CHAPTER 22

A Piece on the Game Board

Fin watched them go, guilt tangling in his gut. After all the times he’d complained about nearly being left, he was the one who had decided to do the leaving. He could still hear Remy’s voice in his head shouting for “Plus One!” The fact that she remembered him enough to care made him smile. But it wasn’t enough to ease the pain of what he hadn’t heard.

And that was Marrill, shouting his name. Sure, she’d yelled for him to hurry. She’d been concerned for him.

But she hadn’t remembered him. Not really. She’d forgotten him for real. Despite her promises. He couldn’t help the anger that surged in him. Even if he knew it wasn’t her fault. It was just the way of things. The way of who he was.

His heart twisted thinking about it. That was why he’d had to stay behind. Because the one thing he wanted more than anything else, more than anything the Wish Machine could give him, was to understand. And that was what the Salt Sand King had promised him.

He dropped from the ship to the ground. The fire burned hot before him, rising high like a tidal wave. But Fin wasn’t scared, not anymore.

A voice came from the crackling flames. “I knew you would stay.”

“You said you know who I am.” Fin swallowed, his throat thick with smoke. “What I am.”

“You are my piece on the game board,” the fire snapped. “I am your King. You are mine to command.”

Fin’s back stiffened. He was relatively confident he didn’t have a boss, let alone a king. And he was absolutely certain that if he did, it wasn’t a talking fireball. “I’m no one’s to command.”

“And yet you carry my sigil,” the fire hissed.

Fin’s fingers twitched—he wanted to pull the bracelet out of his pocket and take a closer look at the symbol—but he kept his hands clenched into fists.

“You poor lost soldier.” The fire flickered, dimming, and for a moment Fin thought he caught a glimpse of the rag-wrapped creature trapped in the flames. “So lost that you fail to see what you have.”

Fin lifted his chin. “I’m not lost,” he spat.

Burning grass snapped and wood popped with laughter. “Are you not? Look around. You stand in the middle of a desert, in the midst of flames. Left behind. Lost to everyone but me.”

The fire did have a point, Fin realized. But then he shook his head. Fire couldn’t have a point because fire was a thing. Things didn’t have thoughts.

Of course, fire wasn’t supposed to talk, either, and this one seemed to be doing plenty of that.

“Stop playing games and tell me who I am,” Fin ordered.

“But is this not all a game? Do we not move around the board, eliminating others to get what we desire?”

“Do you ever say anything that’s not in the form of a question?” Fin shot back.

A whip of fire cracked toward him, popping inches from his face. Fin stumbled back, holding a hand up to his cheek.

“I can read your desires,” the flame cackled. “They flicker across your face and flush beneath your skin like the crinkling pages of a burning book. But understand this: Your destiny is not to be remembered. Your destiny is to serve me.”

Fin felt his patience snap. He was tired of people making promises and then breaking them. The Salt Sand King promised to tell him who he was. Marrill promised to remember him. His mom promised to come back for him. “Forget it,” he growled, turning on his heel.

A blazing wall sprang up before him, circling him in an instant. The heat of it drenched him in sweat. He struggled to draw breath against the searing smoke.

“I AM THE FLAME THAT FOREVER BURNS THE FIELDS!” shrieked the sound of hissing steam and crackling wood. “I AM THE TONGUE THAT DRINKS ETERNAL! I WILL HAVE MY RIGHT AND DESTINY TO RULE OVER ALL THAT EXISTS!”

The flames simmered down with a hissing fizzle. “Apologies. Being a fire has made me a bit… overdramatic.”

“I was going to say ‘hot-tempered,’” Fin offered, unable to resist.

If he heard the pun, the Salt Sand King ignored it, which Fin thought was probably for the best. The flames collapsed to burning embers, coating the ground all around him. From the midst of them, the bent form of the Salt Sand King rose, tattered rags glowing red. He pinned Fin with his gaze. “Three things the Dawn Wizard promised me: first, to hone my will into a weapon.”

