Trail of Flames Read online

“Let her go,” I growled, slowly lifting my axe.

  “The Grakkir may know how to throw axes, but I can assure you my knife is faster.” As if to prove his point, he pressed the blade to her throat. Anza inhaled sharply but didn’t scream or move.

  I bit my lip. I couldn’t use the Ancient Fire in the enclosed space, not without harming Anza and Cypress. Throwing the axe was no good, and neither was rushing the man. Cypress snuck a glance over his shoulder. “Saven is still fighting,” he said.

  The obvious statement took me by surprise. I met his eyes and noticed the intensity of his gaze. “What?”

  “Saven…is still fighting.”

  “Saven…?” My voice trailed off when I realized what he really meant. Mjoll was nowhere in sight.

  He nodded slowly.

  I let worry show on my face. “What will it take for you to let her go?”

  The man laughed. “Well, you could offer yourself to me instead. Call it a trade; our little secret.”

  I nearly gagged when I realized what he meant. Cypress moved his arm, but the man pressed the knife harder against Anza’s skin. She yelped through the cloth covering her mouth while blood seeped down the blade.

  “We aren’t supposed to have fun with any prisoners we find, aside from a little roughhousing.” He chuckled and nodded to Anza. By now I had noticed the bruises and cuts on her face and arms. “But I’m prepared to make an exception.”

  A shadow passed over the back side of the tent. I snuck a quick grin.

  “You agree with me?” he asked.

  I shook my head. “Maybe no one trained you well enough, so here’s a quick lesson before we go.”

  The shadow became larger as it moved closer to the tent.

  “Don’t ever mess with a god’s companion.”

  The soldier’s expression faltered with confusion just before the back of the tent exploded. Mjoll latched onto the man’s neck and dug her claws into his back. His screams echoed across the trees as we grabbed Anza and dragged her away from the skirmish. Mjoll could have ended it quickly, but she drew it out, playing with her prey.

  We untied the ropes holding Anza’s arms. She ripped the cloth from her face and threw it on the ground. “Stupid, arrogant bastard,” she spat.

  “Let’s grab your stuff and get out of here,” Cypress said.

  The campsite was littered with bodies. Hopefully none had survived to report back to the City, but either way, it wouldn’t be long before someone came to investigate. We quickly scavenged the site for food, medical supplies, and other useful items. Once Mjoll was finished with their leader, we disappeared into the forest.

  Chapter 12

  Icouldn’t tell which was stronger—Anza’s embarrassment for being caught, or her pride preventing her from thanking us. As I watched her struggle to wrap a bandage around her left arm the next morning, I grappled between wanting her forgiveness and my irritation at her stubbornness and impulsiveness.

  Saven sighed with annoyance. “She isn’t the only stubborn one. Just go talk to her.”

  At the risk of getting punched again, I strode over and took the roll of gauze from her. “Hold the bandage.”

  Anza stared at me a moment, then begrudgingly pressed her hand to the square of cloth covering the cut on her bicep. I wrapped the gauze carefully, but she didn’t flinch. “If you’re going to say I told you so, just do it,” she said.

  “I’m not going to say that.”

  “But you believe it.”

  I pursed my lips and secured the gauze with a knot. “It doesn’t matter what I think. Fact is, you made a mistake, you paid for it, and that’s it. No need to shove it in your face or dwell on it.”

  “And that’s what you think I should do for you?”

  Mjoll growled softly, but Anza ignored her.

  I looked at her cold eyes. “That’s up to you.”

  It was safe to say I wasn’t getting an apology or forgiveness; she was still too prideful for that. However, her silence was better than anger and her downcast eyes were better than the usual glares of hatred. I handed her the roll of gauze and turned to gather my belongings.

  “That was…icy,” Saven observed as he followed beside me.

  “It went better than expected. She didn’t hit me.” I gave him a wry smile.

  “If it makes you feel better, Mjoll thinks Anza is being childish too. She tells me the girl doesn’t hate you as much as she pretends to.”

