Enna Burning (14 page)

She slugged him once on the shoulder and started to scoot away. “Easy,” she said, “what’re you doing? It’s not fair to attack a girl in a weakened state.”

“Oh, I think you are plenty awake, my lady, and I am under orders to test out your weaknesses, for future reasons of torture, of course.”

He began to pelt her with pieces of straw as though they were spears, and she batted them away. His look was one of deep concentration, though she noted the right corner of his mouth was twitching, as though his face fought his resolve not to smile.

“Ooh, that was a good throw,” he said.

She took in a sharp, mocking intake of breath. “You almost got my eye.”

She gathered up the fallen straw and began to hurl it back at him. As she dodged and threw, she found herself laughing.

“Captain!” The call came from outside the tent. Sileph stood, pulling straw from his hair, his demeanor losing all signs of playfulness.

A guard entered the tent. “Sir, you are needed immediately.”

“Yes, Pol.” He looked down at Enna with a frown, then said, “Drink the tea.”

Enna felt as though she had been slapped.
Who are you? Which you is you?

“Drink your tea,” he said again. “I don’t know when I will be back.”

Enna snatched the cup angrily, spilling a little on her hand, and gulped down the liquid. It stung her throat to drink it that fast. She could feel her tongue begin to swell.

He watched her throat to make sure she swallowed and then stood there, giving it time to digest.

“You should come now, sir,” said Pol.

Sileph nodded and started to follow him out. He looked back. “I will return as soon as I can, Enna.”

She knew what he meant. He was always there when she took the drug, comforting her as it numbed her body and took away the world. Again she wondered,
Does he hold me to make sure I’m properly drugged or because he wants to?

The instant he left, Enna scuttled to the corner of the tent and scratched up a flap of ground cloth. She jabbed at the back of her throat, vomited the clear liquid onto the ground, covered it up, and lay down before anyone came in to see her.

Some of the drug was already in her body. The dry, green taste of the king’s-tongue seemed to coat her completely—the taste was a film on her eyes, the chapped skin on her fingertips. Her hands felt heavy, and a mild dizziness made it difficult to keep her eyes open. But she could still think, and dreams did not entangle her into fiery darkness. The mild effects would wear off soon, and then she would disable Sileph somehow (that thought still made her uncomfortable) and flee, burning her way out if necessary.

Enna curled up, trying to ease a sudden stomachache.
Get out.
That had been her thought all along, but now that the possibility neared, anxiety plucked at her. Where could she go? She had left nothing behind—she had tried to set fire to the queen, her closest friend, and she had nearly gotten Razo and Finn killed on their last raid. Leifer was dead. She knew she could not bear to return to the Forest again, the uneasy fire pulsing inside her, making her feel useless and small unless she burned. And if what Sileph said was true, if Bayern had no chance against Tira? Then there was no more home.

Enna cursed and slammed her fist against the hard ground. Her drug-numbed hand vibrated peculiarly. She looked at it as at a strange object and wished that she had somewhere to run.

There were more shouts outside. She was often too drugged to be curious, but now the noises tugged at her attention and her mind played at figuring them out. Not battle preparation. Not a celebration.
An intruder,
she thought.

Just then Sileph entered the tent. She sat up quickly as though she were caught doing something wrong and then remembered she was supposed to be drugged to unconsciousness. Weak dizziness took her, and she exaggerated its effects.

“Enna.” There was eagerness in Sileph’s voice, but also caution. “Enna, I have found our leverage. I have found a way to make them feel safe around you without the king’s-tongue.”

Her eyes widened, but she did not speak. She reminded herself,
You’re drugged. You’re nearly asleep.

“It is good for us,” he said. “Before you see what’s waiting, you must remember that.”

He picked her up like a baby and carried her out of the tent.

The first thing she noticed was a fire. It was night. She had not been around live fire since the night she razed the gallows. It was so beautiful in the dark, like gold cascades falling up into the air, dripping with heat and light. And she felt it, too, and recognized the desire that seeped from its center, the desire to stretch and grow and consume and be freed. It was her desire. She was the smoldering embers in the pit.

