Fire and Lies Read online

  “Fire!” she screamed. Taking up a handful of skirts, she bolted. “Fire!” she screamed louder this time. “The stables!”

  Smoke billowed from the roof and poured into the sky in rolling clouds of black as horses ran about, no longer confined by their bridles or stalls. The rumble of flames engulfed the building and mingled with the incessant whinny. Desperate for a flash of russet among the cream, Kallan studied the mayhem as some horses managed to break free, while others, still tethered, fought the reins that imprisoned them.

  “Fire!” she screamed again and, without pause, lunged into the fire.

  Heast encompassed her. Smoke burned her eyes as she pushed her way through the inflamed stable. She tried to look down the rows of empty stalls, but the thick, white smoke masked her view save for the stalls that flanked her.

  “Astrid!” Kallan swallowed a mouthful of smoke, sending her into a fit of violent coughs and her body into a fit of convulsions that tightened her chest and burned her lungs. Gasping for air, she dropped to the floor of the stables where she could see a flicker of muted orange through the rolling white.

  Before she could regain control of her body, an arm slid around her waist and pulled her up from the floor. She attempted to scream, to call for Astrid, but only managed to catch another mouthful of smoke that launched her into another fit of coughing.

  Rune carried Kallan from the stables as she dug at the heat and smoke in her eyes then tried again to focus.

  “Put—” A new wave of coughing shook her body. “Astrid—” she managed to say between convulsions.

  Keeping his grip tightly secured, Rune lowered Kallan’s feet to the ground in the courtyard.

  “Astrid,” she said then coughed again and tried again to lunge toward the stables.

  She stumbled and Rune caught her as she clamped a hand to her chest, fighting the convulsions.

  Warriors and servants, all dressed in their evening garments, corralled and roped the horses, most of which ran back to the burning barn. Others filled buckets from water barrels while peasants from the village helped to form a bucket brigade that did almost nothing to the fire. Beside the barracks with Bergen and Ottar, Gunnar gathered, counted, and calmed the horses. The black mare whinnied and reared. Freyja backed herself into the crowd of horses, desperate to escape the fire. Nowhere did Kallan see Astrid.

  Desperate to break free from Rune and return to the fire, Kallan lunged, but Rune had his arms locked around her.

  “Let me go!” she shrieked. “Astrid—”

  “No, Kallan!”

  “Astrid!” Kallan shook as she watched the stables burn. The wood whined as it began to weaken.

  “Kallan, it’s too late!” Rune said, but Kallan didn’t hear.

  “Water!” Kallan screamed. “They need more!”

  “It’s too late, Kallan,” Rune said, but her attention was on the line of Ljosalfar who passed buckets of water through the gates of the battlement and down to the river where the brigade began.

  They need more.

  Breaking free from Rune’s grip, Kallan ran toward the gate.

  “Kallan!” he called, but Kallan had already passed through the gate, lost to her calculations.

  The Seidr is there… All I have to do is find it. If I can just…

  Kallan slowed as she approached the water’s edge where the brigade began. Unmoving, she studied the stretch of sky, inhaled deeply, and closed her eyes.

  Almost at once she felt it, the lines of Seidr passing without direction through the air. She stretched her senses toward the water. There the Seidr rippled and flowed with the river. Like threads it wove itself in with each movement. It was there, just within reach.

  “Just like before,” she muttered, remembering the lines of water she pulled from the river only weeks ago, as if she had pulled a single thread from a tapestry.

  Closing her eyes, Kallan turned her palms out and upright. Releasing all angst, she cleared her mind as she reached from her core, further than she had ever tried before until she found the heart of her energy waiting in her center. With all her strength, she pulled from her reserve and reached out into the Seidr beyond the subtle, soft winds.

  With her energy, Rune’s Beast awakened and lunged at her Seidr, breaking her concentration.

  “No!” Kallan called to Rune who had come to stand behind her. “I need you to focus!”

  He nodded and Kallan felt the Beast of Shadow recoil, chained against its will as Rune focused all his strength on holding it back. Again, Kallan pulled on her Seidr and drew it out. As before, Rune’s Beast jumped, but this time, she felt Rune restrain the thing that resided inside him.