  I snuck a glimpse at Anza, but when our eyes met, she looked away. The rest of us followed her along a deer path.

  “I suppose that’s…reassuring?”

  “The Northern Forest should end soon.” Cypress fell into step beside me. “Beyond that is the Sea of Zemore.”

  I cocked my head at him. “The what?”

  “Oh, right.” He chuckled. “The City just calls it the Eastern Sea, which I think is the most uncreative thing I’ve ever heard. But to the Istkaal, it’s known as Zemore. More formally, Vasil ti Zemoras.”

  “Istkaal?” I asked stupidly.

  Anza snorted. “For the love of…”

  I glared at the back of her head, but it was embarrassing to be the only one who didn’t know what Cypress was talking about.

  “This is all new to me too,” Saven said reassuringly. “Humans always come up with such silly names for things.”

  Cypress explained. “The Istkaal have power over water and oceans. Zemoras is the God of Water, and Vasil ti Zemoras translates to ‘Kingdom of Zemoras’ in the Istkaal language. The City, controlling and deceitful as they are, would never refer to the ocean by its true name, lest they admit to the existence of the Istkaal clan.”

  “We were taught the Eastern Sea is very dangerous,” I said. “That was probably just another lie to keep us from trying to find it, right?”

  “Well…no. The Sea of Zemore is dangerous, but that’s because of the Istkaal and Theria.”

  The trees thinned, and we stood in a small clearing. I looked at Cypress, but before I had a chance to say anything, Mjoll growled sharply.

  Saven’s head perked up and he looked around. “There’s someone here.”

  “Where?” I unsheathed my axe.

  “More soldiers?” Cypress grabbed the dagger he’d taken from one of the dead men.

  A thunderous bang shattered the air. Something whizzed past my ear and Saven hissed wildly in pain behind us.

  “Saven!” I cried.

  He was flat on the ground, writhing in agony. For a moment, I felt pain where he was feeling his—a sharp, burning ache in my right side.

  “Get away from them, you monster!”

  An old man’s voice echoed across the clearing. We turned and saw him pointing a long weapon directly at us.

  “Don’t shoot!” Cypress called, raising his hands in surrender. “Where in the world did he find a gun and bullets?”

  Gun and bullets? I rushed to Saven’s side. I haven’t heard those words in ages. Hadn’t Juliano mentioned them before? They were dangerous, designed for killing, the City had outlawed them, and…my mind went blank as I struggled to comprehend the situation.

  Anza had her sword drawn and Mjoll was growling fiercely. Without a moment’s hesitation, the mountain lion sprinted across the field, closing the gap between us and the man before he could blink.

  “He’s not a soldier!” I shouted. “He might just be a normal person.” I looked to Anza who glared back at me. She turned her attention to Mjoll and ran after the goddess.

  The man lifted his weapon again, but Mjoll was on top of him before he could take aim. She ripped the gun from his hands and threw it to the side, then held him down with her massive paws.

  “Let me see.” I touched Saven’s back.

  He rolled to one side and I saw where the bullet pierced his thick skin. Blood poured onto the ground. I couldn’t tell how deep it had gone, but I knew it hadn’t come out the other side.

  “Run,” Saven said feebly.

  I glanced over my shoulder to see A
nza staring down at the trapped man, Cypress rushing across the field to mitigate the situation.

  “He’s not going to shoot again.” My heart thumped wildly. “The bullet is still in there. We have to get it out.”

  Saven groaned painfully but he nodded in agreement. I rummaged around in my bag, but I couldn’t find anything that could pull the object out. I looked up as Cypress ran back to us. The old man followed slowly behind him, pale and shaken.

  “It was a mistake,” Cypress said. “He thought the gods were from the City.”

  “The City?” I asked. “You don’t know about the Grakkir?”

  “I didn’t know they were still alive!” the man cried. He was slender, and his face suggested he was very old. His back was slightly curved, but he was an impressive shot for his age, I hated to admit.

  “Didn’t know they were alive?” Anza huffed in disbelief. She held her sword to the man’s back, as though his ignorance was just as offensive as injuring Saven.

