Fire Heart (The Titans: Book One) (6 page)

“Charmed,” he said shortly. “What am I supposed to call you?” The words came out more gruffly than he had intended. The woman seemed pleasant enough, but Will still had an uneasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. Fortunately, she did not seem the least bit insulted.

“In a moment,” she said. She eyed him up and down as though gauging the worth of a particularly juicy looking apple in a market. Finally, after the uncomfortable silence had drawn on for some time, she said, “I have another story for you, should you wish to listen.”

Will's brow furrowed slightly. “Er...alright.”

She smiled. “Walk with me.”

Overhead the fireworks continued to burst intermittently, illuminating the world around them for the briefest of moments before fading away. They left the small wooded area and moved farther into the city, leaving the last traces of festival-goers behind until they were the only two souls walking down the cobblestone streets. The houses and shops to either side of them were dark and silent, and soon even the fireworks were far behind them. The stars overhead were beautiful, and Will said so. The woman did not answer.

When she finally did speak, her soft voice sounded sad. “After the gods of fire and earth were slain and the traitors routed, the surviving Titans met in secret in Feothon's Dark Forest. Despair had entered their hearts, for they had never known such tragedy.” The sound of Will's boots hitting the stone road seemed unnaturally loud, and he tried unsuccessfully to soften his footsteps. “They could think of no way to defeat the seven, for even in the High Councilors' weakened states the power of Keth was too strong. Koutoum was the only Titan who could prevail against the Dark One, and Koutoum's soul had been sent back to the abyss. But the Titans are immortal.” She looked at Will and held his gaze. “They will always come back, no matter what happens to their physical shells. It is both their blessing and their curse; they created life, and now they must fight forever to sustain it.

“Davin's personal retinue, the Dragon Guard, arrived in the Dark Forest soon after the Titans began
their meeting. Their Lord Commander told of how his king had given him one last mission: to await the birth of the next Dragon King. Feothon saw the wisdom behind this task, and so it was decided that the Titans would go into hiding until Koutoum returned. They went their separate ways once more, returning to their lands and their people and concealing them from the watchful eyes of the outside world. And, slowly but surely, the Titans faded from memory.”

The storyteller was silent for awhile. Eventually they came to a stop at the crest of a hill, the highest point in Prado. From their vantage point, Will could see the entire city sprawled out before him. At its center the festival was still very much alive, lights and sounds coupling to give the impression of a great beating heart.

“Beautiful, is it not?” the storyteller said finally.

Will looked at her askance. “It is.” They lapsed into silence again. Far away, fireworks continued to pop and flash over the city's core. “So...what about the Phoenix Empress?”

Will could not be certain, but he was almost positive that the corners of the woman's mouth twitched ever so slightly higher. “What about her?” she asked.

Something about the way she said it made Will uncomfortable, as though he had been caught doing something embarrassing. “Er...I don't know,” he muttered, self-consciously rubbing the back of his neck. “Just curious, I guess. You never said anything else about her.”

“Like I said, she died.”

“But that can't be it, right? You said yourself that she was the other half of Koutoum. She had to be important. I mean, the fact that the traitors took over her mind can't be the only thing worth mentioning about her life.”

The storyteller tipped her head toward Will. “So you were listening,” she breathed. She looked at him and clasped her hands in front of her. “What would you like to know?”

“Well...I guess...what was she like?”

“Beautiful.” The word sounded almost wistful. “Brilliant. Kind to those she cared for, terrible to those who would hurt her friends and family.”

After a moment's pause Will said, “And...?”

“The rest, I think, you will have to find out for yourself.”

“What?” Will cocked an eyebrow. “
You
started this whole thing. Now you're not going to finish it?”

The woman did not respond.

“Alright,” he said exasperatedly. “So what about the Dragon King? Was he similar?”

“Oh yes,” the woman breathed, and Will caught a hint of longing in her voice. “The Dragon King was strong and pure, and wise beyond his years. To think that one so unimaginably powerful could possess such compassion...”

Will stared at her with raised eyebrows, thinking that perhaps the storyteller might have gone a little too far in believing her own tale. “Alright...” he said. They were silent for awhile, and the storyteller seemed lost in deep thought.

“Why did you even tell me any of this?” Will asked after some time had passed.

“History is important,” she said with a smile. “Everyone should be informed of the past lest we repeat our mistakes. Knowledge of things preceding us also galvanizes our minds for the future.”

