This Golden Flame Page 7

In the end, I give in first.

  “Dane?”

  His hands still but he doesn’t look up.

  “I wanted to tell you I’m so sorry, again. I know what being part of the Scriptorium meant to you, how important it was.”

  Dane still doesn’t answer. When I sneaked out of the Scriptorium, I thought we would never see each other again. Now here we are, side by side, and he feels as distant as if I’d actually left.

  “Dane—”

  “Why didn’t you tell me about this? About Alix and the break-in and everything that was going on with you?”

  I can hear the hurt in his voice. The fact that he’s trying to hide it makes this that much more painful. “I didn’t want you to have to give up everything you’ve worked for.”

  He finally looks at me. “So you were just going to leave without saying goodbye? Without a word?”

  I hunch my shoulders. There’s nothing I can say to that. We both already know the answer.

  Dane scrubs at his hands so hard I half wonder if he’ll take his skin off. “Do you have any idea what it was like for me last night, Karis? To be out there and to see you, and Clerval pulling his sword. I thought he was going to hurt you. That I was going to have to watch it happen.”

  “I didn’t know what to say, Dane. Because even if I told you, I thought...”

  I stop myself. I don’t want to go there, especially not now.

  But he catches it. Of course he does. He turns from the stream to face me head-on. “You thought what?”

  I shouldn’t say it, but after everything else that’s happened, now isn’t the time for lies. And if he won’t admit the truth, then I will. “You had your life on Tallis. And I was glad. But sooner or later, it wasn’t going to involve me and you had to know that.”

  Thick, terrible silence stretches between us. Dane stares at me in angry disbelief. “That’s why you lied to me? That’s what you thought was going to happen?”

  “This is exactly why I didn’t want to tell you.” I plunge the rag back into the stream, angry now. Hating that I’m angry, that we’re having this fight. “We were already going in different directions, Dane. I never belonged on Tallis.”

  “Only because you never let yourself belong.”

  “How could I have?” I snap.

  A branch cracks behind us and we both whip around. Alix is already edging away again, but as we turn, he winces. “Um... I was just coming to check if you two were done.”

  Dane stands. “We’re done.”

  He stalks back toward the cave. I slowly drag myself up to my feet, too, feeling more exhausted than when I sat down.

  Alix hesitates, then steps closer to me. “Is everything—”

  “It’s nothing.”

  He stops, the hurt on his face obvious. Guilt prickles in my gut. I’m not used to someone as open as Alix. Who lets people see so easily when he’s in pain.

  I rub my temple. “I just... Don’t worry about it.”

  I walk past him, and after a moment his quiet footsteps follow.

  By the time we get back, a headache pulses in my skull and my stomach rumbles. I settle on a rock. Dane leans against the entrance. He glances from Alix to me.

  “So where exactly were...you two planning on heading?”

  I clear my throat. “Valitia.”

  “The Great Island?”

  I pull out the paper and show it to him. “Alix helped me get this.”

  Dane looks at it, and I see the moment he notices my brother’s name at the top. He glances over at me, and his eyes soften for the first time since leaving Tallis. “You found it. Where your brother was sent.”

  I bite my lip, nodding. Maybe I haven’t destroyed everything between us.

  Dane reads the record. “The Magistrate’s Library.”

  “Have you heard of it?”

  He shakes his head. “No, but since the magistrate lives in the City of Scholars on Valitia, if I had to hazard a guess, I’d bet his library is there, too.”

  Alix perks up. “My father’s villa is in the City of Scholars.”

  Dane frowns. “You have a father?”

  I grimace. There was a part of me that hoped this topic wouldn’t come up. Really, maybe I should have told Alix not to say anything. But now he has, and I’m not willing to lie about this. Not after how well my last lie to Dane went.

  “His father was Master Theodis.”

  Dane rears away from the wall. “Master Theodis? The war criminal?”

