Fire Ch. 10

She looked around the little clearing and felt her pleasure diminish significantly. She liked it here, and would be sad to leave. She liked her little makeshift family, both for themselves and for the sense of belonging they gave her. She paused, and sagged into the shadow of an ancient oak, it's heavy arms dipping low overhead. They looked mournful. They made her mournful. She smiled sadly. Why must everything be so bittersweet?

The door in the wall opened and she smiled more sincerely, waiting to see who it was so she could call out to them. She moved to step out of the shadow, but stilled as her stomach lurched violently up into her throat. She thought for a moment she might be ill as a creeping tremor ran through her body, leaving her skin cold and prickling in a sickening way.

The tall figure was wreathed in light from inside, and she couldn't see his face because of it...but she didn't need to. He stepped forward, his hand resting idly on his hilt and gazed around the clearing. It seemed as if for a moment his eyes locked with hers as he turned in her direction. But it was only a moment, and he moved on, turning back to the door. He called something she couldn't make out and two others appeared in the doorway. She stood rooted to the spot as they spoke and gestured, then eventually moved on, leaving the door standing open behind them, with the warm glow of torches emanating from within.

'It might be alright...they might be ok...' she repeated the thought over and over to herself as she watched the door, her eyes as fixed to it as her feet were to the ground. Her heart sat like a lead in her chest and she felt as though it had stopped beating altogether. She stood and she watched and she prayed, and still no one came to close the door.

The first step was the easiest. As though she was being pulled forward, and she nearly stumbled in her haste. Each one after became more difficult, heavy with apprehension. She stopped just shy of the doorway. She had been wrong about the torches. Smoke was beginning to seep out the door, crawling along the ceiling in twisting wisps of grey.

What if they were in there? Were injured or trapped?

Her mind snapped like a twig and she rushed forth into the smokey hall.

"May? Tim? Berin?" Her voice broke around her cry, and she stifled the urge to sob out, resisting panic as it clawed through her, threatening to devour her completely.

She pushed open the library door. It looked...almost normal. Everything was in its place, calm sedentary. She had half expected chaos, books and furniture thrown about. But nothing. She shuddered. Nothing but the flames licking calmly up the walls, climbing the hangings, skipping along the bookshelves in an almost orderly fashion, leaping from book to book. It stunned her.

She couldn't say how long she stared until reality snatched her back and she escaped into the hall and called again, disoriented, blinking against the heat and haze, ignoring the nausea swimming through her body in uneven waves.

The smoke was thickening, and she could see it was rolling down from the upstairs hall. She started up the steps, then paused turning to the kitchen door. She was here, she should check. They were probably gone, taken, or fled...it probably looked just like it was supposed to...but she should check...she should check. Her hand hesitated at the handle and she steeled herself, pulling in a breath as the door swung open.

The breath came out in a silent scream as she collapsed into unconsciousness.

**

It wasn't long before awareness returned to Thea, quickly...cruelly. She felt the warm stickiness beneath her hands as she pulled herself to her knees and retched until her throat stung with bile and her face burned with the heat of her tears. Thea collapsed again and dragged herself to the wall, hiding her head against it and clawing at the stone for hold as she wracked her body with heavy, painful sobs.

She wept and stared at the wall. She stared because she didn't dare turn around, and she didn't dare close her eyes.

But she had to, eventually. And she did.

May was nearest her, Barin behind. Their eyes were still open.

Thea let out a hiccuping sob and began her slow crawl towards them, her sobs growing in violence until she could barely hold herself up. She tried not too think too much about the blood on her hands and knees. She went to Barin first, lifting a trembling hand to his staring eyes, looking at her, through her. She closed them...but she could still see them. She took one gnarled hand in hers and doubled over it, choking back her tears as she clutched it against her.

It felt cold, he felt empty, she felt alone. Thea leaned over him and kissed his forehead gently, ignoring the red arch which had painted his throat with a vicious smile. She turned her face away and half crawled, half dragged herself to May's side, covering her eyes quickly and gently, taking care not to look into them. She knew instinctively that if she had, she'd be lost.

