Trial by Fire by Josephine Angelini
“Okay,” Lily shouted back, her voice breaking with panic. “Whatever it is, just do it.”
One of the Woven outside began to throw itself against the entrance, trying to ram it down. The thuds of its body against the door and the sound of its frustrated wails boomed through the little cabin. Rowan picked his knife off the floor and stowed it in the sheath at his belt. He threw the rest of the spare wood onto the fire, sending sparks flying up the chimney in a plume of ash and smoke. The creatures on the roof squealed as if the sudden upwelling of heat had burned them.
“Sit here,” he said, placing Lily on the hearthstones right in front of the roaring flames. He pulled off his linen shirt. His bare skin picked up the light of the fire and seemed to blaze like copper.
He looked down at Lily, the wails of the Woven bearing down on them from all sides. Lily saw him clench his hands into fists, squeezing his eyes shut tightly for a moment. Then he shook out his hands and puffed his breath like he was preparing to plunge into icy water. He knelt in front of Lily, leaning close to her. His eyes were wide and bright with terror.
“Touch my willstone,” he said, taking her hand and raising it to his throat. His voice dropped to a whisper, almost like he was praying. “And please don’t hurt me.”
Lily looked at Rowan’s willstone, dancing with inner light, and felt as if she were falling toward it. Her panic disappeared. The cacophony silenced. The whole world cupped itself around the one, gorgeous point hanging from Rowan’s bared throat.
She’d meant to touch his stone gently, hardly brushing it with a feather-soft caress, but before she could control herself, her hand shot out greedily and grabbed it.
Mine.
Rowan gasped and shook as if she’d strummed an open nerve, his eyes rolling back in his head.
“Lily, please,” he begged, his voice high and breathy.
She wanted to swallow his stone, or squeeze it so tightly it ground into her skin and buried itself in between her bones. She heard Rowan moan. She was hurting him. She forced herself to relax her grip until the stone rested lightly in her palm. It was warm and it pulsed, like a living, beating part of Rowan.
“So beautiful,” Lily said, and sighed. Her breath blew over the stone and Rowan shivered.
“Look into it. Find my stone’s rhythm.” He stopped and panted. “Find my pat—”
Lily could feel his willstone pulsing in her palm. The lights rippled like waves and flashed like particles at the same time. Lily felt a vibration all through her—one particular frequency that felt like a single, rich note played on her body as if she were an instrument. She memorized it and locked its copy away inside her. It was the rhythm of Rowan’s mind inside this particular stone. She played that rhythm back to his stone and the room around her changed.
It was suddenly daytime. There were no Woven charging through the door. It was quiet. She heard Rowan’s voice in her head but she knew instinctively he wasn’t talking to her. He seemed to be simply thinking his own thoughts. He was so young—just a little boy—and so scared. Lily realized with a jolt that she was inside one of Rowan’s memories, reliving it from his perspective. She saw …
… A man with dark eyes. Dad. His normally tanned skin is green with sickness. He’s lying on one of the cots in the cabin. He smiles. He doesn’t know his gums are bleeding. He is trying to encourage me, but I’m scared. I don’t know what to do. The bite wound stinks of rot. We need time to let the pus drain, but the jars of preserves won’t last forever. I know I’ll have to go out, out into the Woven Woods to hunt, or we’ll starve.
No more of that.
… A pillow. Silky, strawberry curls spilling toward my face. I run my hand up her naked back, feeling the knobs of her spine and her bird-like rib cage. My hand is dark and big against her skin. She inhales, waking, and reaches for me under the covers. My body responds. I roll on top of her, my face in her white neck, her hips arching up to meet mine.
Don’t. That’s private.
… The courtyard inside the Citadel is muddy and the sky is the dark silver color of unfallen snow. The smell of vomit and piss is everywhere. A gallows—one noose hanging, waiting.
Stop!
