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Nuris Graewyth, a general feared by many, wanted to run. Something pulled at him, dragged at his heart and took him back to the moment his sister had appeared unharmed by the flames. Flames that had consumed the whole of Sunsong, a fire he’d tried to run back into in search of her. Desperation and fear were etched onto her face as she had pushed out of the building, but he knew in that instant what she was and that, untouched by the flames, she must be responsible for them.
Despite what she was, no one had questioned him or his loyalty, and he had proven it over and over again. Although in the nearly twenty years since he had seen her, he’d known she was alive, known she was somewhere in the world. And yet he hadn’t been able to find her. He had searched, both at the behest of the king and of his own volition. She had remained elusive.
Until now. He stood over a young witch, longing to touch the flame of the torch to her skin and see if she burned along with it, and he knew his sister was close. When the smoke reached him and then the flames engulfed the cardinal’s tent, he knew it was her. Understood the flames had come from her with everything he had. And it scared him.
Not just because he could sense it so clearly, but because the flames had been different that night—the night they had lost so many, including a prince and a king and half a castle full of people. They had not been her flames.
Something like regret caught in his throat, that he could doubt her for so long, consider that his sister—his twin, whom he loved more than himself—was capable of such carnage. Yet he knew she had to die, as he had tried to kill her that night. Whether she was responsible or not, she was a witch, and witches could not be tolerated.
Nuris turned back to the girl, her eyes wide with fear. The flames grew taller, screaming to him of the sister he had lost while the chaos around him had gone unheeded. It was in that moment, looking at the fear on her face, the witch he would keep alive if only to draw out the other, that the intense crackle of the fire reached him and he flinched. The initial moment of fear had passed. This couldn’t reach him. Many of the men, if not all of them, were running with water to try and douse the flames. The cardinal, old fool that he was, had dropped to his knees, his hands alternating between clenched before him to raised in the air. He was likely begging his God to save him.
As Nuris untied the girl from the stake, the cardinal’s eyes opened and focused on him. He doubted the man had heard the chain amongst the madness, but he knew when evil was loose. Nuris ignored the cardinal’s stare. He answered to no one but the king, and he wasn’t going to explain himself now.
He walked the girl further from the flames, more to help her trust him somewhat, although he felt his own nervousness shift as they walked. He didn’t usually have a tent, and so he pushed her through the flap of the nearest one he came to, narrow and likely housing several soldiers. As a soldier made his way into the tent after him, into the light of the lantern, Nuris held up a finger. The man bowed his head and withdrew, although he didn’t go far. Nuris hoped he was standing guard rather than hovering to listen to what might come next.
He pushed her towards the nearest cot and then sat on the one opposite. Her hands were still chained behind her, but she was free from the post. She rolled her shoulders and watched between him and the entrance, but she remained quiet. He half expected her to beg for her life or the like. She was young, younger than he’d thought now that he was sitting in the lamp light with her, and he knew she would be beautiful in the daylight with the sun catching in her hair. That was what they were, after all—designed to trap a man’s attention. His sister had always been beautiful. He wondered if she had aged well, but then she likely had. He rubbed at the scarring on his cheek. He doubted he would be considered handsome even without his scars.
“Were you alone?” he asked.
The girl shook her head. “I was in a convent filled with sisters and children, mostly orphans whose parents you and your like had killed for no reason other than they were poor.”
Nuris raised his eyebrows, but her vivid green eyes were focused only on him.
“I don’t kill without reason,” he murmured, his voice gravelly. She looked at him closely as though trying to read him. “Were there others like you?”
“Sisters of the Goddess? Yes,” she said defiantly.
“Witches,” he said, his voice low.
“I’m not...”
“I know what you are, and it is why they went to the trouble to keep you alive. I am sure there would be many who would like to see you burn.”
She shook her head, looking more to the door, the fear he had seen in the torchlight returned.
“You don’t have fire?” he asked.
She shook her head again.
“Were there other witches where you were?”
She shook her head quickly.
“Did they know what you are?”
There was a pause, and he didn’t need any words. She looked down at the ground. Lying wouldn’t help them now—they were likely all dead.
“Did the cardinal ask you these questions?”
“No,” she whispered.
“What did he ask?”
