Burning Glass

CHAPTER ONE

I CLUTCHED THE CARVED FIGURINE OF THE GODDESS UNTIL A splinter of wood bit my finger. The sting was only a fraction of the pain I felt—pain that wasn’t entirely my own. You shouldn’t be letting her bleed.

Sestra Mirna startled, whirling around with wide eyes. When she saw it was only me, her face settled back into its complex array of sags and wrinkles. Sonya, what are you doing here? She pressed a bandage to the crook of Yuliya’s arm. Novices aren’t allowed near the diseased.

Ignoring her, I crept farther into the convent infirmary.

I breathed through my mouth to avoid the stench of sickness in the air, lifted the hem of my nightgown, and tiptoed around the blood spatter on the floor. Despite the coldness in the rest of my body, the heat from the fireplace stung my eyes, and the tiles near the hearth baked the soles of my feet.

I pulled my shawl closer across my chest and peered around Sestra Mirna. A notched porcelain bowl rested on Yuliya’s bedside table. Blood skimmed its highest measurement line. My friend’s eyes were closed and her ginger hair lay plastered against her bone-white face. I swallowed. There must be another way to treat her. She doesn’t have any more blood to lose. Have you seen her legs? She cuts herself. I winced as the figurine’s splinter dug deeper past my skin.

It’s her emotional release, Sestra Mirna said, and rubbed her brow with the back of her hand to avoid her stained fingers. She wasn’t careful enough. A smear of blood marred the kerchief tying her gray hair away from her face. You would do well to find one, too. Harsh lines formed between her brows. Perhaps then you would be able to refrain from sneaking into forbidden wings in the dead of night.

I pinched my lips and curled my toes, fighting to keep my frustration at bay. I wanted self-control without cutting myself like Yuliya, pulling the hair from my head like Dasha, or weeping night and day like Kira. Besides, my frustration wasn’t solely my own. I must be allowing Sestra Mirna’s emotions to nest inside of me.

I came to give Yuliya this. I held out the figurine of Feya while keeping my shawl together with one hand against the chill. My time with the Romska had dispelled any religious notions I’d had, but Yuliya was even more devout than the sestras of the convent. I hoped seeing the goddess of prophecy and Auraseers nearby would give her strength to recover from the ague.

As I watched the faint rise and fall of her chest, I bit my trembling lip. The rattle of her breath was too soft, her pulse too slow.

The truth was, I needed Yuliya to be better. I couldn’t endure this place without a friend, without someone to make me smile and tell me stories into the long hours of the night.

Sestra Mirna took the figurine, and the lines on her face softened, changing pattern. The frustration inside me also faded, though I grew colder as she reached up to set the goddess on the frost-rimmed windowsill, all the while keeping her hold on Yuliya’s bandage. Outside, the snowfall kept its steady torrent.

My stomach rumbled. Sestra Mirna must be famished. When had she last allowed herself a meal or a moment’s rest? Little Dasha and Kira, fast asleep in their beds on the other side of the room, had regained some of the color in their skin, and many of our peers had been excused from the sick wing after recovering from the epidemic. But Yuliya kept declining.

When Sestra Mirna began murmuring prayers to the goddess, I took advantage of her eased guard and sat beside Yuliya, my dark-blond braid falling over my shoulder. If my hair were any longer, it would have brushed her bloodied arm.

My gaze traveled to her lifeless hand. Did I dare touch it? Sestra Mirna would make me leave at once if I so much as whimpered with Yuliya’s pain. Still, I wished to give my friend my vitality, even if such a thing wasn’t possible, even for an Auraseer. All we were good for was divining what others felt. An agonizing way to live and a pitiful existence. Being born with the gift meant becoming the property of the Riaznin Empire and being trained in this convent for one purpose only—to protect the emperor. Most girls involuntarily revealed their ability when they were old enough to learn their letters but too young to control their feelings. Evading the empire until the age of seventeen was unheard of until eight months ago when the bounty hunters had brought me through the convent’s doors.

