Contents

  Title

  Get Your Free Book

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  Chapter 34

  Chapter 35

  Chapter 36

  Chapter 37

  Chapter 38

  Chapter 39

  Chapter 40

  Author's Note

  Into the Fire

  By K. Gorman

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  To Shenandoah, whose strength inspires me every day.

  Thank you.

  Prologue

  July 12, 1982 — Transition, Year Zero

  The jump went far easier than Aedynan had expected it to; far easier than it had a right to, in fact. The whole thing felt surreal—the crystal mutation, the speed at which it had spread, the major launch of evacuation efforts. Just last week, he’d been tooling around the hangar, screwing off on his internship to admire the sleek lines and sharp angles of the new ships.

  And now?

  Sweat dripped down his neck and wicked into the collar of his shirt. Twelve people was pushing the limits of the ship’s life support capabilities, but they hadn’t had much of a choice.

  It was either push it, or die.

  Aeryn, his sister, sat in the copilot’s chair beside him, the light on her face tinted orange by the dashboard’s right-hand display, the black of her uniform blending with the shadows beyond her. She looked as drawn and pale as he felt, eyes wide and bagged, rimmed in red veins. Her hair fell in a straight line beside her face, like a curtain.

  “Is it—?” he asked.

  She turned to him, lips thin and pale. Her shoulders moved back as she took a breath. After a moment, she nodded once.

  All eyes turned to the front of the console, where the main screen had yet to reappear.

  The right-hand screen shifted first. Orange dots appeared, popping up like fireflies from grass.

  Three, then six. Twelve. Thirty.

  He heard a collective sigh behind him. The other ships had made the jump, too.

  Data scrolled down the side. Aedynan caught sight of atmospheric readings, topographical measurements, grid placements…It was a similar planet to home—it had to be, or else they couldn’t stay—same ratio of oxygen in the atmosphere, same amount of water, same ability to support life. The government had got that much right, it seemed. Considering the data was well over a thousand years old, Aedynan had half expected it to be more myth than science.

  It was supposed to have life, too. Human life. Civilization.

  They felt the ship shift, swing around, adjust itself. It had a subtle movement—barely discernible.

  Aeryn’s fingers fluttered over the console, eyes on the data stream. He saw a muscle in her jaw tighten, relax. When she spoke, her voice sounded strained.

  “There’s a city. Right below us.”

  Their interdimensional ship had no windows. When the main screen flicked on, the light was blinding. Aedynan shielded his eyes, squinted. It took him a few seconds to recognize what he saw.

  The city spread out in a grid pattern, the tops of its boxy downtown office towers petering into larger, less-organized blocks as the buildings spread out. Hemmed in by a range of tall, jagged mountains, the city was concentrated on the top of a hill that took up nearly a third of the valley, and clearly divided its slope into upper and lower sections.

  Vehicles moved on the roads, looking like metal ants in a hive.

  Aeryn’s fingers flew over the dashboard. “We’re off mark a bit. Too far east.”

  He leaned back in the chair. “As long as we’re on the same planet, I don’t care. They seem decently advanced. Can you tell if—?”

  “No magic,” she said, anticipating his question. “The reports were wrong. They have no defensive shield, no conduits, no—” She made a frustrated noise. “No infrastructure.”

  People murmured behind them. He felt them crowd closer to the console. Aedynan raised an eyebrow at his sister. “I guess that means we have the upper hand.”

  A new voice interrupted him, resonating from the comm speaker beside him. “Actually, there is magic.”

  The screen to his left shivered on. Safya, her face as slick with sweat as his, eyes even redder than Aeryn’s, appeared on the feed. She still wore her school jacket, and the amulet from her familial clan hung below her collarbone. Behind her, silhouettes crowded the deck. Her ship was as packed as their own.

  If Aeryn had any problem with her clan, she didn’t show it. She keyed through the data, barely glancing at Safya’s video feed. “Where?”

  “It’s latent,” Safya said. “Inactive. From what I can tell, it hasn’t evolved yet.”

  “That won’t last,” Aedynan said.

  Aeryn dismissed them, her lip curled. “That doesn’t matter. There’s no infrastructure.” She seemed stuck on that word. “They can’t do anything. A couple of hedge-witches won’t hold against mages.”

  Safya leveled a withering look on her, which Aeryn missed. She was too intent on the data stream.

  Then, an elderly voice spoke from behind him. “It’ll be a problem later, if they learn.” A gnarled hand rested on the side of the pilot’s seat. Aedynan caught a whiff of sweat and sweetgrass. Elder Kenmin’s soft robe fell against his arm. “If they decide they don’t like us.”

  As it turned out, all three of them were right.

  Chapter 1

  October 23, 2002 — Transition, Year 19

  The bomb broke over the valley, smoke and debris flying through Lyarne’s blue, cloud-smudged sky. By the time Mieshka Renaud looked up, it had spread like a gritty gray hand, its distended fingers hugging the slight curve of the city-wide defense shield. The sound concussed through the backs of Uptown’s skyscrapers. Echoes percussed her ribs.

