The Girl Born of Smoke (38 page)

“Well,” Aurora replied, her voice still
casual, “I've been a lot of things...your twin sister, your
imaginary friend, your guardian angel, your confidante, your
conscience, your other half, your worst enemy, and everything
you've always wanted, feared, and hidden all put together. I'm all
those things, but above all,” she shifted closer so that she
whispered directly into Tarana's ear, “I'm Aurora.”

Blinking back tears of frustration, she
rested her weary head on her knees. The orbs were just pinpoints of
light now, doing nothing to light up the darkness enveloping the
two. “But are you real?” she asked tiredly.

Aurora paused before answering and Tarana
feared for a moment that she was alone again. “I guess it depends
on what you consider real,” she said slowly. “I mean, I'm here now,
aren't I? You feel comforted by my presence, I'm keeping you
company like I have so many times before. You gain something by
talking to me, whether it's positive or negative. I affect you in
some way. So in that case, yeah, I guess I'm real to you. I'm a
part of you, so I'm as real as you yourself are. Is that what you
wanted to know?”

“Mm, I suppose so...” Tarana's own voice
sounded distant and muffled to her ears. “Aura, could I – could I
ask you for one last favor?” Too tired to hold herself upright any
longer, she toppled softly onto her side and closed her eyes. “I
don't have the strength left anymore,” she mumbled.

“Are you sure that's what you want?” There
was a note of seriousness in Aurora's voice now. “You do realize
what that would mean, right? What would be in store for you?”

Tarana managed a small nod. “I want to try,”
she whispered. She heard Aurora move closer to her.

“Good luck, then. Somehow, I don't think
we'll see each other for a very long time. You'll have very little
use for me anymore, but I wish you the best, because this is most
definitely not the easy way out.” Tarana vaguely felt a hand on her
chest. “Of course, I really expected no less of you.”

As she felt the world
around her slip away, she managed a smile.
Thank you.

Chapter 17

When Tarana awoke again, she was in pain -
an immense amount of pain that made her entire body shake
uncontrollably and her head pound. Without opening her eyes and
with great effort, she reached her hand over to feel her chest, but
it felt smooth and soft, uninjured. Feeling incredibly tired, she
rolled over slightly and drifted back off to sleep. Right before
she did so, she realized with dull surprise the ground beneath her
was soft.

The next time she awoke, she felt slightly
better, well enough to open her eyes and take in her surroundings.
Her sight was blurry, but after blinking several times, she thought
she saw someone standing over her. Opening her mouth to say
something, she realized she was already slipping back into sleep
before she could make her body work, her eyelids drooping shut
against her will.

The third time she awoke, she finally felt
more normal. Rubbing her eyes, she slowly sat up and found that her
body ached, but the pain was bearable. She looked around and found
that she was sitting in a bed, under a blanket. Through a window
across the room, she saw the sky was either just beginning to
lighten, or about to darken. The low light crept into the room and
dimly lit the contents. She recognized the stone walls of the
stronghold. Yawning, she wondered how long she had slept and
considered what Aurora had told her. Why had she called her a
hero?

Hearing a noise, she refocused her eyes and
realized there was someone sitting in a chair, gazing out the
window, their back to her. “Hello..?” she mumbled, her voice hoarse
with disuse. The figure in the chair jumped, seemingly startled by
the sound of Tarana’s voice. As she turned around, the low light
lit a halo around her wild auburn hair. “Roxanne,” she
breathed.

Roxanne rushed forward, a look of concern
etched on her face. “Tarana,” she said, then paused, seeming to not
know how to continue. “Are…are you okay?”

She flexed her limbs, going through a mental
check of each body part. “I feel fine, actually. But, what
happened? Why am I here? Where’s Rupert?”

A flicker of uncertainty crossed Roxanne’s
face before she shrugged and sat down on the corner of the bed. “A
lot’s happened since you passed out, Tarana. No one exactly
expected the type of speech you gave and you got people kind of
worked up. But then, when we all realized there might be some truth
to your words, I think you won over a lot of the people in that
crowd. I mean, it’s hard to hate you when you protect the lives of
thousands of people you’ve never even met.

