Fire Games (Pyforial Mage Trilogy: Book 1) Read online

  I thought of getting the money I was owed from the master of coin. I would buy a house, a cheap one that needed fixing up. I could live there as I worked on it, add a room, paint, put in a few glass windows.

  I was surprised at my next thought: showing my place to Shara when she came to visit, her face lit brightly with a smile. This image stuck with me until I finally fell asleep.

  When I awoke, I grinned when I saw Shara had a fire going. I went over to warm my hands.

  “Morning,” I said.

  “Mm,” she grunted without looking away from the fire. She was either tired or upset, but something was different from the other mornings. “Here.” She dumped half a handful of red berries onto the dirt between us. “I found some an hour ago. There’s your share.” Her voice was harsh, and she still wouldn’t look at me.

  “Thank you. You’ve been up that long? You could’ve woken me.”

  “I had a lot to think about.” She let out a great sigh as I popped two berries into my mouth. “I trusted you.”

  I still planned to finish the berries, but my appetite was gone. Her tone was as if she’d given me her cat to take care of while she was gone and I’d let it starve. What could I have done? What lies had I told that she could’ve figured out? My stomach turned as I realized what it could be. I checked my pocket for my coin purse. It wasn’t there! Oh gods.

  “Looking for this?” Shara stood and showed me my coin purse. “It was by your side while you slept. I figured it fell out of your pocket. I’ve been sitting here wondering what to do about it.”

  I stood and reached out my hand. That was my life’s work. I felt like she had her hands around my neck. “Give it to me and I’ll explain everything.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me you had this much money!” She showed no intention of letting it go. “You could buy a house with this.” She shook it.

  I couldn’t think, not until I had it back in my hands.

  “Answer me!”

  I started toward her. She stepped back and pointed her wand at me. “Who are you? Why are you so eager for me to come with you? What’s your plan?”

  There were so many questions I didn’t know where to begin. “You know who I am. You can trust me.”

  “Can I?” she shouted. “The most I know about you is that you’re a liar.”

  “Everything I said is the truth except for the amount of money I have. I didn’t see why it was important to tell you.”

  “I expected to find ten, maybe twenty more silver than you said you had. That would make sense to me. But there’s almost two and a half dalions here! Are you a thief, a spy, a murderer? What ill act did you commit?”

  “Shara, I didn’t steal or hurt anyone. I made that money through honest work.” I tried to keep my tone calm as I stepped toward her.

  “Don’t move!” She jabbed her wand at me.

  Was she going to take my money? She’d be in for a surprise when pyforial energy knocked the wand out of her hand.

  “Tell me what you have planned,” she demanded.

  “Nothing! I’m just trying to get the money I’m owed for the destruction of my house.”

  “Don’t you realize how unlikely it is for us to make it there in time? And even if we do, do you really think the master of coin will gladly pay what this scroll says?”

  “Why wouldn’t he?”

  She grumbled in frustration. “You should be asking why he would, not why he wouldn’t. Don’t you see that there’s little reason to waste dalions on us?”

  I could feel my rage building. “If that’s what you believe, then why are you here?”

  Her body seemed to shrink in on itself as her shoulders slouched. “I have nowhere else to go. They’ll probably give us some silver if we make it on time. I figured I’d find work in the capital. Unlike you, I’ve been honest. I’ve always wanted to travel north. What was I going to do in Lanhine? Dwell among the rubble of my house and weep? If this money was made through honest work, why didn’t you put it in the bank?”

  “Lanhine’s bank was robbed years ago.”

  “The king repaid what was lost.”

  “Then we should be repaid as well.”

  “It doesn’t work like that. The banks need to have money. Otherwise, the whole kingdom will fall because everyone will become poor. I don’t know how I’m supposed to trust you anymore when you’re clearly lying about this.” She squeezed my purse as if wanting to crush the coins inside.

  “I’m not lying. Shara, you asked me what you’re supposed to do in Lanhine now that your house is destroyed. But what about me? What am I supposed to do in Lanhine without a house?”

