Blue Fire

  Blue Fire

  Amity Thompson

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Chapter 41

  Chapter 42

  Connect With Amity

  More from Amity

  Acknowledgments

  Copyright © 2020 by Amity Thompson

  Cover design by Books Covered

  ISBN: 978-1-951108-03-8

  Published by Secondary Worlds Press in 2020.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Created with Vellum

  Chapter One

  I had run out of places to hide.

  This morning, a city had seemed like the smart answer. Small villages like the one I’d been raised in, they noticed strangers. They’d report me to the local noble right off. But a city? It had people. Too many people, I’d hoped, and no one would notice a girl working in a stable or in a kitchen. Work hard, work quiet, keep my head down, and keep my emotions in check. Simple. Flawless.

  Except I didn’t know cities. I didn’t know that narrow streets were bad. That narrow streets had building butting up against building, too tight to squeeze between. That if you picked the wrong one of these streets-that-weren’t-streets, yes, you may not be noticed by other people, but you might end in up a courtyard smelling of rotting cabbages with no way out.

  “Pigshit,” I said after I rounded the corner. The enclosed area only had knee-high crates to hide behind. Only two of the four walls had doors. I hurried to the first—locked.

  As my fingers released the handle, the sound of footsteps came around the corner.

  It’s over.

  I’d only been running a week. A whole week, never seeing a single noble in the countryside. Then, just inside the gates of the first city I’d come to, a brown cloak had begun to follow me. Then two. And while cloaks weren’t disturbing—near twilight, many people wore cloaks—I’d spotted the glint of red at the cloaked figure’s side.

  Not a sword. Scarier than a sword. A ring. A gemmed ring.

  Only nobles were allowed to wear gemstones.

  “I seem to be lost,” I said. I turned around and tried a smile. “If you’ll excuse me—”

  The first figure raised a hand, and I faltered. He wore a ring, yes, but his hand wasn’t the sun-starved shade of the nobility. He was the shame shade as me—the dusky brown of farmers and lower traders and all those who work outside, and that didn’t make sense.

  “My king, he wants to talk to you,” he said.

  I frowned deeper. He was almost impossible to understand. The words, too thick on his tongue.

  “Adara, yes?” he continued. “Mage of blue fire?”

  “Only nobles have magic.” My mouth tasted drier than the dirt of last season. “You’re mistaken. If you will let me pass...”

  The setting sun had dimmed the courtyard, but there was enough light to catch the gleam of teeth under his hood. His companion shifted forward until the exit was blocked completely.

  “Eyes like ocean,” the first said. “Girl. Fifteen, sixteen? From Stoneyfield.”

  With dismay I leaned against the cool stone beside the doorway. Word must have gotten out about my foster parents’ hut. It had been an accident. Lily and Garth had gotten out in time, but it didn’t matter. Their home, ash. The long-held suspicions, confirmed.

  “I don’t want to die,” I whispered.

  The cloaked man began to laugh. “Die? Talking isn’t die. My king, he honors blue mage. Not stupid like Dragerian king. Magic is magic and who cares where from.”

  With that, he lifted the hood.

  He was a rain-forsaken Carthesian. Blue and purple lines of a nonsensical tattoo covered half his face. No wonder he’d worn a cloak—every guard in the city and every noble besides would have come to kill him had he shown those tattoos. The Carthesian tribes had raided Drageria since before time. Stoneyfield wasn’t on the border, but it was far enough north that ambitious tribes raided it once a generation. First One knew I wouldn’t talk to any of them.

  His friend had pushed back his hood as well, revealing an identical tattoo. Both sported close-cropped dark hair and dark eyes, but the speaker was taller. He took a step forward.

  “Stay back!” I yelled.

  He froze. “Fear? No fear. Honor. My king—”

  “Carthesia doesn’t have a king,” I said. I’d heard the rumors, though, that the desert tribes had united. They had even gotten the banished dragons to join them. Before he could argue, I added, “Even if it did, I’m not an ox-brain. I’m not going to the desert with you.”

  He chuckled again and took another step. My heart began to pound so loud I was surprised no one heard it on the other side of the wall.

  “Peace—”

  “Peace? When you started a war?” I said.

  He took another step.

  My heart beat faster. “Stop! I won’t go—”

  He stopped. So did I. For I’d thrown up my hands and, around my fingers, blue fire twisted.

  I had no blighted idea how I was doing it.

  “Shhh,” the Carthesian said. Then he spoke something in a harsh tongue to his companion. “Think. What Drageria give you? If you no come, with me, then where do you go?”

  “Wherever I want,” I said, but it wasn’t true. Nobles killed halfblooded babies. It was doubtful they’d welcome one as an adult. The speaker, and his buddy, slid another step forward. “I said stop!”

