Dire Sparks (Song of the Aura, Book Five) Page 6

  …But rather than try to defend herself, she pushed off the ground with her bare feet, tackling the smaller girl to the ground. It was unexpected, and Tressa couldn’t catch herself before her head smacked the stone. A grunt of pain left her lips, and then died in a gurgle as Elia slammed Tressa’s own staff down across her throat.

  Brutal. But I have no choice.

  Tressa wheezed, trying to breathe past the wood on her neck. Her arms were spread-eagled, pinned by Elia’s knees as she straddled her. The Kinn girl’s eyes were blazing with hate. There was a pause, and a silent struggle for freedom as the red-and-purple light played hypnotic patterns across the darkness. Then the Spine’s voice rang out over the Ring.

  “You have danced well, fought well, died well. This Ringfight has ended.”

  Short, Elia thought, But thank the… It was good it didn’t last longer. She loosened her grip on Tressa’s staff. I was lucky this time. What happens when I face-

  Her opponent squirmed free beneath her, and pain lanced through her skull as Tressa kicked her in the back of the head with both feet. Elia didn’t have time to feel shocked before the smaller girl had kicked her free and wrapped both legs firmly around her neck, pulling her down and strangling her. Fingers grabbed in her hair, wrenching her head to one side until she thought she would snap.

  Tressa’s ragged breathing came in hot bursts at her ear. “Going… to kill you… wench!”

  Elia was so surprised she almost stopped struggling. Wench? That was no nymphtongue word… and Tressa had been speaking the commontongue of men! Could any Kinn possibly be from Vast? She couldn’t find out, if she died now.

  Suddenly the weight of the Acolyte’s attack was abruptly pulled off her. She sputtered and coughed, rising on unsteady feet… to find Tressa lying on her side, some distance away. She had been thrown.

  Gramling stood there, wreathed in shadow, having appeared from nowhere to save her. Elia knew full well the Spines hadn’t ordered Tressa off her; they reveled in such offenses. So why was Gramling…

  “You haven’t learned yet, have you?” he said, frowning. “You’re getting by, but you haven’t learned.”

  “What are you talking about?” Elia hissed, gathering her wits. This would be bad for her, among the other Acolytes, no matter how it ended.

  Then Tressa was up, eyes blazing. With no heed for the danger she was in, the Kinn girl swept up her staff and charged Gramling with a sharp cry. Elia almost yelled at her to stop… but it was too late.

  Gramling wheeled, almost without looking, and a white blade flashed from his robes, painted red in the bloody light… and from Tressa’s blood. The Acolyte fell to her knees, clutching the stump of her right hand and screaming in pain and anger. Elia gasped, stepping back, but the Pit Strider barely seemed fazed.

  “See,” he growled quietly, “Even now, there’s still some of the old you left. You’re surprised.” Was it her imagination, or did his voice seem unsure for a second? He continued on. “Fight me.”

  Elia balked, shaking her head. Tressa had stopped wailing, instead rocking back and forth and whimpering quickly.

  “Just like her, just like her, just like her,” she moaned, “I’m just like the one-hand. Just like the white woman. No, no, no, no…”

  Gramling advanced so close to Elia that she could have bit him, if she dared. His face was dark with fury. “Fight. Me.”

  “No…” she whispered, wondering if he would kill her now, and all her efforts at survival would be in vain. Suddenly the scarred visage softened, just a bit, and Gramling grunted.

  “It’s because I look like him, isn’t it?” he whispered. No one else could hear, and she didn’t think they could see, either… so Elia nodded, feeling tears welling in her eyes.

  Gramling’s frown grew so deep she thought his face would crack… but he slowly backed away, blood trickling down his sword, turned, and vanished into the darkness again. She heard no door open, but in moments she knew he had left.

  What would happen now? She barely dared guess. Would the Spines take Gramling’s visit to her as positive, or negative? It could mean her life, now… Then why did she feel so little worry?