… Tristan, young, maybe eleven, and a blond-haired boy are laughing like crazy. The three of us have had such a long day that laughter is the only way to blow off the enormous pressure we’re under. But even now, I feel a little removed from Tristan and Gideon. Lillian favors me. The poor Outlander. The drub. It galls the two city-bred boys, especially Gideon. I want to feel closer to these two who are tied to me like brothers, my stone kin, but I want Lillian’s attention more. She’s still too young—I’m still too young—but I already know that I’m in love with her.
Lily. Enough.
… Tristan. He is visiting me in the hospital, lounging at the end of my bed with his shoes kicked off. I swear that guy could find a way to lounge in a torture chamber. I’m inside a plastic tent, which is a sort of torture chamber, for me anyway. It’s meant to keep me in a sterile environment, but I’m cheating. I’m sticking my hands out of the bottom so I can play cards with Tristan. Not that I ever win. Whenever we play cards, I spend most of the time staring at him instead of my hand. Tristan always comes to visit me in the hospital. That means he loves me at least a little bit, right?
Wait, Rowan. That’s my memory.
… Samantha is walking in circles, talking to herself in the produce section of Star Market. Everyone is staring. I look at Juliet. Her face is bright red and she’s fighting back humiliated tears. I go to get Mom, hoping that she doesn’t start screaming this time. I can handle a lot, even the strung-out way she looks in public, but I can’t handle it when my mom screams.
Rowan, cut it out.
… Tristan kissing me. I put my hands under his shirt and run them over his bare chest, feeling the smooth skin and firm muscles, down to his belly.
No.
… Tristan fumbling into his clothes in the dim bathroom. Miranda behind him. Is it shock or sadness or anger I feel? I can’t believe how much this hurts.
No, Rowan.
… Scared faces above me. Everyone’s staring at me, horrified. My body twitching and clenching like I’m being struck by lightning. I can hear my teeth clacking together and taste the blood in my mouth. It pools in the back of my throat. I can’t scream. I can’t swallow. All I can do is wade through the panic and hope this seizure ends soon.
Stop!
“—tern,” Rowan finished.
Lily was thrown back into the noise and desperation of their situation. So much had passed between her and Rowan, but almost no time had passed at all. Thoughts really did move faster than words, Lily supposed.
“I have it,” she said. “I have your pattern.”
Rowan nodded, as if he already knew as much, and steeled himself again. “Now”—he paused and swallowed hard—“usually, you’d change the energy inside your own stone and then pour the power into mine, so I don’t even know if this is possible. But we did it with your ankle, so we’re going to give it a try. It’s just more energy, okay?”
“Okay!” Lily said, not really understanding but determined to try if it killed her. “What do I do?”
“Come back in and fill me up.”
Lily’s question was interrupted by the crash of the door breaking down. She saw a jumble of pincers, claws, armored shells, and long thin legs, like the legs of spiders, only much, much bigger. Lily stared at them, a scream choking in her throat. Each Woven looked like a jumble of creatures, their parts pulled from a grab bag and stitched together with bristling hair and teeth.
“There’s no time!” Rowan shouted. He grabbed Lily’s shoulders and shook her until she looked at him, his words sliding into her head.
I’ll try to guide you, but it’s never been done like this before. Look into my stone. Take the heat of the fire. Change its energy into force inside my stone. Give it to me.
Lily forced herself to focus and looked into Rowan’s stone.
The Woven charging toward them through the smashed door seemed to freeze. Lily didn’t think. She just did what Rowan told her to do—she took the heat. Her skin inhaled the radiant energy of the fire and all the air in the room followed, as if she were a black hole. As the wind rushed in on her from all sides, it collided and got pushed up, blowing her hair and arms up with it. Rowan released her shoulders as a column of witch wind built, lifting her in the air until she hovered a few inches off the ground. The heat collected inside her, building into a bright ball like a mini sun gestating in her chest.
Change the energy into force.
