Fire Forged - Part IV

[ilovetakahana]

Part IV

The village transforms slowly over the next few days.

Charles wears a familiar path from his hut to the smithy to the medicine rooms to the bedsides of the men and women who have been injured answering Erik’s call for reinforcements. Sometimes he carries Rachel on a sling around his body as he ministers to the injured or as he ferries new weapons and armor to their owners. Sometimes he leaves her to her mother and carries baskets full of flowers and fruit instead.

He meets the soldiers and he wonders at their patience and stoic acceptance. None of them ever flinch at his eyes: John, the young man with his hair shaved down to stubble and a riot of dark designs written into his skin with ink; Orro, the woman with lines in her face and her hair gone almost white. One of them is a mage, but she is always being escorted away, and he doesn’t have time to catch more than her name, more than the barest details. Eliszabeth: short-haired and always smiling, her blue eyes darker than his.

The surprising thing is that they seem to worry about him - with every round he finds himself fielding inquiries about his still-bandaged wrist. Every day, he finds himself having to come up with a new answer to the question of “Who is looking after you?”

“I am doing as well as ever; I do not need looking after.”

“Trust me, you will know, if something should happen to me. Surely the children would raise such a hue and cry after me.”

“Perhaps you might inquire after Erik, instead, as he is working so hard to make sure we are all ready to fight again, and so soon besides.”

Shaw laughs his old dry cough of a laugh when he hears that particular response. “Ah, of course, you would ask us all to worry for him. A simple deflection, given his position.”

“And why not,” Charles laughs back as he ties off an older man’s bandage with a neat knot, nothing too tight, nothing that would chafe against his skin. “Not only do we expect him to outfit everyone - we also expect him to lead that attack a few days from now.”

“He is more than used to it, and so are we, in the end,” the older man, known only as “Forge”, says. “Erik has been leading us for a long time. We know what he can do.”

“I worry about him anyway,” Charles murmurs candidly. “It seems that no one does that for him.”

“Is that why you ask us not to worry about you?” Shaw asks, but not unkindly.

“I don’t really know,” Charles answers at last, later that night. They are once again eating their dinner outside Summers and Jean’s home, and Charles keeps looking over his shoulder, at how Rachel seems to be tossing fretfully in her sleep. “May I tell you a secret, since I know you are from the tower, like me?”

Shaw chuckles, finishes off his bread. “Are you asking me not to tell anyone?”

“Yes, of course.”

“I am very bad at keeping secrets, you should know that.”

“Even when it has something to do with matters physical?”

“Especially that.”

Charles looks at him again in the failing light and then he sees the laughter in the lines of Shaw’s face, and he’s torn between wanting to shake his head and wanting to smack the other man. “You are just terrible.”

Shaw sobers at that. “I know more than most that there is precious little laughter to be had in that tower, and so you will forgive me for trying to find it where I can.”

Charles nods. “That is true.” Pause, and then: “Will you hear me, then?”

“Yes, of course.” He watches Shaw scrub the back of his hand over his mouth, and nod in his direction. “And keep your secrets, to boot.”

“I worry so much for my sister; I still can’t sleep most nights,” Charles says quietly. “I don’t know what they’re doing to her. I make myself think of terrible things; I torture myself with worrying about her.

“I know that getting her back should be my goal, that she should be the only thing I am thinking about.... And yet I find myself worrying about this place. I care about the families and the children, about Rachel, who sleeps restlessly behind us. These reinforcements, though I don’t know them. I’ve only just met you, and already I worry about you - but at least you seem to know what is coming.”

“I should thank you, then,” Shaw mutters. “It is a strange feeling, one that the others have been sending out at me for a long time. I don’t know why it’s easier to take when it comes from you.”

“It’s because of our shared origins; you know I cannot lie, and you know also that the last thing I would offer you is pity, no matter your condition.”

Shaw nods after a moment, and his hand moves, and Charles reads his movements and he puts his shoulder under Shaw’s searching hand.

“And what of Erik,” Shaw asks, squeezing his shoulder once. “I assume you have been meaning to talk about him, or that your secret is related to him.”

“You would be partly right. How to say this delicately...I cannot stop myself from thinking about him, now, and I wonder why I feel this way. And I also think that any attentions from me would be unwelcome, given the unfortunate circumstances that led to our meeting.”

“What is stopping you from acting on your thoughts? You’re not forbidden from acting on them, are you? You are allowed to worry for the man, you know, even if that same stubborn fool won’t thank you for it. That idiotic misplaced guilt of his. As if he had blue eyes! He could never have known what would happen, battle insight or not.”

“And yet he holds himself responsible for Raven, for me.”

“All wrong, all very wrong,” Shaw mutters, and he gestures irritably, as though he were waving a knife. “That man is as noble as they come. A needed thing, to be sure, a necessary thing, but in this instance, so misguided.” A pause, and then, “You have your work cut out for you, then.”

Charles allows himself an ironic smile. “A task that must wait a little longer, I’m afraid. As much as I would...desire it,” and he chuckles when that makes Shaw snort in quiet amusement, “there are more pressing matters to see to at this time.”

A moment, and then Shaw replies, sincere and earnest. “You know I stand ready to help you, if you need it.”

“I know, Shaw.” Charles hopes the other man can hear his smile. “I will be sure to call for you if I need you.”

As he bends over Rachel, as he strokes her back with his fingers and hums in what he hopes is a soothing manner, someone coughs quietly and he looks over his shoulder, to Summers leading Shaw away, to Jean smiling at him. “She is still restless,” he reports, and he catches himself flinching, sees Jean’s slight frown. “I am sorry,” he says as quickly as he can. “I am still learning, you see. I’ve not had much experience in taking care of children.”

“It’s not that,” Jean says, and she pulls on his sleeve, guides him to sit down on the large pallet next to her. He watches her enfold his hands in his. “Charles. You were thinking that you were doing wrong by Rachel, by us? That tower has a hold on you still.”