  I’m thinking of him, she realized. And not Gribly. What is he trying to do? What does he want with me?

  “Can’t… can’t… can’t…” Tressa was moaning. Elia squeezed her eyes shut, and one tear leaked down her cheek from each eye.

  I just can’t keep doing this.

  Chapter Six: Flaming

  Days flowed into weeks. Elia’s body grew lean and hardened, and when she stared in a piece of glass her reflection looked back at her with darkened, haunted eyes. But she was more powerful than ever, in strength and in Striding. The other Acolytes grew jealous of her prodigious talent, whispering insults behind her back and sometimes straight to her face. It didn’t help at all that she was one of the few nymphs in the Sepulcher, and the only one with skin as pale as a human’s.

  The only comfort was Tressa. To Elia’s utter surprise, the young Kinn did not die from losing a hand… in fact, it seemed to strengthen her resolve. None of the other Acolytes had been able to put a knife in her back, yet, and she even seemed to be attempting friendliness with Elia on several occasions. Elia didn’t know why, but she accepted it: if it came down to a fight, someday soon, Tressa might be her only ally.

  Now though, she once more had to put her thoughts away and concentrate. Through intense sessions of lectures and lessons, she and the other Acolytes were being taught the basics of Pit Striding at a previously unheard of rate. It seemed the entire Golden Nation was mobilized for war, and hundreds of groups like hers were being trained by the Institution to be leaders in the second wave of invasion into Vast.

  “Now shall we learn it, the process of fire-making,” explained her teacher’s voice, snapping her out of her reverie. She was gathered with the rest of the Acolytes in a long, vaulted hall lit by stained-glass windows. Their teacher, a newly raised Malcyte Pit Strider with limited experience, was placed on a medium-height stone platform just wide enough to stand on. She and all the other Acolytes stood on similar platforms, straining to see in the dim light.

  Anticipation filled the room. Most of the Acolytes were too weak to make fire at all, and looked forward to overcoming their weakness. Elia allowed herself some grim satisfaction: at least here she had some advantage, unlike the previous exercises.

  “Assume with yourselves, the First Stance.” Elia complied, crouching slightly with one fist at her side and the other pointed straight at the ground, her mind focused completely on the task. A trickle of heat ran through her chest, as it always did when she practiced this. It surprised her that Pit Striding was even possible for her… but then, nothing here seemed to follow the rules she had known as a child.

  When her legs began to hurt from the strain, the Malcyte licked his red lips and ordered them into the Second Stance. Again, she complied, and the trickle of heat grew stronger. The Third Stance, and Fourth, and Fifth… they were practiced over and over, until she was in the hypnotic, throbbing state needed for Pit Striding.

  “Assume with yourselves, the Sixth Stance.” A thrill ran throughout Elia, and she knew instinctively that she could make fire now, without preparation or training… but she held back. No need to draw any more attention to herself.

  “Assume again, the First Stance… and close the eyes of your body. Open the eyes of your mind. Let the mazes of glass guide you…” The Malcyte’s voice faded into a meaningless babble as Elia obeyed, opening her mind to Striding.

  Something inside her lurched, as she reached for the Power of Sea. This wasn’t right. It shouldn’t work this way… somehow she knew it, and yet… it was happening.

  “Bleed the glass, strike the flame, burn the spirit, fire tamed…”

  This wasn’t how she made fire… she was sure of it, now. The sense of wrongness in the back of her mind was almost overwhelming. She felt that continuing to listen to the Malcyte’s voice would either drive
her insane, or corrupt her soul.

  Don’t do it this way, then.

  The solution was so obvious it almost made her laugh. Doing her best to block out the Malcyte’s chanting, she cupped her hands and concentrated on the bending of reality that allowed her to summon flames. The chanting reached a climax…

  “Let the fires of Kerbus fall!” screamed the Malcyte…

  …And Elia felt a spark jump between her palms. All around her she heard exclamations of triumph as the other Acolytes conjured flames of various sizes. Out of the corner of her eye, Elia thought she saw Tressa frowning at her, and she realized that the spark had not made a flame.