  Around her, few reacted to the raid. Traffic crammed onto the road, sped toward the light. People handed out fliers by the top of the subway entrance. The crowd rushed down into the station below. Only three, excluding Mieshka, stopped to stare.

  The two countries had been at war for the better part of a decade now—most of Mieshka’s life. And Westray, her country, was not winning. Most of it had been invaded—occupied. Only Lyarne and Terremain—two cities, barely a twelfth of the country—stood free.

  But Lyarne was the capital, and Lyarne’s shield was bombproof.

  Nothing got past. Everyone knew that.

  Therefore, it was easy to pick out the refugees among the crowd. People new to the city. Ones who, like her, found it hard to adjust to the city’s safety.

  Mieshka watched the smoke spread.

  Down in the valley, Lower Lyarne glittered in the setting sun. The lower city was less developed than bustling Uptown, and its residential quarters were easy to see from the top of the hill. A lake, its waters gleaming in the distance, straddled the farthest, easternmost point of the mountain valley, surrounded by cul-de-sacs of cookie-cutter suburbs, farmland, and deep woodland. The twin peaks of the Sisters rose in the backdrop, their jagged, snow-capped crowns scraping the sky.

  A glint flashed to the Elder Sister’s left; a tiny fleck of light that might have been the bomber returning to its base.

  Mieshka shivered, closed her mind to it, and turned away.

  Her friend waited on the lip of the subway’s stair. Robin was a new friend—a new friend that insisted on calling her ‘Meese,’ a move that the rest of the class had been quick to echo. A couple inches shorter than Mieshka’s five foot eight, the two shared the same pale skin tone but were otherwise opposite. Robin had black hair to Mieshka’s red, blue eyes to Mieshka’s brown, and a loud attitude that sometimes steamrolled right over Mieshka’s small voice.

  “I see the war’s still on, eh?” Robin said.

  Mieshka winced. Even after two months in Lyarne, it still hurt to hear about the war. It was stupid—they’d come here to escape the war, not have it follow them in memories and flashbacks.

  But some pain was just too hard to push back.

  Robin’s eyes softened. She put a hand on Mieshka’s shoulder.

  “Don’t worry. Nothing gets through the shield.”

  Her fingernails bit into the palm of her hand. Her jaw clenched. The world started to narrow, to close.

  Mieshka forced a breath out, pushed it back. Her eyes slid sharply to Robin’s, then above, to the sky.

  The bomb smoke dissipated in the blue. Gold light tinged the clouds to the north and touched the white crowns of the mountains.
  The next breath was easier. The newscast’s slogan slid through her mind like a marquee.

  “‘Nothing gets through except for good news,’” Mieshka quoted.

  Robin smiled. “That’s right. Ready for Jake’s one-liners tonight?”

  Mieshka grimaced. The anchor was famous for his bomber jokes.

  “Sure,” she said, and pushed her way down to the subway. Wind flapped the sides of her jacket. People moved at her side. It felt like she was a fish going downstream. Feet stamped around her, hushing the howl of the tunnel.

  At the bottom, subway gates opened to her left, shops on the right. Her toe caught on the raised floor stripes meant for the blind. The crowd shifted, and she stumbled into a newspaper stand.

  Robin caught up to her at their gate. Together, they flattened their school cards against the sensor and walked through. The train schedule scrolled across a marquee near the ceiling.

  “We’re hitting the Lansdowne gaming booth, right?” Mieshka read the schedule. “Five minutes?”

  Robin nodded. Already, queues had formed where the car doors would stop. Robin and Mieshka stood between two of those, toeing the red line that warned of the platform’s edge. Three tracks lay in the dark gravel four feet below. The middle one was yellow where the paint had not turned into a dark rust brown. On the other side, a concrete wall rose, papered with several recruitment posters. In each, a female soldier held a large gun, their rank and division sewn into their uniforms.

  The one directly in front of Mieshka was a sergeant. Artillery insignia marked her left breast.

  “Hey, your mom was a soldier, wasn’t she?”

  Mieshka stiffened. The world closed in.

  No. Not here. Not now.

  Her hands shook. She turned away, into the station. People shoved at her, she felt herself shove back. Announcements crackled over the PA. Robin shouted.

  I’ve got to get away. Too many people. Not enough space. I’ve got to get away.

  The crowd parted.

  Mieshka darted through the opening. The gate snickered apart for her.

  Wind howled in her face. She shied away from the exit, the crowd, and turned deeper into the tunnels. Feet stamped. She ran into people, bumped into a shop. People grabbed at her, shouted. She sprinted.

  Shops slid past. A train screamed at the next platform. The crowd thinned, space opened up.

  Eventually, she came to an empty hallway.

  Mieshka slowed.

  It smelled different here. Musty, but lighter than the closeness of the platform. The shops here had closed. Heavy padlocks kept their metal curtains shut. Behind a metal cage, window fliers advertised a sale six months expired. Rubble filled the room behind the dusty window.

