When Comes the Fire Page 11

  Namida sighed. Another day, it seemed, where she would be unable to meditate. Rarely had she been able to do so since Master Dorozi's death, for without his gentle reminders to calm her mind, the soothing hand he would place atop her head when he told her to focus on her breathing and the blood humming in her veins rather than the thoughts that just would not stop, she found it nigh impossible to do so. The issue with that, however, was quite evident when she and Darwe ventured into the crowded streets of the towns they passed through. The tension, the near-panic that overwhelmed her at the feeling of being surrounded, overwhelmed by the bodies pressing in on her...it was almost enough to set her off. In fact, it had, just days ago.

  "Mida," Darwe murmured, his hands on her shoulders as he pulled her out of the crowded street and into the alleyway, noticing her ragged breathing and wild eyes. His hands were on her face, but she barely registered them. Ancients, they were closing in on her, she had no space to cry out, no space to breathe— "Mida, look at me. You need to breathe. In—hold it—breathe out." He pantomimed the actions with exaggerated sound, but she just couldn't, there was no air, how was he breathing when there was no air? Oh Fate, was she dying? She couldn't die yet!

  "No!"

  Namida was back in that house, the burning rubble falling down on top of her, crushing her left side as her spider-webbed scars burned and burned, the acrid tang of smoke and charred flesh filling the air.

  "Namida!"

  The pained shout broke through her senses and she jerked her head up, only to collapse in on herself.

  "Darwe!" She rushed forward, desperation filling her as she tried to smother the hungry flames that licked at Darwe's left shoulder. No, no, no, not again, she couldn't lose her brother again—

  Brother? Her mind whispered, scoffing. You know he is not your brother. Don't fool yourself. He is much more to you than that. But she would not, could not, admit it to herself. She feared if she did, she might finally break. And Fate knew that there was no use for a broken tool in this world.

  The flames were dying, but not quick enough. Darwe grunted as he attempted in vain to smother the flames with the folds of his cloak, but she knew instinctively that it burned much deeper than that. She slapped his hands away, splaying her fingers along his shoulder, plunging them into the fire though they felt no heat.

  "Obey."

  The word bubbled unbidden from her lips, her only thought of the flames that needed to begone, of the young man she had to save from her own wretched, uncontrollable power.

  And just like that, they vanished.

  Namida and Darwe's ragged breaths mingled between them, harsh and grating against her ears in the sudden silence, the blood no longer rushing in them at a deafening roar. How could she have done that? How could she have allowed herself to get to the point where she had injured her best friend, her only friend, to the point where oh Fate he could have died only panic and desperation had allowed her to stop her own terrible handiwork? Tears of anger and frustration flooded her eyes, and she angrily whipped them away with the back of her sleeve before grabbing at the ruined shoulder of Darwe's cloak.

  "Let me see," she all but growled at the stunned man, pawing at the edges of the burnt material to try and peel it away from the wound. Her actions seemed to snap him back to the present as his hands gently pushed hers away.

  "It's okay, Mida," he said. "It's not that bad, really. I can barely feel a thing." His words fell on deaf ears, though. She could see the bloody, blackened mess his shoulder had become. It was a miracle it hadn't gone more than a fingernail's depth, but it had gone through the full layer of his skin into the tissue beneath, the sinew of muscle visible at the core of the burn as it oozed the smallest amount of blood, mostly cauterized but not completely. She would thank Fate for small miracles, but she found it hard to believe Fate would grant her anything good these days. She grimaced at the sight. She had seen worse—much worse—but that was on her enemies. It was so very different when it was on a friend.

  "I'm sorry," she said thickly, then did the one thing she had never thought she would do in all her life.

  She turned on her heel and ran.

  Darwe's alarmed cries echoed down the winding alleyway behind her, but she ignored it. He would be safer without her. She needed to lose him, for his own sake. She had known that bringing him with her on her search for Kaska was a risk, but never had she once thought that she would be the risk. It had always been the faceless enemy that had been the threat to his life, never the fire that simmered quietly beneath her skin. She must have run for miles before she finally stopped, stumbling in the open desert she found herself in, the town long behind her as the stars seemed to glare coldly down at her from their place in the darkening night sky. Her hands were shaking. No, her entire body was shaking. Why had she ever let him come along to begin with? Why hadn't she realized where the true threat laid? She bit off a string of curses, refusing to acknowledge the tears that splattered the sand below her only to disappear between the shifting grains as the wind picked up around her. She had been a fool, she realized, a damned fool to think she could ever have someone as good as Darwe in her life without destroying him. Somewhere, Fate must be laughing at her and her naivety.

  Gasping breaths approached, the scuffle of sand beneath booted feet warning of someone's arrival. She didn't need to turn and look to know who it was, though she wished he wouldn't have followed her. He was a stubborn fool, and she knew now that it would most certainly be the death of him. A stubborn fool, and loyal to a fault. Slowly, the breaths quieted, evening out.

