The First Warden

When I was very young, a sickness struck—the sort that spreads like fire, consuming everyone it touches. I remember terrible heat, terrible cold, a drifting sensation, and something I can only describe as bliss. It would not have been a bad death. It would have been an ordinary one, and I have never felt the disdain some feel for the ordinary.

I thought I was dreaming when I opened my eyes to see a blurry figure wreathed in light. He bent over me, long hair brushing my face, and asked me if I knew him. I nodded. I did know him, though only from afar. He was Shae, our magus, the vessel of the gods. He replied softly that he knew me too. Then he told me he was going to take me away.

“To the Afterworld?” I asked—or something to that effect. And he laughed the most delighted, silken laugh. I recall being unsure if he would be able to lift me; he was so slight. But he did so with ease, letting my soiled blankets slide to the floor and bearing me out into the cold daylight in only my nightshirt. My eyes watered in the sunlight, so my family’s tent blurred as I took my last look at it over his shoulder. And then, all at once, it burst into flames.

I cried out, only half sure the flames were real—they wavered and danced so phantasmically. Names spilled from my lips—those of the people we’d left inside—though now I cannot recall them. Shae murmured something meaningless and calming, holding me firmly as I struggled. And as we departed, I saw that all the tents around us were burning. The air shimmered, flakes of ash gathered in Shae’s long hair, and for the first time in ages, I felt warm.

Illustration by Alexander Gustafson

We did not go to the Afterworld. When I came to myself, I was buried in soft furs and the air was sweet with wood smoke. The canvas that arched overhead glowed softly in the afternoon sunlight. My body felt languid, boneless, and my mind was pleasantly muddled. I would have described the feeling as drunkenness had I been old enough to enjoy the pleasures of wine.

Voices reached me faintly from outside, rising and falling in a lulling manner. It took me some time to identify one of them as Shae’s and to realize that he was angry.

“I have done my duty. The north side of the camp is cinders.”

“Your duty was to eliminate the plague. Not to bring it into our midst.” This voice, I did not know.

“I knew when I saw him that the child would live.”

“And what is to be done with him now? No family will take a child of plague.”

“He will stay with me.” The words were cool and placid, but for the taut silence that followed, he might have shouted them.

When the man—I was sure it was a man—spoke again, his voice was thick and pent. “You think that is wise?”

“It is not your concern whom I share my home with, Councilor. Now I ask that you leave me be.”

There was another fraught pause, and then the man—who I now suspected was Councilor Glenn—uttered stiff departing words, which Shae politely returned. I lifted my head as the dim tent was briefly flooded with light and then darkened again as the door flap fell back into place. Shae’s slender figure approached me, and as he passed the fire pit in the center of the room, the flames within sprang brightly to life, illuminating rich carpets and polished wood furnishings the likes of which I’d never seen.

It frightened me to see the fire flare so suddenly. I buried my face in the luxuriant furs. But my fear flickered out as I felt him settle beside me, replaced by curiosity. He smiled as I peeped at him, and the effect was truly startling. He had a face like no other: smooth, sculpted, and ageless. Tawny skin and ink-black hair that fell in a rippling curtain to his waist. And when the light caught his eyes, they were jeweled amber.

“I suppose you heard all that,” he said. His voice made me think of clear water. “But I don’t want you to worry. You are my ward now, and no one can take you away from me.”

“Ward,” I repeated the strange word, pleased by the way it rolled out of my mouth.

“It means you are under my protection.” Smiles came to him so easily; it was as though his face were made for them.

But, overwhelmed by the strangeness of my new surroundings, I could not share his joy. Turning my face back into the furs, I whispered that I wanted to go home. He answered calmly that I was home, and I started to quietly cry. He stayed beside me until I hiccupped myself into silence. Then he asked me if I wanted something to eat. I sat up and nodded, suddenly ravenous. I never asked to leave again.

The following days passed, dreamlike. The sweet, heavy wood smoke made me sleepy and the tea Shae brewed for me, thick with honey, made me feel light and dizzy in a not-unpleasant way. It would take me time to grow accustomed to this muddled state of being that I would soon learn was simply the way Shae lived. It would take me time also to adapt to the luxury, the softness, and the warmth. I had lived a harsh life before coming here, though the details of it were fading fast. Sometimes, I was woken by terrible nightmares in which faceless people called my name and reached for me with skeletal hands, black with ash. But he was always there, a quiet presence in the dark, and his soft, even breaths would lull me back to sleep.

He bathed me in warm water and patiently trimmed the mats out of my hair. He clothed me in his spare garments at first, which were long and silken and trailed behind me on the floor when I walked. He laughed to see me stumble about and promised to have proper-fitting clothes made for me. One day, a woman came to measure my arms, legs, and torso, though she didn’t look me in the eye or touch me directly. She murmured something strange and stomped in a hurried circle before entering and leaving the tent.

“Superstition,” Shae said when I looked at him questioningly. I did not know this word, so he went on, “She believes that you have cheated death, so death will forever seek to claim you. She believes that this curse may cleave to her if she comes too close. She asks for the gods’ protection.”

“And will the gods protect her?” I asked.

He shot me a conspiratorial look. “The gods do not entertain such foolishness.”

“Then I am not cursed?” I pressed with a cautious hope.

“No,” he replied, placing a warm hand atop my cropped curls. “You will live a long life and you will never suffer sickness again. But it will take others some time to see that. You must be patient with them.”