The tent flap was pushed back before she could answer. A man in dark robes stood inside the doorway, his hands held together before him. He wasn’t the cardinal, but one of his monks.
“The witch belongs to us,” he said, looking more at the girl than at Nuris.
“The king feels that the only witch should be a dead one,” Nuris said, looking at the monk, but he could feel the fear building in the girl. Pushing out. Something in the distance shuddered. “I have his permission to do as I see fit. There is another I seek. She will help me.”
“Who?” the girl asked. “There is no one left.”
“You have not found her despite the years of searching,” the monk said, something smug in his smile. Nuris stood slowly from the cot, feeling cramped in the small tent. And the man stepped back.
“I am the king’s man. Would you question his directions?”
The monk shook his head quickly, reminding Nuris of the fear he’d seen in the girl only moments before.
“Explain the situation to the cardinal. I will watch over the little witch. Station a man outside the tent and have a pot burning.”
“Burning?” the monk asked.
“Yes. I want to see the glow of the flames through the canvas.”
The monk grumbled something under his breath and backed out.
Nuris turned to the girl, who cringed away from him. But she turned her back to him when he held out a small metal cylinder. He opened the chains with little effort, and she rubbed at her wrists.
He tapped against the canvas. “Bread and water,” he demanded.
“You want to feed the prisoner?” came the reply.
“Am I to be denied food?” he asked, trying not to cough as his voice caught on the scars inside his throat.
“Sir,” came the response, and he heard the soldier call to someone further away. He sat back down and watched the woman, who said nothing further.
A short time later, a man pushed his way in with a skin of water and several pieces of flat bread. Simple food, but he preferred it. The man eyed the girl warily but backed out without comment.
Nuris held out a piece of bread and the skin to the girl. She looked from them to him without taking them. “When did you last eat?” he asked. “Or drink?”
“Do you count the bucket of water they threw over me when I slept?”
He shook his head.
She reached out and took them, watching him as she unstoppered the water and took three large gulps. She stoppered it and handed it back. He lifted it and poured it into his mouth rather than put his lips to it.
She tore at the bread, stuffing too much into her mouth at once and then coughing. He handed the skin back to her.
“Slowly,” he coaxed.
She put her hand over her mouth and chewed slowly.
“What is your name?” he asked. Not that he cared who this girl might be or where she had come from—but she would be the way to Nelda.
“Sister Grace,” she said through what was left in her mouth. She took another bite before she swallowed what was there.
“Grace,” he repeated slowly, leaving off the honorific. She might have been hiding in a convent, but she was no sister of the Goddess. “Do you know who lit the fire in the cardinal’s tent?’
She swallowed and then took another gulp of water. “No,” she said, holding it back out to him and eyeing the other pieces of bread, “but you do.”
“Why do you say that?” he asked, holding out the bread but not releasing his hold on it.
“Because otherwise I would be dead, and you wouldn’t be searching for her.”
“Her?” he asked.
“Only a witch with fire could cause such damage, and in such a way. It started slow, giving her time to run before it drew your attention. You know fire,” she said, looking at his neck. “I do not.”
“Will you tell me your story? Where you are from, how you ended up at the convent, and why they are taking in witches?”
“It won’t make any difference to you where I come from. And they didn’t know what I was when they took me in; I was just a girl in need. I am still just a girl in need.”
He looked her over. She appeared more confident now she had some food in her belly, but she was tired. He had no idea how long the cardinal and his men had been dragging her through the forests of the kingdom, or the towns even. What did this man want? “What did he ask you?” Nuris asked, his voice low.
“He asked about the Goddess and how we worship her,” she said, rubbing at her wrists again.
“The Goddess?” he asked. She nodded, looking towards the door. What did this man think they did? The women seemed to worship just as his men did, only they focused on the poor, took in children, taught them to read. There were many soldiers he knew who had grown up in convent orphanages after losing parents to illness or war. They were well schooled.
The monks of the God were just as well taught, only they tended to keep the skill to themselves. Who knew what was really in their scriptures? Nuris wondered if they feared the people being as well educated for fear they might question them.
“You will kill me,” she said. It wasn’t a question. He looked up from his musings to her studying him. “No matter what I tell you, what I might be able to give you or help you. Once you have all you need, I will die.”
