Furyborn (34 page)

Eliana watched him, waiting. Her body felt so
tense she feared it might snap.

“A silly enough rumor to dismiss, at first,” he continued, “but I kept hearing it, again and again, and when I told the Prophet, I was ordered to investigate. I would go to Orline, find this Dread, and observe her. And if it was nothing, I would bring Princess Navana north, as was my original mission. But the rumors were indeed true. I knew you, Eliana, as soon
as I saw your face.”

His voice took on a rough quality that filled Eliana with a slow-creeping fear. What he was saying…whether it was madness or not, he believed it.

“How could you have possibly known me for anyone?” she asked. “We’d never met before that night in Orline, and—”

“I knew your parents,” Simon interrupted quietly. “I see them on your face as clearly as I see the sun rise
at dawn.”

She stepped away from him, the truth settling slowly in her mind. “It was never about me helping you bring Navi to Astavar. You didn’t need me for that.”

“No. When I found you, my mission to bring Navi home became secondary to keeping you safe. Everything,” he said, moving urgently toward her, “is secondary to keeping you safe. Navi’s life. My life. Red Crown.”

She stared
at him in horror. Zahra murmured close to her ear, “He isn’t wrong in this, Eliana. We may not trust him altogether, but this, at least, is the real truth.”

Simon shot an irritated glance Zahra’s way.

“It’s not my fault your human eyes aren’t strong enough to see me,” Zahra said archly. “There’s no need to scowl.”

“I don’t understand,” Eliana whispered. “This is ludicrous.”

Simon
stopped just short of touching her. “Why do you think your body can do what it does? You’ve been lying to yourself about it for years, and I understand why, but it’s time to face the truth.”

She lifted her chin, fumbling for speech. “I’ve just been lucky is all.”

“You don’t believe that.” He did reach for her then, his touch on her cheek so gentle it was a mere whisper of warmth. “It’s
your power, Eliana. The power you inherited from your mother. It’s fighting to awaken at last. And when it does—”

A scream pierced the night, followed by Remy’s voice: “El, he’s here!”

Glass crashed against stone.

A brilliant orange light flared to life through the trees, illuminating the awful truth:

The safe house was on fire.

A familiar figure stood before it, staring out
into the trees with a flaming torch in one hand.

Simon swore.

“Tick, tock, tick, tock!” crowed Rahzavel. “We’re all waiting for you, Dread! Come out and play!”

Rielle

“Marzana wandered the bitterly cold Kirvayan tundra in search of solace. She dared not touch anyone for fear of burning them and wandered alone for long months until stumbling upon a fresh green woodland tucked inside a canyon of ice. A fire burned in its heart, and as Marzana warmed her feet, a red-eyed firebird emerged blazing from the flames, and Marzana was not afraid.”

—
The Book of the Saints

After Tal’s acolytes removed her blindfold, Rielle stepped out of her tent and onto a stone platform, a cloak of feathers draped around her shoulders.

A wall of sound slammed into her—cheers, cries of her name, ringing handbells. For Rielle’s final costume, Ludivine had drawn inspiration from Saint Marzana’s firebird. A scarlet jumpsuit embroidered with golden
flames clung to her curves. From her shoulders spilled a dramatic ten-foot-long cloak fashioned to look like trailing wings. Feathers of brilliant violet, vermilion, and amber covered the cloak from clasp to hem. Ludivine had gathered her hair into a high feathered knot, dusted her hair with gold, and painted her cheeks with crimson swirls.

Rielle drew in a long breath, scanning her surroundings.

They’d brought her to a narrow valley between the grassy foothills north of Mount Sorenne, to the east of the city. Stands for spectators had been erected along the rocky ridges that terraced the slopes, but most of the crowd stood on foot, crowding behind safety railings for a better view. Flashes of gold winked at her from all sides: Sun Queen banners, pendants, sun-shaped play castings waved
by screaming children.

At the end of the platform, stairs led down into an enormous circular maze of wood and stone. The Archon stood at the top of the stairs—as did Sloane, red-eyed and shaking.

And holding Tal’s bronze shield.

Terror swept through Rielle like a physical force. “Sloane? Why do you have Tal’s casting?”

“He’s in the maze,” Sloane replied, her voice hoarse. “Bound—and
waiting for you.”

“Before you accuse me of anything,” the Archon said, “it was Magister Belounnon’s idea, not mine.”

Rielle felt suddenly and impossibly small beneath her heavy cloak. “I don’t understand.”

