This Golden Flame Page 6

  A hand shoots from the darkness of the frozen automaton and latches around my wrist. It slams me against the thing’s leg, and I gasp as pain from everything that hasn’t healed yet ricochets through me.

  “Karis.”

  Alix steps out of the dark, his eyes flickering in the black. He lets go of my wrist but my legs buckle and he has to grab my arms to keep me up. His metal fingers burn my chilled skin. “I—I’m sorry. I heard shouts. I thought you were a soldier.”

  A chill of fear goes through me at how small and breakable I feel. He’s swathed in shadows and his eyes glow like flaming stars.

  Only there’s guilt in his face, which never seems to hide anything. And I know that I either have to trust him right now, or I have to go back and turn him in.

  “I’m fine,” I grit out. “But we have to get out of here.”

  Alix looks out over the island. The shouts of the soldiers are muted by the rain but they’re still there. “Are you sure that’s wise?”

  “Alix, they saw your handprint. It had runes in it, your runes. They know it was an automaton that broke into the Hall of Records. This is the Scriptorium. Their whole existence is built on trying to wake an automaton like you. Now that they know it’s been done, they won’t stop. They will tear this island apart looking for you. Right now, we still have some surprise on our side. We have to go.”

  Alix watches me, and I can see the indecision scrawled on his face. He fingers the satchel around his waist. “All right.”

  I let out the breath trapped in my throat and push back my himation, holding out my wrist. This is it.

  Alix wraps his free hand around the bracelet. He hums a few notes and golden light flashes from his side, dimly visible through his chiton. The bracelet falls to the grass with a soft whump.

  I stare down at it, this thing that’s been on my wrist for seven years, keeping me on this island as surely as any cage. My wrist feels odd, unused to the touch of the night and the rain.

  I’m...free.

  “Karis, are you all right?”

  “Yes,” I whisper. “Yes, I am.”

  A shout echoes across the island. I gesture to Alix, and we cut inward, away from the cliffs. Mud spatters up my calves, staining the edge of my chiton and clinging to my sandals. I keep our path weaving, far away from the automatons, knowing there will be soldiers at each one. We’re almost there. Another turn, and...

  A trio of soldiers rounds the rocks in front of us. They don’t have torches. They weren’t making any noise. But as they stop, surprise on their faces, my gaze is instantly pulled to the one on the right. His dark curls are flattened by the rain. His eyes are already widening.

  Dane.

  7

  * * *

  ALIX

  Karis stiffens beside me. I look at the soldiers, realizing my mistake too late as their eyes widen. They know what I am.

  “You,” the soldier in the middle snarls.

  He isn’t looking at me. Of course he isn’t. To him, I’m some mindless creature, waiting for my next command. In that moment, I might as well be, because I don’t know what to do or say.

  Karis juts out her shaking chin. “Clerval. This isn’t what you—”

  Clerval pulls his sword out, the metal slicing free from its sheath. I’ve never seen a sword so close. It glints in the torchlight. Karis takes a step back. The boy on the right, a dark-haired, pale-skinned soldier, looks between the two of them, sudden fear cutting through his expression.

  He lunges. I tense, not knowing how to fight, but he tackles Clerval, knocking him into the mud. The third soldier hesitates, and I leap forward. The soldier scrabbles for his sword hilt, but he’s too slow. I throw a punch at his throat. The movement is awkward but I connect, and with a gargled cry he goes down, eyes rolling back into his head.

  I step back, nauseous as I look down at my hand, still curled into a fist. He was so fragile. It would have been so easy to go too far, without even realizing it. Panic rises in my throat. Is this what I’m going to have to be now?

  Clerval goes limp and the dark-haired boy slowly gets to his feet, mud streaked dark across his face.

  “Dane,” Karis says, her voice soft.

  They know each other. For a moment I wonder if he’ll be like Karis. If he’ll also defy the way my father said others would treat me.