  Alix’s eyes flash—literally. It makes him look exactly like the automatons our stories have told us about. And that scares me. “My father was not a criminal.”

  “He sabotaged the other Scriptmasters, tried to take all the power of the automatons for himself.”

  “That’s a lie!” Alix advances on Dane, so close their chests bump. Alix is the shorter one, but Dane is muscle and bone, while Alix is automaton, his bronze skin only further strengthened by the Script carved into it. Even I can see that if they fight, Alix will win. Dane should realize that, too.

  “Stop it.” I step between them, forcing them apart. Dane twists away from me and I falter before pressing on. “This isn’t helping. Dane, we can’t know what happened back then.”

  Dane folds his arms over his chest. “Fine, if what we know is a lie, what did happen?”

  The fire in Alix’s eyes dims. “I don’t remember.”

  “What do you mean, you don’t remember?”

  “It’s foggy.” Alix trails his fingers up his arm and it takes me a moment to remember the broken line of runes beneath the fabric.

  “Those runes, on your arm,” I say. “Are they what’s causing the gaps in your memory?”

  “I don’t remember that either,” he says miserably.

  I step closer but stop when he edges back. Now that his temper is gone, he looks young again.

  “Please,” I say. “I just want to see, to try to understand.”

  All Alix had to do was press his fingers to that rune to make it work, and there are lines on his skin that even after years of climbing automatons, I’ve never seen before. I stole and studied for years to figure all this out. He just does it.

  Alix meets my eyes, and whatever he sees there must convince him, because he pushes his himation up his arm. I touch the top set of lines, the metal warm and ridged. Could these somehow be responsible for why Alix is so different? I don’t recognize the runes themselves, but the edges of the runes are hooked together, lines stemming off each other like branches on a tree. Normally runes stand on their own: move, stretch, turn. Even wake, one of the more potent ones, is a single rune that operates by itself. If Master Theodis did manage to link so many powerful runes, could it result in something as complicated as a mind?

  “Do you remember anything about what happened?” I ask. “About your life before?”

  Alix is quiet, and I’m not sure if he’s going to answer. But then he does speak, his voice soft. “I remember most of it, at least the early times. I remember waking up and living with my father in his villa. I remember him teaching me about runes and automatons, literature and theory. Others would come to the villa, Scriptmasters, but Father created secret rooms for me and I would hide. He said if they saw me, if they learned about me, that I would be in danger. That they were my enemies.”

  Alix reaches up, curling his fingers around the medallion. “Then one night, something happened. Father was frantic. I remember he had been training me to do...something. He said we had to do it now. We went to this great building. There was this golden light, so large I thought it might consume me. This light and heat.” His face creases in concentration. “I remember a pulsing. Others came, soldiers and Scriptmasters. They wanted to stop us. I ran. And then... And then...” He growls, pressing a hand to his temple. “I don’t remember.”

  Silen
ce follows his words. Alix was there, two hundred years ago. Somewhere in his head is the knowledge of what went so wrong. Unfortunately, a great building and a golden light doesn’t give us much to go on.

  “There’s something else that you should see.” He reaches into his belt pouch and pulls out a scrap of paper, giving it to me.

  There’s only one sentence there.

  Due to the actions of Master Theodis with his weapon, the Automaton Heart was broken beyond repair.

  I look at Alix, confused.

  “I think I might be that weapon,” he whispers.

  A cold shiver skitters up my spine. Alix. A weapon. That’s what automatons were built for. The only thing they were built for. And I’ve seen flashes of Alix’s temper, of his strength. I know what he could do.

  “And this Automaton Heart?” I ask.

  “I can’t remember.” A hopeful light comes into his eyes. “Do you two know anything about it?”

  I glance at Dane who reads the paper over my shoulder. He shrugs.

  “I’m sorry,” I say.

  Alix deflates.

