Of Fire and Ash: The Fireborn Epic, #1

PROLOGUE: FIREBORN

The scream of the fireborn stallion shivered against her spine. Heat blasted behind, and sparks stung the backs of her legs. Ceridwen staggered upward toward the rim of the crater, resisting the call to battle that surged through her blood. There would come a moment for vengeance, a day for retribution. But now. . . now there was no time.

Bair had no time.

He hung limp across her shoulders, and she held him tight, left arm hooked over his leg and clenching his wrist. Tight, lest her gloved hands lose purchase on his blood-slicked arm. Tight, lest his body fail and his spirit flee and her grip alone might save him. Stay with me! Bent beneath his weight, she rammed her boots into the fire-bitten earth, fighting to reach the rim.

The stallion screamed again.

Rock shook at the sound, stirring ash that drifted away before her.

Muscles trembling, Ceridwen lunged over a rough patch. Bair’s chin thudded against her shoulder, and a ragged moan escaped his lips. She fought to hold him steady as his bruised and broken limbs hung limp. Blood coated his chest. It plastered her long red braid to her neck and dampened her singed leathers. So much blood. Too much.

She thrust the burst of panic from her mind. Steeled fear and hope from her heart as well as she lurched upright. No hooves yet drummed at their heels. The stallion did not pursue them. It lurked below, concealed in that dense cloud of smoke stirred by the frenzy of the herd.

So, she staggered onward. Upward. For Bair. For her brother.

Her head throbbed with each jarring step. Pain danced a blistering trail across her skin and lodged in the seared flesh of her left forearm. Before the stallion’s focused blast, her treated leather vambrace had crinkled like dried leaves and disintegrated, leaving a raw, weeping wound behind. But Bair had borne the brunt of the attack, caught off guard when her catch-rope failed, freeing the stallion to whirl upon him and unleash the wrath of a firestorm.

Hold on, Bair, she rasped. Hold on.

Atop the rim, her legs gave out. Her knees struck, and she eased Bair down. He slipped from her hands and landed with a sickening thud. But he made no sound. Her heart caught. Gasping, she pulled his shoulders into her lap. Merciful Aodh. Here, above the smoke that had smothered the crater in the wake of the struggle, his injuries were clear. The sight of shattered bones and burned flesh set her gut heaving, though her stomach had long since emptied in a rush that had left her dizzied as the fireborn stallion trampled him, pounding hooves descending again and again, grinding his body into the ash. And it was her fault.

Her pride had driven the challenge. The ritual claiming of a solborn from the wild, the Sol-Donair, was an ancient tradition little honored of late in the kingdom of Soldonia. Wildborn steeds were volatile, and the war-chiefs had turned to breeding instead, maintaining rich bloodlines of pasture-raised steeds. But she had goaded Bair, daring him to race on the eve of their seventeenth year to claim a fireborn to prove their worthiness to the blood of Lochrann.

Now he was dying.

Or perhaps already dead.

Bile rose in her throat, and she forced it down, blinking the sting of smoke from her eyes. It swirled in the wind that constantly gusted through this rugged country, whispering of death as it curled around shattered rocks and rattled dry scrub. Steeling herself, she lowered her ear to Bair’s mouth and held her breath. Listening.

Air rasped faintly in his throat. He lived. He lived!

Training resumed control. She tore open her satchel and dug for bandages. Thank Aodh and the warrior spirits too that it had survived the struggle. Her fingers left scarlet stains on the cloth as she bound the worst of Bair’s injuries, applying pressure to halt blood loss, support for shattered bones, and a covering for burns.

The bandaging soaked through before she was done, so she added more. And more. Tying. Pressing. Bandaging. Until her stock ran out and her hands dripped red.

Her chest constricted. Hold on, Bair.

She lurched to her feet, head pounding, searching the surrounding crags for something—anything—that could help. Loose rock crunched beneath her boots. On foot, they had traveled, without even common horses—tolf—to speed the journey. It was a requirement of the Sol-Donair: rider alone striving for mastery over a wildborn steed. The hunt had drawn them miles from aid, deep into the fire-blasted wilderness of the Gauroth range on the farthest edge of the chiefdom of Lochrann. Few lived here, save the herds that roamed the craters, the scavengers that haunted the clefts, and the falcons that nested on the plateaus.

Still, she scoured the horizon. To the east, the Gauroth range bowed before the mountains of the chiefdom of Gimleal where miners wrestled metals from the ribs of the earth and delivered them to the sheltered fortress of Lord Craddock. A day’s walk. Or two, considering her burden. To the west, the rugged march of hills dwindled, dark firerock melting into the flaming brilliance of the sunset. There, bathed in light, sprawled the sweeping plains at the heart of Lochrann. There lay home. Five days’ march.

