Heart of Fire (4 page)

Haemus was slumped unmoving over
Petal’s neck.

* * *

Jessalyne dreamed of freshly baked
bread, warm from the oven, and a big bowl of something hot and
savory to dip it in. She opened her eyes, unsure for a moment of
her surroundings.

The coverlet was hers, as was the
bed. Stars sparkled before her when she sat up too quickly. She let
out a great sigh just as Corah popped her head in the
room.

“How are you feeling?”

“Fine. Have I been asleep
long?”

“A while. It’s almost lastlight. Are
you hungry?” She smiled broadly. “Orit was very hungry.”

“Orit! How is he?”

“Perfect. Wonderful. Papa announced
a day of celebration at the lake tomorrow in your
honor.”

“How did I get here?”

“Orit came running home and Mama
almost fainted when she saw him. He was yelling you were sick and
needed help. We all rushed back here. Mama and I put you into
bed...”

They had touched her.

“...and Papa rekindled your stove
fire. Orit gathered vegetables from your garden and I made stew and
bread.”

“That’s what I smell! I’m starving.”
Jessalyne swung her legs out of bed.

“Mama and Papa took Orit home, so
I’m the only one here. I’ll set a bowl out for you.”

Still in her everyday tunic,
Jessalyne hurried to the table. Her stomach growled as she took the
first bite. The vegetable stew tasted even better than it smelled.
She ate slice after slice of the hot brown bread drizzled with
honey.

Despite weakening her, the use of
her magic to heal had left her with a great lingering peace.
Warming bath water had never done that.

She moved from the table to her
chair near the fire. “Sit with me. Do you ever wonder what your
purpose in the realm is?”

Corah cocked her head as she took
the other chair. “I’m cervidae. My purpose is to serve the greater
good of the herd, to watch Orit, mind my father, help my mother
with chores and in time, to be a good wife to Emmitt.”

“Beyond that I mean. What are you
here to do?”

Corah gave her the same quizzical
look. She shook her head. “I am doing what I am meant to
do.”

Jessalyne started to ask again but
then just smiled. Perhaps she should adopt Corah’s view of life in
the grove. Perhaps she should concentrate on the good feelings from
healing Orit, think more about the present and less about the
future.

“You’re a good friend. You are
indeed doing what you are meant to do.” She turned the conversation
to herbs and quizzed the girl on remedies while trying to convince
herself her simple life contained all the purpose it needed. As
much as she wanted to leave, she really had nowhere to go, and no
idea how to find whatever it was she was looking for.

* * *

“Haemus!” Ertemis wheeled Dragon
around and rode to Haemus’s side. He shouted the man’s name again.
Still no answer.

He grabbed the man’s shoulder and
tried again to get a response. Haemus was burning up. Ertemis eased
him back. The merchant groaned. His head bobbed, chin to chest.
Blotches of red and white mottled his skin. Sweat dripped from his
forehead, and his hair stuck to his cheeks in damp wisps. “Don’t
feel sa good,” he whispered before collapsing over Petal’s neck
again.

Playing nursemaid to some human was
not part of Ertemis’s plan. The fates must be out to get him.
Nothing ever went right in his life.

He made a hasty camp near a large
clump of Devil’s Toothbrush. The warrior in him sought the most
protected spot at all times. Soon he had a fire blazing against the
night’s chill.

He plucked Haemus from Petal’s back
and got him settled onto a cleared section of ground between the
fire and cluster of scrub brush. A weak moan escaped Haemus.
Ertemis tried to give him water, glad the merchant had filled his
waterskin at the last stop.

The man sputtered and water spilled
over his chin. “Where are we?”

“Camped. You cannot ride
further.”

Haemus coughed. His body shook as he
struggled to sit up. “I got the fever, ain’t I?”

“Aye.”

Leaning toward the fire, Haemus
shivered. Ertemis pulled the thin saddle blanket off Petal and
draped it over the sick man’s shoulders. Humans were such weak
creatures. Hardly any of them had magic. How could his mother have
lain with one? Was it any wonder the gutless cretin had ignored her
once he’d gotten what he wanted?