“Another reason why you want it torn down?”

Jean smiles tightly, and nods. “One entry on a long list, and now it feels like it should be the first. It hurts me, hurts us, to see you like this. You are not a slave, Charles, and we do not think of you as less than human. You have to know that we value you, that we care for you, that whatever you can do to help us is already greatly appreciated.”

“It will take me some time to throw off my old ways of thinking, Jean. Raven almost despairs of me sometimes.”

“And that is why we will be fighting for you,” she says, and he doesn’t resist as she draws him close, lets his head rest on her shoulder. “We exist because the world must not be deprived of your spirit, of your abilities, of the light in your eyes.”

Charles smells her sweat, the sweet scent of pine still lingering in her hair, and he breathes her in. His hands are still covered by hers.

A hand on his shoulder, Summers’s voice. He is standing over the two of them. “You need to rest, Charles,” he says, gently. “Come along.”

He gets up under his own power and he walks to the door, looks back at Summers and Jean. They are now both standing over Rachel’s cradle, their hands joined over their daughter.

Quietly, he says, “Thank you.”

He takes in Jean’s sad smile, the lines in Summers’s face.

When he returns to his own quarters, Erik is sitting on his pallet, caught between one shirt and another. The dirty one at his feet, the clean one hanging off his neck and shoulders.

Charles hesitates for a long moment.

“Charles.”

And the sound of his name pushes Charles into action, makes him walk over and take one of Erik’s hands. He has to force himself to speak. “Thank you. And please believe me when I say that none of this is your fault.”

Erik’s hand suddenly tightens around his, an almost crushing grip, and he feels himself being weighed down at last by the days and the emotions and the fear wrapped around his heart. He’s still talking. The words are being pulled out of him on a chain, link by link between him and Erik. “You have done so much for me, and for my sister, and I hope to spend a long time attempting to pay you back. For saving my life. For leading this fight to save hers.”

“Charles,” his name again, and he looks down, and Erik is tugging him down to sit as he puts his shirt on the rest of the way. Their shoulders brushing.

He’s so tired. He’s thinking of his sister’s eyes, of the silver cuff that he intends to return to her, of her hands on her sword.

He’s thinking of Erik, of the pine scent that clings to him, the shadows under his eyes. The memory of his lost wife.

When Charles opens his eyes he instantly knows he’s not in his own bed. More space, more warmth. Birds singing a subdued song. The golden afternoon light.

Erik is sitting at the table. The soft whining sound of metal being sharpened. His sword in its scabbard, propped up against one of the chairs.

It’s the first time Charles has ever seen him wear any armor, though he’s not wearing much. A breastplate and a matching piece for his back, already laced and buckled over his ribs. Greaves, extending upward from his boots; vambraces, fitting closely around his arms. A minimum of ornamentation - a few curved lines to fit the contours of the metal. It all looks well-made, and he wonders if Erik makes his own, or had this set made for him. In the late-morning light the metal has a dull glow.

The remnants of a meal on the table, next to Erik’s gloves: a small plate next to his elbow, two roughly carved wooden cups, and Erik looks over his shoulder at him. “Awake, then?”

“Where did you sleep, if I was here in your bed?”

“In your pallet,” Erik says, and he goes back to his work. “Eat something, and then you’re to go to Jean for that bandage of yours.”

Charles carefully peels part of the cloth back, and squints at the ruin the scar has made of his Outcast brand. “It seems to have healed well.”

“Jean is an exceptional healer and a fierce warrior.”

“Perhaps Rachel will grow up to be just like her.” Charles ducks outside, washes his face and changes into another shirt.

He doesn’t normally take his meals here. The table is small, and taken up with Erik’s things. Charles takes one of the other chairs, nibbles contemplatively on his handful of bread. The plate holds about a dozen raisins, and he takes his time eating them. As he watches, Erik examines each knife to see if it’s honed correctly, then slides it into its scabbard. Metal on leather, a quiet singing note each time.

“We’re moving out at sundown as you planned?”

“Yes.”

He remembers something and touches Erik’s arm to get his attention. “Where is my cloak?”

Worried lines in Erik’s face. “I have told you that it can only hinder you in these mountains.”

“Hinder me or not, Erik, I cannot wear any armor. Not with this kind of magic. I can use only that cloak.”

Erik seems to struggle with himself, and finally he gestures at a corner of the hut.

Charles smiles and pulls the cloak out of the bedroll, throws the dark cloth on over his shoulders. He pushes Raven’s gloves into his pockets as he hurries toward the door.

“Charles.”

“Yes?”

A long moment of silence, and finally Erik looks away. “No, it’ll keep. Go to Jean now.”

Charles nods. Just as he’s stepping over the threshold he turns on his heel, goes back to Erik. For a long moment, he simply looks at him - and in the end, Charles smiles at him, as best as he can. “I’m not hiding.”

Erik finally nods back. “All right.”

He finds Jean sitting contemplatively next to Rachel. The light in the room falls on Rachel’s skin, makes her seem to glow. She is examining her fingers quietly.

Jean is already in her armor, a familiar sight from their first meeting, and Charles blinks his surprise. “You are coming with us?”

“Of course. Erik says we will need all the swords we can find, and I’m fairly good with one - or two.”

“Then who will take care of Rachel?”

“The village will,” Jean says. “You didn’t know?”

“Know?”

Jean smiles, brushes a hand over Rachel’s brow - and then passes the same hand over Charles’s forehead, over his dark hair. “Come and give me your wrist and I’ll explain. It is the same thing that happened when we left on the mission to find you.”

Her fingers deftly unwinding the bandage. The scar is a thick line, livid and purple. He can still make out the marking on his wrist, but that is because he’s grown used to seeing the hateful word every day.

