A Consuming Fire, page 15
At Anya’s side, Ilva guttered back into existence, her light burning very low.
He touched me, Ilva sighed, in a voice softer than the gentlest night breeze. He touched me, and I knew it was the beginning of the end.
Unconsciously, Anya took a step forward, around the bend and into the firelight. Her eyes went from the girl on the stretcher to the rest of the travelers, and she found there were other girls among them. None were in as bad a way as the child on the ground, but all of them bore the terrible marks of the god’s touch.
“You there,” an older woman with iron-gray hair said as Anya appeared. Anguish underscored her words. “Are you from nearby? Can you help us?”
“No,” Anya said numbly. “Not from nearby.”
Her gaze had been drawn inexorably back to the girl on the stretcher. A slender man, with a face as gentle as Matthias’s, knelt at the girl’s side with a vial of clear liquid. Vainly, he tried to help the child swallow it, speaking soothing words under his breath. But the girl could not manage, and as Anya watched in horror she began to shake, just as Ilva had done.
With a ragged breath Anya fixed her eyes on the ground, unable to bring herself to watch what was to come a second time. After a few moments, a stifled cry rose up from someone in the group of travelers, followed by a ripple of shocked voices.
Anya knew, with stark and unbearable certainty, that the girl was gone. For beside Ilva’s mournful ghost, another had flickered into being. A child, her face a patchwork of vicious burns, her eyes filmy and unseeing.
One, Ilva whispered.
Two, the child’s apparition echoed, before both of them vanished, dissipating as if blown to pieces by a strong wind.
“Please,” the gray-haired woman said. “We have others who need help. If you know of anyone—anyone at all—who might take pity on us…”
“Yes,” Anya said. Inside her, ice was spreading, and the cold burned worse than her internal fire ever did. “I’ll go and fetch them. Just wait here, won’t you?”
“We have nowhere else to go,” the woman said, and Anya had never heard such despair before.
Hurrying back the way she’d come, Anya pulled herself up and out of the sunken lane. She ran through the woods, losing her footing twice and tearing her knees and palms open on branches and stones, but she did not stop. Not until she was back in the wanderers’ camp, Matthias and Tieran both on their feet before she’d even made it out of the trees.
“There are people on the north road,” Anya gasped. “From Banevale. They’re in a bad way—they have girls with them, who fell prey to the god of the mountain.”
She’d not even finished speaking before the encampment burst to life, Matthias calling for Lee, Lee turning to Janie and Ella, and Tieran moving immediately to Anya’s side. Anya watched in strained silence as Matthias, Lee, and half a dozen others took up packs and supplies and set off in the direction she’d come from. As they passed by, Anya started after them, but Tieran stopped her with a hand on her arm.
“All right, Anya?” he asked, his voice low and worried.
“Yes,” Anya lied. There was nothing behind the word, no reassurance, no warmth. “I have to go help.”
“You don’t,” Tieran protested. “Matthias and Lee’ll look after everything. Those folk couldn’t be in better care.”
“Please don’t touch me,” Anya said quietly, and Tieran drew his hand back at once, as if stung. She didn’t want him anywhere near her—it felt as if every word spoken to her during the penance before Orielle lay trapped beneath her skin.
Unworthy
Heartless
Selfish
Cruel
She was all of these things and more, gambling the fate of every girl in Albion on the wickedness that burned inside her—on a desire for vengeance, and freedom, and a world unlike the one she’d been born into. And yet, with every girl she saw burned or maimed or killed, the heretic conviction she’d always felt grew within her.
Albion’s god was not just. And he deserved no more of her homeland’s innocent daughters.
Backing away from Tieran, Anya let the darkness swallow her up.
Down in the hollow way, the wretched travelers still huddled close around their wounded girls, and the wanderers moved among them like ministers of grace. Janie knelt before a small child, carefully cleaning burns that showed stark red against the golden-brown skin on the little one’s arms and neck.
“How can I help?” Anya asked, her voice dangerously even. Anything she felt had been buried for now, though she knew there’d come a reckoning. That sooner or later, she’d pay a price for tamping down the things she’d seen and felt ever since leaving Weatherell.
