Fire Country

~~~

The night is empty. The rain has stopped as suddenly as it started. Although the distant sounds of frolic and laughter hum from the center of the village, the Call party is like another world, something completely foreign to where we are.

Bart lies inside the tent surrounded by his own blood.

We run.

At least it’s our best attempt at ru

My mother’s struggling to run, too, ’cause killing Bart and the Fire have sapped the last of her energy. We cling to each other, hold each other up, four legs and four arms and two hearts, all stuck together in one person. I don’t know where we’re going or what we’ll do when we get there, but I’m happy I’m going there with her.

Like me, she knows the best spot for sneaking out of the village—the point furthest from any guard towers. So that’s it, we’re leaving. Even as I realize it, I know it’s for the best. With Circ gone and her soon to be, I have no reason to stay. The village only carries pain for me now.

“Siena,” my mother says, stopping, breathing hard, leaning on me. “You have to run like you’ve never run before. Southwest, where the river lies dead like a snake and the rocks hold hands like lovers. You have to hurry. Your father, the Hunters…they will come after you.”

“After me?” I say. My heart skips a beat and tears well up when I realize what’s happening. “You’re not coming.”

“I’m dying, Siena. This is my last act of defiance against your father, my last act of love for you. Tomorrow there is only death.”

Rivulets trickle down my cheeks. “No,” I sob, “we can get the cure. If he has it, we’ll find it. We’ll demand he give it to us. I can do it. I can save you.” My body shivers with emotion and my mother pulls me close.

“I’ve tried to find where he keeps it, but it’s too well hidden.” Her words are strong, almost fierce, a far cry from my own shattered utterances. “It only works to prevent the Fire, but it’s useless when you’ve already got it. Siena—”

“No!” I hiss, louder’n I should. “No, you can come with me. We’ll figure out a way.”

“I’m too weak…”

“You’re the strongest person I know.”

“You have to go…”

“I can’t leave you.” My words are a lie, ’cause I know I can and will leave her. ’Cause if I don’t leave, if I don’t go and try to make something of my crumbling life, then her sacrifice’ll have been for nothing. And I can’t live with that.

“Siena, I love you,” she says, pushing me away with all her might, falling to her knees.

“I love you,” I cry, tear-streaked and stumbling, ru

Chapter Twenty-Six

The night paints pictures with the strange strokes of a devilish artist.

Everything’s different in the dark. The dunes are rolling humps and heads and tails of gargantuan monsters, asleep and heavy. The pricklers stand firm and tall, like soldiers on guard, ready to fight the dune-monsters the moment they awake. The wind is on the verge of visibility, a silent hand that holds the brush, sweeping it in wide arcs that leave the landscape changed with each stroke.

It dries my tears, too. As I circle ’round the northwestern edge of the village, far enough away that to the guardsmen I’ll be little more’n a brambleweed bouncing along the desert, I find my legs. Although I’m scared and sad and bone-weary, I’m not broken. My mother saved me and I won’t waste it.

Southwest, where the river lies dead like a snake and the rocks hold hands like lovers.

Vague directions, but enough to get me started. What’ll happen when I get there, wherever there is? I don’t know. All I know is that my sister left by choice, not against her will like I always thought, like they always told me—and my mother helped her do it. The revelation is huge for me. All of Lara’s talk about girl’s being strong and living the way they want to live was fun and made her who she was, but I never took it that seriously. But knowing my mother and sister were of a similar mind and took real action makes all the difference. It gives me hope.

When I reach the western edge of the village, I stop, look back. Twinkling lights of a raging fire sparkle and dance. I wonder if my mother got caught out or if she made it back to her bed. I wonder if Goola’s discovered Bart yet, swimming in his own dark blood. My sixteen years of existence lie in the village. I look up and Circ winks at me between overlapping shrouds of gray cloud cover.

I turn my back on the village, scuffing my moccasins in the durt just enough to scrape off the dust of my old life.

~~~

I’m barely a half mile southwest of the village when the alarm sounds. They’ve found Bart.

They’ll organize quickly, start the Hunt. This time not for tug—for me. With cries and wind behind me, I lengthen my strides, pick up my pace. Run as fast as I’m truly capable of. The britches my mother made me feel weird and restricting against my skin. But at the same time, they make ru

Something feels heavy in my shirt, glancing against my ribs every few steps. When I rove with my hand I find a wide pocket. And in it: a sheathed knife. I pull it out, feel the swirls of the carved handle against my palm. From touch alone, I know what’s carved on the hilt. The sun goddess’s eye. The matching knife to the one my mother killed Bart with. Fresh tears swim in my eyes but I blink them away, tuck the knife back into my pocket.

I run for miles and miles, never slowing. For once in my life, my feet manage to keep out of each other’s way. At first I navigate by instinct alone, but eventually the night’s cloak is tossed aside and the stars show me the way. Southwest.

Sometimes the rhythms of the desert whisper songs in my ear. They’re ’bout lives long past, ’bout heroes of old whose incredible feats of bravery are destined to be repeated by new heroes.

But not tonight. Tonight I hear different sounds. The sounds of the Hunt. Heavy feet, shouts. They’re muffled and perhaps miles back, but they sound like they’re on top of me, like Bart was not that long ago. I find myself glancing back more’n more frequently.

When I start ru

I drag myself to my feet and start again, plucking out prickler barbs as I go.

This time, I stop looking back, for I know what’s back there. A torn world, a shredded life, those who’d harm me, blame me for the death of a horrible person like Bart. My father, the worst one of all, secure in his knowledge that he’ll never hafta suffer the pain of the Fire, ’cause of his agreement with the Icers, etched with the blood and lives of the poor souls of the village, men like Raja.