He nodded. “If the fire hadn’t started in the other tent, if I hadn’t sensed the other one, then you would already be dead.”
“Sensed her?” the girl asked, her head a little to the side and her gaze on his neck. “You understand the fire better than I thought.”
“What skill do you have?” he asked, regretting using the word. Although perhaps she might understand just how dangerous he was if she thought he had more power than he did.
“Very little right now,” she said, lying down along the cot. Still rubbing at her hands.
“Not fire,” he repeated.
“Earth, perhaps. Plants and trees listen to me.”
“They listen to you?” he asked, trying to keep the scepticism from his voice. For he had seen many skills over the years.
“I ask and they give,” she said, closing her eyes. Then she shivered.
Nuris stood, wondering at the height of the tent. He was tall, but so were many soldiers who had armour to remove. He wondered then how two of them would fit in such a space. He pulled a thin blanket from his cot, as she had placed her head on the folded one on hers, and draped it over her. He had an odd memory of doing the same for his sister at one point, when she had worked hard at the castle. Worn out from her work, she had returned to their rooms—likely with a bowl of stew for him, as he would have been working too hard at something to have stopped for food—and laid down. She had been asleep in moments, and he had pulled her shoes off and covered her up.
The little witch before him wore no shoes, her feet dirty and worn. He had no idea if she had none or if she had been dragged from the convent before she could find them. He would have preferred she had something. He had no idea what the night might bring, and they should be prepared. He bit into the last piece of bread, but it didn’t sit right in his mouth, and he washed it away with a gulp of water. The fire burned bright outside the tent. The sounds of the soldiers talking amongst themselves, shouting instructions, and moving around the makeshift camp were not filtered at all by the thick canvas of the tent.
Nuris wondered, as he lay down on the cot, what the cardinal might do with his tent burned to the ground. But he would find a way; the man usually did. Despite what the king might ask, the cardinal answered to his God first. Nuris closed his eyes. The little girl wasn’t going anywhere, not just yet. And if Nelda was around and wanting her, she wouldn’t be racing into his tent.
He had ridden hard from the castle, just as hard as the soldier who had headed out ahead of him. A day and a night of fast travel, only resting when the horse could go no further. He hadn’t intended to follow the soldier. He didn’t care what the cardinal was doing, other than the king had asked for it to stop. He had been chasing the idea of Nelda.
Her smiling face came to mind, memories of them laughing of an evening sitting around the table with friends. James had come to mind when he’d left the castle. He’d been good to them both and had watched over the queen most days. And he had been lost to the flames as well that night.
She had loved him in a way, as another brother perhaps. Nuris should have paid more attention to her, should have watched over her more closely, for he had no idea what she was. No idea the destruction she held.
He had thought over the years, as he remembered the look of fear on her face when she’d appeared from the flames, that it was her fear of being caught. Her understanding at what he would need to do given what she was and the power she contained within. But he wondered now at that look, still so clear, as though she were standing before him—was it was simply because of the fire? Had she understood, as he did, that they were not her flames?
Nuris looked up at the canvas tent above him, the lamp low but lighting the space enough. The witch had rolled onto her side and appeared to be sleeping. He tried not to sigh at the thought of the fire that had taken the cardinal’s tent. How could he know her flames so well? How could he understand she had created them, as though they were his own?
He held his hands up to his face then, stretching and curling his fingers. He didn’t have any such power. He’d been burned by the flames, marked forever by the heat as he’d searched out a sister he’d been so determined to save. They had always been connected. Always understood each other when no one else had. But it still felt like betrayal that he hadn’t known she was a witch in all those years. Now he searched her out to ensure she died.
And yet, without seeing what she could do, he was certain of what this girl beside him was capable of. Why was that? Had he learnt over the years? Or was it the sense he had of Nelda, one he hadn’t understood until now? Not that he understood it. He felt it, as he’d felt her in those flames.
He hadn’t known all those years ago to search for her in the flames. Maybe he would have understood it wasn’t her fault. Although it had been. Even if she hadn’t started the fire, she was a witch. And she was his sister, his twin, his double—if not identical. They were so alike, so similar in everything. They had grown together in the womb, been born together, lived together. Could there be some element of the witch about him?