Gimleal then.

A groan drew her to Bair’s side. His eyes flickered open, so dark they seemed coals in his bloodless face. His lips moved, but only a ragged, breathless sound issued, and she knew that it was too late to strike out for Gimleal. Too late for anything. He was almost gone.

Shh, Bair, it’s . . .

All right? But it wasn’t all right.

He was dying, and she was to blame. She had issued the challenge. With a lesser steed—a stormer or a riveren—Bair would have been content. But she would have nothing less than a fireborn. A creature with fire and ash beneath its skin. Like her.

Oh, Bair, it’s all my fault.

But there was no reproach in his eyes. Shuddering, he tried to speak again and failed. Words mangled by a groan. By the blood that stained his lips. Yet she had ever been able to read the unspoken in her twin’s gaze.

Home. Her voice broke at the realization. You want to go home.

His eyes drifted shut, and tears scorched her cheeks.

It’s all right . . . all right . . . I promise, Bair, I will get you home.

Once more, she bent beneath his form and staggered upright. Face to the west, she began her solemn march, pressing on through pain, weariness, and the fever of exhaustion. She felt the moment when the breath left his body and his spirit fled its tent, for it felt as though hers flew with it. Grief shattered through her and left a gaping emptiness behind. In darkness, she walked, even in the light of day. Swaying with weariness. Aware of little more than the will required to place one foot before the next.

On the evening of the sixth day, blaring horns heralded her approach to the great house of Rysinger, Lochrann’s chief fortress. Her boots thudded hollowly across the drawbridge before the inner wall. She lifted bleary eyes. Torchlight cast a lurid glare over the horrified expressions of the mounted warriors guarding the entrance. None hindered her passage. They parted, shuffling back on their steeds, dreamlike figures in the shadows.

Tell the king . . . Her voice broke. Tell him his son has returned.

Then her limbs gave way, and she fell upon the bridge.

The shrouded form at the king’s feet held her gaze. Ceridwen would not let herself look away, even as the king’s voice rang out in judgment against her. Bound in embroidered linens and laid upon a bier of evergreen limbs with his hands resting upon the sword on his chest, Bair would be sent to rest as a warrior, as he deserved. As the smoke rose from his pyre, his kin would sing the litany of his deeds so that his spirit might ride with the warriors of yore.

Her voice would not be allowed among them.

She did not cry. She could not. The last of her tears had come and gone in the days she had walked, staggering beneath Bair’s weight, all the way from the Gauroth range. Now her eyes felt as dry and burnt as the crater she had left.

Rough hands seized her by the shoulders, forcing her to the massive hearth in the center of the Fire Hall. Sizzling embers filled the hollow of the stone ring, and in her peripheral vision, gloved hands wielded rods to stoke them into blue-tinged flames. Sweat prickled her brow and ran into her eyes. She sucked in a deep breath. Swallowed.

The scorched air only heightened the ashen taste on her swollen tongue. Dimly, she became aware of those pressing around her. Witnesses. Only breaths had passed since the judgment, but already they gathered. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a man to her right bearing the verdant green banner of Ardon, with its white-gold sun and dawnling rising in gold relief, rearing, forelegs flying in the traditional noon-strike battle form. On her left, a woman held Cenyon’s banner of sea blue, curled like a breaking wave with a shimmering seablood leaping from the spray in surge form, forelegs tucked and head flung high. One witness would rise for each of the seven chiefdoms of Soldonia sworn to the king’s will. She could not see the others, but their voices formed a muted roar beneath the throbbing in her ears, exuding a vague sense of emotions that clashed with her own.

Anger. Shock. Shame.

The hands on her shoulders bore down, though she did not struggle. She would not. She clung to that vow, let it plate her spine in steel. Pride was all she had. Heat seared her throat. Cold stone was a shock beneath her knees. The contrast dizzied her. She clenched her fists at her sides, and the burn on her left forearm throbbed. Broken strands of mane clung to her blistered fingers. Each breath made her singed leathers creak. They hung stiff from her shoulders, crusted with sweat and blood and ash from the crater of Koltar.

Metal scraped as a gloved hand drew a brand from the hearth. It glowed like molten lava. Like the eyes of the fireborn stallion she had sought to claim, before the world turned to fire and hope vanished like smoke into a wintry sky. Shaped like an X that formed a diamond at the top, it was the kasar. The mark of the blood debt. It rippled before her eyes, distorted by the haze of heat. The wielder took a step toward her—in her narrowed vision, she saw only his armor—and then the brand dipped before her eyes. Consuming all else.