  “Buy one!” She threw the money pouch at me, and I caught it against my chest. The damn thing felt like a hammerhead. “Just leave me alone. I’ll find my way to Glaine without your stolen money.” She started toward our horses.

  I ran after her. “Shara—”

  She spun around with fury in her dark eyes. “Don’t come near me.” She had her wand at her hip.

  I felt like I was losing her. She looked at me in a way she never had before, like I was a threat, a hungry beast. I felt helplessness and deep regret for not telling her the truth earlier. But panic overwhelmed all my feelings when I noticed a surge of horses coming over the hill behind her. The men were dressed in armor.

  A curse came out of my mouth. “Shara, from the south—look.”

  Her head twitched, but she forced herself to keep her gaze on me.

  “There’s an army coming!” I informed her. “We have to hide.”

  I stood still as I waited for her to look. I didn’t want to surprise her by approaching. She twisted, her wand still pointing at me. Then her hand dropped. She hurried to untie Whitspur. I ran for my own horse.

  “I think it’s the army from Cessri. The red priest.”

  She said nothing.

  I followed her as she rode hard into a thicket. Tall plants reached up over the high grass, but they were soft enough for our mounts to push them aside. Shara, being the skilled rider, had her mount gallop through a cluster of small trees while I struggled to make Vkar go faster than a trot. Soon she was out of sight, and the thundering sound of a thousand horse hooves beating against the ground came toward me.

  “Come on, Vkar!” I kicked him. He shot forward, crashing into a leafy bush twice my height. My hands came up to protect my face, forgetting they’d also pull up the reins. Vkar reared up, and then I was falling, reaching for something, anything.

  The grass cushioned my back, but my head hit something hard, and the thump echoed inside my skull.

  Vkar ran off, disappearing behind shrubbery as I jumped to my feet and risked a look behind me. The path the army took brought them right past me, close enough to notice the sigil on their chests of a red snake that appeared to be shedding its skin.

  As I ran after my horse, I heard beating hooves veer away from the rest of the thundering sound, now coming toward me. Another look revealed there were two of them. A third peeled away from the stream of horsemen and came behind them. “Leave the boy,” he called.

  “This one looks rich,” said one of the two approaching horsemen.

  “You always say that!” yelled the man behind him. “We don’t have time for you to rob every person we pass.”

  “Just him, then.”

  “Yes, just him,” the other horseman agreed.

  I noticed both had swords just before I turned and fled. No bows, thank the gods.

  “You make this difficult and we’ll take your hand as well as your money,” one said with an air of levity in his tone.

  They caught up to me faster than I anticipated, one of them kicking me in the back as he passed. Both laughed as I fell on my chest and gasped for air. I heard clanking as they jumped off their horses.

  I forced myself up. Half running, half stumbling, I fled toward the first growth of bushes my eyes found.

  “Looks like someone wants to lose his hand!” one yelled, his voice much too clos
e behind me.

  Thin branches caught against my shirt and scratched my face. I blindly pushed forward, hands out. My feet caught on something brittle, like rotten wood but softer. I tried to kick through it, only realizing my mistake when it was too late. I’d driven my foot through the top of a mound clearly made by some kind of bugs. It was like an anthill only wider and up to my waist. The leaves and dirt that were its walls exploded as my feet crashed through, and I stepped on something moving—something bigger than ants.

  All around me, spiders hissed and jumped into the air. But these weren’t spiders, I discovered as soon as I tried to run from them. They had wings and long antennae that dangled and bounced. I’d never seen such creatures. I knew one thing, though. They didn’t like me destroying their home.

  They didn’t seem to be able to fly for long, using their wings more to propel themselves as they leapt at me. They were about the size of my hands and instilled me with terror when they landed on my back. I screamed and flailed my arms to get them off me, but there were just too many. The air was dark with them. The two men chasing me screamed. I managed to look behind me. Barely able to see through the winged spiders, I noticed the men turn and run the other way.

