Firefly Island, an Epic Fantasy Read online

“No, Your Highness!” Joren said indignantly. “I’m glad to serve you, and will continue doing so.”

  “I take my words back, you’re a fool!” Lale snapped. “Run while you can! You heard my father. If you serve me, it won’t be as groom, but as executioner.”

  Joren took a deep breath. What matters whose hand wields the blade? he thought. A hand will always be found. It might as well be mine. My life is over, let me bear the curse. I will do this for him.

  “Your Highness,” he said, “as I have saved your life, so have you saved mine. I’d have starved on the streets had you not taken me in. You’re like a father to me.”

  Lale sagged in his seat. “I’m too young to be your father, Joren,” he said softly. “But we will be brothers, bonded in blood. And Joren, my dear friend Joren, the blood shall wash and blind you, until the golden fireflies glow no more.”

  And Joren thought: Forgive me, Aeoly, for I can never bring you home.

  * * * * *

  “This is so strange, Aeoly. It’s like... being two people.”

  Aeolia nodded. Try closing your eyes, her voice said in his head.

  Joren shut his eyes, and everything came into focus. He could see himself through his foster-sister’s eyes. He shared all her senses, as if he were in both bodies at once. He was as much Aeolia as Joren.

  Now let’s play a game, she thought. She took from her pocket a crumb of bread, a crumb of cheese, and a piece of turnip. She laid them on the floor before her. She closed her eyes too, and finally everything went black.

  I’ll eat one, she thought. Guess which it is.

  Joren felt her hand lift one of the items and put it in her mouth. He tasted the tangy goat cheese.

  “Cheese!” he exclaimed. “I can’t believe it. I can actually taste it.”

  Neat trick, right? she thought, and then she opened her eyes.

  Joren opened his eyes as well...

  ...and found himself a grown man, lying in a tent, curled up in his cloak.

  He moaned. Only a dream. Grumbling, he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes and wiped cold sweat off his brow. It was his twenty-first birthday, he remembered. The year his promise to Aeolia was due. And he was in Esire.

  Dawn’s red light oozed through the tent’s flaps, accompanied by the stench of blood and fire. Joren tossed his cloak aside and rose to his feet. The same dream, over and over again. Would it never leave him? He uncorked a flask and splashed water onto his face. That had been the day, he remembered, the day he had learned who she was. The one he now hunted.

  Aeolia hadn’t known she was adopted. She thought herself Stonish, just like her adopting family. She didn’t even know what an Esiren was. But Joren knew, and knew his foster-sister’s magic was more powerful than any other Esiren’s. A link capable of sharing not only thoughts, but senses too—even pain. A link powerful enough to hurt Sinther.

  Joren pulled out his razor and began shaving. His hands shook and he cut himself. He brought a towel to his bleeding cheek. Lately his hands shook whenever he held a blade, be it his razor or his ax. He was ill, he suspected. But there was no remedy for his illness.

  Joren sighed, pulled on his black mask, and lifted his ax. He opened the tent flaps and stared outside. Nestled between the mountains, the border town lay in a heap of smoldering ashes. Big Brown trees lay tumbled. Ravens picked at blackened bodies. Flies bustled in pools of congealing blood. Esire, Joren thought. We have made it so ugly.

  Long ago, he had accepted that he was a bad person, that his heart was rotten, dank, murderous. He was a liar. A butcher. He had not kept his promise, had killed countless innocents. And yet, I still love her. He reached into his pocket and felt Stuffings, her old doll. I hate myself, but I still love her.

  He stepped outside, blinking feebly in the light. He made his way between the bodies and ruins till he reached the town square. The Esiren survivors were amassed there, shackled around a barrel, guarded by Stonish soldiers. Lale stood grinning beside them, wearing a conical party hat.

  “Happy birthday to you,” the prince sang. “Happy birthday to you....”

  “Your Highness.” Joren bowed his head.

  “My dear executioner,” Lale said. “Good morning! So, today you become a man, what? Ah! I remember my own coming of age as if it were yesterday.”

  “It was the day we first met,” Joren reminded him. “Ten years ago.”

  “So it was. The years have passed quickly.”

  “We’ve been busy.”

