Blood of Fire Read online

  The next thing I knew, I was on my belly with Jenassa on top of me as a deafening roar filled my head. The blast from the explosion ripped through the trees, showering us with leaves and twigs.

  Jenassa pulled away when the wind and debris died down. “Oh my….” Her voice trailed off in horror.

  I inhaled a shaking breath and looked up. A smaller ship sped out of the City and dropped three small objects onto the village. Upon impact, they burst into a pillar of flames that spread from one building to another, igniting everything it touched.

  Somehow Jenassa was already up and running towards the Fiero village, straight into the midst of the destruction.

  “Jenassa, wait!” I called, struggling to catch my breath.

  “We have to find Mom and Dad!”

  Her voice barely carried over the rumbling of airships and the terrified screams of the Fiero people. I wished I could have stopped her, but that was just like Jenassa. She was the type to run headfirst into danger, not sit back and worry like I did. The image of her back as she sprinted towards the fire became forever etched in my mind.

  I clamored to my numb feet and took a deep breath. Us Fiero were known for our loyalty, but in this case, it could’ve proven deadly. Without thinking of our own safety, myself and the other Harvesters ran for the village to help the injured. All around me, there were questions I couldn’t answer.

  “Where is so-and-so?”

  “What happened?”

  “Was that an accident?”

  Perhaps the airship was malfunctioning, we told ourselves. Which would also explain why it was flying so low. But when the smaller ship peppered another section of the village with flaming bombs, we all knew it was intentional. The unthinkable had happened: the City had turned on us, and we had no idea why.

  As I entered the village, I tried to avoid the worst of the destruction, but that was not an easy feat. The marketplace in the center of town was nothing more than burning buildings and scarred earth. I heard agonized screams—the sound of my people dying.

  I spotted Jenassa’s tall form to my left. She lifted a shrieking child into her arms, pulling the girl away from the lifeless body she clung to.

  “Jenassa!” I called.

  My sister looked up as another blast landed nearby. The nearest building buckled on its foundation and collapsed into a smoking pile of lumber, blocking my view of Jenassa and the child.

  My lungs burned with smoke and dust. I coughed and looked to the sky. The airships were headed in one direction, so I chose a route that would keep them as far away from me as possible while I used buildings to shield myself. I needed to find my parents.

  When I regained my composure, I sprinted towards my house. Buildings and trees burned all around me, but I ignored the heat and searched every face for recognition. Members of the Fiero clan fled for the fields in hoards, while two of the massive black airships loomed over us. One moved towards the fields, another aimed at our orchards. They each dropped a heavy bomb, and the combined force of the simultaneous blasts knocked me from my feet. I landed several yards from where I’d been standing, my ears ringing and the world spinning around me.

  I rolled onto my back, my side pressed against the hot wood of a flaming building. Was it my house? A friend or neighbor’s house? I couldn’t tell. Where there had once been tidy rows of homes, flaming piles of wood and bricks remained. The small dirt roads were strewn with debris and the bodies of my people. The Fiero clan was finally burning again.

  The ringing in my ears lessened and I could hear someone shouting in the distance. Not a terrified, pained shriek, but a very direct shout.

  “Valieri!”

  My mother.

  I lifted my head as she reached my side. “Mom,” I gasped. “Why is this happening?”

  “There’s no time, Valieri. Hurry,” she commanded. “Follow me.”

  She pulled me to my feet and grabbed my hand. I noticed her long brown hair, a mirror of my own, had been burned in irregular patches almost all the way to her ears. She held her right arm close to her chest. It was bubbling with blisters. She reeked of burned hair and flesh.

  Or maybe that was the entire village.

  We ran diagonally away from the City. She was taking me towards a different forest, one I’d never been to before.

  “Mom! Where’s Dad and Jenassa?” I panted.