  Streams of Seidr flowed from Kallan’s palms as she guided her energy over the earth, through the air and into the Klarelfr below. Into the water, Kallan poured her Seidr until her legs shook beneath the sudden drain. Reaching out, she pulled from the Seidr buried in the ground beneath her feet. She siphoned the earth’s energy through her, into the bands of Seidr that flowed over Gunir, until she located the Seidr that moved with the river.

  Kallan exhaled and assessed the water’s current. Once she found the rhythm, she plunged her bands of Seidr into the water like needlework, forming a new path that conformed to the water’s Seidr. There, she knitted the ends of her Seidr with that of the water’s Seidr.

  From the Klarelfr’s current, streams of water rose up and out of the river, pulled by the threads of its Seidr. Over the brigade, the water flowed as Kallan drew her strength from the earth’s Seidr, encasing her body in filaments of gold.

  Sweat beaded upon her brow. Her arms shook as she locked them in place. But the river flowed up and over the battlement, drawing the attention of the Ljosalfar. Droplets of water fell from above, soaking the onlookers underneath. At once, the buckets stopped. Seidr poured from Kallan, encasing her in a blanket of gold. Her legs shook beneath the river’s weight, but she held the water suspended on her threads of Seidr until it reached the stables. Once the river neared the fire, she lowered the water, directing its flow down onto the base of the flames.

  The wood hissed as plumes of white and gray smoke rolled from the building.

  Exhausted, Kallan released the Seidr, and, with her arms shaking violently, she dropped her hands to her side.

  Sweat poured down her brow, mingling with droplets of water as she turned to look at Rune. Upon the ground, Rune knelt, battling back the Beast. He clenched his jaw, panting through a breath he tried to steady as if in pain, muffling what Kallan was certain was a scream. Only then did she feel how much Rune fought back the Beast that roared against his will, desperate to lunge and feed on the Seidr inside Kallan.

  Shaking, and holding his stomach, Rune raised his eyes to Kallan, but Kallan knew before Rune spoke the words.

  “It wants to kill you,” he whispered, gasping under the pain.

  The boards and planks creaked beneath the river’s weight until it gave way, snapping and bending until they broke, collapsing in on it. The sound brough Kallan back as Rune released his stomach and steadied his breath now that the Beast had settled itself.

  “Go,” Rune said, and Kallan bolted toward the soaked remnants of the stables.

  In silence, the Ljosalfar watched as Kallan pushed and pulled each blackened board away, digging down into the charred remnants of Astrid’s stall, unable to feel the slivers that gouged her fingers.

  “Astrid!” she cried, climbing over the debris. “Astrid!”

  Her search ended abruptly at the dead weight of a massive beam.

  With all her strength, she pulled at the blackened beam that didn’t move.

  “Astrid!” she shrieked. Tears streaked her cheeks. “Astrid!”

  At once, the beam whined and creaked then moved, forcing Kallan’s attention to Bergen as he lifted the end of the beam. He threw it aside, and Kallan slipped and stumbled into him as he caught her.

  Together, they fell to their knees. Deeper, they pulled at the wood, deeper they dug through th
e charred, soaked soot and ash that covered them from head to foot until Kallan grabbed the blackened remains of a singed bridle and gasped.

  “He isn’t here,” Bergen said as Kallan nodded, unable to speak, lost somewhere between worry and relief.

  Looking wildly about, they scanned the area for the russet stallion. Kallan rose to her feet beside Bergen.

  “Gunnar!” Rune shouted from the gates. His breath had steadied, his strength rebounded. The sweat on his brow was the only sign that he had been battling back the Beast only moments ago.

  “He isn’t here.” The old man shook his head.

  With a rising mutter, the Ljosalfar glanced about as if desperate to pluck an explanation from the air. Panting, filthy, and weary, Kallan and Bergen stumbled over the stable’s remnants, back over the debris to the stone of the courtyard painted black with soot where Rune and Gunnar stood.

