Duel of Fire (Steel and Fire Book 1) (21 page)

“I hope so.” Dara sighed. There was no stopping it now. “Shall we get started?”

Vine insisted on calling for tea and cakes. Her butler, whose name was Toff, set up a table in the far corner of the terrace looking out over Square Peak and the Fissure. Dara and Vine drank their tea and discussed Dara’s ideas for the public duel. Vine’s suggestions for spicing it up would have made Siv proud. Dara was finally coming around to the idea that this might be kind of fun.

After the main details had been decided, Vine leaned in, clasping her hands around her delicate celadon teacup.

“Now that’s out of the way, you must tell me everything about your encounter with Prince Siv the other night.”

“My what?” Dara looked up sharply. The memory of the warmth of Siv’s arms, the brightness in his eyes as he leaned toward her crashed down, leaving her breathless.

“You saved his life!” Vine said. Dara covered her relief by taking a long sip of her tea. Of course Vine meant the fight, not the almost-kiss.

“It’s the talk of Lower King’s,” Vine said, “but I want the real story. I
always
get the real story.”

If people were talking about it already, Dara’s parents were sure to find out.
Great.

Vine waited eagerly, so Dara outlined the basics of the encounter, right up to when the attacker threw his knife at Siv. She saw the flash of steel in the moonlight, felt the surge of speed in her arm as she reacted without thought. The spark of steel on steel. She had been ready to finish him off.

“I was scared, to be honest,” she said, looking up at Vine. “I’ve never tried to hurt anyone before, but I would have killed that man before I let him stab the prince.”

“Magnificent!” Vine didn’t seem to understand that it was her absolute willingness to kill the attacker that had scared Dara so much. “Oh, I love this story. I must admit I thought you would be a great public friend after this and had planned to seek you out. I’m even happier to have you as a public enemy.” Vine sipped her tea, and Dara wondered if she might be a bit mad. “So how did it all end?”

“The guards arrived, and the knifeman jumped off the bridge before he could be caught.”

Vine nodded, as if she already knew this part. “There’s a search underway to retrieve the body and the knife. I hope they will identify him soon. We can’t have any threats to our
dear
prince, now can we, Dara?” Vine winked. “But did anything else happen
afterwards
?”

“No . . . I just went home.”

“That’s it?”

“Yes. Two members of Castle Guard escorted me.”

“Hmmm . . .” Vine dipped her finger in her tea and drew circles on the table as if waiting for Dara to reveal something more.

Dara frowned. Did Vine know more about that night than she was letting on? Either about her and the prince—not that there was anything to know—or about the attack itself? She said she always got the real story.

“Vine, what do you think about the Fire W—the Fireworkers?” Dara asked. Vine may know what was going on in the city, but Dara didn’t want the Fire Warden to find out she was asking questions. Who knew what Zage Lorrid was capable of?

“They’re a restless bunch,” Vine said. “I understand there’s a growing faction that’s dissatisfied with Amintelle control over the Fire, given that the Amintelles haven’t had a Fireworker among them in over fifty years. I don’t know that they would try to kill the prince, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

So much for subtlety.
“I was just thinking about who knew when Siv was leaving the parlor. There were a lot of Fireworkers there.”
And Zage. We can’t forget Zage.

 “You’re in the right family to talk to Fireworkers, Dara.”

Dara sighed. “I suppose so.” Her parents were definitely not in Zage’s faction. She doubted they would be much help. The Ruminors might not have a great love for the royal family, but she was sure they’d rather see Zage Lorrid brought down than the king himself, maybe even for treason.

A breeze blew across the mountain, carrying the scent of peach blossoms from the orchard beneath the greathouse, mixed with the ever-present smoke of the mountain Fires. Vine sighed and gazed out at Square Peak.

“It is so nice to talk like this,” she said. “I fear some of the other duelists don’t like me because of my noble status. They talk to me at tournaments, but I couldn’t call us true friends.”

“You’re a threat,” Dara said. “That’s the truth of it. They know you’re competition, both for the medals and the patrons.”