She caught her breath, and a tremor seized her bones.

Blazes, she would not struggle.

The wielder paused and twisted to the side. My lord, you are resolved? In the gravel that roughened his aged voice, she recognized the man. Lord Glyndwr, war-chief of Harnoth, one of the seven chiefdoms. The king’s closest adviser. Bair’s mentor. For a moment, through the tempest inside, she felt the world shift into place. Of course. It was fitting that it should be he.

I am resolved.

Words of stone from the king. No hint of pity. No tremor of regret. Only frost-bitten rage that leeched the heat from her bones.

Oh, Bair . . .

She steeled herself for the brand.

Still Glyndwr hesitated. My lord, I beg you to reconsider.

In that instant, she despised the war-chief. More than the plague that had stolen her mother, the fate that had denied her the love of her father, or the fireborn stallion that had claimed her brother’s life. The judgment had been passed. Those words, spoken before witnesses and sealed with the crash of the king’s rod upon stone, rang still in her ears. The blood atoning of the kasar had been demanded, and she would answer it. She must answer it for Bair.

She did not beg, and neither should he.

Let it be done before her courage broke and she shamed herself further.

Claiming a wild solborn in the Sol-Donair is our oldest tradition, Glyndwr said. The challenge is not a crime. Lives have been lost before and never has a blood atoning been required. Bair’s death is a tragedy we all mourn, but my lord, it should not claim the life of—

Someone thrust Glyndwr aside, and familiar, broad shoulders filled her gaze. Grief twisted harsh lines across the king’s face, but it was not meant for her. Barehanded, he seized the brand. His fingers clenched around the metal, and the burnished gold of his signet ring seemed a bland of flame.

A step, like the turning of the earth, and he towered over her. His eyes confirmed the judgment. Bair te Desmond, son of the king, had died. His blood rested upon her head. Henceforth, she was outcast, unnamed, branded with guilt. Until the kasar was atoned for, Ceridwen tal Desmond, daughter of the king, was no more.

The brand hovered before her eyes and then plunged against her forehead.

ONE: CERIDWEN

Fireborn vary in color from rust-sorrel to burnt-brown to coal-black and are renowned for being swift, hot-blooded, and fierce.

The stench of death lingered on the forest air. Ceridwen sensed it first in the subtle changes in her fireborn steed, Mindar. The way his muscles quivered, the twist of his head, the flame flickering across his mane. She eased back on the reins and slid a gloved hand down his neck, smothering the fire before it blossomed fully. Heat radiated through her gloves but could not penetrate the treated leather. Well-tended gear often parted life and death for any solborn rider, but for fireriders most of all.

Can you smell it? Finnian te Donal reined to a stop and rose in his stirrups, scanning while his wolfhound ranged ahead. Unlike Mindar, his steed—a shadower—stood still, as if rooted to the ground. It seemed as much a thing of this forest as the mossy trees. Fresh blood.

Aye. Her hand strayed to the sabre belted at her side.

Finnian tracked the action, and his skeptical glance mirrored her own. Such luck?

It hardly seemed likely. Scarcely a day in the saddle and already upon the trail they sought? As Outriders, they were tasked with patrolling the wildlands of Soldonia, ensuring the safety of the seven chiefdoms from brigands, thieves, and foreign threat. Often, they chased a trail doggedly through wind and heat and sleepless nights for weeks before claiming their quarry.

Yet only that morning, with a twitch of his one bright blue eye and a wolfish grin as he downed his ale, Markham te Hoard, Apex over all the Outriders, had warned their assignment was dangerous. Worthy of the two riders in his ayed with necks stiffer than an earthhewn’s. High praise coming from Markham, followed by an offhand introduction. Finnian te Donal, meet Ceridwen tor Nimid. Te Donal, tor Nimid. Shadower and fireborn. You’ll be riding together. He swigged ale and swept his hand across his mouth. Try not to kill one another.

Thus far, they had abstained.

Ceridwen studied Finnian out of the corner of her eye. He sat loose-limbed astride his steed, a quiver of arrows at his hip. Dark hair shadowed his eyes, but she caught their glint within like the gleam of moonlight on a blade. The tightness of his shoulders, hard edge of his jaw, and the way his hand strayed to the bow sheath belted to his saddle betrayed his unease.

It echoed her own. Striking the trail so soon might be chance, but coincidence did not rest well with her, not riding upon the heels of a warning from the Apex. Not to mention their unusual pairing. Among the thousand riders that formed an ayed, Outriders were broken into units of a hundred, patrols of ten, and paired solborn steeds of the same breed. It made sense. A fireborn’s volatile nature often clashed with amphibious steeds like seabloods or riveren, while the massive earthhewn were prone to trampling any smaller than themselves.

