The Fire Children (20 page)

Even the Wind had gone quiet. Yulla might have thought they were alone if it weren’t for Amara glaring at Ember from those sunken sockets, or for Vedra’s grip pinching the back of her neck.

“Hmp,” said Vedra. It was nearly the same noise Amma made when she noticed a smudge on a freshly-washed smock. Only this time, Yulla was sure,
she
was the smudge in question. Then Vedra gave her a shove and sent her sprawling. “Nasreen, keep her here awhile. I’d rather not have her scurrying at our heels the whole way home.”

As Yulla pushed herself up onto her hands and knees, she saw the pale-haired witch—Nasreen—nod. Her chanting—which hadn’t let up even while Yulla and Ember had drowned it out with their screams—changed tone. Before it had been placating, cajoling, but any sound of comfort faded away, replaced by command. The witch made a shoving gesture as she spoke: both hands thrust out in front of her, palms flat. Seconds later the Wind bowled into Yulla, so hard that sand and sky reversed positions as she tumbled.

She might have lain there awhile, stunned and smarting, if it weren’t for the sound of Ember’s struggles. When she stood, the Wind
helped.
Those unseen fingers were back, twining through her own and tugging her to her feet. Something soft but solid snaked around her middle, holding her in place; she couldn’t help but think of feast days when she was little, when Aunt Mouse would keep her anchored in place as the procession of priests and priestesses passed by.

Ember had gained his feet as well, though not willingly. Vedra and Nasreen had joined their sister. Amara jerked on the leash. Either those frail-looking limbs belied a great deal of strength, or the magic built into the tether granted it to her. Either way, Ember was dragged several steps backwards, toward the trio.

“Yulla,” he said, his voice raw from the pain. “I—” Whatever might have come next was cut off. The skeletal witch gave the leash another sharp tug, choking him. Yulla could see the collar tighten around his neck. Then she pulled the lead hand over hand, hauling him in like a roped calf. He was forced to turn towards her so he could breathe. Only then did the collar loosen again.

“Keep it up.” Amara’s voice matched her appearance, dry and husky, like the wind over the bone fields on an autumn night. “Keep it up and we’ll fashion one for your new friend.” She almost sounded hopeful.

The fight seemed to go out of him, then. His shoulders slumped; his fires dimmed. He trudged through the sand towards the waiting women with his hands at his sides and his head bowed.

Yulla swallowed a sob. Deep down, she knew the collar held him as surely as the Wind held her, but she couldn’t help wondering if he might be able to get away, if only he could resist them a little longer. Maybe he could find a weakness in the spell; maybe he could simply tire them out. But he wouldn’t even try, now that they’d threatened to punish her for his rebellion.

The fight hadn’t gone out of him completely. As they fell into a line—Nasreen first, then Amara pulling Ember, Vedra at the rear—Ember turned. He straightened as he moved, shoulders square, head high. His eyes burned bright as they sought out Yulla.

Vedra
tsked
and drew a pattern in the air. Ember’s lips moved, but the sound didn’t carry. Up ahead, Amara jerked on the leash again and forced him forward.

“No goodbyes,” Vedra called. “Our parents didn’t get one; I don’t see why you two should.”

Then they led Ember away, back into Kaladim. The Wind cooed wordless sympathies into Yulla’s ear, but it didn’t let her go.

S
HE LOST TRACK
of time, standing there.

Yulla had watched the witch-women lead Ember through the gates of Kaladim, stood staring as the buildings obscured their figures. Her eyes strained to follow Ember’s glow, to track their progress through the city by his light, but too soon it vanished into the gloom.

Her legs grew tired. She shifted her weight from foot to foot until at last the Wind let her sit. Any more than that, though—attempts to scoot forward, or to roll up onto her knees and inch toward the road—were met with restraint. Now and then it murmured to her, the sound of acacia leaves rustling. It built a bunker of sand around her in a low ring, trapping the last vestiges of the day’s weak heat.

She waited, fists clenched, terrified that any minute she’d hear the Fire Children screaming, that now that they had Ember, the witch-women would begin drawing Mother Sun down to answer for her crimes against Father Sea. But they never came.