It will take him some time, he thinks, to get used to this, to effectively having had the tattoo erased.

“Have you not wondered why I have no problems with caring for my Rachel,” Jean says. The cool touch of salve on his wrist once again. “My first-born child, yes - but not the first I have looked after. It is a tradition here in this village. They have always sent warriors to worthy causes, men or women, whether they could return or no. Those who stay behind do so to perform an important duty: to raise the children of those warriors.”

“Summers, too?” Charles asks. He is beginning to understand some things about this place.

“Especially Summers,” Jean laughs. “He brought me here half-dead from a battle, partly from my wounds and partly from having almost drowned in a river. He cared for me and for some of the children at the same time; he was responsible for feeding them, changing them, putting them to sleep. He comes naturally by it; better than I was when I began. He had to teach me some things that he had learned when he was raising his own brothers.”

“Where are they now?”

“The youngest one died a few years go. Gabriel. A wasting fever; we could do nothing but ease his pain. The other is serving in the western companies under Logan. A capable commander now in his own right, according to the reports. His name is Alex.”

“I hope Raven and I can meet him, some day.”

“I wish it, as well. And I’m sure Summers will think it quite an adventure.” Jean smiles when she looks at him. “I notice you are wearing your cloak again.”

“I told Erik that it is impossible for me to wear armor,” Charles explains again. “Anything I wear will either hurt me if I burn too hotly, or will make it difficult for me to use my magic at all. And I am so new to the knife that I feel uneasy about using it still.”

“All true.” Jean stands and picks up her swords, swings her own light cloak on over her shoulders, pulls on her heavy gauntlets.

At the door a boy with a streak of white in the hair at his right temple is looking in and smiling, and Jean smiles back, places a leather-encased hand on his gangly arm. “Nathan. Take care of her for me.”

“I will,” the boy says, and he blushes a little when his voice breaks halfway through the words.

Charles smiles and puts his hand on Nathan’s other shoulder, says, “Thank you.”

He is startled - and delighted - when Nathan lights up, when Nathan places a hand over his, and squeezes gently.

As he returns to his own hut, Charles looks over his shoulder and watches Jean stride up to her husband, watches her slide her hand into his. The two of them overseeing the final preparations together. The reinforcements are lining up on the narrow square. Smell of horse and metal and anticipation riding the breeze.

The sun is steadily plunging toward the distant horizon, throwing fiery shafts of light among the trees.

As he hurries back to his hut he pulls Raven’s black gloves on and feels them snug on his hands. The silver cuff flashing up at him as he moves, and he feels a tremor of fear and also a thrill of hope, and he repeats the words in his mind, a quiet loop of prayer: Please be my sister when I find you.

Erik is waiting for him and the horses are all saddled up and waiting. He’s holding two sets of reins in his hands. There is a sword in its scabbard strapped around his waist; another, wrapped in cloth, is on his back. His knives, as they were the first time, are nowhere in sight, hidden in his shirt and in the joins of his armor.

“Shaw,” Charles calls.

“Charles.” Shaw inclines his head slightly in his direction.

“Before you mount,” Erik says, and Charles looks up. A rueful chuckle; he’ll never truly be used to Erik’s height. “I was trying to work up the courage to give you this.”

He is holding out a long length of black cloth. Embroidery at the corners, the stitches a little crooked: green vines, purple flowers. It is almost as long as the white scarf from their first meeting, but the material is much finer, soft against his fingertips.

“White will make you a target, if you were going back for the other scarf,” Erik is saying. “At least that will match your cloak.”

He winds the black scarf carefully around his neck, knows Erik’s eyes are on him as he knots it in place. “This was hers,” he says, and it’s not really a question.

“Yours now.”

“Thank you, Erik.” He looks up into Erik’s eyes, and he doesn’t know what to call that fire - but he knows that he wants it. So he nods, and he says, “We will have something to talk about when we get back, won’t we?”

“Yes,” and there is so much relief in Erik’s face suddenly, that Charles has to look away and smile.

The moment is finally broken when an amused Summers walks his horse over to them, Jean following him atop her mount, and in a casual voice he delivers his report. “Everything is ready. The troops are waiting for your signal.”

Charles looks startled when Erik says, “Don’t look to me this time. Tonight, the signal is Charles’s to give.”

“Me?”

Summers’s smile shifts. Understanding in his eyes. “Ah, yes, the sunset.”

And as one, they all turn to Charles.

Charles smiles as he gets over his surprise. He murmurs “Thank you” - and he turns away, throws his cloak back, and he raises his arms in a salute.

As darkness falls, Erik’s voice rings out sharply: “Mount up!”

A soft chorus of goodbyes behind them. Charles looks back once, and he catches a glimpse of Nathan waving at them, of Rachel sleeping contentedly in her sling.

I will return, and my sister with me, and Erik, he thinks, and he spurs his horse forward, to ride at Erik’s side.

The slight quirk to Erik’s mouth tells him he’s done the right thing.

The first night is uneventful. He spends most of it concentrating on his reins, on the rocky mountain paths. The horse is clearly more used to the road than he is, and it takes him a while to relax and to let the horse go on its own way. For all of his riding skills, he’s never been in an environment like this before.

He keeps Erik in sight at all times, even as the land around them changes, from the mountain paths to a forest full of dark shadows and old growth.

Just before sunrise, Erik raises his fist and the whole group stops, horses whinnying, riders murmuring praise and encouragement. “We’ll camp here. Stay close.” Erik is speaking normally; his voice does not carry in the thick forest - but the people surrounding him whisper his words over their shoulders, a wave of quiet murmurs rippling past, as his commands are passed to the rest of the group. “Get some rest. We ride out at sundown tomorrow.”

Charles startles a little when Jean reaches out to him, and he looks down, to where she is standing, preparing to lead her mount after Summers. “Worried?”

“Yes.”