I nodded, forever anxious to please him. When the clothes arrived, they were perfectly fitted and made of the richest fabrics I had ever felt. There were soft underthings, thick tunics for winter and lighter ones for summer, trousers and leggings, and fur-trimmed cloaks. There were boots as well, of supple deerskin, and leather belts with pouches for keeping whatever trinkets a child might wish to keep. Shae watched with quiet delight as I marveled over it all—I could tell by the way his eyes danced. They were like crystallized honey, enchanting.

“You will never want for anything again,” he told me, snatching the finest of the fur-lined cloaks and swirling it around my shoulders.

“Where does it all come from?” I asked, clutching the thick fabric around me. I meant not only the clothes, but all the wonders the large and beautiful tent contained. And I truly asked not where, but why—why were these things here and nowhere else?

“It is gifted to me in return for the service I offer the clan,” he answered.

“But I thought you served the gods,” I said. With my returning health, my questions had grown bolder.

He smiled that secret smile that made me feel privy to something I didn’t understand. “I am a magus. I serve all but myself.”

Often, his answers confused more than they clarified. Of magi, I knew only what every child knows. Magi were granted power by the gods. This power they used to protect and guide the clans. Each clan had only one magus, and he or she was regarded with honor. Shae’s name had forever been spoken with reverence in my hearing. Though it was true he possessed the power to call or quell storms, to spark fire from nothing, to summon and ward off sickness, to control animals, and to foretell the future, he was not to be feared. Magi were benevolent and wise beyond measure. This was all children needed to know.

But I was no longer an ordinary child. I was ward to a magus, and I wanted to know more. “Is it true they share your body?” I asked him. “The gods?”

He appeared surprised, but not displeased by my forwardness. It was a look I would come to know well—the sort one might give a small animal if it suddenly spoke. As time went on, I would come to suspect that he knew very little of children and had expected something far tamer than the whirlwind I turned out to be.

“In a sense,” he replied with that unshakable steadiness. “But it would be truer to say that they are me. The gods and I are one.”

“Then when I speak with you, I am speaking with the gods?” I uttered, awestruck for an instant.

“No,” he chuckled. “The gods do not speak. They do not need to.”

“Oh.” I was relieved; it had perturbed me to think I might be plaguing an ancient divinity day in and day out with childish chatter.

“They listen though,” he amended, watching my face. “Not to your words, but to your heart. And they know when the two do not align.”

I received this not with the shock he clearly expected, but rather with skepticism, for it seemed to me a very adult thing to say. “Are you only saying that so I won’t lie to you?”

His face, I thought, took on a special sort of prettiness when he was caught off guard. All at once, he broke down laughing and grabbed me and tumbled me to the floor, where all my lovely new clothes lay strewn about, and rolled me around in them until I was breathless with giggles.

“You’d better not lie to me, Noch,” he scolded, collapsing beside me at last. His hair had come loose from its binding to cascade over his shoulders. “I’ll always tell you the truth.”

I peered at him from beneath the cloak that had enveloped me. “I won’t lie,” I promised, and I meant it. Inside, I felt a spreading warmth like the sort one feels after a sip of whiskey. At the time, I did not recognize it as love, but as comfort, kinship, and the feel of home, which I suppose are not all that different.

No matter how sharp my tongue became, he was gentle with me. I tested him sometimes, as children are wont to do, but he met every challenge with unwavering kindness. He regarded me, it seemed, with the same cautious wonder any new parent might feel for their delicate and mysterious offspring. But I grew strong again quickly under his doting care, and soon my stunned complacency was overtaken by restlessness. I questioned him incessantly, maddened by his secret smiles and careful replies. I began to slip off when his back was turned to wander the nearby lakeshore and woods. I always returned before I might give him cause to worry, though. Privately, I dreaded disappointing him.

The rest of the clan avoided me as a rule. When people passed me, they averted their eyes and hurried their step. Occasionally, I spotted children peeping at me from the safety of their doorways. I pretended not to notice, but my skin prickled with shame. Shae said it would pass; people would forget. People forgot everything in the end, he told me. Even things that had once been insurmountably important. I knew he was right, because when I tried to remember my life before Shae, I was met with a gray blur and a dull ache that I couldn’t place.

For months on end, we were left entirely alone—except for the people who brought food, drink, and whatever other comforts Shae could think to ask for. But this was not to last forever. One morning, I woke to hear again the stern, disagreeable tone of Councilor Glenn outside our door.

“Don’t you think this has gone on long enough? You’ve made your point, had your small rebellion. Now, for pity’s sake, put an end to it.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Shae replied unassumingly, his voice like cool grass to the councilor’s gravel. “Caring for a child isn’t something one can simply ‘end.’”

“Give him to someone else—they will take him if you insist.”

“It does a child no good to be shunted from caregiver to caregiver.”

“It does a child no good to be raised in a home shadowed by death and enchantment by a caregiver with one foot in this world and the other in the next!”

A short silence followed that for some reason made my heart race. When Shae spoke again, his voice dropped to near inaudibility. “I assure you this place is no more shadowed by death than your Elders’ Lodge where death warrants are signed, stamped, and sealed.”

The conversation ended abruptly, and I had to quickly feign sleep as Shae burst inside. I waited until he had stopped his pacing and settled down near me to cautiously raise my head.

“Why does he want you to send me away?”

He shot me a wearied look. “Why aren’t you ever asleep when you ought to be?”

I kept quiet, knowing he would answer me sooner or later.

Finally, he sighed and said, “He still thinks of me as a child. I suppose he thinks I’m unfit to care for my own. It comes as no surprise—the Council and I have never seen eye to eye.”

Watching his face, it dawned on me that Shae was quite young. Up until now, I had simply categorized him as an adult. It had never occurred to me that his quietude and eternal patience might make him seem older than he was.