The rational, logical part of Lily’s mind, the part that knew about Einstein, understood that matter could be changed into energy. There was an elegant little equation that described it, too. But how was she supposed to change heat into force? Lily couldn’t even begin to fathom that exchange, but she knew it had to be possible because Rowan had said it was. Directing the gathered heat in her chest into Rowan’s willstone, she felt it start to change into force simply because she willed it to.
Lily’s mind squinted at Rowan’s stone to try to understand it. She saw the lattice of its crystalline structure ringing with vibrations as they altered the frequency of the tiniest shards of matter—which were themselves not actually things, but vibrations. Like a finger sliding up a violin string, the pitch changed, but the volume did not decrease. Nothing was lost. All of the energy she’d collected from the ambient heat in the air was turned directly into force.
The enormity of the power generated in this exchange staggered her, but her body took all that force back into itself as if it were the most natural thing it could do, like a lung pulling in a new breath after exhaling.
“Lily!” Rowan screamed.
She looked down at Rowan, bracing himself against the onrush of witch wind. The Woven were inches away from him. One of them extended a long, fanged snout from under its carapace. Its maw opened.
Give it to me. Give me the Gift.
She did. Rowan’s chest swelled, and his head tipped back, an ecstatic look gracing his lovely face.
Light exploded inside Rowan’s willstone. He leapt up from his knees, whirling in midair as he unsheathed his knife and faced the army of Woven that were charging into the cabin.
Lily could feel Rowan’s body soaring, feel the rush of pure force pouring into his limbs. Knife in hand, he slashed through the armored back of a Woven and was on to his next victim before the killed creature could even scream. Caught in her column of witch wind, Lily kept absorbing more heat, changing it, and spilling it into Rowan as he used it. She was the hand of power inside Rowan, bearing him up so he could do impossible things.
His body leapt and spun. It crashed down with tons of force, smashing the Woven beneath him. His arms reached and whirled. He punched and grabbed, slicing through the ranks of invaders like they were no thicker than shadows. He pushed their enemies back, out of the confined space of the cabin and into the clearing so he could kill them more easily.
Even though she could no longer see the battle, Lily’s senses still seeped into Rowan’s. She was with him in his skin, feeling the thrill he felt with her power inside him. Every muscle was stronger than steel and every bone nearly unbreakable. She felt his lithe body all around her, moving and stretching. Her heart pounded with his, thrilling with the purest rush Lily had ever experienced. And right on the edge of his mind, she saw a flash of fear—fear that she would take him over entirely.
She realized that she could control his actions if she wanted. More. She could control his thoughts, his speech, even his dreams. And something in her pinched with lust at the thought of doing it, of taking all of him. Lily realized with a start that she desperately wanted something that she knew was despicable.
Don’t give in, Lily. I know it feels good, but you have to let me keep myself. You don’t know how to fight them.
Lily struggled with herself, resisting not only the desire she felt but the itch of curiosity. It was wrong, and she knew it, but still she wondered what it would feel like to own Rowan completely. Lily’s conscience cringed.
I swear I won’t, Rowan.
She schooled her thoughts and focused on the battle instead of her internal conflict. Out in the clearing, Rowan stood at the center of a pile of growing carcasses. The Woven had to climb up the dead to come at him. Several times one or two peeled off from the main group and tried to get past Rowan to the cabin. Rowan was vigilant and stopped all of them before they got close to Lily. Their numbers seemed to be endless.
As the fire behind Lily began to sputter and fail, the witch wind buffeted her unevenly, knocking her around like a doll. Lily gritted her teeth and waited for it to be over. Finally, the howls and squeals of the Woven ended.
They’re all dead, Lily. Now we have to burn them.
I’m so tired.
We must. Or more are sure to come.