  "You can run all you like, and you can hurt me all you like," Darwe said quietly, "but I will not abandon you. Do you remember when I found you in the desert? Do you remember when we had to amputate your arm to save your life?" The silence stretched between them before he forged onward, not impeded in the least by her coldness. "I do. I remember when you were broken into pieces, both literally and figuratively, and I swore to myself that day that I would help you put yourself back together. I swore to myself that I would watch over you from then on. And I'm sorry, but no matter how much you push me away, I am not about to give up on you that easily." He sounded vaguely annoyed and exasperated all at once. "So can you stop trying already? Because I'm telling you now: I'm not leaving you alone."

  She was so tired, even as the relief flooded her. So tired of the downward swing she seemed to be stuck on ever since the day she had lost everything. It seemed like she would find her own little pieces of happiness to try and build herself back up just to lose them all again. It was like she was stuck repeating the worst emotions she had ever suffered through over and over again, when she hadn't even recovered from the first time around. She didn't react as Darwe knelt in the sand next to her, gathering her into his arms with a gentleness that no warrior should be capable of. She blamed his healer's heart. He was so concerned with fixing her that he gave no regard to the fact that in doing so, he would more than likely result in breaking himself apart for her sake. She didn't know if she could take it if he ended up doing that. Her eyes slid shut as she sagged against him, all of the energy drained from her as exhaustion overtook her. She didn't even have the energy to be upset with him and his single-minded devotion to her. The logical part of her brain chastised her gently. You know, it's not up to you if he breaks himself for you or not. He's a grown man, and you need to let him make his own choices, even if you can't accept them.

  They stayed like that for a long time, as the night grew frigid around them, neither of them saying a word until Darwe scooped her up in his arms, carrying her back towards the town that spread like a black ink stain against the star-speckled canvas sky behind it. She found her breaths deepening as she laid her head against his chest, the steady thud of his heart and the rhythm of his footsteps swishing against the sand making for an odd sort of lullaby, beckoning her to the land of sleep. She was halfway between the pull of wake and sleep when she could have sworn she heard him whisper against her hair. />
  "I couldn't leave you even if I wanted to, Namida." Was this real, or a dream? "I couldn't, because I love you."

  o—O—o

  It was beyond aggravating, Namida thought, as she and Darwe sat in the flickering lamp light of dimly lit pubs in the town of Bafti, doing their best to maintain an aura of casual aloofness while they strained their ears for whispers of talk not meant for them to hear. Their hoods were drawn, their mugs of ale and wine draining just slow enough so as not to be suspicious to the other patrons. It was the best place for one to hear rumors of Kaska and his troops, where tongues wagged eagerly when fuelled by enough drink. It had been several evenings of the same, though, and they were getting aggravatingly nowhere. They had even taken the precaution of making sure Nyago was nowhere to be seen, the hound still bearing the stigma that he brought with him of those soldiers associated with the Queen. She took another sip of her ale, making an effort not to scowl into it as she thought that perhaps having Nyago with her would make people more eager to talk, if his sharp teeth got close enough to their throats.

  Darwe's finger quietly tapped the side of his mug, garnering her attention. Her eyes snapped up to his as she languidly lowered her mug, and the way his eyes flicked meaningfully towards the far corner of the room made her own flash in anticipation.

  At last, something promising!

  As she strained her ears to hear the conversation happening in the dimly-lit corner, she managed to catch a few growled words--"the general" and "on the move" being the ones that made her breath catch in her throat.

  Yes. This was a neutral town, but it was the furthest north they had been yet, the distance between the town and the capital in the south putting a strain on any military power that might otherwise have been present there. There were only a handful of guards stationed around the city, most of them a part of the town leader's payroll rather than the Queen's. Perhaps there were spies present, but Namida had a hard time picking them out. It was just as well, she figured, because if she of all people could spot them when she couldn't really be bothered to care whether they were there or not, then they deserved to end up on the wrong end of the enemy's blade.

  Either way, she thought, the only reason someone would be talking about a general in a town where there most obviously was none would be if they were talking about a very specific general. One that everyone knew—a famous former general of the Queen's army.

  Kaska.

  Namida's eyes flashed as they met Darwe's, and she nodded almost imperceptibly. It took all of her patience to wait, calmly raising her mug to her lips every few seconds, until at last the whispering man slammed a hand down on the table of the cloaked person he was whispering heatedly with and stormed out of the tavern, a snarl twisting his lips. Darwe pinned her with a meaningful look as her hand twitched, itching to dart to the hilt of her sword already. He held her steady with his gaze for a moment before he wordlessly placed a few coins on the table, giving a small salute to the tavern wench as he stood, grabbing Namida's shoulder as she shot to her feet. She wanted to run after their suspect. Every moment they wasted was another moment he was getting further and further ahead of them, possibly out of reach.

  In the end, though, her agitation was moot, because they caught up to the man's shady figure only two blocks away, muttering angrily to himself as he headed down a back alley. Namida tapped her lips, then waved her two fingers to signal Darwe to make his way around to the other end of the long alley. Darwe nodded, sprinting silently between the buildings next to the alley, dipping out of sight as he made to head their suspect off at the other side. Before the man could make it to the other side, she shuffled along behind him, purposely making noise with her soft leather boots against the stone.

