Enna Burning (23 page)

As her emotions rose, her control weakened and the heat pushed in, hot hands pressing her from all sides. She did not call to it, did not gather it in, the heat just found her now. She imagined it sensed its language on her skin, the way a blind dog knows its master. It was that unwanted gathering of heat that was so unbearable, as it was the constant touch and speech of the wind that tormented Isi. She stared at Isi as these thoughts pieced together, and she could feel her heart beat harder.

“You learned the wind in one moment, Isi,” said Enna. “It only took one word. You know many languages. You can learn another.”

Isi looked up and seemed surprised by the energy in Enna’s voice.

“What are you thinking, Enna?” asked Finn.

Enna smiled despite the pain. “I can teach her the fire. I thought about it for weeks with Sileph. I think he could’ve learned, and I know Isi can. We don’t need the vellum, I remember everything it said. And fire is a quick language, Isi. It catches onto you and starts to burn.”

“But, Enna . . . ,” said Isi.

“It makes sense. Wind senses its language on you. That’s why it’s drawn to you even when you don’t call it, right? What you need is something that will keep the voice of the wind a step off. Well, why aren’t the
tata-rook
overwhelmed like we are? The rain doesn’t completely put out their knowledge of fire. If it did, they’d be bothered by the voice of rain all the time. No, both rain and fire are near them at once, tempering each other. Rain quenches heat, fire burns away water, keeping both their voices away until they call to one or the other. Ask Fahil.”

Isi spoke to the older man. “He agrees that this might be so.”

“So,” said Enna with a smile. “That’s fire and rain. Now think of how we work fire and wind together, Isi. Think of that night outside Ostekin when . . . when I sent heat at you, and you just pushed it away with the wind before it became fire. And that night when we camped, when I sent heat to break up your wind and scatter it. They can either build each other bigger or smother each other out. It’s not exactly how fire and water work, but I’m thinking that wind and heat affect each other all the same. If you added my fire to your wind, I think both would keep the other at bay. Wind brushes away the heat, heat changes and scatters the wind, and neither voice would be able to get close to you unless you called. Just like with the
tata-rook
.”

“Maybe,” said Isi. “But what about you?”

Enna brushed off the question with a wave and leaned closer. Excitement made her forget the fever. “Never mind me. I really believe this will work for you, Isi. Add fire knowledge and the wind can’t press on you so.”

Fahil wondered what Enna had in mind, and when Isi told him, he was quiet a moment, a tender smile on his lips. Enna shook Finn’s tunic front.

“It’s going to work, Finn. I know it is. Isi’s going to be better.”

“Enna,” said Isi, turning from Fahil, “he says it’s a good plan. And he says it could work both ways.”

Enna blinked. “How?”

“I described to him how we worked fire and wind together to chase off those two soldiers, and he thinks our friendship, our closeness, will be a bridge, that we can share the elements with each other. I tried long ago to teach Geric the wind, and it didn’t work. But you already know one language—maybe you can learn.”

Finn sighed with relief. “Good. You should do this, Enna, and no one’s going to lick coals.”

Enna did not know about learning the wind. It seemed so mysterious to her and something so completely Isi’s. But she agreed, determined at least that Isi would profit. The girls sat knee to knee. Fahil stood before the brazier, and Finn sat on a stone watching the girls, his hand on his sword hilt, ready in case there was something to fight.

They began by talking low. Enna wanted Isi to know what she had learned from the vellum. She explained how heat was in the air, where it came from, how she felt it, plucked it, pulled it inside, and the now subconscious gesture of turning the heat into flame inside her chest. Isi tried to explain how the wind felt when it touched her, what it felt like inside when she understood its subtle speech, how she saw and heard and felt the images it carried and yet with a sense that was neither her eyes nor ears nor skin. It was difficult to explain, and after a time Enna realized both had stopped speaking. They held hands, as they had when they faced the soldiers, and Enna became more aware of Isi.

Learn
, she urged silently.
Feel the heat. Learn it.