“Come down here.”

He complies, and she draws him to her once again, this time into the circle of her arms. Her lips touching his forehead. A soft, gentle pressure. “Not alone, remember.”

“I will try my best,” he tells her, and he tries to smile at her, though he knows he fails; her mouth in a thin line as she turns away.

Honesty is the only thing he can offer these people. They are risking their lives for him, and how is that even possible, when he doesn’t know what they’ll find at the end of this road? A battle, of course. The dead and the dying and the injured. Blood on his own hands.

Charles feels a heavy hand on his shoulder, and he turns to look into clouded eyes. “Erik wants you,” Shaw says.

“And who will look after you?”

“That would be me,” and a young man steps up to Shaw’s side. Dark hair, close-cropped and curly; his skin a deep brown. “I don’t think we’ve met yet; I was out on scouting duty with one of the other mages. My name is Armand.”

“Charles,” and he shakes hands, submits himself to a hearty slap on his back from Shaw. The others are melting out of the clearing, and soon only the wind is left to pull at the plants and the low-growing trees.

He is alone, now, and he hastily pulls the hood of his cloak over his head, looks around for Erik.

“Here. Behind you.”

Erik is standing there. A solemn expression on his face. He is holding out his hand.

Charles follows him over a rocky slope and then, Erik is pointing up. “We’re sleeping in the tree. Less work for anyone tracking us. Can you still climb?”

“Of course.” He hesitates for only a moment before he drops Erik’s hand, before he’s shimmying up and into the branches. He places each foot carefully, balances his weight as best as he can. Several times he finds himself sweeping the cloak out of his way - but it does keep him warm, the dark of the cloth helping him blend into the shadows of the leaves, and he pulls it close once he’s chosen his spot.

“Charles,” Erik calls softly. He is sitting on a branch below him, is offering up a length of rope. “Tie yourself to the tree. I won’t have you falling out.”

He’s about to refuse, but then he looks down and sees that Erik is already knotting his own rope. Charles lets his protestations die in his throat and does the same, winding the rope around his waist and his shoulders, lacing himself to the trunk.

There are faces in his dreams. One of them is familiar in the way that a story is familiar; a vivid description that stirs up memories, and he remembers, suddenly, who the young man is. A scar over his eye, fighting off his opponents with a broadsword. A small buckler protecting his off hand. His sister’s beloved. He remembers Raven’s wistful voice, her wish to write letters to him.

The young man crouches and circles. Parry, strike, the slashing movements of his blade.

After a moment Charles realizes why he is moving in a spiral, moving out and then charging back in. Large and small circles: he is protecting someone. A small hand, scarred and pale. Now it is wound tightly into the back of his shirt, now it is reaching out for him. The fingers of the other hand, pressed to the side of the child’s head. Fine white-blonde hair.

A child! So close to the enemy stronghold; those enemies bear familiar markings. What is the young man thinking, bringing a child into this battle?

A voice in his head, quiet and ringing. Hello. We’ve been waiting for you.

He startles, follows her erratic movements as best as he can. Where are you, little one? Why are you here? This is a dangerous place and it is about to become much worse.

I need to be there to help you, she says, in a calm voice. She is speaking without opening her mouth. You’re going to need me when you find your sister.

Who are you?

I will see you soon, and then I will tell you my name, and his. And in his dream, the little girl opens her eyes.

Blue pupils. Blue irises. And he has seen both of her hands. Her frail wrists and her pale skin. No tattoos. A foundling, an orphan, a free mage. How is she able to speak to him in his dreams? Is that her ability? He’s only heard stories of mages who could use their dreams that way. He doesn’t even know her name, nor does she know his - but she knows about Raven, and she knows something about the future.

He feels unsettled when he wakes up, but at least he knows why, and he manages to tell Erik about it as they prepare to set out on the second night.

“More dreams, Charles?” The concern in Erik’s eyes is mixed with determination.

“Yes. We must be on the lookout for two people. A boy, about Armand’s age, or a little older. Raven has told me about him.” He manages not to blush when he remembers what she had been talking about: the first night she’d ever spent with a man. “And this young man will be traveling with a child. A girl, a mage like me. And - she’s never been to the tower. She’s managed to survive outside it for almost as long as I have.”

“What can she do?”

“I don’t know, and I would very much like to find out,” Charles says, and he shakes his head impatiently. “We’ll know soon enough, I suppose. In the dreams, she could speak directly into my mind; I never heard a word.” he pauses for a moment and then barrels on: “Erik, she said we’re going to need her, and probably her protector too, when we get to the citadel.”

“If he can fight, if he’s willing to join us, I can use him,” Erik says. “As for the girl, she will have to be your responsibility. Yours and Shaw’s.”

“Until I can find Raven, and then I must take care of her.”

Erik opens his mouth again, looks like he’s about to say something else - and then he shakes his head and walks away, and Charles blinks in confusion.

“Don’t mind him,” and he jumps a little, but it’s only Summers, peering kindly at him. It is not the first time Charles has wondered if he has any problems with his eyes; he remembers Summers missing the target by a wide margin when he was practicing with his bow. He also remembers the second arrow, quivering in the bull’s-eye; the third arrow, splitting the second right down the middle. “He’s worried. For you, for us.”

“Do you think he will accept my sister, if we can get her back?”

“I don’t see why not. She’s a fine fighter, and the two of you make a good team all on your own. An army of two: a girl with a sword and you with your powers. But more importantly: you’re good people, you and your sister. A fine addition to the village, if you plan to stay. “

He almost laughs; he’s never been described that way, or fondly, before. “If we can get her back - she and I will have to talk about that.”

“Naturally,” and Jean joins them, puts her hand on Charles’s shoulder. “But I suspect I would like it very much if you stayed on with us. Rachel likes you, and I don’t see why she wouldn’t like your sister, as the two of you are very much alike in your temperament.”

