Burnt Read online

  Before he thought about what he was doing, he took over the whole task for her. Fingers darting in and around the flames with the culmination of sixteen years of fascination with the dangerous beasts, Kaie nudged the logs until they were settled properly. The fire threatened to die out completely. But he waited patiently. Its dramatics unanswered, the blaze flared up again, this time burning more evenly in the new arrangement. Once the need for constant care was abated he sat down across from her.

  The Lemme’s eyes were locked on him as though he just did something profound. He felt heat rising in his cheeks under her scrutiny and was on the verge of protesting that it was nothing. It was, after all. His father did the same thing all the time. He nearly said so when she took pity and spoke first.

  “I almost gave up on you coming.”

  “I almost didn’t,” he confessed. “I didn’t want to.”

  “I hoped you wouldn’t. I hoped you would refuse your friends.”

  Kaie rocked backwards. He wasn’t sure if he was supposed to be shocked. It didn’t make much difference if he was. All he could manage to dredge up was a detached surprise. “I would be exiled. Driven off into the woods for the Finders to take away.”

  She nodded. “Yes.”

  “Are you going to tell the family what you’ve seen for me? If I let them do what Sojun wants?”

  She sighed and sank back away from the light a little ways. “No. Your destiny is your own to do with as you like. If you choose to conceal it, I will not stop you.”

  “You think I should tell them?”

  “I think it does not matter.”

  That got a bit more than surprise. “How can it not matter? It is my family, and I have to decide whether I’d rather lie to them for the rest of my life or lose them all in one moment!”

  “In the end, what must be will be. Whether you lie or leave will not change that.”

  “Then I guess you’re right. It doesn’t matter. Nothing matters if I can’t change anything about anything.” It was an immature statement. He knew it but he didn’t care. This was his life, his family, and she was spouting out stupid comments that said little and meant less.

  She sighed again, the same sad sound as before. “What you decide matters, Kaie. Some things are written by Fate and cannot be altered. But that doesn’t make your actions meaningless. You will remember this moment someday and remember the decision you made. It might not change the here and now, but it will change how you see yourself then. That matters.”

  Kaie scowled. She was the Lemme. It wasn’t his place to doubt her. But it was all so convenient. It was a great way to convince him to do what she wanted without telling him what to do, to make him obey with nothing better than a promise of some vague reward ‘someday.’ It was manipulative. He wasn’t a fan.

  The fire cracked. It startled Kaie out of the languid state he was starting to float in. Alarmed, fear raced down his spine as he recalled the other reason he was here. The more important one. The one he would really rather forget.

  “Am I a seer, Lemme?”

  Her head shifted forward into the light again. It made her look like she ended at the neck, just a head levitating. It was disconcerting. “Can you see the flames? How about the rocks? Me? What does that make you, if not a seer?”

  He shook his head. “That’s not what I mean.”

  “You mean do you share my ability.” She considered him a moment with the same appraising gaze from earlier in the day. “It’s possible. You share my blood. And your mother was quite good at perceiving possible futures. That’s part of the reason she was destined to lead the tribe. It takes someone who thinks several steps ahead to keep us safe from our enemies in this age. So yes. It is possible.”

  Kaie scowled at the fire, not daring to turn the expression on her. “I need to know better than possible. I saw it. What you spoke of before. When you spoke the words, I saw them in my head. Does that mean I’m a seer?”

  She stood and it took so much effort that Kaie knew it pained her a great deal. Slowly, she waddled over to his side. He wanted to get up, to help her, to run away. But he was rooted in place. Transfixed.

  When she was beside him she took his head between her hands. He tried not to think about the way her skin felt pressed against his own. He tried not to notice the smell of her, powerful enough at this distance to overpower the scents that made his mind float loose. Like sweat and refuse boiling beneath a surface of cloves and smoke.