The night was very cold, and Sileph’s arms gripped her as though he wished to warm her as much as to hold her up. He walked a short distance, stopping before a gathered group of soldiers.

“Here is our answer,” he said.

Her eyes still burned from staring at campfires, and here it was dark. She focused on what stood before her until her eyes grew accustomed to the night. Slowly, the people’s faces resolved into clarity.

Standing between the soldiers, their hands tied behind their backs, their faces swollen and bloodied, were Razo and Finn.

.

Their swords were gone. They breathed hard as if they had been fighting until moments ago. Razo had a scrap of cloth tied around his mouth—Enna did not doubt he had been cursing and shouting. And his hair, of course, stood straight up. A soldier beside him held a dagger at the point of his jaw as if prepared to slice his throat clean open.

Finn’s mouth was uncovered, and his labored breath came rasping from his throat. In addition to his hands, his ankles were tied with rope, probably to stop him from kicking. Two men held his shoulders. Both Razo and Finn watched Enna, and their eyes were sad. They had come here, she knew, for her.

“No,” Enna said softly.

“It is all right,” said Sileph. “This is our chance, Enna.”

“How dare you?” Finn spoke out with a rage that surprised Enna. “If you address her, you call her ‘maiden’; she’s not Enna to you!”

A soldier punched Finn in the belly. While he was doubled over, they gagged him with a filthy cloth someone pulled from his tunic.

“Let them go.” Enna pushed her way out of Sileph’s arms and landed on her feet. She wobbled, and Finn lurched forward as though he would catch her. Sileph grabbed her shoulders to steady her. She struggled out of his grip and fell to the ground.

“Listen to me,” he said quietly, crouching beside her, “their presence gives you power now. You won’t have to take the king’s-tongue.”

“But they can’t be punished for me,” she said. “They didn’t do anything.”

“They tried to sneak into a Tiran camp armed and outfitted for sabotage. They knew full well that—”

“No, they don’t know anything. They’re just stupid boys.”

Enna saw Finn flinch at her words, and she rose unsteadily to her feet. “No, I didn’t mean that. I just meant it’s not your fault, it’s mine, and I need to fix it.”

She started to walk to Finn, unsure what she could do, just wanting to free them. Sileph grabbed her arms and held them behind her back.

“I will not let you hurt yourself for these boys,” he said quietly in her ear.

“Let me go,” she said. She felt dizzy, intoxicated, out of control.

“Take the prisoners to a holding room, double guard,” said Sileph.

“No!” Enna in a rage grabbed at any loose heat that would heed her and pulled it into her chest. The cold hollowness filled with heat and nearly burst, sending shivers through her body. Enna gasped at the pain.

Sileph shook her once and shouted quickly and urgently, “Enna, if you set fire to one bootlace, those boys will be killed.”

She shook her head, shuddering.

“They will, Enna. I swear they will.”

She had already pulled the heat inside her, and she had to expel it into flame or be burned by it. She kept her eyes on the guards who held Razo and Finn, despairing that freeing her friends meant endangering their lives. Her throat burned, her stomach burned. The pain of held heat shook her body, and it burned hotter and hotter. She screamed and sent the heat barreling into the nearest campfire. It exploded into flames the height of a man, blasting wood and embers into the night air.

Enna gasped for air again and again and felt her insides cool. The hollowness in her chest now was small and hard like a curled-up potato bug. She was weary and angry and sick, and she felt Razo’s and Finn’s stares like the disappointed heat that still pressed against her skin.

Sileph grabbed her shoulders and faced her to him. “Listen, Enna, those guards have orders. The moment you set a fire in this camp, they kill the shorter one there. You do it again, the second one goes. And they will be happy to do it. Those Bayern boys injured three of my men before they were contained. Do you understand? Are you sober enough to comprehend all this?”

“Yes,” she whispered, “yes, I understand. I burn, and you kill them.”

“Not just if you attack, Enna. If they see a fire spreading from its pit, a tent aflame, any fire loose anywhere in the camp, their orders are that the first one goes. Tiedan will take no chances with you.”