That makes him smile, and bow his head, and he lets the blush show on his cheeks. “And I like Rachel and the village very much. But I would also like to see the world, to travel if I can, if people can accept my blue eyes. I know it’s a distant goal, perhaps an impossible one, but if there is one thing that living in the village has taught me, it is that I should be allowed to dream.”

Charles almost laughs; it’s a disjointed little speech, and he’s not even sure he’s making sense - but then he’s surprised when Jean kisses him again, on his cheek this time, and Summers is ruffling his hair. That big hand that quickly travels back down to his shoulder. He leans on them for comfort.

Even as he’s scrambling away after Erik, he feels Summers and Jean’s eyes on him, and he draws a certain kind of strength from them. A familiar strength: he once drew it from Raven, and now he’s drawing it from them.

He looks inside himself, at the banked fires of his heart, and he smiles and he lets himself believe.

He might know what he’s looking for, and he doesn’t even mind when Erik keeps asking him if he’s leading them in the right direction - but still, it’s a relief when it only takes them three days to find the girl. And, in her wake, the boy with the dark hair and the white jagged line curving over his eye. Both of them in dark cloaks. The girl’s feet wrapped in tattered boots, her dress stained and grimy around the hems and the sleeves; the young man’s hands never straying far from the broadsword belted to his waist, a single long knife strapped across his chest.

Charles looks up in surprise as Erik and Summers dismount, leading their horses to a rocky outcrop. The two men standing together, identical frowns as they look down into the valley. The clearing where they have stopped is only a day or two away from their objective: the ruins of the citadel, a forbidding sprawl of madness.

But it is the girl who captures all his attention. Her fine blonde hair like a pale cloud around her face. Scars and scratches all around her knees; mud and dirt all over her face. The startling clarity of her eyes, looking at him; the unmistakable blue-in-blue of a mage. The slightly imperious lilt to her voice. “You are the man from my dreams,” she declares, and she looks at him fearlessly. “What is your name?”

“I am Charles,” he says, and then he snaps his fingers. The thin tongue of bright flame sparks at his fingertips, glows and grows hotter: orange-gold-red-white. And then he lets the energy go with a soft breath, watches for the little girl’s reaction.

She smiles, and suddenly she is beautiful. “So that is why I have been seeing you with wings of fire. My name is Emma,” the girl says, and she takes the hand he used to light the flame, and examines it.

Charles looks up, at the young man, and he says, “That scar over your eye - I’ve had it described to me before. I know someone who knows you.”

He startles. “Me? Who? Not just Emma? She’s been telling me to watch out for you - we’ve been heading toward you for the past day or so.”

“Not just Emma. My sister - her name is Raven.” He has to swallow past the lump in his throat, past the automatic invocation that loops incessantly at the back of his head. “She has described you to me; she says she knows you.”

“Raven,” the young man mutters, terrified and anxious and hopeful all at once. “Where is she? I’ve been looking for her everywhere; I heard that she had been taken! The army has already declared her dead! I didn’t want to believe it. I deserted to try and look for her.... Are you trying to find her, too? Do you know where she is?”

“Yes, I do - she’s down there, hopefully waiting for us,” Charles says, and he gestures to the valley. His heart goes out to him even as he offers him his hand. “Has she mentioned me to you? I’m her brother. My name is Charles.”

“I, no, I can’t remember - my name is Azzel,” the young man says, and he attempts to smile. His armor is scuffed and dented in a few places. “We’ve been traveling together, Emma and I, since I found her a week or two ago.”

“He has been protecting me,” Emma says, and she immediately goes to Azzel’s side, clinging to his hip.

“Are you both all right?” Charles asks after a moment. “Do you require anything? Food, water, rest? Are you wounded or in pain?”

Emma looks down at her feet. “Tired. We have been walking and fighting for days.”

“I can help you with that,” and Charles smiles as Jean joins them and Shaw along with her, his hand braced on her shoulder.

“My name is Jean, and this is Shaw. If you need anything for your feet, let me know. I am a healer, and I might have something to help you with that.” Pause, then she adds: “And I think we can risk a fire tonight, some hot food. What do you think?”

“Just for us?” Emma asks, and Charles nods in understanding, remembering that he had once been suspicious of kindness, too.

“Just for you,” Shaw says. No trace of patronizing in his voice. He’s already oriented in Emma’s direction; Charles thinks he must have been listening hard for her. “After all, you said it yourself: you’ve been hard at work.”

“Yes.” Charles watches as Emma peers curiously up into Shaw’s face, old before its time. “Your eyes - something is wrong with them?” Her voice gentles and lilts.

“Charles tells me you’re a mage, too,” Shaw says. “Tell-tale eyes, right? Everyone knows what blue-in-blue eyes mean. So tell me, how have you been hiding them?”

“She’s wearing a cloak, Shaw,” Charles says. “Like me.”

“I used to have blue-in-blue eyes, too,” Shaw says quietly. “I blinded myself in order to escape from the tower. Now, when I walk through a town, I am to be pitied - but I am not to be hated or feared. It is no escape, of course.”

A look of horror on Emma’s features; for a moment, she looks like the child she is. “You’re from the tower?”

“Shaw and I both come from there, yes.” Charles peels off his glove, shows her his near-erased tattoo. “This group that I am traveling with - they took me away from it. They gave me my freedom.”

“Enough storytelling, that can wait until later. Come along,” Jean says, quietly cheerful, and she leads Emma and Azzel toward a small fire in a protected area of the clearing. Emma sits down with an expression of relief on her face, and Azzel nods off almost immediately.

Charles smiles and takes a blanket from Jean’s supplies and puts it around Azzel’s shoulders. “You are, after all,” he whispers, “not too different from me, if you love Raven.”