Vine beamed. “What a nice thing to say. Here. You must have the last piece of cake.”

Dara accepted the cake and took a bite, the tart blackberry filling bursting on her tongue.

“Vine, why
are
you trying to get a sponsor?” she asked. “You are a noble, after all.” Something about seeing Vine all alone on her pretty little practice terrace made Dara feel comfortable enough to ask.

Vine’s smile faded. “My father is not well, nor is he wealthy. He’s had to sell most of our land to House Rollendar. I fear House Silltine will be no more soon. The income a patron would provide may actually exceed that of our remaining holdings. I wish to support my father in his twilight years without selling the last of his legacy.”

Dara was surprised. She had assumed Vine was doing it for the glory and the pageantry, not the gold.

“You have suitors, don’t you?”

“Yes, though not as many as you might expect. They know the size of my dowry.” Vine stood, brushing crumbs off her flowing trousers. The morning sunlight shone golden on her shoulders. “But if I have the option of earning patronage through my own means and on my own feet, why would I buy it with my hand?”

Dara didn’t answer, finishing her tea in silence. She still wanted to defeat Vine, but she understood her a little better. When it was time to say good-bye, Vine hugged her and then swore never to speak another kind word about her. Dara crossed the bridge to Village Peak feeling rather good about her new enemy.

18.

Fire

DARA
jogged home, thinking about how to explain what had happened to her parents. She had managed to avoid them this morning, but her mother would undoubtedly be waiting for her when she returned. Her parents would not be happy that she had kept her new training partner a secret. They’d be upset with her for staying out so late too, partly for her safety, of course, but also because of the potential damage to their reputation. She was not looking forward to the conversation at all.

But the lantern shop and the house were empty when Dara returned to the Village. Her mother had left a note on the desk beside a pile of paperwork for her to complete.

Emergency meeting at the Fire Guild. Your father and Farr are with me. Finish these delivery slips and watch the shop.

Dara breathed a sigh of relief and sat down at the desk, preparing to go through the paperwork. She fiddled with the edges of her mother’s note, rereading it for some hint of what they might be doing at the Fire Guild. It was unusual for them to be called to the Guild in the middle of the day without warning. She wondered if the emergency meeting had anything to do with the attack on the prince. Could the Fireworkers finally be deciding to stand up to Zage? Dara hoped she wasn’t the only one who suspected him. Jara the Gilder had been at the parlor. Perhaps he had been trying to gather information about what the Fire Warden was up to.

Maybe Dara could actually help her parents with this. They could use what she had seen that night to make their case against Zage. She almost wished she had been going to the Fire Guild meetings lately to hear about their plans. She liked the idea of working with her parents for the good of Vertigon and the royal family. They could be part of something together in a way they hadn’t been since Renna died.

Speaking of being part of something . . . Dara looked up at the lanterns hanging around the walls, a question that had been at the back of her mind for two days becoming ever more concrete. Was it possible?

Stillness reigned in the lantern shop. The shadows painted the walls in static shapes, the Fire burning steadily behind the intricate metal lacework.

Dara went to the window. The Village was quiet. There was no sign of her parents and Farr returning from the Fire Guild. They would likely be gone for hours.

She raised her fingers, turning her hands this way and that. They looked the same as always. Her right hand was rough with distinct calluses from her swords. She curled it into a ball. It felt the same as it always had. No warmth. No power. No Fire.

A breeze whispered against the windows. The emptiness of the house was like a living thing.

Dara remembered the burst of fear, of adrenaline, of heat she’d felt as she wielded the prince’s sword against the attacker. The
heat
. Again she wondered,
Was it possible?

She barely dared articulate her suspicions, but she had to know. She locked the door to the lantern shop. Then, with a deep breath, nerves thrumming in her chest, she walked down the tunnel toward her father’s workshop.

By the time she reached the end of the tunnel, Dara’s heart was racing. Heat surrounded her as she pushed open the door. The light of the Fire was a solid thing, so unlike sunlight or the even the light of a normal, wood-burning fire. She stepped inside and closed the door behind her.

