The Girl Born of Smoke (27 page)

“Look, just keep running from the armies for
now,” he replied. “I told you, you’re not ready to lead the
Wizard’s Army yet and if you get mixed up with them again, it’s
going to get even messier than it already is. You can’t hope to
crush the ones that hate you if you fall down from exhaustion every
time you use the simplest of magic. The problem is you don’t
understand how much energy it takes to use your magic, so you’re
just grabbing all the energy you can hold and thrusting it out in
one huge burst, wasting it all. Of course, the energy has to go
somewhere, so you’ve got bizarre side-effects, like that ridiculous
burst of light when you were trying to heal that friend of
yours.”

“Have you been watching me?” Tarana paled
slightly. “And what do you mean the energy has to go somewhere?
What are you talking about?”

Rupert looked exasperated. “Of course I have
been watching you - that’s my job. And you can’t just make energy
disappear. It can be converted to different forms, but it’s a
constant in the universe. It can never be created or destroyed.” He
groaned at the bewildered expression on Tarana’s face. “Alright,
let’s start from the beginning, why don’t we? Every object in the
universe is made from the same starting materials…”

That night, Rupert began the first of many
lessons, trying to explain to Tarana the intricacies of how the
world worked. When he had finished, she instantly awoke and saw the
room was dimly lit as the sun crept up over the horizon. Her body
was buried underneath the blankets, tucked in between Djerr and
Kirian and she felt her eyelids drooping as she drifted back off to
sleep. When she woke up again, she was alone in the bed and the
room was splashed in sunlight. Stretching, she raised herself up on
one arm and blinked several times, trying to see more clearly.

“About time you woke up.” She saw Kirian
wiping off a small dusty table in the corner.

She yawned and sat up. “Yeah, guess I was
pretty tired. Where’s Djerr?”

Kirian gestured toward the door. “Oh, off
grabbing us breakfast.” He paused awkwardly, looking at her without
saying anything. Finally, he glanced away. “Say, Tarana, I wanted
to ask you…is everything alright between you and Djerr?”

She shrugged. “Sure, why?”

Looking slightly embarrassed, he walked over
and sat down on the corner of the bed. “It’s just, I mean, it’s
obvious he likes you and he has seemed so overly cheerful in the
past day, but you seemed so quiet, it just seems a little weird.
Did something happen between you two?”

Feeling her face flush, Tarana stared out
the window. “I just, I mean-“

Kirian shook his head. “It’s alright, I know
you don’t want me to act like I’m your father or something.”

Tarana looked at him sharply. “Kirian, that
stuff I said before, I didn’t mean it. I-I was just upset. I’ve
always thought of you like my dad. You took me in when I was all
alone, and you saved me when I needed it most.”

“Oh.” A small smile crept over Kirian’s
face. “You know I don’t really know how to do this all. I know I’ve
made some mistakes, but I just want you to be happy. Look, maybe
this has nothing to do with what’s going on with you, but I know
you want Djerr to be happy and it’s important to never sacrifice
your own happiness to please someone else. It never works and you
both end up broken in the end.” The door opened suddenly, and Djerr
bounced in holding a small bag. Standing up quickly, Kirian greeted
him and went back over to the table, leaving Tarana sitting in bed,
looking confused.

“Hey!” Djerr said to both of them and
setting the bag down on the table, he hopped out of his
snow-covered boots and leapt onto the bed, wrapping the blankets
around himself. “It’s freezing out there!”

Protesting as he pulled the blankets off
her, Tarana tried to grab them back, but was interrupted by Kirian.
“Come on,” he said gruffly. “If we’re going to keep going, we might
as well eat and head out.”

They ate quickly and headed back out into
the frigid outdoors, slowly crunching through the snow away from
the small town. When Tarana would fall behind by a few steps, Djerr
would fall back as well, sometimes slipping his hand around hers.
In the afternoon, snow started to fall again and continued into the
evening, so that they camped in the shelter of a tall needled tree,
being careful not to let the fire get too large.