Will raised an eyebrow. “You're telling me a fairytale. I'd hardly call that history.”

The storyteller turned toward him with an unreadable expression. “Oh? The way you asked about
her
made me believe you thought otherwise.”

“I—no,” Will stammered, “I was just curious. Everybody knows the story of the Titans. I had just never heard that second half before.” Realization suddenly dawned on him. He pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut. “Great Black, you made that whole thing up, didn't you? Are you some kind of mad woman?” He threw his hands up in exasperation. “And to think I just followed you all the way here. How far away from the square did you bring me? It's going to take forever to get back.” He turned to leave.

“I haven't finished my story yet.” To his surprise, the woman was in front of him, blocking his way.

Will stared at her, looked behind him, and looked back. “How...?” He shook his head. “I haven't even had that much to drink. Strong stuff they serve here.” A thought suddenly occurred to Will, and his hand crept slowly toward his war hammer. “You're trying to rob me, aren't you?”

The storyteller laughed aloud, and there was a mischievous gleam in her wizened eyes. “Jhai, Zizo—we are done here. For now, at least.” The two bodyguards, absent until then, seemed to materialize out of the darkness, and Will suddenly realized why they looked familiar; they looked exactly like the deal broker who had given them the Prado contract.

Will reached for both sword and hammer, no longer attempting to mask his movements. “Don't try it, woman,” he said, his voice dangerously low.

The storyteller grinned. “True to your nature,” she whispered. When next she spoke, her voice seemed to twist itself around Will's body, and her words carried a weight he had not previously felt. “Seek me out should you wish to hear how the story ends. My name is Serah.”

Koutoum and Keth continued their journey across the world, enjoying the many wonders that Pallamar had to offer them. They visited the villages of humans, still in their early stages of existence, and watched as man and woman alike farmed and toiled beneath the sun, growing crops to feed themselves.

“Do you ever stop to wonder why they do this?” Keth asked Koutoum.

“I do not understand, Brother,” the other answered. “What do you mean?”

“This,” he said, gesturing expansively. “All the farming and working. For one, it seems dull to do the same thing day-in and day-out. And to what end are they doing it? They do not need to eat the plants they grow—they do it simply out of a desire to do so. So my question is: why? Why spend an eternity performing back-breaking labor to produce something that you do not need?”

Koutoum was speechless. “I...well...I suppose...”

But Keth waved his hand dismissively and smiled. “It was only a thought, Brother.”

~

Will awoke the next morning with a profound sense of confusion. For one, he had absolutely no memory of going to bed the previous night. Further, he had no memory of even walking back to the inn. He suspected the strange woman—what was her name...Serah?—had somehow drugged him.

With that thought in mind he leaped from his bed and made a thorough search of all his belongings, culminating in even greater confusion when it became clear that nothing had been stolen. He scratched the back of his head, yawned, stretched, and shrugged. If all the madwoman had wanted was to drug him, he supposed he could live with that.

Her story, though, was a different matter entirely.

Seek me out should you wish to hear how the story ends.
The words rattled ceaselessly around inside his head. He remained motionless, his mind abuzz, and a thought suddenly occurred to him. Had it all been a dream? Had he simply had so much to drink that his mind had conjured some bizarre hallucination? No...he'd had, what, a mug of ale? Maybe two? If it had been a dream, it had certainly been a vivid one.

He went into the next room where a washbasin had been filled with steaming water—an amenity provided for absolutely no charge—and got in, sighing contentedly as the heat washed over his body. His mind went blank for a moment and he was able to relax. He could not remember the last time he had been able to take a real, honest bath.

He emerged perhaps half a belltoll later after the water lost its heat, his body no longer sporting the stink of days on horseback under the Southland sun, and went back to his room to get dressed. He opted to forgo his usual raiment of weapons and armor, reasoning that there would be no need to dress for violence in a city that loved him.
On second thought...
He slid his war hammer into its place on his belt; the familiar weight was reassuring. And then, remembering the overbearing press of people the night before, he donned his hooded traveling cloak—the better to hide from the populace in.

Downstairs he met Castor, Katryna, and Hook, who exchanged morning pleasantries with him—which in Hook's case entailed waving and chuckling throatily. Katryna looked at the thin man with obvious distaste, and he waggled the stump of his tongue at her. Castor stifled a laugh.