  “How many did we lose?” Bergen asked.

  “They’re all here,” the horse master replied as he finished a third recount.

  “All?” Rune asked, dumbfounded with their luck.

  “Except the lady’s stallion,” Gunnar corrected.

  Bergen and Rune exchanged a look not lost on Kallan.

  “Rune.” Geirolf pushed his way through the crowd to the king and the horse master. Raising the end of a perfectly severed rope from one of the horses’ neck, Gunnar dropped his voice to a near whisper. “Someone cut their lines.”

  “Bergen…” Rune shifted his gaze to his brother, keeping his voice barely above a whisper. “Did you see anything?”

  “You were in the stables just before the fire!” Ottar growled over the courtyard, silencing the already surfacing gossip.

  With a glower to Kallan, Ottar emerged from the cluster of onlookers and joined Rune’s group.

  “Did you see anything?” Rune asked, whipping about to Kallan.

  “No,” she said.

  “Of course she didn’t see anything!” Ottar said encouraging the murmurs to grow louder as the crowd closed in. “She did it!”

  One by one, Kallan searched the crowd of faces, each glaring back at her with a depth of hatred, each condemning her without question.

  “I was with her,” Bergen said above the rising uproar. “She couldn’t have started the fire.”

  Rune’s stomach clenched as he looked to Bergen.

  “You were with her in the stables?” Rune asked. “Why were you with her?”

  “She asked to see Astrid,” Bergen lied.

  “She’s the only one here who would have cause to do this!” Ottar said, extending a large finger that served as Kallan’s judge and jury.

  “I put the fire out!” Kallan retaliated in her defense.

  “To win favor!” Ottar argued.

  Seidr burst to life in Kallan’s hands, reawakening Rune’s Beast as Ottar grasped the hilt of the sword bound at his waist.

  “Enough!” Rune shouted, forcing Kallan to extinguish her Seidr.

  The crowd fell silent.

  “Gunnar, the horses. Bergen. Geirolf. Look for Astrid. Ottar! Clear the crowd. And Kallan…” Rune turned to Kallan. “Come with me.”

  Kallan rounded her bottom lip into a prominent pout as she followed Rune back to the Great Hall where servants bustled about, too alarmed to sleep. Adrenaline kept the stomp in her foot sharp as she marched up the steps behind Rune. Alert and confrontational, her thoughts raced between worry for Astrid and anger for Ottar that left her unable to collapse with exhaustion. They walked past the lone, closed door and down the hall lit with candles.

  Kallan stared at her blackened hands, cracked and bleeding from the wood splinters. She rubbed a split thumb over her wet fingertips. Black soot blotched and smeared the white of her soaked chemise. The click of a door alerted her as Rune led her into her bower and closed the door quietly behind them.

  Kallan, too exhausted to fight, stood calmly as Rune unfastened the pouch from her waist. After shuffling through packets of spells and small binds of herbs, he pulled out a large, golden apple and taking Kallan’s hand, dropped the fruit into her palm.

  “You weren’t ready,” he said with a gentle smirk. Taking her by the arm, he pulled her into a chair beside the window where a water pitcher and basin rested on a table. Obediently, Kallan sat, staring at the apple, breathing deep the smell of black currant mead on Rune’s sweet breath.

  “I still did it,” she argued, barely pleased with herself.

  Droplets of water dripped from the ends of her hair as she stared at the soot on her hands.

  With the scrape of wood on stone, Rune dropped a chair to the floor in front of her and plopped himself down.

  “But you shouldn’t have,” he said, pulling a rag from the basin and wringing out the excess water. “Now…” Rune began gently wiping the black soot from her brow. “What happened?”

  “I didn’t do it,” she said, closing her eyes at the welcome cool rag against her filthy, hot face.

  “I know.” Rune dragged the cloth down her temple, gently over each closed eyelid. “What happened?”

  “I saw nothing.”

  “Are you sure?” Rune rinsed the rag. Kallan listened to the musical droplets that ran down his fingers into the shallow bowl of water.