“He thought it would help you,” Sloane said, “if you were forced to face death by fire once more, as you did the day your mother died. You can save him, as you couldn’t save her.”
Sloane’s tears spilled over. “He said, tell her it’s all right to be afraid, but her fear will not triumph this time. Tell her she is stronger than any flame that burns.”

The doors at the bottom of the stairs opened, revealing a narrow dirt path between twelve-foot wooden walls.

Rielle stared at the path in dismay, the crowd’s cries ringing in her ears.

“You will find Magister Belounnon
in the maze’s heart,” the Archon explained, pointing at a structure in the distant center of the maze. “Each dead end you meet will result in his acolytes setting fire to a section of the maze that surrounds him.”

The world fell away, leaving Rielle adrift. She glared at the Archon. “How could you let this happen?”

The Archon’s face was grave. “Magister Belounnon insisted on it.”

“Then you should have stopped him!”

A horn blasted from one of the stands overhead.

Rielle nearly lunged at the man. “At least let me bring him his casting!”

“He requested that his casting remain with his sister,” the Archon replied.

The horn blasted a second time. Across the maze, hissing snakes of fire sprang to life along random stretches of wall.

Rielle ripped off her cloak
and flung it to the ground. Feathers went flying; her palms blazed hot as she advanced on the Archon.

“If he dies,” she ground out, “I will flay every inch of skin from your body.”

The Archon did not flinch. “If he dies, Lady Rielle, you will have no one to blame but yourself. The maze will burn quickly. I suggest you run.”

A third horn blast. Rielle threw a desperate look at Sloane,
then raced down the stairs and into the maze.

Eliana

“They called her the Dread, not knowing that beneath the mask and cloak and painted-on smile, she was simply a girl. A girl with a heart that burned for blood.”

—
The Terrible Tale of the Deadly Dark Dread
by Remy Ferracora

Eliana grabbed Arabeth and Whistler, then lunged forward only to be yanked back by her left arm.

She whirled on Simon. “Let go of me!”

“No.” He held her fast. “Leave them.”

“Are you mad? That’s my brother!”

“And his life is nothing compared to yours.” Simon glanced once at the safe house. Eliana thought she saw the ghost of regret in his eyes. “Let’s go.”

Eliana twisted savagely in his grip. “I’ll kill you!”

“I don’t think you will.” He pulled her closer. “You’re intrigued by what I’ve said. You want to know more.”

She spat at his face. Simon chuckled.

“You are so like her,” he muttered darkly.

“I am like myself,” she hissed, “and no one else.”

She kicked his knee, swiped Whistler across his stomach, but he dodged quickly enough to miss the worst of it. She broke free and ran; he caught her once more. Panic was making her sloppy. She heard terrified cries from the safe house and shouted a
furious curse.

“That’s it.” Simon struggled to hold on to her, chuckled breathlessly. “Rage at me, Eliana. Fight me. I’m keeping you from your brother. I’m keeping him in pain.”

“Let me go!”

“You can’t ignore your destiny forever. Let it rise, let the anger come.
Wake up.
”

She snarled, “I warned you,” then kneed him ruthlessly in the groin.

He dropped her, staggering.

She turned and ran.

“Zahra!” she called.

“Right here,” answered Zahra, rushing through the trees at her side. Her form flickered, wavering. “I’ll hide you from him for as long as I can.”

Together they raced out of the trees and past Rahzavel, who stood looking out at the forest with wild eyes. Eliana froze at the safe house door. Flames crawled up the roof; the trees on either side
crackled with fire. She ripped off her jacket, wrapped it around her hand, and reached for the front door just as the rafters overhead crumbled. She jumped back, coughing.

“Here!” Zahra beckoned from a few yards away. A wooden door was set into the ground, draped with moss and covered with piles of rocks—a basement so well blocked that Remy and the others wouldn’t be able to get out from inside.

Eliana raced over, started frantically pushing away rocks. “Tell me what’s happening!”

Zahra peered around the house. “Simon has engaged your attacker. Who is this man?”

“Rahzavel.” Eliana ripped a sheet of moss from the door’s hinges.

Zahra hummed in disapproval. “He is Invictus.”

“Yes.” The door was jammed. She braced her foot against the frame and yanked hard. “I can’t open
it!”

“El?” A voice sounded from beyond the door. “Is that you?”

“I’m here! The door is stuck!” Eliana pulled hard, every muscle in her body straining. “Push from the inside, when I say, you and Hob. Ready?”