Still the Wind held her, while Mother Sun and Sister Moon drifted across the sky. They were settling toward their rest when Yulla noticed the sudden quiet and the lack of pressure on her shoulders, around her middle, at her wrist.

The Wind was gone.

S
HE DIDN’T KNOW
exactly when it had slipped away, or if it had gone far, but Yulla wasn’t going to waste time waiting to see if it would come back. Carefully, moving slower than Kell on a muggy spring morning, Yulla stood. No Wind came rushing in to urge her down. The desert was still. She shuffled closer to the drifts the Wind had built. Nothing. Then, feeling the chill of the air settle into her bones, she stepped over the embankment.

Not a grain of sand stirred at her passage; not a leaf shook on the acacias.

Aunt Mouse’s quilt was where she’d set it down, before they’d made their wish for the Wind. She hefted it carefully, afraid something might shift and clunk and give her away, but nothing did. The piece of smoked glass Ember had made for her was a reassuring weight among the few scant supplies inside. She told herself she was taking the bundle with her for practicality’s sake—she’d get hungry or cold soon enough, or need more honey to salve her burnt fingers—but the truth was simple, raw need. She wanted it for comfort, because it reminded her of Aunt Mouse and her family down below and Ember here above.

She walked calmly at first, afraid too much movement might alert the Wind to her escape. By the time she passed beneath the trees, she was moving briskly, just barely reining herself in. Her heart climbed into her throat.

Just before she crossed beneath the walls and into the city, she heard the Wind.

Ssssshhhhhh.

Her heart plummeted straight down to her gut. She stood beneath the wide arch of the gates, too far from any of the buildings inside to outrace the Wind. Maybe she could grab onto one of the acacias as the Wind dragged her past, but how long could she keep her grip even if she
did
catch hold?

Yulla turned, bracing herself for impact, expecting to feel those invisible arms around her. The Wind skimmed over the sand, tracing a thin furrow as it passed.

Ssssshhhhhh
went the grains as they slid away in its wake.

Ssssshhhhhh
went the acacia leaves as the Wind riffled past, the ribbons on the branches drawn out straight.

Ssssshhhhhh
whispered the Wind in Yulla’s ear as its unseen hands spun her gently around, facing her toward the streets of Kaladim...

... and gave her a push.

Yulla didn’t stop to question it. She broke into a run.

S
HE HAD AN
idea where the witch-women had turned, which street had led them off of the main thoroughfare and out of her sight. Ember’s glow had gone northward and slightly east before it had grown too dim for her to track. Over the last couple of days, the lack of horses and carts and travelers meant that sand had blown in from the desert and left a thin coating over the road. There should have been footprints, but in the last of the weak daylight, Yulla couldn’t see any tracks.

They did what I did on the way to the cave; they covered them up.
That, or Nasreen had floated them all along the way she’d levitated herself while chasing Yulla through the alleys.

Yulla paused at the mouth of the street she figured they’d taken. She’d been certain she’d see something here, proving her right. Nothing there but the row of silent houses. This section of Kaladim was richer than the rest, inhabited by traders and their families. You rarely saw them at the market, since they had shops and stalls of their own right here, lining the streets.

The shops farther down looked naked, their awnings rolled up and stored away for the Darktimes. Here and there, a temporary one decorated a storefront, hung up in case the Fire Children wanted to stop there and pretend to be cobblers or tailors or scribes. Paired with the empty frames, they made the street look unfinished, like a giant version of Old Moll had started constructing it and got distracted partway through.

Where when she’d first emerged, Kaladim had seemed alive with potential, now it felt unlived-in, abandoned, unloved. Without evidence of the witch-women’s passing, the impression that Yulla was the only person left in the world returned. It wasn’t exhilarating anymore; now it was simply sad.

But...
There.

A house two doors down, on the corner.

A handprint blackened the stone. She couldn’t be
sure
it was Ember’s—he’d said he and his brothers and sisters had had a little time to explore before the witch-women came after them—but if he’d noticed the women were hiding their trail, mightn’t he have tried to leave one himself?

