Fires of the Faithful (20 page)

Darkness.

I
concentrated
.

Darkness.

My hands were shaking. Witchlight finally gleamed through my fingers, dim and greenish. Shadows leapt along the walls. I saw a woman, as tall and narrow as a spear, holding a violin, dancing in a circle of flame—I cupped my witchlight against my chest, willing it not to go out.

There was no way I could stay in here. Could it possibly be almost dawn? Still cupping my witchlight in my shaking hands, I grabbed all my belongings into my arms and scrambled out the broken shutter.

As soon as I was out of the house, I felt calmer. The sky was just turning violet in the east; the morning star gleamed like a candle against mist. The air was frosty and it was still too dark to travel. I wrapped my cloak around me and sat down on the low wall around the abandoned farm to wait for dawn.

I was almost home now. Starting as early as I did, I could cover the final distance by late afternoon. My feet and shoulders were raw, but that wouldn’t matter if I were back with my family. Besides, as I walked, I traveled back into more fertile lands. Seeing lush fields again, I almost felt that I could draw my own strength from the renewed land. It was a beautiful day, with a clear blue sky and sunshine that warmed as the day went on. The light of the day almost dispelled the shadows of the night.

Doratura was a small village, just a cluster of houses and farms on the other side of a low hill. I recognized the hill as I drew close, in the deep shadows of afternoon. The trees on the ridge were stark against the blue sky.

Climbing the hill, I smelled something—ash, and old cooked meat. I suddenly remembered Mira’s description of the square in Cuore where the Fedeli executed heretics at the stake.
It smells like cooked rotten meat
. I shuddered—had the Fedeli been here? Executed someone in Doratura? I broke into a run, scrambling up the hill until I could see down into the village.

“Lady—” I whispered.

My village was gone.

I shook my head, unable to believe what I saw. The houses were charred foundations, the fields black, the trees
twisted.
Magefire
. Mages had done this. This had to be somebody else’s village, I thought. I had forgotten my way and wandered here by mistake. This had happened during the war, except that the ash was still fresh, the stench still potent.

“No,” I heard myself saying. “Lord and Lady …” I started running, stumbling and nearly falling on the damp grass of the hillside. There were charred bones in the streets, bones in the doorways and courtyards of the houses, child-sized bones that had uselessly sought shelter behind trees, behind houses, in their mothers’ arms. I fixed my eyes on the ground under my feet, unwilling to look up. My family could not be—they couldn’t.

My house was on the far edge of the village. I could see it from the hill, but somehow I could refuse to believe until I stood among the charred ruins of my home, stared at the empty skeleton of the barn, the blackened fields. The stone foundations of my parents’ house still stood, and I stepped slowly over the threshold.

“Mother?” I whispered.

Doratura’s dead had been left where they fell; some had been blasted to ash by magefire, others had been picked over by scavengers. There were bones scattered through the house and yard, and as I stared around me, unable to believe what I saw, I realized that I didn’t even know whose bones were whose, where one body stopped and another started.

A breeze ruffled my hair and stirred the ashes around me like sand. I need to bury them, I thought. If I couldn’t be here to warn them—to die with them—I could at least bury their bodies. I let my violin and pack slip from my raw shoulders onto the stone doorstep. Tools were kept in the barn; if there was a shovel to find, it would be in there.

The animals had met the same fate as the people. As I
sorted through the wreckage, I found a small skull that had probably belonged to a cat. It had hidden itself under a low shelf, uselessly seeking safety. I wondered if there were mouse skeletons in there as well, or if they’d managed to get away. Near the shelf, I found the scoop of a shovel. The wooden handle had burned away, but with effort, I could use the scoop to dig a grave.

I had to kneel to use it, in the yard outside the house. I decided to dig where the herb garden had been, because the soil would be softer there. It bruised the heels of my hands as I worked; I settled for scraping out a single shallow grave, then went to gather up the bones.

Since I could hold only a few fragments in my hands, I used my spare robe to gather up what was left. The task would have been easier with a broom, the fragments were so small and so scattered; what I scooped up with my hands was as much dust and ash as bone, but then, the ash was probably my family, too. I piled everything onto the robe and carried it to the grave.