  Dane clears his throat. “Whatever happened, we can deal with later. The Scriptorium is going to come after us, so we need to be gone by then. We aren’t going to be able to get to Valitia in our boat. It’s too far. But we should be fairly close now to Maren. If we go there, we should be able to barter passage onto a ship, which will probably mean working for them. Alix will be tricky with his eyes, but hopefully we’ll find something to cover them up when we get there.

  “In the meantime, we need supplies. This island isn’t inhabited, so we should scavenge what we can here. When nightfall comes, we’ll head out again under the cover of darkness.”

  * * *

  We separate to look for food. Luck is on our side, because this small island has that in plenty. Mushrooms, berries, nuts. Even better, I come across no animals larger than a fat brown squirrel that chitters angrily at me before disappearing up the trunk of a tree.

  I pop berries into my mouth as I walk, each a tart burst of flavor. The taste is a memory, one I’d almost forgotten, from back on Heretis. I always dreamed of one day exploring the wild islands and now I’m out here, and it’s so blazingly, wonderfully different from anything I’ve ever known.

  On Tallis, the Scriptmasters keep every bit of land clear-cut so it won’t impede our studies of the automatons. Nothing was spared except the grass and a few dejected shrubs. Heretis is a bustling port city, with buildings crammed together to fill every available space. This island isn’t the grunginess of Heretis or the militant authority of the Scriptorium. Here the scent of the ocean mixes with the wet moss. It smells to me like a fresh new world. A new world for a new start.

  Maybe after I rescue Matthias, we can find a place like this to live. It wouldn’t be an easy life but we’re smart. We survived not having a home at all, and we could survive the wild islands as well. Out here, the problems of the rest of the world would never be able to touch us. Finally and truly free.

  As the light fades, I bundle up the food I found into my pack and trot off. I wasn’t paying that much attention to the wandering track I made through the trees, but the island isn’t large, and it doesn’t take me long to find the rocky ledge again. I follow it, quickening my step when I realize it’s getting dark faster than I thought it would beneath the canopy, the shadows straining against the last bit of light. I don’t want to be wandering around lost out here at night.

  Up ahead, a thin curl of smoke drifts out of the mouth of the cave, twining around the branches. Dane must have lit a fire. Or maybe Alix, though I’m not sure someone who burns as hot as he does would need a fire.

  “Dane, is that you?” I ask. “I found some...”

  I step into the cave and the words die on my lips. Dane is on his knees, arms pinned behind his back. There’s a shallow cut on his cheek and his eyes blaze. The man holding him down is massive, with thick arms and gray hair lashed back into a ponytail. He isn’t alone. At least a half dozen others clutter up the space in the cave. The fire in the pit throws flickering light against their forms, twisting their shadows on the walls.

  They’re not Scriptorium. No, they’re worse. I’ve never seen pirates before, but there can be no mistaking their salt-flecked skin, the way they smell of brine and grit.

  “Karis!” Dane shouts, trying to jerk free. “Run!”

  I take a faltering step away but one of the other pirates, a rail-thin man with a knife in his hand, moves into my path. I rapidly back away from him, even though that forces me deeper into the cave.

  “Well, now, it seems we’ve caught a second little fish.”

  I spin around at the voice.

  A girl steps from the shadows. She can’t be more than a year or two older than me. The people in the cave are a mix of skin colors from the paleness of the cold lands in the north to the dark of the jungles in the east. She’s somewhere in between, her skin brown like sun-warmed earth and her black hair twisted into a messy braid. A three-pointed hat sits crookedly on her head and her bodice and skirts are made up of splashes of orange and red fabrics, vibrant colors imprinted with bold geometric lines. A curved sword hangs from her hip, thrust through her belt without so much as a scabbard. She’s the youngest of any of the pirates here but they all orient themselves toward her. As if somehow, this girl is in charge.

  And judging from the smirk on her face, I wouldn’t bet on her being the friendly type.

  The girl gives an elaborate bow, sending off a wave of chuckles. “Captain Zara of the Crimson Streak at your service. You two seem to have stumbled into one of our hideaways.”