“Look there.” Janie nodded in the direction of a blanket that had been spread on the ground an arm’s length away. Several pouches and jars sat atop it. “If you search about, you’ll find a mortar. The red pouch has herbs for burns in it—hypericum and calendula and arnica. Grind them up finely in the mortar and when you’ve finished, add honey from the largest jar to make a paste. Then bring it to me.”
Anya did as she was told, settling on the blanket and beginning to grind up the blend of dried herbs. They gave off a sweet, dusty smell and she tried to focus on it, tried to let it settle her. It did no good. Though she was able to school her hands and her body into calm, and do what she felt was her duty, on the inside she was shattering. All around her were hushed and worried voices, punctuated by the occasional sound of a ragged sob or soft, hoarse cry. It was as if all her Weatherell girls, all the ghosts she and Ilva had remembered as distant stories, were made manifest around her, and while the remembering of them had been blunted by the passage of time, seeing them in the present cut her to the heart.
“Is this right?” Anya asked in a low voice, showing Janie the poultice she’d made. Janie nodded and took the mixture, applying it little by little to clean bandages and wrapping them loosely about the young girl’s burns. Janie did it all neatly and efficiently, moving with a practiced air.
“You’re very good at this,” Anya said.
“I should be,” Janie answered, without looking away from the task at hand. “Mum was our healer before we started wandering. She still is now, she just does more besides. But I’ve been apprenticed to her for ages and I’m hoping in another year or so, she’ll let me take over from her entirely. She and Matthias have got enough on their hands, keeping us all sorted and safe and fed and moving from one place to the next.”
“I should think you’ll do well,” Anya said. It made her feel more rootless and adrift and full of blasphemous intent than ever, to see Janie so capable, so sure of her place and her purpose.
“We’ll see,” Janie said with a smile. “I’ve got to work on my midwifery yet. But I’d rather this than tinsmithing, like Ella’s learning from the Prynns. She sits shut up in a workshop all winter long and then does piecework if we happen to stop in one place long enough during warm weather. Not for me—I like to be with people and busy, no matter the season.”
Rocking back on her heels, Janie squeezed the hand of the young girl she’d been tending. The sharp wit Anya had seen in her was softened, so that she gave off an air of comfort and confidence instead. She was the sort of person you’d instinctively trust if trouble came your way, Anya realized, and who could make things better simply by being near.
“There you are, my love,” Janie said warmly to the girl. “Do you see him over there? The big man by the fire? That’s Matthias, and he’s got a tea steeping that’ll take the edge off your hurts and help you sleep. Why don’t you go get yourself a mug and find your da—you said he was watching your younger brother, yes?”
The girl answered softly in the affirmative, and though her movements were slow and careful, she was steady enough as she got to her feet and walked off. Throughout the small group of travelers, chaos was giving way to order, brought about the wanderers and their wisdom and goodwill.
Janie ran a hand across her face and looked suddenly weary, as she saw the girl she’d tended reach Matthias.
“Are you all right?” Anya asked automatically.
“Not really,” Janie said with a sad smile. “This could be me or Ella or you. We’re only lucky that it’s not, and that we’ll never have to go to the god, like Emilia in that bit of pageantry we saw.”
The scarlet band in Anya’s pocket felt heavy as a stone.
“I suppose,” she murmured.
“Luck had nothing to do with this,” the nearest of the travelers said. It was the gray-haired woman who’d first asked Anya for help. Now that the worst of things had passed, she sat by the blanket-covered body of the girl they’d lost, with a hard and unyielding look written across her face. “It was failure that started it all. The Elect should’ve seen the girl they sent to the god was unfit. And she should’ve known herself to be unworthy. Whoever they send next had best be pure and righteous, and hurry on her way.”
Anya fell still as the traveler’s words bit deep.
“It’s easy to lay blame,” Janie shot back, a bit of the customary clever sharpness returning to her voice. “But the girl who went and died for her trouble deserved it no more than I would, or any of your girls. It’s a terrible thing, what they’re made to do.”