By the time they’d gone through the gates, Vedra had been walking beside her sisters. If Ember had remained in the rear, it would be an easy thing to pretend to stumble, fling out an arm to steady himself, and scorch the stone.

Yulla hurried on, searching now for even the smallest signs. She found them. A finger mark here, a tiny hole burned into an awning there, the frame of another slightly warped from his heat. Small rebellions on his part, but they meant he knew she’d come after him. The idea both heartened and terrified her, making her want to crow with pleasure while finding a place to curl up and hide. He trusted her, and that meant he believed she could not only find him, but free him, too.

But she had no plan, even if the trail led to where they were keeping him. She had no magic to counter the witches’ spells. They were at least three to her one, and for all she knew, Vedra was perfectly well aware Ember had left this trail and had looked the other way because it amused her. What good could Yulla do? What threat did she pose?

When she closed her eyes, she saw Vedra’s wide, mocking smirk.
I’d rather not have her scurrying at our heels the whole way home.

Yulla had heard that tone before, in Kell’s voice when she didn’t want her little sister around. “Fly away, gnat,” Kell would say, and Yulla would feel about the size of one.

I’m no gnat.
She wouldn’t be swatted aside like one, either. Twice when she and Ember were fleeing, she’d tricked the witch-women. She’d stalled them from finding the cave. And they might have the Wind bound, but after the way it had treated her, Yulla thought maybe it was on her side now. None of that was very much, but neither was it what you might expect from a gnat.

She slapped her palm against a handprint Ember had burned onto the door of a tea shop. The wood had long since gone cold; they’d passed by here hours ago. She thought of how warm his fingers had been when he’d entwined them with her own. “Wait for me,” she whispered. “All of you.”

A
T THE END
of the street, the markings stopped. They’d followed it from one end to the other, never turning aside. Or at least, never turning Ember aside. If any of the witch-women had branched off on her own, Yulla had no way of knowing who or where.

She kept pressed to the buildings’ facades as she approached the end. The square the street let out onto was dominated on its northern edge by the Worship Hall, and Ember had said yesterday the witch-women had it guarded. She crouched down and dared a peek from knee-level. A guard would make it near-impossible for her to search the square for another marker. She might be able to backtrack a bit, and conduct her search along the maze of back streets, but it would be so much easier if she could simply walk the inner perimeter of the courtyard looking for Ember’s next clue.

She spent a long time peering into the shadows. Mother Sun and Sister Moon had set below the city walls half an hour before. The sky was a blanket of shimmering stars, but they didn’t provide enough light for her to distinguish between an oddly-shaped pile of offerings and a witch-woman.

Her family had been to the Worship Hall at night before, but Yulla had never seen it in darkness this near-complete. Always there’d been lanterns lighting the streets, and oil lamps and candles lighting the hall itself. The starshine turned the normally white walls grey, turned
everything
one shade of grey or another.

The structure was enclosed on three sides, with ritual rooms and sleeping quarters for the priests and priestesses built onto the back, but the front of the Worship Hall was almost completely open. During the dusty season they hung long white curtains from the support beams to keep everything inside from being coated. When the poison winds of the
simoom
came, they trotted out long slats of polished teak and fixed them to the front.

The priests had left the Worship Hall open for the Fire Children. If the people of Kaladim could go in and pray any time, day or night, then of course the Fire Children might want to go there, too. Yulla couldn’t see very far inside. The shadows took over quickly, even though the great glass windows of the roof let the meager starlight through.

She bit her lip, considering. Nothing moved anywhere in the square, or in the Worship Hall itself as far as she could tell. But if she simply left her cover and moved about the open space, anyone hiding in the dark would see her easily. She could take a walk through the Worship Hall, slow and cautious, to be sure.

They have Ember now,
she thought.
I’m the only reason they might still keep watch, and Vedra’s already dismissed me as a threat.
With full night begun, the priests below wouldn’t be looking up through the Sunglass for hours yet. By the time they slid the stone aside and checked the sky, the witch-women might have already started whatever they had planned for the Fire Children. Maybe whoever was on watch had already gone to join in the ritual—it had been half a day since they’d taken Ember away.