Light My Fire by G. A. Aiken

  Using a clean cloth, Dagmar wrapped bread and cheese and placed them into the travel bag. As she organized the bag to her satisfaction, she glanced over at Annwyl the Bloody, who was busy reading a thick book while sitting on her throne, a leg thrown casually over one of the arms, the other tucked up awkwardly next to her thigh.

  Dagmar could tell that Annwyl had no other plans for the day but to read and occasionally take breaks to train with her men. Annwyl was an unusual monarch, but Dagmar had been getting better at handling the queen the longer they worked together.

  “You wanted to see me, Mum?” Var asked. He’d quietly moved up beside her just as she’d taught him when he was old enough to understand. Which, it turned out, happened to be about day five after his birth.

  “Yes. Your aunt Ghleanna is returning to Bram’s castle near Bolver Fields—”

  “Where the Battle of Fychan took place a few centuries back.”

  Dagmar stared over at Annwyl until she glanced up from her book. “What are you glaring at me for?” the queen asked. When Dagmar did nothing but continue to stare, Annwyl said, “He asks questions, I answer them. Maybe I told him about a few battles, pointed out a few books he could read for more information . . .”

  Dagmar slowly let out air through her nose, a trick she used because it made it sound like she was giving a low, animalistic growl. Quite effective during negotiations and very effective when dealing with Queen Annwyl.

  “Anyway,” Dagmar went on, “you’ll be going with her.”

  Dagmar pushed her son’s travel bag into his arms, and the boy’s grey eyes grew wide when he understood what she was saying to him. That he’d be traveling with his great-aunt Ghleanna without his mother going along.

  “But,” Dagmar quickly cut in, “this is just for tonight. I’m not going to just send you off to live with Bram. We’re going to ease into this and—”

  Var’s arms wrapped around Dagmar’s waist, cutting off the rest of her words. She stroked his golden head and kissed the top of it.

  “You know I’ll miss you, don’t you?” she said softly.

  “Not going into battle, Mum,” her son quickly reminded her. “Just over to Uncle Bram’s for a day . . . to read. In quiet.”

  As if to drive that point home, five of his sisters charged from their room and down the stairs and out the front doors . . . screaming, “Destruction-ho!” all the way. And behind them? Their father. He wasn’t screaming, though. He was roaring, teasing his daughters as he loved to do every morning.

  Gwenvael stopped by Dagmar and Var. He kissed her, then focused on the way she was hugging her son.

  “Everything all right?”

  “Everything’s fine.”

  “Good,” he said, then charged out the door after his daughters, the screaming amplifying once he caught up with them.

  Var rested his chin against his mother’s chest and gazed up into her face. “Wonderful, blissful quiet.”

  “I understand. I understand.”

  “Where’s Arlais?” Annwyl asked.

  Busy brushing Var’s hair off his face, Dagmar asked, “Who?”

  “Your eldest daughter?”

  Dagmar blinked, still confused, then she jerked. “Oh. Yes. She’s with Keita.”

  Var pulled away from her abruptly, gazing at his mother in mute horror. Annwyl slammed her book shut and was staring at her the same way as Var.

  Dagmar tossed up her hands. “What? What did I do?”

  “You handed off your ridiculously pompous and bloodthirsty child to Keita?” Annwyl demanded.

  “Keita likes spending time with her. She only has male offspring.”

  “She’s the family poisoner,” Annwyl reminded her, and with such a tone, too! So much tone!

  Dagmar gave a shrug and admitted, “Arlais will need some skills beyond being a royal and beautiful, and the only one who can spend more than five minutes with her and not have an overwhelming desire to smother her with a pillow, is Keita.”

  Var glanced at the queen and nodded. “Mum is right, Auntie Annwyl. Keita is the only one who can do that.”

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Elina sat at the small table in the alcove. She hefted the pitcher of clean water and began to pour into the battered pewter mug.

  But she missed the mug and poured onto the wood table.