Save for one ill-fated pairing early on, Markham had allowed Ceridwen to ride assignments on her own. If fireborn could be volatile, how much more could she? The disinherited daughter of a king, outcast, banned from her father’s fortress under penalty of death. Three years had not lessened the shame of the brand she bore or the ache of Bair’s loss. Far better to keep others at a distance while she sought atonement in a life dedicated to protecting her people. Alone.

Releasing her reins for an instant, she bound the crimson scarf she wore over her forehead more firmly in place, tucking strands of red hair that had escaped her braid beneath its covering. I do not hold with luck.

Finnian nodded grimly. That is one thing we have in common.

At his whistle, the wolfhound trotted onward, scarred nose lifted to the wind. Mindar pranced after him, snorting black smoke and tossing his head. Sparks rained from his mane and were trampled beneath his hooves. When he was not flaming, his coat gleamed bright copper in the sunlight, and his mane and tail shimmered with strands of red, gold, and deep umber. But when he ignited, he was an inferno incarnate. Fire coiled from his mane and tail, his eyes turned bright as embers, and then his jaws spewed flame. Tamed fireborn flamed only on command. But her wildborn, painfully won and trained, had not yet mastered such control.

Finnian and his steed glided alongside, vanishing and reappearing every other stride. The shadower’s mottled brown coat melted into the layered treescape, and Finnian’s dark clothes were subtly patterned to do the same. Even his soft gray cloak seemed to float effortlessly upon the wind. Shadowers were renowned for their ability to move in silence and disappear in shadow. Ghosting, it was called. Ideal for stealth attacks and scouting missions. But seeing it—or rather, not seeing it—so close unnerved Ceridwen. Perhaps it was only habit that led Finnian to ghost with his steed now, but it left her feeling vulnerable and exposed beside this rider she hardly knew, and her fingers ached for the cold and steady comfort of her sabre hilt.

Hold, Finnian whispered from her left, three horse lengths ahead. The shadower’s outline became clear as it halted before a break in the trees and then faded again.

Flies buzzed in the hazy stillness. The scent of blood was sharper now. It had Mindar on edge. His nostrils flared and heat radiated from his ribcage. Soon, he must calm or release the flame. Ceridwen looped her leather half mask over her nose and chin and tugged the hood of her long-sleeved jerkin down over her forehead. Like the rest of her gear, both had been treated to shield against fire. Then she urged Mindar beside the shadower and scanned the tree break.

Broken soil. Trampled foliage. Dead solborn.

Gut bloated, hide flayed, raw flesh exposed—she did not see their quarry, but this was clearly his work.

Hold here while I—

She silenced Finnian with a tap on the arm. Nodding toward the tree break, she gestured to herself, then pointed at him and swept her wrist in a circular motion. His eyes narrowed, but she did not wait for his objection.

Shift of the seat. Touch of the spurs.

Mindar sprang like an arrow from a bow.

Across the tree line, she slid her spurs back across his sides, and flames roared from his throat. Shrilling the cry of the Outriders, she charged the dead solborn. Another shift, another touch, another twitch of the reins, and Mindar dropped into a spin, a firestorm unleashed. His flames coiled around her, but within the ring, shielded by treated leathers and the bond forged between rider and steed, she was safe.

Finnian emerged on the opposite side of the clearing, shaking his head. Nothing. They were too late.

Ceridwen halted Mindar, threw her leg over the saddle, and dropped with a jangle of spurs into ash. Scorched earth now formed a ring around the dead solborn. Sparks winked out beneath her boots, drawing her gaze to a frayed rope, half-buried. She bent to investigate. It stretched from the dead solborn across the clearing.

What were you thinking? Finnian demanded beside her.

"Blazes. Too late, she tried to conceal her surprise at his sudden appearance. The shadower had crossed the clearing so noiselessly and swiftly, like a gust of wind. It was unnatural. Do you want to get yourself flamed?"

He dismounted silently—the wonders of the sol-breath upon a shadowrider. "Do you want to get yourself killed?"

Rolling her eyes, she followed the rope, but Mindar shied from the dead solborn, jerking against her grip and snorting dingy smoke. Easy, boy. Easy. The half mask muffled her voice, so she yanked it down to her neck. He stilled under her gloved hand, still blowing hard.

Markham failed to mention your steed was raw.