  How I wished I had their armor. One landed on my shoulder, and I heard it hiss like a snake. I twitched reflexively, trying to ignore all of them on my legs, pinching me. I didn’t know if they were trying to bite me, but it didn’t hurt.

  Then I felt a sting on my right arm. I yelped and flung the bug off me. One stung the other arm right after. I spun and swatted in all directions. Every time my hand moved, I hit one.

  I heard them hissing around my ears as my legs became heavier with the weight of them. I twisted as I ran, trying to defend myself as best I could, to little avail. I felt more stings. I didn’t know if they were biting me or if they had pincers, but it felt like a wasp driving its stinger deep into my flesh each time.

  How long would they chase me? Were they venomous? I felt trapped in a nightmare. The pain worsened as they kept attacking with unrelenting aggression. One landed on my neck. I swatted it off. I risked a glance down to find too many to count crawling up my legs. They had no pincers, but I could see their fangs as they tried to bite through my pants. One managed to stay on as I tried to smack it off, its antennae bouncing with each step I took. It got to my stomach and bit through my shirt. That one was the most painful yet, like a needle prick that wouldn’t stop stinging.

  The damn hissing wouldn’t stop, either. There must’ve been hundreds of them. They can’t follow me into water, I thought, as I noticed a small lake ahead of me. I didn’t care that there was green slime around its edges or that it was too murky to tell what might lurk within it. It was sanctuary. My feet nearly got caught in the mud as I neared the bank. I let my bag drop, but I didn’t have time to toss my coin purse from my pocket. I jumped in, hoping it would stay closed.

  A few of the flying spiders stuck to me under the water, but they instantly seemed lifeless. I brushed them away with ease, keeping my head underwater and kicking until I could go no further. I came up for air to find I was nearly on the other side of the small lake. There was slime on my face and hair, and I tasted something disgusting that made me think of sour mud.

  I turned in the water to look behind me. I saw a few jumping out of the tall grass, going back the other way, their wings fluttering and barely keeping them in the air for longer than a breath. Others floated in the water, dead.

  I had just enough energy to make it to the other side and crawl through the mud before I collapsed on the grass, my chest heaving. A burning feeling surged through my heart each time I sucked in air.

  I heard nothing but the sound of my labored breaths and the sloshing of the disturbed lake. I closed my eyes as I wondered where my horse went. As soon as I had the strength, finding Vkar needed to be my priority. Then I could look for Shara. Maybe I could find Whitspur’s hoof prints if I was lucky. I just needed to speak to her once more to convince her to stay with me.

  I thought I heard the grass rustle behind me. Just as I sat up and started to turn, someone wrapped a hairy arm around my chest and stuck a blade against the underside of my chin.

  “Don’t move. Even a twitch will kill you.” His voice was frighteningly aggressive. I put him somewhere in his thirties or forties as I wracked my mind trying to figure out who he could be or what I might’ve done to him. He revealed the answer with his next line. “Where’s that money the girl was shouting about?”

  A thief. That’s who he was, his whole identity summed into one word. He needed to be punished for this, the degenerate. But I felt so weak, so damn weak. Just the thought of gathering pyforial energy to pull his knife away made me feel like jelly.

  “Tell me!” He pushed the knife into my chin. My skin pinched and tore with a prick of pain, then my blood spilled onto his arm.

  I realized it wouldn’t be difficult for him to lower the knife to my throat and run it across. Damn, the lucky degenerate had me. “In my left pocket.”

  “Slowly reach in and pull it out.”

  I did as he ordered. I could feel that many of the coins had fallen out. Good, less for him. I lifted it toward his hairy arm. He tightened his grip around my chest.

  “Open it slowly.”

  Sharp tendrils of pain spread through not just my chin but my whole body. I tried to shift for some relief, but he pushed his blade in deeper, and I froze.

  “Move again and see what happens.”

  I opened my small pouch and strained my eyes to look down into it. There appeared to be less than ten coins.

  “Pour them into your hand.”

  I did, revealing five silver, two pits…and a dalion. Gods, a dalion! How lucky could one thief be for one out of two to remain in the pouch when so many other coins were lost?

