJardin didn’t seem impressed by that logic.

  The blackbirds hoisted the crates and carried them into the hall, Lila and Karn following behind.

  The usual suspects were ranged around the conference table—Marin Karn, Michel Botetort, and Gerard Montaigne. They all wore grim expressions, and the tension was thick as thistle and just as prickly. Whatever they were discussing, it seemed to be bad news, and General Karn was the one in the hot seat. They had no intention of sharing, though, because they quit talking as soon as Lila and Destin walked in.

  Destin seemed to pick up on the mood in the room as well. His gaze flicked from face to face, resting on his father’s the longest.

  Well, Lila thought, as she and Destin took a knee, at least we’ve brought some show-and-tell.

  “Your Majesty,” Destin said “Barrowhill and I are pleased to report that our operation in Baston Bay was a success. In fact, the results have exceeded our wildest dreams.”

  I don’t know about that, Lila thought. My dreams are pretty wild.

  Destin chose an item from each of the crates and set them on the table for display. A collar, a talisman, and an amulet.

  Lila had never seen General Karn display any spark of excitement or enthusiasm, but now he came damned close before he tamped it down. He picked up an amulet, which lit up brightly when he touched it. He set it down again quickly and said, “What’s the count?”

  “One hundred and thirty-three collars,” Destin said. “Fifty-four talismans. One hundred fourteen amulets.”

  “It’s a pity you weren’t able to get more talismans,” the general said, mopping at his face with a handkerchief. “That’s what we really need.”

  It’s a pity you’re such a heartless, ungrateful bastard, Lila thought. This time, blessedly, she kept it
to herself.

  “How were you able to secure so many at once?” Botetort asked, showing no desire to examine the loot.

  “We intercepted a shipment of old flash on its way from the Southern Islands to Chalk Cliffs,” Lila said. “This is more than a thousand years old.”

  “What was it doing down south?” General Karn asked. “They have no use for flashcraft. They drove out their mages a long time ago.”

  “It was hidden down there by the copperheads at the end of the Wizard Wars, when they knew they’d lost,” Lila said. “They didn’t want it to fall into enemy hands. It’s been there, forgotten, ever since. Somebody tipped them off, and they decided to ship it back home, so to speak.”

  “How did you find this out?” General Karn persisted, seeming intent on poking holes in her story.

  “Lila has relatives in the Southern Islands who keep her informed,” Destin said.

  “That’s convenient,” the general said.

  “Very impressive, Lieutenant Karn, Lila,” Montaigne said with a twitch of a smile. “Now, more than ever, this could spell the difference between victory and defeat.”

  General Karn shifted in his seat.

  What’s going on? Lila thought. Did somebody die while I was out of town?

  There came a pounding at the door. One of the idling blackbirds opened up and spoke briefly with someone outside.

  “It’s the principia, Your Majesty,” the blackbird said. “He says it’s urgent.”

  “Everything these days is urgent,” the king said. “This had better be. Show him in.”

  Cedric Fosnaught, the spiritual leader of the Church of Malthus, swept into the room in a flurry of self-importance. “Your Majesty, I am so sorry to interrupt,” the prelate said. “However, a ship has arrived in the harbor from the Northern Islands. The commander came ashore to inform us that he represents the Empress Celestine.”

  Empress who? Lila thought. But the others wore stunned looks that said they were familiar with the name. What else have I missed? she thought. She was usually better informed than that.

  “This ship is here?” the king said in a low, fierce voice. “At the river docks?”