“Like you, I was left parentless very young,” he said after a moment. “I had the Council, the occasional caretaker, and all the luxuries a child could want. But no one to call my own. I suppose that’s why I brought you here. It’s selfish, really. I’m sure someone else could give you a better life.”

My eyes must have widened in alarm because he smiled and added, “Don’t worry. I don’t intend to let you go. I think even a magus deserves one selfish act in his lifetime.”

I allowed this to comfort me for only a moment. “But won’t it cause trouble? Defying the Council like this?”

He shrugged. “Perhaps. But they’ll let it go eventually, as long as it doesn’t interfere with my duties.”

I reflected on this and quickly realized that I had never seen Shae do much of anything. “What duties?”

He laughed self-consciously and said, “The ones I’ve been neglecting.”

I gave my best stern look, but he poked his tongue out at me and my efforts were dissolved. “You’d better start setting a better example. Or I’ll grow up to be lazy like you.”

He sighed. “If you say so. But if you knew how dull Council meetings can be, you’d have more sympathy for me.”

“It’s no good feeling sorry for yourself,” I declared, perhaps echoing a mother or father I’d forgotten.

He gave me that pretty, startled look. “I thought children were supposed to be fun.”

He started to attend Council meetings after that. Sometimes, he would be gone all day. I didn’t mind the solitude at first. I relished the small freedoms it offered. But after a while, I began to miss him—especially at night when the fire cast shadows and my dreams crept up on me. It was always a relief to wake and find him soundly asleep beside me. The Council meetings made him unhappy, I knew, though he never told me much about them. If I ever asked, he would sigh and say he didn’t want to think about it; let’s play a game, let’s roast chestnuts, let’s go outside and count the stars. I stopped asking, but I didn’t stop wondering.

It turned out he was right about people forgetting; slowly but surely my exile ended. Soon, people looked at me and saw only a child—if a mysterious and well-dressed one. Others my age no longer watched me from afar but began to trail after me in groups. Now and then, they called out questions: “Is it true you live with Shae?” “Is he your brother?” “What’s he like?” I started to make up stories of fantastic magic I had seen: beasts of flame and shadow, feasts produced from thin air, and whatever else my wild imagination could conjure. Before long, I had friends, though part of me would always remember when all the clan had turned their backs except for him.

So, the years began to pass in comfort and strangeness, and I grew up as any child of a small, secluded clan might—despite sharing a home with the gods. Shae went about his duties as magus, which he kept largely private from me. In fact, I believe he told me nothing of his dealings with the Council, except to complain of their dullness, until I was around the age of sixteen.

“There is war in the South,” he informed me over dinner, after returning from the Elders’ Lodge one night. “Beyond the realm of the clans. Its refugees are moving northward.”

I stopped chewing and stared at him, startled by his sudden forthrightness and baffled by such foreign concepts as war, refugees, and a land beyond ours.

“They are not a warlike folk,” he went on, “but they are hungry and desperate. There has been some thievery and violence. Far away from here. But they will keep coming north.”

“Will the clans not offer them shelter?” I asked, having swallowed my mouthful at last.

“Some will,” he answered. “Some will not. A few newcomers is one thing—many is another. They carry with them new beliefs, new ways of living. Any clan that accepts them is bound to find itself changed.”

“Is that a bad thing?” I pressed, watching his face. He gave me a small, weary smile. He was always tired after dealing with the Council.

“It depends,” he replied enigmatically, and I got the feeling his short burst of honesty was drawing to a close.

“Why are you telling me this?” I demanded before he could retreat completely.

“Because if change comes—good or bad—I don’t want it to catch you by surprise,” he said with an air of finality. “Now, let’s talk about something else. Who was the girl you had here the other day?”

I averted my eyes, chagrined. “She only wanted to see the place. She was more curious about you than me, really.”

He lifted his brows at me skeptically. “Well, if you’re going to give out private tours, at least give me fair warning next time. Perhaps I could put on a magic show.”

I snorted and returned to my dinner, hoping he would drop the matter. He did and retired early, leaving me to see to the dishes. When the fire burned low, I crawled into bed and watched the light play on the screen that divided his bed from mine. It was a pretty and delicate thing of paper—a common furnishing in households that valued a small measure of privacy. I had despised it at first. For the first month we slept apart, I had stubbornly crept into his bed nearly every night. He never sent me away, but at some point, I stopped of my own accord. With age had come distance. But the sound of his breathing still lulled me to sleep.

Over the next few days, I pondered his talk of change. It was a strange thing to hear, coming from someone who never seemed to change at all. He must have thought it important since he’d bothered to share it with me. But he didn’t bring it up again, and with time it sank to the back of my mind. People forget everything in the end. But the tumult beyond our borders did not cease just because I ceased to think of it. And I would be made to remember it soon enough.

I was walking with a friend, Jemma, on the outskirts of camp one day in early spring. She spotted it first—a huddled form on the ground perhaps a stone’s throw from the camp entrance. A dead deer, we thought at first. But as we came closer, we saw that it was a man, lying face-down with arms outstretched before him as if he had been crawling. I could tell from a glance that he was not a clansman; his tattered garb was foreign to me and his matted hair a sandy color I had never seen. I hurried toward him at once, ignoring Jemma’s cry: “Noch, wait! There’s something wrong with him!”

I knelt beside him and turned him over to see a dirty, pallid face that glistened with a sheen of sweat. He did not open his eyes, but his skin was hot and damp to the touch, and a pulse fluttered against my fingers when I pressed them to his neck.

“He’s alive!” I called to Jemma. “Go fetch Shae from the Elders’ Lodge. I’ll stay here with him.”

