CHAPTER NINE
Kyra hiked through the blinding snow, Leo leaning against her leg, the feel of his body the only thing grounding her in a sea of white. Snow whipping in her face, she could see hardly more than a few feet, the only light that from the blood-red moon, glowing eerily against the clouds when they did not consume the moon completely. The cold bit her to the bone, and only hours from home, she already missed the warmth of her father’s fort. She imagined sitting by the fireplace now, in a pile of furs, drinking melted chocolate and lost in a book.
Kyra forced those thoughts from her mind and instead doubled her efforts, determined. She would get away from the life her father had carved out from her, whatever the cost. She would not be forced to marry a man she did not know or love, especially to appease Pandesia. She would not be ordered to a life by a hearth, would not be forced to give up on her dreams. She would rather die out here in the cold and the snow than live a life that other people had planned for her.
Kyra trekked on, wading through snow up to her knees, heading deeper into the black night, in the worst weather she had ever been in. It felt surreal. She could feel a special energy in the air on this night, when the dead were said to share the earth with the living, when others feared to leave their homes, when villagers boarded windows and doors, even in the best of weather. The air felt thick, and not only with snow: she could feel the spirits all around her. It felt as if they were watching her, as if she were walking into her destiny—or to her death.
Kyra crested a hill and caught a glimpse of the horizon, and for the first time in this trek, she was filled with hope. There, in the distance, lighting the sky despite the storm, sat The Flames, the only beacon in a world of white. In this black night they summoned her like a magnet, this place which she had wondered about her entire life and which her father had strictly forbidden her to go. She was surprised she had hiked this far, and she wondered if she had been unconsciously marching towards it since she’d set out.
Kyra stopped, gasping for breath, and took it in. The Flames. The great wall of fire that stretched fifty miles across the eastern border of Escalon, the only thing blocking her country from the vast lands of Marda, the kingdom of the trolls. The place where her father and his father before him had served dutifully, protecting their homeland, where all of her father’s men, all of the Keepers, went to serve their duty in rotation.
They were higher, brighter, than she had imagined—all the men had boasted of and more—and she wondered what magical force kept them lit, how they could burn all day and night, if they would ever burn out. Seeing them in person only raised more questions than it answered.
Kyra knew thousands of men were stationed along The Flames, all sorts of men, the professionals from Volis, but also Pandesians, slaves, draftees, and criminals. All of them, technically, were Keepers, though none of the others had the skill her father’s people had, having manned The Flames for generations. On the other side lurked thousands of trolls, desperate to break through. It was a dangerous place. A mystical place. A place for the desperate, the bold, and the fearless.
Kyra had to see it, up close. If nothing else, she needed to get her bearings in this storm, to warm her hands, and to decide where to go next.
Kyra hiked downhill through the snow, using her staff to steady herself, Leo beside her, marching for The Flames. Though it could hardly have been a mile away, it felt like ten, and what should have been a ten-minute hike took her over an hour as the snow worsened, the cold biting her to the bone. She turned and looked back for Volis, but it was long gone, lost in a world of white. She was too cold to make it back anyway.
Legs trembling from the cold, her toes growing numb, her hand stuck to the staff, Kyra finally stumbled down the hill and felt a sudden burst of heat as The Flames spread out before her. The sight took her breath away. Hardly a hundred yards away, the light was so bright that it lit up the entire night, making it feel like day, and The Flames rose so high, when she looked up, she could not see the end. The heat was so strong that even from here it warmed her, her body slowing coming back to life as she felt her hands and toes again. The crackling and hissing noise of the fire was so intense, it drowned out even the howl of the wind.
Mesmerized, Kyra came closer, feeling more and more warmth, as if walking towards the surface of the sun. She felt herself thaw as she approached, began to feel her toes and fingers again, tingling as the feeling came back. It was like standing before a huge fireplace, and she felt it bring her back to life. She stood before it, hypnotized, like a moth to a flame, staring at this wonder of the world, the greatest wonder in their land, the one thing keeping them safe—and the one thing no one understood. Not the historians, not the kings, and not even the sorcerers. When had it begun? What kept it going? When would it end?
It was said the Watchers knew the answers. But they, of course, would never reveal them. Legend had it the Sword of Fire, closely guarded in one of the two towers—no one knew which—kept The Flames alive. The Towers, guarded by a cult-like group of men, the Watchers, an ancient order, part man, part something else, were each well-hidden and guarded on two opposite ends of Escalon, one on the far western shore, in Ur, and the other in the southeastern corner of Kos. The Watchers were joined, too, by the finest knights the kingdom had to offer, all intent on keeping the Sword of Fire hidden and The Flames alive.
More than one troll, her father had told her, who breached The Flames had tried to find the towers, to steal the Sword—but none had ever been successful. The Watchers were too good at what they did. After all, even Pandesia, with all its might, dared not try to occupy the Towers, dared not risk angering the Watchers and lowering The Flames.
Kyra detected motion, and in the distance spotted soldiers on patrol, carrying torches in the night, pacing along The Flames, swords at their hips. They were spread out every fifty yards or so, with such vast territory to cover. Her heart beat faster as she watched them. She had really made it.
Kyra stood there, feeling alive, knowing anything could happen at any time. At any moment, a troll could burst through those flames, she knew. Of course, the fire killed most of them, but some, using shields, managed to burst through and live, at least long enough to kill as many soldiers as they could. Sometimes a troll even survived the passage and roamed the woods and terrorized villages. She remembered once when one of her father’s men brought back a troll’s head; it was a sight she would never forget.
As Kyra stared into The Flames, so mysterious, she wondered at her own fate, so far from home. What would become of her now?
“Hey, what are you doing here?” shouted a voice.
A soldier, one of her father’s men, had spotted her, and was walking towards her.
Kyra did not want a confrontation. She was warm again, her spirits restored, and it was time to move on.
She whistled to Leo, and the two of them turned and headed back into the storm, towards the distant wood. She did not know where she would go next, but, inspired by The Flames, she knew that her destiny lay out there somewhere, even if she could not see it yet.