In the Fire

The fire was back—bright and devouring.

Smoke clawed down my throat.

Blood slicked into the mud beneath my knees. People in my village were screaming.

My breath tore from my throat before I was fully awake.

Something warm and rough moved along my arm. A hand. My eyes flew open as I sat up—nearly colliding with the messenger’s nose.

I stiffened my arm straight between us and shoved him back. He had been sitting cross-legged, so he toppled backward with a thud. The cabin floor creaked beneath him.

The messenger gracefully rolled himself back up to a sitting position.

He adjusted his linen undergarments and rested his forearms on his knees as he said, “You talk the most when you sleep, you know.”

Falling stars flashed through the broken window, briefly illuminating his face.

“Also, I knew you had a lovely voice, but the screaming is truly something else, little healer.” He said lightly, but he kept his gaze low as he massaged his hands.

I was thankful for the darkness as heat rushed to my face.

Did I scream?

My throat burned raw as I swallowed.

“What did you dream about? Do you want to talk about it?” A tenderness caught in his voice as he looked up at me, then through heavy lashes.

I wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep, but my heart started to beat rapidly with the thought of danger suddenly at its heels as I considered what to do next.

This was my chance. I rolled back my shoulders and looked him in the eyes; the green so deep I thought he’d drown me in them if I wasn’t careful.

He also straightened up. Even through the floorboards, I could feel the restless energy vibrating through him.

Was he bored?

Or eager for another chance to unleash his monstrosities?

I couldn’t help but glower as I spoke slowly.

“I was coming from my evening devotion to the ancestors on the outer edge of the woodland when the voices of my people brought me home. Though it wasn’t our songs this time that carried me, it was their screams as flame covered every nook of Cordala.” I shook the image out of my mind.

“That’s what haunts my dreams.” I didn’t break eye contact with him as I told him of my nightmares, and he held mine just the same.

“I might understand.” He drawled.

I scoffed, but he ignored it as he continued.

“Dreams of fire often haunt me, too. I’m sorry that you have to deal with that now as well.”

You should be.

“Do you remember the village?” This is where he’ll make a mistake, I thought.

“Even in the kingdom center, we weren’t aware of what happened until the queen sent me for the Jelari’s help one day, and all I found was ash and bone. We thought this was finally the end of our kingdom—the decay has been spreading rapidly since then.

When we heard whispers of a surviving Jelari in the south, I was sent right away to investigate.”

I hummed in response.

I don’t get it. I don’t understand at all.

“I wasn’t expecting her to be so fiery, though. I thought Jelari were more—”

To keep him from finishing that sentence, I shot him a weary look.

I knew we were powerful, but many people thought we were easy targets for mischief, and they often sought to take advantage of our kindness.

My eyes popped as another question to ask crossed my mind.

“You said you have similar dreams. What do you see?”

His face didn’t reveal anything then. If I hadn’t had his face burned into my mind, I wouldn’t have believed he was really there in all that devastation.

The starlight in his eyes dimmed as he spoke.

“Flames,” he said quietly. People running, you know.”

“No, I don’t know,” I said matter-of-factly.

“She jokes!” He chuckled, then paused for a breath. “I never see my own face.”

“Cassira.” From his mouth, the sound of my name sounded like a deep toll as it rang through my head. I closed my eyes as I cocked my head against the discomfort.

“Sometimes I lose time,” he cleared his throat. “I always wake up alone, and sometimes with blood on my hands and no memory of where it came from.”

My chest tightened as every part of me froze.

The silence thickened between us. Outside, another star fell somewhere far beyond the hills.

That was definitely not the answer I expected, but it did clear the air. I dug my nails deep into my palms. Though terrifying, his response made me understand him a bit more. It still didn’t clear him of what he had done. Memory or not.

The messenger snapped his fingers and threw a thin line of flame over to the makeshift hearth to our side. The firelight flickered softly between us. Neither of us spoke for a long time. I didn’t know what to say. But I saw the pain, the truth in his eyes.

Finally, he said quietly, “I suppose even the devil gets lonely at night.”

He studied my face for a long moment. “Cassira…have we met before?” he asked.

The question struck me harder than any song.

I studied his face—the same eyes, the same voice. The same arms that had once been wings, he no longer remembered having.

Yes, I thought.

You destroyed everything.

But the man standing before me looked at me like a stranger.

So I forced a small smile.

“No,” I said.

And the lie settled between us like a grave.

He hummed. “I feel I know you.”

Though my frustration only deepened, my shoulders relaxed.

I held my breath as he reached over and settled a comforting hand on my knee.

Warm. Steady. Careful.

The same hands that had burned my world to ash.

I only looked toward the hearth and bathed in the heat of the flames as I noticed snowfall out of the slanted, glassless window.

Another star fell, and I wondered how many had to burn before the sky finally broke.