The Burning Sky (3 page)

But how did one summon lightning?

“Lightning!” she shouted, jabbing her index finger skyward.

Nothing. Not that she'd expected anything on her first try, but still she was a little deflated. Perhaps visualization might help. She closed her eyes and pictured a bolt of sizzle connecting sky and earth. 

Again nothing.

She pushed back the sleeves of her blouse and drew her wand from her pocket. Her heart pumped faster; she'd never before used her wand for elemental magic.

A wand was an amplifier of a mage's power; the greater the power, the greater the amplification. If she failed again, it would be a resounding failure. But if she should succeed . . .

Her hand trembled as she raised the wand to point it directly overhead. She inhaled as deeply as she could.

“Smite that cauldron, will you? I haven't got all day!”

The first gleam appeared extraordinarily high in the atmosphere, and seemingly a continent away. A line of white fire zipped across the arc of the sky, curving gracefully against that deep, cloudless blue.

It plummeted toward her—searing, bright death.

CHAPTER 2

A COLUMN OF PURE WHITE
light, so distant it was barely more than a thread, so brilliant it nearly blinded the prince, burst into existence.

He stood mute and amazed for an entire minute before something kicked him hard in the chest, the realization that this was the very sign for which he had waited half his life.

His hand tightened into a fist: the prophecy had come true
.
He was not ready.
He would never be ready.

But ready or not, he acted.

“Why do you look so awed?” He sneered at his attendants. “Are you yokels who have never seen a bolt of lightning in your lives?”

“But, sire—”

“Do not stand there. My departure does not ready itself.” Then, to Giltbrace specifically, “I am going to my study. Make sure I am not disturbed.”

“Yes, sire.”

His attendants had learned to leave him alone when he wished it—they did not enjoy being sent to clean the palace guards' boots, haul kitchen slops, or rake out the stables.

He counted on their attention returning immediately to the burning sky. A glance backward told him that they were indeed again riveted to the extraordinary, endless lightning.

There were secret passages in the castle known only to the family. He was before the doors of his study in thirty seconds. Inside the study, he pulled out a tube from the center drawer of his desk and whistled into it. The sound would magnify as it traveled, eventually reaching his trusted steed in the stables.

Next he drew an heirloom field glass from its display case. The field glass pinpointed the location of anything that could be sighted within its range—and its range extended to not only every corner of the Domain but a hundred miles beyond in any direction. 

His fingers shaking only slightly, he adjusted the knobs of the field glass to bring the lightning into sharper focus. It had struck far away, near the southern tip of the Labyrinthine Mountains.

He grabbed a pair of riding gloves and a saddlebag from the lower drawers of the desk and murmured the necessary words. The next instant he was sliding down a smooth stone chute at a near vertical angle, the acceleration so dizzying he might as well be in free fall.

He braced himself. Still, the impact of slamming onto Marble's waiting back was like running into a wall. He swallowed a grunt of pain and groped in the dark for the handles mounted on the old girl's shoulders. With his knees he nudged her forward.

They were at the mouth of a hidden expedited way cut into the mountain. The moment the invisible boundary was crossed, they hurtled through a tunnel twelve feet in diameter—barely wide enough for Marble to fit through with her wings folded.

The darkness was complete; the air pressed heavy and damp against his skin. They shot upward, so fast his eardrums popped and popped again. Then, a pinprick of light, which grew swiftly into a flood of sunshine, and they were out in the open, above an uninhabited peak well away from the castle.

Marble opened her great wings and slid into a long swoop. The prince closed his eyes and called to mind what he had seen in the field glass: a village as ordinary as a sparrow, and about as small.

It would have been preferable to vault alone. But vaulting such a great distance on visual cue, rather than personal memory, was an imprecise business. And he did not have the luxury of proceeding on foot once he reached his destination.

He leaned forward and whispered into Marble's ear.

They vaulted.

 

Iolanthe was flat on her back, blind, her face burning, her ears ringing like the bells on New Year's Eve.

She must still be alive then. Groaning, she rolled over, pushed onto her knees, and clamped her hands over her ears.

After a while, she opened her eyes to a fuzzy spread of green cloth—her skirt. She raised her head a little and looked at her hand, which slowly swam into focus. There was a scratch but no blood. She sighed in relief. She'd feared that her ears had bled and that she'd find bits of brain on her palm. 

