Fire Country

“Around the edge are the weapons rooms, strategy rooms, commanders’ quarters, supply holds and a whole lot of other boring stuff,” Circ explains as we walk down a hallway. It’s weird, unlike anything I’ve ever seen. It’s almost like all the huts in the village’ve been joined together, the walls knocked down so that it’s one, long hut. We reach a corner and turn right. The next side of the square.

“And all the sides are like this?” I ask.

Circ grins, his teeth gleaming in the light from the torch he lit when we entered the main door. “Yeah, but that’s not why I brought you. The real treat is in the middle.”

Instead of taking me all the way to the end of the next passage, Circ stops midway, where another path goes off to the right, further into the belly of the beast. I’d expect it to be darker in there, but it’s not. The air seems to lighten the further in we get, until I see a square of night sky ahead of us.

“Where does this lead?” I ask.

“You’ll see, Circ says, grabbing my hand and pulling me forward, more quickly now.

My heart starts beating faster.

“Close your eyes,” Circ says as we approach the soft light.

I let my eyelids slip shut. I wa

I take ten, fifteen, twenty more steps, never stumbling under Circ’s guiding hand. He stops me with a firm touch on my hip. Spring butterflies swirl in my stomach. We’re just friends, just friends, just friends, I think, trying to calm the butterflies. Duty, honor, the Call.

Breeding, Lara says in my head.

“Open your eyes,” he says softly.

I do, gasping at the sight before me.

~~~

When I open my eyes, what I see is beautiful, but scary too, like the skeleton of a long-dead beast, its skin picked clean long ago by carrion-eaters.

We’re in the center of the Hunting Lodge, which is exposed to the night sky. As always, the air is warm, even in the deepest part of the night. The Lodge and its series of rooms and passageways is really just a big, square wall, surrounding the yard we now stand in. Beneath us the durt is hard-packed, trampled by dozens of Hunter feet, their footprints zigzagging this way and that. Wooden beams and walls and crossbeams rise and jut out and co

But above us, there’s only beauty. Although I’ve seen the moon and the stars countless times, nothing could compare to now. Something about the quiet protection of the fortress around us seems to magnify the brightness and colors and magnificence of the night sky, framing it all like a picture.

“Lie down,” Circ says softly, pulling me to the durt.

As we have so many times before, Circ and I lie next to each other, hand in hand, staring up, watching the star servants wink and twinkle, flash in, flash out, speak to us.

“Oh,” I murmur. Some of the stars are moving, shooting across the sky, born by wings, or by some extra-world power bestowed upon them by the moon goddess. They arc over us, their brightness leaving dazzling tails behind them, and then disappear beyond the Lodge walls.

“Good timing,” Circ says, sitting up suddenly.

I sit up, too, across from him, still holding his hand, feeling a flutter in my chest.

Everything about Circ is right. The way I feel when I’m ’round him, safe and happy and excited; his easy-on-the-eyes smile that comes quicker’n a pack of Cotees to a fresh kill; his respect for life and all who live in fire country; his loyalty, above all else.

Releasing his hand, I touch my fingertips against the charms dangling from my tug-leather bracelet. The one for Skye. The one for my mother. The one for me, the tree.

The tree. On the night of my Call, I’ll give it to the man I’m Called to be with, to live with, to Bear children with. Not Circ. He’s too young, not eligible yet.

Breeding. The thought of lying with some stranger just to bring more children into this world seems to get more revolting the closer I get to my Call. And having more’n one woman do it with each man? Is that right? It’s the way it’s always been, I know, but that don’t make it right, now does it?

I desperately wa

“That’s not the way,” Circ says, touching my finger with his, ru

Circ is strong, graceful, important. And I’m…

“Perfect,” Circ says.

“What?” I say, my eyes taking in his.

“Don’t even think those words about yourself. Don’t even joke about them. Not now. Not ever again.”

I search his fathomless brown eyes for a clue as to how he’s doing this, how he’s reading my thoughts as quickly as I think them. The answer’s so obvious I’ve barely scratched the surface of the beauty his gaze hasta offer when I realize it: he knows me better’n I know myself.

I stand up, walk away from him, my mind overworked, practically spi

Circ already knows everything about me.

But it’s impossible—he can’t be my Call. I can’t let myself wish it, hope it, want it, not for even one second. For down that path lies only heartbreak.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Lara’s words crash into me like a heavy wind. What if she’s not crazy? What if there’s some truth to what she says. What if whoever she’s working with really does have something to offer me?

Think about what you want. And when the time comes, you’ll know what decision to make.

My mother’s words streak across my consciousness like the shooting stars we saw not a moment ago. What’d she mean? How can I possibly have what I want? I don’t have a decision. I want Circ, but I can’t have him. The Law says I can’t.

Warm arms wrap ’round me from behind, startling me. Circ laughs.

“Did I frighten you out of your daydream?” he says.

I was so caught up in my thoughts, in the puzzles with no answers, that I’d almost forgotten he was there. Almost. “It’s night,” I say, draping my arms over his, pulling them close. How is this happening? He said it himself: We’re just friends. Not his exact words, but close enough. Do friends hold each other like this?

“What?” he murmurs, nestling his lips into my hair. Warmth spreads down my spine.

“You said daydream. But it’s night.”

“Okay. Nightdreams,” he says. Keeping one of his hands tight against my stomach, his other drops to my waist, settles on my hip. “What were you nightdreaming about?”

“How this is impossible,” I say, at the same time wondering what this is.

Circ sighs. “Siena, when will you see the truth?” His question startles me. The truth? I don’t even know what the truth is, or where to find it, so how can I see it? So many people are telling me so many different things and none of it makes any searin’ sense. “Sometimes I just wish you’d see yourself the way I see you. How strong, how graceful, how pretty. How fu

Fu