Flamecaster

by Cinda Williams Chima

  “How come you were mad at him?”

  “My mother was dead and he was busy saving the queendom, so he never paid too much attention to me until Simon died. Then he couldn’t figure out how to fit a square peg like me into the plan.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I was like this massive joke played on my father. I’m not good with stupid military rules, and I had no head for schooling. The things I was good at—like smuggling and role-playing and sailing and deal-making—he had no use for. Still—one thing you can say about Captain Byrne—he is persistent. He just kept calling in his markers, sending me back to Oden’s Ford, trying to hone this bit of bad metal into a sword. I was damned tired of it.”

  Much as Ash hated to admit it, his and Lila’s lives had parallels. They’d been war orphans from the start.

  “Then you ran off to Oden’s Ford. Well, at first they thought you were dead or captured, but your friend Taliesin ratted you out.”

  “Taliesin told them?” Just one more club to the head.

  “You think you know a person, right? She wanted your mother to know you were still alive, but she talked her into letting you stay at Oden’s Ford.”

  “So the queen knew I was there all along.” A couple of minutes into this conversation, and Ash already felt beat up. Questions swirled through his mind. “Why didn’t she—why didn’t she ever . . . reach out to me? Or drag me home?”

  “The queen doesn’t confide in me,” Lila said. “But I think she was worried that any contact with you might put you at risk. Ardenine spies are everywhere.” She glanced around again, as if to make sure none had slipped into the room. “Except for a few key people, everyone in the Fells thinks you’re dead.”

  “Does Lyss—does my sister know?”

  “I don’t know,” Lila said. “She was pretty young, wasn’t she, when you ran off?”

  When he ran off. That’s exactly what he did. “Yes,” he said. “She was.”

  “By then Captain Byrne was beginning to realize that I could actually be useful. Maybe my name will never be up on the brag board in Wien House, but Oden’s Ford is a great place to chat up assholes like Tourant. Being a smuggler is great cover for traveling around the Realms.”

  “You were a spy?”

  “Among other things,” Lila said vaguely. “My da asked me to keep an eye on you—from a distance, since following you around would just draw attention to you. I wasn’t hot for the job—the last thing I wanted to do was nanny a runaway princeling. If King Gerard found out where you were, it wouldn’t do any good anyway, and I’d get the blame.” Her gaze was frank and unblinking. “I finally agreed, but I negotiated summers off to do my own thing. It turns out I worried for nothing. Watching over you was an easy job until, you know, this year. After the death crows came, I decided I’d better take you home, but you didn’t cooperate.”

  Good thing you didn’t know what I did with my summers, Ash thought. “What are you doing here? Still nannying?”

  She shook her head. “I’ve been working on a long-term project with a friend of mine. We’re becoming major suppliers for the Ardenine army.”

  “That seems to be going well,” Ash said drily. He rose and paced back and forth. “So you sold them a boatload of flashcraft. You don’t think that was going a little overboard when it comes to winning their trust?”

  “It would be,” Lila said, “if the flashcraft worked as intended.”

  Ash swiveled to face her. “Why? What’s wrong with it?”

  “Let’s just say that it was custom work.”

  “But . . . I thought you said it was old flash.”

  “My friend Rogan is a rum clan flashcrafter. He is very good at reproductions.”

  “All along, then, you’ve been working for the Fells.”

  Lila nodded.

  “Why didn’t you tell me that before? I would have been at least marginally more polite.”

  “To be honest, I thought of you as an amateur—a spoiled, entitled, runaway princeling bent on revenge who would get caught and then complicate and compromise my elegant scheme. I figured the less you knew, the better.”

  “I hate it when you sugarcoat things,” Ash said. “If you had access to the court, why cook up an elegant scheme? Why not just assassinate Montaigne?”

  “Damn! Why didn’t I think of that?” Lila slapped her forehead.

  “I’m serious.”

  “What makes you think I haven’t tried?”

