Trial by Fire (45 page)

“There you are!” Juliet called out, relieved. She ran over to Lily and grabbed her arm, pulling her away from Rowan before he could protest any further. “We have to get you out of here. Lillian’s having a pyre built on the wall. The sachem told me he wants you and the scientists to hide in the woods.”

Lily paused. She looked over Juliet’s shoulder at all the people who would die tonight without her.

“Where is the sachem?” Lily asked. “I want to see him.”

“I’ll take you.”

Juliet led Lily and Rowan a short way through the camp. When they joined up with the sachem, they found all three of the scientists were with him, along with Caleb and Tristan. Lily also recognized a few of the faces from outside the sachem’s council carriage. She nodded at the elders in greeting.

“Lily. We all want to thank you and your mechanics for returning our scientists,” one of the elders said. When she came forward through the crowd, Lily saw that it was Dana.

“Just a simple tanner, huh?” Lily replied, shaking her head.

“I was once,” Dana said through a grin.

“I’m just glad we all made it out,” Lily said. She grimaced suddenly at the irony of the situation. “For what it’s worth.”

Dana nodded, her eyes glinting with understanding. “It was worth a lot. Outlanders are used to dying, but if we die tonight, at least this time it will be for something we believe in.”

Lily frowned in thought. “I’ve always been big on fighting for what I believe in.” She laughed at herself. “Which, in my world, means I wore a lot of T-shirts and donated my allowance to groups I wished I could join. I was always too sick and too weak to actually fight.” She looked over at Rowan. “Until now.”

“Lily,” he whispered, his face pleading with hers. “Don’t.”

“I have to, Rowan.” She reached out and took his hand again. “You know I do.”

“What’s going on?” Tristan asked.

“Lily wants to go to the pyre,” Rowan said, never taking his eyes off hers.

“That’s insane,” Tristan said with a laugh. A silence followed his outburst. “This is ridiculous,” he continued, his tone serious now. “Ro, she can’t handle it yet. You know she can’t.”

“It’s not my decision,” Rowan replied. “It’s hers.”

“Lily,” Juliet said calmly. “You’re no good to the rebels dead.”

Lily nodded, dropping her head. “If I don’t do this, there’ll be no rebels left to help, Juliet,” she said. She looked up at Rowan. “I’ll need to claim everyone who’s willing. We’d better start now.”

You’re not going to listen to me, are you, Lily?

Please, Rowan. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try to do this.

Brave and stubborn and determined to break my heart.

“Yeah, we’d better,” Rowan said blankly, pulling his hand out of Lily’s. He looked around at the sachem and all the elders. “Have everyone who wants to live through the night come before Lily to be claimed.”

The sachem nodded and called over his shoulder to his painted warriors. “Do it,” he ordered, and half of them raced off into the dark.

Rowan turned to Tristan and Caleb. “Come on. We have to build Lily’s pyre.” He brushed past Lily, heading toward the back of camp. Tristan followed him, barely looking at Lily as he passed.

“I hope you’re a fast learner, little witch,” Caleb said, looking down at her with a worried frown. He put one of his huge hands on her shoulder and squeezed.

“Me, too,” she replied, smiling up at him weakly. “Caleb? Do you think I’m doing the right thing?”

“Yes, I do. I just don’t want you to die.”

“Me neither.”

Caleb gave her a fierce hug. He released her quickly and left her with the sachem. She stood next to him solemnly, trying not to shake too much.

“Will you take care of my sister if I don’t make it?” Lily asked the sachem.

“Lily,” Juliet began, but the sachem cut her off with a gently raised hand before she could continue.

“I swear to you I will,” he said.

“Thank you, Alaric.”

Outlander braves began to gather in front of Lily, waiting to be claimed. They were anxious. Their eyes darted over to the sachem, as if to ask if it were okay with him that they were giving themselves to a witch. Alaric had to wave people forward, encouraging them to step up, although Lily noticed that he didn’t offer himself to her. She didn’t ask, either. Lily assumed there was a reason he’d never had his knee healed by Rowan or Tristan, or any of the other competent mechanics that were sworn to him, and she assumed it was because he didn’t trust witchcraft, even if he could see its usefulness.