  Lale gazed at the Esiren prisoners. “And getting busier. Four scores of them today, huh?” The prince sighed. “I’m working you too hard. I wish that damned Firechild would just turn himself in so we can end this mess.”

  Joren nodded and swallowed a bitter taste in his mouth. A Firechild appeared only once a century; as soon as they killed the Esiren one, as soon as they doused the golden fireflies, the nightmare would end. Joren grimaced. Could he truly bring himself to do it? No. He loved her too much.

  “Well!” said Lale. “Begin then. Let’s see the royal executioner at work.” He rubbed his hands together eagerly.

  The guards pulled forward the first Esiren: a little girl, no older than six, tears streaming from her honey eyes. For a terrible instant Joren was sure the girl was actually her, but no... Aeolia must be sixteen now. Joren lowered the girl’s head onto the barrel. He raised his ax, ready to strike the quick, painless blow that would sever a link safely.

  “Joren!” Lale said. “Are you all right? Your hands are shaking.”

  “I think I might be ill.”

  Lale sighed. “It’s because you’re always moping. You are too serious, Joren. You know, I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so much as smile.”

  Joren lowered his ax. “Lale, I....”

  “You want to rest. I understand. Hey, it’s your birthday! Go, get some sleep. I’ll do this bunch for you. Even the prince needs to get his hands dirty every once in a while, huh?” Lale laughed, but became solemn when Joren only nodded gloomily. “Joren, is something else wrong?”

  “Lale, we need to talk.”

  “All right. Want me to finish these off first?”

  The girl’s pleading eyes were all Joren could see. “I’d rather we talked now. Alone.”

  Lale nodded slowly. The two stepped aside, leaving the Esirens out of earshot. Snow fell softly around them.

  “You know you are more than a prince to me,” Joren began. “You are like a brother.”

  “And you to me,” Lale said.

  “Well, you see, as you are my brother, so there is a sister.”

  “A sister?” Lale smiled.

  “She is a girl I love deeply, more than anything, more than life. I love her... with a passion you cannot imagine.”

  Lale grinned and nudged Joren with his elbow. “Maybe you want more than sibling relations then, huh, you devil?”

  “Lale, this girl... she’s an Esiren.”

  Lale’s smile faded. “An Esiren....”

  “You know how it is,” Joren said in a cracked voice. “You know how hard it can be....”

  Lale became solemn. He placed a hand on Joren’s shoulder. “Yes, my friend. I know how it feels to have to kill a girl you love. Who knows better than I? And so I understand why you hid her from me. Don’t worry! I’m not upset. Let’s just not mention her anymore, all right?” Lale winked. “I’ll pretend I never heard this.”

  “You are very kind to me,” Joren said, “but I’m afraid you haven’t heard all. This girl, she lives far away. She’s a slave in the Beastlands.”

  “So what are you worried about?” Lale exclaimed with a smile. “That’s out of our reach anyway.”

  I am a man today, Joren thought. I must act like one. How many more little girls. He took a deep, shaky breath.

  “Lale,” he said, “this slave girl is the Esiren Firechild.”

  Chapter Eleven

  Brownbury’s Burrows

  Aeolia seemed to fall forever.

  Tumbling, gli
ding, like a feather, like leaves from a tree. There was no bottom, only endless air, and she showered down in an eternal rain. Dark clouds surrounded her, Death’s gentle breath, collecting her to its bosom.

  Again you call me, old friend..., Death murmured.

  “No, I... don’t want to die.”

  You taunt me, it said. You taunt me over and over.

  Pictures floated up from the clouds. Aeolia saw herself a little girl, throwing a snowball at big boys. The snowball became a pot of goulash in midair. It spilled over an ogre, whose blows Aeolia welcomed like long-lost friends. To soothe her burning back she plunged into a waterfall, where swam a snake that wanted to choke her, but she only batted her lashes at it.

  “I just wanted to make everything right,” she pleaded. “I promise I won’t taunt you again.”

  Promise, do you? We know all about promises....

  The clouds darkened, swirling around hazier images of a dourer her, honey eyes grim, pacing through lands of flame. She saw the tongues of fire lick the hair off her head, the flesh off her bones, leaving her a blackened skeleton. She saw herself moving, walking on fleshless limbs, descending into the belly of the earth, where she looked into a stone mirror, her reflection bloody.