She focused on the place in her chest that leaked heat, on the swaths of it that hung around her face, and she tried to will it away from her, to make the heat aware of Isi. Strings of heat stretched between Enna and her friend. It was a strange sensation, almost as if Enna touched Isi but not with her fingers. Then she felt a breeze.

It curled off Isi, around their clasped hands, up Enna’s wrists. The breeze felt as familiar as a touch from a friend. It had a sense of Isi about it. She seemed to know which direction it would flow before it moved, as she often knew what Isi would say before she finished a sentence. She was tempted to try to pull the breeze inside her, as she did with the heat, but she guessed it would not work that way. Feeling that it might be speaking, she tried to listen, straining with all her senses, with her ears and mind and skin, and with that part of her that could feel heat.

The wind grew stronger, as though it sensed her desperation. It beat Enna’s hair against her cheeks. It began to tear at her, and inside the ear-piercing howling there was a kind of silence. She reached out toward the wind again and realized with a start that what she hoped to touch was Leifer. She could see his face so distinctly in memory that it was as though he stood before her, and her heart ached for him. She marveled that at such a moment her thoughts turned to him, and she realized suddenly and with a twisting ache in her heart that she had never wept for his death. The cold rush of the wind made her aware that she was crying now, and her chest thumped with a sob.

All this time
, she thought,
I’ve been clinging to Leifer.
The fire felt like the last tie that bound them together, across life and death.

I can give it up, I can.
Inside her, fire raged defensively. Heat stung her skin, leaked from her chest, seemed enough to fill the world. She felt herself slipping again and remembered what Fahil had said:
If she sleeps again, she might not wake.
Enna refused to faint, focused on Isi, and sent all her thoughts toward healing her. Her hands found Isi’s bare neck and wrist, hoping that just by touch she could spread the heat. She felt some of the fire sigh from her chest. The heat lessened but slid over everything, so that she could not tell which part of the touch was her own hands or Isi’s skin.

The wind did not pause, and Enna knew Isi was sending it at her, insistent. With that place inside her where she kept not only memories of her brother, but the feeling of him, she struggled to listen. The wind thrashed against her skin, and she pushed her senses out toward it, feeling toward it, listening from the inside.

Heat flowed between them. The wind battered them, pushing them closer together. A voice she did not know said,
Enna.

She gasped. She wanted to scream back,
I’m here! I’m Enna
, but she did not know how.
Enna
, she heard again. The word seemed to enter her where she felt the fire in her chest, then yawn up her throat until it found a place in her mind that understood, that place where she still held Leifer. It was the voice of the wind speaking her name, as cool as a stream bath, soft and plain and easy.

The howling stopped, and the wind slipped into breezes that teased the fine hairs of her skin. Slowly Enna opened her eyes. Something was different. She believed they had been sitting there minutes, or perhaps even hours, but surely not long enough for the seasons to change. Nevertheless, the night felt cooler, like a summer’s night in Bayern, rich and fragrant and welcome after a hot day.

Fahil was holding Finn back from going to Enna, but when he saw her look up, he let Finn go. Finn rushed to her side. He smoothed her hair from her brow. His voice was tight with fear.

“Enna, you’re all right? Are you?”

“I think so.” Dizzily, she leaned into Finn’s chest and gripped his tunic. Isi was staring up at a sky prickly with stars. “How are you, Isi? Did it work?”

“I don’t know,” Isi said. “Everything’s so quiet. Did I lose the wind completely?”

Enna closed her eyes and felt around her. The air appeared to be in motion, the heat and the wind moving around each other, swirling together, pushing off, and her sense of them was dimming.

“See if the wind still understands you,” said Enna.

A breeze moved across the ground, lifting dust, snaking up Enna’s leg, against her wrist, then touching her cheek.

“Still there, just not so close,” said Isi. “A breeze came when I beckoned, but not before. Amazing.”

“So, did it work, then? Is it the fire?”

Isi closed her eyes, a line of concentration between her brows. Enna felt like holding her breath. After a few moments, a clump of dead grass on the ground between them sparked with a tiny fire. Isi opened her eyes and laughed.

“And you, Enna? Are you all right?”