  Still, he complained. “She was screaming about two and a half dalions! Where’s the rest?”

  “She was exaggerating,” I lied. “She does that.”

  He probably didn’t believe me, but didn’t care. A dalion could feed a man for a decade. He forced me to put the coins back in the pouch, then made me put the pouch in his free hand.

  Without warning, he released his grip on me and jumped up. I spun around for a glimpse at him. A long face. Thinning hair, a small tuft in the middle. Deep furrows in his cheeks. Low ears that came out wide. I will remember you, thief. He turned and ran.

  At least he wasn’t Swenn. Then I would be dead.

  I expected the tendrils of pain to withdraw now that he no longer had his knife in my chin and his arm around my chest, but they only spread further. I tried to find the strength to stand, but something wasn’t right with my body. The weight of lifting my arm made me feel like I was underwater. Could I even get on my feet?

  I started to shake. I felt my face and back flush with sweat. The shaking worsened. What was this? Horrified, I realized it must be the venom from those flying bugs. I rolled up my sleeves to look at the fang marks on my arms. As my shirt passed over them, pain shot up to my shoulders. My flesh was swollen and dark.

  I vomited. Then I was on my hands and knees, shaking uncontrollably. More vomit came. I keeled over on my side. My skin burned like it had been lit on fire.

  This was how I was going to die. I felt anger at myself. I’d wasted sixteen years, accomplishing nothing but getting my mother and father killed. I always thought I would make up for it, that my life would amount to something. I would make the world better through my existence. But I’d only made it worse.

  I heard someone coming. Hopefully it was the thief and he had enough mercy to finish me quickly. I had no idea how long this agony would go on.

  “Two hells!” It was Shara. She grabbed my arms and gasped. I was too weak to move my head, but I found the strength to speak.

  “Flying spiders.”

  “I’ll be right back!”

  I saw her legs scrambling to stand, then her feet hurrying out of view. Numbness started to crawl over
me from my hands and feet toward my chest. I was shaking, but I couldn’t feel it except above my neck. Darkness seeped in as though I was falling asleep…too tired to fight it.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Someone’s hands—Shara’s, they must be Shara’s—were on my cheeks and throat. They were rubbing. “Swallow, Neeko.”

  I had the urge to cough, but I held it back and swallowed instead. Then the coughing started up and I couldn’t stop, gasping in between to catch my breath.

  When the coughing finally subsided, the effort it had taken felt like I’d climbed a mountain, and I promptly passed out.

  When I came to, I no longer was shaking, but I still felt weak and deathly ill. The fire in my chest had cooled a bit. My arms stung a little less, as did my stomach where I’d been bitten.

  Everything was blurry. I squinted, my eyes refusing to focus. I rubbed and tried again.

  It was evening, that at least I could tell. I was still in the same spot where I’d been robbed, close to the water. I was cold, in a considerable amount of pain, and hungry. But the hunger felt good, healthy. It was like I’d had a fever and now it had broken, and my body was ready to make up for all the time I’d been unable to eat.

  Now if only I had food. I looked around for Shara, expecting to see her and our horses. I found Vkar tied to a tree, but there was no sign of Shara or Whitspur. Did she save me and then leave? Clearly she’d given me an antidote to the venom. Knowing nothing about the venomous creatures, I couldn’t possibly know what I’d drunk. But I wanted more of it. Something foreign still seemed to be working through me.

  My bag was there. I searched inside for clues. Maybe she’d written something on one of the scrolls. The straps on my backpack held both of my blankets. Did this mean Shara was coming back, or did she leave without the one I’d lent her? Nothing inside the bag was different.

  I looked at the lake, the green water making me cringe as I knew I would have to dive in eventually. Somewhere down there was the dalion that had fallen out of my coin purse. But so were about thirty something silver and some pits. I didn’t have the strength to swim yet. I shouldn’t be worried about the money right now. I needed to find food before it got too dark. Then I had to make a fire. I groaned. Gods, I hope Shara’s coming back.