Trapped, it tried again and again to take off, but the space between the circles was not great enough, and it was foiled each time. The flame demons sensed their cousin’s distress, and shrieked with glee, hopping around the circle to follow the creature and taunt its misfortune.
Arlen felt a swell of pride. He made mistakes the night before, but he would not make them again. He began to hope that he might live to see the Free Cities after all.
The flame demons soon tired of mocking the wind demon, and moved off in search of easier prey, flushing small animals from hiding with gouts of fire. One small, frightened hare leapt into Arlen’s outer ring, the demon in pursuit stopped by the wards. The wind demon snatched clumsily at it, but the hare dodged it easily, running through the circle and out the far side, only to find corelings there as well. It turned and darted back in, again running too far.
Arlen wished there were a way he could communicate with the poor creature, to let it know it was safe in the inner ring, but he could only watch as it darted in and out of the wards.
Then the unthinkable happened. The hare, scampering back into the circle, scratched out a ward. With a howl, flame demons poured through the gap after the animal. The lone wind demon escaped, leaping into the air and winging away.
Arlen cursed the hare, and cursed all the more when it darted right for him. If it damaged the inner wards, they were both doomed.
With a farmboy’s quickness, Arlen reached from the circle and snatched up the hare by its ears. It thrashed wildly, willing to tear itself apart to escape, but Arlen had handled hares in his father’s fields often enough. He swung it into his arms, cradling it on its back, hindquarters up above its head. In a moment, the hare was staring up at him blankly, its struggles ceased.
He was tempted to throw the creature to the demons. It would be safer than risking it getting free and scuffing another ward. And why not? he wondered. If I’d found it in the light, I’d’ve eaten it myself.
Still, he found he could not do it. The demons had taken too much from the world, from him. He swore then that he would give them nothing willingly, not now, not ever.
Not even this.
As the night wore on, Arlen held the terrified creature firmly, cooing at it and stroking its soft fur. All around, the demons howled, but Arlen blocked them out, focusing on the animal.
The meditation worked for a time, until a roar brought him back. He looked up to find the massive, one-armed rock demon towering over him, its drool sizzling as it struck the wards. The creature’s wound had healed into a knobby stump at the end of its elbow. Its rage seemed even greater than the night before.
The coreling hammered at the barrier, ignoring the stinging flare of the magic. With deafening blows, the rock demon struck again and again, attempting to power through and take its vengeance. Arlen clutched the hare tightly, his eyes wide as he watched. He knew that the wards would not weaken from repeated blows, but it did little to stop the fear that the demon was determined enough to manage it anyway.
When the morning light banished the demons for another day, Arlen finally let go of the hare, and it bounded away immediately. His stomach growled as he watched it go, but after what they had shared, he could not bring himself to look at the creature as food.
Rising, Arlen stumbled and almost fell as a wave of nausea took him. The cuts along his back were lances of fire. He reached back to touch the tender, swollen skin, and his hand came away wet with the stinking brown ooze that Coline had drained from Silvy’s wounds. The cuts burned, and he felt flushed. He bathed in the cold pool again, but the chill water did little to ease his inner heat.
Arlen knew then he was going to die. Old Mey Friman, if she existed at all, was over two days away. If he truly had demon fever, though, it didn’t matter. He wouldn’t last two days.
Still, Arlen could not bring himself to give in. He stumbled on down the road, following the wagon ruts toward wherever they came from.
If he was to die, let it be closer to the Free Cities than the prison behind.
CHAPTER 4
LEESHA
319 AR
LEESHA SPENT THE NIGHT IN TEARS.
That, in and of itself, was nothing out of the ordinary, but it wasn’t her mother that had her weeping this night. It was the screams. Someone’s wards had failed; it was impossible to tell whose, but cries of terror and agony echoed in the dark, and smoke billowed into the sky. The whole village glowed with a hazy orange light as smoke refracted coreling fire.
The people of Cutter’s Hollow couldn’t search for survivors. They dared not even fight the fire. They could do nothing save pray to the Creator that embers did not carry on the wind and spread the flames. Houses in Cutter’s Hollow were built well apart for just this reason, but a strong breeze could carry a spark a long way.
Even if the fire remained contained, the ash and smoke in the air could easily obscure more wards with their greasy stain, giving corelings the access they desperately sought.
No corelings tested the wards around Leesha’s house. It was a bad sign, hinting that the demons had found easier prey in the dark.
Helpless and afraid, Leesha did the only thing she could. She cried. Cried for the dead, cried for the wounded, and cried for herself. In a village with fewer than four hundred people, there was no one whose death would not cut her.
Just shy of thirteen summers, Leesha was an exceptionally pretty girl, with long, wavy black hair and sharp eyes of pale blue. She was not yet flowered, and thus could not wed, but she was promised to Gared Cutter, the handsomest boy in the village. Gared was two summers older than her, tall and thickmuscled. The other girls squealed as he passed, but he was Leesha’s, and they all knew. He would give her strong babies. If he lived through the night.
The door to her room opened. Her mother never bothered to knock.
In face and form, Elona was much like her daughter. Still beautiful at thirty, she had long hair that hung rich and black about her proud shoulders. She also had a full, womanly figure that was the envy of all, the only thing Leesha hoped to inherit from her. Her own breasts had only just started to bud, and had a long way to go before they matched her mother’s.
“That’s enough of your blubbering, you worthless girl,” Elona snapped, throwing Leesha a rag to dry her eyes. “Crying alone gets you nothing. Cry in front of a man, if you want your way, but wetting your pillow won’t bring the dead to life.” She pulled the door closed, leaving Leesha alone again in the evil orange light flickering through the slats of the shutters.
Do you feel anything at all? Leesha wondered at her.
Her mother was right that tears would not bring back the dead, but she was wrong that it was good for nothing. Crying had always been Leesha’s escape when things were hard. Other girls might think Leesha’s life was perfect, but only because none of them saw the face Elona showed her only child when they were alone. It was no secret Elona had wanted sons, and Leesha and her father both endured her scorn for failing to oblige.
But she angrily dried her eyes all the same. She couldn’t wait until she flowered and Gared took her away. The villagers would build them a house for their wedding boon, and Gared would carry her across the wards and make a woman of her while they all cheered outside. She would have her own children, and treat them nothing like her mother treated her.
Leesha was dressed when her mother banged on her door. She had not slept at all.