  “Acolyte Elia?” the Malcyte called.

  She tried again, thrusting her arms skyward. Another spark, then two… and a fountain of white flame burst upward from her palms, lashing the hall’s high ceiling with dark soot and sending waves of heat down from above on the rest of the group.

  “Ahhh…” Elia gritted her teeth, trying to stem the flow. She hadn’t meant to do this… not exactly… and now it was all she could do not to let the flames break her grasp and burn her to death.

  Curses sounded all ‘round, and the Acolytes near her all leaped from their platforms, letting their smaller flames die out in their haste to get away. All, that is, except Tressa, who kept her flame strong in her good hand, staring at Elia with a curious half-smile.

  “By the Goldenmount!” shrieked the Malcyte, pointing at her with disbelief, his long black hair blowing wildly in the hot wind her fire was causing. “A Fellspark! You… you’ve… made a Fellspark!”

  With a difficulty beyond imagining, Elia forced herself to quench the power within, cutting off the flow of fire and squeezing her hands together, shutting off the white flame in a single, decisive motion. It burned her hands abominably, but she knew not what else to do.

  “If I have done wrong, O Teacher, I am sorry,” she said, doing her best to imitate the dialect and speech of the Kinn, and dropping awkwardly to one knee on her platform. The Malcyte just shook his head, smoothing his black robes and staring vacantly at her.

  “I… will consult the Spines,” he said finally, and quickly jumped from his own platform, practically racing to get out of the room.

  What have I done now? Elia wondered. If that wasn’t enough to bring the Golden One down on her, she didn’t know what was. And why had he tolerated her, anyway, since he’d known she could do something like that from the start?

  The Kinn Acolytes had all left their platforms, congregating in a tight group, shutting out the few Rain Cave nymphs, who in turn would not let Elia near. So she simply stayed where she was, sitting on her platform, staring into the gloom, wishing for the thousandth time that none of this had happened to her.

  After a few ominous minutes, someone tapped Elia on the shoulder. She was so deep in thought that she almost jumped, and the sight of Tressa’s scarred visage staring at her from inches away didn’t help, either.

  “You could have killed me,” the Kinn said, expressionless. She was speaking in the commontongue again, and it took Elia a moment to think, and respond in kind.

  “I… I didn’t mean to. Sometimes it just…”

  “No. You could have killed me, twice,” Tressa said again, shaking her head as if Elia was a child too stupid to understand a concept.

  What does she…? Oh. Oh… the Ringfight. Elia was taken aback. It was true… she could’ve ended Tressa’s life, when she’d first had the chance. But she had won, and thought…

  It hit her like a punch to the gut. That’s what Gramling meant. I hadn’t learned… that you haven’t won until the enemy is dead. That you’re not safe unless you’re the only one left standing. She met Tressa’s eyes, and saw only one thing there: confusion. So the Kinn did not understand why she would spare a defeated opponent, and now she wanted to know the answer.

  “Why do more?” Elia said in a low voice, half to Tressa, half to herself. “Why hurt someone more than I have to?”

  Tressa looked even more confused, but as the girl opened her mouth to respond, the creaking of the hall door interrupted her. Elia shivered, slipping off the platform and standing stiffly to meet her judgment. Would it be a Spine? Another Pit Strider? One of the Agrivors she’d heard about?

  The Malcyte had returned, sweeping in and trying to look as majestic as he could. It was obvious, though, that he was merely a herald: the figures behind him were far more imposing. Elia’s breath caught. One was Gramling, in black pants and boot, with an open black coat of leather studded with gold. His hair was its natural flaxen now… he must have stopped dying it. With the scars on his face and chest, and the curved blade at his side, he looked positively terrifying… but his companion was even worse.

