The Firebrand Legacy (17 page)

The sorcerer breathed slowly, but his rhythm
was broken as he formulated an answer. From the height of his
voice, he didn’t seem tall or especially big. Just an average sized
man with an extraordinary misused Gift.

“Let me see your face.” If she saw him, she
could learn how to defeat him.

“No, I don’t want to frighten you.”

She could have laughed—this coming from the
one that had killed Limly and captured her, all with magic. She had
seen scars on Alviar. She had seen death with Selius and Limly. She
wondered what about his appearance could be so scary after all. “We
know about you. You’re like Firebrand.”

“We?” That wasn’t the part of the sentence
that she thought would surprise him. “Is that why you didn’t go
back, because of the others?” His voice faded as though he were
watching the campsite.

Her blood raced as her mind filled with
questions. When the sorcerer told them to turn back, she had
assumed that his primary concern was the princes. She had thought
he wanted them to return. But the question he asked made it clear
that the sorcerer wasn’t after the princes. He was after her.

“Don’t hurt them,” she said. But even as she
spoke, he was striding toward camp, a hooded silhouette in her
periphery. “Hey!” she yelled, praying one of the princes would hear
her.
“Hey!”

No one reacted. Carine reached down for the
drawstring bag that hung at her waist, but the vine looped around
her arm constricted as she strained. Her fingers lost all feeling
as the blood stopped flowing.

Carine strained again and managed to pick up
the fabric. Her fingers fumbled around for her awl.

She found it and struck the vine. It broke
around her wrist, leaving a dying bracelet. Carine tore through the
other holds, mutilating the vines, and breaking herself free. She
stumbled back to camp, where the fire spat and hissed. Giles
brandished a sword, but he wasn’t wearing any armor. Neither of the
princes were.

“What do you want from us?” David yelled from
the fire.

“It doesn’t matter what you want,” Giles
said, poised for battle. “We will not go back.”

The hooded sorcerer stood on the path. Before
anyone could stop him, he stretched out his gloved hand and spoke.
They didn’t have to hear what he said. The sword hurtled out of
Giles’ grip, whipped around, and pointed at his chest. Giles
stepped back, disarmed by his own blade.

“Please, sir,” Carine said, panting as she
stepped out from the bushes, “release them.” She struggled to
figure out what he wanted. “You’re not a Heartless One, are
you?”

“I am not,” he hissed, turning as though the
thought offended him.

“Then how are we offending you? All we need
is flame to protect Navafort. Think of the people who need
help.”

The sorcerer paused just long enough for
David to draw and throw his sword. “Giles!”

Giles caught the blade and blocked the
floating sword.

The floating sword swung. Metal clashed. The
blade swung again. It wasn’t tied to a knight, so it lashed at him
from all angles.

“Stop it!” David yelled to the silent
sorcerer. “Stop this!”

The horses whinnied as Giles backed into
them. He tripped, but blocked the floating sword with all his
strength. David jumped to his brother’s side. The sorcerer’s blade
gashed into him. Everything stilled until David grasped his side
and collapsed.

“
David!”
Carine ran forward, not
caring what the sorcerer might do. Blood leaked onto his shirt and
hands. “No,” she whispered. “David, can you hear me?” She turned
him over. He gasped for breath. His face looked pale already.

“Dragon’s bane,” David whispered. “I’ve been
hit.”

Her heart was breaking.

“The sorcerer is gone,” Giles announced.

Carine looked up. The sorcerer had vanished,
as though he had never stood there at all.

David moaned.

“Move away, move away,” Giles said. He lifted
the dripping fabric of David’s royal clothes. “The blade went
through his side. He’s hit, but it doesn’t look bad.”

Carine ripped her surcoat and wrapped David
in the fabric. “So he will survive?”

“Tie it tight and he will. This could have
been far worse.”

“Are you sure?”

“He just has to stop bleeding and he’ll
live.” Giles glared. “Until he feeds himself to the dragon...
because of you.”

Carine’s hands shook. David winced as she
wrapped the fabric around his torso. When her hand passed his side,
she paused and took the vial of gullon blood from his pocket.

As David’s eyes squeezed shut in pain, Carine
slipped the vial into her drawstring purse, which she then hid
behind her back. If he wouldn’t listen to reason, she would have to
force his hand.

