I shot a look over to Darren and had to bite my tongue. Of course if I were the one negotiating I would have asked for a bathing tub and maybe some food. The baked bread I smelled coming out of the kitchen made my stomach growl. But then we would have a hard time explaining why we ate enough food for a party of seven.
When the deal was struck, Darren gave the farmer and his wife enough money to seem generous but not make them overly suspicious. He told them we wouldn’t need anything else and to not worry about us, but the extra few coins paid them for our privacy.
We led our horses to the barn and waited till dark to motion for Kael and Hemi to bring Mona. The barn was a great distance from the house, so none of us worried that they would hear us talking. Still, few words were spoken as we settled in to sleep, everyone grateful for the abundance of hay to pad our beds. Everyone, that was, except for me.
Sleeping on the straw brought back awful memories of being a prisoner of the Septori and how Kael had set the whole prison on fire—an underground prison beneath a stable. The similarities were too much, and every time I closed my eyes, I saw the iron butterfly and the cold metal table.
Not to mention that the fever and burning stomach pain was back. Rolling on my side, I tried to concentrate on breathing until this latest episode passed. That is what I had started calling them. Episodes. Which usually only came during the night.
Joss had even taken a look at me and couldn’t find anything wrong.
“It burns. Everything’s on fire,” I whimpered. Tonight, it wasn’t letting up. It was getting worse. My body felt as if I were literally on fire. I wasn’t being as quiet as I thought, because cool hands pressed themselves to my forehead.
“She is burning up,” a soft feminine voice whispered. I felt a cool energy pass through me as Fanny attempted to heal me, but the energy came and went. “It’s not working. I can’t identify what is attacking her, so I don’t know how to heal it. It’s not a regular infection. I don’t know what to do.”
A few muffled words were spoken. And someone mentioned Mona’s name in question.
“No, I’ve checked for signs. It’s not Mona,” Joss spoke.
More muttering and someone cursed in aggravation.
You’ll be fine. It will pass, Faraway intoned sadly.
Do you know what’s happening? I gasped as another wave of pain overcame me.
It’s as the Raven said. You are changing.
AGHH. I grunted and tried to think the words to my horse. Into what?
Silence followed.
Let me guess. You’re not allowed to tell me? By this time, tears poured down my face.
Is it almost over? I screamed mentally to him.
No, it will get worse before it’s over. Faraway sounded miserable. He didn’t want to be the one to tell me.
And for an instant, I saw it all in my mind. I wasn’t trying to scan, but I could see what was happening, and I wasn’t in any kind of condition to do anything.
“FIRE!” I screamed loudly. Opening my eyes wide in pain, I saw the shocked faces of Fanny and Joss. “Fire!” I shouted again.
They just looked at me confused.
Desperate, I searched for Kael and saw him farther back, watching me with a helpless expression.
“Save them—fire.” I mouthed to him. And I saw my warning register on his face. Kael believed me. Running outside, he saw what I had seen in my mind.
The farmer’s house was on fire.
Chapter 5
A high-pitched feminine scream erupted from inside the house. Glass shattered as someone threw a chair through an upstairs window. Smoke billowed out in waves.
Everyone rushed from the barn to try and help, leaving me alone in the stall on the floor with Mona nearby chained to a support beam. Darren was smart enough to release the horses, because the smell of smoke would drive them crazy. Hopefully they would find a place to graze out of the way and we’d find them again come morning.
GO! I commanded Faraway. He paced nervously in his stall, wanting to stay but needing to run.
I’ll be fine, I lied. He ran outside.
I tried to crawl out of the stall to see out the open barn doors, but deep down I knew it was too late. Too late for the farmer and his wife and too late for me. In that miraculous instant, I had seen what was coming and had to make a decision to save myself or try to save the farmer and his wife.
I chose them.
The fire was too far gone, the blaze too hot to have been caused by something as simple as a candle or lantern. The house had been purposely set on fire as a distraction. I saw Kael burst through the front doors of the farmhouse and heard the clash of steel as he met a group of hidden attackers.
Darren and Hemi followed suit, dashing in with sword and axe drawn. Joss stayed outside and tried to smother the fire with magic. Slowly the flames were dying down. If only the screams would die down as well.
My vision became blurry as smoke started to billow into the barn. Tears poured out of my eyes. I collapsed on the floor in pain and let the burning of my body mirror the burning of the house. How I wished I could have stopped it.
And stop what I was about to have to do.
A rough hand grabbed the back of my hair and lifted my throbbing head off of the floor.
“It’s been a while, hasn’t it, Thalia?” A large grungy man scowled down at me, his clothes covered with dirt. It looked like he had been on the run. It was Talbot—Xiven and Mona’s fake father, and one of the Raven’s apprentices it seemed. But I had known he was coming. I had seen it.
He pulled me up by my hair and I had little choice but to follow him or have my hair pulled out of my scalp.
“You are coming with me,” he snarled.
A man in a red robe appeared next to Talbot and grabbed me around the hands. He began tying them together.
“Wait, what about me?” Mona yelled, kicking her feet angrily against the floor.
“What about you?” Talbot looked at her, his eyebrow raised.
“You can’t leave me here!” She fumed.
“I have no orders regarding you,” he laughed cruelly. “Only her.” He motioned to me.
Too bad, I thought to myself. I waited in pain until more Septori filtered in through the back door of the barn. By the noises coming from outside, I knew my friends were facing their own battle. So I blocked Faraway from my thoughts and hoped that Kael was distracted.
And just as I had known what was about to happen, I knew what I was supposed to do. I let the pain consume me, let my anger rise to the surface, and I gave in to it. Gave in to the burning. Throwing my head back, I screamed painfully and released all of the built up, barely-contained power I had been holding in. I let the fire out. I let the monster out, and once I did, the pain consuming me stopped.
The barn burst into flames, the Septori burst into flames, and Talbot screamed as he beat at his clothes to stop the fire. The fire shot across the beams of the barn.
The Septori in a panic, tried to drag me out of the barn.
The shriek of a horse made me glance to Faraway, and I saw him outside of the barn screaming in terror.
He was going to try and run in to save me. With a wave of power, I slammed the barn door closed on him, keeping him out. I was going to end this once and for all. I had a glimpse of what I was becoming and I didn’t like it.
“Burn,” I whispered and watched as the flames licked higher. Energy flowed through my body, and I could hear something just beyond my consciousness. Like a sigh being released. My body became warm, tingling. And then more pain.