The King held his arms out wide and lifted them slowly. At his command, flames leapt from the ground, soaring pillars that roared into the sky. For a moment it felt like the world had only ever been nothing but fire. Fin threw his arms over his face against the intensity of it.

“Second,” the Salt Sand King continued, “to give me an army of soldiers who can’t be beaten and spies that can’t be seen.” He dropped his arms and the flames fell back to the ground, twisting and flickering as they resolved into the shapes of men and women. All of them with the same symbol burning in their chests: a dragon under a mountain-filled circle.

“You are a spy in this army. MY army.” The king stepped toward him. “Come at last to fulfill your duty.”

“Pretty sure not,” Fin said. “I’m a thief, actually. A master thief, now that you mention it.” He puffed his chest with pride.

“Thief and spy, spy and thief.” The Salt Sand King shrugged. “It’s all the same—you move unseen and unseeable save only to me.”

Fin hated how much sense that made. A spy and a thief had the same skills, didn’t they? He swallowed, trying to fit this piece of new information in his brain. So he was a soldier? In an army he’d never known existed? Did that mean his mother was a soldier as well? That the forgettable girl was one of the Salt Sand King’s spies?

“I have a mission for you,” the Salt Sand King continued.

Fin was already shaking his head. He wasn’t so sure taking orders from a crazed ball of fire was a smart idea. “Uh, no thank—”

“You’ll like this one, I think. Because I need you to come to the Syphon with me. And when we do, I will help you make your wish.” The offer was made in a hiss of steam.

Fin’s pulse jumped, but he tried to keep his hope in check. He knew better than to trust this creature. “But you said you wouldn’t help us.”

The fire cackled. “I said I wouldn’t help the wizards, and indeed I won’t.”

“And I would again point out that the Master of the Iron Ship is a wizard,” Fin said.

“Exactly why I need you,” the fire replied. “I helped the Master because I had no other choice. Someone had to power the Syphon. Someone had to wish. THAT is the price the Dawn Wizard set for me. I made my final wish—but it will not be fulfilled until I grant the wish of another.”

Fin smacked his hand against his forehead. “‘To get what you want, you must give what you have.’ It was talking about your final wish!”

“Such an easy price,” the Salt Sand King sputtered. “And yet here I’ve been, trapped for all this time, with no one but bitter beetles for company. They hate the Machine too much to use it and hate me too much to wish for anything other than my demise. When the Master came to me, it seemed like my only chance to put things right. But now I have another option. You are different. You, I understand.”

“I’m listening,” Fin said.

“The Master of the Iron Ship has set everything in motion. Even now the Syphon gathers power, faster than even I thought possible. Now we must stop him from using it, and prevent whatever destruction he seeks to unleash. You will be my spy. You will wait and watch. And when it is time for a wish to be made, we will ensure that you are the one to make that wish.”

The Salt Sand King strode closer. “Just imagine. Once my lands are united again, we will find my army. Your people. Where you belong.”

A bright spark of hope lit in Fin’s chest. He swept a hand through his sweat-soaked hair, thinking over the Salt Sand King’s offer. It was everything Fin had ever wanted. He’d be reunited with his mother. He’d have a place to belong.

And if he got to make a wish, he’d be remembered by everyone.

A cold fist of doubt squeezed around the hope. What about Marrill? He bit the inside of his cheek, torn. If he helped the Salt Sand King, it could mean the end of Marrill’s world. At the same time, though, it would mean stopping the Master of the Iron Ship from using the Syphon.

It could mean preventing the Iron Tide, and wasn’t that the whole reason she’d come back to the Pirate Stream in the first place? Really, if he thought about it that way, he’d be helping her by going with the Salt Sand King.

Everyone would win!

One question lodged in Fin’s mind. “So… what is your third wish, anyway?”

The rag-wrapped figure dropped back to the embers. A flame blazed where he’d stood. “Simple. That no world shall EVER be beyond my reach.”

The flame flickered and twisted, resolving itself into a dragon bellowing smoke to the sky.