  She stared down into his eyes for a long time. Kaie managed to hold himself still. Mostly. He wanted to run from the hut. He wanted to submerge himself in the icy waters of the stream that ran just outside the village until all trace of her smell was gone. Then slink back into his new home and wake up Jun. They could come up with some new plan, one that didn’t involve lies and schemes, and greet Amorette with grins and jokes in the morning.

  “You have your mother’s eyes. Brightest green I’ve ever seen.”

  He didn’t know what he was supposed to say that, so he said nothing. The Lemme didn’t seem to notice.

  “I had forgotten how young you are. How small and weak.”

  Kaie’s grimace hit her with full force that time. He was the smallest boy his age. There weren’t even that many girls his age that couldn’t peer over top his dark red hair. Most of the kids kept the comments and giggles about it down to a polite whisper, but not always. There were one or two who took no small amount of pleasure in pointing out just how tiny he was at every opportunity. Sojun kept things from getting out of hand. Sojun was the great strong protector who kept Kaie and Amorette safe, whether they wanted him to or not. Whether it made things worse or not. “My father says he was as short as I am when he was my age. He says he didn’t grow into his height until he was nearly at his eighteenth birthing day.”

  “His twentieth, more like. How he won your mother, scrawny and useless as he was in those days, was a mystery to everyone.”

  Kaie’s indignation grew with his discomfort. “I’m stronger than I look.”

  “You’d have to be, wouldn’t you?”

  He thrust his chin out, giving no thought to how childish the gesture would look. “I’m fast. No one in the village is faster than me. And Sojun and I wrestle all the time. I beat him almost half the time.”

  “Oh? Half the time, is it?”

  “Almost,” he admitted grudgingly. Of course, that wasn’t true either. Sojun worked hard to hide it but Kaie knew his friend held back with him. He watched him wrestle every other boy in the village at one point or another and knew what Jun’s best was. That wasn’t what he brought out in his friend. But Jun wanted him to think he was strong, and Kaie didn’t want his heart’s brother to know it was useless.

  The Lemme saw that. Her eyes, which he thought were blue once too, said it all. He could fool so many people. Sometimes even himself. But he couldn’t fool her.

  “You will be given the choice between sacrificing yourself or the ones you love over and over again. You draw pain to yourself like a magnet draws metal. It is the nature of your soul.”

  “So it’s true,” he whispered, his eyes dropping down to the dirt and staying there. He couldn’t stand to see the truth in her gaze. “I am a seer. Cursed.”

  “Cursed? I imagine you would call it that. But just as you draw the pain, you will draw joy such as the rest of us only dream about. You cannot have one without the other. It is a balance.”

  “I don’t understand.” Kaie was reaching now, looking for some way to keep it from being the truth, any reason. “How can I be a seer? I’ve never had a single vision before! And the ones I had… they weren’t direct. There won’t really be a sea of blood. There can’t be, right?”

  She sighed. “You are untrained. Your glimpses have always been haphazard and insignificant. Still, your mother recognized them for what they were early. She came to me demanding the truth. A mother should never know her son’s destiny, but because I loved her I spoke it anyway. I was young and did not really
understand how such a small thing could change so much.”

  “You… my parents knew? This whole time?”

  The Lemme nodded. “Because they begged, I worked with Lodan to find a way to keep it hidden from you. Scent was the key. Just as they help enhance the visions, they can dull the memory of them, until they can be mistaken for dreams. Lavender, sage and weir wood.”

  Kaie screwed his eyes shut against the stinging tears that burned a path down his cheeks. How long? When did his mother start cooking with lavender and sage? When did they replace the wood of their home, saying the old was damaged by a storm and insects? How many times did they convince him to bring Sojun over for dinner with them, instead of eating with his friend’s family? How many years did his family hide the truth from him?

  “You asked if I thought you should tell the tribe of your destiny,” the Lemme continued. “How should I answer? Your parents tried to protect you, and so built for you a cage to hold back what you are. Should I advise you to hold the bars of your prison tight around you as long as you can? I know better than any that you will always feel displaced there. No contentment will find you with part of yourself locked away. So should I tell you to break free? It will bring down so much more suffering than any soul should have to endure.”