Raw? Ceridwen shot Finnian a glare. He is wildborn. That is all. Three years under saddle, and he was still wild in some ways. Indomitable in the blaze of battle, shying from a fallen cloak the next. But it was often so with fireborn, pastured or wild. They were true to passion in all things. Even fear. Still, owing to her mother’s half-Rhiakki heritage, Ceridwen had spent half her time in the Outriders on the northeastern border, skirmishing with Rhiakkor. Mindar could handle the stresses of battle, and she could handle him. She could.

You should have waited. We needed a plan. Tension radiated from Finnian’s lean frame like the heat from Mindar’s skin. What if the poacher had been here? What would have happened then?

She shrugged. Battle. Offered a smile. "Glorious battle."

He offered no smile in return.

This was why she preferred to ride alone. When she tried to work with others, her efforts flamed in her hands. She was weary of wading through the ashes of scorched relationships. Why had Markham insisted on this pairing? Sighing, she steeled herself against the familiar sinking feeling in her stomach. And we did have a plan. I handled the distraction while you maneuvered to the rear. It was a sound action. Even Apex Markham would agree.

His eyes narrowed. Markham said you were reckless.

"Odd. He told me you were stubborn."

He snorted at that, but she caught the faint smile on his lips before he turned away, shadower trailing him to the dead solborn. Crouching, he fingered a tuft of blue-gray hair. It was a stormer. The heart’s missing, mane shorn, wings plucked, hooves ground down. Disgust flooded his voice. "Even its teeth are missing. Solborn poachers. Shades."

Ceridwen nodded. Flames take them all.

On this, they could agree. Solborn poachers deserved every curse in every tongue under the sun. Common horses—or tolf, as they were called—could be found nearly anywhere, but wild solborn inhabited only the seven chiefdoms of Soldonia. Fireborn, shadowers, stormers, and more—all faster, fiercer, and more powerful than tolf. The mysteries of their taming and the bond, known as the sol-breath, that tempered riders to their steeds’ abilities were kept secret.

It was small wonder other nations desired them. Or that some attributed magical properties to their bones. Poachers frequently attempted to breach the borders to harvest steeds. The Outriders were tasked with capturing them as much as shielding the seven chiefdoms from threats. This one had left a gruesome trail of rotting corpses, both solborn and human, including the last Outrider pair Markham had dispatched to bring him in.

Finnian whistled softly. Eyes too. Must be worth a fortune in Canthor, in the right market. In that island empire, the scholarly elite were known for dissecting and reducing all living things to facts and numbers, while the masses clung to superstitions and myths. Hold on. He reached to lift the steed’s head. There is something underneath—

Stop! Even as the warning left her lips, Ceridwen knew it was too late. The rope she had been trailing ran taut, springing up in a shower of leaves.

Something twanged beyond the tree line.

She snapped her rein hand, summoning Mindar’s flame. Roaring filled her ears. When it dwindled, three charred crossbow bolts fell to the ground.

Finnian’s widening eyes met hers. Those bolts had been aimed at him.

He whistled sharply, dispatching the wolfhound. She swung into the saddle and urged Mindar from the clearing before her feet had even fallen into the stirrups. Branches scraped her head. She caught a glimpse of Finnian mounted and angling to meet the wolfhound, hastily fitting arrow to bowstring before he vanished. Pressing deeper, she swept wide around the clearing, searching for signs of the archer.

Still nothing. How could he have fled so fast?

Trip wire, Finnian said on her return, lifting a crossbow as explanation, his own bow stowed in the sheath on his saddle. He did not seem shaken by the attack. But Ceridwen’s heart still pounded like a galloping steed in her chest.

Had Mindar flamed a breath slower, Finnian would have died. Like Bair. Like the Outrider from her first disastrous pairing.

Death rode ever at her heels.

Finnian’s words reverberated strangely in her ears, as though she were underwater. Our poacher wasn’t fooling. He had three crossbows rigged to release with pressure on that rope. Probably why we found the trail so soon. It was a trap, and . . . are you all right?

Fine. I’m fine. She blinked away a vivid image of him lying dead with three bolts in his chest and dismounted to retrieve them for him.

He sniffed the shafts, inspected the barbed heads, and ran a finger across what remained of the fletching. That wood’s not Soldonian, and the tips were coated in something. It’s mostly burned, but there’s some residue left.

Residue as in . . . Poison?

Shrugging, he stowed the bolts in his saddlebags. Not uncommon in Canthor, and I would wager a guess that’s where our hunter is from. Or at least where he’s going. He ran a hand through his hair in a gesture that reminded her of Markham, leaving a ridge standing on end. Fortunate you spotted the rope— He ground to a halt, gaze locked on her forehead.

She reached for her scarf and found only the brand burned by her father’s hand.