“I ain’t got long then,” Haemus
muttered through chattering teeth.

Ertemis didn’t know what to say.
Death was a familiar thread in the cloth of his life, and most
often he was the weaver, not the wearer. At least this time, death
had not come from his own hands.

“Rest. I’ll get food.” Ertemis
started toward the packs.

“Wait, stay. Please...” Hacking
coughs cut Haemus off. He caught his breath and continued. “A
word.”

Ertemis trudged back and crouched
beside him. “What?”

“I know I ain’t gonna get over this,
and I got something needs doin’.” Filmy eyes looked up at Ertemis
as the man reached beneath the collar of his tunic. He pulled a
brown suede bag from a cord around his neck. No bigger than a fist,
it was sweat stained by years of being worn close his
body.

“There’s a key in here. Give it ta
my daughter.” His gaze drifted, unfocused. “The box is buried under
the garden bench. Tell her I’m sorry. I weren’t a good pa and I’m
sorry. Tell her I don’t bear no ill against her for what she
done—”

A fit of coughing came over him, and
some time passed before he could finish. “Tell her it ain’t her
fault she is the way she is. And I don’t blame her for it.” His
voice weakened. “Poor thing, all alone.” He coughed again. “Take a
sack of coins from my pack fer payment an’ give the rest ta
her.”

He mumbled directions, something
about following the Callaoja River to Callao Lake and someplace
Ertemis had never heard of. His mumbling ceased as he drifted off
to sleep.

Ertemis studied the man’s disfigured
hands and face, the hardened mass of burn scars. He shook his head.
Just like a human to be careless with fire.

He added a few branches to the fire,
then rummaged in his pack for cheese and bread. Haemus coughed in
his sleep, wheezing.

Ertemis stared into the fire as he
ate. Part of him wanted to ignore the man’s request, take the
money, and continue on to Drust. He cursed under his breath. A
dying man’s request was not something to be denied. He would
deliver the key.

Haemus said his daughter was alone,
so she must be unmarried. With the dowry a merchant could provide
the girl must be either truly homely or a bitter shrew not to be
married off.

Maybe both. Definitely well fed and
spoiled. Although obviously not high born, Haemus wore fabrics as
rich as those draping the nobles who oft hired the Legion’s men to
fight their battles. Haemus must have a lavish home, no doubt with
servants. The girl had probably never lifted a hand on her own
behalf.

Tell her it ain’t her fault she is
the way she is. Ertemis grimaced as he pictured a plump,
overdressed twit wailing about her father’s passing while showing
her revulsion for the halfling who’d brought her the news. She
would look at him with the same distain most women did.

She would anguish over who’d supply
her next meal or trinket. Or she’d worry that the lowborn creature
before her might desire her favors. He snorted. Not blasted
likely.

The absurd idea of this arrogant
brat imagining he wanted to lay her bones amused him. He flicked a
rind of cheese into the flames. His mixed blood might repulse most
decent women, but to the wanton few, his fey half made him a highly
desirable bedmate. He hadn’t bothered in a long time, but finding
companionship when the mood struck presented little problem. He
closed his eyes and almost forgot the sick human sharing the circle
of firelight as sleep overcame him.

Awake before firstlight, Ertemis
knew without opening his eyes that Haemus lay cold. He heard
nothing but the sounds of the world rising around him. No coughing,
no wheezing breaths, no other heartbeat broke the morning calm but
his, Dragon’s, and Petal’s.

Low-spirited by such needless death,
he chose a spot and used the dagger in his boot to dig a slim
trench in the hard ground. He wrapped Haemus in the thin saddle
blanket and placed the body in the swale. He piled stones over the
site over then murmured a prayer in his mother’s native
tongue.

As Haemus had promised, there was
money in his pack. Ertemis found five heavy sacks of coin in the
bottom. No wonder Haemus had wanted a little traveling protection.
Two sacks of gold and three of silver, almost enough to buy his
freedom. He weighed the sacks in his hand. With what he already
had, maybe exactly enough. The girl wouldn’t know how much money
her father was carrying.