  “What then?” Kaie croaked. “Tell me something. You have to give me something.”

  “I did,” she said softly. “I shared pieces of my vision with you, let you see what I have seen, knowing it would bring something of your own forward. I gave you the truth. That is all I have to give.”

  “It’s not enough,” he murmured.

  She dropped her head into her hands, as if to cry. “Oh Kaie, you do not know me. I realize this. But I know every facet of your soul better than if you were my own. I would spare you all of this if it were in my power to do so. Even knowing the good, I would protect you from the bad.”

  “Why?” He was not asking for her reasons. He was asking for the gods’ reasons. Why would they permit him to be born with the power inside him, knowing what it would cost? Why curse him when they were the ones responsible for his existence? Why was he being punished for something he would never choose?

  She didn’t hear the depth of his question, though. She took it at face value. “Because you will have both incredible joy and unimaginable pain. But always in unequal amounts.”

  Bitter words were poised on Kaie’s tongue, ready to spill past his lips, but they were lost in an instant as a blood-chilling scream sliced through the silence of the sleeping village.

  Six

  Seconds ticked by. Kaie stared at the door, half convinced he just imagined it. He glanced over at the Lemme, expecting her to give answers to all his half-formed questions. She saw the future. Shouldn’t she know what was going on?

  She wasn’t watching the door though. She wasn’t watching the fire either. Her eyes were locked on him. “Decide.”

  She didn’t sound like she was dying anymore, and there was no trace of the sad sister mother from a moment before. Now she was the Lemme in truth, a woman who saw the gods’ will and saw it out within the people. She wasn’t to be taken lightly. His heart was already lodged firmly in his throat, but it still managed to terrify him.

  “What?” He wanted to obey. But, for the life of him, Kaie couldn’t figure out what she was demanding of him.

  “You must decide. Will you allow your friends to sacrifice themselves for you?”

  The scream came again. Not his imagination. He pushed himself to his feet, too panicked by what might be happening outside to spare the old woman another thought.

  He didn’t get one step toward the door when a hand burst through the flames to wrap around his forearm. He stared at it, trying to figure out what was happening. Her arm was right in the middle of the fire, and she wasn’t trying to move it. Kaie gagged as the disgustingly mouth-watering scent of cooking flesh filled the room.

  “What are you doing? Let me go!”

  “Decide!” Her voice was dangerous, and he heard no sign she felt the pain of her burning skin. There was no ignoring her command this time. He would decide, or she would hold him until they both burnt to nothing. He saw the truth of it written in her eyes.

  So he decided.

  He opened his mouth to tell her, but she was already letting him go and slinking back into the darkness. A third scream cut through his indecision. He gave one more backward glance at the Lemme’s apparent disinterest, and then Kaie was pushing through the door and back into the cool night.

  Even with all the Lemme’s warnings, Kaie wasn’t prepared for what was happening in the darkness.

  There were strangers everywhere. He wasn’t born the last time there were outsiders in the village. His mother spoke with them two years before he was born. He always expected to be at her side when she spoke to them again in his nineteenth year, when the Urazin Empire sent their representative. The old laws set in place by the High King back when the Ancients ruled all of Elysium, protected his family. That was part of the oath, just as much as the role the Lemme saw for him. The Empire held to those old laws but they still came and asked his family to join them. It was his mother’s job – the leader’s job – to say no without offending them.

  These strangers weren’t representatives. Or, maybe they were. But they weren’t asking anyone to join them. He saw the hulking figures clad in armor, heard the clank of metal as they moved, but he could not sort out what the foreigners were doing running through the spaces between the huts of his village. Not at first. They couldn’t be Finders. Those kept to the woods, targeting people on their own. Everyone knew that. It was why they hunted in groups of five and were never so far apart that a shout would not bring help in moments.