Will's stomach growled and, taking his body's hint, he asked the innkeeper for some food. The man shuffled away and came back a moment later with a steaming shepherd's pie that smelled strongly of chicken. 

“Well? How'd you sleep?” Castor asked, waggling his eyebrows suggestively. “I saw you dancing with more pretty girls than I have fingers and toes.”

Katryna scoffed. “Don't be ridiculous. They never got past the dancing stage. I don't think Will even
likes girls.”

“What?!” Will cried, coughing as his mouthful of pie burned his tongue.

Katryna looked at him evenly. “When was the last time you did
anything
other than dance with a girl, Will?”

“I...well, I...” Will stammered, “I don't...remember. Look, I've just never found one that felt right.”

Castor looked at him askance. “What, like...?” He reached over and squeezed Katryna's breast. She gasped and slapped him, but tried unsuccessfully to hide a smile.

“No,” said Will, “I mean I've just never found the right one. They just...don't feel right.” He shrugged. “Listen, is this all you're going to talk about? Because I'm finding this more than a little strange.”

“Have you ever even been with a girl, Will?” Katryna asked. “You need to loosen up. Truly. All you ever do is kill people. You know...” she stretched luxuriantly, “the next time Castor's gone, I could help you with your problem.” She winked, and Castor stared open-mouthed at her.

“How much longer do we have to stay in this place?” Will asked in an attempt to change the subject. “The heat is driving me mad after just two days. I feel like I'm in an oven.”

“We'll be able to leave soon, once the city can scrounge up some new protection,” said Castor, apparently just as eager to switch topics. “We'll need to help train the new soldiers, I think. On a happier note, we got paid. Our employers came by earlier this morning to pick up the taen. Some strange desert woman, and two men who looked like the one that gave us the job.” Will choked on his pie once more, and Castor waited for the fit to subside before continuing. “She had a message for you—if you ever need to find her, open your heart. Or something like that.” He shook his head. “Nutter.”

Seek me out should you wish to hear how the story ends.

“Yes...” Will agreed slowly, but the word lacked conviction. He stared dazedly down at his food as the night's events came rushing back to him. The strange woman had been trying to tell him something important, he was sure of it. But why would she tell him a story about the Titans? They were a myth. Had she perhaps, like the girl Priscilla, seen him kill people? If she was trying to impart some moral value on Will in an attempt to temper his penchant for brutal violence, she was too late; Priscilla had done that already, though without meaning to. Besides, this Serah woman had
payed
them to kill people.

Thinking about the little girl suddenly brought forth an intense longing to go see her—to explain why exactly it was that killing was wrong.
Hypocrite,
said a child's voice in his head, but he brushed the word aside.
You will not haunt me today,
he thought.
Not today.

But deep down, he knew the word rang true. Killing was all he knew—it was what he was good at. How could he tell someone to follow his example when it was not, in fact, his example at all? But no—just because he had lost himself to violence long ago did not mean he had to let the girl fall into the same trap.

“Will?” Katryna asked, startling him from his reverie. She and Castor were looking at him curiously. “Are you alright?”

“Oh—yes, fine,” he said quickly. He took a hasty bite of food. “Sorry, I was daydreaming. Listen, since we're going to be here for awhile, would you mind if I went around the city today? There's something I'd like to do.”

Castor made a shooing gesture. “I dare say you've earned a day off. Go find a brothel or something while you're out there.” He laughed at Will's stricken expression.

~

Summer in the Southlands,
he thought glumly as he stepped outside and into what felt like a solid wall of heat—muggy, miserable heat that hung like a rotting cloud over the earth. The Pradians had learned to deal with this heat; Will had not. He had grown up on the outskirts of Montriggia, a temperate city where the summer's fury was lessened by the constant influx of cool air that blew in from the west
across the Great Lake. In the Pradian flatlands, though, there were only scattered copses of gnarled oaks, clumps of dry grass, and endless swathes of dirt. It did not help that Prado lay in the lowest point of a great bowl that stretched from the foothills in the south to the mountains in the east, and nearly all the way to Farenzo far to the northwest. And now, away from the cooler clay walls of the inn and out among the suffocating press of Pradian peasantry, Will was sweating profusely and wishing with all his might for a pitcher of iced water. The sun-baked stones beneath his feet did nothing to ease his suffering.