“It’s not fair,” she said through her scorched throat.

“It is the price. Any loose fire sighted and one dies.”

Besides the guards who held Razo and Finn, others stood by, two with nocked arrows, two with naked daggers. She felt defeat as real as if she had been beaten and bruised with it.

“I understand,” she said. The sting from holding heat too long, the night chill, and the effect of the drug all pressed and pained her, and she began to shake so badly that her teeth chattered.

“Come on,” said Sileph, wrapping his arms around her shoulders.

Finn’s forehead furrowed in anger or confusion, and Enna shrugged Sileph’s arms away. Sileph glanced once at Finn and frowned.

“Back to the tent, girl,” he said sternly.

She waited for the soldiers to march Razo and Finn away before she followed Sileph into her tent.

“It is for the best,” he said.

“Whose best?”

He watched her as she sat and rested her head on her knees.

“Don’t you want to know why I saved their lives?”

“What?” She glared up at him, daring him to make himself a hero now.

He shrugged and looked a little like a young boy hopeful and unsure of himself. “I told the guards that they broke into camp to try to rescue you. Tiedan would have them killed if he knew that they were assassins.”

“Oh, stop with your Tiran rhetoric,” said Enna. “Those soldiers aren’t assassins.”

Sileph seemed surprised. “I meant . . . you know they came to kill you.”

Enna opened her mouth to protest, but the words dried in her throat.

“They came as assassins, Enna, so that Tira could not have you in its power. There was a third boy who threatened as much before my men killed him.”

“No,” she said, her voice a little higher, “they came to save me. I don’t know who the other one was, but Razo and Finn would try to rescue me.”

“Three people? Bayern sent three boys to pull you out of Tira’s war camp and expected success? Didn’t you notice how they looked?”

“Bruised, gagged,” she said defiantly. He waited for more. “And sad. They were trying to tell me they were sorry.”

“Sorry that they failed you? Or sorry that they had betrayed you?”

Enna started to answer, but her throat constricted, and she felt her lip tremble. It was ridiculous what he claimed, but she saw in memory their sad eyes, their worried brows. And who had been the third boy?

Sileph sat beside her. “I don’t want to talk at you and convince you that they meant ill. I thought you would have known the truth. But if Tiedan and the rest believe that they came to rescue you, then we can use the boys as hostages. What I’m saying is, it would be wise if you pretended to care about those boys.”

Enna met his eyes. “I do care. I . . . ”

Sileph shook his head, and his jaw set in anger. “Those bastards. Sending
friends
to kill you, or worse, sending your friends to be captured and killed before you, and leave you knowing that no other rescue will come.” He rubbed his jaw whiskers hard, keeping his gaze on her. “They must not value you at all, or you would not have come alone in the first place and would not now be subject to such a pathetic rescue.”

Enna stared at him. Her wet eyes began to blur his image, and she could no longer make out his face.
Pathetic. Assassins.

“Get out,” she said.

“Enna . . . ”

Enna stood and punched him in the jaw as hard as she could.

“Get out,” she said. He did not move, so she swung again. He caught her arms by the wrists, his eyes flashing anger.

“Don’t hit me,” he said slowly, his jaw clenched. Enna’s eyes widened, and she felt afraid of him for the first time. His grip on her wrists tightened, as if testing her strength; then he tossed her to the ground and left the tent.

Enna was alone for two days. The last of the king’s-tongue seeped out of her body, leaving her muscles feeling thin and raw but workable. Her mind gradually became her own again. And as she felt heat once more and stuffed tiny bits into her extremities, she found that she was not cold for the first time in many days.

Alone, she paced in circles in her tent, waved her arms around, and tried to awaken and strengthen her ill-used body. When an opportunity came, she did not want weakness to prevent her from fighting or fleeing. But for two days the guards brought only water, and soon she huddled on the ground, wrestling down the pains of hunger, the renewed desire to set fire, and the fear that Razo and Finn had sworn her death.

Inside, deeper than the hollow spot in her chest, she did not believe they could be assassins. But Sileph’s words still buzzed in her head, and she could not be sure. Regardless, she could not let her friends be killed. She would not burn.