She gave me a wide-eyed, frightened look, but turned and dashed away. I remained beside the man, murmuring to him that help was on the way. A truly awful stench rose from him; I had to open my mouth to breathe, and even then, it seemed I could taste it on my tongue. When I caught sight of Shae approaching in the distance, I made to rise and half-raised a hand to hail him. I was caught off-balance when a force struck me hard in the chest, knocking me flat on my back.

My head struck the ground and I bit my tongue hard. Stunned, eyes watering, I sat up to see that I was now several feet from the man on the ground who did not appear to have moved. I gazed at him for a bewildered instant. And then, before my eyes, his body caught fire. With a wordless shout, I scrambled to my feet and lurched toward him. I would have plunged my hands straight into the fire had they not met some unseen barrier that would not yield. Within seconds, the man was reduced to ash, and I fell to my knees shaking beside the smoldering heap.

“Get up,” Shae’s voice said close to my ear, and when I did not obey, his hand closed on my arm and dragged me to my feet with alarming strength. We were walking then, swiftly, through the camp, he with a firm grip on my wrist as though I were a wayward child.

“He was alive,” I kept repeating uselessly as he shunted me along.

“Did anyone else see you touch him?” he demanded in a low, fierce tone. “Other than the girl? Can she be trusted to keep quiet?”

“What are you saying? What does it matter—?”

“Do you wish to be again the child of plague? Shadowed by death and shunned by the living?”

“I survived the plague. You said I would never suffer sickness again.”

“We do not know this sickness! It is not of this land!” We reached our tent. He pushed me inside and sealed the door flap behind us.

“You will stay here,” he said, “until I can confirm that the stranger’s sickness has not touched you. Let us hope word of this does not reach the Council, lest they order your banishment. Councilor Glenn has forever sought to be rid of you; he needs only an excuse.”

He sat me down by the fire, brought me the wash bin, and bade me wash my hands. When I did not do so thoroughly enough for his taste, he knelt before me and scrubbed each one until it stung. I was silent, vaguely ashamed that I had thought only of helping the sick man and not of the danger he might pose to my clan. Still, I could not block out the image of his burning body and feeling of horror and wrongness it brought me.

As if he’d read my mind, Shae looked at me with jewel-like eyes and said, “Don’t hate me for this. I did it to protect you.”

I could think of no reply. He moved away from me and sat watching the fire with his arms folded around himself. After a while, I noticed that he was trembling slightly.

“The day you brought me here,” I proffered quietly, “I remember tents burning. I thought I must have imagined it.”

Without looking at me, he answered, “You didn’t. The north side of the camp, where you lived, was overtaken with plague. It was spreading quickly. The Council had to act.”

“So you burned them,” I concluded. “Alive.”

“Some were alive. Many were dead. All had suffered. Fire was a mercy.”

“And the people in my tent?” I asked, feeling cold. It was something I had thought I would never voice aloud.

“They were still,” he said softly. “I do not know whether they were alive. But they did not feel the flames.”

I put my head down on my knees and did not answer. After a period of silence, he added, “You were my small act of defiance. Somehow, I thought if I saved you, it would make everything all right. The Council still thinks I only kept you to spite them. But really, I kept you because I needed you. Their disapproval was only an added benefit.” He smiled somewhat sadly, and I felt a softness in my chest in spite of everything. In the end, there was nothing he could say or do to make me love him less.

In sudden fear that he would think he had lost me, I crawled to him and put my arms around him. He stiffened at first, but then relaxed and let his head drop to my shoulder. He was smaller than me now, and it felt strange to offer comfort to the one who had comforted me all these years.

The foreigner’s sickness did not affect me, but he plagued me in other ways. I dreamed again of fire, skeletal hands, and blackened figures crawling toward me. Such visions had not haunted me since childhood. Shae was distant from me; though he knew I had forgiven him, something had changed between us and I suspected he suffered over it. He was away more often, and some nights went straight to bed upon returning, ignoring the supper I’d laid out for him. I tried not to be hurt by this, telling myself it had more to do with the Council than with me.

Jemma and I did not speak of the stranger we had seen, and no one seemed to notice the black scorch mark on the ground where he had lain. But, of course, the man was not the only newcomer to have wandered so far north. Reports came from neighboring clans of small groups of nomads passing through their lands. Some even settled down to stay. My clansmen were intrigued but not worried by the strangers. After all, they were only a few.

Inevitably, we ourselves would play host to foreigners. They came one day—a group of seven, each thinner, dirtier, and poorer than the last. My clan welcomed them, offering food and drink as was our custom with travelers. They spoke a strange tongue, though one who seemed a leader knew a little of ours. She, a tall tow-haired woman, offered us thanks for our kindness and promised us peace. It was summer and fair weather, so fires were lit outdoors at the camp center as they would be for any celebration. The clan gathered in full force to look upon the newcomers, who huddled together, eating ravenously. Two of them were children, two elders, and all were so alike in appearance they might have been kin.

Our Council members sat and conversed with their leader—to the limited extent they could. Shae sat with them as well, silent and watchful, shining hair and rich garb standing out in bright contrast to his drab company. It was no wonder he drew their eyes—the grubby little children who gazed at him in wonder. They meant no harm, I’m sure. One of them whispered in that strange tongue to the old woman beside him, who in turn whispered to their leader.

She smiled slightly and spoke haltingly to Shae, “They wish to know if you are a prince.”

He smiled in return and said, “We have no princes in this land. I am called a magus.”

They did not know this word.

“Sorcerer, magician,” one of the councilors tried. “Servant of the gods.”

