After Fire

I feel hot.

It ain't like the nights when my fever got real bad, or the days I had to walk under both suns. This heat sits heavy on my eyelids, and I'm gasping for air.

I open my eyes.

The room is on fire. The shelves, the rotten books, the old papers and scrolls scattered across the floor. Everything's burning slow and orange, and the smoke hangs so thick near the ceiling it looks like black clouds. My knees are weak, but I manage to get up. I look down at my hands. They're black. Not with coal. With soot.

I don't remember nothing after saying yes.

Then I see them.

The earth mage, Cowan, lies on his back near the broken wall. Or what's left of him does. He's burned black all over, and his face... it's frozen in fear. I look away before my stomach turns.

The other mage, Mistral, is still where he dropped. Paler now, and covered in ash.

And by the far wall, Bay.

She's slumped against the stone, head tipped to the side, eyes closed. Her skin looks wrong. Dry and gray, like a fallen leaf baked under the afternoon suns. She ain't moving.

Who did that?

The thought hits me so hard it knocks the air out of me. We weren't close, but she was kind to me when everybody else looked right through me. I sure hope I didn't...

"A-Ash."

My head snaps up.

"Nail!"

I stumble toward him, then I'm crawling, scraping my knees on the broken floor. He's still there, still under the slab, pinned flat from the waist down. His face has no color left in it. His lips are cracked and bloody. But his eyes are open, barely, and they're looking at me.

Then it hits me again. The same thing I felt right before I said yes to the whisper, watching Nail die and not being able to do nothing.

"Hold on. Hold on, I'll get it off."

I grab the edge of the slab and pull. Nothing. I dig my feet in, push with my shoulder, scream through my teeth. My arms shake. Tears keep running down my face and dripping onto my hands, and my fingers keep slipping. The torn skin on my ankle, where the stone grabbed me, splits even further, and I see spots.

It don't move. Not even a finger's width.

"I'll get help. I'll get somebody—"

"Ash," Nail mutters. It's barely a breath. "Stop."

I stop. Or my hands do. My tears keep falling.

Somewhere back up the tunnel, far off, there's the scrape of boots on stone. Voices too, getting closer.

Nail hears it too. For a second, his eyes go sharp. The old Nail.

His hand finds mine. It's still warm.

"Run."

"No. No, I ain't leaving you—"

His fingers squeeze, once.

"Run."

And then the warmth fades, and his fingers don't squeeze anymore.

***

I don't know how long I sit there. Long enough that the fire creeps closer. Long enough that the boots get louder.

Take the book.

The same voice. It's weaker. Spent. Like somebody talking from the other side of a wall.

I look up at the desk. There's nothing on it but ash and dust. But underneath, tucked in a hollow carved into the stone, something dark sits untouched by the fire.

A book. Old, thick, bound in cracked leather.

Take it, the voice says again. Then it's gone, and the quiet it leaves behind is worse.

I don't know why I listen. I just do. I crawl over, pull it out, and shove it inside my shirt, against the pendant. They're both warm.

"Over here!" somebody shouts down the tunnel. "I see light!"

The glow of lamps, a whole bunch of 'em, comes bobbing through the smoke.

I look at Nail one last time. There's a smile on his face. A small one. Like he knew I'd listen.

Then I run.

Not back the way we came. The other way. Deeper. Our lamp's long gone, but I don't need it. The fire's bright enough to light the first few steps, and after that... I can feel it. The air, warm and dry, pulling at my back like a hand, leading somewhere.

Air don't move unless it's got somewhere to go.

"There's someone else down here!"

"It's the boy! Nail's brother!"

"Stop him!"

I don't stop. I don't look back. My leg screams with every step, begging me to fall. My lungs burn. The tunnel twists and narrows, and I don't even know which way I'm heading anymore. The shouting gets farther and farther behind me, till there's nothing left but my own breathing and the wind in the dark, guiding me on.

Nail told me to run.

So I run.

And I won't stop till I can't no more.

***

The church bell rings just as the small sun goes down.

Not the little bell. The big one. The one that rings whenever there's danger.

Something's wrong again. It keeps happening lately.

I leave the coal half-washed in the bucket and run up the hill, wet hands and all.

By the time I make it, half the town's already there. Nobody's talking. Up on the mountain, smoke's rising in a thick gray column, and the air smells like something burning that ain't wood.

Then the crowd parts.

