Flamecaster (3 page)

As they made the handoff, Adrian managed to strip back the hood. He was surrounded by cloaked and hooded men. He saw his father in the distance, already midway across the bridge. “Da! Help!”

His father heard, and turned. The flowers fell to the bridge deck like jewels scattered on the pavement as he drew his sword in one fluid movement and charged at them.

All around Adrian, swords hissed free. While his captor was distracted, Adrian brought both feet down on his instep.

The wizard howled, something smashed down on Adrian's head, and he landed flat on his face on the icy cobblestones, twisting his ankle.

“Careful,” somebody growled. “Don't hit the mageling too hard. We want him alive.”

Mage. That was what they called wizards in Arden.

Close by, Adrian heard the clatter and clash of swordplay, smelled the acrid scent of wizard flame, heard somebody scream as a blade hit home. Black spots swarmed in Adrian's vision as he tried and failed to prop himself up. Tried not to spew onto the stones.

Finally, he rolled onto his back. His vision cleared enough that he saw his father, surrounded by six or eight swordsmen, fighting like a fury in the stories with flame and sword. He was backing toward him, trying to get close to Adrian, but he hadn't escaped the bite of the blades. His cloak was already sliced through in several places and spotted with blood.

It took everything Adrian had to sit up, then straighten to a standing position. He swayed, then shouted, “Leave him alone!” Gripping his amulet, he stood up next to his father and launched a flaming volley of his own, putting all of his frustration and fury into it, driving the assassins back.

“No, Ash! Run! Get to the river if you can,” his father shouted, pivoting and cutting down another swordsman. “Get into the river and dive.”

“I'm not leaving you. We can win this.”

That was when his father staggered, the tip of his sword drooping a little. He looked at the assassins, tried to lift his sword again, but it was as if it was too heavy.

“Da? What's wrong?” Adrian stepped in closer, but his father shook his head, reached for his amulet, then dropped his hand away, swearing softly. His body shuddered, and despite the cold, a sheen of sweat gilded his face.

That's when Adrian knew. It was poison. His father was poisoned. He followed his father's gaze, and saw that the assassins' blades were stained blue-gray with it.

His father stumbled to his knees, his sword clattering free on the stones. His face was pale, as if the blood were called to other places.

“That one's done,” the leader said. He pointed at Adrian with his poison-daubed blade. “Bring the mageling, and let's go.”

Howling with rage, Adrian turned and charged toward the assassins, sending a deluge of flame out ahead. But, somehow, his father tripped him, and he went down hard on his face in the snow. His father crawled forward and covered his body with his own. He felt warm breath in his ear.

“Lay still,” he said. “Play dead, buy some time. The bluejackets will come. These ones will run. They don't want to be caught and questioned.”

Adrian struggled to get up, but his father had him pinned. He heard what sounded like an army of running feet and somebody shouting, “The High Wizard! The
bastards have killed the High Wizard!”

A mob of people hurtled past. Adrian heard screams and blows landing, shouts of rage and despair.

Finally wriggling free, he gripped his amulet with one hand, pressing the other hand into his father's chest. He sent power in, seeking to isolate the poison. But it was everywhere, and already the spark of life was all but extinguished. He ripped his father's cloak and shirt away, exposing wounds that should have been minor. He sent flash in directly, desperately trying to draw the poison out. It hit him like a runaway cart, and he reeled back.

“Don't,” his father whispered, twisting away from Adrian's hand. “You don't want to risk it. You're not strong enough, on your own. Wait for help.”

Adrian understood. Wizard healers took on the ailments of their patients, and so healing a gravely sick patient was always risky. Even more so for someone who didn't know what he was doing. But there would be no waiting, because waiting meant that his father would die.

“I am going to save you,” Adrian growled. “I don't care what it costs. You're important. You need to live.”

“Ash. Please listen. I have been saved so many times,” his father said. “First your mother saved me, and then you and your sisters. I'm not the one who needs saving now.” His body shuddered again. “Save yourself, and the Line. Your mother will take this hard, and she's had enough grief in her life already. Tell her . . . tell her that having her . . . that being with her . . . that loving her . . . it was
worth it. It was worth it. Will you tell her that?”

“No!” Adrian cried. “You can tell her yourself. I'm not letting you go.”

“Sometimes . . . you have to . . . let go.” His father took both his hands and closed them over the serpent amulet. “This is yours. I want you to go to Oden's Ford and learn how to use it.”

