After the Fire (After the Fire: Book the First) (7 page)

A
slurping sound, wet and thick, pierced the air, until now completely
silent. Eleni gagged on the smell. The woman's stomach had been
sliced open and her organs spilled out onto the floor. Eleni looked
at the dead woman's face.

It
wasn't her.

Eleni
stood and backed away, the woman's dead eyes seeming to follow her.
She stumbled and almost fell on something soft. She looked around to
see it was the body of a boy-child, his neck broken and twisted. And
by the fire pit in the center of the room, a man, separated from his
head, just as Cosmin had been.

Eleni
straightened. Her mother was not here. She should rejoice in that
fact. But instead she felt empty. She had been fooled all these
years. She had stayed for her mother. She had been a prisoner, a
slave. And the entire time it had been for nothing. Her mother must
have left long ago. Left her here to rot. Eleni looked at the bodies
again. Then she raised both her fists in front of her. She released
the fire in a great cloud of flame, her power increasing with her
anger, her frustration, and her grief.

She
stood and watched the flames engulf the old wood of the walls, in the
place she had felt most loved. It traveled quickly around the
circular hut, crawling over sleeping mats and shelves containing tins
and bags of grains and spices. When it reached the woman, Eleni could
feel it lapping warmly around her feet and legs. When she smelled
hair burning she turned and walked out the door. Her dress had burned
mostly off and Fin's coat was in tatters, but she barely noticed.

She
walked through the village, raising her arms at every home and
freeing the fire to gorge greedily at the shoddy houses. She let her
rage wash over her like an intoxicating poison. She let it fuel the
fire, making the village into a raging funeral pyre that would
destroy every trace of this place that had made her life unbearable.
She had told Alin she would burn the village to the ground, and now
it was happening.

Eleni
stopped. Thinking of Alin gave her pause. He had been kind to her.
Even if he had participated in the facade, he had at least showed
kindness to her, and shame about his role. She turned, looking toward
the corner of the village where he lived. She hadn't burned it yet.

The
smoke billowed around her and formed a column in the sky. She burned
as she went, but stopped at Alin's hut. The door had been torn off.
Eleni entered. Alin was lying on his cot, where it looked like he had
dragged himself, a smear of blood left on the floor. He looked just
as dead as the rest of them. Eleni looked him over. His arm had been
ripped off at the elbow, but Alin had had enough sense to tie a cloth
around his bicep. One of his legs was broken, too.

Suddenly,
Alin coughed, a wet spluttering thing. Eleni recognized the cough,
and knew somehow that he was bleeding inside. He had been struck,
probably.

“You
are dying,” she said.

Alin
turned his head toward her very slowly. He nodded. “Yes,”
he said. His eyes were pained, but there was something behind the
pain. Something that reminded Eleni of her mother for some reason. “I
am happy you are safe,” he said. “You do not look
injured.”

“I
was locked in my box,” Eleni said coolly. “It took me
time to get out.”

Alin
laughed, but it turned into the wet, sickly cough. “To think,”
he said. “Cosmin put you in that damned box to keep the village
safe from you. It turns out, when danger came calling, you were the
safest of us all.” Alin closed his eyes, exhausted. He opened
them again slowly. “I suppose you know,” he said.
“Judging by the smoke. I assume the Reivers
didn't do that.”

“I
did it,” said Eleni. “You lied to me.”

Alin
sucked in a rattling breath. Despite the tourniquet, he was bleeding
quite heavily from his arm. It wasn't spurting, but it flowed in a
thin rivulet from the shredded meat and white bone that Eleni could
see sticking out through the blood. The rough weave of the mat
beneath him was dark with blood. Eleni reached out to touch the
wound, to burn it into stopping, but Alin held up a hand, stopping
her. She took her hand back.

“I
lied,” Alin said. “It pains me. It has always pained me.
I love you like family.”

“That
is not how families should be,” said Eleni, her teeth clenched.

“But
that is how they are,” said Alin weakly. “We lie to each
other because of the love we feel.”

“That
makes no sense,” said Eleni. She was angry and confused now.
“How could lying be for love?”

