Firebrand

  “Stop,” cried Rose. She faced the Guardians. “Look at you. You’re so weak, you can’t even stand. And now you say we’re ready to face the pirates again.” She wiped spittle from her lips with a bloodstained sleeve. “But I’ve seen what they can do, and I’ll be happy if we never go home again.”

  She didn’t wait for her mother to reply. With ten quick strides she reached the staircase. A moment later, she disappeared below deck, leaving an eerie silence behind her. Everyone kept quiet out of respect for her family’s loss. But as I looked around, I had no doubt that our recently reunited colony was divided yet again.

  CHAPTER 6

  We ate sparingly, pretending that we weren’t as hungry as we obviously were. Back on Roanoke, Rose had caught fish for us to eat. But now she didn’t eat at all, and no one dared to ask her to catch any. Alice handed out blankets and told everyone which cabins to use. I figured that her parents would argue with her, but they didn’t. It showed how weak they were. We’d be sailing the ship with a skeleton crew until they regained their strength.

  Daylight streamed through the window when I woke the next morning. I’d put in a long shift at the wheel during the night, eyes fixed on the stars so that I’d be able to follow Alice’s southwesterly course. I rubbed my eyes, reached for the water canister across the tiny cabin, and drained it quickly. I was replacing the cap when I heard someone cry out.

  I leaped up and ran from the cabin. Just along the corridor, Ananias and Eleanor were crammed around my father’s cage, combining their elements. With one hand they held each other, and with the other they shaped and concentrated Ananias’s flame into a white-hot glow aimed at the cage’s lock.

  But something wasn’t right. The flame wouldn’t stay still. It didn’t look very strong, either, and yet they were both sweating profusely. Maybe their elements were waning just like Kyte had warned, but something told me it had more to do with the way Eleanor leaned away from Ananias, their fingertips barely touching.

  The metal lock was bending, but the flame was weakening. I wanted to help, but I’d only distract them. I was sure that if their flame went out for even a moment, it might never come back.

  My father had his back to them. I didn’t know whether he was asleep or if he was just protecting himself from the heat. But as the flame slipped closer to being extinguished, he stirred. He rolled over and forced a couple fingers from each hand through the metal mesh.

  It took Ananias and Eleanor a moment to touch him—he looked as awful now as he had the day before—but when they did, he curled his fingers tightly around theirs. He gritted his teeth as the three of them joined. The flame grew suddenly larger and fiercer.

  It was clearly Father’s element at work. He and I shared the same power. But if it was surging into Ananias and Eleanor, why did they look less uncomfortable now than before? At the briefest touch, Alice and Rose had pulled away from me. But no one was pulling away from Father now.

  The metal lock, already red hot and bending slightly, seemed to liquefy. Ananias eyed it closely, ready to snap it at the precise moment. Eleanor leaned farther back again, but now it was the heat that made her recoil.

  Father’s lips were pulled back, teeth chattering from the exertion. His whole body began to shake, slowly at first and then faster, so that he convulsed uncontrollably.

  Ananias struck the lock with the side of his hand. The flame disappeared but the lock didn’t break completely. So he struck it again, even harder, screaming from the intensity of it all.

  The lock cracked and dropped to the floor, where it sizzled against the wooden planks. Eleanor fell back against the wall to avoid getting burned. Ananias collapsed, gasping for breath. And my father stopped shaking.

  I slid inside the room and yanked the cage top upward. I wrapped an arm around my father and tried to drag him over the side of the cage, but he was too heavy.

  “Take his legs.” Alice stood beside me, legs spread wide to avoid treading on her sister. “I’ll help you.”

  His tunic and pants were stiff from dried urine. I gagged on the stench.

  “Now,” she said.

  We heaved him onto the edge of the cage, but couldn’t stop him from slipping over and onto the floor. He didn’t make a sound, not even when we pulled him into the corridor by his armpits.

  “He must be unconscious,” said Alice.

  I placed my fingers against his neck and checked for a pulse. His heartbeat was slow. Faint too, and growing weaker every moment.

  “What’s happening, Thom?”

  Ananias and Eleanor still hadn’t moved. Using their elements had left them completely exhausted. “He combined his element with them,” I said. “But I don’t think he had the energy—”

  I broke off as my father’s pulse stopped. I kept my fingers in place, waiting for the heartbeat to return. But it didn’t.

  The world seemed to close in around me. Father’s face and body were relaxed, as if he was welcoming death. I couldn’t let that happen.

  The thin thread of an element began to pass between us then. My hands were shaking, but I was conscious of channeling the flow, pouring every fiber of my being into him and emptying my mind of every thought but one: Make him live.

  There were voices around me, but they couldn’t break through the bubble I’d created. One after another my senses shut down as I focused more, pushed harder. Whatever was left of my element was his now.

  The voices around me were shouting. I recognized the tone but not the words. It wasn’t just one voice either, but several. I drew strength from that too.

  My eyes were open but I was blind. I didn’t even bother to breathe anymore.

  I was at peace.

  And then I wasn’t.

  »«

  “You’re lucky to be alive.”

  I tried to raise my head. Gave up. Tilted it instead.

