The Firebrand Legacy (6 page)

It did not bode well for their voyage either.
Didda always said that Granddad spoke of the seas as unforgiving
and formidable. Add magic to the mix and their voyage would meet
disaster.

The hatch opened and sunlight poured in.
Carine stood.

The knighted centaur Alviar stepped down the
first two stairs and surveyed the cellar. “You staggered the box
lids…” Carine had moved the lids so they could access the food
without moving the bins. “Impressive work.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“I admit I may have underestimated you when
you first arrived. I thought you were exploiting the situation, but
now it’s clear that you are willing to work for your keep.”

“Yes, sir.”

“In that case, I’ll ask you to do us a favor.
One of the ship hands has come down with a fever. I must ask you to
work on the upper decks in his place.”

Carine followed Alviar upstairs, where four
crew members busily adjusted the mast on this sunny morning. It was
unnerving: not a speck of land in any direction. The Vualtic Ocean
reflected in a bright sky.

A flying black creature soared across the
heavens in Carine’s periphery. She ducked under her hands and
shrieked.

Alviar searched the skies and asked, “Afraid
of birds, madam?”

The creature turned slightly. It was a simple
gull, silhouetted against the afternoon sun.

Carine stood. “I’m sorry, sir. Sorry. I
thought it was the dragon.”

“Unfortunately not, madam.” He frowned,
turning up to the sky. “I wish it were.”

The wish turned her stomach, but she did not
comment.

“Is there any other work I can do downstairs
or inside at least?” Just because Kavariel was late didn’t mean he
wasn’t coming, and if he could destroy a city, he could certainly
sink their ship. Not that being inside would protect her from
burning, but it could shield her from constantly checking the
skyline.

“Why is that?”

Carine studied his face. For a knight,
especially one that had offered to shoot her off the ladder, he
almost seemed friendly now. “I don’t want to be on the upper deck
when the dragon flies over.”

He gazed back at the sky fondly. “The dragon
is a majestic beast.” The ridges and falls of the burned side of
his face couldn’t conceal his peace.

Carine thought of her sister’s curls. “Unless
it gets close.”

When he turned back, Alviar caught her
staring. The centaur gestured to his burn. “Unless the dragon gets
close? No, you’re wrong about that, Miss Shoemaker. Kavariel may
have burned my face when I approached, but I wouldn’t take that
moment back,” he told her, his voice lilting. “I heard the dragon
call my name.”

A pit formed in her stomach, and even as the
sun warmed the bright, bustling deck, Carine felt a chill. She had
always thought that as much as the Esteners celebrated Kavariel,
they still reserved a healthy dose of revulsion for the mayhem he
brought. But Alviar revered the dragon despite his destruction.

The knight’s mouth formed a thin line as
Carine avoided his enthusiastic gaze. Finally, he said, “You may
clear the dishes from Their Majesties’ lunch instead. I am about to
give their afternoon lessons.”

“Thank you for understanding, sir.”

“But I warn you: do not let hiding become
your routine. I will not allow it.”

Carine frowned, not sure what he meant but
not daring to ask. “Yes, sir,” she said simply, opening the door to
the princes’ cabin while avoiding Alviar’s steady gaze.

Prince David’s smile fell when his eyes
landed on Alviar entering the room behind Carine. He ran from the
table and grabbed a feather pen, hastily marking things down on a
sheet of paper.

“Nice try,” said Alviar, and David gave up
trying to finish his work.

“Is she joining us?” Prince Giles asked.
Us
apparently didn’t include His Highness Prince Marcel, who
was lightly snoring again under the covers at the end of the
room.

“I’m just here to clear the table,” said
Carine, blushing at the thought of sitting in. Her own education
consisted of listening to local news in the taverns.

To teach her to write, her parents took her
around Esten to the murals where she was supposed to copy the
couplets that accompanied the illustrations. She memorized the
couplets and copied the illustrations instead. It had taken her a
few extra years to learn to write, but she would never have traded
those first etchings. It was how she learned to draw. The memory
made her ache for her parents more strongly than since she’d left
them.