  She ignored me until we reached the tree line. She faced me, her hazel eyes streaming with tears—whether from the smoke or from emotion, I couldn’t tell. “You have to run,” she said. “Get as far away from the village as possible and do not come back. No matter what.”

  I gaped at her. “What are you saying?” Tears pricked my eyes. How could I leave my village and never return? This was my home, and the Fiero were my family. I’d never left the village in my entire life, but she expected me to disappear into the unknown forests and not turn around?

  “The City is looking for you, but they don’t know it yet,” Mother explained hurriedly. “Your warm skin, you never get cold, fire can’t harm you. Valieri, the Ancient Fire burns within you, and they fear that power. They fear what you’re capable of.”

  “What are you talking about? I’m not capable of anything more than hauling baskets of fruit!”

  Mother winced with pain and clutched her injured arm. She looked at me, her eyes burning into mine. “You can’t let them find you. Our clan will cease to exist without you.”

  Another bomb dropped on our village. Screams of pain and terror from the remaining Fiero echoed across the trees.

  “Let me help you,” I begged. I wanted her to think I was strong, that maybe I had some sort of control over the power she was convinced I possessed. In reality, I was just terrified to leave her. I knew once she was out of my sight, I’d never see her again. It was true I’d never been burned, but the kind of power she spoke of didn’t exist. At least that’s what we’d always been told.

  My mother smiled sadly and tucked my unburned hair behind my ear. “You will be helping me. Your existence is everything right now.”

  Before I could respond, she pulled me into a tight hug. I wished I could stay safely in her arms forever. I couldn’t tell her how terrified I was of the world.

  “Be brave,” she said. “Grow strong. I love you.”

  “I love you too,” I whimpered. We knew this was goodbye.

  She gave me one last tight squeeze and released me. “Go,” she said. “Run.”

  Chapter 2

  My people were descendants of fire—or at least, that’s what the legends told us. We hadn’t risen from hell, bent on destroying villages and burning innocents alive. We fell from the sun itself, with its nourishing warmth and the capacity for great destruction. In ancient times, my people had been greatly respected for this power, just as others with similar powers were respected for what they could do, not condemned for ways they could be destroyed.

  As a little girl, I listened to these legends with great interest, staring up at my father as he told my sister and me how fire ran in the veins of the Fiero. Our people could set entire houses alight with a single touch, or warm a newborn infant in their hands on a frigid winter night.

  “But why can’t we do that now?” I asked.

  “Some say the gods thought we were too powerful for our own good and took the fire from us. Others believe our blood became diluted over the years. Some think we never had the power in the first place.”

  “I don’t think we did,” my sister scoffed. “We’d still have it if it were true.”

  My father smiled at his older daughter, the realist, his blue eyes crinkled at the edges from many years of squinting in the sun. “Perhaps you’re right.” He looked at me. “What do you think, Valieri?”

  “Well…” I thought as hard as a six-year-old could. “I think Mommy and Daddy are always warm, so we must still have fire in us. Right?”

  I felt so smart for giving such a logical answer, but Jenassa tsked loudly.

  “Everyone is
warm, dummy. Even people from the City!”

  “Not as warm as Daddy!” I argued.

  “How d’you know? You’ve never even touched a City Dweller!”

  “Have too!” I cried, but she was right. Average members of the Fiero clan were forbidden to interact with City Dwellers. Only certain adults could speak with the Collectors who bought our crops and goods because only certain adults needed to. The ones in charge of the harvesting and selling of goods had reason to talk to the Collectors and guards, who were the only City Dwellers who needed to leave the City. Average Fiero, especially children, simply had no reason to get involved. In fact, it was considered rude and a waste of precious time for average people to chat with Collectors and guards.

  Our argument would’ve continued if Mother hadn’t entered our bedroom. “Girls! Settle down!” She looked at her husband. “Why do you always get them so riled up before bedtime?”

  Father grinned sheepishly. “They just love the Fiero legends. How could I say no?”