  A crate beside me burst into blue ash. A smell like scorched sewage wafted from the remains.

  Red sparkles appeared between the Carthesians and me, like a curtain. I waved my hands at it, but the blue flames vanished instead of growing. When they did, the speaker’s friend began to laugh and the curtain grew closer.

  First One, please get me out of this. I still resented my deity, for everything had been fine until I’d prayed at the village’s altar, but no one else was going to save me. Bring the blue fire back. Make the Carthesian’s spell fizzle. Anything!

  I didn’t really expect the prayer to work. Just like I didn’t expect the Dragerian to enter the courtyard.

  Even in the dim light, the massive part of him was impossible to miss. He towered a head taller than the larger Carthesian. Better than his height, however, was the lattice of black fire between his hands—that and the absence of a tattoo above
his white-flecked beard.

  I nearly sobbed with relief. I’d worry about him being a noble after we lived.

  The speaking Carthesian noticed the direction of my gaze; he spun as the Dragerian threw the lattice into the air. The magic enveloped his friend and brought the Carthesian to the ground. The speaker growled something and the red curtain squeezed together and zipped toward the Dragerian as a lightning bolt. The noble batted it away, but his eyebrows raised at his smoking sleeve. The magic had broken through. He met the next two bolts of lightning with black ones of his own.

  Fear melted into awe. Never, ever, had I seen something so beautiful. Red and black clouds swirled in a storm of lightning. Bursts of wind swept through the courtyard and pulled at the hairs that had escaped my braid. The power thrummed through the air as crates rose without hands to lift them and raced toward the Dragerian.

  Cold sweat broke out on my neck as my eyesight blurred. Not again. Not…

  Ghostly forms began to float over the real ones as the vision began.

  I am bathed in blue fire. Blackness halos my enemy as he advances and chairs float into the air. I’ll never be able to push them back. Instead I form a wall of fire as they begin to hurtle toward my head...

  The vision vanished. I fell to the cobblestones. The battle waged on, the Dragerian exploding one crate after another. White may have flecked his dark beard and his close-cropped hair, but the Dragerian looked as if he could fling spells all night.

  My fingers brushed against a loose cobblestone. Let’s not gamble on all night. I pulled the stone from the ground and hurled it. The stone struck the Carthesian in the back of the head and he crumpled to the ground.

  The noble flicked his wrist and an orb of black vanished. He nodded at the unconscious man and spoke with a voice so deep the air rumbled. “Creative.”

  “Normal,” I managed.

  He chuckled. “Well spoken.”

  The noble went to the unconscious man and stooped to check his wrist. Black ropes formed out of air and wrapped themselves around the Carthesian. His enemy secured, the Dragerian turned, cursed. The other Carthesian had slunk past him and away without either of us knowing.

  “We need to leave,” the noble said. “Before he finds reinforcements. Come, I have a carriage waiting.”

  He gestured, expecting me to follow.

  I didn’t move.

  Chapter Two

  Over and over in my head, I heard Lily’s voice: Nobles kill babes like you. Your ma saved your life by hiding.

  I prayed the Dragerian hadn’t seen my spell. I needed him to think me some random peasant. So, instead of following, I swallowed and tried to keep my voice steady. “Thank you for saving me, my lord, but I’ll not bother you further.”

  He may have frowned. It was hard to tell; falling darkness made it almost impossible to see his expression. It also made the glowing blue splinters he pointed to all the easier to see.

  “They will come after you,” he said. “Carthesia isn’t going to let a blue mage through its fingers. Either you will join them, or they will kill you. You need protection until you can control your Gift.”

  Pigshit. I swallowed, my tongue dry as ash. Maybe he thought me a noble runaway, dressed as a peasant? He didn’t seem like he wanted to kill me, not after saving me, but there was surely something bad coming.

  “My name is Orrik,” the man said. He held out his hand. “I’ve been to Stoneyfield. I saw the effects of your manifestation, Adara, and I know why you are running. I promise, I will let no harm come to you—from Carthesia or from Drageria. But I would rather not battle other mages to keep that promise.”

  I relaxed, just a little, and drew closer. First One, he towered larger than any man I’d ever met. Built like an ox, too, for all the salt and pepper in his hair and beard. I couldn’t guess his age—fifties, sixties—because he didn’t have the deep lines of an old farmer. My hand disappeared into his and, to my surprise, I felt calluses on his fingertips.

  His grip tightened, firm but not painful. “Let’s go.”