  There were stories, ones the children weren’t supposed to hear. Ones about soldiers descending on villages of the Free People like locusts, destroying everything they touched then disappearing along with all the people who lived there. He and Sojun would listen, excited and fascinated as the adults spoke in hushed tones and never noticed the two boys in their hiding places. Amorette refused to join them, saying she didn’t like being scared, but the two of them never were. They were safe, protected. The old laws said so and no one would dare go against the High King. Even the Empress knew to fear his wrath.

  The first hut to go was at the far west edge of the village, just inside the tree line. It went up in a blast so intense that a wave of heat slapped Kaie all the way at the Lemme’s door. That was the moment he understood. These were soldiers. And, if they knew about the High King’s protection, they didn’t care. They were here to destroy his home. To take his people and leave nothing but scorched, bloody earth behind them.

  His legs were moving, propelling him forward, but Kaie didn’t know where he was going. There were too many people to save. He was fast but his family was too big for one boy to rescue from this terror.

  There was more screaming now. So much that he could hear nothing else. Not until a second hut exploded in a whoosh. He skidded to a stop, blind from the sudden burst of light. Reaching behind him for the wall he just passed, Kaie stumbled backward. When his vision cleared a moment later he bit back a shout of surprise. Not five feet away, a soldier was dragging Navin, one of his father’s friends down the road by the hair. He was hidden in the shadow cast by the wall. If he moved even an inch the soldier would see him too.

  Kaie sucked in several deep breaths in the second he took to think. The soldier wasn’t dressed in the shiny metal armor from the stories, but the leather substitute looked plenty tough. And the silver sword in the man’s free hand was already red with the blood of his family. But he couldn’t just sit here watching as his father’s friend was hauled off into the darkness. The only chance was if he attacked the man’s back. Under the circumstances it didn’t seem nearly as cowardly as it used to. He just hoped surprise was enough to make a difference.

  He tensed, waiting for his moment as the soldier trudged past. Just as he was about to s
pring Navin’s eyes met his. The man’s head shook and he was mouthing something. Kaie couldn’t make out the words but he knew what the gesture meant. He hesitated. He decided it didn’t matter what Navin was trying to say, he needed to try. But his moment was past. The distraction had cost him his chance.

  There wasn’t a second to mourn. Now Kaie knew where he needed to go and there was no time to spare. He offered up a whispered plea for forgiveness as he ducked behind the next hut. There weren’t any soldiers on that side so he dropped his head and ran as hard as he could.

  The world erupted around his feet, sending him toppling backward like a leaf caught by a strong wind. His arm struck something hard. An instant later his head did, too. He hit the ground rolling, dirt filling his mouth and nose and eyes. Gasping for air, his throbbing head made it hard to tell if he was moving or not as Kaie struggled to climb to his hands and knees.

  Where moments ago there were huts and trees and gardens, now there was nothing but fire. A wall of it. He struggled to catch his breath, waiting for it to fade or die down but it only grew higher. Stumbling to his feet and blinking against the heat Kaie careened forward again, all sense of balance or direction lost in the explosion.

  He collided with something tall and unmoving. A tree. He knew that tree. Didn’t he? His fingers roved over a knot in the trunk, finding the crack just beneath it where Amorette used to hide acorns and pretty rocks when they were little. Her treasures.

  Kaie rested his head against the trunk for a moment, trying to remember where this tree sat in the village, trying not to think about whom the screams might belong to. It was next to Delia’s house. Which meant he needed to go…through the fire.

  His knees threatened to buckle. He choked on the sob in his throat. No time for that. There was a branch, thick and solid, that he could almost reach. Jumping was hard. He tried a second time. Caught it. He hung there for a while, arms shaking from the effort, legs swinging. Couldn’t fall. He didn’t think he could get up again.

  He managed to catch one of his feet on the trunk. With a lot of scrambling, Kaie got himself up on the branch. He could go higher. Maybe. But there was no need. He could see the whole village from that vantage and understood why the soldiers were running around in the dark before the first hut was lit. The fire reached from one end of the village to the other. It could only be magic, keeping it burning so high and so constant.