I’ve brought you your idol, I whispered to Yuliya. Halfheartedly, I waited for her eyes to open. Once we’d played at trading the color of our irises, her sapphire blue for my hazel. I’ll give you mine, she had said. Yuliya was the only girl at the convent who dared to befriend me. The girl raised by gypsies, the others would whisper when they thought the stone walls of the corridors wouldn’t carry their voices. Little did those Auraseers know, Yuliya and I would sneak into their rooms at night and guess at the dreams they were having.

Our games taught me more about my ability than any of the sestras’ fruitless exercises for separating what I felt from what everyone else did. At least Yuliya believed in me. She had a way of making me feel her equal, despite being two years older. Even if she outlived the other Auraseers and became guardian to the emperor herself, I trusted I could always depend on her genuine friendship. That was why she needed to live, why I ached to give her some means of healing, instead of a lump of wood depicting a nonexistent and powerless goddess.

You’re trembling. Sestra Mirna’s attention returned to me, her wrinkles twisted with the shape of worry.

I shrugged a shoulder. That strange and still-present hunger gnawed inside me. Yuliya must be cold.

The sestra’s wrinkles deepened. Yuliya has a fever.

Then you must be cold, I said while she felt my brow.

She was no Auraseer, but her sharp gaze seemed to look through me.

Unease prickled the downy hairs of my arm. I am cold? I didn’t mean for my voice to sound small or my words to be a question. Because I was more than cold. Deep in the pit of my stomach, an unknown something was forming and clawing its way through the rest of me. Worse than hunger, it made my hands clench with urgency, my jaw lock with an angry need, my eyes mist over with helpless desperation.

This room is a furnace, child. Sestra Mirna frowned. And your skin is like ice. Her wrinkles crisscrossed into fear. I felt fear, too, its force thudding my heart against my rib cage.

Am I ill? Perhaps she was right; I shouldn’t have come to the infirmary. But I’d had the ague last winter at the Romska camp, so I thought myself immune.

She stood and released the pressure from Yuliya’s arm. Hold this, she commanded.

For a brief moment, I hesitated, watching the blood pool from my friend’s inner elbow. Then I inhaled, squared my shoulders, and pressed the flat of my palm to Yuliya’s bandage.

At once my muscles cramped, my spine rounded, my breath spilled out in a ragged gasp. A weak but determined longing seeded in my chest. A fight to live. Pure and simple.

Sestra Mirna squinted out the window. Warm light danced across her face. I mistook it for the glow of the candle bouncing its reflection off the glass. Until the sestra’s weathered lips parted in horror. Feya, protect us, she whispered, and made the sign of the goddess by touching two fingers to her forehead, then her heart. They have come.

Her fear—my fear—perhaps both our fear—collided.

Who? I angled my position in an effort to see what she could. What is happening?

When she didn’t answer, my trembling doubled and the yearning in my belly grew teeth. I needed to eat. Now. Something. Anything.

I slackened my hold on Yuliya’s arm. Blood trickled between my fingers. It almost looked the color of wine. Staring in fascination, in desire, I raised my hand near my mouth to smell it.

Basil burst into the room. The old man bent over, hands on knees, panting to catch his breath.

I blinked at the blood and wiped it off onto my nightgown.

Peasants . . . at the gates, he managed to say between rasps. His bald head gleamed with a sheen of sweat. A mob—no, more like an army—of them.

I took a step to the window, but caught myself as I remembered Yuliya’s arm. What do they want?

Sestra Mirna’s shriveled lips pressed into a flat line. What they always do when they bring torches and every sharp implement they farm with—our food. She looked back at me, her gaze skimming me over. Let me guess, you’re not only cold now?

In response, my stomach emitted a vicious growl.

Her eyes narrowed on my mouth. What is that? She stepped closer. Did you taste blood?

