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Herrick didn’t sleep that night. In the room he shared with Hakon, he tossed through the long, dark hours.

He remembered how Maude’s breathing had changed when he had her pinned against the wall, how her skin burned, and how soft she had felt pressed up against him.

He had been dying to run his hands over her curves and down to her muscled thighs that he felt beneath his.

She had been just as affected as he had been; he was sure of that much. When she had walked away from him, though, he could only watch her go. Replaying every touch and word spoken, he’d been restless enough that Hakon had blasted a cold jet of water at him and told him to take a walk.

He had silently walked down the stairs and out the back of the house toward the oasis before he realized he yearned for the sound of running water and had headed for the only body of water he had access to in this desert.

He stood before the water that lapped at his bare feet for a few minutes before he reached for his galder .

One of the reasons he hated being in Logi, besides the cruel treatment of its citizens by the nobility and the never-ending insufferable dry heat, was his inability to use his skill in water manipulation.

Veter had no such laws against its citizens having galder , not that any in the Kingdom of Flame knew this.

The vitki were only illegal in this kingdom.

The term was considered a hateful slur in the Kingdom of Flame, but in Veter, it was just another way to refer to someone who had been gifted with galder by the gods.

When Herrick and his friends came to this dry and desolate place, they found themselves always drawn to the vitki communities, assisting them when they could.

Sitting in front of the cool water of this private oasis, Herrick ran through his mental exercises.

He pushed Maude from his mind and practiced his breathing techniques, mastered his heart rate, compartmentalized his extreme feelings, and focused on the water.

Being the second born in his family left him with many responsibilities that he would never have imagined would fall to him so early in his life.

Herrick had learned control over himself and his emotions before anything else.

Reaching up to the necklace of runes around his neck, Herrick fingered the rune for fire.

While the woven leather looked like one long necklace, each rune hung from its own thin strip of worn leather.

His mother had gifted the collection of necklaces to him when he was sixteen.

She had told him that they were to be a constant reminder of the balances needed in their world between the different elements.

Over the years, he had begun to think of them as his source of balance as well.

Shifting his focus inward, he felt more than he saw the sphere of water rise from the pool and start to spin in place.

He opened his eyes and moved the spinning sphere to rotate around his head and then morph into the shape of one of the ships from the Kingdom of Rivers' armada.

The longboat, with each end carved into the shape of a dragon with its maw open as if ready to spit fire, appeared in front of him.

His chest burned with longing for his home at the sight of the ship.

He placed his left hand over his chest, where the tattooed dragon head rested, and thought of rolling green hills and rapid indigo rivers. He closed his eyes and thought of home.

Herrick never expected Maude’s face to flash behind his closed eyes; her angry mouth and pitch-black eyes alight with the fire that burned inside her. The fire that called to his very soul .

The water Herrick was working with flew for his face, soaking him to the bone with icy relief. It wasn’t enough. He stood, stripped to his undershorts, and dove into the water. He took a long time to resurface.

Maude sat on the flat roof of the house and watched Herrick dive into the oasis.

Maybe it was his connection to water that made him have to jump into the cold water, but she tried not to think of the sight of him in his undershorts for too long.

She had been twisting in her sheets most of the night, memories from her past plaguing her nightmares more than usual, with the occasional flash of icy heat coming from the memory of feeling Herrick's thigh pressed between hers.

Sweating through her clothes, she decided that she’d needed fresh air.

Sitting only in her makeshift band around her chest and breezy harem pants Herrick had found for her, Maude was finally able to cool down enough to calm her racing thoughts.

Her long hair was unbound and brushing against her lower back in the gentle wind, tickling the skin there.

Sitting hunched forward with her arms wrapped around her knees, Maude lifted one hand to run her fingers through the thick hair hanging down her back.

The gritty feel of the charcoal that hid her true colors scraped against her fingertips as she twisted her hair and wrapped it around her wrist, pulling it over her left shoulder to hang in front of her chest. The movement caused the black, inked runes that lived in the flames twisting up her arms to dance and stretch on her skin.

She had chosen to have the flames inked onto her arms with the runes for fire, patience, and strength to remind her that she was the one in control of her galder .

Even with their constant presence permanently on her skin, Maude still struggled with her control.

The constant power that boiled beneath her flesh threatened to overwhelm her when she became wrapped up in her passion, which was often.

Maude leaned back against the cool wall built around the opening in the ceiling that housed the stairs leading to the roof.

Minn eldr . My fire.

She had thought of that ridiculous nickname for most of the night, how it had sounded when Herrick breathed it into her ear. Of all the infuriating things to call her…

Maude looked out over the city again. The slums of Logi, where she usually chose to dwell, were located at the southernmost point of the city.

The Palace of Wind and Embers lay at the northernmost point, and the nobles lived in the closer outskirts of the seat of power in this kingdom, so Maude avoided it entirely and found life amongst the poorer citizens and vitki .

From where she sat, Maude could see all the way to the palace, which was why she had sat for so long in the same spot.

Its hateful presence loomed over her like an ever-present shadow in her life, no doubt how it was designed to be.

Under the harsh light of the waning crescent moon, the red-bricked buildings and quiet streets looked like they could be part of a painting.

Interspersed in the darkness, windows shone with candlelight and warmed the long alleys housing the streets of Logi.

Some buildings stood four stories tall with panels of fabric over the top constructed to be a roof, while some buildings had flat rooftops perfect for thieves to maneuver.

The breaks in the buildings contained small markets and shops for those who lived in the area, while the main city square, where she had been held prisoner, was a wide, open space in the shape of an oval.

Maude studied the city layout and her route to the palace, as she often did on nights when sleep was ripped from her grasp.

She went over how she would go from roof to roof, as the thieves of the night did, and make her way to the city square.

From there, she would skirt between shop stalls and acquire a disguise that would allow her to reach the nobles district, where she would take to the roofs again.

Bounding from building to building, she would make her way to the same wall she had crouched on when she had escaped on that fateful day ten years ago.

Copper hair as bright as a living flame, a beautiful, harsh face with light hazel green eyes, and a strong, confident presence burned into her mind before she could banish the memory of her sister.

Bryn’s eyes lingered, though, betrayal and acidic hatred burning there.

She hadn’t thought of her in months, but she supposed that being around Herrick and Hakon had rekindled her own longing, so Maude’s waking mind began punishing her with thoughts of Bryn.

She closed her eyes and tilted her face up to the full moon in the sky, praying to Freyr for some peace that night, even if she didn’t deserve it. Maude felt an overwhelming sense of calm for a moment before she felt someone sit next to her.

“Both you and Herrick are restless tonight, it seems,” Hakon said quietly, facing the city she had been looking out on just moments before.

“Most nights aren’t the easiest for me,” Maude replied quietly.

She didn’t understand why she felt so at ease sitting next to Hakon, as if they were old friends.

“Nor for my brother, but he manages.”

They didn’t speak for some time, the silence of a sleeping city resting comfortably between them. Hakon broke the quiet after a little while.

“Herrick is the best person I know. I trust him with my life. I know he comes off as an unconventional and rash person, but everything he does, he does for the people of Ahland,” Hakon paused. “There are a lot of things I could say about him, but the bottom line is that he’s a good man. ”

“Why are you telling me this?” She asked as she turned to look at Herrick’s older brother, their faces so similar and yet vastly different.

“Because I think you need to trust someone, and that someone should be Herrick.”