Hob’s voice came faintly. “Ready!”

“One…two…three!”

She yanked at the door with all her strength, and it finally gave way. She flung it aside, reached down for Remy. Hob
pushed him up and then Navi right after—all of them coughing, their faces streaked black from smoke. Remy clung to Eliana’s side; Hob hefted Navi over his shoulder, his expression grim.

He looked to Eliana. “What now?”

“We must go at once,” Zahra warned, her form shimmering. “Simon is nearly finished, and then Rahzavel will find us. My strength will fail at any moment.”

Hob’s eyes
widened. “Who said that?”

Eliana turned, squinting through the smoke. Zahra was right: Simon was gravely hurt, holding his side. Rahzavel knocked away his sword, kicked his wound. Simon cried out in agony, knees buckling, and collapsed. Rahzavel stood over him, a crazed grin splitting his cheeks.

Eliana set her jaw against the hot swell of shame in her heart and turned away. “Then we’ll
go north, toward the Narrow Sea.”

“But we can’t!” Remy tugged on her arm. “He’ll kill Simon!”

“And he won’t kill us.” Eliana glanced at Hob, who nodded once.

“Let’s go,” she said and hurried into the woods, holding Remy tightly by the hand. She saw him look back once, his eyes bright with tears, but did not allow herself to do the same.

Rielle

“My students, please know this: I chose to give up my casting and bind myself inside my own maze. I did it for two simple reasons: I trust Rielle Dardenne, and I love her.”

—Letter written by Grand Magister Taliesin Belounnon to the acolytes of the Pyre
June 19, Year 998 of the Second Age

Once Rielle stepped inside the maze, the crowd’s cheering dimmed.

The doors
slammed shut behind her.

She kept running down the path, dry grasses crunching beneath her feet.

The maze will burn quickly.

Already, she could smell smoke. But coming from where?

She climbed the nearest wall and had almost reached the top when a hard knot of fire shot down from the stands. It slammed against the wood, knocking her back to the ground. Head spinning, she watched
flames spread along the wall.

No climbing, then.

She pushed herself to her feet and ran. The structure containing Tal was in the dead center of the maze. She reached a fork in the path—three routes. Left, right, continuing center. She thought quickly. If she’d been mapping the maze correctly, the path on the right would bring her to the maze’s outermost wall—and a dead end. Center would
keep her running around the maze’s rim.

She turned left, heard a faint burst of cheers from the distant crowd above.

She smiled in relief. Left had been the right choice.

She raced down a corridor of walls capped in roaring flames. Wood snapped, showering embers across her path. Bile rose in her throat, along with a smoky black flavor that twisted her stomach. For weeks after her mother’s
death, the taste of ash had lingered on her tongue.

Ahead: a door in the wall to her left, which should lead to the maze’s center.

She ducked through the door, turned right, raced down the path, then turned left—and skidded to a halt.

A stone wall blocked her path.

Outside the maze, the horn blasted once more.

Rielle looked up just as three knots of flame arced through the
sky. Their impact crashed through the maze like fists against glass.

The crowd cried out in awe.

Tal.

Rielle turned and ran back the way she had come, the pressure of tears building behind her eyes. When she turned the corner, the path before her erupted into flames.

She screamed, raised an arm to shield her face, and stumbled back against the wall.

Rielle, where’s your mother?

Rielle, what did you do?

She bent over, hands on her knees, and made herself breathe until the memory of her father’s frantic voice faded.

Corien?
She reached out with her mind, cautious. He had said not a word to her since she’d taken Audric into her bed, and she had not dared speak to him. But the angry flames devouring the path before her made her feel shrunken, brittle. Too much
heat, and she would crack.

She squeezed her eyes shut. She had worked with Tal for years, had manipulated torches, candles, hearth fires. But these flames were different—wild and vindictive. She could hardly breathe, the heat stealing away her air.

Are you there? Corien, please, help me.

Another horn blast.

She looked up as three more arcs of fire shot across the sky.

“No!”
she screamed. The crowd’s cries echoed her own.

She turned to face the fire blocking her way, fear punching a sob from her throat. She flung out her hands without thinking.

The fire parted, clearing a charred path for about twenty feet in front of her, and then collapsed. The fire re-formed.

Her hands shook. She wiped the sweat from her eyes. She couldn’t think, couldn’t find the empirium,
not with these flames crowding her, not with Tal trapped somewhere behind her.