  Then he looks at me, uneasy. He doesn’t come any closer and he doesn’t take his hand off his sword’s hilt. “How is that thing moving without you writing commands?”

  His words dig into me. “I’m not a thing.”

  Dane jolts, his fingers curling tighter around the hilt.

  “Dane, no.” Karis steps toward him. “He isn’t what you think. This is Alix. He can think and feel and move. He got me into the Hall of Records.”

  Dane stares at me, as if I’m something unnatural. Standing here, them together and me apart, I can’t help but wonder if that’s true.

  Shouts echo from across the island.

  Karis bites her lip. “Maybe you can pretend we knocked you out, too.”

  Dane looks down at the soldier he fought. “I didn’t hit Clerval that hard. He’ll remember.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Karis whispers.

  Dane sags, rain snaking in rivulets down his arms. Karis reaches out, but he steps away from her.

  “You do know they’re going to find us, right?” Dane says. “We can’t hide with these bracelets, and...” His gaze finds her bare wrist. “How?”

  Karis looks over at me. “Alix did it.”

  I don’t know if I can trust this soldier. Karis doesn’t seem to have any loyalty to the Scriptorium, but he clearly does.

  Yet he also saved us. I can’t leave him to the Scriptorium’s mercy. “I can take yours off.”

  Dane stays silent. I think he might reject my help, but he holds his wrist out to me. This close I can see how tense he is, the muscles corded in his forearms. I place my fingers over the rune I need to unlock and pretend not to see the flinch he can’t quite hide. Not bothering to hum, I mentally twist to disarm the rune. The bracelet drops off and I step away.

  When I took Karis’s off, it was as if an invisible weight had lifted from her shoulders. Dane stares down at his, lying in the wet grass, as if he wants nothing more than to slip it back on.

  “Dane?” Karis asks quietly.

  He sweeps past her. Karis opens her mouth as if to say something else, then closes it and follows him.

  The rain gives a haze to everything, squelching mud and slick grass beneath our feet. Being out here is nothing like watching the rain from my father’s villa or even the safety of the garden. That rain always looked mysterious. This feels dangerous.

  We reach a shale path and follow it down, cutting between the cliffs on either side. Dane raises his hand and we stop at the edge of the rocks. I peer out at a pebbly beach. Three wooden boats have been pulled up onto it, rain spattering their upturned hulls. Two soldiers stand nearby.

  Dane doesn’t quite look at me as he speaks, his voice tight. “Can you take one? Karis isn’t a fighter.”

  The last thing I want to do is hurt someone again, but I don’t see how we’re going to get off this beach unless I try. “Yes.”

  “Let’s go.”

  We both dash from our hiding spot. One of the soldiers turns and manages to shout but then we’re on them. I disarm mine the same as the other soldier and he crumples.

  Weapon.

  The word flashes through my head before I can stop it. I turn away.

  Karis runs down the beach as Dane knocks his soldier out. Together we flip one of the boats over and heave it into the swell. Cold water swirls around my feet. We clamber inside, and though I’ve never rowed, I grab the oars and manage to navigate us farther out into the dark water.

  Both Dane and Karis stare at the island as we cu
t away through the waves. I look back over my shoulder, too. The Scriptorium is lit up, light pouring out of all its windows like a beacon in the rain. Torches from soldiers and searchers dot the rest of the island. I have a sudden flash of memory of another building that looked like that one, of fleeing from it into another stormy night as alarm bells tore through my head.

  I reach for more details but the memory fades as quickly as it came, disappearing beneath the stroke of my oars and the slap of the waves against the boat.

  * * *

  We sit in silence, hunched against the stinging rain. Karis keeps glancing at Dane, but he stays quiet and still, staring out over the dark waters splitting around our bow.

  I focus on the rowing, trying to lose myself in the monotony of the movement. Reach and pull. Reach and pull. Over and over and over again. The oar is slick beneath my hands and I’m sure if I had skin my fingers would have long gone numb.