Alaric wasn’t alone in that sentiment. Most of the Outlanders had spent their lives hating and fearing the Covens, and more than a few had lost loved ones in Lillian’s witch hunt for scientists. Offering themselves to her was a big leap, and Lily didn’t take their trust lightly. Every time she went to take a stone between her fingertips, she remembered what it was like to have a hateful person touch her little hearts like that, and she focused on being as gentle and as quick as possible.

Thousands of lives flashed inside her mind. She saw good people, bad people, weak and strong. Lily saw love and trauma tangled together inside almost everyone that came before her. Some people were damaged and still hopeful, while others had fallen down under the weight of their misfortunes. Lily learned the rhythm of them all. The patterns she gathered from their willstones stacked up inside her mind, like she was listening to thousands of songs, catching the main tune in each one and filing it away. Somehow she knew that if she ever heard that particular person’s song again, she would recall the refrain, and her willstones would be able to play it back. In under an hour, Lily had the keys to thousands of minds.

Lily. It’s time.

There are more waiting to be claimed, Rowan.

It’s too late. Lillian is opening the Salem gates. Her army marches out now.

“Sachem, I have to go,” Lily said, stumbling back. Alaric nodded at Lily in understanding and she turned to go. The warriors still waiting clamored to be claimed. “I’m sorry,” Lily cried. “But it’s time.”

“Lily!” Juliet said, clutching at her sister’s arm. “Be strong. And come back.”

“I’ll will.” Lily hugged Juliet quickly and sped off.

She ran through the last of the waiting braves, brushing her fingertips across their bared willstones. She heard their patterns in her head, but didn’t have time to process any of them as she ran through the crowd, past the outstretched necks and pleading eyes. She had no idea if it was enough, or if she’d missed these soldiers and they’d have to fight without her strength.

The shouts of the sergeants marshalling the foot soldiers rose up behind her as she ran to Rowan. She heard the troops being rallied into ranks and marching out as she ran to the back of the army, where her pyre awaited.

Lily could see the heap of wood towering high above the heads of the scrambling men and women like a huge hill of sticks. At the very top, a single stake stuck up from the pyre. Even from a distance, Lily could see iron shackles dangling from its top. Her stomach twisted with fear.

Rowan, Tristan, and Caleb met her at the bottom of the pyre. A rough staircase had been built into the side of the giant stack of wood, leading up to the stake. They waited for her at its entrance.

“Take everything off,” Rowan said, gesturing to Lily’s wearhyde gear. He held a white slip of silk in his hands.

Lily untied her boots and stripped off her clothes, her fingers fumbling and her knees shaking. As soon as she was undressed, Rowan dropped the white slip over her naked body. She shivered as the slippery cold silk whispered across her skin and flared out around her thighs.

“Good luck, Lily,” Tristan whispered, kissing her softly on the cheek.

“Don’t die,” Caleb said, trying to smile bravely. Lily nodded and swallowed hard but couldn’t smile back.

Rowan took her wrist and led her up the precarious steps to the stake. Her bare feet padded up the rough-hewn edges of the recently harvested logs. The turpentine smell of sap and abraded wood surrounded her. Clumsy with fear, she stumbled along behind Rowan up the steep and wobbly way. Her tender feet filled with splinters and began to bleed. On top of the pyre was a single plank that led to the stake. Rowan guided Lily across the plank and pushed her back against the stake.

“Are you doing this for me?” he asked, pressing against her. His face was pale and his eyes were wide and vulnerable.

“No. I’m doing this for all of us,” Lily replied, happy he hadn’t asked her that question in mindspeak. “What are the shackles for?”

“When you start to burn, no matter what your mind wants, your body will try to leap off the pyre. It’s a reflex.”

Rowan took her wrists in his hands, looking down at them. Slowly, he raised her left arm over her head, and clasped it in one shackle. Lily started shaking all over.

“What do I do?”

“Gift as many as you can as fast as you can. If you feel yourself burning and you can’t get rid of the energy quickly enough, send it to me. No matter how much it is.” He raised her right arm over her head and locked it in the second shackle. “I can take it.”

“Oh god, Rowan. I’m scared.” Her eyes filled with tears and her chest swelled in and out with panicked breaths.

