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Chapter Twenty-Four

Guinevere

There was an awful, burning sensation in Guinevere’s chest. Not the blaze of wildfire, but the sharp sting of ice. She drew the moldy curtains shut and stepped back from the room’s lone window, through which she had watched Oskar disappear into an alley with the beautiful woman in the red dress.

Maybe I’m jumping to conclusions. Maybe she’s just an old friend of his.

But that didn’t clear up why he’d been so eager to stash Guinevere away behind a locked door…unless he didn’t want his friend to get the wrong idea, which ripped open the possibility that he considered the seafoam-skinned brunette woman more than a friend.

Of course, there was another, perhaps more logical explanation.

Oskar had needs, like any other man. That much had been made obvious by the waterfall terrace.

But the fact of Guinevere’s betrothal had prevented him from fulfilling them all the way with her, so he’d turned to one of Zadash’s night doves as soon as he could.

Or maybe she wasn’t a night dove—just a pretty lady who’d happened to catch his eye. Whatever the case, he’d lied to Guinevere about going to buy sandwiches and had gone off with her instead.

Doesn’t that just grind your gears? crooned Teinidh, her flames licking at every jagged insecurity lodged in Guinevere’s soul, trying to twist each one to fullest advantage. Don’t you just want to march out there and claim what’s yours?

You are a terrible influence, Guinevere informed her, managing a trace of haughtiness that was all she had to give before she slumped under the weight of crushing futility.

The humble room’s peeling walls felt as though they were closing in, the blazing hearth too bright.

Oskar wasn’t hers and would never be hers.

Not only because she had to marry someone else, but also because of what was inside her.

Oskar was a good man, and every moment that Guinevere stayed with him was another moment he could perish in the uncontrollable wrath of wildfire, or at the hands of the mercenaries who wanted her and the trunk. She had been too incredibly selfish—too shamefully scared—to let him go.

That had to end today.

She had no right to be angry at him for lying to her.

He’d made her his responsibility, but that didn’t mean she was any less of a nuisance.

He’d be better off turning around and heading for Boroftkrah, like he’d originally planned—like he’d promised his mother—and dallying with all the old friends and night doves he encountered along the way without having to worry about a useless, na?ve girl who was hiding a horrible secret from him despite everything he’d already done for her.

It was past time for Guinevere to take matters into her own hands and do what was best for him.

For them both. Because every moment that she stayed with Oskar was another moment wherein it became more and more difficult for her not to imagine staying forever.

The innkeeper had proudly announced that, although the Song and Supper was an older establishment, they still provided little complementary luxuries such as enough writing materials to pen and post one letter (“ with our inn’s seal!

”). Guinevere rummaged through the desk drawers, and soon enough she was scribbling a note to Oskar.

Her tutors would have despaired at the inelegance of her hurried strokes, but what mattered to her was that she meant every word that she jotted down from the stream of scattered thoughts racing wildly through her mind.

Dearest Oskar,

I’m afraid that I haven’t been very honest with you. Although, is it really lying if you don’t reveal what wasn’t asked in the first place? That’s where the term “lying by omission” comes from, I suppose…

I’m making an absolute hash of this, aren’t I? Let me start over. Dearest Oskar, there are things I should have told you right from the start. I didn’t, because I was scared. Not to say that I’ve uncovered any hidden bastions of courage—I haven’t—but I will tell you now because I owe you this.

You are already aware that I was born in Cyrengreen.

What you don’t know is that I was born during a forest fire.

My parents were fleeing the blaze when Mother’s water broke.

She gave birth to me right then and there, and one of the spirits of the fire attached themself to my soul.

This was all explained to my parents by the dwarven hermit of those woods, who chanced upon us and fought back the flames.

Hammie nursed Mother back to health after her difficult labor, and he made my totem for me.

He packed it with the scorched earth of Cyrengreen, reinforcing my connection to the wildfire spirit, because I was born too early and by all accounts shouldn’t have survived.

But, as long as I had the totem, he said, the spirit would lend me its strength and I would live.

Now that I think about it, Hammie was probably a wild mage like Elaras, wasn’t he?