  Orrik led, checking around corners and his free hand poised as if it would fill again with fire any moment. Every check, my heart squeezed in my chest. We made it to the larger street, most of the foot traffic gone for the day, then to a place where two large streets met. A carriage did wait, with horses that stamped the ground, and Orrik helped me inside. The door clicked behind us, and darkness vanished as a globe of black appeared at the carriage’s ceiling. I peered at it for a moment, wondering at how a black-colored orb could give off clear light. Orrik thunked the ceiling with his hand and the carriage sprang into motion, so smoothly it barely felt like movement.

  He pulled the curtains. Midnight-blue fabric shut out the lamps that lit the roadway, yet inside the carriage the magic made it feel like day.

  Maybe it’s another one of those daytime dreams.

  The noble hadn’t killed me. I sat on a cushioned bench comfier than a cloud, in a carriage worth more than Lily and Garth’s hut. It was as far-fetched as one of the visions I’d had of late, but it did not hit me suddenly and vanish after a minute.

  It was real.

  “Where we are going?” I asked. “My lord.”

  Orrik waved a hand. “Not ‘lord.’ I gave up my title long ago. I am Dragon Mage Orrik, and I am taking you to the Kyer.”

  “The Kyer,” I repeated. I went back to the dream idea. “You mean, the mountain with dragons?”

  The slightest of smiles. “There are four mountains, actually. And yes.”

  I couldn’t believe it. “The Kyer wants to protect me? A halfblood.”

  Orrik leaned forward and put his elbows on my knees, making me press my back into the bench’s cushy back. “Adara, who are your parents?”

  My face warmed. I always turned red when someone brought up my mother. “Garth didn’t tell you?” Something occurred to me, and my heart squeezed. “Garth is alive, right? The Carthesians didn’t hurt—”

  “Garth is well, and never mind what he did or did not tell me. I asked you.”

  I dropped my gaze to the carriage floor. It was polished wood. “Mother… Her name was Krysta. We think she was some lady’s maid. Garth said her speech was too smooth and soft, and she could read and, well, she was just different. My father…”

  My face burned even more. Surely Orrik could figure out the rest. “I don’t know his name. Mother never told me. Or anyone.”

  “Garth said she had died in the Sickness?” Orrik’s rumble had softened.

  I nodded.

  “You were born in Stoneyfield?”

  “No. Somewhere else. Mother worked as a seamstress there, near a town. Lots of people started dying. Mother said the Lady didn’t care, so we were leaving. By the time we came to Stoneyfield, she was sick. She died within two weeks.”

  Tears still sprang to my eyes when I remembered the end: stargazing with her one last time; her upset that we couldn’t afford crystals for the sickroom; Mother saying with her last breath that she loved me…

  Orrik let me sit in silence. When I finally looked at him, he was studying me. Was he looking for my father? Lily said I had gotten everything from my ma, from my deep blue eyes to the high cheekbones. My dark brown hair did curl while hers had been straight, but you couldn’t tell that with my braid. No, the only thing I’d gotten from my father was the magic.

  The blighted magic that had ruined my world.

  Not ruined. I forced myself to admit the truth. Lily and Garth said no before the fire.

  I cleared my throat. “I don’t see why the Kyer is willing to protect me. With my blood. Lily told me all babies with mixed blood are killed.”

  Orrik grimaced. “Lily spoke true, though the practice is much contested. Your past is something you must conceal. As far as protection, Adara, we wish to do more than that. The Dragonmaster would like to extend to you an offer to join the Kyer.”

  “You’re joking.”

  From his close-cropped hair to his toes, Orrik se
emed serious. “You will have to earn your way, of course, like any mage who wishes to join our ranks.”

  “I’ll have to fight in the war?” Usually Drageria avoided wars and only dealt with tribal raids—few wanted to take on dragons. Carthesia forming its own kyer, however, had changed that.

  “You do not realize what you are, do you?”

  A bastard peasant no one wants?

  “The color of Gift means something,” Orrik said. “Not all nobles have magic, and most who do are yellow and weak. A yellow Gift, to us, hardly matters. Red is better. With skill and creativity, a red mage can marry to better advantage, or become a city official, or serve a highborn family, or follow a number of other opportunities.

  “But all families pray their children manifest black.” He pointed to the globe floating in the carriage. “A black chooses his future. He breaks free of bloodlines and rank and title. Dragonmaster Merram was born the second son in a low family, but because of his black Gift, he came to the Kyer. Now he is behind only King Irian in political power.”

  A long pause as Orrik stared at me. My voice seemed very small as I spoke. “Blue is the strongest… Gift.”

  “There is perhaps one blue born every century.” Orrik tapped the covered window. “That is why the Carthesians will never stop hunting you. For the past few years, they have snatched every unprotected, newly manifested mage in Drageria. After all, every mage denied us is one that makes us weaker, and if the child can be persuaded to join their side, all the better.”