  “That wasn’t you with the gedden weed and the—?”

  “No.” Lila rolled her eyes. “The thing is, I never inherited the Byrne gene for martyrdom. I enjoy life too much to want to spend it on gutter-swiving Montaigne. How do I know Prince Jarat will be an improvement? From what I’ve seen and heard, he probably won’t be.”

  “At least maybe he won’t be hell-bent on murdering my family,” Ash growled. “So. Why did you suddenly decide it was time to have a heart-to-heart with me?”

  “Because an alliance between the Northern Islands and Arden will dilute the effect of the project Rogan and I have been working on for three years. And because the loss of your father as High Wizard makes us more vulnerable to magical attack than before. Lord Bayar has stepped in, but—”

  “Bayar is High Wizard? Really?” Micah Bayar and his father had been rivals, if not outright enemies, for years. Whether intended or not, the grudge had been passed along to Ash.

  “You really need to get out more, sul’Han,” Lila said, looking amused.

  Ash had been in a bad mood since the meeting with Montaigne, and being blindsided like this didn’t improve things.

  “So stop it. Kill the king. Kill the emissary. Launch an invasion of the Northern Islands. There are so many options.”

  “The thing is, I need your help.”

  What could a spoiled, entitled, runaway princeling possibly do for you? Ash thought it, but he didn’t say it out loud, because then he would sound like one.

  “What kind of help?”

  “You’re not going to like it,” Lila said, shifting her eyes away.

  “That doesn’t surprise me. Go on.”

  “The simplest way to prevent the deal from going forward is to eliminate the girl.”

  “As in kill the girl.”

  “Yes.” Lila had the grace to look sheepish.

  “And you want me to do it.”

  “You still have access to her, right? You’re likely the only person who could do it and get away with it.” She leaned forward, speaking fast and persuasively. “Look at it this way, healer. If not for you, she’d be dead. So, in a way, you’re just undoing what you did.”

  “Breaking what I fixed.”

  “Exactly,” Lila said, looking proud that she’d come up with that.

  “You can find a way to justify anything, can’t you?”

  “Look, it’s the only way to kill the deal without giving everything away.”

  “Without giving your scheme away, you mean.”

  “Well, yes,” Lila said. “Plus, we survive. It’s all good.”

  “For everyone but Jenna.”

  “Do you think it’s better to send her off to the Northern Islands? Have you heard the expression ‘fate worse than death’?”

  “You need to get out of the habit of thinking of me as stupid,” Ash said. “I’m not going to help you kill Jenna, and it’s not because I’m naive.”

  “If I went to her, and I told her what the stakes are, what do you think she would say?”

  That was when Lila crossed the line.

  In a heartbeat, Ash had her pinned up against the wall. She tried some cagey moves, but got nowhere. “You will not go near her, do you understand?”

  Lila stared at him, an incredulous look on her face. “Blood and bones. How could I of missed that? You’re not stupid, you’re in love!”

  “Just because I won’t sign on to whatever plan you come up with doesn’t mean I—”

  “I can’t believe it!” Lila crowed.
“He has a heart after all.”

  “You’re not improving your chances of winning me over,” Ash said. “Just so you know. If you want my help, you’re going to have to come up with a different plan.”

  37

  A PLEDGE AND A PROMISE

  When Ash arrived at the tower room that night, the posted guard had been doubled. Whether because of Jenna’s demonstrated market value or mistrust of the pirates, it was getting more and more difficult to get in to see her. Just another sign that time was running out.

  When he finally gained entry, she was sitting, looking out the window, a book lying forgotten in her lap. She’d changed out of the dress she’d worn to the interview with Strangward and into the one she’d worn the day before. She’d pulled her hair free, too, and it hung softly around her shoulders.

  When she turned and saw him, she launched out of the chair, the book thunking onto the floor. They came together like two magnets slamming home. Ash could feel Jenna’s wildly beating heart through his velvet and her silk. It was like kisses were oxygen and they’d been drowning.