Was he telling Mother and Father the truth about the totem, or was it just to prevent them from getting rid of it?

They certainly tried to when I was older, but I was stubborn, Oskar.

I clung to it. It was a part of me. This was the only instance when I was ever a disobedient child.

But I can’t blame my parents for wanting to pretend that I’m normal.

My wildfire spirit’s name is Teinidh of the Wailing Embers.

She manifests when I am angry or afraid.

I cannot control her. I was the one who killed those bandits the night we met.

The one who started the fire that you and I barely escaped.

I’ve been a danger to you all this time, but no more.

You’ve told me to stop apologizing, but in this case it really is my fault, so I am sorry.

You cannot know how sorry I am. But I hope that my departure will finally make things right.

And, while I suspect that you’ll be quite cross at first, eventually you’ll see that this was for the best.

Thank you, Oskar, for everything. I wish you a safe and pleasant journey to your mother’s homeland. I must be selfish one last time and request that you think of me on occasion, for I shall miss you very much.

Yours,

Guinevere

Inside the walls of Guinevere’s heart, Teinidh was shaking her head. No one is going to read all of that.

He will. Guinevere could barely see the parchment through her tears.

She placed the letter on the table and slung her rucksack onto her shoulders, then made her way to the pearwood trunk across the room.

She would drag it along the ground by its handle all the way to Nicodranas if need be, although she hoped that Pudding would be nice enough to come with her.

There was little time to spare, but Guinevere found herself hesitating in front of the pearwood trunk.

She studied the ornate fleur-de-lis carvings on its lacquered surface, as she had spent many hours doing in her childhood when the trunk was the everlasting mystery shoved to one corner of her room.

What do you remember from back then? she asked Teinidh. Do you know what’s in here?

I see what you see, the wildfire spirit replied. I remember what you remember. I forget what you forget.

And do you dream what I dream? Guinevere thought about a firelit room that smelled like herbs and offal, and a dagger in her father’s hands. It seemed important, somehow, that nightmare her stressed brain had produced amidst the mud and the banyans of Labenda.

We share everything, Teinidh said with a sniff. Except opinions, clearly. It is my opinion that you’re overreacting. We don’t have to leave.

Oskar is safer without us. Guinevere grabbed the trunk by its handle. And…

And she hadn’t actually touched the trunk in a while. Oskar was always carrying it for her. She certainly hadn’t touched it since Elaras taught her how to listen to the magic that was all around.

The minute her fingers closed around the handle, she heard it.

A roaring like thunder, a rushing like blood.

There was an almost mechanical rustle, as though she were listening to something man-made—as though the stars had been plucked from the heavens and wrestled into simpler forms. It was nothing like the wild, but it was magic all the same.

And buried underneath it was a more familiar song. The leap of the bird into the wind. The turn of the seasons. The ocean, vast and roiling, endless and primordial. The croaking of ravens…

Snap out of it.

You have to go.

Guinevere forced herself out of the waking dream of black feathers and howling wind. She hauled the trunk to the door with some difficulty and then threw open the bolt and exited the room.

She nearly walked into Oskar.

“I had no idea you’d be back so soon!” Guinevere cried, dropping the trunk’s handle.

“It’s not like I went to Tal’Dorei.” Oskar was holding a brown bag from which wafted the mouthwatering aroma of roast meat.

Had he been telling the truth about the sandwiches, after all?

His topaz eyes narrowed as he took in the rucksack on her shoulders and the pearwood trunk at her feet. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Um—” A hundred lies quickly sprang to mind and just as quickly evaporated in the face of such damning evidence. She settled for wringing her hands together. She couldn’t believe that her plan had failed as soon as she’d set it into motion.

I mean, I can believe it, Teinidh drawled. Maybe if you’d written a shorter letter…

Oskar strode forward, leaving Guinevere no choice but to back into the room. He nudged the trunk inside with his foot, and he closed the door behind him with a soft thud and bolted it with his gaze fixed on her. She hung her head and awaited his judgment, more pent-up tears stinging her throat.

“Are you hungry?” he asked. “Do you want to eat first before we fight?”

“Let us get the fighting over and done with,” she said miserably.