  I’m not sure how long we’ve been out on the water when the first tiny island looms off our bow out of the rain. I don’t stop. The island can’t be more than a quarter league long and I’m sure it will be the first place the Scriptorium will look when they notice the downed soldiers and the missing boat. Other islands appear past it and I angle the boat to weave in between them.

  The rain has begun to taper off with the barest hint of pink creeping through the clouds when Dane breaks the silence. “I think we should stop there.”

  The island he points to is small compared to Tallis, but it’s one of the largest we’ve seen since then. Most of it is covered by a forest, and there’s a craggy beach on one side.

  “Do you think we’re far enough from Tallis yet?” I ask.

  Each time I speak, Dane tenses slightly. “We don’t have much choice. Karis is freezing, and we both need to get out of our wet clothes.”

  Both. It’s a word that clearly doesn’t include me. I hunch down over my oars.

  “I can keep going if we need to,” Karis says, but there’s a tremor in her voice. The himation she’s wrapped around herself is soaked through and she shivers in the pale dawn. I forgot how cold people can get. How cold my father always got when it rained.

  Dane’s jaw twitches. “No, you can’t.”

  “Dane.”

  “Will you just listen to me for once?”

  His voice isn’t loud, but Karis flinches. She stares down at the bottom of the boat and nods.

  I shift. I don’t know how to handle the tension strung between the two of them. I rarely had so much as a disagreement with my father.

  I paddle up close to the shore and jump into the water. Before the other two have even stood, I’ve dragged the boat up onto the beach. We hide it among the rocks, then grab some branches and do our best to sweep away the gouge it made in the sand. A hint of a path leads up into the trees and we follow it under the soft canopy. Dawn light shines through the branches, speckling our skin. The trees have slender trunks with leaves so soft they look like feathers. Wet branches knock my shoulders, droplets of water tapping against my head.

  For the first time since waking up, some of my uncertainty slips away. It’s beautiful out here. My father had a garden. I loved that place, but here there’s simply wild nature like I’ve never seen before, that’s vibrant and rich and stunning. I didn’t know the world could burst with life like this. Walking here makes even me feel a little bit more real.

  “We shouldn’t stray too far from the beach,” Dane says. There’s a touch of sluggish exhaustion to his own words. “In case we need to leave quickly. Maybe we...”

  He pauses. Up ahead the forest is cut in two by a rocky ledge, as if half the island rose up in some great upheaval, the layer of trees continuing atop the cliff. There’s an indent in the rock, not quite a cave but almost. It isn’t empty. There are the remains of a campfire inside, ringed by stone, and a small crate pushed up against the back wall.

  Dane pads silently forward into the cave, looks at the ring of stone, opens the crate with his dagger, and peers in. He waves us forward, sliding the dagger back into his belt.

  “We’ll stay here. It looks like it’s been deserted for a long time and it’ll give us some cover. I don’t think we should risk a fire, though.”

  Karis just nods.

  “Let’s sleep for a few hours at least,” Dane says. “We can take turns on watch and—”

  I step forward. “I’ll take the watches. I don’t need to sleep.”

  Every time I see his hesitation, it digs into me a little more. I almost want to ask why he’s hesitating, to see if he’d say the words he’s clearly thinking. Only I’m not that brave, and I don’t want a fight. “The Scriptorium is after me as well. It’s not as if I’m going to betray you to them.”

  Dane doesn’t speak for a moment, but at least he’s looking at me now. He turns away. “All right.”

  He wrings out his clothes as best as he can while Karis gets changed in the shelter of the trees. She returns looking minimally warmer. They spread a blanket from the pack and Dane settles on it, turning his back to us to stare at the cave wall. For a moment Karis looks unbearably weary, before she slowly lies down, too, curling up in a tight ball.

  I watch over them as their breathing slows. Deepens. Until they drift away. My father never gave me sleep. Perhaps he couldn’t. I wish, though, that he’d found a way to make me more normal, so I wouldn’t have to be standing here, alone.

  Only, maybe I’m not alone.

