The comfortable darkness around me gave way to a blazing fire, and it spread faster than any real fire should. I knew it for the dream-vision it was, but the awareness did not dim the combination of fear and awe that filled my heart at the sight. The Voice of Fire had a new message for me, one I had never heard Her speak before: I had failed her. My failure grew each moment that I refused the gift of consciousness, and She was tired of waiting for me to accept. I refused Her, not out of any spite or dishonor, but because I could hear a man’s voice resonating within the lowest timbres of her Voice. Master Grimm, his words and his actions were responsible for everything that had come upon me; any tie to him could not be respected or obeyed.
She raged, and the flames grew hotter – too hot to bear. I flinched against their might, but my heart still rebelled against its dearest master. She had betrayed me, in league with that man; what reason did I still have to trust Her promises? If She could serve such a man, who else might She serve? What plans did She have for me? My friends were lost, Master Mikhail was lost, and She was lost to me. Returning to consciousness under those auspices would bring me no joy at all.
Pain lanced through my mind then. Her anger was not to be trifled with. I was a foolish child, and She would not coddle me any longer. If I had reached sufficient age to balk Her, then I had reached sufficient age to reap the benefits of that decision. I knew nothing, and as long as I rejected Her, I would continue to know nothing. I wanted to ask Her how much She knew about Her other servants, but Her patience had run out for the last time, and I found a wall of white-hot fire bearing down upon me. Dream though it might have been, I had no desire to feel my bones charred to dust. I opened my eyes, still blinded by the searing might of Her power.
When I could see again, the world around me was not what it had been, in those fleeting memories I retained since leaving Master Mikhail’s cabin. The forest, wild animals, and Nana’s wounds seemed like they had never happened. Beneath me was a soft, comfortable bed that smelled of clean linen; atop me was a pile of warm and patterned blankets that blocked my view of the rest of the room. These two things marked how far I had come from Master Mikhail, who gave us meager cots and only as much comfort as we needed to rise in the mornings prepared for training. It had always been enough. In a sudden fit of anger, I sat up and shoved the blankets back, bringing myself face to face with my new surroundings. I could not bear to be where he was not for a moment longer.
The small room around me was simple but comfortable. The wooden floor looked older than my age, and bore countless scratches and marks. The bed was against one wall, leaving the other four walls to hold only a single dresser and a rickety wooden chair. I had the feeling that looking at the chair too long might crush it to dust, to say nothing of sitting in it! I considered getting up to check inside the dresser, in order to help me figure out where I was, but the handle of the door turned then, and I found myself laying back again, unwilling to greet my visitor until I had a chance to discern whether they were friend or foe.
The woman that entered could not have been an enemy if she tried. Her age might have made her Master Mikhail’s grandmother; her back was hunched, and the gnarled staff in her bony hands was the only way she could manage to move across the short distance between the door and me. Her simple patched dress and kerchief, as well as her bare feet, marked her as a commoner without question. She smelled of cooking meat and fresh herbs, and brought the same scents with her into the air; I realized I was ravenous only when my stomach let out a growl to rival the forest beasts of my memories.
The old woman reached my bedside and glanced down at me with the aid of her staff, and the kindness in her face removed all remaining doubt I had as to her intention. She smiled, her crooked teeth showing in all their questionable glory, and her tiny, wrinkle-flanked eyes squinted to take me in. When she spoke, her voice was as old as the Kouda Empire itself.
“Yer awake. Bless the Sun and Sky, I wasn’t sure if I’d done it or not.”
Puzzled into curiosity, and relieved by the use of the familiar Empire blessing, I gave up my pretense of unconsciousness and attempted to sit up; the old woman frowned and shook her head to stop me. “Careful there, missy. Yer not damaged on th’ outside, but it’s inside I worry about. The way yer sleepin, so fitful, ain’t a healthy one.”
I knew that my body responded in a physical way to my conversations with the Voice; Raimen had only taunted me about it every single time it happened. It was possible that I had spoken as well, but from the woman’s obvious lack of concern, I assumed that I had managed to avoid giving myself away in detail. Not every citizen of the Kouda Empire could commune with the Voices or followed the Way, and some even rejected those who did as evil. One of Master Mikhail’s many duties had been to teach us subterfuge in the name of protecting ourselves from such well-meaning bias, but thanks to Master Grimm, we had not received that training yet. We had only just begun to learn how to use our power at all, to say nothing of hiding it.