  It was a male Kinn, but unlike any she had seen before. His black skin was so light it almost seemed gray, and instead of the customary raven locks, his head was shaved bald. Like Gramling, he wore a gold-studded coat… but it was white leather, with blood-red lines running down it. Instead of a sword, he bore a tall iron staff that split into four prongs at the top, which wrapped themselves around a small bleached skull, the origin of which Elia didn’t want to consider.

  The skull’s eyes glowed red.

  “Lordyte,” Tressa murmured in Elia’s ear. “Six of them rule the Institution. All Striding. They rule it. Sorry,” and then she was gone, shuffling back to the other Acolytes, who seemed determined to press against the far wall of the hall as hard as they could.

  Elia knelt on one knee as the Lordyte drew near. His expression was impassive, but Gramling’s was one of sly amusement. Not good. Not good at all.

  “Prostrate,” hissed the Malcyte, coming up to her. Elia was confused, until the junior Pit Strider turned and laid himself flat out on the floor of the chamber beside her. Oh. Gritting her teeth and quenching her pride, she did likewise. There was a silent pause, when all the world seemed to be listening to her breathing.

  “So,” began the Lordyte, in perfect Treele Nymphtongue, “We have here a prodigy, do we? It is dangerous to be skilled here, pretty nymph.”

  Elia shivered, despite herself. The Kinn’s voice was like honey… thick and suffocating, hiding an angry barb of poison. Whispers interrupted the thought; it seemed Gramling was saying something quietly in the Lordyte’s ear. Elia shifted her face from the floor, hesitant, just as the tall Kinn spoke again.

  “You are… special, it seems, Elia Treele. Even more so than I had assumed. You are no longer to be trained under the Spines.”

  What? Was this punishment, or favor? She couldn’t decide which sounded worse. “Th… thank you, my Master,” she said, nodding her head as far as she could while lying flat on the floor.

  “Very good,” the Lordyte said. “You are not just more skilled than these scum… more polite, too. Malcyte Trekno?” The Malcyte beside her raised his head, eyes fearful.

  “Yes, my Master?”

  “You are to be commended for your instruction.” The Lordyte was speaking the Kinn dialect now.

  “Th-thank you, my Master.”

  “Instruction for the day is ended,” the Lordyte announced to the other Acolytes. “Each of you shall spend the day as you see fit, going where you will, so long as you do not leave the Sepulcher. You are now dismissed.” The Acolytes scrambled through the door at the far end of the hall.

  “Malcyte Trekno,” said Gramling, speaking for the first time. The Kinn tongue sounded wrong on him, somehow. “You are dismissed to attend to your other duties. Leave your… student… here with us.”

  “Yes, my Master,” the Malcyte said, getting up and leaving quickly without even taking the time to brush himself off.

  Elia lay where she was, heart beating faster. What was going on?

  “Elia,” Gramling said, speaking the commontongue, “get up.”

  She did. Both Gramling and the Lordyte wore odd, half-amused expressions. “What will happen to me?” she asked, before she could lose her courage.

  “Nothi
ng,” answered the Lordyte, using the commontongue now. Odd. “Agrivor Gramling has volunteered to take on the burden of your training. You will begin tomorrow.”

  What? “The… the Golden One is not angry with me? After all this?” Elia hadn’t meant to ask that out loud, but it was too late. It made no sense… why was she allowed all this?

  The two Pit Striders shared a conspiratorial look. Gramling grinned in a way that reminded her painfully of Gribly.

  “He doesn’t know,” Gramling said finally.

  Elia’s heart almost stopped in shock.

  “The Master is bound up in his duties,” the Lordyte explained. “Vastion has fallen, but Vast as a whole is still far from defeated. The Golden One plans day and night to finally crush them. He will do it, eventually. But something has drawn his dream-gaze away from you, for the moment, and he no longer cares as he once did.”