He tied Petal’s leads to a cinch on
Dragon’s tack, and set off straight toward Callaoja River. He was
unsure how far up river Callao lake was, but the sooner he handed
over the key to whatever spoiled brat Haemus had fathered, the
sooner he could buy his life back. He smiled, the promise of
freedom sweet on his lips.

* * *

Jessalyne didn’t regret the late
night spent with Corah in front of the fire, even as firstlight
woke her. She stretched and listened to the birdsong outside her
window. Last night she’d slept without a single nightscare. Was
that a sign her decision to leave was the right one or a sign she
should stay? She didn’t know.

She also didn’t know what the day
would bring. Would the cervidae treat her differently now that her
magic had worked some good? If they did, her desire to leave might
fade. Her head swirled as she dressed in a pale blue silk tunic, so
weightless it was like wrapping herself in sky. She added a simple
bleached linen overvest.

In front of a reflection glass, she
brushed her hair until it shone and left it loose, save two small
braids at her temples tied with silk ribbon in a matching shade of
blue.

The remainder of Corah’s bread went
into a linen square. Jessalyne took a basket from a hook in the low
kitchen ceiling and knotted the free ends of the linen around the
handle.

In the grove beyond her garden she
picked fragrant stonefruit until her basket overflowed. Their sweet
scent wafted thick in the gentle breeze, and she couldn’t resist
biting into one as she walked to the lake. A drop of juice rolled
down her chin. She wiped it away with the back of her hand. Perhaps
the grove was the most perfect place in all of Shaldar.

The entire cervidae herd had
gathered at the lake, all of them in human form.

Orit approached first. “I made this
for you, Lady Jessalyne.” He held out a circle of yellow
starflowers.

“Thank you.” Jessalyne accepted the
garland with a smile. She draped his handiwork around her neck. “I
love it.”

There were all sorts of games: tag,
hide and seek, foot races, jumping toad. The children and adults
alike skipped stones across the lake’s placid surface.

Blankets spread on the ground held a
multitude of goodies. Jars of sticky fruit preserves sat next to
seeded breads. There were honey cakes scented with lavender, savory
vegetable cakes, piles of stonefruit, purple and gold grapes,
seedberries, apples and lily root. Pitchers of alderberry wine and
spring ale passed from group to group. Laughter and singing echoed
around the sheltered lakeside, accompanied by the lilting sounds of
wooden flutes.

By afternoon, the children reverted
to fawns and nestled against their mothers, napping in the drowsy
warmth of the midday sun.

Jessalyne sat with Corah and
Dauphine. Orit dreamed at his mother’s side. The woman chatted
about nothing and everything. The day slipped peacefully by. More
and more, the idea of leaving melted away. She could live this
peaceable life after all.

Then Corah and Dauphine went silent,
their eyes rounding. They stared over her shoulder. Other heads
turned. The entire herd went still.

She turned as well. She furrowed her
brow, not believing her eyes.

A donkey with a flower-shaped
marking around its right eye plodded toward them along the river.
Her father’s donkey had a marking like that. Petal. But it was what
followed the jenny that had undoubtedly drawn the crowd’s
attention. A huge warhorse carrying a dark figure.

As Petal came closer, Jessalyne
stood for a better look at the figure on the horse. Definitely not
her father. Whoever it was, he was slumped over the horse’s neck
like a dead man.

“Dark elf.” Tyber whispered the
words uneasily.

“What?” She swung around to look at
Tyber. “What does that mean?”

“You remember the council of elves
that came for Orit’s naming ceremony?” He spoke without taking his
eyes off the creature.

She tipped her head toward the dark
skinned, ebony-haired man coming ever closer with Petal’s guiding.
“Yes, but they looked nothing like that.” The elves she recalled
glimmered with light and magic; elegant, graceful beings closer to
her own fair coloring than any other creature she’d seen
before.