Thea sat next to her, one curled hand cradled gently in hers, stroking the soft papery skin with her thumb. Gone. They were gone. It was all gone.

She'd lost everything. Again. They were gone. Because of her.

The tears fell again, so many of them, uncontrollable. She whimpered and fell forward, covering May's small body with hers, cradling her head against her chest, as if her heart beat were catching, as if she could will it away and into another. But life wasn't catching, it couldn't be given...only taken.

Why? Why would they do this? These people did nothing. She'd done nothing. Her tears turned bitter. Thea kissed May as she had Berin and stumbled to her feet, fleeing the room and closing the door behind her. She barely registered the smoke. She was already gasping for air through her sobs, and her lungs ached.

Thea made it halfway to the outer door before she collapsed in a pitiful heap in the middle of the hall. She wasn't going to make it that far. She hardly cared. What did it matter?

She closed her eyes and focused on the cool smooth-worn stone of the floor against her cheek...so cool against her flushed skin, against the hot hazy air surrounding her, filling her, pulling her slowly away....into blackness...

A cough. A groan. Not hers. Thea opened her eyes and took a trembling breath. But it wasn't coming from behind her...it was coming from the storeroom. She skittered to her knees, not thinking, not considering, just hoping...begging. A cry escaped her lips as another figure drew near from the darkened doorway. He was on his knees, his head smeared with a vivid red that streaked over one eye and bent in jagged lines down his jaw.

But he was moving...he was alive.

"Tim!" He looked up as she fell next to him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. He wrapped an arm about her waist, squeezing, and coughed out another lungful of smoke.

"We have to get out of here...fire..." he paused to cough again, "the others..." His eyes met hers, and he must have seen something there because his already ashen face turned a paler shade of grey and his voice caught in his throat. "No..." he whispered hoarsely.

Her own face, she knew, was wet again. "Come on." she whispered and helped him up as they both stumbled to their feet, coughing out bouts of hot air and leaning against the wall for support as they struggled to the door.

The winter air hit them hard, and she coughed harder, gripping Tim tightly to keep from dropping him despite her trembling. His head looked like it had taken a knock, and he swayed on his feet in a way that terrified her.

"Timothy?" Her voice cracked slightly and he must have heard it. He squeezed her arm and shook his head.

"Fine...I'll be fine. " The expression on his face didn't quite match the words on his lips.

"You don't look fine."

He groaned and winced again. "My arm...I don't know...broken maybe, or just dislocated. I can't...I can't move it."

She swallowed her whimper and nodded. She didn't have time to be afraid, she had to help him. He needed her to help him. He needed her to get him to safety. She nodded again.

"Ok. Can you walk? Can you make it to the village?" They weren't too far, no more than an hour, even in the snow, and even moving slowly. She took a deep breath, letting it clear more of the smoke from her lungs. They needed to go. "We better go...they might come back."

A hand on her arm stopped her and she began ushering him towards the trees, her free hand around his ribs for support. She looked at him sharply, fearful he would tell her he couldn't make it, that she should go alone...without him.

"They were looking for you...you're in danger. I didn't...told them they couldn't come in and they knocked me out. I...didn't see anything else." She nodded and cast her eyes back to their path. She frowned at the mess of footprints before her. It might cover them, at least if anyone came back to look. Her eyes pricked slightly, but only for a moment. The night chilled and dried her face, leaving it still and frozen. They started towards the village.

**

Jairus stared at the tracks and frowned. He had doubled back, pausing some ways up the road from where he'd left off, expecting to wait until they'd finally caught up. He'd waited. They didn't arrive. Eventually his patience had worn thin and he'd made his way back, finding tracks and nothing else. He examined them closely and decided that there had been no more than a half dozen, and that one had been smaller than the rest. He suspected also that one had joined them late. He sighed. So much for returning early. He hoped that a messenger, likely Marcus or one of his men, had come upon them and warned them off, sending them back the way they'd come...but thoroughness told him he couldn't allow himself to make that assumption. He'd underestimated Marcus before, he wasn't doing it again. There was too much at stake...possibly the rest of his damnably lengthy life. Or rather, how he was to spend it...and if there was any option but one in which he was willing to spend it. He knew there wasn't. His mind was set on having her, and keeping her. He snorted at himself. Who was he trying to kid...it wasn't his mind that was set on it. Either way, he wasn't about to let these fools disrupt his plans.