But she had to. Somehow, somehow…

She sank to her knees, watching bleary-eyed as the flames climbed. The twin biting scents of smoke and firebrand magic carved sour ruts down her throat.

Rielle, make it stop!

Rielle, she’s still inside!

She closed her eyes, crouched, ready to run. What had Tal always
taught her? Prayer steadies the mind.

Fleet-seeming fire
, she prayed,
blaze not with fury or abandon.

She glared up through her lashes at the nearing flames. She let her eyes unfocus, breathing in and out with each familiar word.

The world shimmered gold.

Unless
, she finished,
I command you to.

She pushed off the ground and ran, shoving all her rage and grief ahead of her like
a wave. The fire broke at her approach, flames peeling away up the walls to let her through. She heard them collapsing back down as she fled, felt the snap of flames against her heels. Turned a corner, and another, ducked under a doorway and came out in a circular clearing.

Seven identical doors surrounded her, including the one through which she’d entered. Despair swelled within her. Which
way?

The sky was filling with smoke. As she knelt, closing her eyes, she heard more fire erupt behind her—to the left, then the right. Sparks scattered across the ground.

She dug her fingers into the dirt, imagined that every bead of sweat sliding down her body could seep into the earth, race off through the veins of rock in the ground like buzzing beacons.

She saw it in her mind’s
eye: Gold knots zipping lightning-quick through the deep dense dark, seeking fire. Seeking Tal.

Warmth suffused her, but not from the fire.

From the empirium.

She felt it rise from the ground, called by her desperation. Heat bloomed up her arms and legs, unfurled in her belly, raced up her spine, and burrowed into the base of her skull.

When she opened her eyes, the world blazed
gold. One door—second to her right—shone brighter than the rest. From down that golden path came the faraway sound of a man calling her name.

She blinked. The gold faded, and the world was itself again.

She launched herself off the ground, ran through the door, followed the path to the right, then right again, then left. Climbing flames surrounded her on all sides. Above the roar of fire
and the crashes of the collapsing maze, she heard the crowd cheering and pushed herself faster. Flames chased her over a caved-in wall. She dropped and rolled, leapt up, kept running.

Another fork. She took the left path. Not fifty yards later, she hit a wall of stone.

The horn blasted; the fire arced overhead.

Then, three crashes. Very near. The wall just beside Rielle rumbled and
groaned.

She whirled to follow the sound, then raced back to the fork, took the right path instead. Ran for a full minute at top speed, her side cramping. Dodged a buckling wall, shielded her face from a cascade of sparks. She could hear it now—a larger, roaring fire, straight ahead past a pile of smoking rubble that had once been a wall.

She climbed through it, kicking aside planks of
charred wood, then emerged into a circular yard pockmarked with blackened craters. From the craters snapped trails of fire, and in the center of the yard, surrounded by rubble and walls of flame, stood a familiar building.

It was a narrow, three-storied house, not as grand as one might expect for the commander of the royal army. Painted gray in honor of his metalmaster heritage and forest-green
in honor of the family he served.

So he had said. But Rielle’s mother had told Rielle the truth—no-nonsense Armand Dardenne had ordered his house painted green because that was the color of his daughter’s eyes.

All clarity left Rielle in a flood of dread.

It was her parents’ house, re-created in the center of the maze. And it was on fire.

Rielle, what did you do?

She’s dead!
Oh, God! Help us! Someone help us!

But then Armand Dardenne had come to his senses. He had stared at Rielle over the red, ruined wreck of his wife’s body, watched her frantic sobs with an expression of abject contempt until everything Rielle had known about her father had disappeared. His face had closed to her, never to be opened again. He had lowered Marise Dardenne’s body to the ground,
picked up his shivering daughter, and hurried her through the tunnels below the castle to the Pyre and Tal’s bedroom.

Tal, sleep-rumpled and only nineteen years old, had opened his door, taken one look at Rielle’s face, and held out his arms to her.

Help us
, her father had said, his voice carved hollow.
Help her. Don’t let them take her from me.

“Rielle!”

Tal’s distant shout shook
her. She took two halting steps forward, gazing up at the burning house.

“I can’t,” she whispered, a sharp, ill heat flaring throughout her body. “No, no, no.”

Then, with a groan, the front face of the house began to collapse.

A choked scream rang out—her own name, quickly silenced.

Rielle ran around the house, searching through the smoke for the back door. It was there, just as
she remembered it. She kicked the blackened wood; it gave way easily. She raced over the threshold into a world of black smoke and leaping orange flames. How strange it was to see the rooms just as they should have been—but empty now. No furniture, no art on the walls. Only flames and a noxious smell that coated her every breath with darkness.

