Burning Bright (17 page)

"Probably," Ailill said. "I am nowhere near as nimble as you at climbing those walls. I am a much better climber in my cat form. Hopefully it will not draw attention we would otherwise avoid."

"No one comes to this section of the palace unless they have no choice," Raz replied. "Even the prison guards want nothing to do with the execution yard. Come on, then." He ran up to the wall and threw himself up it as high as he could, grabbing handholds and pulling himself up further, quickly scrabbling for footholds. When he reached the top, Ailill was already on the other side.

Raz made a face as he landed, though he knew Ailill probably could not see it in the dark. "You're something of a show off, your grace."

"You might be correct. What next?"

"Look out for guards."

Ailill chuckled and walked across the yard toward a flickering torch that proved to be at the top of a set of dubious looking stairs. The door at the bottom, Raz could just see, was slightly propped open. The smell of cigarette smoke explained why. Raz shook his head, amused and horrified, but mostly just glad the guards were making the job so scorching easy.

He let Ailill remain in the lead since he had no better idea where they were going and, as much as hated to say it, Ailill was probably better in a fight. Raz's preferred method of handling confrontation was to avoid it at all costs.

Trouble came almost immediately in the form of three guards clearly headed out to sneak a few cigarettes. Ailill was moving before Raz had even completely registered them, knocking out the first, lunging for the second, and Raz bolted after the third.

They hauled the unconscious guards into an empty cell, and waited for others to come investigate the noise. When none came, they slowly ventured on.

It took them nearly an hour of searching and knocking another six guards out before they found the cluster of cells where Ivan and his team had been locked up. Raz frowned as he looked around the six cells. "Where are Shio and Shinju?" he asked as he approached Ivan's cell, pulling out his leather lock pick case.

The bars were hot to the touch when he grasped one, and Raz swore loudly, jerking back. He frowned, flexed his fingers and examined them. "What was that?" he asked and gingerly touched the bar again, relieved to find it did not scorch him a second time.

"Lord Krasny put a spell on the cells, but it looks like you just broke it somehow. As to those sea-bitches, they are probably looking for you so they can hand you over the same way they gave up Pechal," Ivan said.

Raz dropped his lock pick and jerked his head up to look at Ivan. "What in the flames are you talking about?"

"It's true," Luka said, and Raz whipped around to face him, all thoughts of picking locks forgotten. "Gleb and Ferapont went ahead to scout. When they didn't return, Ivan went to find them and ordered us to keep heading toward the Heart. The moment he was out of sight, those sea-bitches attacked all of us. I was the only one not knocked out, but only barely. The High Priest put me out after they'd secured Pechal. I watched those sea-bitches ride off right before he did it. They're skulking somewhere, and they're going to throw you to the flames same as they did Pechal."

"That—they promised! I don't believe you!" Raz said. Ignoring them, trembling with anger because they were wrong, they had to be. Shio and Shinju wouldn't do that to him. He retrieved his picks and set to work on all the cells.

When all five men were free, he ignored their attempts to talk to him. Raz stormed off, trying to make his way back to the place where they'd come in—but instead only wound up at a different door. In no mood to figure out where he had gotten turned around, he opened it and went up the stairs.

He froze, consumed by panic, when he realized he was in the palace itself. Fire and ash, what was he supposed to do? Back the way he came—

"You there!"

Raz looked up, saw the palace guards who had spotted him, and bolted down the hallway. He dared not go back the way he'd come on the chance it led them to the others. Running frantically, grateful it seemed most of the palace was asleep, he turned down random hallways hoping that one would eventually lead to a promising escape route.

At the end of a particularly large hallway was a set of double doors that did, indeed, look promising. Yanking one of them open, he pulled it shut behind him and turned around—

He sank to his knees when he realized he was in the Cathedral of Sacred Fires. Raz barely noticed the tears that started falling down his cheeks as he took in the place where Pechal had died only a very short time ago.

Had he been scared? Crying? Had he wished Raz had been there for him? Raz wished he had been there, a last friendly face for Pechal to see before he died.