  Rose knelt beside me. There was a candle on the floor, which meant that it was night. “How long have I been asleep?” My voice sounded strange—not really mine.

  “Not long enough.” She dipped a piece of cloth into a bowl, wrung it out, and draped it across my forehead. “How do you feel?”

  “Terrible. What happened?”

  “Alice kicked you in the head. And the arms. Body too.” I must have looked puzzled, because she continued, “She saved your life, Thomas. You brought your father back, but you wouldn’t stop. Everyone was shouting at you, but it was like you couldn’t hear us. So she made you stop.”

  I closed my eyes to shut out the pain. “I can feel that, yes.”

  My senses had returned with a vengeance now. I felt the humidity of the night, the smell of salt water on the cloth. What I couldn’t see was my father. “Where is he?”

  “He’s in the next cabin. Griffin cleaned his wounds. Ananias found new clothes for him.” Rose reached for the wooden bangle she always wore and twisted it around her wrist nervously. “Your father’s alive, but he’s really weak.”

  “And what about you? How are you doing?”

  She let go of the bangle and touched the pendant I’d given her instead. She lifted it up and admired it in the candlelight. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to feel right now. My mother seems lost. Dennis is crushed. The only thing that kept him going was rescuing my parents—”

  “That’s what kept us all going.”

  She let the pendant fall. “No, it wasn’t. Not just that. I did what it took to keep us together too, Thomas.” She removed the cloth from my forehead and dipped it in water again. “I loved my father. Trusted him, even when I thought he was wrong. But he lied to us—all of us. And at the end, when he was dying . . .” She raised the cloth and watched it drip into the bowl. “He spent his last breath making me promise I’d stay away from you.”

  I swallowed hard. “Why?”

  “Because he was frightened of you and your family. Eve
n though you couldn’t have known about Dare being your uncle, he still wanted to punish you. And me.”

  I couldn’t look at her anymore. The name Dare made me sick. “Who told you about that?”

  “My father. So did Alice and Griffin. There’s no use keeping secrets anymore, Thomas. There aren’t enough of us left to take sides.”

  Rose squeezed the cloth and ran it across my forehead, past my left temple and over my cheek to my lips. The thin material was all that separated her fingers from my skin.

  We moved at the same time, sleeves brushing lightly, then hands touching. I tried to rein in my energy, but it wasn’t necessary. The hint of a smile on her lips told me she was just fine. Either my element was weakening like everyone else’s, or I was too exhausted to pass any energy at all.

  Our fingers intertwined, skin gliding over skin, like a warm breeze. Rose dropped the cloth and ran her free hand up my arm, kept moving until it rested on my shoulder. A finger glanced my chin, then another touched my cheek. I closed my eyes and tilted my head toward it. Here was hope. Here was proof that life would be better without an element.

  Rose uncurled her legs. “You should rest.” She picked up the bowl and the candle, and stood.

  “Wait,” I called out. “What made you break the promise to your father?”

  She rested her head against the door. The braid had come undone now, and her hair hung lank across her face. She looked tired, but still beautiful. “I didn’t promise him anything.”

  I couldn’t hide my surprise. “What?”

  “He was dying, and of all the things he could’ve said . . .” She bit her lip. “No. Of all the things he should’ve said, he made Dennis and me promise to stay away from you.” She fixed me with her hazel eyes. “I keep thinking that if he’d lived a moment longer, he’d have told us he loved us too. But I guess we’ll never know. Maybe it doesn’t matter. He cared more about hurting you and your family than reassuring his own.” Her eyes were full of tears now, but she didn’t blink and they didn’t fall. “And so I said nothing.”

  CHAPTER 7

  I slept poorly again, plagued by nightmares of pirates and dead Guardians. A few times I woke up hungry. Once, Griffin was beside me. The next time, it was Ananias. I needed to take a turn at the wheel too, but I was so tired. So empty.

  I woke with a start. The first light of morning filtered through the porthole. Ananias lay on his back beside me, hands raised, sparks spitting from his fingertips. Sometimes there were tiny flames too, but they flickered, like fire starved of oxygen. “There’s a cup beside you,” he said. “Your daily ration.”

  “Daily?”

  “Well, Alice might give you extra. Because you skipped yesterday’s meal, I mean.”

  I almost laughed at that. It seemed funny somehow, which I guessed meant I felt better. But Ananias didn’t smile at all. He just stared at his hands, transfixed.

  The cup was half-full of almost-rotten fruit and stale grains. The water canister beside it was full, though.

  “Is it good?” I asked, holding the canister.

  “Rose thinks so,” said Ananias.

  “Thinks?”

  He shrugged. “Strange things are happening, Thomas. Our elements still work, just not the same as before.”

  I was parched, so I drained it anyway. “How’s Father?”

  “Alive. We’ve been checking on him, but he hasn’t eaten yet. Getting him to drink was hard enough.”

  The words were spoken in monotone, as though he was holding something back. “What’s the matter, Ananias?”

  He closed one hand and made a fist. “It’s my element. The echo’s fading little by little, but I have a headache. It gets worse every time I make a flame.”