But the grass around her was brown. Strange, the moor atop the cliff had recently turned a boisterous green with the arrival of spring. Her gaze followed the expanse of withered grass and—

The flagpole had disappeared. Where it once stood, black smoke rose from an equally black pit.

She struggled to her feet, stuck her wand back into her pocket, and tottered toward the crater, feeling as if her legs were made of mush. The smoke made her eyes water. Grass, dry as tinder, crunched beneath the soles of her boots.

The crater was ten feet wide and as deep as she was tall; the flagpole lay drunkenly across the top. This was mad. When the lightning struck, its electrical charge should have safely dissipated into the ground.

Then she spied the cauldron, sitting upright at the very bottom of the crater, filled with the most beautiful elixir she'd ever seen, like distilled starlight.

A laugh tore from her throat. For once, Fortune had smiled upon her. The wedding illumination would be perfect. Her performance would be perfect—oh, she was going to perform, all right. And Mrs. Oakbluff just might forgive Master Haywood for the prank he'd pulled on her, telling her—ha!—that there would be no silver light elixir for her daughter's wedding.

A whoosh overhead made her look up. A winged beast, something of a cross between a dragon and a horse, shot past her. It had come from the north, flying with astonishing speed toward the coast. But as she watched, its wings flapped vertically to reduce its forward momentum. 

Then it swung around to face her.

 

The prince could not believe his eyes.

He had vaulted quite close to where the lightning had actually struck, but Marble had flown by too fast for him to get a good look at the mage atop the blackened cliff. But now that he had turned Marble around . . .

The long dark hair, half of it standing up from electrical shock, the ruffled white blouse, the green skirt. There was no mistaking it: the elemental mage who had brought down lightning was a girl.

A girl.

Archer Fairfax could not be a girl. What in the blazes was he to do with a girl?

The next moment the girl was no longer alone. A man in a black robe materialized and sprinted toward her.

 

Iolanthe stared at the winged beast. It was iridescent blue, with sharp, barely branched antlers on its equine head and a spiked, crimson-tipped tail. 

A Barbary Coast peryton.

They were very fashionable in the cities, but not in the hinterlands. What was one doing here, immediately after she'd summoned a bolt of lightning?

“What have you done?”

Master Haywood! His black schoolmaster's robe billowed behind him as he raced toward her.

“I repaired the light elixir,” she said. “And you don't need to worry about the crater, I'll take care of it—and put the flagpole back where it belongs.”

She commanded earth, too, if not quite as well as she commanded fire and water—and lightning.

“My goodness, what happened here?” Mrs. Greenfield, a villager, also appeared. “Are you all right, Miss Iolanthe? You look a fright.”

Master Haywood drew his wand, yanked Iolanthe behind him, and pointed the wand at Mrs. Greenfield.

“
Obliviscere!
” he shouted.
“Obliviscere! Obliviscere!”

Obliviscere
was the most powerful spell of forgetfulness—and illegal for mages without a medical license to use. Mrs. Greenfield would lose six months, if not a year, of memories.

“What are you doing?” Iolanthe cried.

Mrs. Greenfield dropped to her knees and vomited. Iolanthe started toward her. Master Haywood caught Iolanthe's sleeve. “You come with me.”

“But Mrs.—”

He had a death grip on her arm. “You come with me this moment if you want to live!”

“What?”

They both startled at the sound of wings beating above—the peryton. It carried a rider. She squinted for a better look. But the next moment, she was looking at her own front door.

Master Haywood shoved her inside. She stumbled.

Mrs. Needles poked her head into the vestibule. “Master Haywood, Miss Seabourne—”

“Get out!” Master Haywood bellowed. “Leave this instant.”

“I beg your—”

Master Haywood pushed Mrs. Needles out of the house and slammed the door shut. He dragged Iolanthe into the parlor and pointed his wand at the ceiling. The tip of the wand shook.

She swallowed. “Tell me what is going on!”

A satchel fell from nowhere into his arms. “I already told you. Atlantis is coming after you.”

From the open windows came the sound of the peryton's wing beats. The hairs on the back of Iolanthe's neck stood up.

“What should I do?” she asked, her voice barely above a whisper, her hand clenched about her wand.

A loud knock struck the front door. She jumped.