Of course, a real friend would have kept his promise not to let Pechal go to the Fire. Raz balled his hands into fists and beat his thighs until his hands and legs throbbed.

Slowly standing up, Raz listened for anyone coming down the hall after him. If they had raised a cry to have the palace searched, however, it had not made it this far.

His footsteps echoed on the polished wooden floor as he stepped out of the shadows of the doorway and into the central aisle. He gawked at the windows which were just as beautiful as he had always heard. The one nearest him showed a man bundled in winter clothing and smiling brightly, his hand resting on the head of an enormous wolf.

The window beside that was of a woman who must have been a princess, to judge by her ornate robes, standing in a garden looking equal parts happy and sad. She looked familiar, but Raz could not say why.

Next to that was a depiction of a little boy with dark hair fast asleep beneath an apple tree heavy with golden apples. Raz's breath caught as he recalled the petrified tree in the woods and what had seemed to be a memory of a tree that bore golden apples.

He shook his head, felt suddenly dizzy and stopped, placing one hand flat against the wall to steady himself. Turning, he leaned against the wall, wondering how in the fires he was going to get out of the mess he had put himself in.

The distant, muffled sound of voices made him jump, and Raz started running again, heading at full speed for the nearest door at the back of the cathedral. Throwing it open, he pulled it shut behind him again, and kept going until he tumbled into a room that froze him in his tracks.

He could feel ... something. But what?

The question was answered when a shadowy figure came through the door at the far end of the room, candlelight revealing the unforgettable face of High Priest Dym.

Gasping, Dym dropped his candle which went out as soon as it hit the rug. Raz stepped back, prepared to turn and run, but then soft words froze him all over again. "Don't go." They sounded so much like a sad plea that, despite everything, Raz could only stand helplessly as the High Priest strode toward him.

Stopping just a pace or so away, Dym knelt in front of him. "I apologize for the pain I know I have caused you this night, Eminence."

Fresh tears stung Raz's eyes, infuriating because he did not know why seeing this man caused him so much agony. "I do not understand why seeing you hurts so much. Why does it?"

Flinching, Dym retrieved his fallen candle and rose. Raz did not see how he lighted it, save with a flick of his fingers. But of course, the High Priest could use magic better than anyone else in the country.  He set the candle on a nearby table, and then returned to where he had been before just a couple of paces away from Raz. "I am sorry," he said again in that soft, sad voice.

"I still do not understand why looking at you hurts," Raz said. "Why does it?"

"Because you hate me, I would imagine," Dym said.

Raz shook his head and stared into the pale gray eyes focused so intently on him, gut twisting at the sadness that seemed to fill them. No one should look that sad—that despairing. "I want to hate you, I'm trying to hate you, I should hate you.  Just a few hours ago you sacrificed my best friend. He was my only friend, really. But I don't feel hate when I look at you, just some pain I can't name."

Dym lowered his head, and Raz just barely caught the way his hands trembled before he clasped them together. "You may not feel the hate because you cannot remember it. But you have every reason to hate me, Eminence. I had a duty and I failed it. Like everyone else, I let you down. I was the one who should have held strong when all else failed, and I did not."

"You're ... " Raz. "Who are you? Why do you keep calling me that?"

"You are the final piece of Holy Zhar Ptitsa, his Eminence," Dym said. "You, more than any of the other pieces, are closest to a true reincarnation. I am only your priest, nothing more."

Raz wasn't so blind he missed the longing beneath the pain in those words. He didn't understand why it was there, but he recognized it. "I think you're a lot more than a priest—the way you speak, the things you speak of."

Dym spread his hands, "I truly am only your priest. I have never been anything else." He drew his hands together again and clasped loosely in front of him.

"I don't believe you," Raz whispered and stepped closer, covering the clasped hands with one of his own, reaching up with his free hand to lightly touch Dym's cheek. "Looking at you hurts too much for you to be only a priest. Whenever I hear your name, it aches, and I can't think of you without feeling like I lost something. But it was never that way before I saw you in the Ashes."

"Memories stay buried until something important triggers them, and most often that trigger is visual. You had no reason to recall me until you saw me."