  My father said that if I ever left the villa, that I had to be careful. I couldn’t risk trusting too many people. It’s true that I’m still not sure I can trust Dane, when he only looks at me and sees a creature, and I only look at him and see a soldier. Karis, though... This strange Scriptorium girl who comforted me when I needed it. Who helped me when I needed it. Perhaps I can let myself trust her.

  8

  * * *

  KARIS

  The buildings of Heretis loom on either side of me, uneven clay walls and straw roofs, their windows staring at us like dark eyes in the night. Matthias and I run, his hand clasped in mine, me desperately trying to steer him around anything in our way. Behind us a wild pack of boys screams and swears, chasing us down the narrow, shadowy streets. They’re older than us, bigger than us, and they’re gaining.

  I look over my shoulder and it’s not boys chasing us but Scriptorium soldiers, holding torches and swords, the firelight lapping at our ankles.

  One of them grabs Matthias and jerks him back. His hand slips from mine, his eyes going wide in panic. I scream and reach for him, but the street caves in under me and I fall into darkness.

  I jerk awake, my own scream still echoing through my head. Squeezing my eyes shut, I choke down air. It’s just a dream. Just a nightmare.

  Only it isn’t just a dream. Because the Scriptorium did find us, stealing in the Heretis agora. And they hauled us onto a ship, bound for the Tallis Scriptorium.

  I remember it all. How we huddled in the hold, the only hint of light leaking in through the grimy porthole. Flinching every time footsteps came near. Matthias trying to keep it together for the both of us. Then we got to Tallis. I saw the Scriptorium at the top of the hill. And far off, the shadowy shape of what had to be an automaton, not yet clear in the dim morning light. Suddenly it felt like I couldn’t breathe. I scratched desperately at the man who had me, without thinking, and his meaty fist had swung at my head.

  I screamed Matthias’s name. A scream I’ll always regret. It was like Matthias just snapped at that sound. He launched himself at the man.

  He did a surprising amount of damage before they wrestled him to the ground. And they decided that it would be too troublesome to keep us together. That they’d rather have me because I was younger and more malleable to their cause. So Matthias was dragged away, and the only goodbye we got was the smallest touch of our hands.

  I’ve always wondered�
�if I hadn’t done what I did on that beach, would we still be together?

  I crack my eyes open again. Sunlight streams between the trees outside our cave, the rain burned away by the light of day. Dane still sleeps beside me, his brow creased, his mouth turned down into a frown. Alix, I can’t see. I roll up into a sitting position, every one of my scrapes protesting the movement.

  I’ve barely made a noise but Dane stirs. His eyes cloud with confusion as he pulls himself to his elbows, struggling to wake up and be alert, before he takes in our surroundings. He sags back down. He looks so worn. The usual laugh tucked into his face isn’t there. I took that away.

  He notices me beside him, and I can see him pulling himself back together.

  “How are you?” he asks quietly.

  I touch one particularly bad scrape on my arm. It’s hard to tell with all the bandages, but I think most of the swelling has gone down. “I’m all right.”

  A thud shakes the ground as Alix lands at the entrance to the cave. I jolt, Dane scrambling into a fighting crouch before seeing who it is.

  Alix glances over his shoulder. “I found a stream nearby if you want to clean up.”

  I grimace as dirt flakes off the edge of my chiton. Maybe getting clean will banish this fog that’s settled in my head.

  The stream is small but clear, burbling between two grassy banks. Alix slips off to give us some privacy, and I sit on the bank and unwrap the bandages. A sunset of colors splays out over my skin, but everything’s stopped bleeding. I wet my handkerchief and dab at it, wincing at the sting of the cold water. This was not how I imagined starting this particular adventure, bruised and exhausted.

  Beside me, Dane splashes water on his face. It runs down his temples and drips off the ends of his hair. He’s quiet, his expression far away. I’m not used to this sort of silence between us. A silence not because we don’t have anything to say, but because neither of us wants to say it.