  “We’re not from the City!” I shouted angrily. “You have to help us!”

  The man nodded, his wispy white hair sticking up wildly as the wind blew. He pulled a kerchief out of his back pocket. “Press this to the wound. I’ll go get a cart.”

  I watched as the man shuffled across the field as quickly as he could.

  “I’ll follow him,” Cypress said, more to Anza than me. “I’ll probably get there before him anyway. Just hang in there, Saven.”

  Cypress jogged to catch up with the man, and I turned my attention to Saven’s wound.

  “I think I’ll be okay.” Saven’s voice was breathy and strained. I wasn’t convinced, but I didn’t want him to know that.

  “I didn’t think anything could get through that thick skin,” I tried to joke.

  “Apparently…something can.” He hissed again and clenched his tail. My side throbbed empathetically.

  Mjoll padded softly to Saven’s side and stared at the wound. Gingerly, she licked at the blood. Saven winced at first, but after a moment he lay quietly. I don’t know if the cougar had some sort of healing power or if she was just doing it to be comforting, but it seemed to calm Saven either way. When Mjoll backed away, I pressed the kerchief to Saven’s side again.

  A soft rumbling approached us. I turned to see Cypress leading a blindfolded ox across the field, holding its halter tightly as it pulled a large wooden cart. The old man followed at some distance behind them, panting heavily.

  “I figured if the old man had never seen an Animal God before, then the ox wouldn’t react much better to seeing a huge snake and a mountain lion.” Cypress gestured to the thick blindfold.

  “Saven, can you get on the cart?” I asked.

  He looked up and nodded slowly.

  When Saven was curled awkwardly on the cart, we all helped push while the ox pulled it slowly across the field. We passed through another copse, following the path trampled down by the wheels. On the other side of the trees, a small log cabin stood in the center of a clearing. When I looked around, I felt my heart sink a little. It looked so much like Tarek’s minuscule plot of land that I almost expected Sarrenke to come through the door.

  Smoke gently puffed out of a chimney at the very top of the cabin. A vegetable garden lay to the right of the front door. To the left stood a small wooden corral, most likely for the ox. A few gardening tools were propped against the side of the house, and altogether it was a very quaint living area. I spotted a fluffy grey cat eyeing us warily from atop one of the fence posts.

  “Do you have any medical tools?” I asked the man when we came to a halt. “Something we can use to pull the bullet out?”

  He thought for just a moment. “I have a few things. Let me go get them.”

  Saven crawled painfully out of the back of the cart and stayed mostly curled in a ball. The kerchief was thoroughly soaked with blood, as were both of my hands. I pulled off my outer shirt and pressed it to the wound.

  The old man returned with a small medical bag and a pair of pliers. “We need to sterilize them,” he said.

  I snatched the pliers out of his grasp and, without even thinking, called flames to my hand and gripped the metal part of the tool.

  The old man’s eyes nearly popped out of his head. “My heavens!”

  Cypress looked at me suddenly.

  “He’s already seen a Grakkir and two Animal Gods,” I snapped. “Seeing the Ancient Fire won’t do any more damage than has already been done.”

  For a moment, I was surprised by my own words or, more specifically, the fact that I truly didn’t care if this man knew I was Fiero and that the Ancient Fire still existed. I only cared about helping Saven.

  “You may have to explain some of this later,” the man breathed, leaning over with his hands on his knees.

  “If you help save my friend, I’ll explain everything to you.” I stared at the man.

  He nodded and knelt beside me. “Do you know how to do this?”

  I looked grimly at the wound. “I don’t know how deep it is.”

  “Let me.” The old man held out his hand for the pliers.

  We all stared at him, and he looked back, eyes hard and focused. “I have experience as a doctor,” he added.

  I turned to Cypress, who shrugged with a small nod.

  I passed the cooling pliers to the old man. I was glad to see that despite his age, his hands appeared steady.

  “It will hurt,” the man said, more to Saven than to the rest of us. “I need you to lie as still as possible, and the rest of you need to try to hold him down.”