We. My mind seized on Raimen and Nana at last, and I struggled against the woman’s protests to sit up. “My… friends… are they…?” It was strange at first, calling them my friends in the open, but the need for simplicity in my story was best, until I knew more about what I was dealing with. Master Grimm’s actions had left us alone with each other, and if we could not call each other friends now, then we might never again. I found myself having more trouble with that thought than I had with voicing the word in the first place.
The woman smiled and patted me on the shoulder, though the sigh that accompanied it was a clear indicator that she disapproved of my disobedience. “They are well, missy. Trouble yerself not. Th’ girl had some scratches and th’ boy a few bruises, but I cleaned ‘em up fine, I did.” She leaned her staff against my bed, and before I could warn her not to, shuffled over to sit in the dangerous wooden chair nearby. To my utter shock, it bore her weight without a creak of protest. “It is yerself I feared for. Three days, ye’ve slept, with no wounds to show for it. I feared ye might be mad.”
Mad, indeed! I couldn’t help myself. “There’s nothing wrong with my mind, grandma. I was just tired. We’ve… been a long way.” How much did she know of what had happened to us? What had Raimen and Nana told her? They weren’t present to ask, or even to give me clues about what story they had concocted. Why couldn’t they make this easy?
She chuckled, and I found myself almost relieved that I hadn’t offended her. She had no tact, but then, neither did I; and she had saved us, if her words could be believed. I had no right to give her the same kind of hassle that I gave Master Mikhail or either of my friends. It had been so long since I’d been in the company of anyone other than those three that I still had a lot to learn. “Beg pardon, I meant no offense. Th’ boy said yer temper is legend in certain circles. If yer bark gets worse than yer bite, he said, ye’d be fine again. All’s well, then. That’s all I need to know.”
I scowled. As soon as I found out where Raimen was hiding, he’d get his! Still, though, he was right. My strength was returning, and I no longer felt the oppressive heat and overwhelming demands that the Voice had driven into me. I felt as right as I ever had when it came to physical function. My heart, however, had other distractions that weighed as heavy as my knife arm had the night before. What had become of Master Mikhail and Master Grimm? Where could we go now? Where had we ended up? If Raimen and Nana were already fine, then they had control of the situation here that I did not. I didn’t have to think for very long why that knowledge bothered me!
The old woman rose from her seat, bearing her weight on the chair, and I thought for the second time that there should be no human light enough to try that trick and succeed. Despite appearances, however, she made her way back to my bed and picked up her staff again. “Unless yer nose is broken, I guess ye smell good things here. This is my home, missy, and yer friends are tuckin’ away breakfast as we speak. If yer well enough, ye might as well join ‘em. Some food after three days would do ye good, skinny as ye are especially.”
I blinked – Nana was the skinny one, not me. But then, old women were legendary for their eternal authority on food and the presenting thereof. I tried on a smile and found that it fit better than I expected it to. “Thanks, grandma. For everything. I don’t know why you helped us, but…”
She seemed surprised at this. “Why would I not help ye? Children, lost in th’ forest without their parents? Why, yer parents must be worried sick. Anyone would do as much, bless the Sun and Sky. The Kouda Empire has not fallen from grace, child.” Confirmation, then, that she did not know our true nature or our recent past! Thanks to her indignation, she did not notice the relief on my face before continuing. “Once yer fed and bathed and comfortable, we’ll get yer things and see ye home. It’s the least I can do.”
I watched her shuffle out the door, leaving me to come at my own pace to breakfast. On the one hand, we had somehow found our way to a kind soul that had helped us despite our suspicious situation. On the other hand, her ignorance was soon going to be our downfall. I wondered if Raimen or Nana knew her plan to see us “home.” If they didn’t, things were going to get interesting, and fast.
Breakfast, however, was the first order of business. I was not at all sure that my stomach would forgive any other plan!
***
By the time I arrived at the breakfast table, there were only scraps remaining; if you could call platters still half-laden with food “scraps.” The sheer magnitude of the feast laid out before us might have at one time shocked and amazed me; what remained was a proper meal that Master Mikhail might have served – for all four of us. If my prior thought toward the duties of old women in feeding younger mouths was true, this woman was a saint in the making! Even what was left was more food than I had ever seen before in one place.
Raimen leaned back on the rear two legs of his wooden chair, looking like a stuffed turkey, a bandage wrapped around his upper arm and another around his forehead. Nana too looked a little plumper than usual, but she had no such lack of manners; she sat with her knees crossed and her head lowered in her usual polite fashion. Now that I was awake, I had zero difficulty believing that Raimen had already healed every single wound the two of them had; the bandages were just for show. Of course, he couldn’t heal me; the Voice of Fire would burn forever, even through his healing waves.