  “I was in the kitchen,” she said. “You can ask the cat.”

  Rune folded the cloth and placed the untouched apple beside the basin.

  Taking up her hands one at a time, Rune washed the black and red from her skin, first the back then the palms.

  “I found some day old bread,” Kallan said. “I was hungry.”

  “Cook locks up the buttery and larder, thanks to Bergen. She’d locked up the serving girls too, if she could.”

  “I left the kitchens to go back to bed and I smelled smoke.”

  “She tried once,” Rune said. “It didn’t bode well with the serving girls…or Bergen, for that matter.” Rune stared hard at Kallan’s hands.

  “At what point…were you and Bergen alone in the stables?”

  Kallan watched Rune wipe down the tips of each one of her fingers. The scent of mead was strong.

  “I couldn’t sleep,” she said truthfully.

  “Hm,” he grunted. “Most women don’t when they meet with Bergen in the stables.”

  Kallan pulled her hand away with a jerk.

  “That hurt,” she said.

  “I’m sorry,” Rune muttered, returning the rag to her furrowed brow.

  “I went down to the stables to visit Astrid,” she said.

  “Visit Astrid.” Rune rinsed the filth from the rag.

  “And Bergen was there. We talked.”

  “And he escorted you to the kitchens?”

  “No,” Kallan sighed, her eyes suddenly heavy with sleep. “He left me in the stables with Astrid. I found the kitchens on my own.”

  “With the cat.”

  “With the cat.”

  “Eat,” Rune said, returning the apple to her hands. He refreshed the water as Kallan bit into the apple, welcoming the Seidr rush through her.

  A few moments later, Rune returned from the solar with a fresh bowl and pulled up his chair so close that his knees touched Kallan’s.

  “I smelled smoke in the Great Hall,” she finished. Rune rinsed the rag and ran the cloth gently over her arms, not daring to raise his eyes to hers.

  “Bergen lied,” Rune said.

  “Yes.” Kallan exhaled, pondering the whys and wherefores of Bergen: the Dark One. The Terrible. The Feared.

  Rune ran the cloth back to her palms and rested his hands comfortably in hers.

  “The flames were too hot and too high to have just been started by the time you got out there,” he said.

  “I didn’t—”

  “I know you didn’t,” Rune cut her off. “But a Seidkona did.”

  Gudrun.

  “I didn’t do it,” Kallan whispered, refusing to make mention of Gudrun.

  Rune looked at her.

  “I know.”
/>   “Then why are you here?” she asked. Her clear, blue gaze held the moon’s reflection. Rune brushed a strand of Kallan’s hair from her eyes and gently tucked it behind a tapered ear. Her Dokkalfar skin was far paler in comparison to his Ljosalfar tanned tones.

  “Why am I here?” he muttered, keeping his attention fixed on Kallan’s eyes.

  The advice of Geirolf and Bergen ran through his head. Before, he had been so bold, so certain, so drunk.

  “I have to go,” he said, dropping his hand from her face and standing too quickly as if suddenly realizing he was touching her. The legs of his chair scraped the stone and he was at the door before Kallan could understand what had happened.

  “Rune?”

  “I’ll have Torunn fix you a bath,” he said at the door, not bothering to look at her. “I’ll send someone the moment Astrid is found.”

  “Rune—”

  “Good night,” he said and closed the door between them.

  * * *

  Torunn came and went in a wordless flash, wearing only one scowl that left no room for anything but formalities. She swiftly swept from the room, leaving Kallan rescrubbed and redressed without as much as a greeting, a nod, or a thank you. Unshed tears swelled in place, and only when Kallan was alone for the night did she breathe freely once more.

  Exhausted, numb, and driven mad with not knowing where Astrid was, Kallan fell into bed. She had just barely closed her eyes, to welcome sleep and dreams of Dvergar-filled caves and corpses with faces she knew and loved, when a thick hand closed over her mouth, clamping her in place to the bed.

  Kallan dug at the hand and clawed her way up an arm. Too inflicted with horror to scream, she kicked and thrashed about on the bed, weighed down by the hand that pinned her.