Firestorm

“Have you? Where are the bodies, Terraling?” Smoke’s eyes bore into mine and I saw the keen mind behind the quiet movements and frail bones. “If there are no bodies, how is it proof you killed them?”

In a strange way, she was right. There was no evidence if there were no bodies. But I thought there was more to what she was saying. “What happened to the bodies? Or are you saying they didn’t die?” No death would mean no punishment. I would just have to find them.

“I was there, one of Smit’s helpers. Those four Enders are dead, Lark.”

There went that idea.

She continued. “But their bodies were put immediately into the Pit. Without burial.”

“Like something was being hidden,” Peta said. A shiver slipped up and down my spine and I wriggled my shoulders trying to dissipate the feeling. Those were my thoughts exactly. The only reason to throw bodies into the Pit immediately would be to hide something. Like how they died.

Which made no sense if I was the one who’d caused the deaths, wouldn’t they want the evidence preserved?

Smoke wiped her hands on her pants. “Come, let us walk together, we can discuss what must be done first.”

Brand stood slowly. “You two be careful. And take the laundry with you or what little cover you have for taking her out will be blown.”

That was right, I was supposed to be a helper while I was in the Pit. Smoke pointed to a woven basket heaped with clothes. “Lark, take the basket. I will take the rocks.”

I scooped up the basket and Peta leapt into it, perched on top like a tiny feline queen. Smoke gathered four smooth, flat rocks shaped perfectly to fit into the hand, used for beating the clothes clean.

She went to her husband and kissed him lightly on his lips. He reached out to her and touched her face, his hands so gentle for their size. I felt as though I was seeing something intimate, and not meant for my eyes as they whispered their goodbyes. “Be careful, my sweet firebrand,” he said softly.

We left the home and started across the cavern in silence. Around us, the hum of activity continued as people’s lives carried on in the daily grind. But they were happy. I had to give them that. Very different from the atmosphere I’d experienced in the Deep where the Undines had been terrified to even speak, never mind laugh and sing.

The woven basket pressed into my hip, shaping itself to my curve. Peta bobbed along with my steps, her eyes flicking around the cavern. She lifted her head, stretching her neck, her eyes wide.

I looked in the direction she stared. A small figure darted along the wall, paralleling us. Dressed in black from head to toe, it probably stood as high as my shoulder, at most. “Smoke . . .”

She stopped, glanced quickly at the figure and then away, a light shiver running through her. “They have been seen, two cloaked figures darting about the caves and where they go, disaster follows any who interact with them. Avert your eyes, Terraling. You do not want her to notice you.”

Smoke put a hand on my arm and tugged me in the opposite direction, but I couldn’t help but stare over my shoulder. The dark figure paused at an entranceway and turned back. A low laugh rumbled as the silhouette lifted a hand to me with a jaunty wave.

If it weren’t for the heat of the cavern, the cold chill that hit me would have been overwhelming. Something about the way the figure waved, the tilt of the head . . . there was a dark familiarity about them. “Let me guess, that is part of the problem Brand spoke of.”

“No, the ghosts have come and gone for years.” Smoke directed me toward a set of stairs that took us down to a lower plateau in the cavern. “They are problematic and they bring trouble wherever they go. But they cannot be caught, because they aren’t tangible, so there is nothing we can do about them.”

Which told me the Salamanders had in fact tried to catch the ghosts and failed. Pride was a funny thing with fire elementals, and I wasn’t about to argue that the “ghosts” were probably not ghosts at all. The figure had been too solid, too real to be anything as intangible as a specter.

The farther away we got from the main lava flow, the easier the air was to breathe, the less my sweat dried and the cooler I became. Steam rose ahead of us, and the sound of a burbling river pooled in my ears. A sound that almost felt like home.

“Terraling, traitors are in our midst,” Smoke said softly, her words barely loud enough to be heard over the water and I realized why she brought me here. Even side-by-side, our words were drowned in the sloshing of water over rocks and the bubble of steam.

Smoke led me to the edge of the river and dropped to her knees. I did the same, so our legs pressed hard against each other. The sand below me cushioned my knees and it was then I noted it wasn’t sand but a pale gray ash. Handing Smoke some of the clothes, I took one of the shirts and dunked it in the water, using the rocks and ash to get it clean. A task I’d done a thousand times in my life already, and I fell into it with ease.

“They are trying to bring down our queen. Brand believes it is one of the Enders who is setting this up.”

Rolling the cloth in my hands, I pressed it between my knuckles and scrubbed at the stain I’d seen. The water was hot to the point of turning my skin bright pink, and I dunked the shirt into it several times. The memory I’d seen as we Traveled to the Pit was fresh in my mind. But I couldn’t just spit out I’d seen the traitor in action.

“I think he’s probably right. It would make sense from the angle of getting close to her. Who would benefit from her being killed? Her oldest son?” The answer was obvious to me, Fiametta’s son, Flint, would be the heir, no doubt. With her out of the way, he would rule. Open and shut case, why did they need me?