  “Like this.” Mother looked at us sternly. “Girls, go to sleep. Now.”

  “But Mom!” I protested. “One more story?”

  “No,” she replied firmly. “Jenassa needs to be up bright and early to begin learning how to tend livestock. And you, young lady, start school tomorrow. You need to be well-rested to learn.”

  “Aww!” I lamented, flopping against my pillow.

  “I bet Mom doesn’t want us knowing the legends,” Jenassa taunted. “The City Dwellers don’t let us talk about the Ancient Fire.”

  This time Father frowned. “You’re right, Jenassa. The leaders don’t like us speaking of such things.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Because it isn’t practical,” Jenassa said. “We don’t need to know silly stories about the past. We need to prepare for the future and know how to best serve our society,” she recited smartly. “That’s what you’ll learn in school, just like I did.”

  Our parents exchanged looks, a glance I wouldn’t understand until much, much later. “That’s partially true,” Mother said.

  Jenassa looked confused, as though she was worried she hadn’t recited the correct passage from her textbook.

  Mother sat down on the edge of Jenassa’s bed, a few inches away from my own in our little loft bedroom. “The truth is,” she said in a hushed voice, as though she worried someone would hear us, “they don’t want us getting ideas.”

  “Ideas about what?” I asked. Something about her tone worried me. She met my gaze and could see my emotions there. She looked again at my father and took a deep breath.

  “You mustn’t worry about things like this. They just don’t want young children playing with fire, pretending to be our ancestors and catching the fields on fire. Our crops are our livelihood. Without them, we would have nothing to sell to the City and we would be a very poor clan.”

  At the time, her explanation made sense to me. Don’t think about the fiery power of our ancestors, and you won’t accidentally start a fire you can’t extinguish. Simple. It wasn’t until I was much older that I began to question my mother. After the City turned on us and rained fire upon my village.

  Like a legend come alive before my eyes.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  I was running blind.

  The forests north of the City were somewhat familiar to me; it was where I’d played in the streams as a little girl, and where I learned about different trees and animals. It was where acres of our orchards lay.

  Or used to lay.

  The forests to the east, west, and south of the City were entirely unknown to me. We were forbidden to go there. We were told the soil was unsuited for growing crops. Fearsome animals prowled the forests all the way to the Snowy Mountains surrounding the City, which no one had ever climbed and lived to tell the tale.

  It was into the western forest my mother had sent me.

  I struggled through thick undergrowth, wild and untouched by axes. Branches whipped my face and scratched my bare arms, snagging on my clothes and drawing blood. Fear made my nimble feet clumsy, and I stumbled over tree roots and rocks.

  My toe caught on something and I crashed to the ground, landing face-first in leaves and dirt. I remained there for a long moment, panting, exhausted, until tears finally spilled from my eyes. The screams of my dying clan were far behind me, but I could hear them echoing in my ears, see the smoke and fire behind my closed eyes. I sobbed shamefully like a lost child, knowing my family was probably dead. I kicked myself for not staying to help them.

  But what could I have done? My mother said the Ancient Fire burned within me, but even if that were true, I couldn’t control it. Besides, what good could result from setting fire to a town already engulfed in flames? My “powers” were useless in this situation.

  I rolled onto my back and stared up at the canopy of deciduous leaves. The breeze carried the scent of smoke, but there was no other sound besides the gentle rustle of leaves in the wind. Perhaps the City had stopped attacking and were making a truce with my clan. Maybe we could be forgiven for whatever we’d done to anger them.

  Tears welled in my eyes again as I realized how ridiculous that sounded. Whatever we’d done to anger them to the point of one-sided war could never be forgiven. If anyone was even still alive to accept forgiveness.

  “The City is looking for you, but they don’t know it yet.”

  Was my mother telling me the attack was my fault? The City was killing everyone just to find me? That didn’t make any sense. They’d always been free to enter our village whenever they wanted to. If they wanted to kill me, they had the authority to find me and take me away. Why go through all this trouble and cause such destruction? Why destroy the Fiero when we’d given them so much, and they happily reciprocated?

