The Firebrand Legacy (20 page)

As a girl, Carine had seen Kavariel bolt
toward Esten as she played on the beach with Louise. He began as a
growing black dot, hurtling around and around until he whipped out
his wings. The wind from his wings sent Carine to the ground. The
ships slammed together and bells rang. Waves slapped the sand and
the sides of the boats. Some capsized. Swimming family members
called for each other. People screamed.

The underbelly swooped overhead like a
gray-yellow comet. The beast was so large that as it sailed over
the Grunge, its tail shattered outer walls of the Bastion. That
year it landed in South Esten. There it ate, enchanted, and
burned.

Today, Kavariel looked twice as frightening
and twice as sympathetic. His armor-like scales had been ripped
from the right side of his body. White flesh showed underneath,
stained brown and red with blood. He sank into the healing pools,
which were more like five or six lakes. Steam rose from the pools
around him. Everything looked scratched and broken about him: his
face, his wing, and his spirit. He watched the Heartless Ones with
a tired black eye.

“Look there,” said Giles, pointing. Three
centaur figures, hidden behind distant trees, darted toward the
dragon with a bag in one hand. They tossed the bag into the pile
and retreated again. Unlike the Heartless Ones, these centaurs
behaved just like the daring participants of Festival’s wish pile
procedure. They hoped to get that bag enchanted. That explained all
the gold, weapons, and clothes. Perhaps the centaurs hoped their
gold would multiply. “Wyrians are getting a taste of the
enchantment that we get every year.”

The dragon’s body inflated as he inhaled. He
exhaled, sighing. A stream of white-hot fire blasted two Heartless
Ones in front of him.

Carine stepped back.

“The Heartless Ones are attacking him,” David
said grimly. “Luzhiv must have commanded them to finish him
off.”

Giles deadpanned, “Luzhiv likes to delegate
his dirty work, doesn’t he?”

The Heartless Ones’ attack was slow but
effective. A few Heartless Ones mumbled together as the gold lifted
and swirled, creating a sparkling cloud around the dying beast. At
intervals the cloud pulsed, pelting the dragon’s tender wounds.

Kavariel groaned as he watched with wise
eyes.

Another Heartless One lifted an ink-black
tree from its roots. He slammed it toward Kavariel’s wound, but the
dragon’s magic forced it away, and it exploded into black dust.

“Why isn’t the healing pool healing him?”
Carine asked.

“Dragons aren’t primarily physical
creatures,” Giles explained. “It will take time to heal
Kavariel—lots of it.”

David felt his throat constrict. “The
Heartless Ones are wearing him down. They’re killing him.”

Carine gave them a look. “He’s not the only
one they’ll kill. Do you hear me?”

David’s eyes were sorrowful. “If we don’t
heal Kavariel now, we won’t get a second chance. The Heartless Ones
will finish him off before the healing pools can do their job.”

She dared to touch his arm. “Please, David.
You know you won’t make it. They’ll get you before you can heal
it.”

“Him,” David said, “not
it
.”

She met his gaze, pleading, watching as his
sorrow toggled between determination and submission. “We don’t know
what’s happened in Esten. For all we know, you are the last
remaining heirs, Navafort’s only chance to survive this crisis. Now
I’m going down there to capture a flame because that’s what we came
here for. For your kingdom, I need you to promise me you’ll stay
here. Promise me.”

David looked out over the glowing scene,
filled with magic and danger. “Just get the stupid flame.”

“Giles?” Carine watched the youngest prince
now: the smartest, the most talented. She knew his temptation. But
drinking the blood of a dragon wouldn’t be possible if he were
dead. Giles simply raised an eyebrow.

“Of course,” he said. “Priorities.”

Bearing the torch from Verdiford, Carine
passed through the trees alone. Most of the forest smoldered or
burned. Tendrils of black smoke looped up from bare poles that had
once been trees. Others still burned with Kavariel’s fire. The
scorched earth crunched beneath her feet. Gold coins clinked as she
moved among the offerings.