“Glad to see you’re still alive, Anri. I was starting to worry that I’d have to find another wife, and Nana wasn’t interested.”
Raimen was picking a fight with a full belly. I wondered if he knew how stupid that was. The old woman watched with a soft smile and rosy cheeks as I glowered at him across the table, but Raimen’s grin was triumphant. I opened my mouth to berate him, but he held up a slow, gentle hand to stop me. “Now, now. You don’t have to say anything. You know you’re the only one for me, dearest. We shouldn’t embarrass Mistress Ami, of course.” I knew in my heart he was making fun of me, but the look he was giving me seemed to suggest a deeper meaning to his words. Confused, I paused long enough to sit down at the table myself.
Then it hit me. He’d given her “his” version of our relationship, not the truth. Worse – if I wanted to maintain the obvious facade, I would have to go along with it! I thought Nana hunched over further at Raimen’s words; had he been using her in my stead? That would be too easy. Perhaps she just didn’t like lying. She had always been the most honest of the three of us; Master Mikhail always got a straight answer from her. If she knew how to lie, none of us had ever seen it. If anything, Raimen was in control of this situation, not Nana, and it was his game I would have to play. All at once I wished I could go back to bed!
Busying myself with filling my plate, I tried to focus on the information he had given me rather than his words. The flush of repressed anger darkened my cheeks enough to make me look shy, at least, which managed to suit Raimen’s plan well enough without words for the time being. The woman’s name was Mistress Ami, and thanks to Raimen’s outrageous lies, she had no idea of the truth of what had happened to us. If I didn’t have those fragmented memories of the night before, and of losing Master Mikhail, I might even believe the lie myself. Here we were, sitting around the kitchen table, eating a magnificent breakfast like the best of friends, a young couple in love and their… well, whatever Nana was supposed to be. Master Mikhail was the strategist in the cabin, and barring him, Raimen was the undisputed best of us to be handling things. Against my better judgement, I would have to trust and follow his lead.
Without warning, and without looking up, Nana interjected. “Leave her alone. She just woke up and is eating now. You have a lot to learn about women.”
I almost choked on the spoonful of food I had shoveled in; Mistress Ami chortled and Raimen blinked in disbelief, peering at Nana as if he had just met her for the first time. Had Nana just defended me? And made a joke at the same time? It couldn’t be! Still, her life was in as much danger as ours; it was as important to her to keep the story flowing as it was to us. I just hadn’t expected her to be any better at it than I was!
Raimen coughed to hide his momentary lapse in control, then resumed his previous bluster. “I tell you, Mistress Ami, what has happened to the young women of our great Empire? They could take a lesson from you, ma’am. Putting food on the table, mending wounds and caring for children are skills more worthy than a sharp tongue or a sharp wit. Don’t you agree?” I could feel my foot twitching with the urge to kick him before he even finished. He was playing his usual superiority card to the hilt – as well he might. The majority of the Empire believed that women should be seen and not heard, so he was only making his story more believable by doing so.
As I expected, Mistress Ami nodded, and a note of sadness crept into her voice. “It’s true that many young women these days lack the respectability they ought to have. So many go off to war and waste their precious lives instead of bolstering th’ Empire with new children. Ye know, half th’ women in our little village shaved their heads and lied when th’ recruiters came last week. Some wanted to protect their menfolk. Some just wanted to fight. I’ll never understand.” She shook her head, but then smiled back at Raimen. “Still though, laddy, ye’ll never do better than a woman who does all those things and still has th’ time to sass ye right back. A smart gal is worth thrice the dumb ones.” Her smile in my direction, despite the uncouth way I was gulping breakfast down, was approving at least.
Raimen squirmed in his seat, but I could tell that something else was bothering him other than the fact that the old woman had just put him in his place. His gaze strayed to the door and back to Mistress Ami, and I began to realize he was looking for an exit strategy, perhaps to avoid the possibility of my temper interrupting his tale! When he spoke, I could almost see the wheels turning in his head. “With all those women joining the Empire’s forces, I gather they are in need of a few good men? I was thinking of joining myself, but I fear for my lovely wife, left behind while I fight. My cousin might care for her, but without a firm hand, I might come back to nothing but ashes.” By now, the look in Nana’s eyes was bordering on treason as much as mine was! They didn’t even look like cousins. Raimen was treading on the thinnest ice I had ever seen. It was only a matter of time before he fell through, but what other lead did we have?