Raz stared into Dym's eyes, fascinated by the way they were the exact color of smoke or ashes. "I should hate you, High Priest, so why don't I?"

"You do," Dym replied, and they were so close now that Raz could smell the sweet wine on his breath, the hint of cinnamon. "You just don't remember why yet."

"I think I'd remember hate," Raz said. "All I remember is hurt."

Dym's face twisted with pain, and Raz could not bear it. Dym's pain was somehow worse than his own, and he wanted nothing more in that moment than to banish it. Surrendering to an impulse he did not understand, Raz closed the last breath of space between them and kissed Dym softly. Beneath his hand, Dym's shook and tightened on each other. He could feel Dym's entire body shake, and the soft noise he made, as if he were trying not to cry, just broke Raz's heart further.

He kissed more firmly, tasting the wine and cinnamon on Dym's lips, in his mouth. Raz let go of Dym's hands and curled his fingers around Dym's arms as fingers danced lightly, hesitantly along his side—

The sound of shouting in the corridor made him jerk back and reminded him that he was in danger.

Dym stared at him, wide-eyed, lips wet. "You—go. Through that door,  and then all the way to the back. There's a secret door in the back left corner; it'll lead to the garden. From there you can climb the wall."

Raz stared at him. "Why—"

"Just go!" Dym snarled, grabbing his arm and all but throwing him toward the indicated door. "Run!"

Raz obeyed, heart thudding in his chest so hard he swore he could hear it in his ear. He ran through the door, through a bedroom, a room full of clothes, and nearly ran into the enormous bathing pool at the end of it all.

He fell back on his ass trying to prevent it, but scrambled quickly to his feet and made for the back left corner. It took him only a moment to find the carving that marked the door. He pressed it, and the door gaped slightly open. Pulling it open wider, Raz slipped through, and  pulled it shut behind him.

Turning around, he ran up the stairs and shoved open the trap door at the top, pulling himself up into what was obviously a garden. He looked up and realized he was right beneath an apple tree that was inexplicably in full bloom.

Not lingering to puzzle over it, he used a stone bench to launch himself at the wall, climbed the rest of way, dropped to the ground on the other side, and ran as quickly as he could back to the city.

"Where in the fires did that idiot go?" Ivan groused. "He's the next sacrifice. If they catch him—"

"If we stay, they will catch us and at some point may think to use us against him," Ailill said. "Leave him for now; we need to go."

Ivan grimaced but listened because Ailill was right. They would be of no help to anyone if they just got locked up again. Silently signaling his men, he followed Ailill out of the dungeon—but not, he noted, the same way he and his men had arrived. He didn't ask questions, however, just kept going until Ailill stopped in front of the high wall at the back of what looked ominously like the execution yard back in the Heart. "Over and down, I take it?" Ivan asked, stifling a sigh because climbing walls at thirty-five was not what it had been at twenty-five.

"Over and down," Ailill confirmed—and then nearly startled Ivan into a shout when he abruptly shifted, half-hidden by a cloud of misty, shimmering light. Ivan blinked and stared hard, at the enormous white cat beside him. It growled and then turned and padded away only to turn back around and launch itself up the wall.

"I really wish I could do that," Luka said. "It looks so much easier." Sighing, he motioned to the others and they all obediently climbed. Ivan followed only after they were all safe, leaping neatly down to the ground on the other side.

Ailill shifted back and cocked his head. "We should hasten back to the city as quickly as possible before more guards arrive to find the ones we left unconscious."

Ivan did not bother to reply, simply took off jogging back toward the city with his men around him and Ailill keeping pace right beside him. By the time they reached the city wall, Ivan was ready to fall down and sleep wherever he landed. "Do I have to go over another wall?" he groused, but didn't wait for anyone to give him a flippant reply, just approached the wall. "Wait here," he called over his shoulder. "I'll clear any guards."

Climbing the wall, he looked around carefully then turned and dropped to the street below. When he was certain the coast was clear, he gave a short, sharp whistle. A couple of minutes later, Ailill appeared once more in the form of a cat. He leaped down beside Ivan and sat back on his haunches, rumbling low while they waited for the others to join them.