  “So stop,” I said, groaning. “You should be pleased to get rid of the echo. Everyone complains about it, how much it hurts. You and Eleanor always used to say it’s the price of having an element. Now you won’t have to worry about it anymore.”

  “But what if I never make fire again? What if this is the end of my element?”

  “You’re more than just your element.”

  “Am I?” He opened the fist and channeled his frustration into a single large flame. It grew outward and then extinguished. He grimaced, either from exertion or because he wasn’t able to keep the flame alive. “A week ago, I thought I knew everything. Now our colony has gone, my element is disappearing, and Eleanor won’t speak to me.”

  “You can’t blame yourself for whatever happened to her.” I waited for a flicker of recognition that I had a point, but he just bowed his head. “How’s she doing now?”

  “No one knows.” Another spark from his fingertip. Another frown. “When they threw us in that hold . . . the stench and the darkness . . . it was a living nightmare. No one spoke down there. I couldn’t tell who was alive or dead.” He looked at me for the first time. “But you rescued us. You saved us, and I thought that maybe everything would be all right. But it’s like she hasn’t woken up from the nightmare yet. She’s still sleepwalking.”

  “She combined elements with you yesterday,” I pointed out between mouthfuls of fruit. “That’s a good sign, right?”

  Ananias pulled himself from the floor and leaned against the wall. Planks creaked underfoot. “She didn’t want to do it. Alice dragged her there. I think she figured it’d give Eleanor a jolt . . . make her realize she’s still part of this colony.”

  He didn’t need to tell me that it hadn’t worked. It was obvious from the way his shoulders slumped, eyes half-open as he stared through the porthole. It wasn’t hard to imagine that he was picturing Hatteras Island, two days’ sail away but still so fresh in his mind.

  “What did they do to her, Ananias?”

  He tugged at the neckline of his tunic. It was clean, but damp from sweat. I was sure he hadn’t slept well.

  “The second day, before the pirates threw us in the hold, Dare took her away from me. When she came back, she’d changed.”

  “He hurt her—”

  “No. The pirates did that to her when Dare wasn’t around. He was furious about it, but . . .” He shook his head and turned away from the porthole. “I should check on Alice.”

  By the time he reached the door, I was standing too. I pressed my foot against the door, keeping it closed. “But what?”

  Ananias didn’t try to force the door open. “I don’t think Dare laid a finger on her. She was gone such a short time. He even treated her cuts and wrapped a bandage around her arm. No, I think he told her something and it changed her world.”

  “Dare is our uncle, Ananias.”

  He gave a wry smile. “Yes. Alice told me that too.”

  “Don’t you see how that would’ve changed things for Eleanor?”

  “No, I don’t. I see why it would’ve changed how she felt about me. But what about everyone else? Eleanor hasn’t spoken to anyone in days.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t know who to trust anymore.”

  “Neither do I. But I’m still eating. Still talking.” He stared at my foot until I eased it away from the door. “It must’ve been something else, and I need to know what. Her father trails after her all day, but she won’t talk to him. He told me straight up to stay away from her, but I won’t. I can’t.”

  He left the cabin and I lumbered after him. After a full day on my back, every muscle was stiff. My head hurt too. All the same, it felt wonderful to emerge on deck. The wind was fresh. For a moment, I just stood there, drawing deep breaths, reminding myself that we were still alive.

  While Ananias took over the wheel, Alice led me to the starboard rail. To the north, a long gray band ran along the horizon, hinting at land. Alice pointed toward it. “See anything interesting?” she asked.

  “Land. Also, your element is weakening. You wouldn’t have needed to squint on Hatteras.”

  She rolled
her eyes. “Everyone’s element is weakening, Thom. Are you having second thoughts about this voyage?”

  “Are you?”

  “No.” She pulled a piece of paper from her pocket and unfolded it. It was the map from Dare’s cabin. “We’re going to reach Sumter, and we’re going to make a better life there.” She lowered her voice. “And in the meantime, you and Rose can start exploring life without an echo.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  Alice raised an eyebrow. “Come on, Thom. Let’s not pretend. Back on Hatteras, I felt close to you. We needed each other. But things are going to be different from now on. Anyway, we both know how you feel about her.”

  “A couple days ago I almost killed her, just by touching.”

  “Yes. And last night, you didn’t hurt her at all when you touched. Or was there another reason she looked flushed when she left your cabin?”

  I was too embarrassed to answer that.

  “I’m just saying, our elements are weakening. You know as well as I do what that means for you both.”

  I was still bright red, but Alice wasn’t watching. She was poring over the map again. “The sun is rising directly behind us, so that land is due north,” she explained, running a finger across it. “There are buildings, some of them big, so I’m guessing we’re just below this row of barrier islands here.”

  I stared at the dull gray land. “I’ll take your word for it.”

  She measured the remaining distance to Charleston. “We could be there tomorrow, Thom. Just one more day, that’s all we need.”

  She was about to refold the map when I stopped her. “Wait. What are those?” I pointed to a row of markings heading north from Hatteras.

  Alice smiled. “Oh, that’s right—you don’t know yet, do you.”

  “Know what?”

  She wandered off, knowing that I’d follow. “You need to see something. Your younger brother has been a very busy boy.”