“They’re not made to, though,” the traveler retorted. “They choose to go. Our girls here never did.”
Janie shook her head, disapproval evident in the set of her mouth. “Weatherell girls don’t choose their path. Not really. What choice is there in being brought up for a thing from the moment you’re born and told that if you don’t accept it, you’ll rain suffering down on all of Albion? There’s no freedom in that.”
“It’s their lot,” the traveler said, and she was angry now, bitterness dripping from the words.
“I won’t argue with someone who’s just suffered a loss,” Janie answered, and her firmness brooked no response. “But I hope you’ll feel otherwise once the edge wears off your hurt.”
There was nothing left for Anya to do. The wanderers had worked a quiet magic among the unfortunates on the low road, and Janie went to join Matthias and Lee, who were speaking earnestly with the older members of the small, sad group. Every part of Anya ached intolerably—her body, her spirit, her heart. Without thinking, she carried on down the sunken lane, pulled northward. Darkness closed in around her. Ilva’s ghost did not appear. There was no Midge to trot at her heels. Anya was entirely alone, but she did not freeze or crumble as she’d done at Ilva’s death, and over her bones. The act of walking held her together—was all that held her together.
A stone turned under one of her unsteady feet and drove her to her knees.
With a blinding flash she was back before Orielle, before Arbiter Thorn, before Ilva’s remains, and as she would soon be before the god.
And she was undone. The brokenness on Emilia’s face as the curtains closed had seared itself into her mind. It blurred together with the way Willem looked, when she thought no one was watching. With the way Philomena looked, when her tortured inner workings especially pained her. With the way Sylvie looked, when she spoke of things she would never see again.
With the way the travelers’ girls on the low road had looked, marked by the hand of the god.
With the way Ilva had looked, in the moment death stole her.
With the way Anya felt, constantly, beneath the thin and fragile armor of her skin.
With a frantic burst of movement, she pulled herself out of the low road and up into the forest, where she dropped down among the sea of ferns. The wood smelled of green things and soil, of Weatherell, of everything that would never truly be hers again, because even if she did go back, home was an unfamiliar place without her sister.
The full weight of Ilva’s death and of the burden she’d taken on was enough to shatter Anya. She’d grieved before, but there’d been a vain shred of hope. That somehow, if she walked the same road Ilva walked, if she climbed the mountain Ilva climbed, if she vanquished the god that ended Ilva’s life, she might undo everything that had gone before.
Walking the north road had made one thing starkly clear, though—no matter how badly Anya wished for it, there was no going back. A sacrifice, once given, could not be reclaimed. Ilva was gone. Other girls had suffered and died since, and the line of offerings would go unbroken if she could not manage the impossible and withstand the wrath of a god. But if she failed—if she failed she would not die a martyr, but a traitor and a heretic, her hands stained with the blood of all the girls who’d suffered since Ilva and all the girls who’d suffer after she herself burned.
Anya shook, and as heat spread across the back of her neck, she was sick among the undergrowth. Tears stole her vision, but even as they did, she felt a steadying hand on her shoulder.
“Here now, Anya Astraea,” Tieran’s voice said. “You’re a disaster, aren’t you?”
When there was nothing left inside her but overwhelming shame, Anya sat back. She was still sobbing and shaking and it was the funeral clearing all over again, with Weatherell’s villagers watching as Anya lost hold of herself over breaking up Ilva’s bones.
But Tieran the thief was nothing like Weatherell’s self-contained, righteous forest-dwellers. He knelt in front of Anya, so close that their knees touched, and took both her hands in his own. There was no quiet embarrassment on his face. No discomfort. He did not shy away from any part of her relentless sorrow.
“This is my life,” Anya said between sobs. “All of it, that people out here see as a curiosity to watch on a stage, or a frightening story to tell their children, or a terrible misfortune that comes upon them because someone else failed in their duty. It’s everything I know. Everyone I love. Everyone I’ve lost. Do you understand? It’s not a story or a mistake to me. It’s what I’m meant for.”