“You have no idea what it was like down
there. All these people wanted to do was just see you, hear what
you had to say, and here we were, in the middle of a wizard battle.
And well, it was pretty obvious that you were sacrificing your own
safety to save all of us. It was kind of crazy. I mean, there were
giant rocks plummeting down toward us, we were struggling just to
breathe and to see, and that lightning…” she trailed off. “Look, it
was absolutely terrifying and there was no one who could do
anything to protect us, except for you. No matter what we thought
in the beginning about who you were or what you were supposed to
do, the fact of the matter is that we owe our lives to you. So when
you went down and we were suddenly on our own, people did what they
had to do to stay alive.”

Tarana’s eyes narrowed, confused. “What do
you mean?”

She looked decidedly
uncomfortable. “Well, one wizard, even one as
experienced
,” she said the word
mockingly, “as him, he couldn’t stand up to the force of thousands
of people fighting for their lives.”

“Rupert’s dead?” she asked softly.

“Yeah,” she replied. “Why do you look so
sad? He was trying to kill all of us, including you.”

She shrugged. “I dunno. It’s just that, I
feel bad for him. He lost his whole family and I was kind of
supposed to be his new family and I turned against him. I mean, I
don’t feel bad for what I did, I just feel bad it had to end this
way. Another wizard killed by the people.”

“You lost your family too,” Roxanne pointed
out. “You never tried to destroy a bunch of people who had nothing
to do with it.”

“I joined the army, didn’t I?”

She sighed. “It’s not the same. You’re just
a kid and you never really meant to hurt anyone.”

Tarana pulled her knees up to her chest and
laid her head down on top. “That’s not true. There were lots of
people I hurt on purpose. I was no better than Rupert, in that way.
I killed people in revenge too.”

“Well,” Roxanne put a hand on her back. “In
the end, you saved a whole lot of people. You learned from your
mistakes. Rupert didn’t. That’s why people trust you now and why
they all gathered to defend you.”

“I guess so. But what
about the armies? What about General Kendall? He must have
hated
my speech.” She
noticed with some alarm that Roxanne’s jaw was clenched.
“What?”

She looked away. “The night before the
speech, after I left your room, I ran into Bea.” She noticed
Tarana’s look of confusion. “You know her. She was one of Djerr’s
guards back when they thought he was the wizard. She let you talk
with him and she was the one escorting you around yesterday.
Anyway, she told me about what they had done to you, torturing you
to try and get Djerr to use his nonexistent magic.

“You have to understand, she had no part in
it. All she knew was that she should let Djerr escape and she had
some suspicion that they were going to take him somewhere else, but
it wasn’t until you came back and mentioned the incident to Kendall
that she finally understood. She came to tell me about it
immediately afterward, so I- I took care of things.”

Tarana blinked. “What do you mean?”

She looked away. “I killed him, Tarana. You
have to understand, it wasn’t for revenge or something like that.
It was for your own protection. I pledged to protect the wizard
when I joined the army and he presented a danger to you. But
really, even if you weren’t the wizard, I think I would have done
it. I just want to keep you safe.”

Setting her hand over Roxanne, she scooted a
little closer. “No, I understand. It’s okay, Roxanne. I think it
had to be done.” Another noise interrupted her thought and she
raised her head to see the bedroom door open. Her mouth dropped
when she recognized who it was. “Kirian?”

He faltered when he saw Roxanne, but she
waved him over. “It’s fine. You’ve been waiting just as long to
talk to her.”

Standing awkwardly over her, he smiled
weakly. “So, you’re okay?”

She nodded. “I’m okay. But what are you
doing here, Kirian? Sorry I ran off on you again.”

He glowered disapprovingly at her. “I spent
quite a lot of time trying to find you, you know. It wasn’t exactly
a good feeling, wondering if you were dead or alive yet again. And
then, after I had given up all hope of ever seeing you again, I
hear you’re rejoining the enemy, heading all the way back the way
we came. I had to come and see what happened.”

