Inherit the Flame

Chapter Thirty-Nine

Detan did not know how long he slept, but when he woke the world was dark and still. The faint light trickling in under the curtain barring his window was enough to give him a pounding headache. He groaned and rested his forearm across his eyes. His arm was enclosed in a silken sleeve – someone had gone to the trouble of changing him. He felt a pang of sympathy for whoever had suffered that nasty little chore. He was pretty certain he’d fouled himself in those final moments. So very much of his bodily control had fled.

And he didn’t have it all back. Parts of him radiated numbness like a nimbus, the center of a spot perfectly deadened while the area around it grew steadily in feeling. With care, he began flexing every toe to its max extension, letting them relax, and repeating the motion with every muscle all the way up his body until he was pretty sure he still had all his parts intact.

Not that he deserved them.

Memory of that terrible flailing of his power filled his mind, insisted to be recognized lest he bury it completely. In a rueful way he welcomed the change. After he’d blown up the mines by accident here, that first time, he’d buried the guilt and the memory beneath layers of pain.

His new mental exercises would not allow him that luxury of self-deception. He needed to know everything he possibly could about his ability, and though the pain had been immense he had learned a great deal during those terrible moments.

He tried to catalog them with remote interest, to remove himself from the memory of his agony and the outlet that agony had eventually found.

One: the injection did not affect Aella. He was not yet sure how he could use that, but it felt significant to him. Some tiny sliver of weakness he could pry at.

Two: His sphere of influence was much larger than expected. Large enough that it dwarfed Aella’s, and she could not keep him fully contained if he decided to reach outside of her range.

Not that he wanted to. Though he’d desperately attempted to rein himself in, he held no illusions about what he’d done. He’d blown a pocket of selium at the opening of a firemouth. People died. How many, he was terrified to learn. But his fear was irrelevant in the face of the pain and terror he’d caused. He needed to move. To help. To fix something.

He peeled the arm from his eyes, swung his feet to the bedroom floor, and nearly fainted from the exertion. Rather annoying, having a body that wouldn’t obey him. Not nearly as bad as having a mind that wouldn’t.

Someone had the gall to knock on his door, and he was halfway through reaching back to chuck a pillow at the intruder when his auntie stepped into the room. He froze, mid-swing, and hesitantly brought the pillow down to rest in his lap.

“You’re up,” she said.

“Your powers of observation never cease to impress me.”

She propped a tray against her hip, and sidled awkwardly through the door to keep from rocking its contents. Clay plates rattled as she snatched a guttering candlestick from the tray and set about lighting, one at a time, the candelabra near the door. The warm light made his eyes ache, and he considered asking her to douse the flames, but he’d have to face the day eventually.

He only wished the flames did not remind him of what he had done.

“I would say I taught you to speak better to your elders, but I don’t believe those lessons ever stuck.”

“Your efforts were valiant, but in vain.”

A streak of sadness marred her features, gone as quickly as it came, her stern expression replaced in a flash. He wondered if that ability were a family trait, too. Acquiring a mask for all his various roles had always come easily to him.

She settled herself in a chair alongside his bed and set the tray on his nightstand. Warm tea muddled with cactus fruit steamed beside him, a delicate roll of paper-thin egg wrapped around a huge variety of local vegetables and meats next to it. His stomach grumbled, loud enough to echo in the quiet room. Auntie Honding tipped her head to the plate without comment, and he dug in. When half the food was gone and washed down by tea, he ventured to ask the question he dreaded.

“How bad?”

Her eyes closed, fingers knotting the skirt over her knees. “The fire was contained, but rockfall struck the palace district to the east. We’re still sorting through the remains.”

The food tasted bland and caught in his throat. “I never meant…”

“I know.” She reached out and squeezed his knee. He couldn’t remember the last time she’d touched him. “But the damage is done.”

He brushed her hand away. “Ranalae pushed me to it. Aella would not have dared without her prodding. If you had not invited her into our home–”

His auntie laughed, a soft, bitter sound he’d never heard from her before. “And do you think I have any choice in the matter?”

“You sent for them.”

“They were coming anyway. From the moment Thratia seized Aransa it was only a matter of time before the empire wondered just why it’d let our little family rule this jewel for so long. My invitation was an attempt to save face, to retain some semblance of authority over what happens here.” She cast him a sly look. “Not entirely different from your marriage.”

“Ranalae is a monster.”

“And so are Aella and Thratia and, some would say, you, dear boy.”