Giles shook his head. “You are losing a lot
of blood, David. Can you hear me?”

“Yes,” David moaned. “Don’t use the gullon
blood.”

“I was not going to. You’ll be fine.”

David insisted. “I mean it. Limly can’t have
died for nothing. Don’t touch it. The blood is for the dragon, not
me.”

Carine forced a smile against her guilt.
“You’re going to be okay.”

“Good, thank the flames. I have to get to the
dragon.” David winced as he reached in his pocket for the vial.
“Giles…”

“Yes?”

“Give me the vial.”

“I didn’t take it from you,” he said, an
eyebrow raised at the accusation.

David went limp. “Carine, check my pocket. Do
you see it?”

“No.”

David slammed his head against the ground.
“He stole it. That flaming sorcerer stole our only hope.”

A few nights later, they made camp at the
edge of a lake that sparkled in the bright moonlight. Carine was
overlooking it alone when David slouched up beside her.

Ever since he’d discovered the vial was gone,
he’d barely spoken to anyone. He just held onto Carine as she led
the horse. His only communication was wincing every few hours when
Carine changed his bandages.

He was wearing his simple surcoat, without
chainmail or any weapons. His expression was just as vulnerable,
and it melted her heart. Every few hours they’d been changing the
bandage, and the last few wraps had come off with less blood.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“How are you feeling?”

“You don’t have to change the subject. I owe
you an apology.” David took a seat at the water’s edge. He
stretched out his legs and leaned back on his hands, careful not to
hurt his side. “I shouldn’t have said that about your sister.”

“It hurt, you know.”

He shook his head. “I’ve been such a jerk
lately. I’m really sorry.”

She nodded, meeting his eyes. “You’re
forgiven.”

It didn’t seem right to hold onto his
transgression. She wondered if he’d be saying that if he knew what
really happened to the gullon blood.

“You know”—he skipped a stone over the
water—“I thought this was my fate or something. Marcel’s the regal
one, Giles is the capable one, and I’m…I thought I could be the
heroic one.”

“You
are
heroic. You’ve come all this
way to help Navafort. And you’re continuing on despite your wound,
despite the sorcerer’s demands.”

He scrunched his nose.

Carine considered sharing her suspicions that
the sorcerer was after more than the princes’ acknowledgment of his
power, but the suggestion would mean that she had more to do with
Esten’s plight than David and Giles. It couldn’t be.

“Plus, who cares what anyone else thinks?
People think I’m weird for not going out during Festival. You
probably thought I was insane when I cut my hair. Everyone does
what they think is best. You don’t have to try to impress anyone.
Believe me, the people who love you are already impressed.”

His brown eyes were like tree trunks in the
moonlight. “Thanks.” He leaned back, resting his head in his palms.
“I wish I’d apologized sooner. I’ve missed out on a couple days of
what could have been good talks.”

Carine hugged her knees and smiled.

“Grandfather isn’t like you at all. He does
care about impressions. In fact, I think that’s all he cares about.
Have you ever been to the fencing competitions?”

“A couple,” she said, “if sneaking in the
back with my mom counts as being there.”

“Ha!” His mirth died quickly. “Giles has been
training to beat Marcel for years. Marcel always wins, but only
because he has the best trainer. When we were twelve, Giles beat
out all the adult knights. He almost made it to the final round,
where he’d fight Marcel. He didn’t make it that year, but this past
year, he did. Did you see it?”

“No.”

“I’m glad. You should have seen Giles. He
doesn’t always show emotion that well. Sometimes I think he has one
expression. But he was excited for this match. He knew he was going
to win. Everyone did.” David’s tone wasn’t so thrilled. “Minutes
before the match, Giles was getting dressed up in the training
room. My grandfather sent in four armed knights. They broke his
wrist. He could barely hold his sword.”

“Just so Marcel would win? That’s
horrible.”

David snapped a twig at his fingertips.
“Giles tried to beat him with his left hand but lost. He’s been
training though. He wants to enter next year, once he’s
ambidextrous. He’s hoping to be strong enough to fight off any
soldiers that might be set on breaking both his wrists.”

Carine shook her head. “Marcel may be king,
but he’s your family. Family doesn’t treat each other like
that.”