  My head spun with unanswered questions. If the attack really was my fault, then why had no one told me I was a danger to the village? I would’ve given myself up to prevent this destruction.

  “…but they don’t know it yet.”

  If the City didn’t know they were looking for me, and the Fiero didn’t know, then how did my mother know?

  “Your warm skin, you never get cold, fire can’t harm you.”

  Only my family knew that…didn’t they?

  My eyes grew heavy as exhaustion took over me. There was no guarantee I was safe where I lay, but I had no more energy to run. I’d rest my eyes for a while, then keep going.

  ✽ ✽ ✽

  Night had fallen by the time I awoke. The full moon emphasized the smoke blowing from the village, carried over my head with the wind. I sat up and tried to stand. My legs shook and ached with exhaustion, but I had to keep moving.

  My thoughts were glued to my family. My mother said to keep running and never return. Did she realize how impossible that was? My rumbling stomach reminded me that I had no food or water. I had no weapons to hunt with—not that I knew how to hunt anyway. Continuing into unknown territory would be foolish, and I needed to know if anyone had gotten away from the village safely.

  My mother’s command rang in my ears, but I silenced her voice and turned back towards the village.

  It was a slow walk back. My feet were aching, and my path had almost disappeared. I was also being cautious of my surroundings. Guards from the City told terrifying stories about the things that roamed in these forests: fearsome beasts, poisonous plants, and savage clans that killed or kidnapped anyone who set foot in their territory.

  The City had kept us safe from these terrors. The Fiero may have been a powerful clan in the legends, but we were farmers and craftsmen now. We needed the City’s frequent patrols and powerful weapons to keep us protected. The same City that had used its protective powers to destroy us.

  No, not destroy. I told myself it was just a punishment, a warning, a reprimand for some wrongdoing. I would find my people alive at the other end of the smoke.

  Time passed as I urged myself onward. What had seemed like a fast escape when I was running for my li
fe now seemed like an eternity. I picked my way carefully through the undergrowth, but keeping my eyes forward was difficult when I had to stay alert to potential dangers around me.

  I expected an ugly scene when I reached the village, but nothing in my mind was as bad as the reality.

  The scent of charred flesh and wood carried for miles. I skirted the tree line as I approached the decimated ruins of my village, but there were no visible dangers in the skies or on the ground.

  Few buildings remained standing, and the ones that did were little more than smoldering, twisted wood planks and crumbled stone. It hadn’t rained, but the wood sizzled and popped with moisture. If the City had extinguished the fires, maybe that meant they had willingly ceased fire. The punishment was over, and we could be forgiven.

  As much as I wanted to believe that, the damage indicated otherwise. We had never done anything to call for this destruction.

  I made my way through the village. Only muscle memory could lead me to my house; all familiar landmarks had been reduced to ash. My foot collided with a dark object and I tumbled to the ground. I quickly righted myself, looking for danger. The blackened, smoking object lying at my feet moaned. It was human.

  My heart leapt into my throat as I crept closer. When I placed my hand on the person’s shoulder, he cried out in pain. I had to cover my face with my arm to shield myself from the horrid stench of burnt hair and skin. Carefully, I rolled the man onto his back so I could see his face. Part of me wanted to run away, afraid it was my father, but even if it wasn’t, this man was someone I knew. I knew everyone in the Fiero clan.

  His hair was burned down to his blistered scalp, and one of his ears was nearly gone. When I saw his bearded face straight-on, I was both relieved and disappointed that he wasn’t my father. It was Juliano.

  “Juliano,” I said quietly, ever cautious of potential danger. “Do you recognize me?”

  He inhaled a raspy breath and exhaled, “Valieri.”

  “Yes,” I said. “Is my family still alive? Have you seen them?”