  A hideaway. My stomach sinks down to my sandals. “We didn’t mean to.”

  “Yet here you are.” Her fingers caress the hilt of her blade, the firelight catching in her eyes and making them flicker. “A Scriptorium acolyte and a soldier, judging by your clothes. What odd prizes we’ve found. We pirates, you see, don’t like the Scriptorium.”

  My throat is so dry, but I manage to force a hint of brazenness into my voice. “I can’t say I’m too fond of them either.”

  Zara lets out a laugh. “You’ll have to excuse me if I don’t believe you.”

  The soldiers shift, their many bared weapons glinting in the light of the fire. Zara’s still grinning at me, looking as if whatever terrible thing she’s about to do to us won’t bother her in the least.

  And I’m struck with the sudden certainty that we’re going to die here. We’ve barely managed to get a few islands from Tallis and now we’re going to die here in this cave, where even our bones will be forgotten. Cold encircles my throat like a fist. Maybe Alix could help, but why would he risk himself for us now that he’s free?

  Then, out of the corner of my eye, I catch two blazing spots hovering in the deepening dark outside the cave.

  He’s here.

  9

  * * *

  ALIX

  I hang from the lip of the rocky ledge, low enough that I can see into the cave. Dane is on his knees and Karis, though still on her feet, won’t be able to fight the thin man hovering behind her with the knife.

  If I go down there, my tome could be taken. I’m the only one who’s going to be able to get Karis and Dane out, though. Their only chance. That thought is terrifying.

  I slip my satchel into a crack in the rock and tug my himation down over my face before leaning out farther. There are eight pirates, including the girl with the three-pointed hat on her head. Zara, I think I heard her name was. Eight of them against one of me.

  Zara nods at one of her people, a squat woman. “Take the girl’s bag.”

  Karis goes stiff as the woman pulls her pack off her shoulders. She hands it over. Zara roots through it, nuts and berries falling through her fingers to the cave floor. “You two are awfully unequipped for a journey out here on the wild islands.”
/>   A few of her people chuckle.

  “We ran from the Scriptorium.” Karis’s voice is strained and a flash of temper sparks in my chest. “We didn’t have time to pack anything.”

  “Hmm...” Zara glances down at the pack.

  In the moment her attention shifts, I move. Wrenching my hand into the rock, I use it as an anchor to swing myself down and forward into the cave. I slam into the thin man with the knife, knocking him to the ground. He howls and I almost apologize, but a woman is already lunging at me. I manage to grab her wrist and she goes down with a yelp.

  Dane has already gained his feet, grappling with the massive man who was restraining him, and for all that he’s the smaller of the two, he’s holding his own. Others are already stepping forward, though, toward him and Karis.

  Zara. I look at her, careful to keep my eyes hooded. She’s in charge here. If I can take her, I’ll end this, without anyone else getting hurt.

  She pulls something from her skirts and points it at me. It’s bronze, crafted into a barrel, with runes scrawled over its surface. Her fingers curl around the handle as she arches a brow. “Don’t even think about it.”

  I don’t know what she’s holding, but it doesn’t look dangerous enough to stop me.

  “Alix, wait!” Karis shouts, but I’m already lunging forward.

  A splitting crack rends the air. Something blows into my shoulder, the force enough to send me staggering back, my himation falling from my face.

  Zara’s eyes go wide as everybody in the cave freezes. I look at my shoulder, not understanding what hit me. A hole’s been torn in my chiton and beneath it there’s a punctured dent in my metal skin.

  I’m...damaged. This pirate has something that can damage me. Me.

  I step toward her, right as Zara swings the barrel of her weapon, pointing it at Karis’s chest.

  Karis sucks in a breath, her face ashen. I stutter to a halt. If that thing managed to damage me, it will tear through Karis as if she’s made of parchment.

  She’ll be gone, like my father is gone.