“How does anybody stand this?” he muttered under his breath. “Thank the Void I went without the armor.”

Miserable as he was, though, he attempted to put it out of his mind for the moment; he had more important things to do. He first made his way toward where he thought he remembered the city hall was, reasoning that perhaps somebody there would be able to help him find Priscilla's family. After all, the endless horde of fabulously wealthy people he had seen at the festival had to be good for something.

But when the sun was at its zenith and the city at its hottest, he finally gave up. “City officials” apparently meant “rich people who have no idea what they are doing”. Nobody seemed to have a clue as to where he should even begin looking for the family. Will found that slightly ridiculous—it was not as though blonde hair was a common trait anywhere but in the Northlands. Here in Prado the heads swarming about him were comprised entirely of varying shades of brown, with the odd white mane sprinkled in intermittently. One child with curly blonde locks should have stuck out like a sore thumb; it was part of the reason the citizenry found it so easy to recognize Castor, and the Ravens had used his odd trait to their advantage many times before.

In the end, he went to the closest tavern he could find, defeated for the moment but not indefinitely. He sat at a table and flicked a silver mark at the owner.

“What'll it be?” the man, a portly fellow with a massive gray beard, asked gruffly.

“Some water, please,” said Will, “and something cold to eat if you've got it.”

The man raised an eyebrow, and then both his eyes opened wide. “Why, you're—you're—”

“Yes,” Will interrupted with a nervous laugh. “But please, don't draw attention to it.” His short stint as a celebrity the night before had given him his fill of fame for awhile. “Please—the food and drink.”

The man bowed absurdly low, and Will rolled his eyes. “Of course, young master,” the man said, and then he was gone.

The tavern was dark—a welcome relief after his journey under the painfully bright sun—and its walls, made of the same grey clay that nearly all of the structures in Prado were, kept the place relatively cool. And there were only a few people inside, which was nice, if a bit confusing. Will could not for the life of him understand why anybody would rather be outside in the heat. The murmur of voices in conversation was enough to lull Will, tired from the ordeals of the past few days, almost to sleep.

“...attacks keep happening,” Will heard one man say in a hushed voice, and suddenly he was wide awake. He turned slightly, the better to hear the conversation. “Everybody says it's bandits,” the man continued, “but I don't think so. It's more of them bastards from Karkash, says I. They're always coming round and making life miserable for us honest folk. Or maybe it's Ainos—I hear from the odd sandman what comes around here that they've been going at it hard of late. Odd, though. I thought they lived far enough away that they wouldn't bother the Faithful. 'Course, it doesn't help that the Clergy won't send any men to fend 'em off even when they're knocking at our front door.”

“I hear they have a king,” said another man. “The Ainoans, I mean. Don't make any kind of sense to me, how somebody could rule all those crazy ruffians.”

“No, it's the Karkashians that have a king, and he's an
emperor
,” said a third. “But he's got powers, see?
I
hear he lives in a big fortress with minions just like him, and he uses dark forces to control his subjects.”

“Listen to you two,” the first man scoffed. “Talkin' of powers and dark forces. Ain't no such thing. Next thing you'll be telling me about how the Titans are real. Anyway, where was I? So the
Clergy
, see, they—”

Will turned his attention elsewhere. It was no secret that Gefan's Clergymen were self-serving under the best of circumstances. Ignoring the three old-timers, he passed his gaze around the tavern. He was mildly surprised to see a young boy standing in the doorway—and even more surprised to realize that the boy was staring in his direction. He wore tattered, weathered clothes, and his body was hunched as though from intense pain. He looked over his shoulder to see if there was anyone behind him—there wasn't—and when he turned back around, the boy was gone. He raised an eyebrow, perplexed.

“Your drink, sir,” said a woman's voice behind Will. “And a bowl of fruit. Will that please you?”

“Yes,” Will said, looking up, “thank—you!”

The barmaid was none other than Priscilla's older sister, and her eyes widened as she recognized him. Will almost laughed at his own luck.

“Milord,” the girl said, curtsying and averting her gaze, but Will waved a hand dismissively.

“Enough of that,” he said, and she tentatively lifted her eyes. “Please—I must speak with your sister. I feel I need to...right some wrongs.” A thought occurred to him suddenly. “Say, did an old woman find you with a bag of money?”