“But I wasn’t really rejoining them!” she
objected, wincing at Roxanne’s glower. “You saw what happened,
right? It was the only thing I could think of, something to stop
all the killing. That’s all I really wanted, you know.”

He sighed and shrugged. “Well, you nearly
got yourself killed in the process, but I suppose that’s better
than actually getting yourself killed.”

“Yes, I suppose so.” Her eyes widened
suddenly and she turned her head rapidly between the two. “Wait,
the griffins. What’s happened with the griffins?”

Kirian shrugged and Roxanne snapped his
fingers. “Oh, that’s right. I was hoping you would wake up soon so
I could tell you. The latest messages say the griffins have
disappeared again. There haven’t been any attacks since that old
wizard died.”

Tarana sighed in relief. “Well, at least
that’s one problem down, then. But what’s happening with the
armies? They’re not still fighting, are they?”

“Everyone’s been kind of confused around
here, since you fell unconscious three days ago,” Kirian responded.
“They’re not fighting or anything, just trying to figure out what
to do now.”

“Three days!” Her mouth dropped open. “I’ve
been unconscious that long?”

Roxanne nodded. “Yep. We’ve been waiting
awhile. Anyway, everyone’s kind of confused. We don’t know if
there’s still an army or what we should be doing or what’s going
on. It’s kind of a mess. A lot of people have left already.”

Tarana ran a hand through her tangled hair,
yanking at the knots. “Well there’s no real point in having an army
anymore, is there?”

Looking suddenly nervous, Roxanne shifted
her weight. “See the thing is, some of us have been talking and we
were kind of thinking that we could still be your army.” She held
up a hand as Tarana opened her mouth to interrupt. “Wait, listen.
What we were thinking is that our purpose as an army was to support
the future wizard. We kind of assumed it would be in controlling
the rest of the world and squashing anyone who rose up against you,
but maybe it doesn’t have to be like that. A lot of us still want
to protect you, Tarana, and we want to help you do whatever it is
you have to do. Because there are always going to be people who
hate you, simply for having magic and being different. No matter
how many times you help them or save their lives, they will never
be thankful for it and they’ll only hate you more. We’ll be your
defense against those people.”

“There are a lot of former Citizens’
soldiers here too,” Kirian added. “Most of them have wandered off,
but there are still a lot sticking around. They’re hoping you’ll
help them out, I think. There are many people out there without
houses or towns to return to. The whole point of the Citizens’ Army
was to ensure the protection of the people’s homes and lives, which
is what they’re hoping you stand for.”

Silent for a moment, Tarana finally nodded.
“That actually might work,” she said thoughtfully. “I’ve been
thinking, one of the things I really want to do is help rebuild all
those places that were destroyed by the armies and by the griffins.
I might have magic, but I can’t do that all by myself. If you guys
are serious about supporting me, that could be our first project.”
She looked between them. “What do you think?”

Roxanne nodded. “It’s not a bad idea. I
think if you started traveling around, helping rebuild people’s
homes and businesses, you’d get a lot more support, too.”

Tarana turned her head back toward Kirian.
“Will you come too?”

With a quick glance toward Roxanne, he
sighed. “I suppose I can see how it goes,” he said reluctantly.

“Look,” Roxanne said reluctantly, her
expression turning more serious. “There was one other person here
to see you, but he’s gone now.”

Her heart dropping, Tarana looked away.
“Djerr?”

She nodded. “He stayed long enough for you
to briefly regain consciousness, then left. He wouldn’t talk to me
much, but I could tell something had happened. I asked if there was
anything he wanted me to tell you when you woke up.”

“And?”

“He just wanted me to say that he was glad
you were okay. And then he left.”

“Well, where did he go?” she asked in
frustration.

Roxanne threw up her hands. “I have no idea.
Like I said, he wouldn’t really talk to me.”

Sighing, Tarana threw back the blanket and
found she was wearing a nightgown. “Where are my clothes?” she
growled. Wordlessly, Roxanne reached down and handed them to
her.

“Hang on,” Kirian protested. “You can’t just
take off like this. Where will you go?”