When Tarana awoke in
Rupert’s cave again, she groaned. “This again?” she asked, before
she even located him. “You know, I think you’re really wasting your
time.” She finally saw him, leaning against one of the boulders and
watching her with disinterest. “I have no intention of ever leading
the Wizard’s Army. I hate those guys. I hate the Citizens’ Army,
too. I think it’s all a big fake. If they were
really
trying to fight each other,
they would have ended it a long time ago.”

He raised an eyebrow. “So you think all
those people are just pretending to raise armies and fight huge
battles with thousands of casualties?”

“No,” she sighed. “But I still think there’s
something weird going on. Either way, I’m not joining either side
ever again.”

“So you’re just going to
let them keep fighting until everyone gets swept up into it and
suffers when you have the ability to stop the fighting? Well,
you
will
have the
ability eventually, anyway. You’re definitely not ready yet. Either
way, we can discuss that later. While you’re here, let’s get some
work done.”

Wait,” Tarana held up a finger, “one more
question. I’ve been thinking all day, and I heard before that only
men could become wizards. And well, I am definitely not a man.”

With a sudden pained look, Rupert shook his
head. “No, women could become wizards too, just as easily as men. I
knew one in my time, far more talented than I, but the academy only
accepted boys. The ones in charge were men and they refused to
recognize that the women wizards were practicing anything greater
than simple tricks. It was ridiculous, but it was the way at the
time. Of course, when the people began killing off all the wizards,
they killed all the female wizards they could find as well, so it
didn’t matter much then, did it?”

Tarana balked at the bitterness in his
voice. “So the wizards just left all the girls to fend for
themselves? That seems…kind of mean.”

Rupert smiled grimly. “It was mean. The
school was essential for young wizards, it brought them among
people of their own kind, gave them hope that they weren’t alone.
Even before the wizard purge, we were not popular amongst the
people at the time. The women had to hide their power in fear of
becoming outcasts. I cannot even imagine what they must have gone
through. Of course, the male wizards in power at the time came out
with all sorts of faked research of how the ability to use magic
was due to a mutation on the Y-chromosome, which could not possibly
be present in women.”

Blinking, Tarana started to feel lost again,
“Wait, what? You’re using weird words again.”

Rupert laughed suddenly. “Alright, I think I
found our topic of the day. Have you ever thought about why babies
look so much like their parents?”

Once again, Tarana was engrossed in what
Rupert was teaching her, although wondering howit would ever be
important to her. The lessons continued daily, sometimes building
on each other, sometimes completely independent of each other. The
weeks passed and she woke up tired every morning, but forced
herself to continue on, still worrying the armies might be closing
in behind her.

Chapter 12

The wind howled around Djerr and Tarana as
they sat on a rocky outcrop, leaning against each other. From where
they sat, they could see a vast plain beneath them where the snow
was scarce and the landscape was mostly brown with only occasional
patches of white. But up where they were, the snow was still piled
high around them. Djerr had an arm around Tarana to keep her
warm.

“I think I should tell Kirian,” Tarana said,
after a long silence.

Djerr looked at her oddly, the snow speckled
in his dark hair. “Tell him what?”

“About what I can do and stuff,” she said
vaguely. “You know, the magic stuff.”

“Ohh,” he trailed off. “Do you think that’s
a good idea? You know how crazy he is about the whole Citizens’
Army thing.”

She shrugged. “Well he’s going to find out
eventually, don’t you think?”

Djerr kissed the top of her head. “We could
always just go on our own now, you know. Let him go back to his
army if he really wants to. It looks like we’re nearly through the
winter. We could make it on our own, go find somewhere nice to
settle down where we’re not surrounded by all this dumb war stuff.
Let them fight it out without us.”

Sighing, she pulled her
arms tighter around herself. “I don’t know what to do. There’s all
those people being killed, their cities ruined…and I just keep
running further away. Do you think there
is
anywhere where we wouldn’t be
bothered by them? They’re just going to keep getting bigger and
expanding. Maybe if I told Kirian, he’d understand and help me
figure out what to do.”