They shook their heads in confusion. Shae stretched out a hand—more for show than need—and from the fire emerged a bright bird of flame that took wing and swooped over our heads before shooting off into the sky. My people murmured in pleasure as they watched it go; so rarely did they get to witness the power of our magus.

But when my eyes returned from the sky to the faces of our guests, I saw something I could not have imagined. It was horror—there was no other way to describe that raw, twisted fear. One of the children was crying silently, and the old woman beside him clutched him with a shaking, claw-like hand. Their already pale faces were ashen and their large, haunted eyes round with fright. They looked ghastly to me all of a sudden; I couldn’t fathom how I had thought them only moments ago not so very unlike us.

“Devilry,” their leader whispered huskily. “Evil.”

And as our Council members protested all at once, Shae got up and left. I followed him immediately, only half listening to our Councilors’ weak insistence that magi were not to be feared. He went straight to our tent, and I burst in after him, needlessly declaring, “They’re wrong.”

He was setting a kettle of water to boil and smiled at me in mild surprise. “Maybe,” he said with a shrug. “But that doesn’t matter.”

For once, I didn’t argue, but I thought it mattered very much.

Despite their terror, the newcomers stayed. They were housed in a tent on the edge of camp, not truly part of us but not truly separate. No one knew how long they would linger. But Girah, their leader, could be spotted now and then coming and going from the Elders’ Lodge. “To promote peace,” some said. “If we are to share our lands with these southerners, they must understand our customs and we theirs.” Others said it was abominable to let an outsider sit beneath the Council’s roof—let alone one who denounced our magus and our gods.

In any case, for this reason or for one I could not guess, things went truly sour between the Council and Shae. Due to his characteristic silence on Council matters, I was not made aware of the falling out until many months had passed. It was winter when Councilor Glenn made another unwelcome appearance at our door.

“Shae is not here,” I informed him, making no effort to disguise the chill in my voice.

“I know,” he replied. He looked, if possible, grayer and grimmer than I had ever seen him. “It is you I am here to see.”

I crossed my arms against the cold, refusing to invite him in. “What can I do for you, Councilor?”

He looked about us and grimaced. “Perhaps you would accompany me to the Elders’ Lodge so that we might speak more comfortably?”

My first instinct was suspicion, but this was quickly overtaken by my age-old curiosity. “Very well,” I said. “Let me get my cloak.”

I had never been inside the Elders’ Lodge. It was a privilege few were offered. I could not help but feel a little awed as I stepped through the dark doorway after Councilor Glenn. It was dim inside and hazy. A fire burned low at the center of the oblong room, permeating the air with smoke. I had to cough as I breathed it in; it was strong and herb-scented. Around the fire, figures were seated on rush mats laid on the bare earth floor. There was no luxury here. I recognized each Council member, though their faces were strange in the smoky half-light. As we drew near to them, Councilor Glenn bade me sit.

I knelt on the empty mat before me, and he took his place opposite the fire. The full Council was present, and I realized that the place I had taken must be Shae’s.

“I thank you for agreeing to come here, Noch,” the councilor said, his voice oddly muffled by the stuffy silence of the lodge. “You have become, as we’d hoped, a reasonable young man.”

I had to stifle a laugh at this, thinking that I never would have reached manhood if the Council had had their way. “Certainly. Now, what’s this all about?”

“As you may have noticed,” he replied grimly, “Shae has ceased to attend all Council meetings.”

I blinked, trying to hide my surprise. I had noticed nothing, but they needn’t know that.

“This is not the first time he has opposed us—as you well know,” Councilor Glenn went on. “But I fear the consequences if this goes on much longer. Magus and Council must act as one. Without proper leadership, the clan is at risk.”

“I’m sure he’ll come back eventually,” I said with no small measure of defensiveness.

“I admire your faith,” he said dryly. “Unfortunately, we can never be quite sure of anything when it comes to Shae. He has always been willful, temperamental—but lately he seems to have passed beyond all reason.”

“If he has forsaken you, I’m sure he had reason enough,” I replied sharply.

“Child,” the elderly woman to my right broke in. “We say this not to vilify Shae. It worries us to see him isolate himself like this. Shae’s well-being is essential to the clan’s well-being. We merely wish to reach out to him.”

“If you could speak with him,” Councilor Glenn added, “reason with him, encourage him to return …”

“You wish me to speak on your behalf?” I scoffed, amazed at their gall. “To act as your liaison?”

“We ask you to act on the behalf of the clan,” the councilor said sternly. “To set your personal feelings aside and do what is best for all.”

I felt sick then, wondering if these were the precise words he had spoken to Shae before my family had burned. The smoke seemed thicker all at once, and I was stricken by a feeling of entrapment. Overcome with a need to be under the sky, I rose to my feet and left. I could not say what I wanted to say: that my loyalties lay not with the clan but with Shae. To speak such words would verge on treason, and this would not help Shae in the least. Already the Council mistrusted him enough to come to me behind his back. I dared not give them a reason to mistrust me as well.

It took me what felt like hours to find him. He was by the lake, gazing out over the ice-crusted waters. I couldn’t guess how long he’d been there, but his hair and clothes were wind-tossed and he was not dressed for winter.

“What are you doing out here?” I demanded, removing my cloak and wrapping it around his shoulders. “It’s freezing.”

He glanced up at me with a vague smile. “Haven’t I ever told you? I don’t feel the cold.”

A dozen questions rose in my mind, but I pushed them aside. “Let’s go home,” I said.

Without my cloak, I was shivering by the time we reached our tent. Shae brought the fire to life as we stepped inside and nudged me toward the circle of warmth. But I turned to face him, arms folded.

“The Council has discovered a use for me at last. They wish me to act as their agent. I am to attempt to reason with you—for the good of the clan, they say.”