“I know,” Tieran told her, with unrestrained fury in his voice. “I know, and I’m sorry, Anya. I’m so sorry.”
Anya leaned toward him, every part of her aching with the desire to be understood. “I have been afraid every day, for as long as I can remember. Afraid of what happened to the girls who went before me. Afraid of becoming one of them, or not becoming one of them. Afraid of Ilva going in my place, and something unspeakable happening to her. Sometimes it feels like there’s not a bit of bravery in me—like all I am is fear and broken pieces, and every nightmare I’ve ever had has come true.”
When Tieran spoke, his words were the last thing Anya expected to hear.
“I met your sister,” he said, and Anya’s eyes went wide.
Tieran looked down at their joined hands. “Didn’t know if I should tell you or not. Still not sure. I saw her twice—once in a place called Longmorrow on her journey out, and then again in that town where you found me, when she was headed back home. The first time it was by chance, at a market. I came round a corner, and there she stood. Bartering with a shopkeeper like it was a game. I didn’t think Weatherell girls were supposed to be like that—sharp as tacks, and fierce.”
“Ilva was always that way,” Anya told him tearfully. “Fearless. Ready to take on the wide world and everything in it.”
“Well, I kept clear of her,” Tieran said. “Not keen on people who’re too bold to be afraid. Never liked the idea of a stranger giving something up on my behalf, either. I didn’t ask for that. Don’t deserve it. It made me feel like less than nothing, seeing her so confident in what she was doing. Still lit up from the inside, when she knew where she was headed.”
Anya put a hand to her mouth as fresh tears pooled in her eyes. But she nodded, because that had been her Ilva. Fierce and flawed and bright.
“Don’t think I should say anything about the second time I saw her,” Tieran said as he glanced uneasily at Anya.
“Oh, please,” Anya begged. “No matter what it is, I want to hear.”
Tieran ran a hand over his shorn head and let out a reluctant sigh. “I’d gone south. Wasn’t far from your wood, and she was nearly home. I’d camped out in a cheap inn—the sort of place with more bedbugs than bed—and she stopped for the night. She was sitting across the common room, and as soon as I laid eyes on her, I could see it. She was dying. And not just that, but she knew she was dying, too. So I went and sat with her.”
Anya looked at him in shock. “Why would you do that? You don’t even like Weatherell girls, or anything we stand for.”
Acute embarrassment flitted across Tieran’s face. “Dunno. What do you want me to say? Sometimes I get lonely. Sometimes I’m a soft touch. Don’t want to be, but there it is. I got a heart in my chest and some days I can’t stop it bleeding, no matter how hard I try.”
“Did you talk?” Anya asked. “What did Ilva say? Did she—did she mention me?”
“Mostly we just sat. But we talked a bit. She said she wanted to get home, before… well, you know. Said she had family she wanted to see. And she told me she felt like a failure and that hurt worse than anything, because even though she’d suffered, they’d send another girl once she’d gone. Said she knew who it would be, too—that she had a sister who always looked after her, and fixed everything she’d ever broken.”
A thought struck Anya and she gave Tieran a reproachful look through her tears. “You’re not lying? You wouldn’t say all this just to make me feel better, would you?”
“I would, but I’m not,” he said. “Swear it on my dead mum’s ashes. It wasn’t a good night for me, Anya. Didn’t do me no favors. I lost myself for a long time after that—got downcast, and stuck, not wanting to go anywhere or see anyone. It’s the only reason I was still in that town where you found me—I’d been there since your sister, living off what I stole from my own people and wondering what in the nine hells I’d been doing with my life. Because no one would ever say that about me—that if they failed, I’d fix things. I don’t fix things, I break them.
“And then after a while, I thought I’d have a go at making something right. So I tried to steal back what I owe Matthias and the wanderers and got caught like a fool. Everything went wrong, and they were going to take my hand, and you turned up. Now we’re here and I haven’t fixed nothing, hardly, and it’s all more of a muddle than it ever was before.”