The treacherous cloth dangled from a leafy bough across the clearing, no doubt torn from her head as she forged into the woods. Skin flaming, she stared Finnian in the eye. She had never attempted to conceal her identity from the Outriders. It would have been useless, even had her pride and her shame not forbidden it. Yet it was one thing to know what had denied her the use of her rights, title, and father’s name, and another to see it cast in waxy lines.

The kasar. Marking her a blood traitor, kinslayer, and outcast.

Beyond the clearing, the wolfhound bayed. Finnian seemed to shake himself. Cù has found the trail. Are you ready to ride?

Only then did she realize she had been holding her breath, awaiting his judgment. She exhaled and then took in a whiff of smoke-charged air. A step to grasp the saddlebow, and she swung astride Mindar. Finnian held his tongue as she retrieved her scarf. Her eyes dared him to speak as she deftly worked the knot. But his were guarded now, and his face was cast like marble. Whatever his thoughts, he kept them safely locked away.

Onward?

She gave a nod. Onward.

TWO: RAFI

Come sun. Come storm. All tides shift soon enough.

—Alonque saying

Screaming sea-demons jarred him from sleep. Not the rudest awakening Rafi had experienced, but then it had stiff competition—like the time he’d woken up inside a python’s jaws or the night he was hauled from bed to the news that his chambers had been permanently relocated to the dungeons. Still, the eerie shrieks shivering across the rain-soaked beach to penetrate the palm-thatched walls of the fisherman’s hut chilled his spine. Made him wonder if he really had awakened, or if he was trapped in the nightmare that awaited him every time he closed his eyes.

Sea-demons haunted him there too. Always they called him to remember.

Always he tried to forget.

Rafi tried to sit up, and the world flipped. He smashed into the floor with a pain that was all too real and rolled over onto his back, wheezing until his lungs remembered they had mastered that critical skill known as breathing and he was able to inhale again.

He didn’t bother rising. Just lay there, legs tangled in a sweat-soaked sheet, shivering as a damp breeze seeped through the thatch and set his hammock swinging jauntily above him, as if the ornery thing enjoyed dropping him on his head. He could hear Torva snoring from the second hammock. Rafi consciously aligned his breathing with the old fisherman’s and coaxed his mind back from the nightmare’s grip. He had been falling there too, wind whistling in his ears as he hurtled into an endless drop. That had not been the worst of it though. It never was.

Exhaustion prickled his spine, but now that he was awake, sleep would not return. It always slipped away from him like sand through his fingers. He had been lucky enough to snatch a few hours before the monsters started screaming. Outside, the shrieks reached a piercing note that crawled beneath his skin and made his skull feel like it was going to split.

Well, he could lie here while the hours dripped like melted wax. Or he could get to work.

His legs protested as he hauled himself upright and picked his way across the cluttered floor in search of the rock oven to heat a cup of seaweed tea. He stoked coals to life beneath the copper water pot and swept a space clear of woven baskets, conch shells, and half-braided ropes so he could sit, then dragged a torn net into his lap and began splicing the broken strands together. Narrowly missed slicing his left hand on a broken harpoon embedded in its bulk and had to spend the next five minutes working to extract it.

Really, Torva? he mumbled beneath his breath. Place is a death trap.

Probably, the old fisherman had dumped both net and harpoon months ago, intending to fix them eventually. But abandoned things pooled here like the refuse forever thrown ashore by the sea. In a way, Rafi was just one more thing Torva had collected. All those castoffs were weighted with memory, grounding the hut even as the wind shook it on its stilts. Maybe that was why Rafi could never sleep. His life depended on forgetting.

He would forget.

I am Nahiki. Speaking it, even in a whisper, helped root the identity. It let him ignore his headache and his uneasiness at the thought of the night hours stretching haunted and wakeful before him. No matter how much he might be Nahiki during the day, at night, when the sea-demons screamed, he was only ever Rafi.

And at nineteen, Rafi was supposed to be long dead.

Nahiki. Half-Alonque. Guest of the fisher tribe of Zorrad. Diver. Tamer of wild hammocks. He tested his splice. It held. "And mender of nets. Nahiki."

Ain’t no need to tell me, boy.

Rafi jerked at the rasping voice and dropped the net. Torva was awake, sitting up in his hammock with his calloused feet dangling above the floor. His dark skin was seamed and wrinkled like the hide of a shelled turtle. He looked like he had lived more lifetimes than all the other inhabitants of the village of Zorrad put together.

Can’t sleep again?

Sleep? Rafi shrugged. Sleep is for mortals. I have given it up.