When he looks up, Erik is sitting in the circle, talking to Emma. “I should not disturb your companion’s rest if he is to be of any use to me, little one, so I will have to speak to you directly, and I hope you will not mind me asking you questions.”

“Ask away,” Emma says. “I have seen you in my dreams, too.”

“Doing what?”

She smiles. “I cannot say. I will not allow the future to change.”

“You have already changed it,” Shaw says, mildly. “He knew nothing until you told him about your dreams.”

“As I was meant to,” Emma says. “More than this, I cannot reveal.”

“My sister....” Charles says, suddenly.

“Is shielded,” Emma says, and her smile vanishes, becomes a worried little frown. “That entire citadel is shielded from all kinds of magic, and guarded by an army of madmen. If there is anyone inside who can still think for themselves, if there are people there who are still resisting, my dreams cannot find them.”

“How close have you come to it?” Erik asks, his brows drawn together.

“Very,” she says, and she shivers. “We have already been in the forest ringing it - that was where Azzel found me.”

“That close?” Shaw says. “Can you give us proof you are not working for our enemies?”

“Yes.” And she looks straight at Charles. “Show them the dream.”

For answer, he points to the flames, and they crackle and turn into flickering images; he shows them the entire conversation he and Emma have shared, shows them the men Azzel was fighting. The unmistakable bloodlust in the enemies’ faces, Azzel’s strategy and tactics.

“I recognize the forms he uses,” Summers says after a moment. He is standing over Jean, his arms folded over his chest. “Particularly the way he mounts his attacks. Azzel at least is on our side.”

“And you?” Erik says to Emma.

To her credit, she never flinches. “How can I convince you?”

“There is no way you can do that,” Charles says. “Not until your dreams can manifest, I am guessing. Any answers we ask of you here, we will have to take on faith - unless....”

Shaw startles, and Charles knows even before he looks that the other mage is peering worriedly in his direction. “They cannot have taught you that, Charles.”

A cold weight strangling his heart, and now it is Charles’s turn to shiver. “Nothing could have stopped them from doing it, Shaw, and I was one of the strongest the tower had ever seen. They could, and they did. They forced me to learn it. I fought them every step of the way, to no avail.”

“What are you talking about?” Erik asks, sharply.

Charles draws a line across his throat. “Collar,” he says, and he can hear his own voice shaking in fear. “I was taught this spell - and worse, to use it on others in the tower. It is a painful kind of magic that chokes off its prisoner’s abilities and inflicts pain on them if they try to escape it, or use any spells while caught in it.”

“It also has the equally salutary effect of forcing its prisoner to answer all questions truthfully,” Shaw said bitterly, his face pale and bleak. “It is the real reason behind the story that says mages can never tell lies. Charles. If you know that magic, then you can’t say you escaped the tower unharmed.”

“I never said I did. You would know how long it would take for wounds such as those to heal.” Charles closes his eyes, remembers a brief flash of pain. “And the collar is the worst kind of wound, yes.”

Emma looks frightened. “I would have been compelled to learn that?”

“If you had been taken to the tower. If you had been strong enough. If they thought you might be able to use it correctly, never mind your own opinions.”

“And are you going to use it on me?”

“I do not wish to,” Charles says. “I only ask that you tell us the truth.”

“I am,” she says. “Please believe me.”

Charles thinks about that for a moment, looking her straight in the eyes, and then he transfers his gaze to Erik. “Do you trust me and Shaw?” he asks him.

He never hesitates, and Charles feels a flame spark in his heart when Erik responds: “With my life. And I am not the only one who would say it.”

Jean nods firmly. “That’s true - because I have already entrusted my life and Summers’s to you.”

“Then you’ll let me take charge of Emma, until we get to the citadel.”

“If you’re sure,” Erik says simply.

Charles keeps looking him in the eyes. “I am.”

“Done. Shaw, assist him if you can.”

“Of course,” is the solemn reply.

The next night, Charles watches as Erik sends out the orders for the scouts to pull back to their location, as he orders some of the other soldiers to hide the horses. The soldiers, picking up on Erik’s mood, are performing drills and checking on their weapons and armor, and suddenly the camp is a hive of silent, frantic activity. Jean is sorting through her medical supplies even as she keeps an eye on the sparring bouts between Summers and Armand and Azzel. Erik joins the fray shortly thereafter.

Charles startles after a moment as Emma slips her tiny hand into his. “I do not have to dream to know you are bonded to him, somehow,” she says.

“Everyone in the camp knows,” Charles says, and he lets a smile appear, briefly, on his face. “He and I certainly do.”

“So why not act on it?”

“Your dreams have made you very knowledgeable for a child,” he says, laughing a little. “Does it not become tiring?”

Emma rolls her eyes. “All the time.”

“Ah,” he says, and then he sobers. “I promised him I’d talk to him, but only after I find my sister. She is the only family I have left in this world, you see - and we are not even related to each other by blood.”

“How long has it been,” Emma asks in an unsettled voice, “since she was taken?”

“A month or more,” Charles says.

“And you believe that she will still be your sister if you find her down there?”

“I have to.” Charles pulls away, and he looks down and isn’t surprised that there is a faint red glow around his hands, which are clenched into fists. “I would not know what to do were I to find her otherwise.” Horror settling in his heart as he catches himself contemplating the unthinkable, and he squeezes his eyes shut against the prick of tears. “Except perhaps steel myself, in order to perform a final act of mercy.”

Emma can only peer at his hands as she waits for him to let go of his flames - and then she clutches at his wrist again. Her hands are warm against his hot skin.

“Emma,” and they both start, and Charles looks up.

“Azzel,” she says, and she runs to him and when he gets down on his knees she scrambles up his back, clings to him. Her eyes are still solemn, and still fixed on Charles’s face.

“Can I help you?” Charles asks, politely.

“I...I thought I should talk to you about Raven, about our relationship.”