  Or they were about to drown.

  Finally, she broke away and held him out at arm’s length so she could look him over. “What’s that?” she asked, pointing to the bottle he carried.

  “It’s wine,” he said. “To celebrate some good news.” He set the wine jar and two cups down on the table next to her chair.

  “So,” she said, “what’s the news? Wait, don’t tell me—the king is dead.”

  There was something in her voice that caught his attention—some private knowledge or intuition. He hadn’t told her about his attempts to poison Montaigne. He didn’t want to get her hopes up, and she’d told him not to make promises, after all.

  He studied her a moment, then said, “Not yet. We’re celebrating for two reasons—first, Arden and Carthis were unable to come to terms. Montaigne is demanding his army before he hands you over. That buys us a little time.”

  “I’ll drink to that,” Jenna said, pouring them each some wine.

  “It might just be a temporary setback,” Ash warned.

  “Remember my rule? Savor the moment.” She raised her glass and they toasted.

  “Secondly, have you heard that Delphi has fallen?”

  Jenna was swallowing down some wine, and she all but choked on it. “F-fallen? To who?”

  “The Patriots have retaken the city. They’ve booted the mudbacks out.”

  Jenna set down her wine, gripped his elbows, and danced him around the room in a kind of impromptu upland reel, her bare feet thumping on the stone floor. “Come on, Wolf,” she said, when his feet didn’t move fast enough, “put the wine down and dance with me!”

  Ash did his best, and, finally, they collapsed into the chair, gasping and laughing.

  “Say it again,” she said fiercely. “I want to hear it again.”

  “The Patriots have retaken Delphi,” Ash said. “They’ve dealt the Ardenine army a crushing defeat.”

  “Oh,” she said, smiling. “I’ll bet the bonfires are still burning on the hills. I wish I could be there to see it. Fletcher must be in a world of joy.” Gradually, her smile faded and the melancholy crept back into her eyes. “There are so many people who didn’t live to see it. Maggi, and Riley, and my da . . .”

  He cupped her face with his hands. “Remember what you said—that worrying about the bad times can ruin what should be the good times. So celebrate. Celebrate without regret.” He kissed her, then poured them each another cup of wine.

  “To the Patriots of Delphi, both the living and the dead,” Jenna said, raising her cup in a toast. She drank deeply, then stared into space, turning the cup in her hands. “There it is again,” she murmured.

  “There’s what?”

  “Flamecaster. I keep hearing that name in my head.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ever since that emissary arrived, I’ve been hearing voices. It sounds like someone crying for help, saying ‘Flamecaster! Help me!’”

  “Flamecaster.” Ash frowned. “Wasn’t that your street name in Delphi?”

  Jenna nodded. “I . . . picked it because I was always setting fire to things and blowing things up.”

  “Is that new? The voices?”

  She nodded. “It’s always been images before.”

  “Could it have something to do with the fighting in Delphi? Maybe your gift is letting you know about somebody in trouble.”

  She shrugged. “Or I’m losing my mind. Anyway. Tell me about the emissary’s weapon.”

  Ash took a fortifying gulp of wine. “I didn’t actually see it myself, but I’m told that it’s a dragon.”

  “A dragon?” Jenna’s voice rose. “But . . . there’s no such thing?” She said this in the form of a question, as if she were no longer sure what was real and what was fantasy.

  “That’s what I thought, too,” Ash said. “But Lord Botetort saw it—he was all excited about it, in fact, and he has the imagination of a slug.”

  “How big was it?”

  “They said that it was the size of a horse, but, you know, built differently. Strangward said it was young, and not fully grown—that a fully grown dragon would be too big to transport by ship.” He paused. “It’s being kept in the hold, and Lila said that it looked like it was sick.”

  “It was sick?” Planting her feet on the floor, she leaned forward, her hands on her knees. “What do you mean? What was wrong with it?”