He showed not the slightest bit of surprise. “Yes, I thought it would come to this. I’m only surprised they waited this long.”

“You could have warned me,” I exclaimed. “I never would have gone to that musty, old lodge in the first place.”

“It’s no good to defy the Council,” he answered with a shrug.

“You’re one to talk! They say you’ve abandoned them entirely.”

“I have.”

“Why?”

He sighed and brushed past me to approach the fire. “How about some tea?”

“Don’t do that,” I snapped. “You promised to always tell me the truth.”

He paused and gave me a bleak look. “I was stupid then. I didn’t know.”

“Didn’t know what?”

“That you would grow up to be a person. That everything I said and did would affect you, and you would remember it all.”

I didn’t know what to say to this. I splayed my hands hopelessly. “Of course I remember. You were my whole world. Everything I am is because of you.”

“That’s what I’m afraid of,” he sighed. “Noch, sooner or later the Council will ask you to report on my actions and words. I want you to tell them the truth. Be as difficult as you must be but never disloyal. I want them to keep you in their confidence.”

“No,” I replied sharply. “I will not spy on you for the Council, nor on the Council for you. I will not act as your go-between or as their lackey. Speak to the Council yourself, Shae, for pity’s sake.”

He lifted his brows at me. “If the Council wants a lackey, they will have one. You’re already attempting to reason with me, just as they commanded.”

“Because you’re being unreasonable,” I shot back. “Just go to them—show them you’re all right. They think you’ve gone mad. They talk about you like you’re dangerous.”

He let out a soft laugh. “Are they wrong?”

“Of course they’re wrong—”

“Noch, I burned your family before your eyes. It didn’t even occur to me that you would remember. I gave you nice things, kept you warm with that same cursed fire, and held you when you woke up crying without even bothering to wonder why you had so many nightmares. How can you tell me I’m not dangerous?”

“Is that what this is about?” I spluttered. “Shae, that was years ago.”

“Twelve years. Almost to the day. I have you to remind me—every winter when I see you’ve grown a little bit taller.”

“Because you saved me,” I reminded him, voice trembling. I didn’t know why, but there was panic rising in my throat. “You walked into a plague-ridden tent to get me. When no one else would come within fifty feet of me, you held me in your arms. That’s right, I remember that too.”

He gave me a wan smile. “You were never any threat to me. I am immune to plague, and cold, and fire, for that matter. In fact, I think there’s hardly anything that can kill me at all. It wasn’t out of kindness or self-sacrifice I saved you. I saved you because I hoped you could save me. And, in a way, you did.”

I didn’t want to talk anymore suddenly. I wanted to drink tea or play a game or do anything that didn’t feel like saying goodbye.

“I’m sorry,” he said after a heavy pause. “I never meant to deliver you into the hands of the Council. But the curse of being mine is that you are also theirs. I should have foreseen that.”

“I won’t serve them,” I said thickly.

“You will,” he replied. “Because if it isn’t you, it will be someone else, and I need it to be you because you are the only person I trust.”

This confused me. A cold draft from the door brushed me and I shuddered.

“Come here,” he said as coaxingly as he might have in those early days when I was as wary as a half-starved animal. With that same caution, I moved toward him into the fire’s warmth. He shed my cloak, which was too long for him, and placed it back around my shoulders. It was surprisingly warm.

“Noch,” he said quietly now that we stood face to face. “When I die—”

“What?” I interrupted him. “You’re barely thirty!”

He raised an impatient hand to silence me. “I didn’t say it was going to be tomorrow. But I want to say this now just in case.”

“Who says I’m going to outlive you?” I demanded. “I’m much more likely to fall in the lake or choke on a walnut—”

“Noch, listen to me,” he said sharply, and I fell silent. “When I die, another will be chosen to take my place. It will be a child—the age you were when I took you in, or younger. The child will know nothing of the power they have been granted and they will be frightened. I need you to be the one who finds them. I need you to care for them, shield them from the Council, and make sure they don’t grow up in a big tent full of lovely things with only the gods for company. I need you to make sure they grow up human. I can’t tell you how easy it is, with power like this and no one who loves you, to become something else.”

“You’re human,” I told him firmly.

He smiled, eyes glowing liquid amber in the firelight. “Because of you. And that’s why I need you to do this for me.”

I melted; I couldn’t help it. “I would do anything for you.”

“Thank you, Noch.” He dropped his gaze and suddenly looked tired. “And I will return to the Council. I’ll give you freedom for as long as I can. But when they call you, you must answer.” With that, he moved as if to leave, but I caught him quickly by the shoulders.

“Don’t go tonight. You offered me tea. I fear I’ll catch cold if I don’t have some.”

He awarded me a shaky laugh. “Of course. It’s the least I can do.”

We drank our tea by the fire as we would on any other night and talked no more of dark things. But when he retired to bed, I sat awake for hours with a cold stone of dread in my stomach. Unconsciously, I glanced again and again at his motionless form as if to make sure he was still there. And when I finally nodded off, I dreamed that something monstrous lurked outside our door, sometimes in the form of Councilor Glenn, sometimes in that of a pale foreigner, and sometimes in no form at all. Whatever it was, it sought only one thing—to take away Shae and leave me alone in the dark.

Nothing ever felt quite the same after that. Shae returned to the Council and the clan went about their business as usual. But I could not shake the sense of foreboding that seemed to hang over it all. When the snow melted, more Southerners came. They came in droves rather than family groups now—vast caravans that spanned the horizon. Occasionally, they stopped to speak with us, eat our food, and drink our wine, but mostly they passed us by. They were searching for someplace to call their own; Girah, who acted as translator for us, explained. We hardly understood this, having never laid claim to the land beneath our feet.

