Firebrand

The aureas slee must have been losing control for suddenly the doors crashed open and Weapons poured in. They bore down on the creature like furious hornets. It was now more than clear that the aureas slee was not the king for he’d lost all the king’s features, was a figure of clear ice, with eyes like hailstones. Its arm melted off with the heat of the flames. Its wail pierced through Anna’s chest, then failed as swords hacked into it.

There was another enormous blast of wind that blew out her kindling, and then nothing. The aureas slee was gone. It left behind only a pile of the king’s clothes that it had been wearing, and a puddle that had been its arm. All grew quiet, the wailing had ceased, the air stilled. For a breath, no one moved, but for a breath only.

“See to the queen,” one of the Weapons ordered the others. “Get Vanlynn and Rider Simeon, now!”

“Captain Mapstone is down,” another Weapon shouted from near her crumpled body.

Anna stood where she was as the Weapons swarmed about the room and around her. She still held the smoking bundle of kindling like an extinguished torch. Beside her the sofa smoldered, and in her peripheral vision, she saw a Weapon lift the queen into his arms and carry her away toward her bed chamber.

It was as good a time as any, Anna thought, to faint.

BENEATH THE OPEN SKY

Zachary dreamed once more of the deer fleeing before him, bounding this time not through the woods, but through tall grasses. He pursued her, but he could never run fast enough. He was always trying to catch up, his bow in hand. The grasses whipped his legs as he ran, the distance ever widening between him and his quarry. He would never have her. He . . .

He lost the dream as he awakened, awakened not to a lush green grassland, but a cave with all its hues of gray and brown, the constant low light of the glowstones. Was it day or night in the outside world? Was it still caught in the grip of winter, or had the thaw begun? He did not know if he’d been a prisoner here for days, or weeks. It felt like years.

What was happening in his kingdom? What damage had the aureas slee wrought on all his people? Was Estora all right? Surely she could tell the elemental was not him. Laren ought to be able to tell right away. If they were able to detect and overcome the elemental, how would he ever know? Surely they’d never find him. He could be anywhere in the world.

He groaned and rolled over in his sleeping alcove only to jolt to full wakefulness when he came face-to-face with Magged, who knelt beside him.

“You move and mumble in your sleep,” she said.

How long had she been watching him?

“Slee brought us a deer once,” she told him. “We butchered and ate it. It was delicious.” She licked her cracked lips, her gaze distant in memory.

Zachary swung his legs out of the alcove and stood in an attempt to get some distance from her. His ribs, at least, no longer twinged every time he moved, though the bruises were slow to fade.

“It was a lady deer,” Magged continued. “I can tell the difference, you know.”

She followed him as he strode across the cavern. Nari was nowhere to be seen. Magged was on his heels as he descended to the lower cavern. Midway down, he halted and turned. She practically walked into him.

“I would like some privacy,” he said.

“Oh, are you going to make water?”

“Yes.”

“It doesn’t bother me to watch.”

He tried to suppress his mounting irritation. “It bothers me.”

Magged gave him a look like she thought he was being silly, but she sat on a rock. “I will wait here, then.”

Zachary took a deep breath and continued on. He was accustomed to the constant presence of others around him, but even the Weapons allowed him to urinate in private. When he finished, he found the hotspring and splashed water on his face. He’d take a full bath, but he suspected Magged would come looking for him. In fact, when he rose from the pool, he turned to find her standing there. He was so startled he almost stepped backward into it.

“Magged!” he said sharply. “Please don’t sneak up on me.”

She tilted her head as she looked up at him, then pulled her shift over her head and stood naked before him.

“Magged,” he said, this time more subdued, and he averted his gaze from her pale body. “Please cover yourself.”

“Don’t you want me?”

“No.” There was no kinder way to say it that she would hear.

“Why?” she asked plaintively, reaching out to him. He stepped away. “Do you like Nari better?”

His cheeks burned. Nari was undeniably lovely in the Eletian way, and what man would not think in those terms? “I am married,” he said. “I have a wife.”

“You will never see her again. I can be your wife.”

“No, Magged. I’m sorry.” Keeping his gaze averted, he walked around her and away. A quick glance over his shoulder revealed her staring into the pool. He felt easier knowing that she was not following. He wondered not for the first time from where Magged had been taken. She’d been raised and taught by Nari, so there was no clue from accent or mannerism. She’d been too young when abducted by the aureas slee to have developed the ways of her homeland. Could she be one of his own subjects?

If he found a way out of this cave, how would Magged adapt to the outside world? It would all be new to her, completely foreign. The cave was her home, all she had ever known. Could she survive outside?

He supposed, as he paused in the cavern where they slept and ate, it wasn’t worth worrying about since he’d failed thus far to discover an exit. There was no sign of Nari, so he continued up the steps to the upper cavern with all the dripstone formations. Nari, he guessed, was off collecting the fungus they survived on. His stomach rumbled at the thought of food, no matter how unsatisfying and bland.