And then he was gone, the spiritas departing like a whisper on the wind, or a gray wolf on the snow. And, with it, Adrian's childhood.

A fierce anger ignited inside him, mingled with guilt and pain. His father had survived a lifetime of fighting—until Adrian lured him into a fight he couldn't win. He'd failed him in every way possible. He bowed his head over their joined hands and prayed to whatever god was listening, “Take me. Take me instead. Spare him. Please.”

The gods, it seemed, were occupied elsewhere.

Adrian was no use in a fight, and he was no use as a healer. He was no use to anyone. He couldn't bear the thought of facing his mother and sister and telling them what had happened. How could he live in a world that claimed the good and left the bad alone?

He lifted the serpent amulet from around his father's neck and hung it around his own. He didn't much care where he went, as long as it was away from there. So he ran, limping badly, until he lost himself in the tangle of streets.

The day Jenna's friend Riley died began as they all did—at three in the morning with the long, bone-jarring ride up the mountain to the mine. It was sleeting when Jenna trudged up the hill to the pickup place, so she was shivering and soaked through by the time she got there. The wagon was waiting, the horses steaming and stomping in the cold, the driver yelling at her to hurry up, he didn't want to get fined for being late.

Jenna shook off the ice as best she could and climbed in, squeezing in next to Riley as the wagon lurched into motion. She always sat next to Riley if there was room, with little Maggi on her other side. He'd put his arm around their shoulders, their bodies pressed tight together.
That way, they'd all three stay warm, and she could sleep, which made the workday seem shorter.

On the way home, if they could stay awake, she and Riley would talk about what they wanted to be when they grew up, even though Riley was fifteen and already grown, and Jenna twelve and nearly grown. They'd made a pact that they would get out of the mines one day.

Today, Riley had this smug look on his face, like he was hiding a great big secret. As soon as Jenna got settled, he draped a bright-red cloak over the two of them, pulling it up over their heads to keep off the sleet.

The cloak smelled of wet sheep, and it was scratchy, but it was big enough to cover them both, even leaving a corner for Maggi, and it was rum warm. Jenna fingered the wool, snuggling down inside it. “Riley! Where'd you get such a fine cloak?”

“There was an explosion at the ironworks two days ago, and three of the colliers was killed. So the foreman, he give me one of their cloaks.”

“You got a cloak off a dead man?” Jenna stared at him, horrified.

Riley shrugged. “He won't be needing it.”

“But . . . but that's bad luck,” Jenna said. “Everybody knows that.”

“Me, I think it's good luck, 'cause we're warmer for it. Also 'cause it's like a cave to hide in.” He leaned close, his lashy brown eyes meeting hers. She knew he wanted to
kiss her—he'd done it before—but was a little shy, with Maggi there. Jenna pulled his head down toward hers, and he kissed her on the lips.

Her cheeks burned, but she felt a pleasant tingle deep in her belly. She didn't know what to say, so she changed the subject. “I have a surprise for you, too.” She patted her lunch bucket. “In here.”

He eyed the bucket. “If I guess, will you tell me?”

“Maybe.”

“It's a meat pie. Isn't it?” Riley was big and strong and he always seemed to be hungry. Jenna ate better than most because her father owned a tavern. She'd brought Riley a meat pie once before.

Maggi overheard. “A meat pie! Can I have a bite?” Maggi was probably seven years old, scrawny as a baby bird. She was an orphan, so she was always hungry, too. There were lots of hungry orphans in town, though lots had died. If Jenna'd had a sister, she would want her to be just like Maggi. Except better fed and living somewhere other than Delphi.

Jenna shook her head. “Sorry, Maggi. It's not a meat pie. It's a book.”

“A book?” Riley looked away and cleared his throat. “But you know I can't read. I'm fixing to learn, but—”

“I'll teach you,” Jenna said. “I'll read it to you on the way home.”

“You will?” Riley's eyes widened.

“Can I listen, too?” Maggi said. “You tell the best stories.”

Jenna nodded. “You can listen. And here.” Digging in her pocket, she pulled out a small, wrinkled apple and handed it to Maggi. “I found this on my way up to the ride. You can eat it now or save it for the midday.”

Maggi had already bitten into it. She knew better than to save things for later. The juice ran down her chin, making trails in the dirt on her face. Once she'd finished the apple, she tossed the core and snuggled down to sleep, her head in Jenna's lap. Jenna stroked her hair, working out some of the tangles.