The breeze moved through Enna’s hair, and she thought she could hear a whisper—no, not hear, feel. She felt its touch and saw an image and understood it as a word. She could not speak to it, could not ask it to go this way or that. She remembered that such control took Isi much time to learn. But if she strained, she could hear its image speech on her skin, how it carried the idea of what it had touched before to each new contact. A cool finger of air against her cheek and a bright thought in her mind.
Enna
. It named her.
Enna, Finn, our lady, the man of fire and water, the air full of dust.

“I hear it,” Enna said stiffly, afraid to move, as though the breeze could be frightened away like a flock of pheasants.

Was the fire gone? No, she could still detect the heat swirling away from Finn, twisting through her fingers and hair, then passing on. It did not stick to her, did not claw at her skin.

Fahil left off speaking happily with the other
tata-rook
to go to Isi. He knelt beside her, asking questions, and Isi responded in light, content tones.

“How do you feel?” said Finn.

Enna thought. She could still draw heat to her, but it did not come unbidden, and for the first time in weeks she breathed air free of heat. She did not feel the heat tease her and gnaw at her, just sensed that it was, but that it could be ignored. She looked inward and felt that the cracked place inside her had not healed, but it no longer leaked rivers of fever heat into her body. It felt now less like the tethered falcon tearing to escape than a sleeping bird, tired and warm.

“Good. Unbelievably good. Isi?”

Isi was leaning against Fahil. “I’m all right.” She paused, then smiled broadly. “Yes, I know I am. Everything’s so quiet.” She sighed. “I’d forgotten what it felt like to be normal. The winds are still there, if I seek them, but they’re hushed now and keep to themselves.”

“You have . . . ,” said Enna.

“Balance,” said Isi. “The heat changes and pushes the wind. . . . ”

“And the wind takes the breath from the fire.”

Isi laughed, happy as a child. “I can scarcely believe we did it, Enna. Both of us. Geric will be so relieved to see me better, he might even think the absence was worth it.”

Finn breathed out. “That wasn’t so bad, then. And I thought someone was going to have to die before it was over.”

“And I’ll bet you were hoping it’d be you,” said Enna.

Finn looked serious. “Well, I wasn’t
wanting
to die, but if it had to be one of the three of us, I hoped I could jump in a fire first or something.”

Enna held Finn’s cheeks and shook him. “I was kidding! Oh, Finn, you are too good.” And she gave him an ardent kiss, a kiss that meant maybe, after all, the world would not burn and everything would be all right.

Enna laughed, feeling as though something had sat on her shoulders for months and just stepped off. She grabbed Finn’s hands with the wild notion that she might float away.

Isi laughed, too, and Enna noticed how Isi’s belly wobbled with her laugh, so that made her laugh more. And of course Finn could never resist whenever he heard Enna’s laugh. Fahil stared at them as though they were crazy, which was, of course, even funnier.

.

Fahil thought they should rest a few more days after the ordeal on the hilltop, but Enna insisted they leave the next morning.

“If I don’t get my best friend home soon, she’ll pop,” said Enna. “Translate that, Isi.”

Isi had some gold coins in her saddlebag that they traded to Fahil for supplies. After Isi talked with Fahil about the possibilities of renewing trading between the two lands and much thanking in two languages, the Bayern set on the road for home.

The change in the two girls was immediate, though it seemed even to improve day by day. Enna felt freed from the prison of heat that had been building around her since the first word of fire, and the voice of the wind did not press in. Both were there, but holding each other back, just out of reach. Relief at last from the fever was almost unbearably wonderful, but even better was seeing Isi look around at the world with a forgotten smile on her lips, her face peaceful, at last at rest from the voice of the wind.

Though it was on Enna’s mind, they did not speak aloud about how what happened on that hilltop might affect a baby. Enna was relieved to detect a healthy amount of heat from Isi’s middle, and Isi said the creature still did flip-flops as much as ever, so they hoped.

There was much time for such thoughts, as the road home was slow. For Isi’s sake, they never dared push their horses past a walk. Avlado was good at walking smoothly and slowly for his pregnant rider.