He decided the footprints of the late arrival probably belonged to a Huroth...too big to be Marcus...and most of the 'professionals' that Marcus might have sent in his stead were less heavy on their feet. Who ever it was had been armored, probably in chain and weighed down with an oversize sword.

He followed the prints to the city...but there was one divergence, just before the cities edge and it veered off into the deeper woods. They were the smaller prints. The remainder slipped back into the roadway and blended in with the multitude to prints and tracks which had stirred the earth and snow into an indiscriminate chaos. He followed the little one, a smile playing on his face. It was cruel of him to toy with the boy...but he couldn't resist the opportunity, especially with the Huroth tucked safely back in the city.

Jairus made short shrift of the distance between them, tracking him to an inn, only to find the little bastard had taken a horse and moved back again to the city. How irritating. He caste a cautious glance up to the slowly graying sky. So much for being home tonight. It was not the first time he'd had to hole up in this particular inn, but he didn't like it. It was too close to a main road, and the owner talked too much. He was a friendly sort, the sort who lets things slip. Necessity is as necessity does however, and there was nothing to be done for the moment except lock himself in and spend the day bored and pondering his circumstances.

**

Thea watched as the little flames licked up the fresh log, consuming the dry, frayed edges in a swift and hungry rush. She cast her eyes back to the floor, hardly able to face the sight of the fire, and unwilling to look up...all too aware of the other bodies flickering against her consciousness, moving about on the edges of her vision, watching her with the curious eyes of people at home when a stranger is in their midst. They were cautious, and full of questions. She avoided them by keeping her eyes on the floor. Tightening the blanket around herself, blocking the world out. She didn't want to be here...couldn't stay here. There were too many people, too many questions, too many words waiting to be spoken and hanging in the air like vultures, eager to rend and open and expose.

And then they were there, pecking at her, digging in with needling little claws.

"You alright then?"

She inhaled and swallowed her breath whole. "Yes, thank you."

The man was middling age, a friend of Tim's, or at least a friendly acquaintance.

"So, yer a friend then?" She didn't smile, but she could hear all the other questions laced in behind that one. She didn't know how to answer or what Tim had said.

"Yes." Let the questions remain.

"Odd yer out in the dark to find him...lucky."

"Very." Very odd, very lucky. A cold throb ran through her legs, and her face prickled. She suddenly felt light headed. "Is he ok? Is he going to be ok?" She looked up, meeting his eyes, and he reared back a little, as if her gaze had weight, pushing him away. His mouth twitched as if to speak, but he only nodded.

She nodded too, then turned her eyes back to the fire. It was so hard to look at now. It made her think of him. Of what she'd taken from him. Of how he'd never...

"He'll need a couple of days at least." There was a soft voice from a doorway, a woman's voice. Thea stood and removed the blanket, folding it neatly and laying it over the back of the chair she'd been sitting in. She moved toward the voice, nodding as she passed the other moving bodies in the room, but not meeting their eyes.

Tim was laying on a narrow bed, his head bandaged, his arm in a sling. They'd made fast work of it. She traced the edge of the bandage lightly. He was deep asleep and didn't move when she squeezed his hand. He would live. There was that at least. But...everything else....all of that was gone. All of it. Jairus...what would...how would he...she closed her eyes and conjured visions of the snow, of the ice, of the nothingness. She couldn't stay here, with all these people, with Tim, the fire...

They tried to stop her, delay her, but she wouldn't let them.

"I'm sorry I must, thank you...please, help him...you will help him?" She met the man's eyes again. This time he didn't look away.

"Of course." She nodded.

"Thank you."

Her cloak was wrapped tight around her, her hood low. The icy snow broke loudly beneath her feet, filling the silence of the night in a sharp and satisfying way.