She’d left the horses at the top of the hill
with the princes. Most likely, the horses would bolt getting this
close to the fearsome beast, and going on foot would make it easier
to sneak around the Heartless Ones. She clung to papery tree trunks
at each sound. Sneaking was her only defense; her little awl would
hardly save her.

The glow of the dragon’s fire mesmerized
Carine to an uncomfortable degree. She averted her eyes from
Kavariel, lest he meet her gaze through the trees. The Manakor
mispronunciation of the Heartless Ones grew to a slight roar.

Suddenly, three centaurs loped up a nearby
hill. Carine ducked behind a tree, not daring to breathe as they
galloped past. Blades, strapped to their backs and flanks,
shimmered in the daylight.

Carine shivered, realizing this was the first
time she’d been alone since leaving her parents. But this act,
drawing Kavariel’s flame onto the torch, was what they had come
here for, was what could protect her family and her home.

Thirty feet ahead, a tree burned with the
dragon’s fire. Its leaves charred and curled, dropping crispy and
black to the earth. A branch fell and its flame extinguished,
leaving the skinny trunk the only remaining source. The orange fire
licked up the bark, transforming it slowly to ash.

The shoes that Didda had made and she had
carved planted slowly over the gray earth. The coins here meant
nothing to her; only that flame, that fire, meant life and
everything she’d waited for.

She half-expected a Heartless One to come
mumbling out of the bushes and to attack. Sweat bubbled on her
forehead and palms, but Carine gripped the torch even tighter,
extending the tip toward the burning tree, toward the same dragon’s
fire that killed Louise so many years ago.

Like a dancer, the light jumped seamlessly
from the tree to the torch, and the fire sparked and burned. The
flame that had consumed Louise greeted Carine like an old
friend.

This was it. This is what they’d come here
for.

The rain seemed to be letting up, and though
it perturbed the tongue of fire, it did not extinguish it.

At the base of the hill to return to David
and Giles, a voice stopped Carine in her tracks. She turned.

This Heartless One was a female faun with
mangy hair. Her eyes lolled as though she were bored, but she
slithered out a Manakor word that immediately cracked the nearest
tree in half.

It sighed and bowed as Carine dodged the
crashing trunk. The branches, however, beat upon her. Carine
tumbled, and the torch rolled onto the wet, ashy ground. Its flame
dimmed.

Carine’s head pounded as she pushed up
through a maze of gnarled branches that leapt to life at the
Heartless faun’s spoken word. They curled around Carine’s neck.
Brittle branches stuck her arms and side. The Heartless One’s lip
twitched, reflecting the tiniest flutter of satisfaction. Carine
coughed, searching for breath as the branch closed her airways.

A warm tear dripped down her cheek as Carine
reached out, her fingertips rolling across the base of the torch.
Kavariel’s flame could extinguish the Heartless One, but at the
moment, the Heartless One did not intersect the line between the
dragon and the torch.

The Heartless One hoofed closer as though to
watch. Carine’s face felt hot, but the closing branch around her
neck numbed the pain she should have felt from the brittle
branches. Her fingers rolled against the torch’s base, but reaching
for it made her choking worse.

The torch rolled slightly, just enough for
Carine to grasp it in her fingertips. She extended her arm, putting
the Heartless One between her torch and the fire of the
clearing.

The Heartless One did not gasp or widen her
eyes. She simply thudded down like a person already dead, as though
her body had been on a hanger for years and finally fell off.

Carine gasped for air as the branches froze
tight around her neck. She clawed with her free hand until a thin
branch broke by her trachea.

Coughing, bleeding, and bruised, she freed
herself from the branches and climbed the hill, clutching the torch
of saving fire, grateful for the mysterious flame that would
deliver her. Holding back the tears of her weariness, she forced as
much of a smile as she could manage so David and Giles would feel a
sense of achievement.

At the top of the hill, her smile evaporated
as a huge centaur turned. Flanked in a brown coat, face framed in
tatty dark hair, his biceps flexed under the weight of a curved,
sharp ax in his arms. The blade of another ax gleamed over his
shoulder. A smile curled out from his lips. “Well, look-y here,
three for the price of two.”

The ax-man approached. “Let me tell you how
this works. We’re going to keep as many alive as possible. In
exchange, you won’t struggle when Rickshaw removes your heart.”