“Most of my stories come from books,” Jenna said to Riley. “I used to read all the time before I went into the mines. My da taught me how. I liked to pretend I was one of the characters.”

Riley wrapped their cloak tighter to keep out the wet and looked over the packed-in bodies around them. He blotted rain from the end of his nose with his sleeve. Riley was usually a cheerful sort, but on this morning he seemed a little downcast. Maybe because the bosses were working him harder than anybody else. “If I was a character in a book, I'd want to be in a different story.”

“You will be,” Jenna said, leaning closer so she could speak into his ear. “You can be in my story.” And then, for reasons she couldn't explain, she leaned toward him and shared the secret she'd kept forever. “See, I'm magemarked.”

“Magemarked?” His eyebrows came together. “What's that?”

“Shhh,” she said, clapping her hand over his mouth and glaring around the packed wagon. From what she could tell, everyone else was asleep. It was amazing how alone you could be in the middle of a crowd. “Nobody can know.” She took his hand and placed it over the raised emblem on the back of her neck, the spiderweb of metal, the smooth stone at the center.

His eyes widened as he brushed his fingers over the surface. “What's it mean?” he whispered.

“It means I'm powerful.”

“Well,” Riley said, swallowing hard, “maybe
you
are. But I don't have a mark.”

Jenna was instantly sorry she'd brought the whole thing up. She'd kept it to herself for this long. Why had she chosen to blurt it out now?

“That doesn't matter,” she said. “We are chosen, you and I. We'll write our own story, you'll see.” Putting her hands on Riley's shoulders, she looked into his eyes. “When I look at a person, I can see who they really are.”

“You can't,” Riley said.

“I can.” That was a stretcher. She'd see pictures or hear fragments, was all, but it wasn't easy figuring out what they meant. Sometimes it was the person as they were, only clearer, truer, like when somebody lets their guard down. And sometimes it was the person they were going to be.

Other people she knew by their scent. For instance, Riley smelled of sweat and hard work and kindness and honesty.

“Who'm I?” Riley asked, lifting his chin and striking a pose.

Jenna stared at him. She saw him just as he was. Beyond that, nothing at all.

“What? What is it?” Riley swiped at his face like he was afraid it was dirty.

“Why, Riley, I think you're going to be a king,” Jenna said finally.

“A king. What do you mean?”

“I keep seeing you, and a crown, and a sword. That must mean you're meant for great things, right?” She leaned in close and whispered, “In our story, the king of Arden gets eaten by wolves in Chapter One.”

Riley laughed softly, but he still looked around to make sure nobody could overhear. “For now, I'd be glad to hear the story you brought. It'll give me something to look forward to, while we're down in the mine.” He sighed. “I wish it was the end of the day right now.”

But it wasn't the end of the day. They were just pulling up in front of the Number Two mine, which meant that the end of the day was twelve hours away. They called it the Number Two because a year ago there'd been an explosion at the Number One mine that buried the entrance under tons of rubble, shutting it down.

The colliers said it was firedamp, the explosive gas that built up in the mine. The Ardenine bosses claimed it was sabotage, because it happened at change of shift, when there were few miners underground. The king of Arden was furious when he heard, because he needed coal and steel to put weapons into the hands of his army. So they cut a new shaft into the mountain. Most of the able-bodied men and women in Delphi had been forced into the mines already. So King Gerard issued orders to herd up every lýtling in Delphi and send them into the mines to make up for lost time. That was a year ago.

The youngest lýtlings died the first month. They'd be carried from the mine at the end of each shift, piled in a wagon, and driven back down to town so their parents could claim them. Jenna was just eleven when she went into the mine, but she was wiry and strong, and healthier than most. Plus, she was too stubborn to die, and leave her da all alone.

“Keep your head down, now,” Jenna said, when they parted at the crossroads at the bottom of the shaft.

“Keep your head down,” Riley said back. It was a ritual with them, like a charm of protection before he trudged off, toward the deepest part of the mine. More and more, they'd put him on the coal face as a hewer, digging with a pick and shovel with the other men. By the end of the day he was so tired that he slept all the way home. He'd been in the mines for three years. He'd started when he
was a twelve-year, being big even then. The more often he worked the coal face, the more he coughed.