I shrank back. No. Did I?

In an instant, her countenance changed. Basil, take her away this moment. Lock her in the east wing with the other girls. She is a danger to us with so many emotions on the loose.

I pressed the crook of Yuliya’s arm with renewed purpose. I’m not leaving.

The sestra yanked me to my feet. My shawl fell to the tiles smattered with Yuliya’s blood. "You must accept your fate and at least try to control your ability. She gripped my shoulder. You put us all at risk!"

I winced, the hurt registering deep in my chest. I would never harm Yuliya. I struggled to reach her bleeding arm again, but Sestra Mirna held me fast.

Do you know what starving peasants are capable of? Her gaze bored into mine. Shall I tell you of the three widows from my village who lured strangers across their threshold, only to poison them and eat the flesh off their bones?

My hunger briefly subsided as my gut roiled with nausea. My caravan heard that same story spread from town to town. It’s a folktale. No one would resort to that.

Her graveness settled over me and rooted my legs to the floor. You are wrong, Sonya. This is the fourth harsh winter in Riaznin. You survived with the Romska because you traveled south. We survive here in Ormina by the grace and rations of the emperor. The peasants have nothing.

My mouth watered and the animalistic hunger inside me drifted to thoughts of the convent’s overflowing pantries and cold storage cellars. We have more than we need. We should help them.

Sestra Mirna’s eyes went flat and transformed the cold in my veins to ice. "Basil, take her now." She shoved me at him and threw my shawl after me.

Faint cries pierced the air as the peasants advanced nearer. My knees shook, threatening to give way. Please, please, I beg you. I looked between Sestra Mirna and Basil. Just a few loaves of bread. If you could feel—

Enough! She escorted me to the door herself, where Basil took my elbow by a gentler hold.

On the far side of the room, Kira and Dasha awoke in their beds. They felt the mob, too. I knew it. Kira’s face was tear-stained as she moved to Dasha’s bed, where the younger of the two little girls clutched her hair at the scalp.

Once she is locked in the east wing, Sestra Mirna said to Basil, barricade the front door. Are the gates reinforced?

The old man nodded. I hope it will be enough. With any luck, the wolves will come before the peasants find a way to break through.

I gaped at him. You wish the wolves to devour them because they are hungry? Basil’s floppy ears and close-set eyes always made him appear sweet. But even he had no pity. What a horrible thing to say.

Not another word! Sestra Mirna said. New lines of fury carved paths across her wrinkled face. With her emotion escalating inside me, it was all I could do not to strike out at her. I’d never seen her so unraveled. She wasn’t quick to anger, but tending to the sick night and day over the past weeks had pushed her to extremes. Latch your mind onto someone else’s aura and forget the peasants! Her nostrils flared. Your unrestrained empathy will be the ruin of us all!

Before she could see the tears spring to my eyes, she slammed the door. I clenched my hands. It was no matter that she didn’t know how she hurt me. My unshed tears weren’t for her. They belonged to the freezing swarm of people pressed against the convent’s gates.

As Basil haltingly led me to the east wing, I dug my hands through my hair and clawed at my arms, fighting not to lose myself to the aura of the mob. Their relentless desperation pulsed through my body. They weren’t just hungry. This famine would destroy them, body and soul. It was a pain worse than death if I didn’t feed my children, my village. No, their children, their village.

I flinched and whimpered as Basil dragged my weight through corridor after corridor. The peasants’ single purpose throbbed through my skull until there was no difference between us. Until I was one with them. Until everything became as clear as polished glass.

I formed the only barrier between them and their need.

I was more than the mob. I was the convent gate.

My bones were its welded iron.

I could open my doors. Let them in.

I alone could help them.

With a sidelong glance at Basil, I sized him up, as if seeing him with new eyes. He startled at every shadow, every noise. A mouse could overtake him. He wouldn’t stand in my way.