He nods. “Of course, although I will thank you to leave out the, er, more delicate details?”

Even Emma giggles at that, and Charles can feel his own blush traveling down his skin, mirroring Azzel’s own embarrassed smile.

“She mentioned to me that she was planning to write letters to you,” Charles murmurs as they sit down near the fire. He cools the flames a little. The air has a pleasant nip to it, this early in the evening.

“I wonder if she ever received any of mine,” Azzel says. “I tried to write to her every month or so, but I never received any replies.”

“I had not even learned of you until recently; I’m afraid I don’t know. Perhaps we can ask her.”

“If we can get her back.” The other man looks both unhappy and angry.

“I will hold on to my hope until the very last moment.” Charles says it like a promise to himself.

Out of the corner of his eye, he sees Erik straighten, and regard him with an unreadable expression.

That night, he sleeps fitfully; and the second time he wakes up he swings himself out of his perch for the night, walks among the other sleepers in the clearing. Emma and Azzel, curled together in a makeshift nest of blankets, with Armand and another boy standing watch over them; all four faces lit up by the embers of the fire.

Silent footsteps take him to the edge of the cliff that hides their camp from the citadel.

He has never been any good at scrying spells, and at the tower this failure had seen him punished any number of times. Tonight, he doesn’t dwell on that, and he narrows his eyes and looks down into the citadel, darker than the night itself at this distance. Plans within plans churning in his mind, the ghost echoes of his dreams fluttering just out of sight. Jean and Summers are to lead a diversionary attack on the main gates. A smaller group, led by Erik and Shaw, to scale the walls on the other side, to drop into the enemy camp and strike at its bleak, rotten heart.

It doesn’t matter if he will be sent with Jean or with Erik. The road is already laid at his feet, and he knows what the plan must be - even if he doesn’t have all the details he does have the outline, a faint idea of what Erik might already have in mind.

All he can think of, even now, is the fire within him, singing songs of rage and revenge. His hand squeezes the hilt of his knife, once, and he forces himself to go still.

A hand lands on his shoulder, and he nearly lashes out - he can feel his fingertips spark with light and heat - but he takes a sudden breath; he knows who is there, and he forces himself to relax.

“If you worry any more, the entire camp will start reacting to you,” Erik murmurs.

“What?”

“Some of us are worried about you, Charles. And though we’ve noticed that you can hide your emotions well, they do still carry throughout the camp.”

“I had good teachers.”

The hand on his shoulder shakes him, a little, and he cuts his eyes to the side, watches as Erik attempts to smooth away his smile. “Good, you’re trying to make a joke out of it. Weak as that was, it is still better for the mind than this endless loop of fear.”

“Erik.”

“I am not making light of your problem, Charles, and I would be the first to thrash anyone who would insult you now.”

“I know.” Charles looks at his hands, scrubs them down over his face. He lets his legs give way and he drops as gracefully as he can to the rocky ground, folds himself into his customary half-sitting, half-kneeling position. As he does so, the citadel vanishes from view below the edge of the cliff.

He takes a deep breath, looks inside himself for the flame, feeds his fear and his hatred and his worry into its burning heart.

The voices in his mind whisper to him. The songs are gone and in their place: a soothing soft crackle and hiss. The memory of Raven’s smile, her hand in his hair as they were wrestling in the road, trying to sing a folk song and failing at it, her arms and her legs working smoothly as she climbed a tree. The chain of flowers from his dreams of her.

Memories whirling through his head: everything he’s learned from his lessons with Erik and Summers. Jean’s scar seeming to darken with the frown on her face. He has even seen Shaw fight, once, and it seemingly doesn’t matter whether he’s fighting hand-to-hand or with weapons. A complicated series of rippling movements, and anyone who strikes him is in turn knocked back by his magical abilities.

Charles looks down, and now, the battle’s truly begun. Men and women screaming challenges and orders; the clash of swords; the unmistakable flares of magical power. Shadows and fire painting the walls of the citadel in lurid reds and blacks.

He is soaring above the fray and he can hear the crackle of his wings mixing with the roar of the wind in his ears. His eyes are fixed on the spearhead of their company, Jean and Summers in the lead. The gates are in ruins around them, and they are fighting off the vanguard of the enemy forces. Armor and weapons shivering to pieces under a series of well-placed blows. Armand swings his war hammer in long and vicious arcs, and Charles smiles, snaps his fingers, sends a thread of fire screaming towards him, hot enough to make the blunt head burn with an orange glow.

He thinks he can read Armand’s lips, his cry of “Thanks!”, before his attention is diverted back to the group of enemy forces being held in reserve, closer to the steps of the citadel. Summers shouting orders, the fighters fanning out under his direction, and Charles throws up a barrier of flames between them and the black-armored brutes.

He hears someone laugh, a high and pleased note over the destruction, and he doesn’t know who it is.

Don’t be silly, of course you do, a voice says in his mind. That was partly you and partly that girl you found. Emma, right? Isn’t she with Erik and Shaw?

He just barely covers his surprised gasp. Eliszabeth? Yes, that is her name, Emma - Shaw is protecting her today. I laughed?

Yes, you did. I think other people might be frightened by you - but if only they knew what I could see in your mind now. The image of her smile flashes before his mind’s eye. He’s just found out what she can do: Eliszabeth has the ability to send and receive mental messages between the members of the group. It’s no wonder the village protects her, and it’s no wonder she’s an important asset to Erik’s forces.

He looks down, and the knot of soldiers moving past the gates is the one that contains Eliszabeth. Heavy armor on her escorts, a slow and steady pace forward. Standing orders from Erik, naturally - and as Charles watches, an attacker comes up to them screaming. A smooth, practiced motion and the group around her closes ranks with a loud clash of shields, and there’s a flash of a sword blade, and the screaming suddenly stops.

Cut his head off, Eliszabeth says.