  “I’m just going by what Lila said. She said it was listless. Strangward said that it was fine, that it always sleeps a lot when it’s had a large meal.”

  Jenna pressed the heels of her hands against her temples, as if her head was in danger of splitting apart. She seemed to be getting more and more agitated as the conversation went on.

  “Are you all right?” Ash said. “What’s the matter?”

  “I don’t know,” Jenna whispered, fingering the magemark on the back of her neck. “It just seems like there’s something about dragons, something I should remember. Something that’s burned into my bones.” Her eyes were glazed, her breathing quick and shallow, and Ash guessed that images were flying through her mind.

  He waited until her eyes refocused a bit, then said, “Could you have foreseen that the empress meant to trade a dragon for you? Is that why it’s familiar?”

  She shook her head. “I don’t know. Anyway. What does the king want with a dragon?”

  “What he really wants is an army of mages,” Ash said. “That’s what the empress promised. Strangward is trying to persuade the king to accept a dragon as a kind of down payment or deposit so he can take you back with him. He claims that dragons could be useful in the war, to carry soldiers, and incinerate cities, that sort of thing.” It was an effort to keep his voice matter-of-fact. “Botetort was convinced, anyway. He was practically salivating, asking if he could have more than one.”

  “What did Lieutenant Karn have to say about the dragon? Did he see it?”

  Ash nodded. “He saw it. He didn’t say much, either way.” He paused. “What did you think of Strangward?”

  “He’s such a mingle and a mix, he’s hard to read. My gut tells me he’s dangerous, he’s scared, and he’s telling a big, big lie.”

  “I don’t believe him, either,” Ash said, “but he brought a big sackful of diamonds to prove he was in earnest.”

  She rubbed her chin. “I wish I could get my hands on him.”

  “What?” Ash’s stomach clenched.

  She grinned at him. “Easy there, Wolf. Sometimes I have to touch a person to get a reading.” She paused. “So—what do you think? Is this going to happen?”

  Ash shrugged unhappily. “He’s gone to a lot of time and trouble to get to this point. The empress must really want this deal.”

  “There’s a solution,” Jenna said. “What if I died before the exchange is made?”

  “What? No!” Ash felt a twinge of guilt, recalling his conversation with Lila. “That is no
t a solution.”

  “Think about it,” Jenna said. “The only thing worse than the king we have now is a king with a dragon and a whole new army.”

  “No one is asking you to—”

  “You don’t need to ask. I’m volunteering,” Jenna said. “Thousands of Patriots have died, fighting for freedom. It’s a chance to do my part.” Her voice trembled a bit.

  Ash cast about for options. “What if the dragon dies instead? Then Strangward has nothing to trade.”

  “No,” Jenna said, lifting her chin.

  “I don’t like it either, but when it comes to a choice between—”

  “Look,” Jenna said. “If the dragon dies, it just delays things. The empress can always ship over another one. Besides, from what you said, Montaigne is really looking for an army. What we need to do is prevent Montaigne from forming an alliance with this empress, whoever she is.”

  “A delay would help,” Ash said. “With a little time, the king could die. Or you might escape.”

  “That’s a prayer or a wish,” she said. “It’s not a plan.”

  “Give me another suggestion,” Ash said. “Something a little more creative than self-sacrifice.”

  She studied on it a while, and then her eyes lit up. “You said that the emissary’s ship is here, in the harbor?”

  Ash nodded.

  “What if we blow it up, and put the blame on Arden?”

  “We?” Ash raised an eyebrow. He reached up and tapped his collar. “And this would happen how? I’m out of commission when it comes to attack magic, remember.”

  Jenna rolled her eyes. “It’s not all about you, healer. I’m no wizard, and I’ve been blowing things up for years. I can tell you what you’ll need, and how to do it. You probably wouldn’t want to use magery anyway, if we want to blame it on Arden.”