“You
have so much to learn, child,” said Alin. He blinked slowly at
her, almost drowsily. “It is my fault. I should have taught you
more. I thought I had more time.” He coughed again and blood
flecked his lower lip and chin. He closed his eyes and for a moment
Eleni thought he was gone. But after a few heartbeats he opened his
eyes again, heavily, as if the lifting were
a labor. “I made a promise,” he
said, his voice weak. He was so pale he was almost blue. “To
your mother.”

“My
mother?” said Eleni.

“I
failed,” he said. “I was supposed to keep something for
you. A bauble on a chain. Most outstanding. But a Reiver
took it. He ripped off my arm when I wouldn't give it to him. Then he
threw me across the room.”

“What
kind of bauble?” said Eleni.

“I
do not know what it was,” said Alin, closing his eyes. He
opened them wide again, as if starting awake. “Full of
lightning, it was. Extraordinary.”

“Your
promise,” said Eleni, “was to save a piece of jewelry for
me?”

Alin
swallowed with effort, his throat muscles working. “My promise
was to keep you here as long as I could.” His chest heaved. His
eyes rolled up, then back down. He looked as if he was trying hard to
focus on her. “Safe...in the village. Something...get you.”

“Why
did she leave?” said Eleni. “Why did she leave me here?”

“She
left...to save...you,” said Alin. “Something...get you.
Far worse...than living...iron box.” Alin closed his eyes then
and exhaled noisily. And then he was gone.

Eleni
knelt down and touched his face. She closed her eyes and listened to
her own breath for a moment. When she opened them again she looked at
Alin one last time. Then she set the cot on fire. “May your
journey to the Underworld be a pleasant one,” she said under
her breath. She walked out of the house and looked around.

The
buildings she had set alight were burning to ashes. She suddenly had
no wish to continue wasting her energy on this place. Except one
more. She walked to the blacksmith's workshop. Metal sheets were
propped up against the meager shack. Tools lay strewn about, probably
by the Reivers.
Eleni looked at it for a long time. It hadn't been the blacksmith's
fault. He was only following Cosmin's orders. She remembered being
led away as a child, out of the gates that had been so recently
finished. She remembered how they shone so brightly in the sun it had
hurt her eyes. The wall was brown with rust now. She had looked back
over her shoulder to see her mother crying, being held back by
several women. They were cooing comforting things to her. No one had
cooed to Eleni. They had yanked her this way and that when she locked
her legs into the earth. The two men had hauled her through the gates
and moments later she had her first glimpse of the box that would be
her home and her prison for many, many winters. They had pushed her
in. She wanted to burn them, to make them stop, but her mother had
always told her that was so terribly wrong. When the door latched for
the first time, she had cried until she fell asleep on the mat they
had given her.

Eleni
wiped her face angrily with the heel of her hand. She looked at the
blacksmith's hut, her eyes clouding with anger and sadness and loss.
As she turned her back on it, she sent out a burst of fire from her
hand, still dripping with her own tears. She walked away without
looking back as it erupted into flame.

As
she walked out of the gate, she saw a figure standing in the field.
The sun was bright all around him, but he seemed to be somehow in
shadow. She knew him then, not as Fin. She remembered another name.

“Alaunus,”
she said to him when she had walked to him. “Do they call you
that? Alaunus?” She didn't realize how weak she was until she
spoke to him. Her voice was raspy from the smoke and she felt as
though she might fall over.

“Yes,”
he said, looking at her, his face serious.

“How
did I know that?” said Eleni. “How do I know so many
things when I have not yet lived a true life?”

“Because
you are extraordinary,” said Fin. “Are you all right?”

“The
Reivers...”
Eleni looked down so Fin would not see the emotion on her face. Her
dress was blackened and burned up to her knees and elbows. And
smeared with blood and dirt. She looked back up at Fin almost
defiantly. “You were right. She was not there. She has not been
there for a very long time. She left. Alin said it was to save me.
I...” She trailed off and looked away from him. He just watched
her, his eyes studying her.

“Eleni,
I'm sorry,” he said finally. He reached out a hand to touch
her, but she shrank from him, stumbling to the side.

