All That Burns (6 page)

“Bree?”

My friend turns. “Remember, Emrys. You have to remember.”

“What? What do I have to remember?”

Breena grips my arm, pulls me back to where she was standing. She points into the mist, her eyes keen, focused on something I’m unable to see.

“Remember.” Breena’s fingers dig into my skin.

“Bree.” I try not to sound exasperated as I look into the fog. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Remember! Remember!” More voices join: a rough, croaking chant coming from my feet. The ground is black with ravens, their eyes glittering like tiny beetles, their sharp beaks clacking out the same syllables. “Remember! Remember!”

Breena isn’t talking anymore. She’s just staring. As if she’s trying to tell me something, but can’t.

And then the mist falls away, crumples like an invisible giant drawing back a curtain. We’re standing over a valley, looking down on death. What was once green is mud— churned and mixed with the blood of a thousand men. Full of flailing horses, snapped spears, and knights carving each other to pieces with crude metal. Just below us—on the long low ridge of our hill—a castle burns.

It’s been years upon years. So long that the mortals have forgotten it. But I know this fortress even in the thick of sleep. This exact image has lived in my mind for centuries: turrets and stones wreathed high with fire.

Breena and I stand on the hill, watching as Camelot falls apart. Knight by knight. Flame by searing flame.

“Remember,” Breena says again.

“I do.” I feel King Arthur’s fall, tumbling around in my chest: the broken blood magic, the ruined castle, the sink of Mordred’s black blade through Arthur’s armor.

“No!” Breena’s scream is sharp, a needle jammed into my eardrum. “Remember!!”

My neck whips around and I’m ready to yell at her. But Breena is gone. The fingers around my arms belong to Guinevere. Those ratted, yellow nails dig into my skin again. Her eyes are as white as the mists—sucking me in.

I want to tear away from her. But all I can do is stare as her shrieks fall down like rain. “I will show you ruin! Kingdom’s fall! I flipped wrong and the world burned.”

Heat sears my back, as if the fire from the valley has clawed to where we stand. I try to pull away, but the ancient’s grip is tight.

A snaggletoothed smile takes over her face. “You found it. But blind eyes still need to see.”

I look away from her, down to the ground. The ravens are gone.

“Puppets. With smiles on their faces. That’s how they died.” Guinevere cackles and releases my arm. I stumble back. Over the ledge, and into the valley. Onto the coal-hot stones of Camelot.

I
’m still reaching for something to hold on to, something to save me from the fall seconds after I jerk awake. My eyes are open, but I still see Guinevere’s crazed face. Her laughter rings through my ears.

I’m breathing hard, staring at the golden moldings of the ceiling. I’ve been asleep for hours.

Richard’s laptop and notes are gone, as well as the newspaper. An antique candelabra sits in their place. Its three flames sputter, offering a small globe of light into the vast room.

It seems Lights-down has already started.

I groan and wipe some hair out of my face. My fingers come back slick with sweat. Traces of the dream still rage under my skin. It felt so real. As if I were there again, watching the Pendragon’s kingdom go down in flames. A fire so hot and strong it made my arm hairs singe. I can still feel the burn. . . .

“You had a nightmare?”

My heart is already racing, but the suddenness of Richard’s voice causes it to explode. He’s in a chair just beyond the candles’ glow, watching me.

“I—” I stop. Swallow. A nightmare. That’s all it was. Just my brain taking fragments of my day. Trying to make sense of the past twenty-four hours.

But terror still clings to the edges of my throat. I look at the trio of flames and all I see is the castle. Twisting arms of fire, eating away an entire kingdom. I lean forward, snuff all three with a single breath. The room swirls into smoky darkness.

I scrape meager magic from my veins, weave it into a whisper: “
Inlíhte.”

The room flickers in my weak, watery light. I don’t even have the strength to loop it. The glow is already growing dimmer, shedding brightness every second.

“You didn’t have to do that,” Richard’s voice is hoarse, as if he’s been crying. His face looks so sad in my hungry, fading light. “I thought I lost you, Embers. When you jumped and you didn’t come up . . . It was awful. A thousand hells.”