Still using the strength Lily was struggling to pour into him, Rowan pushed all the carcasses on top of the pile in the clearing and then set it alight. As the bonfire began to rise and Rowan’s need for superhuman strength ended, Lily allowed herself to sever the loop of power she was channeling. The uneven witch wind stopped blowing, and Lily fell out of the air in a heap. A fatigue she’d never felt before hollowed her out from head to toe, leaving her motionless on the cabin floor.
She saw Rowan’s boots coming toward her and thought about how she’d seen them up close like this before—when he had found her in the grate after chasing her through the streets of this other Salem. She wasn’t in any better condition now than she’d been then, and the similarity made Lily chuckle.
“Shh, it’s okay,” Rowan said gently. “Don’t cry.”
Lily wanted to tell him that she wasn’t crying, but her throat had closed off and her eyes were blurry with tears. He picked her up. His skin was wet and cool. He carried her to a cot and propped her against the wall, his fingers stopping to press several points on her body like he was reading something written in Braille under her skin. His hair was wet—all of him was wet, she realized. Lily ran her hand up his arm and over his bare shoulder, smoothing the beads of water away.
“Did you bathe because you were covered in blood?” she asked. Rowan nodded grimly and met her eyes. She had to look away, down at his chest where her hand had come to rest over his heart. “You’re all scratched and bruised.”
“I’ll be fine. But you’re exhausted and you need energy.” Rowan stood and went to the pantry, returning with the jar of blueberry preserves. “Told you it was a good idea to save the jam,” he said, a smile creeping onto his face.
“Jam,” Lily repeated, the word flying out of her, halfway between a laugh and a sob.
* * *
Lily dreamed she was a man.
Her dreaming self didn’t think it was strange at all to look down and see a flat, firm chest. Her hands were large, and she could feel the difference in their heft as she walked down the hallway of Salem High. She was tall, and her center of balance was higher to compensate for her thick shoulders and her narrower hips. She felt strong and healthy. She liked this body. It had smooth, caramel-colored skin that she wanted to explore.
Lily woke alone.
“Rowan?” she called out into the cold light of early morning. The smoky air smelled like burned hair and sizzling grease. She swallowed down a wave of nausea at the thought of all the burning bodies outside and got out of bed.
The cabin was too small to require a search. As soon as her eyes opened, she knew he wasn’t there. At some point, he’d replaced the knocked-down door with a flap made of the same material as the rebel tents, but it didn’t do much to keep the cold out. Lily stood in the middle of the frigid cabin, feeling raw and damaged. She really wanted her sister, but she didn’t dare try to reach her with mindspeak. The last time she did that, she’d put Juliet in danger.
“Rowan?” she called again shakily.
She heard a noise
Rowan put the bucket near the fire and pulled his mask down until it rested under his chin. His dark eyes darted around. Lily realized that he was having as much trouble looking at her as she was having looking at him. He motioned to the water with one hand and rubbed the back of his neck absently with the other.
“So you can wash up. Are you hungry?” he asked. Lily shook her head. “We can’t stay here. The smoke out there can be seen for miles around. And you used up a lot of salt last night.”
Lily nodded, aware that she was craving salt like crazy. “Are we going back to Salem?”
“We have to.”
“Do you think it’ll be safe?”
“It’s been a few days since the raid. And your hair is so different.” He looked away. “I think I can sneak you in after dark.”
“Okay.”
Rowan turned to leave but stopped by the entrance. “Listen. I know you weren’t ready for that. I wasn’t either. I never meant to do that with you.” He glanced at her, his eyes wide and uncertain. He shrugged, running out of words.
“Thanks for the water,” she replied, shrugging back at him. She didn’t know what to say, either. What had happened between them was done, and it couldn’t be undone. He put his hand on the flap, but suddenly Lily didn’t want him to leave. “Is it always like that?” she blurted out, stopping him. “Is it always so…” She couldn’t find a way to describe it. Earth-shattering? Humiliating? Amazing? They hadn’t even touched, but it had been the most intimate thing Lily had ever experienced.