“Tell
me a truth,” she said. “What could there be that was so
bad that a mother had to abandon her child? What could there be that
was so dangerous that being locked in a metal box was better than
leaving?”

“There
are a great many things you do not yet know, Eleni,” said Fin.

“But
you will not tell me,” she said. “Just as Alin would not
tell me my mother was gone. So many lies and half-truths. You tell me
one reason that I should go with you. One right reason and I will
go.”

“You
have no village,” said Fin.

“I
have had no village for a great long while,” said Eleni. “It
was I supplying the village, not the other way round. I can survive
without them. They could not survive without me.”

“Aye,”
said Fin. “True enough.” He sighed. “I was told not
to tell you this. That you would not be ready to hear this yet.”

“But
you are going to tell me anyway,” said Eleni. She was so tired
that it felt as though she had to push the words out to talk.

“I
suppose I am,” said Fin. He smiled with his eyes. Eleni liked
seeing him do that. “The friend I'm taking you to see, her name
is Magda. She can help you find your mother.”

Eleni
narrowed her eyes at him. “Another lie?” she said. “To
get you what you want?”

“No,”
said Fin, offended. “The truth.”

“Why
would she do this for me?” said Eleni.

“Not
for you,” he said. “For her, too. She's been looking for
your mother for a very long time.”

Eleni
shook her head, confused again. “Why is she looking for my
mother?”

“Because
Magda is her sister.”

Chapter
Six

Fin
took Eleni to the spot where he'd made camp. To an outsider it would
look just like
any other part of the forest. There was no indentation in the patch
of grass where he slept because everything he touched grew back as it
had been. He drank from the stream and he made no fire. He ate from
his traveling pouch and any food he noticed in the woods along the
way. He could be as invisible as he needed to in the forest. It
wasn't his natural home, but he felt comfortable enough there.

Eleni
had stumbled a few times, but ignored his offers of help. She lay
down in the grass where the sun met the shade. Exactly where he had
been lying only hours before. The sunlight shone on her face and she
closed her eyes. For a moment, for the first time since Fin had met
her, Eleni looked happy. She looked tired to the marrow, but happy.
Then she started to snore.

Fin
heard her rustle the grass when she woke. He felt it when she jerkily
pulled at the tent of ivy he had grown around her. He knew when she
lunged out of the shelter and into the brisk air.

He
was sharpening a knife on a stone and didn't stop when he heard her.
The wolf was resting by his side, watching the movement of the knife
as he slid it across the stone. The animal's eyes shifted to Eleni,
but Fin didn't turn. This was her chance to run if she wanted to. He
wasn't going to force her to come with him. The wolf made no move to
go to her. Fin sensed her looking towards the thick of trees at her
back. If she ran she would never find out what had happened to her
mother. He could almost feel her thought process. Weighing her
options. He wondered if she had ever had options before.

Fin
stopped sharpening his knife. Without turning around, he spoke to her
in a low voice. “Feeling better?”

“Yes,”
said Eleni. “Much better.”

“I'm
sorry if the plants scared you,” he said. “I was afraid
you'd be scorched by the sun.”

“They
didn't scare me,” said Eleni, her voice defensive. Fin smiled a
small smile.

“Are
you going to run?” said Fin. “Or are you going to come
with me?” Eleni was silent. “I can't make you come, you
know,” he said. “You are free to do as you please. But I
think Magda can help you. And it might not hurt to meet some of your
family. No one should be alone in this world.”

Eleni
walked around him and crouched. She picked at the long grass. The
moonlight fell on her pale skin and gave the impression that she was
glowing from within. Perhaps she was. But when she looked at him, her
eyes were disarmingly pale. Fin felt she was shooting ice into his
chest when she looked at him with those eyes. They were such a pale
blue they were almost white. “Are you alone?” she said.

“Aye,”
he said. “I am. Now.”

“Have
you lost someone?”

Fin
didn't look at her. He looked away toward the direction of the moon,
rising in the sky. He may have gotten angry at anyone else who asked
such a blunt personal question. But Eleni didn't know anything of
social niceties, though he was sure she could understand his pain.
“My brother,” he said. “And two sisters.”