I scanned the dark alcoves for something with which to incapacitate him. A candlestick for a blow to the head. A length of rope or a sturdy chair.

The entrance to the east wing loomed nearer. Six or seven girls near my age huddled together around the light of a candle—Nadia’s candle. The senior Auraseer was only nineteen and already a master of controlling her ability. Every measure of her ink-stained skin proved her skill. She marked herself when she needed release, and the sharp cut of her quill made the etches permanent. In the last weeks, when the ague had claimed the lives of her elder Auraseers, Nadia did not weep with the rest of us. Instead, she accused me of bringing the disease from the filthy gypsy camps. Even if that were true, which it wasn’t, it only gave her cause to rejoice. With her elders now dead, she was next in line to serve the emperor, and that pride showed in the stiff elegance of her neck and the precise way she balanced her head upon it.

She lifted her nose at us as we crossed the threshold into the east wing. Basil, tell these girls they have nothing to fear.

He forced a reassuring smile, even though every one of us had the gift to divine what he was really feeling. Everything is fine. Go back to your warm beds. This happens every winter. The peasants have yet to penetrate the gate.

A pinch-faced Auraseer—Lena? Lola? I could never remember her name, nor did I wish to—folded her arms. The peasants have never come in such numbers. She shivered and the girl beside her placed a hand to her own stomach. They must have sensed the mob, but not like I did. They wouldn’t be standing here if they truly understood the peasants’ need.

Yes, well, I have firearms if it comes to it, Basil replied. He drew one of the great doors closed. As it thudded into place, my heart pounded with the peasants’ ravenous urgency. I couldn’t be locked in here. I couldn’t. Not when there were so many mouths to feed.

He set his hand on the latch of the opposite door when the solution to my dilemma presented itself.

Nadia’s eyes narrowed, riveted to mine. The careful balance of her head tipped to the side. Something is very wrong with you, she said slowly, her words laced with accusation.

I retreated behind Basil. My fingers grazed his over the latch.

His wiry brows peaked. What are you—?

Stop her! Nadia shouted.

I kicked Basil in the pit of his knee so he crumpled to the floor. I fetched the gate keys hanging from his pocket, shoved him into the huddle of girls, then darted into the hallway and flung the door shut behind me. The wooden beam boomed into its iron casings as I pulled it down across both doors, fastening them closed. The Auraseers were locked inside. They couldn’t stop me now.

Cries rang out from the other side as the girls rammed their fists against the barricade.

I smiled. They deserved to panic for all the spitefulness they’d doled out on me.

Basil’s throaty voice rose above them. "Sonya, don’t do this! Don’t let them in. For the sake of all you love and hold dear—for Yuliya’s sake—do not let them in!"

I backed away from the doors. My hands shook. My heart beat wildly in my chest. A morsel of reason—of warning—wormed its way into my mind.

What was I doing? Had I gone too far?

The thought snuffed out like a breath on weak flame when the peasants’ tidal wave of emotion called to me. They waited for me. I had to deliver them.

I spun around and tripped over the hem of my nightdress as I raced through the corridor, down the winding flight of stairs, past the dining hall, and into the foyer of the convent. I tamped down all remembrances of how the Auraseers would tease me when the sestras took us to the market. Our abilities needed to be tested in crowded places, they said. Within minutes, I would inevitably be huddled on the ground, rocking back and forth and raving like a madwoman. But not now. Now I welcomed the multitudes. Now I knew with clarity what they felt and how to help them.

I’m coming, I whispered, my eyes wide and unblinking as I flung the lock and opened the cedar doors. The peasants were outside, waiting in the distance, and held back by the gate. I needed to grant them entrance, let them share our food and warmth, be even closer to their auras. I needed to be whole again.

Swirls of white danced past me and dusted the marble tiles. I stepped into the calf-deep snow. The cold was nothing new to my bare feet. I already felt the sting of a thousand frostbitten toes. I’m coming, I’m coming!