The workshop was neatly organized. Rafe Ruminor did his best work in a precise space. One side of the room had stacks of raw metal ore that could be melded with the Fire to create the lanterns. Partially finished lanterns were neatly arranged on stone tables on the other side of the room, some of them already glowing.

And in the center was the access point to the Fire itself. It was basically a crack in the stone, a deep hole that tapped into the veins of molten power running through the mountain. A shallow stone trench led away from it. When Rafe worked, he would stand before the crack and draw the liquid Fire into his body from the channel in the stone. He would then transfer some of it to the trench so he wouldn’t have to hold all of the power within him while he sculpted the lanterns and infused them with everlasting flame. Powerful Fireworkers could draw Fire from the spidery veins in the mountain no matter where they stood, but they required an access point like this to create works on any meaningful scale. In the olden days, Wielders would have been able to summon extraordinary amounts of Fire at will from the stones of the mountain, but now the flows were too tightly controlled.

Dara remembered watching her sister, Renna, learn to Work. It required concentration and will to control the Fire. It was possible to Work without touching the Fire directly, but it was easier to shape it if the Worker drew it into their veins first. They had to manage a delicate balance, like filling up a cup of water. When Renna had died, the Surge had filled her cup far beyond its capacity, and she lacked the control to let it drain out of her body.

Dara considered this idea, which she only knew about in an academic way. The Fire filled up the Worker like water or blood, coursing along the veins and into whatever substance was being formed: a Fire Lantern, a thread of Firegold, a blade. Fire and metal were natural companions, and most Workers learned to form bits of metal into tiny beads when they first started training with the Fire. Renna had made Dara an entire necklace out of tiny spheres of Fire-forged steel. She hadn’t worn it since Renna died, but she still remembered watching the pride in her sister’s face as she completed the final lopsided bead.

One thing Dara remembered clearly from listening in on Renna’s lessons was that Fireworkers anchored themselves to the stones of an access point to help them connect with the flow of Fire. She had spent hours trying to do just that before she accepted that she didn’t have the Spark.

Again, Dara thought of the feeling of heat flashing through her body during the attack, the way it had seemed to drain into the stones of the bridge afterwards.

Had she pulled a bit of Fire from the mountain when she fought to defend the prince? Or had she imagined that sensation of heat filling her and coursing through the sword in her hands? She had to know before the possibility ate away at her. Her fingers were supposed to be cold. She had no Spark. She was long past this.

And yet.

Dara approached the access point, feeling the heat intensifying. Though it was hot, it didn’t scald her face. She drew closer to the crack in the rock. Nervous energy filled her, making her limbs shake. She stretched out a hand, the light seeping from the stone illuminating her fingertips.

Her hand hovered above the crack, but her skin didn’t burn. She couldn’t stop herself. She had to know.

Dara closed her eyes, placed her hand on the stone, and willed the Fire to come to her.

Nothing happened. Her whole body shaking, Dara tried to summon the power that sang deep beneath the mountain, the molten river that flowed beneath the crack in the stone.

Nothing.

She opened her eyes. The workshop looked the same as always. Neat. Empty. This was silly. She couldn’t Work. She had never been able to touch the Fire. Why would it be different now?

Dara turned to go and was almost at the door when she spotted a slim piece of steel about the length of a dueling rapier lying on top of the orderly pile of metal. She pictured that night, when she’d clutched the prince’s sword and felt that strange heat in her blood.

She picked up the steel, hefting it like a blade, and returned to the crack. She laid the tip of the metal against the stone and closed her eyes again.

She concentrated, stretching out with her will, with her heart, with all the desperation and fear that had filled her that night. She used the concentration she had honed during countless hours of dueling. Dara had always known she was fighting a losing battle for her parents’ respect. She had always known she could never replace her sister. But when she dueled, she felt powerful. She felt in control. Now, Dara used that feeling, that focus, that power. She breathed.