  “No!” Aeolia cried. “No, that’s not me! I don’t want to die, let me live, let me live!”

  Death laughed, and its breath assailed her face like cold wind, reeking of darkness and sweat and horse. The clouds below her parted, and Aeolia fell, shooting down into the maw that opened beneath her. She cried and tried to flap her arms, but they would not budge. Death swallowed her and pushed her down its throat, down and down into the darkness, where she tumbled, flipping like a tossed coin, falling and falling until finally, rumpled and dazed, she fell no more. She had landed.

  Hesitantly, she opened her eyes.

  She saw endless grass, which wasn’t exactly how she had envisioned the afterlife. And she felt pain. Her muscles ached, and her wrists, bottom, and inner thighs burned. She was being jostled up and down, which increased the pain. She was tied to a horse’s saddle, she realized, her arms bound behind her, her head resting against a man’s back.

  I’m alive, she thought, and the pain I feel is not crushed limbs, but saddle sores and cramped muscles. But where am I? She raised her head. The man on whose back she had leaned glanced over his shoulder, his face puffed red.

  “You’re awake at last!” he said in glee, spit bubbling on his lips.

  Aeolia recognized him at once. Duke Hyan Redfort, the man who had attacked Greenhill. The memory of the battle hit her like a cane. Glancing around her, she saw a dozen more riders cloaked in Redfort’s sanguine.

  “How long have I been asleep?” she asked in a small voice.

  “A week,” Hyan said. “You were wounded, hum, direly. It took that long to heal you. We feared you wouldn’t wake at all.”

  A week! Aeolia looked down at her body, still half-expecting to see broken bones and mangled limbs. But she seemed whole enough, if somewhat thinner than she remembered. Instead of her green gown she wore a simple linen dress.

  “We saved your life,” Hyan said. “We can take it back again. So be a good girl, hum? None of those Esiren mind tricks.”

  Aeolia scarcely heard him. A week.... She must be so far from Greenhill now. Far from Talin.... If he was even alive, that was. If any of them were alive.

  “What happened to my friends?” she asked.

  Hyan shrugged and turned back forward in his saddle. “We spared them, as you requested before plummeting down to probable demise. They live in Greenhill Castle’s Dungeon.”

  Aeolia let out her breath. She had saved her friends, at least.

  Plummeting down to probable demise, she thought and shivered. Had she truly jumped off a castle wall? Suddenly she felt dizzy, and had to lean her head back against Hyan’s back. She could still not fathom how close to death she had brought herself.

  But for now she had greater concerns. She had saved Talin, but he was still imprisoned. She herself had not died, but she was bound and captured.

  “You’re taking me to Stonemark?” she asked quietly. It hurt to speak much louder; her tongue and lips were parched and felt ready to crack. She considered asking for water, but decided against it. Hyan knew she was thirsty. She would not give him the satisfaction of seeing her beg.

  “We’re taking you to Brownbury,” Hyan answered, “where you’ll await Lale’s escort to Grayrock. We believe you are, hum, already acquainted with the prince.”

  So Lale is alive, Aeolia thought. Somehow she was not surprised. The prince, too, had a talent for weaseling out of death.

  “What will he pay you for me?” she asked in disgust.

  “A kingdom,” Hyan said, and said no more.

  Aeolia licked her dry lips. What does it matter what he’ll pay? she thought. The only thing that matters is that he’ll have me soon, and finally be able to kill me, like he always wanted.

  Suddenly Aeolia frowned. Something made no sense.

  “Why did you heal me?” she asked slowly. “Why does Lale want me alive?”

  Hyan chuckled. “When Lale discovered you and his archenemy are, hum, lovers, well... let’s just say he has more in store for you than mere death now.”

  Aeolia shut her eyes and fell silent. She winced with every jostle, thinking of the pain to forget her despair.

  * * * * *

  A week later, the city of Brownbury loomed before them.

  Aeolia sat on her own horse now—a small piebald palfrey tethered to Hyan’s courser. Her arms were still bound behind her back, the rope biting her skin, and now her mouth was gagged as well. A hood shadowed her face and a cape concealed her arms. Her muscles were so stiff, every step of her horse made her wince.