The small family of foreigners stayed with us, and we made no attempt to discourage them. They served a purpose for us whether they knew it or not. They showed the other newcomers that we were not afraid of them, and that they need not fear us. Yet they did fear us; the seven of them stayed huddled in their tent and watched us from a distance with their round, colorless eyes. They were dependent upon our kindness, and in that sense, they were our prisoners. I felt strangely sickened to see their thin forms skulking about the camp. They were like dark omens.

A settlement grew to the north of us—it almost seemed to spring up overnight. It was closer than any clan would have settled to another, but these newcomers knew nothing of our etiquette. Our hunting grounds would overlap, and the more they expanded, the more they would drain our resources. It was this that shattered the fragile peace between Shae and the Council at last. Shae proposed that we move. It was not uncommon for clans to uproot and wander; many never set down roots at all. But the Council, set in their ways, would not hear of it. They suggested instead we discourage our neighbors from lingering in their chosen place. A drought ought to do it, but if they would not budge, then perhaps a storm or a wildfire. Shae refused, saying that he would give them no more reason to name him “Devil.”

I learned this not from Shae, but from the Council themselves. Because, as he had predicted, they soon turned to me on account of his rebellion. I became what I had sworn I would not be: mediator between magus and Council, spy in my own home. The willingness of my subject made it no less strange. I made no secret of my distaste for the role but showed no disloyalty to the Council. I did what Shae needed of me, and I would not change it even now. In fact, it was my honor to take at least some of the lifelong burden from his shoulders.

There is no telling which of our many visitors first brought the blight. It made itself known slowly: a cough here and there, a child running a fever. Thus, it crept quietly from tent to tent, afflicting family after family, and by the time we took notice, there was nothing to be done. Plague had us by the throat again. This was a new sort of sickness. It attacked the lungs, causing one to cough and gasp until they spat out blood. I knew this by Shae’s word only; he would not allow me to leave the tent.

From our doorway, I could see the greasy gray smoke trail that issued from the funeral pyre day and night. Our part of the camp had not been stricken, but it would be. Helpless and useless, all I could do was wait. Shae was away most of the time, helping where he could or conferring with the Council—the crisis had incited a cease-fire between them. Trapped at home, I was not privy to these meetings, and he told me nothing of them. He hardly spoke at all, nor ate, nor slept. But then, neither did I.

I found myself sitting by the fire, half-awake, half-dreaming, for hours on end. Sometimes, I fantasized that I saw things in the flames or imagined for an instant that there was someone near me when I was in fact alone. A few times, I came to myself suddenly with an overwhelming sense of déjà vu, as if I had slipped briefly into another world and promptly forgotten it upon my return. Always, it seemed there was something on the edge of my consciousness, some nagging and persistent force just beyond my realm of perception. Still, I wonder about this; I have never felt anything quite like it since. Perhaps it was simply that worry and sleeplessness had stretched my mind to the breaking point. Or perhaps it was that the veil of death lay so heavily over the camp, the line between this world and the next had wavered and my thoughts had begun to seep through or vice versa: something from the beyond had reached me.

Whatever the case, I must have fallen asleep well and truly one day, for I dreamed the most vivid and memorable dream. I was lying with my head in a woman’s lap, and she was familiar to me though I could not name her—a mother, a sister, or an aunt perhaps. She had my curls, black, thick, and untamable, my copper-brown skin, and my almond-shaped dark eyes. She was murmuring, “Don’t be afraid, little one. We will all go to the Afterworld together.” And I felt entirely safe.

The feeling lingered for a moment as I came awake, and I felt certain then that I was not alone but surrounded by the warmth of those who loved me. But as reality came creeping back, a cold sense of dread took hold of me and I sat bolt upright, convinced that something was wrong. The moment I stepped outside, I saw it: a wavering haze of heat in the distance that was sickeningly familiar. Gray smoke billowed against the blue sky, reaching upward and outward like ghostly fingers. A strange silence lay over the scene; where one would expect to hear shouts and cries, there was nothing, not a whisper. But I needed not see flames or hear screams to know the camp was burning.

Without thinking, I took off for the Elders’ Lodge. I saw no one on the short journey; all was still and quiet. Now that I thought of it, I had not seen Shae for what felt like days—I had lost track of time. It seemed as if I were the only person left alive in the world. But when I burst inside the lodge, there was Councilor Glenn, and I had never been gladder to see him. Only two other Council members were present, and the three were hunched over the fire with their heads bowed. The air was thick with the smell of sandalwood and sage and I could hardly see for the smoke.

“Fire,” I gasped, voice husky from lack of use. “There’s fire in the camp!”

They did not respond, and I wondered for a wild instant if they were asleep or in some sort of trance. But then, Councilor Glenn stirred and raised his head slightly.

“It is contained,” he said in a dry, dull voice. “It will not reach us here.”

“What?” My head whirled, and the strange sense came over me that I was still trapped within a dream.

“We are safe now,” the councilor went on quietly, as though speaking to himself. “The clan will carry on.”

“Shae,” I responded, no longer listening. “Where is he?”

Councilor Glenn shook his gray head and seemed very small and insubstantial suddenly—the dried-up husk of an old man. “I only wanted what was best. Why couldn’t he ever see that?”

I turned and left, knowing now that visiting the Elders’ Lodge had been a waste of precious time. I went straight to the lakeshore, where I had found him last time, and spotted his slim silhouette standing waist-deep in the water. The surface of the lake was as still as glass, and his fine, silk robes billowed out around him. His hair in the sunlight shone like ravens’ feathers. Without hesitation, I plunged into the water, scarcely feeling the cold, and waded toward him.