On the third day, when the yellow shade of the tent walls told her it was midafternoon, Sileph returned. He put a hot loaf of bread and a slab of cheese before her without a word and turned to go. He stopped, one hand on the tent flap as if reconsidering, then turned and sat cross-legged before her.

“Eat,” he said.

She met his eyes with a glare that would speak for two days without food and the capture and beating of her friends. The lines of his face relaxed.

“We were both angry,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

He looked at her, and though she was prepared to refuse his apology, instead she found herself momentarily breathless. She had not really seen him, not in all those king’s-tongue hazy days. His pale brown hair was tied back, exposing the angular shape of his face, the sharp line of his jaw, his dark brown eyes. Just now, there were tired lines around his eyes that made him look heartbroken.

“Go on,” he said, and she gratefully looked away from him to her meal. The food was welcome, though not quite enough to keep her from wanting more. She brushed the crumbs from her fingers, readied herself, then raised her eyes to Sileph’s again.

“You’re a fool,” she said.

Sileph nodded. “Don’t say it took you two days to realize this.”

Enna nearly smiled. Sileph was thoughtful for a few moments; then he closed his eyes as though shutting something out.

“Enna, from all you have told me, I assumed that Bayern had or would abandon you, and that those boys’ clumsy assassination attempt”—Enna started to protest, and Sileph held up his hand and continued—“or rescue was just the final proof. But I understand now that you still had hopes of returning to Bayern. I was thoughtless. I know how I would feel were I betrayed by Tira, and I am sorry.”

Sileph stood, pacing in the small space. “It makes me angry. How can they be so blind? If you were mine, I would not let you go so easily.”

“Wouldn’t you?” she said with some contempt.

He answered simply. “They are fools. They don’t deserve you. To not only cast you off, but also to make so little attempt to bring you back? Huh. I’m not surprised, I suppose, when I think of that mousy little queen.”

Enna winced. When Sileph spoke disparagingly of Isi, it was a temptation to agree and allow the persistent, pinching guilt to ease. But her heart would not allow it.

“Don’t,” said Enna. “Just don’t. You don’t know her.”

Sileph nodded once. He knelt beside her and took her hands.

“Nevertheless, if they do not want you, we do. Tiedan has given me orders. You and I are riding out today—on a mission. If it goes well, things will change for you here.”

“What do you expect me to do, forsake Bayern?”

“Haven’t they already forsaken you?”

“Captain,” came a voice from outside the tent.

Sileph let her hands go and stood. His face was smooth, and his voice regained its public hardness. “Come in, Pol.”

Pol entered. She had seen him several times in her weeks there, but he never looked at her. None of the soldiers did, save Sileph.

“Horses are ready, sir.”

Pol handed him a bag and departed, and Sileph dropped it at Enna’s knees. Inside was a lady’s riding dress, deep brown and cut in the Tiran style with fitted wrists and waist. Also leggings, a wool hat and mitts, a jacket, new boots, and a filled water bottle with a long neck like the one Razo had filched for their costumed expeditions.

“Get dressed. We go when you are ready,” he said, leaving her alone.

Enna dressed quickly, feeling not only cold in those brief moments after she had flung off her worn Bayern clothes, but also vulnerable, vivid memories of the hard-fingered soldier leering before her, her only defense a thin wool blanket. She kept her old skirt on under the dress—they might think she wore layers for warmth.

When she emerged from the tent, she felt strange, the hat wonderfully warm but unfamiliar, the dress touching her in different places from her Bayern skirt and tunic. She felt as though she were no longer a prisoner but had shed herself and become Tiran. A thought scratched briefly against her good feelings:
that’s how he wants you to feel.

It was a relief to be dressed so. As she walked through the camp with Sileph and several other Tiran soldiers, she felt like one of them instead of trapped by them. She knew it was an illusion, but at least it lessened her feelings of vulnerability. Then they arrived at the horses. Ten soldiers were already mounted. One on a large horse held another on the saddle before him. It was Razo, gagged, his hands bound.