She hid her face. “Tal? Where are you?”

“Here!”
His voice was faint. “In the parlor!”

She stumbled down the main hallway and to the door of her mother’s parlor. The wall was buckling; overhead, the rafters creaked and groaned.

She shoved her weight against the door. It didn’t budge. She slammed into it again and again, her throat tightening, her vision a luster of tears.

Outside, three monstrous crashes hit the ground. The house
rattled, windows shattering. More fire from the acolytes?

She cried out in frustration, then heard a loud snap and scrambled out of the way right before the ceiling above her collapsed.

The door, wedged loose, fell out of its frame.

“Tal?” She crawled to the door, the floor blazing hot under her palms. Dragged a hand across her face to clear the grit from her eyes, looked inside the
parlor past billowing waves of heat.

Tal.

He was there, wrists and ankles bound, trapped in the far corner by a shattered window. Glass sparkled across the floor. Rafters and chunks of plaster from the collapsed ceiling separated them, as did a roaring ribbon of fire.

“Tal!” She clung to the doorframe. “Answer me! Come on, get up! We have to leave!”

“I can’t move,” he called out
to her. His voice was ravaged, wheezing. “The ceiling fell on my legs!”

She sagged to the floor.

“Douse the flames, Rielle!” He coughed violently. “Just as we practiced!”

As if it were that simple. Just a prayer, just a lesson.

The sound of the flames roaring between them was turning her stomach inside out. She couldn’t think past them to remember her prayers, much less find the
empirium.

Rielle, save her!

Rielle, please! Do it, now! Oh, God…

She fell to her hands and knees, stomach heaving.

Papa, I’m sorry! I can’t stop it! Mama! Mama, run!

“I can’t,” she gasped. “I can’t stop it.”

“You can do this, Rielle,” Tal was calling to her. “Listen to my voice! I trust you!”

From elsewhere in the house came a massive groan. The floor shook. Rielle
looked back, down the smoke-filled hallway to see the second floor collapse. Her bedroom, her father’s study, her mother’s music room. New flames roared up the walls. A great gaping hole in the roof revealed a smoke-stained sky.

“Rielle, listen—” Tal’s voice disappeared into a fit of coughing.

“Tal?”

He didn’t respond.

“Tal!” She rose on shaking legs, searched through the inferno
for a path through, and found one—small and shrinking.

She ran for it, diving through the flames and slamming to the floor on the other side. A few feet away, Tal lay under a ceiling beam, his face sallow and slick with sweat.

She crawled to him, head ringing from her wild leap. The fire’s heat pressed down on her back like a hand determined to bury her.

“Tal, I’m here. Tal?” She helped
him sit, slapped his cheeks until his bloodshot eyes fluttered open.

He smiled up at her. “There you are.” His hand fumbled for hers. “I knew you’d find me.”

“We’re trapped, I can’t… I can’t carry you. Please get up.”

He gasped for air, shaking his head. “You can put the fire out.”

“Tal, I…” Her tears dropped onto his neck.
Papa, I can’t make it stop!
“If I try, I’ll just make
it worse. You know I will.”

“What I know is that you were only a child. And that now…” He touched her cheek. “Now, you are a queen.”

His eyes began to flutter shut.

“Tal? No! Tal!” She looked helplessly at the encroaching flames, tried reaching for the empirium with a weak thrust of her hand. “Move! Leave us alone,
please!
”

Another rafter collapsed, not five feet from them. Rielle
ducked her head over Tal’s body, breathless.

Then she heard Tal’s voice, faint at her ear: “Burn steady and burn true. Burn clean and burn bright.”

The Fire Rite. She closed her eyes.

“Burn steady and burn true,” she repeated, her voice cracking. “Burn clean…”

His hand tightened around hers. “…and burn bright. Again, Rielle.”

“Burn steady and burn true.”

“Think,” he whispered,
“of the ones you love.”

“Burn clean and burn bright.”

The ones I love.

Ludivine. Tal.

Audric.

Fresh warmth touched her fingers, her toes.

From overhead came Atheria’s piercing cry—part horse, part hawk. A distracted part of Rielle’s mind recalled the discarded firebird cloak. Her vision flooded with a thousand shades of summer.

“Burn steady,” she whispered.

“And
burn true,” Tal finished, his voice a mere thread.