When my ripples reached him, he turned and smiled over his shoulder. “I thought you’d come if I waited here a bit.”

“How could you do it again?” I demanded, voice coming out raw and hoarse. “I thought you regretted what happened back then. I thought …” I broke off, words catching in my throat.

“Of course I don’t regret it,” he replied calmly, turning away to look out over the lake. “How could I possibly regret something that gave me you?”

And then, for the first time, I was angry with him. I was angrier than I had ever been, and it swelled in my chest, red hot and heartbreaking.

“You’re killing them!” I shouted at his turned back. “You’re killing them again, and you don’t even care! They’re your people—you’re supposed to protect them!”

A twitch went through his shoulders, but he did not look back at me. “I protect the clan. When the clan is threatened, I purge the threat. You’ve always known this. Why is it different now?”

“Because—” I floundered for words, but for some reason all I could think of was the woman in my dream who had held my head in her lap. “It’s terrible. It’s monstrous. Better we all die together than this.”

He looked at me at last and his eyes were wet. “I cannot allow the clan to perish. The magi must preserve the clans, for without the clans, the gods would be lost. They would wander, bodiless, mindless, and forgotten until the end of the earth. They are our masters and we are their keepers, and if that makes us monsters or devils, so be it. We are what we are. I didn’t ask for this.”

“Well, I didn’t ask for this either,” I cried. “I didn’t ask to be plucked from my family or raised by a magus or subjugated to the Council. I’m not cut out for any of this. I don’t have the heart for it.”

He bowed his head, and a long stream of hair fell forward to hide his face from view. “I know you don’t. But you will. You will do as you must, as I have done what I must. I forced this life upon you, and you can hate me for that. It’s a burden I’m willing to bear.”

My chest tightened and for an instant I felt that my heart would stop. “Don’t be stupid,” I choked. “I love you. I’ve always loved you—you never gave me a choice in the matter.”

He lifted his chin at this and gave me a weak smile. “Thank you. That means more than you know.”

I steeled myself against the warmth his smile always brought me and said, “Put out the fire, Shae. Please, for me, save the ones you still can.”

His smile vanished. “I can’t do that, Noch. It’s too late. The fire must run its course.”

“You have to try,” I insisted. “Please, even if you can only save one.”

He turned slowly to face the lake again, and I knew by his posture that it was hopeless. “I hope you can forgive me,” he said so quietly I hardly heard.

I left him there, standing in the lake. I forced myself not to look back as I slogged to shore, and I don’t know if he watched me go. I think probably not; he was looking ahead.

I ran, dripping and breathless, through the silent camp toward the blooming smoke cloud. At first, it seemed I would never reach it; it appeared farther, then closer, then farther again as though I were running in circles. But at last, the fire reared up suddenly to either side of me as if I had passed through an unseen barrier. My steps faltered as a wave of heat assaulted me and the air was stripped from my lungs. Coughing, eyes stinging, I stumbled forward while flames flicked out at me hungrily from the burning tents.

Desperately, I began to call out for anyone who might still be alive. I burned my hands pushing open door flaps to find only roaring flames on the other side. Some of the tents flaked to pieces at my touch, and others were smoldering skeletons already. I could see no human forms. Despair crept up on me all at once, and I stopped in my tracks, bringing my stinging hands to my face. I thought madly of crawling inside one of the blazing tents and dying the way I was meant to. It would be fitting, wouldn’t it? It would break Shae’s heart, and maybe he deserved that. But I had not the courage to face death alone. And even here, in the midst of such destruction, I could not wish harm on Shae.

Something happened then—I caught it in the corner of my eye. A tent blazed brighter than the others and, with a rush of hot air that nearly knocked me off-balance, it collapsed. I turned to stare at the heap of blackened remains that still sputtered weakly with flame. An explosion of some sort; perhaps a barrel of whiskey had caught alight. But even as I told myself this, my feet moved, carrying me toward the site.

As I came closer, I saw amid the burning debris a small, huddled form. Flames flickered in a perfect circle around it but ventured no closer than that. And beneath the charred, smoking rags that hung from its thin limbs, the figure appeared unharmed. It raised its head as I approached, and I looked upon the soft, genderless face of a child with matted black hair and enormous tawny eyes. They gazed at me with a calm, calculated expression unbefitting a ragged child squatting in the wreckage of its home. And I got the sudden sense that it was not only a child who looked at me and that whatever ancient essence appraised me from behind those golden eyes knew me very well.

Scarcely thinking, I extended a hand and said, “Come here.”

Something shifted in the child’s gaze; a question had been answered. They stood and stepped forward quickly, dirty bare foot plunging straight into the ring of flame. But before I could cry out in alarm, they were through and apparently unhurt. A grubby hand reached out and caught mine, closing firmly around my fingers.

“Who are you?” they inquired bluntly, gazing up at me with eyes like an owl’s.

“I’m Noch,” I replied, but they only continued to stare. A word rose unbidden to the front of my mind—a title the Council had offered me once that I had refused in disgust. “I’m your warden.”

The child tipped their head curiously. “Warden?”

“It means you are under my protection,” I explained.

They appeared satisfied at this; the trace of a smile even flitted across their face. “Noch,” they said with that same forward tone, “why are you crying?”

Startled, I brought my free hand to my face and found that it was indeed wet with tears. “It must be the smoke,” I said, doing my best to wipe them away. “Come on, now. Let’s go.”

“To the Afterworld?” the child asked, eyes threatening to swallow me whole.

“No,” I answered with a small, broken laugh. “Let’s go home.”