Chapter 25 Fire
Rolan dreamed that night of Cryptics. They hissed and clicked in the corners of his mind, always disappearing when he turned to look at them. He was running through the forest, carrying something in his arms. Something precious, something the Cryptics wanted.
He leaped over a log, tripped, and landed on his face in the mud. When he tried to get up, he found his legs were trapped in the ground, sunk down to his knees. He struggled and wrenched himself, but couldn’t get free.
He looked down at the thing in his arms, and gasped.
It was a little Cryptic, with a dozen legs like knives. It screeched and lunged for his face, shredding his skin—
“Rolan, wake up!”
It was Luc, shaking him roughly. Rolan sat up with a start, his hair full of straw.
He was in the barn’s hayloft, the world a confusing, dark blur.
He could still feel the Cryptic squirming in his hands, and the chill of fear gripped his spine.
His hand went to his face, to be sure there weren’t wounds opened on his cheeks.
“Luc? What—”
“GET UP!” Luc roared before rushing away.
Clarity washed over Rolan like a splash of icy water. He rolled to his feet and raced out of the barn door, past an anxious, stamping Apple.
It was dead night outside, and the sky was filled with red stars.
No. Not stars.
Sparks.
Luc’s house was burning. Flames jumped in the windows, along the roof.
“ANAYA!” Rolan screamed. He sprinted across the grass, ignoring Luc’s shouts, ignoring the flames slithering over the ground, ignoring every survival instinct screaming in his bones.
“Rolan, wait!” Luc called.
Rolan barely heard him. He threw open the back door of the house and rushed inside, choking on acrid black smoke. He couldn’t breathe deep enough to summon his voice, and Anaya’s name sputtered and died in his throat.
The fire was concentrated toward the left wall and hadn’t yet spread to the rest of the house, but the smoke blackened the air, making it hard to see.
Rolan stumbled forward blindly, fumbling for the back room where his bed was, where Anaya would be.
But when he reached it, the handle was too hot to touch and the door too firm for him to break down.
He didn’t hesitate. He didn’t think.
He acted.
Diving for the chest of relics, he yanked open the lid. Thank the goddess Luc had given up locking it, since the locks had proven an ineffective deterrent to his clever-fingered young apprentice.
Grabbing the first relic he could reach—a shimmery feather—he smashed it under his dagger’s hilt. His eyes shut briefly as he reached for the Hollow Path. He found it in seconds.
Blue light exploded from the delicate barbs as the feather faded away, Arcana flowing up the dagger and trailing over Rolan’s skin. It sunk into his veins, and a flash of strength swelled in his muscles.
Without waiting for the Arcana to fully set in, he charged at the bedroom door.
It snapped from its hinges with a crack, and he was finally in.
Anaya wasn’t there.
Rolan stood blinking for a full minute, his brain clogged with smoke and confusion. He coughed and realized he was on his knees now, his lungs struggling to suck down air. All he could think was where is she? Where is she?
Then blackness seized his mind.
At first he thought he’d passed out from inhaling too much smoke. But then he saw a strange pair of dark hands reaching out from the shadows, and he realized it was the secret he’d unleashed from the relic.
The details were vague. He was teetering on the brink of consciousness, his brain too weak to absorb the secret fully.
But he knew the person whose eyes he was seeing through was young, a teenager perhaps.
He was stealing something—bread? Fruit? It didn’t matter.
None of this mattered. He needed the secret to end so he could find Anaya, save Anaya, where was—
“Breathe, Rolan!”
Luc’s order floated to Rolan as if from some forest depth, warped and indistinct. But he focused on it, hoping it would lead him out of the secret’s vision and back to the real world. He felt Luc’s arms cradling him, as if he were a baby, and he heard Luc’s great heart thumping against his ear.
“You stupid boy,” Luc growled. “Stupid, brave boy.”
Rolan blinked, coughing and choking, ribs aching. As the world faded into view, he saw grass swim up to meet him, illuminated red by the fire.
Luc set him down outside on his hands and knees, where he coughed so hard he tasted blood. “A-Anaya—”
“I’m here, Rolan! I went out the window! Why did you rush in there like that? You could have died!”
“You could’ve—” Rolan’s voice cut off as he fell into another coughing fit.
“Roll him over,” Evaine ordered, and he felt Luc’s hands pushing him onto his back.
Anaya knelt over him, pushing back his eyelids. “Why are his eyes glowing blue?”
“By the goddess,” breathed Evaine.
“Fool boy,” Luc growled. “What were you thinking?”
“I was thinking…,” Rolan rasped. His voice was a rough scrape, rocks over slate. “That we’re Arcanists. That’s what we do. We protect people.”
Luc stared at him for a long moment, then turned away, his eyes red and blinking, probably from the smoke. Rolan remembered then what Anaya had told him about Luc’s wife and son, and how they’d died in a fire. Was Luc reliving that night?
“Keep him breathing, apothecary,” the Arcanist said. “I’ve got to put this fire out.”
Rolan was vaguely aware of Luc stomping away, and then Evaine was pouring something down his throat. It was bitter and cold and made him gag.
“Swallow it,” she ordered. “It will help with the cough and clear your lungs. The Arcanist is right. That was exceedingly stupid.” She paused, then said quietly, “And very brave.”
“What… happened?” Rolan asked.