“Very well,” Alviar said. “Grab your
books.”

As Carine lifted three plates—apparently
Marcel at some point had woken to eat—Prince Giles asked, “Are
either of your parents Padliotian, Carine?”

The question was delicate, since Navafort
often skirmished with Padliot. In fact, the princes’ own father had
died in one of the border wars. But Prince Giles, despite the
severity of his expressions, seemed more curious than accusatory.
“Yes, Your Majesty. My father’s parents were from there, but how
did you—”

“Please don’t feed my brother’s ego by being
impressed.” Prince David plopped some papers and a book on the
table.

“It’s a mere inference,” Prince Giles
explained. “Haven’t you heard of the walled Ponedonian village in
Padliot? Like you, they hate magic. They forbid it to enter their
city walls. Being so far south, it’s easier for them, but they take
it one step further.” His Majesty turned, gesturing to her long
hair with his slender finger. “You are familiar with the innate
folk gifts, I hope.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Every folk kind but
menfolk were born with magical qualities. Carine had always been
glad she had been born to menfolk. If she had been born any other
folk type, she would have to rid magic from herself.

“The centaurs have their strength; the fauns
have their music…Ponedonians consider those folk types to be half
animal. Animals have more hair than menfolk. Therefore, they
believe that magic is associated with hair. Every Ponedonian—men
and
women—keeps their heads shaved.”

Carine considered their theory. Half-men,
half-creatures generally did have more hair than pure menfolk. “Is
it true?”

“That they do that, yes. That magic and hair
are associated is anyone’s guess. In my opinion, they’re
ridiculous. To swear off magic would be like swearing off color.
You can hardly get rid of it. It’s part of the fabric of the earth.
You haven’t studied physics, have you?”

She may not have been tutored in the
sciences, but life experience had taught her just as well.

“Your Majesty is correct except for one
thing,” Alviar said. His correctional tone drew a confused frown
from Giles. “
Magic
is the word illiterates use for phenomena
they can’t explain.”

“I was simplifying,” Giles retorted.

“Physics answers the question: why does
nature do that? In a sense, the answer is simple: nature responds
to its call, a call from the Etherrealm.” No one had ever explained
physics in such terms, but that was the way of dragon fanatics,
attributing everything to the realm where dragons lived. “The call
is there whether we realize it or not, holding everything together.
The call is the reason that tree roots grow down and branches grow
up. It’s the reason that everything tossed up falls back to earth.
The reason that birds fly south for the winter and the sun rises in
the east. Every single thing that exists does one vital thing:
responds to its call.”

Mom and Didda had never really explained why
things were. They always answered her questions with:
It just
is
.

Prince Giles seized an opportunity to make up
for his poor word choice. “It would be too simple to study physics
if that were the extent of the subject.”

“That’s true. Scientists delve into lesser
reasons for physical phenomena. One theorist explains the rising of
the sun as the rotation of a spherical world. And trees grow tall
because they receive nutrients from the sun and soil. But all of
these valid explanations are mere subsets of the basic call.
Everything is prompted by that call.”

“Do you mean a call in Manakor, sir?” Carine
said tartly. The princes and their tutor all seemed utterly
enchanted by the killer dragons, their realm, and their fearsome
tongue.

“Indeed,” said the centaur. “No matter how
bitter or staunchly opposed you are, Carine of North Esten, that
language you hate is buried within the fabric of this whole
creation. You can no more escape it than escape your own skin.”

His brown eyes blazed with serious intensity
under that one black eyebrow and bare skin. The folded, burned side
of his face perplexed Carine. “I have to,” she said. “That language
kills people, sir.”

Alviar’s eyes softened. “And breathes them
into being.”

But that wasn’t enough. Not for her.

In the kitchen, Carine scrubbed the dishes
until her hands were shriveled and raw. She stacked and sorted, and
then retreated under the stairs, but Alviar’s strange explanation
and her parents’ terrified faces formed a dark cloud in her
mind.