Torva grunted and shuffled to the oven to start the tea steeping. Not a moment too soon. The ache had lodged behind Rafi’s eyes, blurring his vision. He dug his fingertips into his scalp. He must have drifted a bit then, swept up by pain and an exhaustion that snatches of sleep could never quite banish, because it seemed only an instant before the fisherman handed him a tiny steaming cup. Hot liquid burned his tongue, but the scent—salty and fresh—began to sweep the fog from his head. He mumbled his thanks.

Not them sea-demons, is it? Ain’t no need to fear those screamers.

Rafi choked on a sip. Others say differently, Torva. Sea-demons didn’t even belong so close to shore here on the Alon coast in the empire of Nadaar. They were monsters of Soldonia, that warlike nation across the sea where barbarians rode to battle on steeds of fire, rock, and water. Still, there were stories. Mostly vague superstitions of curses and impending doom, so he’d never given them much thought.

But then, he didn’t fear the sea-demons. Only what they made him recall.

Eh, who says this? Cetmurers? Torva thought little of city dwellers and even less of those who inhabited Nadaar’s capital, Cetmur. What do they know? I’ve heard them all my life, and I’m still breathing. If you ask me, scadtha are more worrisome.

True enough. Those massive amphibious creatures that hunted along the Alon coast were considered sacred in the Murlochian worship that dominated Nadaar. But with their segmented, many-legged bodies and venomous pincers, horrifying struck Rafi as a better word. Harming one, even by accident, was a sure path to a painful execution, though odds stood you’d be dead long before you could face judgment.

Shaking his head, Torva limped to his hammock, and Rafi tried not to begrudge him sleep. He hadn’t meant to wake him. Eyes closed, he breathed in steam from his tea and did not look up when footsteps shuffled toward him again.

Look, Nahiki, I don’t rightly know what you run from—

I’m not running from anything.

It was a lie, and they both knew it, but in two years, Torva had never demanded truth.

But maybe . . . it’s time to stop.

Rafi’s throat clogged. He should have known this was coming. The old fisherman wanted him to move on just as he had left countless other temporary refuges over the past five years. But this place—even with its weight of memories and the sea-demons who would not let him forget—had felt different somehow. More like a home.

Take it.

His eyes snapped open to a cord knotted with beads of varying hues of blue and yellow, and that thickness in his throat solidified into a lump. It was Alonque custom to track ancestral lines in beads. Torva wore his cord tied behind his ear. His son would have worn this same pattern, but the boy had been claimed by the sea years before Rafi’s parents had been born.

Take it, Torva repeated, firmly setting the cord in Rafi’s left hand and folding his fingers around it. His eyes were misty, his voice hoarse. Aodh alone knows who you were. But I know who you are now. Be free, Nahiki, and let this be your home.

The beads dug into his palm, pressed against the puckered scar that cut across the base of his thumb. Torva was offering far more than a roof. He was offering a place in the tribe, a welcome as his own son.

Rafi swallowed. Torva, are you—

Tired? Aye. Some of us are still mortal. Try to sleep? The old fisherman looked like he had aged another lifetime as he fell back into his hammock with a groan. His snores started up again, competing with the shrieks of the sea-demons.

Rafi gripped the beads and sipped his cooling tea as the coals burned low, watching as his reflection slowly faded from the copper pot: sharp cheekbones, wry lips, and the thin mark like a teardrop below his right eye, carved by a knife almost six years and a lifetime ago.

I am Nahiki of the Alonque, he whispered to the dark. "Rafi is dead."

Beads rattling in his jaw-length black hair, Nahiki of the Alonque jogged with a swing in his stride down the jungle path toward the beach in the humid hour before dawn. Huts on stilts were clustered in twos and threes among the palm trees behind him, already alight with the glow of cooking fires, steaming with the scent of rice cakes, and rattling with the chatter of graybeard monkeys scrambling from canopy to rooftop. He was almost late. Normally, he was the first to the boats, bleary-eyed with exhaustion after another restless night. But somehow, he had slept and awakened this morning sprawled on the torn net with a sheet thrown over him and Torva gone.

He slowed when his heels struck sand and wove through the Alonque clustered around the beached fishing boats. Tongues flew and hands flew faster as they prepared to shove off into the sea to let down their nets before sunrise and catch the fish rising toward the warmth. Meeting Torva’s raised eyebrow with a sheepish grin—"Welcome back to the mortals, sleeper," that eyebrow seemed to say—he took up his position alongside Torva’s fishing boat across from Sev.

The young fisherman grinned, flinging his shoulder-length black hair from his face and setting the eight beads on his cord clacking. He stood shorter by a head but was sturdy as a boulder, whereas Nahiki had the lean strength of a neefwa tree. You missed a storm, Nahiki. Gordu’s in a temper!