They followed the same path home, keeping to the stream Isi called the Small Suneast for as long as possible. Enna despised the taste of its water and named it the Horse-spittle. Finn always called it Enna’s Stream. He tended to refer to most anything as belonging to her—Enna’s Meadow, Enna’s Mountain. When he referred to Yasid as Enna’s Kingdom, she said, “Isn’t that your heart?”

Finn smiled and kissed her hand. Isi rolled her eyes.

“Oh, you two are impossible.”

Enna laughed. “This coming from the girl who calls her husband ‘sweet little bunny boy’?”

Isi blushed. “That was just once.”

Isi could not hide her longing for Geric. She observed Finn’s affection for Enna, and it seemed to make her both happy and sad. Enna returned once from washing in the stream to find Isi holding her belly, laughing and crying at once and not sure why she was doing either.

Isi’s belly doubled in size before they crossed the Bayern border, and so, seemingly, did her aches and complaints. Near the end, they rode half days and then let Isi rest and eat. She alternated between nausea and ravenous hunger.

“How’s your back? How’s your belly? Are you well?” Enna asked continually.

“Hush up for five minutes, will you?” Isi got grumpier and grumpier and insisted on taking more than her fair share of turns lighting their cookfires as her ability with fire improved. Finn seemed to find Enna’s overattentiveness and Isi’s mood changes completely delightful.

Enna was anxious to get Isi to Geric and see the baby born healthy, but beyond that, she was hesitant to return to her kingdom and face the consequences of her burning.
Perhaps,
she thought,
Finn and I could see Isi safe home and slip away to the Forest.
The thought was disappointing, because now, with the languages of both fire and wind dwelling inside her, Enna was sure she could serve Bayern well. Her hopes of being useful were extinguished by the heavy certainty that she could not be forgiven.

Once they crossed into Bayern, they followed roads that led them past inns. When Enna could, she sent messages to Geric: “Fourteen days south, Oily Parchment Inn, your wife is expecting”; “Eight days south, the Pinched Nose, Isi is
huge
”; “Five days south, the Silver Hart, I hope you get at least one of these, because you are soon to be a father whether you are here or not.”

Enna suggested they just settle into an inn until the baby came, but Isi insisted they ride on each morning, determined to make it to the palace and Geric before the baby came. Then, passing by a village just outside the Forest and two days’ ride from the capital, she changed her mind.

“Aah, aaah, ahhh!” She dismounted, grabbed Enna’s hand so tightly that she drew blood with her fingernails, walked straight into the nearest cottage, and plopped down on a bed. Enna nodded to the startled cottage dwellers.

“It’s the queen, you see,” said Enna. “She’s going to have a baby in your house. You don’t mind?”

When the pains really started, Isi jabbered madly in the language of the south, bird tongue, and some curse words that made the cottage owner blush and his wife laugh. The pains came and went for hours, and Isi was red faced and sweaty and tired, and sometimes she cried a little. Just before sundown, a noise made her stop midholler. From outside came the rumbling rhythm of hoofbeats, then the whinnying of a horse who stopped suddenly. The door flung open. It was Geric.

“Isi, I’m here, I’m here.”

And it was, as well, half the court.

Geric rushed to Isi’s side, palace physicians gathered around the bed, a birth mistress pushed them all away again, the chief steward took command of the cottage kitchen and fire, a hundred-band was heard to position themselves in a defensive posture all around the building, and voices from outside told them that many more people had gathered. Enna sighed, relieved that at least one of her messages had made it to the capital ahead of them.

When the birth mistress had her way, all but Geric and one capable nurse-mary were shooed from Isi’s bed and out the door. Finn took Enna’s hand, and they walked into the cutting light of a bright summer evening and the midst of a small crowd. Enna squinted into the setting sun to see what was happening. They were all looking at her.

Several people, some of them Forest dwellers she had long known, pushed some cut logs up by the door and pressed her to step on top of one. She looked up, afraid to see a noose waiting for her. Talone appeared. The crowd quieted their whispering.

“Talone, I’m sorry,” she said.

He nodded. “Perhaps this is not the place for such business, but as it is the first time we’ve seen you for some time, and who knows where you will slip to after this, I have little choice.” He raised his voice for the crowd. “Enna of the Forest, for disobeying a war captain and treacherous acts, you are hereby stripped of your title of queen’s maiden.”