Hitching up my nightdress, I pressed forward, riveted to the peasants’ wash of torchlight like a beacon. Could they see me? I hadn’t thought to bring a candle. Did they know the end of their suffering was at hand?

I halted as a new sensation took hold of me, more ferocious in its desire—in its hunger—than the mob had yet been. The twist in my gut buckled me to the ground until I rested on hands and knees like an animal. The deep snow cradled my belly with a coldness I strangely felt numb to. I thrashed forward to the gate, certain only in my target of the peasants. I had to reach them.

Their cries broke apart until the night gave way to the silence of snowfall. The quiet was short-lived. Only a stunned, stuttering heartbeat.

What was happening? Three breaths later, I found my answer. I heard it. Far away, as if from the muffled madness of a dream.

The howling of wolves.

CHAPTER TWO

THE HOWLING FELL LIKE MUSIC ON MY EARS. IT LURED ME, MY shoulders rising and falling in rhythm. My lips pulled back to bare my teeth. Hunger—raw, pure, and deadly—encompassed me. My fingers clawed into the snow, ready to shred whatever necessary in order to satiate the greatest need I’d ever felt.

The chorus of wolves built in volume. Urgency flooded my limbs. I tore through the snow, and the gate loomed closer.

The peasants didn’t see me. They had their backs to the convent. Their murmured arguments sifted through the air. A few of them darted away, followed quickly by others, running in the opposite direction of the echoing wolves.

No! My voice ripped through my throat, garbled and guttural. Wait! I lunged forward, then ground my hands in the snow, trying to stand as the emotions of the peasants grew stronger inside me than the wolves’ deadly urges. I’m coming! I called to the people. Don’t leave!

No one turned. No one heard me above their own cries and growing frenzy. A single howl sliced through the frigid night, louder and much nearer than the others. The remaining peasants shrieked and launched after those who had left.

No, please! I kicked past the snow until, at last, I reached the gate. I shook the iron bars as I fought to gain their attention. There is enough food for all of you!

They fled into the forest without glancing back at the convent. Or me. I cried out in frustration and hit the gate again and again. My hands smarted with pain, but I didn’t care. All of this had been for nothing.

Crumpling to the ground, I hit the gate once more, then screamed as hunger bit inside me with renewed ferocity. A large wolf raced across the clearing between the convent and the forest. Its jaws gaped open to reveal a flash of deadly teeth. The howls of his companions mounted behind him, and they emerged past the evergreens. The pack ran, streaks of brown and gray against the field of white.

I thrust my arms between the bars and tried in vain to reach the wolves. They would feast on their prey without me. I threw myself to the icy ground and started digging. I could tunnel a path. Join them. I wasn’t too late.

I paused. Blinked. I’d forgotten about the keys. I must have dropped them in the snow. I crawled in a circle, sniffing at the ground. No, I couldn’t smell them. What was the matter with me? I stood, trying to think clearly and retrace my steps. I didn’t move one foot before I buckled over and growled again. My entire body trembled as I fought to gain control of my bloodlust.

Keys, keys, keys . . . I had to stay focused. The wolves’ howling softened with their growing distance. My hunger faltered. I clawed at my stomach, trying to trap it there. The wolves would have release when they ate—after they earned it. I would feel the same.

Dull silver winked at me. I flared my nostrils and flung myself at the ring of keys. Just as I touched them, the warm light emitting from a convent window dimmed and darkened a patch of snow. I clutched the keys to my breast and glanced up. Sestra Mirna’s unmistakable silhouette framed itself in an upper-story window.

A fragment of logic nudged me to hide. I crouched behind a currant bush and peered past its dead foliage. The sestra didn’t move.

Go away, I growled.

The swish and patter from the wolves’ feet lightened as they left the clearing and raced after the peasants. Their howls sounded mournful. Or had I twisted the sound to mirror my own deepening loss? How could I catch up with them now?