When Jenna first went into the mine, Riley was a “hurrier”—he wore a leather strap around his waist and pulled heavy carts of coal up the ramp to the cage. Jenna worked as a “thruster,” pushing the carts from behind. Or sometimes as a “trapper,” opening trapdoors so the carts could rattle through. You had to look sharp if you were a trapper—if a cart came up and you weren't ready, you'd get run over. Or you'd open up a trap, and the firedamp would roar out like a dragon and burn you right up.

Jenna had a knack for knowing when firedamp was lurking behind the trap. It was like she could feel the seething heat of it, her heart beating with the pulse of the flame. Once, she pulled Maggi off right as she was about to open the trap. One of the bosses swung his club at her for slowing down production. Then he opened the trap and was charred to a crisp.

People liked to work with Riley, because he was so strong that it made it easy on the thrusters, and he was always careful of the trappers, especially at the end of the shift, when everyone was tired.

Riley also had a way of getting between the bosses and the lýtlings when they were handing out beatings. And showing up when this particular wormy-lipped guard tried to drag a little girl into a side tunnel. He didn't say anything, he'd just be there until the guard let her go.

The bosses didn't like Riley because of what he said and did, and because the other miners looked up to him, even though he was only fifteen.

Jenna was sorry that Riley was in the mine. At the same time, having him there made her life bearable.

When the end of the shift finally came, they rode up in the cage together, holding hands. They walked out into the twilight, blinking like cave creatures, joining a jostling crowd of miners just outside.

The wagons were not lined up as usual, but had been pulled over to one side. A tented pavilion had been set up a short distance from the mine, and the red hawk of Arden flew from the tent poles. There were armed soldiers everywhere—surrounding the pavilion and keeping a close watch on the collected miners. The soldiers wore black coats marked with the red hawk, too. The usual name for them was blackbirds.

“What's going on?” Riley asked Brit Fletcher, who always seemed to know.

“It seems we're about to hear some scummer from His Majesty, King Gerard.” Fletcher spat on the ground.

“He's here?” Jenna shrank back a little. “What's he doing here?”

“It seems that he and the missus are promenading around the empire, showing how they an't scairt of a few Patriots.”

“What do you mean?”

“An't you heard? There's been riots in Tamron Seat, and rebels took over the keep at Baston Bay a few months ago. Didn't hold it long, but still. Word is that some of the thanes is getting restless 'cause they're tired of war.” Fletcher smiled, like he approved.

“Shhh,” Riley said, glancing around. “Somebody might hear.”

Fletcher made no secret that he hated the king of Arden. Some whispered that he was an actual Patriot—one of those who fought back against the king and his blackbird guards. His family had died when Arden took the city, so he didn't have a lot to lose. He was old—near to forty, some said—so he'd be dead before long anyway.

“That must be him,” Jenna murmured, pointing.

A small group of people had emerged from the pavilion amid a crowd of soldiers. Jenna recognized Delphi's greasy mayor, Willett Peters, along with Ned Shively, the Big Boss at the mine. Swiving Shively, the miners called him.

With them was a finely dressed pair. It was hard to get a good look from that distance.

“Let's move up closer,” Jenna said, thinking it might be her one chance to see a king or a queen in person.

“I don't think that's a good idea,” Riley began, but she was already sliding through the crowd to the front so she could get a better view. Still murmuring protests, Riley followed after, pulling his new red cloak closer around himself.

Now at the front, Jenna got a good look at the king. He was a narrow man of medium height with nearly colorless blue eyes and a thin, cruel mouth. He wore a slate-gray velvet jacket with a fine blue cape over top, already spotted from the sleet. The wind that blew down out of the mountains ruffled his mouse-brown hair.

The woman with him was taller than the king, but she hunched down a little, maybe so people wouldn't notice. She looked to be a foreigner, with her tawny skin and brown eyes and a mouth as full as the king's was stingy. She wore a pale yellow dress with a white fur wrap, yellow silk slippers, and white gloves.

“Who's that lady?” Maggi asked Fletcher, pointing. She'd wormed her way up front, too.

“That's Queen Marina, poor thing,” Fletcher said. “She was a princess in Tamron, daughter of the king. Gerard murdered her whole family, took over the kingdom, and married her.”

“She's beautiful,” Maggi whispered.

Fletcher snorted. “Did you ever see anything like it? Little fancy shoes and white gloves—in Delphi? They won't be white for long.”