Nahiki laughed. Gordu’s always in a temper. His voice rang across a sudden hush, and he hastily ducked a scowl from the burly, bald village elder. He’d tasted the man’s wrath before, even caught a few knocks from his hammerlike fists, and had no desire to repeat the experience.

Not like today, Sev whispered. Seems his boat split a seam, and he’s convinced someone knocked a leak in it on purpose. He winked conspiratorially, ever the rebel in word if not in deed, then regarded Nahiki. You look alive today.

"I feel alive today."

So, I take it your talk with Yeena went well yesterday? Sev jutted his chin toward the girl scampering past with an armload of baskets. She looked up, meeting Nahiki’s eyes, and lowered her head shyly behind a waterfall of dark hair that couldn’t quite conceal the smile on her berry-red lips. Not like you to be late to the boats . . .

We didn’t talk much.

Oh? Sev’s eyebrows rose.

Nahiki felt his face warm. No, I didn’t mean—

Before he could explain that Yeena had started blushing before he even got her name out, and that had been the end of it, someone tackled him from behind, elbow crooking his neck, bony knees clinging like a limpet. He went down on one knee and rolled his back, throwing his attacker into the waves. A wiry boy crawled out and sprawled on the sand, laughing, revealing a broken front tooth in a grin that otherwise mirrored Sev’s.

Oh, get up, Iakki. Sev flicked a hand at his brother. Can’t you see we are working?

Working? You were talking about Yeena! You going to wed her, Cousin Nahiki? Iakki was only nine, but that mischievous gleam in his eyes made him look far older.

Nahiki’s mind went blank. Uh . . .

Iakki burst out laughing, rolling on his back in the sand until Sev toed him into the shallows in time to take an incoming wave to the face. Rolling his eyes as Iakki sputtered, Sev turned back toward Nahiki. He smiled broadly as he jabbed a finger toward the bead strand tied behind his left ear. So, old Torva did it then?

Nahiki’s fingers rose to brush the cord. Last night.

High time, I say. Sev clapped his shoulder. What did Yeena say about it? Should we start scouting a location for your hut? Maybe the clearing next to mine?

Nahiki flailed for an answer. There was a terrifying permanence to such talk. But this was what he wanted, wasn’t it? No more ghosts, no more fear, no more anything from Rafi’s past.

Ain’t you coming diving later, Nahiki?

Once again, Iakki saved him. He reached down to where the boy lounged in the damp sand and hauled him to his feet. Sure, cousin.

Hoy! Torva limped up, cracking his knuckles, as the other boats began moving out. Ain’t you boys ready yet? We got us a catch to make! His arrival sent all three of them scrambling to grip the boat’s sides. Throwing their weight forward, they ran, slinging sand and spray until the sea caught the boat, and they splashed aboard and took to their oars, rowing toward the first glint of dawn.

Nahiki basked in freedom as he immersed himself in the familiar work. Sweat dripped down his back as he threw out the nets, sorted the catch, juggled fuzzy yellow simba fruit for Iakki’s amusement during occasional lulls, and ignored the drift of hours until their baskets were full and they could race the others ashore. Zorrad’s market served several deep-jungle Mahque tribes, but Elder Gordu claimed the first four catches each day to haul on his water buffalo cart to a larger inland town for a share in the steeper profit. Today, they were the second boat in, which meant they would have coin for rice, spices, and Nadaar’s high war-tribute the soldiers would soon come to collect.

Ches-Shu smiles on us, cousin! Sev threw an arm over Nahiki’s shoulders as Gordu’s overloaded cart wobbled away and they trooped back to the beach to wash their nets. Although the empire demanded its territories bow to Murlochian Dominion, among the Que tribes, worship of the Three Sisters lingered: Ches-Shu, goddess of the sea, was honored most by the Alonque, while the Hanonque favored Cael of the sky, and the Mahque praised Cihana of the earth. Torva, oddly, stood apart in his devotion to the one called Aodh, Bearer of the Eternal Scars.

Kaya would have you eat with us tonight. Sev hooked his elbow around Nahiki’s neck and hauled him closer. She did not wish me to say, but Yeena comes too.

Kaya would have me netted and wed, Nahiki said.

And that is a bad thing?

With a year of marriage as the wind in their sails, Sev and his wife delighted in throwing matches Nahiki’s way, including Kaya’s sister, Yeena. Was it a bad thing? As Torva’s adopted son, he was a member of the tribe now. He could build a hut and a life of his own here as Nahiki.

Rafi is dead . . . isn’t he?

You’ll come then? Sev asked.

He found himself backing away. Promised Iakki I’d go diving. Another time. Maybe.

Last one in is a turtle’s egg! Iakki shrieked and