Our time, it seemed, was shorter than any of us knew. Mistress Ami paused, her kind eyes narrowing into the studious squint she had first used on me. “Indeed, laddy, they are searching. They have searched every town from here to th’ Empire’s seat in th’ Great East. How is it that ye have managed to elude them all this time? I would think that they would be difficult to miss, desperate as they are. A young lad like ye, they would never have overlooked, if they had seen ye.”
For the first time in my life, I watched panic begin to spread across Raimen’s face. He had miscalculated! He paused to take a drink, and I realized that Nana was holding her breath. Could he get out of this one?
“Well, you see, Mistress Ami… um, my cousin isn’t well, and… uh, I’ve been having to care for her in private. Away from cities and villages. The crisp forest air does her good.”
The old woman shook her head, and the look she gave us now was more than suspicious. “Laddy, we have spent th’ last three days together. Your concern for your wife to be has kept ye and yer cousin sheltered and fed here that long. I believed everything ye told me. But now, ye’ve betrayed yer own word. A boy accustomed to living in the forest could not have gotten lost as ye claim. Yer cousin is as well as anyone I have ever treated with my herbs. I would know if she were not. And with th’ way your wife lay screamin’ in her sleep for three days…” She pursed her wrinkled lips and set her jaw. “I wonder if there is not more to ye than meets th’ eye.”
Raimen was done for, and he knew it. His face fell and he slumped over at the table, no longer the cocky young man he had been playing at. I knew what would come next, as it always had when Master Mikhail caught him in some trap or another; begging. From the look on Mistress Ami’s face, she wasn’t about to feel sympathy for a caught liar.
“I’m sorry, ma’am. I couldn’t tell you the truth… please forgive me… we’ve been through so much, and… if they catch us… we’ll…”
Mistress Ami did what any sensible citizen of the Kouda Empire would do with such a statement. She frowned and turned on a heel toward her own front door. No citizen of our Empire had ever failed to stand in defense of truth, honor or justice; our people were too proud and too strong to harbor or accept evil. She had no idea what we were, but now that Raimen had called into question our true nature, she could not determine whether we were friend or foe to the Empire and its interests. Rather than guess for herself, she would call the authorities to guess for her. It was the right thing to do. None of us could blame her.
“Don’t say another word, laddy. Speak your lies to the Empire instead. I have heard enough.” Her words hit Raimen as if she had thumped him with her staff; he didn’t even bother to lift his head from the table as she shuffled her slow way to the door, stepped outside and closed it behind her. It would not take her long to find a single village guard; most places in the Kouda Empire were manned by civilians under the employ of the Empire in some fashion, or hired guards direct from the Empire’s seat in places where extreme security was needed. Raimen had led us to disaster.
I stood bolt upright from my chair at the same time Nana did, but Nana failed to realize that she still had the corner of the tablecloth tucked down her shirt to protect her clothing from fallen food. Between the resulting tug on the entire surface of the table, and my own panicked scramble out of my chair, several things went flying; platters of food, drink glasses, empty plates; and a candle, which immediately proved that the liquid in Raimen’s glass was alcohol by catching fire and tracing a line of liquid flame toward my empty seat.
I had only a moment to blink before I doubled over, clutching my head in pain. I knew what was happening, though the knowledge seemed a part of someone else’s mind; the fallen candle’s proximity to my location, combined with the sudden rush of anger and panic I felt near it, was adding fuel to an already dangerous blaze and magnifying it tenfold. No matter how hard I tried to think happy thoughts, or pretend that I wasn’t afraid or furious, my heart knew the truth; it was my heart that the fire obeyed. I knew such things were possible, for Master Mikhail had told us tales of those who communed with their Voices much deeper than I did, but those tales were of men and women far older and wiser than me. I wasn’t ready; I had never thought that She might be ready before I was, and refuse to wait for me.
As I tried in vain to stop the spread, it became faster and more violent than any fire I had seen outside the one from my earlier unconsciousness. In desperation, I fought for enough control over my body to turn my head, seeking my friends; they were the only ones who could help me now. What I found, however, shocked me almost more than the fire itself. Helpless tears streamed down Nana’s face; she was on her knees, her fists clenched with emotion that I couldn’t even begin to fathom. She moved only enough to cause her frail shoulders to tremble. There was only one explanation I could think of, though it left me more confused than ever about our friendship; Nana heard the Voice of Wind. If she had lost control, as I had, then our unchecked Voices would combine to form a song that neither of us could bear to hear. The inferno would build until only ashes and dust remained.