I saw it, Charles says.

Another attacker is dispatched, and this time Charles is quicker. He still has his hands full: maintaining the shield in the center of the battleground for Summers, protecting Jean with a halo of fire as she fights her way towards the doors of the citadel, providing cover for Eliszabeth’s group.

And all the while, the awareness thrumming vainly in his skin, the one impulse he cannot act on right now: the urge to find his sister.

If he tries to finish off the attack before it’s time, if he decides to challenge the enemy now, he’s going to put Erik and Shaw and Emma and Azzel and the few soldiers who have gone with them in mortal danger. Erik’s plan - and also Charles’s own. He has caught glimpses of this battle in the last few dreams; he knows that he’s going to have to endure a particularly horrific ordeal before this is all over.

He still doesn’t know if he’ll find Raven, but he pushes the rogue impulses away. Shielding his thoughts as best as he can from the other mages.

What can you see now? he asks Eliszabeth, instead.

That great firebird of yours, she says promptly. An image of a sword. An image of chains. What are you thinking about?

Strategies, he says. He is not as cunning as Shaw, and he isn’t even lying, and he sends Eliszabeth the mental image of his hand on her arm, a comforting squeeze, before he withdraws from her mind. He soars into the sky, watches as the battle rages on. The defenders pouring from the castle. Erik’s people are trained well, and the fight never falters. Every slow step forward marking the ground they have gained. He strikes down the flankers with flames like razor-sharp knives.

He’s swooping lazily, a flaming shield against the archers shooting at Summers and Armand, when: Alert! We can’t turn back! Rearguard incoming!

Eliszabeth? Tell your escorts to close ranks around you. Are you all wearing your cloaks and gloves?

Yes!

Protect yourselves and keep moving forward as ordered. Leave the rearguard to me, Charles says, and he smiles and he looks inside his heart. The impatient voices inside his head. You are exercising too much control. Let us free!

I’m just about to do that, he tells himself, and he swoops down, wind rushing in his ears. Eyes moving left and right, rapidly, counting the enemy soldiers in the advancing group. When he lands, he sends a huge wave of flame sweeping before him, and the answering shrieks of pain and anger make him smile.

Through the smoke and the fire he sees his enemies. He stretches his senses out to them. Stink of hatred and fear, the sheer rage in their leader’s face. Whatever language that leader is using to shout orders and abuse at them, it’s not a language Charles knows, and he has tried to learn the many languages taught and spoken at the tower.

There is a sneer on that leader’s ash-smeared face as she advances on him. An ugly smirk. The spears in her hand are broken off roughly at the ends. Old blood like rust on the barbed edges. A naked knife thrust into her belt. What little armor she’s wearing is tattered and fraying; holes over heart and throat and a long, jagged tear down her sleeve.

“Come to die, little torch?” she sneers, and she puts one of her spears to her mouth, licks carefully over the flat of the spear point. “Come to die and bring others to die with you?”

Charles merely smiles and he centers himself. Draws his knife with one hand.

He holds his free hand behind his back, and he starts moving his fingers in a series of rapid little movements. He’s creating a weapon: a long cord of flames like a lash, weaving-sliding over the ground as his fingers twitch. A distant memory of his aunt spinning, with the distaff at her right hand and the spindle in her left, and the yarn flowing from her hands - and he uses the memory to spin his flame out.

Flash of a spear aimed at his throat and he ducks cleanly out of the way, completely entranced by his fire now, moving as rapidly as the flicker and flash of the brightly burning light.

He dances through Erik’s forms and the flames flow and move with him, errant ends of the flame-lash spinning through the air as he moves.

His opponent shrieks suddenly and he smiles at the sudden flash of white-hot flame striking her shoulder, sends the bolt streaking on past her. It lands at her companions’ feet and Charles thrusts his knife forward, and the rest of the rearguard vanishes in a soundless burst of pure light.

When the voices inside his head laugh Charles laughs, too, and he salutes his enemy, holds the knife with its point up in front of his face. “You are alone now. And I am alone,” he says. “Shall we dance?”

Instead of a coherent answer he gets a wordless howl of naked outrage, and he watches her stumble clumsily, charging him - and he whips his free hand around, the lash of fire screaming as it winds itself through the folds of his cloak, leaving it unharmed, and finally the free ends catch around the woman’s throat, choking off her cry. Her skin begins to burn and blister, her eyes bulge as hate becomes fear, and he knows his eyes are glowing as he reels her in, making her pitch forward and when she suddenly falls at his feet, he drives his knife in through her shoulder blades, straight down and he can feel the blade as it comes out of her chest.

She gurgles once, and he lays her gently onto the ground; he touches the back of her head, and her body bursts into silent flames.

You’re clear, he tells Eliszabeth. Any other attackers from this side?

He’s about to repeat himself when she says, All clear.

Erik’s group?

Safe for now, too.

Good. It means fewer and fewer things to worry about.

He resettles his cloak and his scarf and he takes to the skies again, fiery wings lifting him easily, and he surveys the field of battle. In the few moments of his fight against the leader of the rearguard, Summers has rejoined Jean, and their group is attempting to break down the doors into the citadel. Eliszabeth and her armored escort are halfway across the field.

And that’s when it hits him: a sharp strike of worry down his singing nerves.

Where is the leader of the enemy forces? Where is the mage with the tattoos and the crazed eyes, where is he with his aura of pain and revenge and loathing?

A high, piercing scream, seeming to come from everywhere at once.

Charles clutches at his head, screams back his own pain, screams against his companions’ pain - he can hear Erik and Emma, too, and a voice he knows only all too well, the dark rush of agony curling like claws around his throat - and he falls to the ground. His flames only just catching him in time.

He looks up, and the blood drains from his face, and he draws breath in a panicked rush, fury and shadows making him want to scream again....

The world falls into black, suddenly, silently.

To Part V