Rickshaw, a smaller white-spotted version of
the ax-man, advanced with an ax in one hand and a skinning knife in
the other. The curling blade rested naturally in his fist. How many
people had they already killed?

Carine and the princes stood with their backs
together, next to the horses. “What do you want with our hearts?”
David asked.

Rickshaw shrugged. “Wyrians pay generously
for hearts to appease the Heartless Ones. You look royal.” Rickshaw
grinned. “Perhaps I’ll charge extra.”

Carine shivered. These raiders weren’t
Heartless Ones, which meant the flame could not save them.

Rickshaw swung his ax, and they scattered.
The blade came nearest to Giles, but he lurched back and it missed
his neck by inches. The raider moved in, towering.

David loaded his bow and released. The shaft
sailed through the air and pierced Rickshaw’s flank. He grimaced,
but did not back down. The other two centaurs charged.

They were going to die right here, right
now.

Clang.

The raider, his ax locked against Giles’
sword, grunted as his strength diminished. Giles’ sword dropped
into the dirt as he crouched down

Rickshaw raised his ax again, and the thin
shaft of another one of David’s arrows pierced his chest. Rickshaw
looked at the arrow, grasped it in his fist, and pulled it right
out.

He raised his ax again. Giles picked up his
sword and fought back.

The centaurs swept forward like wind. Metal
flashing everywhere, Carine hid behind the whinnying horses where
they were tied. The princes stepped farther and farther back with
each blow. Their backs bent as they lifted weapons in defense. They
wouldn’t hold out long. Her mind whirling, Carine’s trembling
fingers searched her pockets for the protection stone.

Bang.

A centaur struck the butt of his ax against
David’s helmet. The helmet dented and David dropped.

Carine found the protection stone and took it
in her hands. The second the skin of her fingers met the engraved
letters of the Manakor word, pain seared through her insides. Tears
pooled as her whole body burned from the inside out.

The raider that had knocked out David pushed
through the horses, his bloodshot eyes locked on her. The rain had
lightened to a trickle, but it was clear from his soaked hair and
tail and his worn-out clothes that this centaur had been outside a
long time and that he was practiced in snatching hearts throughout
Wyre. His ax was smaller than Rickshaw’s but that hadn’t seemed to
matter for David.

Carine endured the pain that exploded through
her stomach, raged through her lungs, and tore through her heart.
She squeezed the stone as the raider lifted his ax like a club,
ready to knock her out and kill her in one blow. Heat rose in
Carine’s forehead and arms. The cool of the outside air made her
want to vomit as she looked up at this tall raider bringing down
his ax.

She ducked, squeezing her eyes shut, but
after a moment, when nothing had happened, she opened them
again.

The raider looked just as confused as she
was. The ax was in a different position. The raider’s arms were
heavy, as though he had already swung. His face contorted into a
grimace, and he lifted his ax again.

This time, pain pulsing through her from the
protection stone, Carine kept her eyes open. The ax swung and
Carine cringed, but when the blade hit, she felt nothing. Not a
single thing except a puff of air. The raider, however, shook with
the impact that traveled up the ax.

“What are you made of, stone?” he asked, his
eyes crazed. “Are you a Heartless One?”

He stepped back, tripping over his hooves,
face ashen like a sheet.

The pain pulsed through her, tearing her
within. Not able to hold it any longer, Carine let the protection
stone fall from her grasp. In that moment, the searing heat curled
away. Carine panted over the earth.

Giles’ sword clanged against the third
raider’s weapon. The largest raider, Rickshaw, had stepped from the
fight to treat his arrow wound. Carine’s opponent watched
everything, unmoving and scared.

Giles was weak. Sweat soaked through his
clothes. Even through a layer of chainmail, the sweat stained his
royal surcoat. There was blood on it too. He defended himself again
as the third raider fought. They were going to lose.

The torch extinguished in the mud.

Shivering in the chill after the pulses of
heat, Carine saw again the glow of orange in the valley. She
stepped back, seeing that the second raider was regaining his
confidence, seeing that he was going to try for her heart
again.