Miners come down the mountain path, black with soot, coughing. Four of 'em are carrying something between them, wrapped in a blanket. A blue sleeve hangs over the edge. Sister Bay. Her lips are dry and dull, and her chest barely moves.

Behind them, nobody.

I wait. I keep waiting. For the other mages. For Ash. For Nail.

Nobody else comes down.

Please, Three. Please.

The doors open, and the Prelate steps out. No arms spread wide this time. No smile.

"Children of Brimhaven," he says. "This very day, beneath your mountain, a terrible crime was committed."

A cold feeling settles in my stomach.

"Two of the Order's mages were murdered. A third lies gravely wounded." He lets that sink in. "Their killers were two of your own. Miners of this town. The man called Nail, and his brother, the boy called Ash."

The crowd gasps.

"They found something in those tunnels. Riches. Treasures from an unknown time. And when the Order's mages came to retrieve it for the good of all the Three's children, the brothers chose greed over faith. They struck them down." His voice drops. "Nail fell while resisting the mages' judgment. The lord's men could not bring him home, for the flames would not allow it. But the boy fled, deeper into the mountain."

Nail. A thief?

My hands start shaking. I grip my skirt so tight it hurts.

"No," I whisper.

Nobody hears me.

"The Order will find him," the Prelate says. "Until then, should any of you see him, you will report it. At once. Or you will feel the wrath of the Three."

He raises his hand. "Go now, and may the Three guide your path."

"Keep us in the circle," the crowd mumbles in unison.

I don't say it.

For the first time in my whole life, I don't say it.

Because I remember.

All these years, ever since Ash was small and sick in bed more days than not, I've watched Nail put him first. Even when Nail came home hungry. Even when he was so tired he could barely stand. He'd sit by that mat all night, wiping Ash's forehead with a wet rag, giving him the last of the water, and then go up the mountain at dawn like nothing happened. Night after night, he made sure Ash would wake up the next morning.

He never once complained. Not to me, anyway. He'd just scowl and say, "He's fine. He's tough." Like saying it enough would make it true.

He worked himself to the bone. And every copper he didn't spend, he hid away. Not for drink. Not for himself. For Ash, so someday the boy wouldn't have to live like this.

And Ash...

Ash looked at him like he hung both suns. On the bad nights, when the fever got so high he didn't know where he was, he never called for his mother or his father. He never called for anybody else.

Just Nail.

Always Nail.

That boy would never hurt him.

Never.

The crowd starts to leave. The Prelate goes back inside. Somewhere behind the church, a priest is ringing the little bell for prayers.

I don't go to the prayers this time.

My feet take me down the hill, past the well, past the bakery that never has good bread, all the way to the edge of town. I don't decide to go there. I just do. Same as I have a hundred times before, with soup or bandages or nothing at all but an excuse to sit a while.

The door's already open.

Three of the lord's men are inside. They've flipped the mats. Kicked over the water bucket. One of 'em is tearing the stuffing out of Ash's pillow, the one I sewed for him two winters back, when his cough got so bad he couldn't sleep lying flat.

"Hey!" I don't even know I'm shouting till I hear it. "That's not yours!"

Nobody listens.

The biggest one runs his hand along the wall by the door, feeling the stones one by one. Then he stops. Grins. He wiggles one loose and reaches into the hole behind it.

A cloth pouch. Small and lumpy, tied with string. He shakes it, and it jingles.

No. Please, no.

"Look at that," he says, tossing it in his palm. "Stolen coin, just like His Grace said."

They laugh.

Something in me snaps.

"Give it back!" I grab for the pouch. My fingers catch the string. "That's Nail's! He worked for every one of those, you—"

The back of his hand hits me across the face.

I don't even see it coming. One second I'm standing, and the next I'm on the floor. My cheek's burning, my ears ring, and there's the taste of copper in my mouth. Blood. My head knocks against the hard dirt floor, and for a moment everything goes white.

"Careful," one of the others snickers. "That one's sweet on the dead thief."

"Then she can mourn him for all I care." The big one steps over me like I'm a sack of coal. "Anybody hiding the boy gets worse than that. Remember it."

They walk out with Nail's pouch, still laughing.

I lie there a long while, staring up at the cracks in the roof. My cheek throbs. My lip's split. My hands are shaking, but not from the hurt.

Let the Three forgive you. I won't.

I push myself up, one hand on the wall, the other wiping the blood from my mouth. Then I step out the door and look up at the mountain, at the smoke still rising into the darkening sky.

"I'm gonna find you, Ash," I say. Not a whisper this time.

And I don't care who hears.