Anaya crouched beside him, her arms wrapped around her knees. “I don’t know. I was asleep one minute, and the next, this gorgeous guy was nosing me awake. It’s like he was trying to warn me of the fire.”
Rolan shot a resentful look at Supper, who was pressed against Anaya like some kind of guard dog. The goat gazed back, his eyes half lidded with undeniable smugness, as if saying, That’s right, I saved her.
“I yelled at Evaine to wake up,” Anaya continued, “then went out the window about the same moment I saw you busting into the house. I yelled for you but you didn’t hear me.”
Rolan hung his head, exhausted. “Maybe one of the candles caught the curtains.”
“It wasn’t a candle,” came Luc’s voice. His tone, as low and ominous as a looming storm, made Rolan look up in alarm.
The Arcanist was gripping three arrows, their tips wrapped in charred linen.
“Truth,” Evaine whispered.
“Shot from a distance,” Luc said in disgust. “They knew I had traps around the house and didn’t dare get close.”
“Who would be out here this late?” Anaya asked. “It’s the middle of the night!”
“Someone who fears the Arcanist more than Cryptics,” said Evaine hollowly. “I told you these whispers were different. More dangerous.”
Luc said nothing, only set his jaw and looked at his house. He’d managed to douse the flames enough to save the building, but the left wall was a charred mess. It would take weeks to rebuild it and clean the soot and smoke from the surviving interior.
“How would they dare?” Rolan burst out around his coughing. “You’re… the Arcanist! The scariest thing for… miles around! Your brother is the duke!”
“Yes,” said Luc. “But people will do desperate things to keep their secrets.”
Evaine nodded, her eyes narrowed. “Someone in the city is hiding something, and they’re scared you’ll learn it. They’ll drive you out one way or another.”
“Even if he learned some awful secret,” Rolan said, “he’d never tell it.”
Luc sighed. “If only everyone had such faith in my honor.” He lifted his gaze to the gray sky. “It’ll be dawn soon. I’ll accompany you back to the city, in case the fools behind this attack are still lurking about.”
Evaine nodded.
“A word, apothecary?” Luc asked.
The adults moved away to talk, which left Rolan feeling uneasy. But he was still too weak from inhaling smoke to eavesdrop. Anaya stayed by his side.
“Why did you go to Sylvet?” Rolan asked.
“What?”
“You and Evaine,” Rolan said. “You went to Sylvet a few months ago. Why?”
Anaya looked at her bare toes. She’d jumped out the window without stopping to grab her shoes. “There’s a school there, for healing and medicine. Evaine wanted me to see it.”
“She wants you to move to Sylvet?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Just for a few years.” Anaya gave him a shy smile. “She thinks I have a shot at going on to the capital after that, to the great university.”
Rolan said nothing. He felt like Cryptic venom was oozing through his veins.
“I told her I have to think about it,” Anaya added. “And with everything going on here… I think I’m needed right where I am.”
“Oh,” was all Rolan could manage to say.
Anaya gave him a worried look, then opened her mouth to speak, but they were interrupted by Luc and Evaine returning.
“You, boy,” Luc said. “When you’ve caught your breath, go and pack your things. Whatever isn’t burned to a crisp, anyway.”
“What?”
“You’ll be staying with the apothecary until this trouble blows over.”
Rolan burst to his feet. Well, he tried to burst to his feet. But his lungs were still scraped raw, and he ended up stumbling into Anaya and leaning on her for support, coughing hard.
“No! I want to stay with—”
“Let’s save your lungs the agony by skipping the part where we argue, and you end up doing what I say anyway,” Luc growled.
“I won’t have you caught between a titan of a Cryptic and a gang of idiots with flaming arrows.
When you’re back in Crisanth, stay in the apothecary and keep your head low.
The fewer people who know where you are, the better. ”
Rolan told himself that if his lungs weren’t full of soot, he’d come up with an argument so brilliant and compelling that Luc would have no choice but to let him stay. As it stood though, he merely hung his head in submission, feeling shame for leaving Luc alone in such a dangerous situation.
They set out with the dawn, tense and quiet. Luc ranged ahead and to the left and right, scouting for trouble atop Apple. Rolan took the lead on the road, making a show of doing his own watchful duty, but he knew if they were attacked, there wouldn’t be much he could do but yell for Luc.
“I’m glad you’re coming back with us,” Anaya said.
“For as long as you’ll be around,” he said bitterly.
He regretted the words as soon as they were spoken, but he was too stubborn to apologize. Anaya’s eyes flashed with hurt and anger, and she fell a few steps behind him to walk beside Evaine.
Smarting both in lungs and spirit, Rolan ground his teeth together. It was Anaya’s fault, really, for thinking of leaving Crisanth. Leaving him. Becoming Evaine’s apprentice was bad enough, but at least she’d been around when he wanted to see her.
But Sylvet might as well be the other side of the world. And the capital? He couldn’t imagine it.
He knew one thing for sure: If Anaya went to Sylvet, she would never return.
She had always been able to see paths through the world that were hidden to him, leading to bigger, farther places.
And a part of him had always known this would happen, that she’d slip away like sunlight through his fingers, taking her bright glow to some other part of the world that he could never reach.
She was his best friend. Probably his only friend. And he would lose her.
By the time they reached the city gates, Rolan was in such a dark mood, he didn’t even say goodbye to Luc. He only gave a surly nod, then went in ahead of Evaine and Anaya, into the city that more and more had ceased to feel like home.