Before I covered over the bones with dirt, I took out the wooden box of Mira’s letters. I was tired of carrying this. I set the box on top of the bones. I thought for a moment about shaking out the spare robe, but I couldn’t imagine ever wearing it again. After staring for a moment at the small heap of bone, rubble, and ash, I used the shovel to close the grave.

I still couldn’t believe that this was my village—my home—my family, until I returned to the doorstep, to gather up my violin and my bag. Nestled in the corner, between the doorstep and the foundation wall, was a tiny clay bird whistle, like the ones Donato used to make for me. I knelt to pick it up, and grief tore through me like a knife. Donato would have made this for his daughter, I
knew. Now he was dead, and his wife and children with him.

My hand shook, and the whistle fell to the ground and cracked. “Oh no!” I screamed. I fell to my knees and picked up the two pieces, trying uselessly to fit them together again. “No, no,
no
, why did I have to drop it? Why?
No
. Please—” I pressed the pieces back together. “Please don’t be broken. Please, please don’t be broken.”

I don’t know how long I wept in agony over the shards of the broken whistle, but when I stopped, it was quite dark. I would have to spend the night here, with the ghosts of my family. I spread out my cloak and sat down, wishing I had wood for a fire; the spring night was turning cool, but everything burnable in Doratura had already been consumed by the magefire.

Staring into the darkness, I realized there was one more thing I needed to do for my family. I took out my bow and tightened it, then tuned my violin and tucked it under my chin, rising to stare out over the broken fields into the darkness around me.

Da
dat da
da
dat da
wham wham wham. Da
dat da
da
dat da
wham wham wham
. The rhythm of the funeral music didn’t echo against the dirt and ash that I stamped my foot against, but it echoed in my head, and as I closed my eyes, I imagined that Bella and Flavia were here to play with me.

I played the music through. Herennia had mentioned dances; my feet were too sore to dance as vigorously as I had that night in Bosco, but I moved in a slow circle as the girl there had shown me.
Right-pause-behind-pause. Right-
pause
-behind
-pause. At least there was no one here to see me.

I’d had seven brothers, all married, all with children. Donato was the second oldest. He’d been delighted by the
prospect of a younger sister after all those boys; in addition to making me whistles and helping me climb trees, he’d taught me to fight well enough to beat any boy my age, even the one boy who was bigger than I was. Donato was less of a ruffian than our eldest brother, Agrippo; Donato’s wife, Imelda, was gentle and sweet with a wry sense of humor, the kind of woman who was impressed by kindness, not the ability to intimidate all other prospective suitors.

Gone
, the song echoed.

My father was a big, quiet man. I’d gotten my height from him; he was taller than I was, taller than any man in the village except for Agrippo, who was a hair taller. My father had always been a little bewildered at the idea of a daughter; I’d catch him blinking at me like I was some sort of lost exotic bird that had flown to Verdia by mistake. When I was little, he would take me into his lap to tell me stories about Lugo, my grandfather’s youngest brother, who was blindingly stupid but always seemed to have things work out in his favor anyway.

Gone
.

My mother—I realized I was crying, my hands shaking. I could barely hold my violin. I remembered my mother’s touch, gently combing the tangles out of my hair. Each year in late summer, when we celebrated the Birth of the World, she would snip off a lock of my hair to keep in a pouch that she wore around her neck, along with a lock of hair from each of my brothers. That way she could pray for us, even if we were far away. The night before I went away to the conservatory, I asked to see the contents of the pouch—I wanted to be certain nothing had happened to the lock of my hair she had cut the previous summer.

She unlaced the soft circle of fabric and spread out the pouch on our table. There were ten locks of hair. “This
one is yours,” she said, pointing to a soft fawn-brown curl. “Agrippo’s, Donato’s, Rufo’s, Erucio’s, Lorenzo’s, Berio’s, Fiorenzo’s.”

“Who do these two belong to?” I asked, pointing at two tiny locks of silvery hair.