“Master Haywood, open the door this minute!” The voice belonged to Mrs. Oakbluff, who also served as the village constable. “You are under arrest for the assault on Mrs. Greenfield, as witnessed by Mr. Greenfield and myself. Miss Seabourne, you come with me too.”

Master Haywood thrust the satchel into Iolanthe's arms. “Ignore her. You need to leave.”

She hurried after him. The satchel was heavy. “What's in the bag?” 

“I don't know. I've never opened it.”

Why not?

In a corner of his bedchamber stood a large trunk, which had followed them through many moves. As he unlocked the trunk and lifted the lid, she saw its inside for the first time. It was completely empty—a portal trunk. “Where am I going?”

“I don't know that either.”

Her stomach twisted. “What
do
you know?”

“That you have put yourself in terrible danger.” He closed his eyes briefly. “Now get inside.”

The house exploded. Walls caved; debris hurtled. She screamed, threw herself down, and shielded her head with the satchel. Chunks of brick and plaster pummeled her everywhere else.

When the chaos had died down a little, she looked around for Master Haywood. He was flat on the floor among the wreckage, bleeding from a head wound. She rushed to his side.

“Are you all right, Master Haywood? Can you hear me?”

His eyelids fluttered open. He looked at her, his gaze unfocused.

“It's me, Iolanthe. Are you all right?”

“Why are you still here?” he shouted, struggling to his feet. “Get in the trunk! Get in!”

He grabbed the satchel from her and tossed it into the trunk. She took a deep breath and hauled herself over the trunk's high sides. He pulled on the lid. She held it open with the palm of her hand. “Wait, aren't you coming w—”

He crumpled to the floor. 

“Master Haywood!”

Through the chalky air, a matronly figure advanced. Mrs. Oakbluff waved her wand. Master Haywood's inert body went flying, landing with a thud in the next room and missing being impaled upon a broken beam by mere inches.

Mrs. Oakbluff came at Iolanthe.

 

Where had they vaulted?

The village was not big, but it still had some forty, fifty dwellings of varying sizes. The villagers stopped what they were doing to gawk at Marble, her shadow gliding on rooftops and cobbled streets like a harbinger of doom.

The prince assessed the situation. Were he the father or the guardian—who obviously understood the implications of what the girl had done—would he have already gone on the run? Unlikely. He would want to return to their home nearby, where he had a bag packed for just such an emergency and a swift means to safety. 

But where was home?

The prince had zoomed past the small house that sat apart from the rest of the village when a movement caught his eye. He turned his head, hoping it was the man and the girl rematerializing. Only one mage, however, stood before the house—not the long-haired girl, but a squat woman.

Disappointed, he continued his search. Only to see, a minute later, the same house shaking violently before collapsing on itself. 

He reined Marble as close to a full stop as he dared and vaulted for the now crooked front steps of the house.

 

“What are you doing?” Iolanthe wanted to shout in indignation, but her voice was barely above a whimper.

“Impressive, isn't it?” Mrs. Oakbluff smiled, but her square face was without its usual rustic goodwill. “Did you know I once worked in demolition?”

“You destroyed our house because I damaged the flagpole?”

“No, because you resisted arrest. And I need the credit for your arrest, young lady—I've been in this wretched place too long.”

Credit for
her
arrest, not Master Haywood's. Mrs. Oakbluff, soon-to-be in-law of Atlantis's staunchest collaborators in all of Midsouth March, clearly believed seizing Iolanthe would bring her special rewards.

The fear that had been welling up in Iolanthe suddenly boiled over. She yanked on the lid of the trunk, but it refused to lower.

“Oh, no, I'm not letting you go so easily,” said Mrs. Oakbluff.

She raised her wand toward Iolanthe. Without thinking, Iolanthe reacted. A wall of fire roared toward Mrs. Oakbluff.

 

The prince first secured the house with an impassable circle to keep out other intruders. The front door still stood more or less intact, but the wall around it had crumbled. He stepped over the debris strewn across the vestibule, and barely had time to duck as a tongue of fire roared in his direction.

But the fire did not reach him. Instead it pivoted midair and shot back where it had come from. He followed it toward the back of the house and stopped in his tracks.

A dozen trails of hissing, crackling flames, vicious as serpents, attacked the housebreaker, who frantically shouted shielding charms. The girl, now covered in plaster dust, stood in a tall trunk, her arms waving, her face a scowl of concentration.