Go away, go away, I said to the silhouette at the window. The wolves are gone. I imagined Sestra Mirna could hear my thoughts. Go back to Yuliya. She might bleed to death if you don’t watch over her. She needs you. The convent is safe.

My heart thundered. The howling grew faint. The silhouette hesitated.

Please. My breath misted in the air.

Sestra Mirna stepped back into the room. The patch of snow pooled to amber once more in the full light of the window.

I muttered a prayer of thanks to Feya—a mark of my profound relief that I stooped to acknowledge my threadbare belief in the goddess—and raced back to the gate, keys in hand.

The last wolf exited the clearing as I reached the lock. Wait! I called as I jammed the largest key into the hole and fought against the rusted and frozen inner workings. Wait! I called to the peasants who were already gone.

The key turned, but a locked chain wrapped the barred doors together. Basil’s reinforcement. Hands shaking in anticipation, I tested the smaller keys on the padlock. At last I found the right one. I yanked the chains off the bars, and with a great exhale, pulled open the gate. It creaked on its hinges, but only budged a finger’s length. I growled with frustration. The deep snow dammed its path. I crouched and beat at the snow. Trampled it down. Flung it aside. Scooped it away by the armful.

Come back, I told the wolves.

Come back, I told the dwindling yearning inside me.

Come . . . come . . .

I shivered, leaning back against the bars. My legs splayed out in front of me, pink with cold and exposed from knee to ankle. Snowflakes collected in my tangled hair, which had escaped my braid. I couldn’t feel my toes or fingertips. My chin wobbled, whether from the unbearable chill or my stunned recollection of myself, I didn’t know.

What in the name of Feya, or all the holy gods, had come over me? I turned slowly and observed the trodden snow beyond the gate where the masses of peasants had stood, where the wolves had tracked behind them.

Nothing more remained of the madness. Their madness. Mine.

Basil, I gasped, and pressed my hand to my head. Had I really locked him and the Auraseers in the east wing?

Nadia was right. Something was terribly wrong with me. Perhaps my parents should have turned me over to the bounty hunters a decade ago and not given me to the Romska. My chance at freedom wasn’t worth this. At the very least, I should have worked harder at my lessons with the sestras. It was unnatural to feel the urges of animals, even for an Auraseer. This is what happens when an ability goes unrestrained, Sestra Mirna had once told me. It becomes wild.

I was more than wild—I was a walking keg of gunpowder. What if I’d made it to the gate mere moments before I had? What if I’d let the peasants in? Or the wolves?

A whimper stirred the air. I craned my head. Stone towers mirrored each other from both sides of the gate. At the base of the left one, something shifted. A huddle of black. Another whimper came.

Hello? I said.

A pale face lifted at my greeting. I stepped closer and pressed my body against the bars. A gnarled-looking man rested there, curled into himself. His face was so thin it seemed strangely oblong. Dark hollows cut beneath his eyes and cheekbones. He tugged a ragged coat closer to his chest. That and his matted fur hat were all he had to keep him warm.

A flicker of emotion burned its way past my frozen ribs and lodged inside my heart. This man was desolate, without hope—nothing like the powerful pulse the mob had radiated, but just as real. I ached with him. At the very least, I could help one person tonight. What harm could one famished man do?

Excuse me. I curved my numb lips into a semblance of a smile. If you can reach past the bars and help me clear this snow, I would be happy to repay you with a warm meal and a seat beside our fire.

I removed the man’s snow-laden coat and draped it over a kitchen chair, then drew up another one until its legs butted against the raised hearth. Sit here.

The man removed his fur cap and twisted it with bony fingers. His nails were jagged and filthy. I felt shameful for staring, so I lifted my gaze to his bare head. His hair stuck up from the wrath of dueling cowlicks and strange partings. Physical signs of insanity. Perhaps that’s why he hadn’t spoken a word as we worked together to open the gate and made our way inside.