He sighed. “If the Marcels don’t have their
reputation, what do they have?”

Carine chuckled. “Honor to them for that?
What a joke.”

“Tell me about it.” After a moment, he added,
“I like to think there was at least one Great Marcel.”

“Your father?”

He smiled. David plucked some grass and
sifted it through his fingers. “It makes me jealous the way you
talk about your parents.”

“Really?” She missed them. In a way, his
confession made her glad; it was proof that she and her parents
shared something real, even when now they felt so distant.

He shook his head, his eyes tranquil. “I’m
glad you have that. It makes me grateful for my brother, which is
weird enough for us. This is the closest Giles and I have been in
years. It’s good.”

Carine got that warm feeling that made her
wish she still had a sibling too. “Giles told me the same
thing.”

“Really?” David grinned. “He cares after
all.”

Carine nudged him playfully with her
shoulder. “See? You don’t need heroic acts. You have us.”

He smiled sadly. “I guess I don’t have much
of a choice anymore, do I?”

She put her arm around his shoulder and
looked out over the ink-black lake that glistened in the moonlight.
She was glad he wouldn’t be risking his life, but with the vial
safely tucked in her drawstring bag, she felt wrong being the one
to steal his dream.

Flowers, fruit, vines, and vegetables bloomed
in bending branches that ran together, as if they were somehow
one.

The breathtaking assortment stretched into
the distance until its beauty peaked at a building—or almost a
building. Its walls were woven of living tree branches and
decorated with blooms.

“Verdiford,” David breathed, outstretching
his arm to touch a passing blossom. “Don’t you see how this is
better than Midway?”

They entered a long walkway of bowing trees.
Carine inhaled the luxurious rose scent. She followed David’s lead
and reached out to the trellises that grew upward to the music of
the castle muicians. Fauns, stationed at intervals on both sides of
the road, blew into woodwind instruments in incredible, harmonious
melodies. The plants alongside the path swayed and grew in response
to the song. It took her breath away.

The building grew more spectacular and less
distinguishable from its surroundings with every step. It was alive
with nature. Portraits hung on trees, and cushioned chairs sat next
to bushes, blurring the transition between inside and out.

Giles watched the bits of wall that sparkled
white in the sunlight under hanging flowers and rows of fruit
trees. “Stay alert. We may be entering Verdiford, but it’s no
protection from the Heartless Ones or from the sorcerer.”

The castle lord stood at the end of the hall.
He had hairy faun legs that angled slightly, as faun legs did, and
head hair piled around a blue cloth strip. Thick horns spiraled
from his crown of leaves. Over his shoulders he wore a sash filled
with nothing but dirt, from which sprouted forth grape vines that
wrapped over his arms and around his torso. A morning glory bloomed
on his shoulder.

“Welcome, Your Majesties,” he said in
greeting. “I heard rumors you were coming here.”

Their hosts did not wait to feed them
Verdiford ham and pears, thank the flames. Truly, Carine had never
been fed so perfectly and to such delectable satisfaction.

After a private concert by the city’s finest
cellists and a tour of the Gardens of Ether, Lord Tauno bestowed
upon them a torch dipped in the enchanted sap that kept the
dragon’s flame alive.

In awe, Carine held the torch that was to
save their kingdom. She thanked the lord. “Lord Tauno, you have
been so generous. But we have an errand here. Could you help us
find a scholar named Ansa?”

“Ansa of Resforb? How wonderful that you ask.
She is in the opera playing tonight. Do you care to see it?”

“Which opera?” Giles asked.

“
Hardly Ever Roses
. I assure you it is
a classic.”

“Ansa the scholar is in the opera?”

“Yes, that’s quite right,” said Lord Tauno.
“She plays the daffodil.”

“A prized role if I remember correctly,”
Giles said.

“Showoff,” David whispered.

Lord Tauno escorted them deftly to a long,
slow decline. A hundred fauns were seated in front of a curtain
made from dozens of hanging, flowering vines. The orchestra, armed
with every instrument from strings to percussion, stood ready in a
dip in front of the stage. With a bow, the lord waved his hands for
them to sit and ducked away out of sight. The prelude gave way to
the opening act, and costumed fauns filled the stage as the vines
pulled back.