Djerr pulled her tighter to him and looked
skeptical as he stared off into the distance. “I dunno Tara, you
know him better than I do.”

“How do you figure?” she asked. “You knew
him even before I did and you’ve spent more time with him in the
Citizens’ Army and all.”

He laughed. “And you think we talked much? I
just feel awkward around him, I stuck with him because he was the
only one I knew, but it’s never been like how you and him are.” He
leaned over and kissed her cheek, his lips startlingly warm against
her cold skin.

“Alright, well, I’m going back to camp,” she
stood abruptly, Djerr’s arm falling from her shoulders. “It’s
getting dark and I want to talk to him.”

She carefully made her way back down the
slippery rocks to where Kirian was setting up a campfire and went
to stand next to him. Glancing over, he nodded. “Oh, you’re back,”
he said. “I was hoping you would get back soon. I want to talk to
you about things.” He sat down on a fallen log, motioning for her
to do the same. “I know you’re set in your decision to keep
traveling this way and you don’t want me to argue with you, but
hear me out.”

Tarana opened her mouth, but Kirian lifted
his finger. “Wait, just hear me out. We’re running out of money and
we won’t be able to go much farther, no matter how much you might
want it. Now that the weather is getting a little warmer, it’s
going to be easier and faster to travel and if we conserve all the
food we have left and spend our money wisely, we should be able to
just make it back to where we started. Otherwise, we’re going to be
stranded out here, away from civilization. We’ll have to settle
down out here, away from everything and everyone we know. It’s not
a pleasant place out here, which is why almost no one lives out
this way. It alternates between blindingly cold and swelteringly
hot, with only a few months of bearable weather each year. It’s
been a long time since we started traveling and I’m sure things
have settled down by now. If you want, we could still lie low for
awhile. I would help you and Djerr.”

Tarana opened her mouth again, unsure what
to say or how to begin. “Kirian…” she said in a small voice, “don’t
you think it would be a bad idea to let either army find the person
they think is this great wizard? I mean, what would they do with
him? Djerr was imprisoned when they thought he was the one they
were looking for.”

Frowning slightly, Kirian looked down at
her. “Of course they did. That’s the problem with them; they think
they can have whatever they want, simply by seizing it and claiming
it as their own. That’s why I want you to be protected by the
Citizens’ Army, so they can’t wrap you up in that again. We both
know Djerr’s not a wizard and we can get this whole thing
straightened out if we go back.”

Tarana felt herself
breathing faster, her heart fluttering uncontrollably. “Kirian,
what would they do if they
did
have someone who could use magic? The person they
want to kill- what if they had that person, totally defenseless.
The only reason I know beyond a doubt that Djerr can’t use magic,
that he’s not this wizard, and the only way I could break him out
of the grasp of the Citizens’ Army is because I’m the one that can
use magic.”

She felt like she was gasping for breath now
and her mind felt fuzzy. She tried to focus on Kirian’s face, which
looked unnatural, his expression different than she had ever seen
before. His mouth had dropped open slightly, but his lips were
moving, trying to find something to say.

She took advantage of his silence, the words
rushing out now that she had started. “They know who I am now,
Kirian. The people keeping Djerr hostage saw me use magic and
everyone must be looking for me now, but I can’t protect myself
from a whole army – two whole armies. I don’t want anything to do
with them. I just want them to leave me alone.” Kirian’s face
looked blank and she wondered if he was even hearing her anymore.
She reached out a hand, lightly touching her fingertips to his arm,
but he leapt up. Unsure if it was because of her touch or if he had
even noticed, she looked pleadingly up at him.

“You’re serious,” he asked, although it
didn’t sound like a question.

She nodded, almost imperceptibly, then
lowered her hand to the hardened snow, trailing a thin line through
it that began to steam and melt with a soft hissing noise. His eyes
widened slightly and Tarana finally recognized the look on his
face. He looked terrified. He shook his head and the look
passed.