She let her legs move, trusting them to take her where she needed to be, to do what she needed to do. What should have been done before. She could have...she could have asked him...why hadn't she? Why hadn't he? No, that was done. There was no undoing it. There was only forward. She closed her mind and heart to what lay behind her, to the hot flames at her back, and focused on the blank whiteness before her, her eyes greedily seeking the great, cold marble rock, the final milestone marking out the end.

**

Thea winced as the bright morning sun beat down on the white snow, turning it brilliant and blinding. She'd almost forgotten the gleam of ice as it caught and reflected the sunlight. She tugged her hood lower and watched under the edge of it as a cart passed her on the road. Neither the horse nor the master acknowledged her as they hunched past, the overloaded cart creaking behind them in protest.

The weather was clear and the roads busy as she entered the city, passing under the gray shadow of the white marble arch. In the light of day the monument seemed strange and harsh to her, huge and insistent, rising from the mucked up road like a parody of itself. How romantic it had looked in the flickering torchlight when she had first entered the city. She couldn't remember how it had looked when she had left. But it was what it was, and she was here.

Her heart tightened and she struggled to focus herself, pushing the sudden sting which lurched up into her throat back into the pit of her stomach where it belonged. Later. She would do it later. She would hurt later.

And what if there was no later? She asked herself. Well so much the better.

The paved streets of the city were clear of snow, and bustling with traffic, and the rim of the canal was lined with small merchant tents. She walked sightlessly past the small pavilions, her feet following a familiar path to a small, well worn tavern not far from the main canal. The narrow streets tilted and veered, but led her inevitably to a battered wooden sign with three once gilded barrels carved into the center. The door also bore remnants of paint from a better time...or at least a better owner. The air was as still inside as it was outside, but warmer. Her hands and face pricked painfully as the warm, sour smelling air hit her numbed skin, attempting to force life back into the half frozen flesh.

The barkeeper glanced up at her, watching her approach with resigned indifference.

"Yeah?"

She sat down on a stool not quite across from him.

"Marcus." she said softly, lowering her voice to as deep a timber as she could manage without sounding unnatural.

He straightened and looked a little less bored. He must get cut in on business she decided as she saw a sort of gleam come into his eye. She knew that brand of gleam. It was hungry, but she could see it was different from the sort she was used to. There were different kinds of hunger. This kind was for bright, golden things... not the dark red ones. She was glad she had guessed right. She wondered if she was expected to pay him. Well ...not until she saw Marcus, she decided.

She wasn't put to that test. The man called a boy over, and told him to fetch Marcus before turning back to her. "You wanna drink?"

Thea looked around the room. It was mid day but there were a scattering of men about the place, most siting alone and steadily ignoring each other as they contemplated the bottom of their glass.

"Mug of small is fine." She murmured. He snorted but bent for a glass anyway and turned his back on her.

"Country boy?" He asked, trying to peer up under her hood as he set the drink down. She shrugged noncommittally and he shrugged back, and went back to take up a stool a ways down the bar. The beer was warm and tasteless. Watered down...more than small normally was at any rate.

She wasn't sure how long she'd sat there before she heard the click of well shod boots closing in behind her. The man passed her and approached the keeper with a broad, white smile.

Words were exchanged, too low to hear, and the keeper nodded in Thea's direction. Marcus turned a curious blue gaze on her. She tipped her head toward a table against the wall and close to the door, then got up and made her own way toward it. Her back was to him for a moment as she crossed the room, and the sensation of his eyes on her made the small hairs of her neck stand on end.

She turned and sat, and he followed.

He recognized her, she could tell. He no longer smiled and his blue eyes watched her cautiously as he approached the table. He sat down across from her, his hands under the table.

"I don't believe we were ever properly introduced."

She cleared her throat. "I want Darius...where is he?"

He narrowed his eyes at her. "Nothing's free girl." Thea's stomach lurched. He knew.

Of course he knew, how could he not. She wasn't that convincing of a man, and Jairus wouldn't have been working with an idiot. She tilted her head up, letting him see under her hood. He raised a brow at her.