The crowd murmured, and someone shouted angrily. Enna was not sure if it was directed at her. Talone cleared his throat.

“I’m certain this is not the queen’s wish, but acts must be accounted for. However, we won’t stop there. For stubborn bravery and ingenuity in defense of the kingdom, His Highness bids me make you one of Bayern’s Own, a member of the king’s personal hundred-band.”

“Wait, Talone,” she said, “I don’t deserve—”

“Don’t interrupt, please.” He turned back to the crowd. “She fought in secret, she was captured and imprisoned, and she escaped in time to stop Tira’s invading force before they could overwhelm our army and invade the capital.” He took her hand and held it aloft. “Never has Bayern seen such a warrior.”

The crowd did not hesitate when it burst into applause and cheers. More hands pushed Finn up beside her, and she saw someone else step up. Her eyes were bleary now, and she had to blink several times before she could make out his face.

“Razo!”

“You might’ve waited for me to heal before you went off again,” he said. “Though I see Finn found you all right. Hello there, Finn. Well done.”

“Hello, Razo. Enna loves me, did you hear?”

Razo laughed. “Of course she does. See, Enna, I told you someday people’d chant our names.”

Enna listened to the calls and did not detect any chanting, so began to say quietly, “Razo, Razo.” He punched her shoulder.

Enna felt strange atop that stump, the cheers of the people touching her like soft slaps, a combination of aggression and love. The village was not far from the field where she had burned a tenth of the army of Tira. A day from there stood the place where she had dragged Leifer’s body to the funeral pyre. The heat from the crowd wafted around her, the breeze that touched her skin told her of clapping hands. So much had changed in a year, she felt stretched and twisted like poorly used cloth. After all this, who would she be? Finn squeezed her hand.

“Go on, Enna-girl,” said Razo, “why aren’t you smiling? I’d think this would be your scene.”

Enna shrugged. “Maybe I’ve changed.”

Razo rolled his eyes. “What a lot of rot.” He grabbed her hand and held it up. “For Bayern!”

And the crowd cheered.

As the sun set, villagers joined in the celebration, lighting fires and warming cider. At last they heard the sharp crack of a baby’s first wail. Finn and Enna looked at each other with relief. It was a healthy, loud cry. The birth mistress emerged and signaled that Enna could come, with Razo, Talone, and Finn following.

Isi’s face was streaked with sweat, but her eyes sparkled. Geric’s eyes were wet and cheeks pressed with an unvarying smile, and when he held the baby he seemed completely unable to acknowledge that anyone else existed. At last he relinquished his hold and placed the newborn carefully in Enna’s eager arms.

“A boy,” said Geric. “After Isi’s father—Tusken.”

“If it’d been a girl,” said Isi, “we were going to call her Enna-Isilee.”

“Oh, there’ll be others,” said Enna.

Geric’s eyes widened and he smiled with pure, boylike joy at the thought.

“How does he look to you?” asked Isi.

Enna touched his doe-soft skin. “Perfect. Completely perfect.”

She cooed at Tusken, and he looked up at her, almost as if he saw her with his wide, pale eyes. Her heart ached to see such beauty. She touched the healthy folds of skin around the baby’s neck, wrists, and thighs, the dark lines crying for life made in his forehead, and thought how people start with wrinkles and end with wrinkles, grow into their skin and then live to grow out of it again.

Just then, Enna felt at home in her own skin, not stretched or sagged or scorched. Everything felt right. Outside, the voice of merriment. Inside, a good fire crackled in the hearth, Geric knelt beside Isi’s bed kissing her hands, and a healthy baby stared at his new world.

Enna was glad to have Finn’s hand on her own, and that his skin felt right next to hers. She could feel the quiet, good heat in his touch and thought that it was all she would ever need feel. From the Forest, through the window, came a wisp of wind to twine through her hair. She listened to where it touched her neck—
a spring, muddy banks, wasps buzzing, mushrooms climb a pine, a pine needle falls.

She was home.

.

The End