  Mieshka slumped against the wall and slid to the floor. Her heartrate slowed. As her panic wound down, she unzipped the back pocket of her pack and pulled out a tissue. In the distance, the thin wail of a leaving train echoed up the hall, accompanied by the chirps of the auditory warning systems.

  Closer, footsteps tapped on the scuffed tiles.

  Mieshka bowed her head as she dabbed at her face, letting a curtain of orange hair hide her eyes. Her throat choked up. A sob racked through her.

  Grief was an ugly feeling.

  Robin crouched down in front of her.

  “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have asked. I wasn’t thinking.”

  Mieshka curled away, reached for another tissue. Her voice trembled when she spoke.

  “I don’t think I should go to Lansdowne today.”

  Robin squeezed her shoulder. “We don’t have to go to Lansdowne today.”

  Heat flushed Mieshka’s face. Her eyes felt puffy. She wiped them with another tissue. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be—”

  “No, no—I shouldn’t have asked,” Robin said. “I wasn’t thinking. You’ve got a history, I get it.”

  “I’m not a good friend. Friends should be able to talk about anything.”

  “That’s not true. It hasn’t been that long since…” Robin’s voice trailed off. Mieshka winced again. Cool air touched her cheek as her friend pulled back, the weight shifting on Mieshka’s shoulder.

  “Say,” Robin said, “we don’t have to go to Lansdowne. Not today.”

  Mieshka looked up, following her friend’s gaze. A set of stairs rose at the end of the hallway, where an arched doorway led into a dim corridor. Light flickered within.

  “What is it?”

  “The fire mage’s temple.”

  “Temple?” Mieshka studied the doorway. It had an ornate trim—like leaves, she thought—wrought in a material that was paler than the rest of the hallway’s beige accents. Marble? They used marble in temples, right? But why build a temple here, in the middle of the subway?

  “That’s what everyone calls it. They say that the fire mage’s ship is under it. You know about the ships, right?”

  The mages had crash-landed on this world. They’d used their ships—special ships, all black metal and magic—to slice through the dimensions, fleeing the collapse of their old world. That, technically, made them refugees. But the government treated them much better than it treated people like Mieshka.

  There were three in Lyarne, and a fourth in nearby Terremain. Their elemental magic powered both cities’ shields.

  “I’ve seen pictures.” Mieshka stood up, swaying a little as she balanced against the wall. Echoes followed her up the hall, carrying the cacophony of the station.

  The noise faded as they passed under the archway.

  Their shoes tapped on the stone floor, and Mieshka’s ragged breaths seemed to grow louder. The hallway was so quiet she heard the books in her backpack shift. Where earlier she’d felt the press of people, she now felt their absence.

  Past the threshold, the dimness enveloped them just like the quiet. Light moved as though through water, rippling in lines and arcs across the walls. It struck her as odd for a fire temple. The watery light illuminated the concrete ceiling in a dim blue glow.

  Stone walls rose on either side, embossed with monsters.

  She stared at them. Not all were monsters. A winged horse flew above a giant tentacled sea monster. An eagle skirted the sun. She looked closer. No, not an eagle. A firebird. She fished for the name: Phoenix.

  They seemed to move in the corners of her eyes.

  Running water grew louder ahead. The two girls crept toward it.

  The hallway funneled them into a small, shallow amphitheater. A three-tiered fountain bubbled on the opposite side, taking up most of the center, its waterfalls shivering in the blue light. Two small, wizened trees flanked its front. At its back, where the first waterfall splashed down from its highest point, a screen hovered in mid-air. Its transparent backing marked it as alien.

  She’d heard the mages had brought some technology from their old world. This must have been part of it—her own world hadn’t even come close to this level of advancement. It looked like she could throw something right through it and it wouldn’t even blink.

  Three rows of symbols glowed on it, burning with the orange-yellow of the fire element. Mieshka had seen the mage’s old language before—her school had added mages to its curriculum last year. The characters had a strange Asiatic-Cyrillic shape. They pulsed in the air, glowing like embers.

  Two steps separated the center of the room from the pillared hallway at its perimeter. The tapestry of mythic creatures continued along the wall, accompanied by more fiery text that lined the room’s outer wall. She ducked behind a pillar, a hand tracing its ribbed edges, and followed the hallway. The light from the letters cast the stone floors in a soft red haze.

  The rows of letters reached close to the ceiling. Each column of text had only two or three words and maybe fifty rows. They looked clean, uniform, and organized.

  Exactly like the ones on her mother’s cenotaph.

  Mieshka’s throat tightened. She forced herself to step back. Her eyes did a slow circuit of the room. There were a lot of letters.

  Tears pricked at her eyes. Her shoulder bumped into the hard ridge of a pillar as she backed up.

  “You okay?” Robin stood in the center, a concerned look on her face. She’d taken off her hat, and the screen’s light reflected orange off her dark hair. Mieshka clenched her hand tight as she directed her gaze upward, to where the screen broadcasted its single, short message. As she watched, one of the letters fluttered briefly into flame.

 

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