  Snarling a curse in her native tongue, she hauled the pitcher back so she could hurl it at the wall, but Celyn was suddenly there, yanking it from her hands.

  “I can pour water for you,” he said with a smile while gripping the pitcher as if he were protecting a small child from her wrath.

  Elina slammed her hands down on the now-wet table. “I do not need you to pour water for me. I am not invalid.” She pushed her chair away and stood. “I can manage fine on my own.”

  And to prove that, she tried to walk around the table but ended up banging her leg against it. Again.

  That’s when the table went flying, Elina roaring with rage.

  Celyn placed the pitcher on the floor and stepped over to Elina’s side. He tugged her over to the bed and forced her to sit.

  “I know this is frustrating—”

  “You know nothing, Dolt.”

  “Then I can guess. But taking it out on my should-be-dead aunt’s furniture doesn’t help anything. Least of all you.”

  “You should have let Glebovicha finish me.”

  “Don’t be an idiot, Elina.”

  “So I am stupid?”

  “Aye! At this moment, you are! Very fucking stupid!” He took in a breath, let it out, was calm again. “I’m not trying to say this will be an easy transition for you, and I’m sure that you are very hurt right now—”

  “Hurt?”

  “Aye. Hurt. How could you not be hurt? Glebovicha is your mother.”

  “I know that. But I am not child. I am not hurt. I am angry that she would go this far. And disappointed in myself for failing yet another task!”

  “Maybe you’re being too hard on yourself.”

  “And maybe you should stop being so nice!” she said, using both her hands against his chest to push him.

  “Maybe I like being nice to you!” he shot back, pushing her by the shoulders.

  “Why?” she demanded, pushing him again. “Out of pity? I do not need your pity!”

  “I don’t pity you! I . . .”

  “You . . . what?”

  “I don’t know.” Celyn pushed her again. “You’re confusing the hell out of me!”

  Celyn didn’t know what was happening to him. He was telling Elina the truth. He didn’t pity her. At all. But, instead, his heart ached for her. He’d known from the very beginning that no matter how good or bad things might have gone on this excursion into the Outerplains, when he went home, his mother would be there to praise or comfort him. Not attack him. Not come at him with weapons.

  Even when his brother Fal continued to disappoint Ghleanna, she still loved him. “Always and forever,” she’d told all of them at one time or another. And she’d proved that devotion every day.

  And it broke Celyn’s dragon heart to know that Elina had never known such love or acceptance from her own gargantuan-sized mother. A woman so big but with the tiniest heart known to gods or dragons.

  But that wasn’t pity. It was empathy. His father had taught him about that. Taught Celyn and Brannie to have empathy for all living beings, often warning with a laugh, “Your royal cousins will need someone in their lives to have empathy, otherwise this world is lost, my little hatchlings.”

  So while Elina thought he was just feeling bad for the pathetic human, he was instead understanding how devastated he would be if he ever received that kind of welcome home from his own mother.

  But that wasn’t all of it. Something else was going on inside him right now. Something he didn’t understand or like very much.

  Of course he felt protective of Elina. He’d been tasked with that position from the day he’d met her. Yet this was something else. So
mething stronger and rather unsettling.

  Especially when he looked at her and Celyn realized that all he wanted to do was hug her close, stroke her hair, and tell her that everything was going to be all right.

  Good gods! What was that? That wasn’t how the Cadwaladrs handled problems. They fixed them! Or went back and destroyed everything that had been causing the problem in the first place. What they didn’t do was sit around trying to soothe.

  But every time Celyn looked into Elina’s face and saw that bandage, he immediately felt torn between bitter rage and . . . and . . . something else.

  Something else he wasn’t about to try to name now. No. He was going to bury whatever that other feeling was. He was going to bury it right now and never let it see the light of day again.

  Because whatever that new feeling was . . . he didn’t like it. He didn’t like it one gods-damn bit.

  “Why do you stare at me like that?” Elina asked him, her one eye narrowed in distrust.

  “Look at you like what?”