Alviar and the princes claimed that she could
never escape magic. That it was hopeless to try. If that were true,
there was no hope for her parents back home. Carine ached for them
to be with her. She even wished—to her horror—that Kavariel had
come during Festival and delivered the flame.

Carine turned the short blade of her
shoemaking awl in her hand. She had to believe there was hope for
her family. She had to believe that one day the three of them would
be together again and safe. If there was any way to escape
magic—any way at all—Carine would find it.

Dusting off her hands, she leaned over so her
hair spread over her knees like cloth. With jagged motions, she
sawed her hair at neck-length. Long reddish-brown pieces lay limply
on her lap like feathers plucked from a goose.

Carine had lost her sister, her home, her
parents, and now her hair.

Taking a breath, she stowed her knife and
stood. Sometimes losing everything is the only way to begin.

The next morning at breakfast, Carine carried
in a tray of grits and hot tea, per Alviar’s request. His highness
Prince Marcel was sleeping, but the twins sat eagerly at the table,
reaching for their bowls before she’d even set down the tray.

“Whoa! What’d you do to your hair?” David
asked.

Heat rose in her cheeks. Now David was acting
just like her neighbors, commenting on any change, eager to make
fun.

“I was right.” Prince Giles smirked. “You are
a Ponedonian.” Not a compliment, since yesterday he’d called them
ridiculous.

“Shut up, Giles,” Prince David said, watching
Carine. “Don’t listen to him.” His voice had round, warm tones.

Carine should have known better than to enter
this room after cutting her hair. She tucked a piece behind her
ear, then slightly bowed to the princes.

“Wait, you’re not upset, are you?” David said
as she neared the door.

“No, Your Majesty,” she lied and shut the
door behind her.

Carine slopped the mop over the upper deck
near the stocky captain at the wheel. He ignored her, as he seemed
to ignore everything but the horizon and the shifting winds.

She had carefully done the lower decks
yesterday evening, and today the upper deck was her task. Having a
job to do was supposed to ease her mind, but instead, the rhythmic
work made her meditate on the things bothering her most: that her
parents were missing and that she had left them, maybe to die.

At every moment, she imagined hearing the
shriek of an incoming dragon. What she heard instead were
hoof-steps.

There were two ways up to the deck she
mopped: a ladder and the long stairs for centaurs. Alviar climbed
the long stairs, and instead of turning to speak with the captain,
he turned to Carine.

“As a tutor, I cannot resist the urge to
teach a needed lesson. Do you have a moment?”

Carine nodded, but the subject of yesterday’s
discussion left her uneasy.

Alviar turned to the banister and looked out
over the sea. “The truth is, I was not always a hopeful centaur,
Carine.” His face shimmered with honesty. His brown eyes glazed
with nostalgia. But the scar on his face distorted his every
expression in folds and asymmetry. “I was at a bad place in my
life, so one year during Festival, long before you were born, I
sought out Kavariel, intending to be consumed in his flame.”

Carine winced. She couldn’t imagine wanting
to burn.

“Kavariel touched down at the water’s edge,
destroying half the ships. I cantered all the way from Bastion Park
to the port as he blasted the marketplace and boiled the river
water. But the strange thing was, when I got up close, I saw that
the beast is truly beautiful. His scales glitter like silver
shields and his eye is like a rolling globe.”

“But he murders,” Carine said.

“That’s what I was counting on—until his gaze
fell on me.”

“What do you mean?” Carine still shivered at
the idea of approaching a fire-breathing dragon. “He looked at
you?”

Alviar nodded. “Dragons are wise
creatures.”

“Just because they have magic doesn’t make
them wise,” Carine said, hanging onto the broom as if in
defense.

“That’s true. It is not because they have
power that they are wise. And the power they have is not magic per
se, but the ability to pronounce the language of life. Manakor is a
deep language, not in tone but in content. Not even learned
scholars can pronounce it. One word contains all that will ever be
and all that has ever been.”

“Why are you telling me this?” Carine asked.
It was far more information than she had planned for, and Alviar
tutored princes, not shoemakers.