Raimen jumped back from the table, but he still had full control of himself; of course. I didn’t need to think long on why. His extra study with Master Mikhail’s advanced tomes, and his healing prowess, indicated a level of training that we girls had not been privy to yet. If he could control it enough to use it at will, then he also had the power to hold it back to some degree. He bent down and shook Nana’s shoulders, but her eyes were glazed over and the tears still fell, as if nothing in the world mattered to her anymore; she would die without intervention as much as I would. Unable to reach her, he did the only thing he could think of to bring one of us back to our senses.
He walked over to me, hesitated, and then kissed me full on the mouth.
When I blinked next, I was standing in the same sea of fire, with Nana still senseless, and Raimen nursing a nose that was unmistakably broken. We had no time to blame each other; the fire was climbing into the rafters and rushing toward the door itself. If we didn’t find a way to get ourselves and Nana outside, we were all dead – our status as traitors and fugitives from the Empire wouldn’t even matter.
We knew what had to be done. Raimen picked up Nana and slung her over his shoulder like a sack of grain. She fought him without seeing him at first, but her tiny fists were meaningless against him and she gave up within moments. I had just enough time to follow them before a deafening crack echoed throughout the house; the roof was splintering in two. Soon it would fall down on top of us, trapping us in a blaze of our own making. Though I could not deny it was what we deserved, we had not meant to cause such mayhem, and I didn’t want to die, even for such a reprehensible act.
If we were not fugitives and criminals before, we were now to be sure; we could not have come out of this situation any worse than we had. I didn’t want to think it, but Master Mikhail’s words came back to haunt me as we made our way toward the door. He had said that we didn’t know how to use our powers, and that if we didn’t learn, we might harm ourselves or others. Without the Empire to aid us in learning, would there be other such disasters in our future? What would we do if there were? How many other innocent lives would we destroy in our quest to flee our inevitable fate? There was no time for such thoughts, but I thought for only a moment that I understood what Master Mikhail had meant about learning when to breathe fire. If I had not been so angry with Raimen at the moment the candle fell, and if I had not jumped to action before thinking first, perhaps we wouldn’t be here now. Nana had reacted to my panic, which surprised me to no end, but my flame had acted first; I was to blame.
Together we pressed toward the door, dodging smoke, fallen furniture and twisted, charred masses of fallen rafters. Raimen burned his hands on the doorknob without so much as a moment of hesitation; there was no time to tell him how stupid he was for not using his clothing to protect himself. He would just heal it all later, of course.
Beyond the door, I could see Mistress Ami on her knees, staring back into the destruction of her home, her staff thrown aside and tears catching in the wrinkles of her cheeks. A small semi-circle of citizens stood around her, having pulled her away from the burning wreck for protection once the fire began. Not a single one made any motion to seek aid for the house itself; it was as obvious to them as it was to any of us that it would be a complete loss. The only help they could offer the poor old woman would be a place to stay. From the look of her, she might not live long anyway, after the stress of losing everything she owned combined with our selfish betrayal of her trust.
I made a silent vow to myself as I followed Raimen and Nana outside into the fresh air, my nose and lungs still filled with black smoke. If she lived, I would find a way to repay her someday for the wickedness that we – I – had committed that day. Though our destruction of her home had been unintentional, and though she could never have known how she threatened our welfare by choosing to do the right thing, she did not deserve this. We would have to find a way to control ourselves; and until then, we would have to stay away from places bearing a large population. There was no choice, unless we wanted to harm others again.
I could feel Mistress Ami’s eyes on me as I passed, and her senseless babbling began to form into words that I could understand.
“I knew it all along… something wasn’t quite right… not healthy to sleep like the dead. I know now what she is. She’s a witch! An undead witch!”
The word echoed in my ears as I ran again with Raimen and Nana into the forest to escape any guards that might follow our footsteps. It seemed that the only thing that had changed since I was last conscious was our ability to wreak unintentional havoc on the world around us. I couldn’t help but think of Master Grimm, with his proud cruelty and disregard for human kindness; he would have looked at this and laughed. He might have even ordered it done. I didn’t know him well, but I knew enough from that one encounter that he was not to be trusted. Master Mikhail… no, I couldn’t even begin to think of what he would say if he saw us at that moment. Perhaps, if I lived long enough, I would find a way to erase the shame I felt.
The Voice of Fire was, as always, right when She spoke to me in my dreams. I had failed. I had failed Her, my friends, and an innocent old woman of the Empire, all for the sake of my own freedom. Next time, I would have to make a different choice. After all, I was not a witch – I was a Dragon, the most honorable of legendary creatures. Master Mikhail had named me; I would carry that name to my death.
It was time to start living up to it, in more ways than just my temper.