I think of the newspaper, with Richard’s relentless stare begging me not to jump. I think of the way I tore
from his grasp, hurtling myself into those dark and vicious waters.

I should have listened. I should have waited for Helene and the other Frithemaeg to show up. I should have stood by Richard’s side. But I know I couldn’t. If there was another Kelpie, raging and frothing under my feet, I would jump again.

For some reason I thought it would be easy—passing on the baton—letting others handle the fight for me. But the jumping, the fighting—it’s in my blood. It’s everything I’ve ever known. Thousands of years can’t be let go in a single second. Lifetimes can’t be undone so simply.

I don’t know how to tell him this.

“I’m all right, Richard.” My words are timid, hollowed out like bones. “I’m right here.”

“Yes. But—you’re not what you were before. And I think that sometimes you forget that.” I know he doesn’t mean to be cruel. Just the opposite—the love rises up behind his eyes. But his words go deep, remind me of everything I was: Power. Fight. Flight. A maelstrom.

Everything I’m not.

He’s wrong. I never forget. Every single time I see
Richard, kiss him, I feel it all: the gain and the loss.

“I love you, Emrys,” he goes on. “I can’t lose you. Not after everything. Promise me you’ll stay safe. Promise me you won’t use your magic like that again.”

I can’t breathe. It’s just like being underwater again. Except there’s no Kelpie. No Thames. Just words jamming my head.

I should promise him this.

But I can’t.

Richard looks at me in that piercing, all-encompassing way of his. Those hazel irises smolder. And I see all of my fear, all of my sadness flung back at me in ghost light.

He knows who I am. He knows I can’t promise.

And still he’s asking.

“You can’t do this to me,” Richard fills my silence. “It’s not fair. I spent hours waiting, not knowing . . .”

“Not fair?” Everything I’ve endured for the past twenty-four hours sweeps back over me. The emptiness of the cell. The horror of Guinevere’s face. The fear of drowning. The anger that I’m not what I was.

And the nightmare—that’s taken all of my feelings, shifted them into the wrong gear.

“Not
fair
?” My words rage in the dying light. “I just
saved your life! I’ve given you
everything
and you want me to give up more?”

Richard rakes anxious fingers through his hair. His face is crumpled, frowning. “That’s not what I meant—”

“Oh really? Then what did you mean?” My insides are snarl and heat.

Before—when I was power and maelstrom—I always had to bite back my anger. The same way I had to hold back my kisses. For fear of harming Richard in my passion. There’s nothing in my way now. I can unleash all my fury and the Faery light won’t even flicker.

The king doesn’t answer. His face is hidden in his hands.

“I gave up everything for a ghost! You’re never here, Richard. If you’re not at Parliament then you’re at some meeting with Lord Winfred or a hundred different people! But never me!

“Every single day I have to watch the Frithemaeg fly in and out. I have to remember that I can’t. I can’t and you’re gone and it just feels like too much!”

Richard lets out a hot, even breath. “I know things have been crazy. This is the way it has to be, Embers. Just for a while, until Lights-down is firmly established and
we have more support in Parliament.”

“And then what? After Lights-down there’s the Reforestation Bill. And after that there will be something else. There will always be something else!”

“We’re creating a new world.” He sounds so solid, unshaken by my verbal cuts. Like he’s too tired to fight. “I thought that’s what you wanted.”

“I wanted
us
, Richard. Do you realize we haven’t spent an entire day together since I took you to the London Eye? That was over two months ago!”

“Emrys,” his voice turns more serious. “This is my job. My duty. I promised Herne. I gave him my word. For
us.
So we could be together.”

His words, what he’s saying should make sense. I know this in my head, but my emotions are a snake inside me. Coiling tight, crowding out all logic. I want to make him angry. I want him to fight. Yell. Anything. Anything except sitting there with exhausted, glazed eyes.

So I asked the question I know will cut, dig deep. That kernel of a question Kieran planted in the corner of my mind.

“Is this worth it?”

Richard stares. It takes him a moment to find his voice.
It’s still steady. Still flat. “You don’t mean that.”

“Maybe I do! I didn’t give up everything for this!” My arm sweeps through the room. “Not Lights-down or Buckingham or any of it. I gave up my magic for us. For
you
.”

