Phoenix Unbound
Page 33

She turned away. She envied her captor and his obvious love for his land. Gilene had been born and raised in Beroe. It was the village she lived in, yet she felt no connection to it beyond the guilt-ridden obligation, ingrained in the history of its existence, to protect its denizens and most of all her family. The gift of her magic came with a terrible price. She could grieve for the women who died in the Pit each year, endure a night with a gladiator who might not live through the next afternoon, and persevere through the pain of the magical backlash created by wielding so much power at once. But the crushing guilt of knowing Beroe expected her to pass on her knowledge and her burden to another girl cursed with fire magic ate at her.
She envied Azarion because he’d broken free of the shackles the Empire had put upon him. Though she had been one of the Empire’s many victims, Gilene had never been one of its slaves. She belonged to Beroe instead, and those chains would hold her until she died.
“I may curse your name for dragging me here,” she whispered, “but I shall never forget this place. I shall never forget you.”
She turned back to meet his gaze, admiring the way the rising sun gilded him in the colors of morning: bronze and gold, hints of fiery red, and the last fading lavender of night. His eyes glittered with a thousand untold secrets. “Then you will have made me immortal, Agacin.” The corners of his mouth lifted a fraction. “At least for a little while.”
They continued to stare at one another while her stomach did somersaults under her ribs. She shook off the feeling and clucked to set her horse in motion toward the glowing horizon. “Let’s get to it then. It looks another day’s ride, and I’m sick beyond words of being in this saddle.”
The landscape changed as they rode, rising subtly. The plumes of the tall grasses lightened from pale linen to snow white and grew in haphazard clumps now, dotting the steppe amid the fringed sage that had deepened from a silvery green to an ash blue.
The orange thread of light they rode to widened and brightened the closer they got, and soon Gilene gasped, stunned at the sight before her. Azarion wheeled his horse in front of hers, and they slowed to a stop before a colossal wall of flames.
The wall stretched high above them, far too high for a horse to jump clear to the other side. The flames didn’t crackle; they roared, pulsing upward as if the land itself had captured a slice of the sun and tethered it to earth, where it strained and stretched to break free and return to its origin.
“The Fire Veil.” Gilene had grown up hearing tales of the Veil. Never in her life did she think she might see it for herself. If she managed to return to Beroe, she’d have quite the story to tell her family.
Raised by nomadic spellworkers generations earlier to shield the Stara Dragana from invasion by the Krael Empire from the west, the Fire Veil worked in tandem with the distant Gamir Mountains in the east to protect the Savatar clans that claimed this part of the Stara Dragana as theirs.
Azarion stared at the endless length of fire that stretched to either side of them as far as the eye could see. “On the other side is the land of the Savatar, the Sky Below. For all its power, the Empire still hasn’t found a way to tear down the Veil and take it from us.” The reverence in his voice matched hers.
Gilene’s stomach fluttered at the yearning in his features, the near disbelief in finally returning to something he’d lost long ago. Were she here as a friend and not a captive, she’d congratulate him. Instead, she turned her gaze back to the majestic Veil.
“Is this why your fire witches are of such importance? They built and hold the Veil?”
Azarion’s faint smile was wry. “It’s one reason. An important one. Agna is the goddess of fire, of birth and death, of horses. We call her the Mother of All, the Great Mare. She gifted fire to men so that we would keep warm during the winter of the world.” His gaze raked her, as if he expected her to scoff at him. She didn’t, and after a moment he continued. “Agacins are holy to the Savatar. You’re one of Agna’s handmaidens, even if you don’t worship her.”
“And to claim such a handmaiden lends you power.” He had made no secret of needing her to reclaim his place in his clan. Obviously, these agacins lent status to those with whom they were aligned. “They won’t care that you took me captive?”
His horse paced in front of hers, uneasy before the Veil, even at this distance. Azarion shook his head, and his mouth quirked a little more. “My people will see it as a rescue. I freed us both from the Empire’s grip.”
Gilene frowned. “Convenient. No wonder you’ve sworn not to hurt me.” She knew nothing of the Savatar but was grateful for their beliefs and the value they placed on their witches. Azarion refused to free her but so far hadn’t physically harmed her. She touched her cheek. Not intentionally anyway.
His expression turned cold. “I’m better than those who called themselves my masters.”
She had insulted him and suffered regret for doing so. She shook it off. What did she care if she bruised his feelings? He’d forcibly taken her from all she knew, and while he promised to return her to Beroe, she didn’t really believe him.
The echo of hoofbeats made Gilene jump, certain she’d find Nunari horsemen bearing down on them. The steppe behind them was empty.
She turned back to find Azarion peering hard into the flames. “Savatar patrol,” he said. “They ride the Veil’s boundary. Krael can’t penetrate with its armies yet, but marked spies and traitors can get through.”
Gilene stared hard into the Veil, finally seeing the shadowy outline of riders coming toward them. “The fire is obvious in its protection, but surely it can be defeated? A protective shield wall, wagons that can withstand the flames long enough to break the Veil and drop Kraelian soldiers onto Savatar territory.”
“They’ve tried all those things. The wagons will make it through but carry nothing but men turned to kindling. This isn’t flame made with flint and fatwood. It’s god-fire like you cast. Water doesn’t quench it, and any person who touches it is instantly burned, no matter how well protected.”
She swallowed hard and edged her mount farther back from the Veil. Gilene knew herself to be impervious to the flame built by men and to the fire she summoned in the Pit each year, but who knew if this was the same? Despite Azarion’s insistence that she was his goddess’s handmaiden, she didn’t think herself beyond risk.
“How do you expect to get through?” she asked. “How do you expect to get your horse through?” The shadows of the riders on the other side grew clearer as they rode closer to the Veil.
Azarion watched them, his brow furrowed in thought. “The agacins who raised the Veil understood the need to protect but not to trap. This fire allows animals through as well as those who are marked by Agna’s blessing. I’m marked.” He pulled aside the neckline of his tunic to show a small starburst pattern etched into his flesh just under his collarbone where it met his shoulder. Gilene had noticed it when she helped him wrap his ribs in his cell but hadn’t thought it anything more than some self-inflicted scarification the gladiators practiced. Azarion straightened the tunic. “At their first year and naming day, every Savatar is given Agna’s mark by an agacin as protection against the Veil’s fire. As one of her handmaidens, you’re already protected from Agna’s fire by her blessing. You don’t need the mark.”