“Then we should all of us be turned out.”

She sighed wearily and leaned back in her chair, allowing her eyes to slip shut. She’d never looked so old before. So tired. Fine lines ran the length of her face like spider-webbed glass, just waiting for the final blow before it shatters.

“Maybe,” she agreed. “But we are all this city has, for the moment.”

“We aren’t the only ones working to protect this city.”

Her eyes snapped open and she stared hard at the ceiling their ancestors had built. “You mean your friends. That watch-captain, and the others.”

“I do. You did them a terrible disservice, trying to lock them out of the fight. I sent them to you – sent you Nouli – and you threw away all those opportunities to scrape your knees before the empire.”

“Threw them away? I protected them, you stupid boy. I tried to lock them where even Ranalae’s spies could not find them, and then they went to the wind. Do not think, not even for a moment, that they were not being followed from the moment they stepped off the Larkspur’s decks. Ranalae may have arrived a few weeks ago, but her spies have been here much longer. The ex-watch-captain of Aransa is a target too juicy to miss.”

“And you are doing what, exactly? This city is under siege by disparate forces. You cannot tell me the only thing you’ve done to protect it is to call for the empire and lock some friends of mine away for their own safety. If you want to lose this city, auntie, you’re doing a real good job of it.”

The fine lines of her face smoothed away as she drew her expression taut with bitten-back anger. “I’ve done what I can. I created the forum, to allow our people their voices, in the hopes that they would become their own force if it came to that. I’ve threaded my own people throughout the city – people looking for your friends now, might I add, to make certain they are safe –and flew my little birds to catch any whispers. I have not been idle, as you imply, but I have been hamstrung. How can one secure a city’s future, without its heir?”

He was on his feet in an instant, the dizzy flash of sudden movement fading beneath the storm front of his anger. The Dame moved, a futile attempt to grab his sleeve, but he was already around the bed, reaching for the curtain the servants had drawn against the evening. Drawn to hide what he had done.

The cloth tore as he yanked it back, revealing the hazy light of a late evening choked in dust. Though his room was not angled to the best vantage, the damage was plain enough. Stonefall carved a swathe of destruction through the palace district, the scents of bloody iron and choking dust still hot in the faint breeze swirling ash against his windowsill.

“This,” he grated, “this is what this city’s heir brings.”

“Aella said–”

“Aella says whatever she damn well pleases to get what she wants. Pitsfucking damnit, auntie, I’m trying to keep it together, damn near making myself mad with all her lessons and experiments upon my ‘control’ but half the fucking time I suspect she’s pushing me to test herself, or to see what she can get away with. I’ve got the Honding fire, but I’ve got the family temper, too, and those two nasty cousins should never mingle. I would have rather choked on my own blood than do… do… this. But look. Fucking look and see how successful I was.”

“Language,” she snapped.

He dragged his fingers through sweat-damp hair. “This ain’t a time that calls for pretty words, auntie. This is something that deserves words so ugly I haven’t even dreamed them up yet.”

“While you busy yourself with your vocabulary,” she said as she pushed to her feet and straightened the robe that trailed her like midnight, “I came to tell you that Gatai is insisting you have your friends returned to you, and I find I agree. Though you will not take me into your confidence–” she held up a hand to forestall an argument, “– it is clear to me that you must have someone. I have done all I can to keep this city safe, and have reached the end of my ability. If you require my assistance, you have it through Gatai. I suspect the less I know of your true motives, the better.”

He swallowed around a dry throat. “And just how will you hide them here, if they even agree to return?”

She flashed him a smile. “Your old auntie isn’t beaten yet, boy. I have a few tricks up my sleeve. And you’d be amazed how easy it is for one to overlook the details of a face when the body is wearing servant blacks.”

He slouched against the wall beside the window, turning away from the destruction he’d wrought. “I want to help…”

She crossed to him, gathered both of his hands in her boneraw fingers. “I know. You can’t. Not me, anyway. My time here is… short, nephew. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a wedding to prepare for.” Her voice was grim as she squeezed his hands. “Make your mother proud, boy. You’ve already made me so.”

She was gone in a moment, aged legs carrying her with the same speed and grace they always had. Must be nice to not be susceptible to bonewither, he thought, then chased the thought away. His auntie had done her best for a family lineage she was, by lack of a genetic inheritance, kept apart from. Though her actions were flawed, her motives were pure. She’d done what she could. The rest was up to him.

Skies save them all.