  The capital of Heland was a jumbled monochrome of browns sprawled over a round mountain. Aeolia thought it looked like some huge anthill lined with labyrinthine streets and straggles of wooden houses. Perched on the mountaintop, rising above the rest of the city, glistened a palace of marble walls and gilded towers. That must be where the queen lives, Aeolia thought.

  The road toward the gates teemed with travelers rushing to enter the city before dark. Aeolia saw knights and clerics, peasants and merchants, beggars and tatterdemalions and lepers. As her palfrey trotted closer to the gates, ramshackle huts sprouted along the road, a second city outside the walls, where lived the sick and poor and unwanted. From knight to ragamuffin, no one spared Aeolia a second glance, seeing only a cloaked rider, not a prisoner.

  Hyan drew rein outside the city gates. The gatekeepers wore lavender surcoats over burnished breastplates. Queen’s men, Aeolia surmised—Purplerobes. But even so, these guards of another house bowed before the duke of Redfort, and humbly let him pass. As Hyan pulled her into the city, Aeolia stared pleadingly at the purple guards from the shadows of her hood. If they noticed she was gagged and bound, however, they were careful to ignore it.

  Inside the walls, wooden houses huddled over narrow, winding streets. Sloping roofs and awnings blocked the evening sun, shadowing the roads. The thick crowds parted before the Redforts’ coursers. Some faces in the throng, noticing Aeolia’s gag, gave her pitying looks. But no one offered any help. Hyan was too puissant, Aeolia realized downheartedly. No one would challenge his right to take a simple sixteen-year-old girl prisoner. An entire city, Aeolia thought, and she was all alone.

  It had been so long since she’d seen a city, she suddenly reflected. It was a strange reflection, perhaps, for a girl awaiting her death, but still Aeolia found herself watching her surroundings with interest. These streets were nothing like the stark stone boulevards of Grayrock. Here everything was wooden and ramshackle and chaotic. The first few streets especially were jumbled and foul. These were the city dregs, with streets so narrow the houses’ roofs touched. But as Hyan and she progressed further up the mountain, the streets widened. Here they passed merchants’ stalls, bakeries, fruit vendors, and workshops. The smells of bread
s and candies filled the air, and the stench of squalor faded. Houses became larger, streets cleaner. The palace peeked above the shingled roofs.

  Finally, with the first fireflies come to glow, Hyan drew rein by a simple tower in an empty square. The corpulent duke dismounted clumsily and helped Aeolia off her horse. Gripping her shoulder, he led her toward the tower. Aeolia trembled. The tower’s guards, bowing ingratiatingly, wore crimson. This was the Dungeon, Aeolia knew. Talin had told her the Redforts ruled it. She felt her lip quivering beneath her gag. I must be brave like Taya, she told herself. Taya never cried.

  Hyan ordered the guards to straighten.

  “Yes, Your Grace,” they chimed obsequiously, and as they straightened Aeolia noticed them giving her hungry glances.

  “We want you to take utmost care of our prisoner, what?” Hyan said.

  “We take utmost care of all our prisoners, Your Grace—” one guard began.

  “Incarcerate this one in a solitary cell,” Hyan said. “Have your fun, but see that she comes to no harm. Prince Lale of Stonemark himself will be arriving to fetch her.”

  “Yes, master! Very important guest, very good care....”

  Hyan dabbed his forehead with a handkerchief, mounted his horse, and cantered away.

  Two guards grabbed Aeolia. Their bony fingers dug into her flesh. She tried to struggle, but soon capitulated; she was too weak. Head hung low, she walked with them into the tower. Inside, a tunnel spiraled down into darkness. Shivering, Aeolia trudged down with the guards, plunging into a black, underground city.

  If Brownbury was an anthill, these were its secret caverns. The fuliginous tunnel wound downward, burrowing into the mountain, craggy walls dripping moisture and mold. Muffled screams echoed in the darkness. Rats pattered across the floors, screeching. Aeolia saw one rat carrying a skeleton’s hand in its mouth. She whimpered through her gag, only joining the prison’s chorus of crazed, desperate wails.

  Cells lined the walls, and famished people languished inside. Some people were chained to walls, moaning, covered in cobwebs. Others hopped about like animals, madly cocking their heads, gawking with wild eyes. In one cell, Aeolia saw a group of prisoners with pale brown hair and gloomy honey eyes.