  “Like your travel-cow when he sees juicy apple he hopes you will give him for treat.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I . . . I . . .” Celyn jumped to his feet. “I’m going for a walk.”

  “Fine. Go for walk.”

  Celyn nodded and turned away from Elina, took several steps . . . but stopped.

  He closed his eyes in desperation, trying to get control. But . . . he simply couldn’t. He couldn’t!

  So he turned back around, leaned down so he was eye to eye with Elina, then gently took her face in his hands.

  Celyn kissed her. Not rough as they both had seemed to enjoy when they’d been wrestling on their bedrolls at night. But gently. Because that’s what he needed right now. To know that she was alive and well and here. Even when she was being mean and angry and taking it all out on him.

  When he finally pulled out of their kiss, Elina’s hands gripped his wrists, but she hadn’t tried to push him away. And she appeared just as confused as he felt.

  “I’ll be back later,” he told her.

  She said nothing in return until he’d stepped outside the alcove.

  “Be careful,” she warned. “There may be some tribe patrols out there looking for us.”

  “Thanks,” Celyn replied, nodding his head at her before he headed outside for a breath of fresh air.

  “How could you let my sister ride out alone?” Elina demanded, yet again.

  The two Kyvich who’d seen Kachka ride off earlier in the day stared blankly at Elina until Talwyn asked her friends, “Yeah. How could you?”

  The pair now focused on the princess and together said, “Shut up.”

  Ignoring the pain in her head, which had become unrelenting in the last few hours since Celyn had walked out after that confusing kiss and her sister had disappeared, Elina continued to pace around the large dining table.

  Celyn finally strode in. “Guess what?” he asked, “I found the horses. They were grazing over in a patch of land not far from here. But I set them up in a nice place in the cave with some hay and a fresh stream of water that flows through the caverns, yet away from those terrifying animals Talwyn and her friends brought with them.”

  Talwyn shrugged. “We like our terrifying animals.”

  “I do not care!” Elina snapped. “Where is my sister?”

  “I didn’t see her,” Celyn said. When Elina started to turn away in frustration, Celyn caught her arm. “I’m sure she’s fine. Your sister is quite . . . self-sufficient.”

  But Elina didn’t want to hear that at the moment. She wanted to be angry. It helped distract her from the pain in her head.

  “I blame you,” she said, pointing at the silver-haired brown girl, Rhianwen.

  Strange eyes wide, she looked up from the book she had in her lap and asked, “Me? What did I do?”

  “If I did not have to listen to you whine about your fears over the unholy powers gifted to you by the gods, I would have seen my sister leave!”

  For some reason, that made Talwyn laugh, something her cousin—although they looked nothing alike—did not appreciate.

  In response to the laughter, Rhianwen grabbed hold of Talwyn’s upper arm. She didn’t seem to have the strongest grip, but when Talwyn pulled away, the bare skin that had been touched by Rhianwen’s hand began to turn grey and green with the decay of death.

  Talwyn glared down at the area. It looked like the decay was spreading but soon, Talwyn’s body fought back and the area turned healthy once more.

  Then Talwyn focused on her cousin and spit out some chant in a language Elina didn’t understand. Thick vines burst through the cave floor and grew until they reached Princess Rhianwen’s neck and wrapped around her throat. She grabbed at the vines, her breath choked off. The vines dragged her and her chair back until they crashed to the ground.

  “That is enough!” Talan barked, abruptly waking from his slumber across the table.

  Rhianwen finally managed to grip the vines around her throat and she quickly turned them into decaying dust.

  Muttering, Celyn marched around the table and helped his kinswoman up.

  “You three are much too old for this,” he admonished.

  “Three?” Talan demanded. “I wasn’t doing anything! I was just bloody sleeping!”

  “All you do is sleep! Every time I look at you, you’re sleeping!”

  “I’m tired!”

  “I have returned!” Kachka announced as she walked into the alcove. She dragged a large wild boar behind her by a rope and carried a wood box on her shoulder. A wood box Elina immediately recognized.