  "Hello," she called out, watching as the man tensed visibly, shooting a furtive glance back at her over his shoulder before he kept walking. She didn't bother wondering if it was her imagination when he started moving just a little bit quicker than before. "How's the general doing these days?"

  That caught his attention. The man whipped around before she could so much as blink, and he was running at her. She didn't move as he pulled out a dagger from a hidden sheath beneath his cloak, didn't flinch as he held it threateningly to her throat, the cold steel biting at her skin. Let him think he had the upper hand, she thought viciously. It would only make it all the more shocking for him when he realized just how poorly he was mistaken. Namida bit back the smirk that threatened to give her away.

  "Who the blazes are you?" the man hissed, pressing harder against her neck. She could feel a faint trickle of blood trickle down to her collarbone, where it soaked into the material of her shirt. "You little snake, were you listening?" His free hand went to grab her by the arm to pull her closer, but all he came back with was a fistful of fabric, the lightweight cloak slipping from her shoulders. The man stumbled backwards, not having expected to have no resistance. He stared dumbly at the empty sleeve fluttering where her left arm should have been, his eyes widening in...fear?

  "No," he breathed.

  Namida was confused as the man's hands began to shake, and he dropped his dagger, moving to run for the other end of the alley, but Darwe was already there, barreling his full weight into the man and knocking him down, his foot pinning the smaller man to the ground. Darwe gave a sharp inhale, and Namida quickly strode over, her eyes silently asking him what was wrong.

  "Busuni," he growled down at the man squirming below him. The man seemed to panic even further, and it was only then as his hands scrabbled for a hold on Darwe's leg, trying in vain to push him away so that he could run, that she noticed the puckered pink scar against the skin of his right hand—one that she vaguely remembered putting there.

  "Oho," she said, now feeling the anger bubble beneath her skin just as it obviously was under Darwe's. "Now I remember you, you traitorous scum. Weren't you thrown out of the complex cycles ago? Six, if I remember correctly. Couldn't even hold your own against a fourteen-year-old and you thought it would be a smart idea to go rogue and start trying to poison the other guards against Master Dorozi." She shakes her head in mock sadness. "What a dumb little worm. Darwe, why don't we put him out of his misery?" She unsheathed her sword agonizingly slow, her nose wrinkling as an acrid tang filled the air when she placed the blade to Busuni's neck. She shot the man a disgusted look as she noted the dark patch blooming on the front of his loose cloth pants.

  "Please, please, no!" The man pleaded, his voice, pitched high with fear, grating on Namida's ears. She clenched her jaw, pressing the blade into his skin and returning the favor as a thin line of blood welled up from beneath it. His breath hitched, and he fell blissfully silent.

  "Tell me what the general is up to," she hissed beneath her breath, leaning towards him and making sure his eyes locked with hers so he could see just how pissed off she was with this little worm thinking he could act against her, against her master, and get away with it with nothing more than a little scar from the dull blade of a practice sword six years ago that Kilish had refused to heal because he was so easily distracted in battle, even if it had only been a mock one.

  Busuni gave a little hysterical laugh, his eyes wild as they darted side to side, as if searching for a way out. "You think I'll tell you? Give me one good reason, you little bi—"

  Darwe's fist cracked into Busuni's face before he could finish the insult, hauling the weasel of a man to his feet with one hand clenched in the folds of his shirt. Busuni's head snapped back and he cried out, clasping both hands to his clearly broken nose as a spray of blood gushed from it, soaking the front of his shirt as it dripped from his chin.

  "There's one," Darwe sneered. "Would you like another?"

  "Okay, okay, I'll talk!" Busuni's voice sounded congested as he held a hand up in surrender, the other still trying to stem the blood flow from his nose. Still, from beneath the blood, he gave a wicked grin. "But wouldn't a more appropriate question be, who betrayed you at the complex?"

  Namida's blo
od turned to ice in her veins. She refused to let him see how affected she was, though, smothering her emotions as she languidly raised her sword to tip his chin up with the blade. Darwe pressed the traitor against the wall of the alley in response, lifting his feet off the ground completely so there was no way to escape. The man froze, unable to so much as squirm in Darwe's grasp without potentially impaling himself on Namida's sword.

  "Don't toy with me," Namida said, her voice low and dangerous. "Tell me what you know or I'll carve out your tongue and feed it to the dogs."

  Busuni swallowed thickly, flicking his gaze between the two unforgiving faces before him before they settled on Namida. He met her eyes with no small amount of trepidation.

  "You really look like him, you know?" He licked his chapped lips. "Your daddy dearest, that is. Ever wonder what happened to him?"

  Namida growled. Evasion tactics? Those wouldn't work on her. "I don't like it when I have to repeat myself. Talk," she commanded through gritted teeth, once more wishing they hadn't made Nyago wait outside the town limits, as his intimidation factor was much greater than her own or even Darwe's.

  "Okay, okay," Busuni said quickly as Darwe's fist cocks back, ready to deliver another punishing blow. "There was a traitor in your midst at the complex, but the one that betrayed you isn't who you thought it was. I heard you ousted Momal, and while it's true he was a spy, you pinned him on the wrong side. The one that killed Dorozi was actually—"