I’ll be with you.
Rowan kissed her quickly, crushing her against him.
Always.

He tore himself away and ran down the rough steps. “Light it!” he yelled to Tristan and Caleb.

Lily could hear her breath rasping in and out, and the iron chains jingling over her head. She looked across the battlefield and saw a bright fire at the top of the wall. Lillian’s pyre was already aflame.

She smelled the smoke first. It billowed up from underneath, choking her. Lily coughed so hard she doubled over until the chains stopped her, and saw the flames flickering below. Then she felt the heat.

Her feet were suddenly burning. An animal need to get away from the flames possessed her, and Lily tugged violently on the chains. The flames rose quickly. There was no way to escape them, no matter how she twisted or turned, and she began to burn. Screams tore out of her, horrible shrieking sounds that she’d never made before.

Lily. Take the heat. Change it into force. Give it to me, or you’ll die.

Writhing in agony, Lily took the heat in and found that as she did so, the flames felt cooler. She pulled in more and more heat until she thought she would burst with it, then turned the gathered heat into force. The roar of the flames silenced for one brief moment. Lily looked up and saw a bright column of light beaming straight up from where she stood, hundreds of feet into the sky. A witch wind howled high up in the atmosphere, spinning the clouds above like a hurricane. It made an eerie sound, like the sky were moaning. Across the battlefield, Lillian’s hurricane spun above the Citadel, a twin to Lily’s.

Give it to us, Lily.

Lily recalled the patterns of every willstone she’d ever claimed. Thousands of different rhythms flashed across her mind, forming a complicated series of vibrations that she experienced like a song of buzzes and hums in her body. There were so many, but the pain helped her focus on each and every one. Lily unlocked all the stones in her army and filled them with power.

Thousands of bodies arched with euphoria and thousands of minds reached for Lily, sharing the experience with her. At the front of all the minds, strong and clear, was Rowan’s. Near to him in strength and familiarity were Tristan and Caleb, and close behind, Dana. Lily poured the lion’s share of power into their stones and connected each of them with the minds of the soldiers she sensed around them. Lily’s newly appointed generals led her army out onto the battlefield at a run.

Her body hanging limply from her chains, Lily’s mind thundered with them toward the oncoming army in her mind. She felt her fighters clashing with Lillian’s, felt the front lines charge through each other and pass in a blur of bodies and steel. She was there with Rowan when he cut off Gideon’s head in the first second of battle.

Lily shared in the experience of battle with her soldiers. She thrilled with them at the feeling of invincibility that so many of them had never experienced before. She also felt it when they died. A one-of-a-kind rhythm would suddenly stop, and that unique part of the symphony would be lost forever. Every time it was a shock to her. Every time, she gasped at the loss. But feeling the loss drove her even harder. The flames bent toward Lily as she greedily pulled their heat into her core and changed it into force in an ever-increasing loop. When she felt one of her soldier’s strength fail, she would flood his or her stone with power.

The two bewitched armies were evenly matched, and the fighting went on and on. The pyre began to collapse as the wood was consumed. A firestorm whirled around Lily in a tornado of sparks and ashes. Lily had to fight to breathe among the oxygen-hungry flames. The stake she was chained to crumbled, and Lily easily pulled her shackles free of it. She was so tired. Her skin began to burn as she fell to her knees, struggling to stay conscious. She heard Lillian’s voice in her head.

You can’t win. And I don’t want you to die. I’ll pull my army back if you get off the pyre, Lily.

Why, Lillian? I would think you’d want me dead at this point.

Not at all. You are everything I hoped you would be. I need you. That’s why I brought you here to begin with.

There are an infinite number of us, Lillian. Why not get another one?

No. You’re perfect. And I’d never get Rowan to train a third.

Lily knew Lillian couldn’t lie in mindspeak and wondered if she’d meant to say this, or if she was struggling over there on her own pyre and, in pain, she’d let it slip.

You led me to him that first day, didn’t you Lillian? You guided me through the city right to him. You needed me to meet him.

Rowan is loyal to a fault. Even to cafes. I knew he would be there, and I knew that even if I found a replacement who had every ounce of my potential, without Rowan, she’d never match it. I needed Rowan to train you as much as I needed you.