  “Gods,” Talan noted to Elina around a large yawn. “Your women are strong.”

  “Is that what I think it is, sister?” Elina asked Kachka, working hard not to show her sister how relieved she was to see her back.

  “It is. I knew we had buried at least one case near these mountains. I just had to find it. And I did!”

  She tossed the end of the rope to the monk Magnus. “Here, monk,” Kachka ordered him, “cook this. We will feast tonight!”

  “What makes you think I know how to cook?” the monk asked.

  “Then learn. Quickly. We do not have lifetime to wait.” Kachka placed the large wood box on the table and immediately pried off the top with her dagger.

  “You risked leaving this cave for ale?” Celyn asked.

  “Ale? Daughters of the Steppes do not drink ale. Ale is for the weak Southlander.” She lifted one of the precious bottles of clear liquid made each year with potatoes. “This is much better, comrades.”

  Kachka removed the sealed cap and the small group moved closer to get a sniff.

  “It has no scent,” Fia noted.

  “It needs nothing like that,” Kachka said. “It is an amazing elixir that keeps you warm on cold Steppes nights.”

  “I’ll try it,” Talwyn said.

  “You will all try,” Kachka agreed, grinning. “We will celebrate that none of us is dead. At least not yet.”

  Brigida made her slow, painful way down the passageway. Her bones ached, whether in her natural form or her human one, but after all these years, she’d gotten used to the pain. Used to always moving at a much slower pace. But her body had ever been the weakest part of her. It was her mind and mystical powers that had always meant the most to her, and those were still sharp as a well-honed sword.

  So what was a little pain? Nothing. It was nothing.

  As Brigida neared the caverns where she’d put Rhianwen and her cousins, all their friends, and now Ghleanna’s boy with his Outerplains females, she could hear . . . singing.

  Smirking, she made her way into the cavern, stopping as soon as she saw the two sisters sitting on the dining table, their bodies resting against each other, as they sang a jaunty tune in the language of the Outerplains about death and pain and life on the Steppes.

  Because only the Daughters and Sons of the Steppes could happily sing about that.

  Each
woman held a bottle half-filled with drink, and their voices harmonized beautifully together.

  As for the rest, they were passed out amongst a number of empty bottles. Even the two males who’d been trained as monks.

  Except for Celyn, who’d learned to drink among the Cadwaladr Clan. He was still awake, but so drunk he couldn’t even stand. He just kept nodding to the sound of the singing while his eyes stayed closed and his hand gripped a near-empty bottle.

  No, this hadn’t been what Brigida had planned. She’d thought the offspring, the Abominations, as many liked to call them, were much more advanced. Much more pointed in their hatred and bloodlust. But, for once, Brigida had been wrong.

  The boy seemed more than happy sleeping, drinking, chatting with his thickheaded friend, and sizing up the women who’d accompanied his sister and Celyn. He was, basically, a pleasant fellow.

  Brigida didn’t need pleasant fellows.

  Then there were the two girls.

  The pretty brown one either smiled too much or cried too much. She seemed incapable of finding a happy center. And forget hatred. She seemed to have none. Everyone could be redeemed in her foolish eyes.

  Then there was Talwyn, the smartest of the three, which meant she didn’t trust Brigida worth a damn. There was a lovely simmer of rage there, just waiting to be unleashed on the world, but Brigida couldn’t get near her. Talwyn had her rage reined in tight and her smarts kept her from making reckless choices that Brigida could feast on for her own ends.

  Who knew such deadly beings would turn out to be so useless to Brigida? Not that she’d given up, but time was slipping away from her. She doubted she had another thousand years or so to do what she needed to do.

  But she hadn’t given up, Brigida never gave up. She’d learned, ages ago, that there were always other options out there. She just had to be willing to search for them.

  “Look, sister,” the one called Kachka said when she and her sister stopped singing; her finger pointed at Brigida. “The old hag has returned!”