“I had two other children,” she said. “One between Agrippo and Donato, one just before you. They died when they were just babies.” She sighed and looked away. “I shouldn’t keep these—those children are with the Lady. But I can’t bear to give them up.”

Gone
.

I couldn’t play anymore. I paused, lowering the bow, trying to keep back my sobs.

Somewhere beyond me in the darkness, I saw the faint outline of a figure. For a moment, I thought it was Donato’s ghost, but the shadow was far too tangible, and I realized that it was the madman from the road. His eyes were calm and he didn’t look at me. Half closing his eyes, he raised his hands as if to grasp invisible hands on either side of him, then began dancing, moving in a slow circle around the clearing.
Step-pause-step step step turn, step
. Step-pause
step step step turn, step
.

Instead of feeling frightened, this time I felt oddly comforted. I lifted the bow again and began playing.
Da
dat da
da
dat da
wham wham wham. Step
-pause
-step step step turn, step
. The madman danced silently, except for the soft crunch of leaves underfoot. My hands were shaking again, but I was able to hold the violin steady enough to play the music through twice more. When I finished, I almost dropped the violin as I bowed my head, my body shaking with sobs. When I looked up, the madman was gone. Still shaking, I put the violin away, and curled up in my cloak. I had no one to watch over me, but the madman didn’t frighten me anymore.

This is all a dream
, I told myself, as I stared up at the stars.
If only I go to sleep, I will wake up, and find myself back in that empty house, or with Herennia and Metello. Or at the conservatory, with Mira beside me
. But I was too cold to sleep. And too alone.

At dawn, I rose and walked to the next village, Gervala, which was a few miles away. I don’t know what I would have done if I’d found another burned-out dead village, but Gervala was untouched. I went to the door of the first house I came to and knocked.

A woman opened the door a crack and peered out. “Who are you?”

“My name is Eliana—I’m from Doratura—”

She slammed the door closed. “Go away,” she said, her voice muffled behind the door.

“What happened?” I cried. “What
happened
? Everything’s
gone
.” There was no response, and I pounded on the door.
“Open the door!”
I screamed. “Tell me what happened to my village!”

The door opened again, and I half fell into the doorway. “Come in, then,” the woman hissed, and I limped inside.

She did not invite me past the threshold. “There were refugees from the wasteland,” she said. “They came up, trying to go north.
Doratura
took them in.” Her voice was scornful. “This was just a place to rest, they weren’t going to stay here. But soldiers came to meet them on the road, to turn them back. The refugees wouldn’t go home. The soldiers pushed them back to Doratura, the refugees fighting them the whole way. So then two weeks ago, the mages came.” She shuddered involuntarily. “Just five of them. They stood on the hill that overlooks the village and … they burned everything. They killed everyone.”

“Everyone?” I whispered.

“There were a few survivors. They took them south, to
Ravenna—it’s an encampment for refugees, deep in the wasteland. And a prison, I guess, for the ones who make trouble.” Her eyes hardened. “Now leave. I’ve told you everything I know.”

“My family,” I said. “Regillo and Marisa. Do you know if—”

“Go away!” she said, and struck me, shoving me out the door. She slammed it in my face.

I was alone in the damp morning. I tried knocking on another door, but this time no one answered. Eventually, the Gervalesi would have to come out to do their morning chores, but so long as I was there, apparently, they would sit inside with their doors barred.

Very well then, I thought. I needed more food; most of the provisions I had purchased in Pluma were gone. I could steal from the Gervalesi without feeling particularly guilty about it. I pried open one family’s storehouse and stole grain and dried fruit, and refilled my wineskin from their wine barrels. Their early spring stores were low, but not too low. I was quite certain they were watching me, but no one came. They were afraid of me, I knew—an angry orphan with nothing to lose, but worse, a symbol of their own shame. When I had taken all I could carry, I left the village.

Back on the road, I realized I had no idea where to go now. But the woman had said that they took the survivors south. I had not been able to identify the bodies as I buried them. Maybe someone in my family had survived. Limping from the pain of the blisters on my feet, I turned away and headed south.