Then I turn, facing the moonlit sky once more. My breath suddenly hard and fast, I run to the mouth of the tunnel, spring out onto the open platform, throw back my head, and let a roar erupt from the pit of my soul. A gout of green flame bursts from my mouth, burning my throat, my tongue, my lips as it lashes the cold night air. It sears my eyeballs with its hellish fury, but I keep on roaring until all the breath is emptied from my lungs and all the pent-up heat inside me is expelled.
The flame flickers out. I double over, emptied in both body and spirit. Sinking to my knees, I struggle to draw thin breaths into my heaving chest. I don’t know how long I remain in this attitude, bowed down before the vast arch of sky and stars andmoon, exposed to their distant judgment. It may be hours. Lifetimes. Mere moments.
Finally, I breathe out a single word: “Damn.” A last flicker of flame falls from my lips.
Sitting up on my heels, I draw my first full breath, wincing at the furnace still roiling in my chest. It’s eased now, however. And along with it, that surge of rage which had very nearly overtaken me at the sight of that burn on her hand. Even now, just thinking about it, I can feel the fire in me seeking to rise once more.
I won’t have her burned. Not again.
My eyes squeeze shut, and my teeth grind with the effort to drive out that image—that image, which has been too painfully present in my mind’s eye from the moment I looked into her face while standing in that hidden alcove just three days ago. When she pulled back from that unexpected embrace, her lips parted and a little swollen, her eyelashes fluttering fast. And with each rise and fall of those lashes, I beheld again those citrine eyes, which I knew too well, not merely because of their terrible resemblance to Mhoryga.
No, I knew those eyes…because I had looked into them once before.
The night wascool when we arrived in the little coastal village. But before long, the very air boiled with the heat of our summoned flame, and everywhere one looked, one saw hell itself made manifest in this world. The townsfolk screamed as dragon spawn flew overhead, and the little thatch-roofed buildings went up like pyres, blazing sacrifices to the dark goddess who ordered their burning.
It was my first mission with the dracori. I was not quite a manbut certainly no longer a boy, untried in the field but trained for war and bloodshed. I believed myself ready for anything I was called upon to do. Whatever conscience my tender young self once boasted had long since been obliterated, replaced only by the single, driving need to prevent further harm being done to my brother. Nothing else mattered. Certainly not the sorry lives of these strangers whose faces I did not know and whose lives were so utterly removed from mine. They could burn for all I cared.
“Go around to the back.” My commanding officer flung out an arm, green fire blazing in a ball around his clenched fist. “Make certain no one gets out that way.”
I hastened to do his bidding, sprinting to the far side of the cottage into which we had just chased our quarry. She barred the door against us, but that was no great difficulty. She would soon come running once the flames grew too hot and the air in her lungs seared her from the inside out. We would catch her and the prize she held on to then.
There were no doors on the back of the cottage, nor windows either. It stood within sight of the edge of Inamaer, and no one in their right mind would want to look out on that dark forest. So I knew my commander had sent me here as the barest precaution, not because he expected me to be of any particular use. But I obeyed at once and without question, good soldier that I was.
Thus, I was the only one to see when the little figure appeared on the rooftop, slipping and sliding down the thatch to land in the dirt just a few yards from where I stood. Green flames licked up her sleeve, and she screamed and rolled, desperate to smother it out. I gave her no chance to recover. Just as she managed to douse the flame, I strode to her where she lay, rolled her onto her back, and planted my knee on her chest, staring down into hereyes. Those wide, terrified eyes. Gazing up at me from that small, fear-twisted face.
I recognized her at once—the image of Mhoryga is all too present in the features of her spawn. For a moment, hatred flared in my heart.
But then I blinked. Looked again. She was just a child…not even as old as I was on the day I watched my father burn. Green flames reflected in her eyes, dancing in time with the pulse of her terror. The stench of seared flesh filled my nostrils.
For the space of a single heartbeat, I considered the cost of failure. I knew what would happen, what would be taken, should I not fulfill the mission my goddess ordained for me. And yet…
I stood, removing the pressure of my knee from her chest, then gripped the front of her gown and hauled her to her feet. “Run,” I snarled into her sobbing face.
She turned at once and bolted for Inamaer. She would never make it, I knew. They would see her, they would catch her. Already, I heard my commander shouting, saw figures rounding the far side of the cottage. I raised both hands, let loose a blast of green flame—
I open myeyes.
I’m back on the mountaintop once more, back on that old watchtower platform. My fingers grip the paving stones, nails breaking as they tear into rock. Heat sizzles in my palms, hot vapors rising, stinging my nostrils. I breathe out a long sigh, forcing my inner core to cool, to calm.
I lost so much for my weakness that long-ago night. Or rather, Arun did. When they dragged me back to Khylmira in chains, Mhoryga had laughed in my face.Don’t worry, sweetness,she’d purred, trailing a clawlike nail under my chin.I’ve put too much effort into creating you, and I don’t like to see good work go to waste.
She summoned my brother then, forced him to kneel before her.
I’ll never forget that spurt of blood. Those screams.
I let Arun down that night. I won’t let myself fail this time. I won’t let Arun suffer any more for my weakness.
But…when I saw that fresh burn on her hand…when I realized what Alderin had done to her…
“I won’t let her burn,” I whisper. “Not again. Never again.”
I will kill her. Of course I will; I have no other choice. But when I kill her, three days from now, it will be swift, almost painless. A quick dart of my blade, plunged in deep and fast so that she never has the chance to realize what I’ve done. I couldn’t bear it if she knew. I couldn’t bear it if her last few moments of life were flooded with knowledge of my betrayal. I must be certain that does not happen, that she never knows, that she dies still believing we are…
“Friends,” I whisper. Bitterness coats my tongue.
22
Rosie