He closes his eyes. My light is almost out. The Lights-down darkness—so utter and pure—closes in around us.

“You’re not even fighting me.” I can’t tell if I’m yelling or sobbing. Or both. “It’s like you don’t even care.”

“Don’t say that.” His breath is a knife—sharp, edged with pain. “Don’t ever say that.”

“Then do something! Fight me!”

“I can’t!” His yell explodes hot inside my chest.

The Faery light I thought was dead seizes the room. Angry white—bright as toothaches and sunstruck snow—culls out everything: Richard’s knotted jaw and tight, tortured fists, the blood braiding down my arm, the distance between us. We’re both frozen, watching with black-hole eyes as the
inlíhte
blazes through its second life. Fading . . .

It seems my anger isn’t as safe to express as I thought.

Darkness collapses back over the room.

“Stop,” Richard whispers, his words tangled with fear. “Please stop, Emrys.”

I don’t know if I can. There’s too much inside me. Spinning, hissing. Wanting to lunge, to fight like I always do. I have to get out of here, before I say words I don’t mean. Before I hurt him.

I walk to the door and leave Richard in the dark.

D
uring my first few weeks as a mortal, when sleep was new and impossible, I walked to soothe my insomnia. At first I looped through Buckingham’s halls, but those became rote. Then I started walking the grounds, and later venturing into London’s streets.

Tonight the city is especially barren, with the black cloak of Lights-down draped over its blocks. Streetlamps stand—useless pillars of metal and glass—over parked cars and unlit Underground signs. There’s no roar of the night train under my feet. No growl of traffic in the distance. It’s eerie how silent the city is.

Usually these walks are a way to recharge; my soul thrives on solitude and starlight. But tonight is different. Perhaps it’s the quiet. Or the extra layers of dark. Every step I take feels strung and anxious, like a chase. I don’t know if I’m running from something or to it.

I thought I could slip into a mortal life. That love was worth it all.

But right now this feels like the farthest thing from the truth. Everything inside me is astir. Storm-cloud emotions rise in bits and pieces, like shattered branches caught in a gale.

Weak.

Powerless.

A fire without flame.

You’re not what you were before.

I knew it wouldn’t be easy, giving up my magic. I just didn’t know it would be this hard.

The windows I pass are lit with lantern glow, like jack-o’-lanterns queued up for All Hallows’ Eve. They gleam and grin, offering glimpses inside. A family plays a board game around an oil lamp. A couple drinks red wine at their dining room table, gazing at each other over candlelight.

Normal, happy lives. Never knowing anything else. I envy them. Their flightless, dull, coffee-drinking existence. They don’t have to live with the ache of being grounded.

I walk and walk. Feel every step.

The Thames appears. Its waters whisper by. I try to imagine how Richard felt, staring, waiting for me to resurface.

A thousand hells. That’s how he described it. I know how it feels. I felt the scorch the moment Mab’s blade broke through Richard’s belly and he died in my arms. The moment I was far more broken than I am now.

Everything I’ve lost, I’ve lost for him.

Richard is enough. He has to be.

Something catches the corner of my eye. A glare too harsh for stars or flame, arching electric across the river. Dozens of lights strung over Westminster Bridge.

It’s a parade: people marching with signs and electric torches. The night’s quiet is shredded by their voices. There’s a rhythm to them, punching like drumbeats.

“Shut down Lights-down! Shut down Lights-down!”

There can’t be more than two hundred of them, but their yells are loud, piercing. They rattle the asphalt at my feet. Every scream threads needle sharp through my bones.

I stay still next to the dark lamppost. The crowd slides by like a funeral wake. Their signs stab the air.

GIVE UP POWER
,
BECOME POWERLESS
!

DON
’
T DRAG US BACK INTO THE DARK AGES
.

GO BACK TO HELL
,
MONSTERS
!

Monsters.

Before it had only been a quote in a newspaper. The feeling behind Elaine Forsythe’s glance. But here, in front
of the Palace of Westminster, it rages. So sharp, so real.

Do you really think the mortals will let you into their world? That you can become one of them just by giving up some spells?
Kieran’s questions rise up, color the night.