  We exchanged looks, feeling daunted by the task. I stood at Saven’s head, Cypress and Anza leaned on his tail, and Mjoll laid her front legs across his back.

  “Try to stay still,” I told Saven. I might as well have been instructing the moon to push the sun out of the midday sky.

  Saven hissed quietly.

  “Alright,” the old man said. “Here we go…”

  I looked away as the pliers moved towards the wound.

  Saven’s cries of agony crossed a bizarre threshold between hissing and screaming. It was a sound that ripped straight through my heart and I prayed never to hear again. My side burned with sympathy pain. Tears filled my eyes and a lump formed in my throat, but I swallowed hard and held Saven’s head.

  The old man worked as quickly as possible, prodding and tilting the pliers, while the rest of us tried to restrain Saven’s wild thrashes. When he finally fainted from the pain, all of us were battered and bruised.

  “Got it,” the old man finally said.

  I turned to look, panting and sweating. He dropped the huge flattened bullet into the palm of my hand. It felt remarkably heavy for something so small.

  “I have no choice but to believe you,” he panted. “If he were anything but a god, that slug surely would have ended him.”

  “Slug?” I asked.

  He nodded at my hand. “That’s a 12-gauge shotgun slug. Very powerful at the right distance, very dangerous.”

  I had never actually seen a bullet in real life, just a few photos from the old history books Ysolda let me read. I could easily see why the City had banned something like this and I hated to imagine what it would do to something smaller and weaker than Saven.

  “If this is so dangerous, why do you have it?” Cypress asked. “I thought the City outlawed guns centuries ago.”

  “Outlawed and yet they are the only ones who still use them. You see how that turned out.” His voice stung with bitterness. “I only use it to hunt, or to protect myself, if need be.”

  As he looked at Saven, I saw the fear in his grey eyes, yet they shone with regret.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Roger.” He turned to me.

  “I’m Valieri,” I replied. “Of the Fiero clan.”

  Part 2:

  Of Air and Water

  Chapter 13

  Iadmit I have heard legends, but I assumed they weren’t true.” Roger passed mugs of tea around
the table.

  The inside of his small cabin was much nicer than Tarek’s had been. He had a beautiful wooden table, a metal wash basin, handmade cupboards, and ceramic plates, bowls, and cups. I wondered if he had made these things himself or if he’d traded with Edgewood.

  “You aren’t the only one to think that way,” I said. I stood near the window, keeping my eye on Saven as he slept just outside the door. Mjoll lay beside him, protectively keeping watch while listening to our conversation through the open window. “The Fiero were taught to believe the legends were old wives’ tales.”

  “Even though your people are part of the legends?” Roger passed a mug to me.

  “The Fiero village is—was—right outside the City. Our lives were heavily influenced by them.” I took the mug, but my stomach was too knotted with worry to take a sip.

  “‘Influenced’ is an understatement,” Anza scoffed. “You were ruled by the City.”

  I couldn’t deny it, so I merely pressed my lips together and turned towards the window again.

  “So, you had no idea people like us existed?” Cypress asked. “People with powers and the Animal Gods?”

  Roger shook his head. “No, I’m just a regular human.” He chuckled. “For better or for worse.”

  I knew the world was supposed to be inhabited mostly by “regular humans,” but after spending so long with the Grakkir and Secara, it felt strange to be around someone who didn’t fit into the history books.

  “As long as you aren’t like the City, I think we all agree it’s for the better.” Cypress smiled kindly at the old man.

  A gentle scratching came from the back door, followed by low, sad “meowww.” Roger shuffled to the door. His grey cat eyed us warily before prancing inside and hopping onto the counter.

  Roger took the empty seat and turned to the cat. “Don’t be shy, Violet girl. They won’t hurt you.” He rubbed his fingers together, encouraging the cat to slink closer. I noticed Anza’s eyes light up as the cat approached the table. She obviously loved cats but tried to hide her excitement. Perhaps that was one reason the God of Mountain Lions chose her to be his daughter’s companion.