Muffled noises echoed above us. The man jumped as the copper chandelier rattled. The candles weren’t lit or else they might have flung hot wax onto his skin.

Never you mind about them. I nodded at the ceiling. Above us, the Auraseers remained trapped in the east wing. Their anger tried to smother me, but I ground my teeth and pushed it back, only letting it prick at my skin. My own shame felt more insufferable. I couldn’t face them yet, nor bear their reprimands for my loss of self-control. Could I help it that I took pleasure in confining them, when that’s all they had done for months—confined me with their ostracizing? Nadia and her ring of friends could wait it out up there a little longer.

Taking hold of the man by his shoulder, I gently guided him to the chair by the fire. Sestra Mirna once told me the sense of touch heightened an Auraseer’s awareness. I would use that to lose myself to the man’s numbed emotions and drown out the fury of the barricaded Auraseers.

He sat stiffly on the chair. His energy was so focused on his physical needs that it served as a blissful escape from reality. I kept my leg brushed against his knee as I ladled him a bowl of stew. The sestras always kept something bubbling in the iron pot, adding water, herbs, and chopped roots throughout the day. After passing him the bowl, I added another log to the coals. In moments, the dry wood crackled with flames.

That’s better. I broke our contact to draw up another chair beside him. That brief separation was enough to make my gut twist with guilt. I had prevented a catastrophe tonight by not letting the peasants inside the convent, but I had also failed them. How many would still suffer from their hardships because of me, and for how long?

I quickly ladled a second bowl for myself—no matter that I’d already had second helpings for supper—I had to do something to quell the ghosts of hunger inside me.

I sat down and scooted closer so my knees touched the man’s. My stomach rumbled in time with his, and I sighed in relief at his simplicity. We ate to the chorus of the rattling chandelier and the drip, drip, drip of the ice melting from my nightgown. I wriggled my toes as I tried to draw feeling back into them and wrapped my makeshift shawl—a kitchen towel—more snugly across my shoulders.

Are you from Ormina? I asked at length, uncomfortable with our silence. Of course you’re from Ormina. You couldn’t have walked from anywhere else, not in this snow.

The man’s eyes reflected the undulating flames. He didn’t bat his lashes to acknowledge I’d spoken. Instead, he tapped his spoon against his empty bowl.

Would you like more?

Tap, tap.

Yes?

His hand snaked out to the pot.

No!

A horrible sizzling hissed out as his fingertips met the hot iron. He wailed, his mouth falling open to reveal a row of chipped teeth. I leapt to my feet, rushed to the buckets of ice thawing into water, and yanked the kitchen towel from my shoulders, letting it sponge up the moisture.

Here. I knelt at his feet and wrapped the wet cloth around his hand. He rocked back and forth, biting his lip. I made a mistake situating you so close to the fire, I said. Shall I scoot you back, or do you promise to be more careful? I cringed at my tone. I sounded far too similar to Sestra Mirna. Do you promise?

He swallowed and gave a rough bob of his head. I couldn’t be sure if it was a nod of acquiescence or simply an incoherent movement.

All right, then. I settled myself at his feet with my shoulder pressed against his leg.

It was warmer here, nearer the white coals of the fire. I denied myself the urge to hold my hands to the flames. That would only encourage the man to do something rash. I made do with basking in what little warmth penetrated the wet threads of my nightgown.

The log split in half, and the flames danced taller. Fire was a fascinating element. The way it teased you, swaying one moment, snapping at you the next. I could watch it for hours. I might do that tonight. Perhaps by morning my gown would be dry and the Auraseers wouldn’t be at my throat for a night locked in a wing they would have spent their sleep in, anyway.

A trembling hand reached past me and snatched at the flames. I grabbed the man’s arm. Not that again. You mustn’t . . .

Whatever I intended to say died on the tip of my tongue. The orange, pulsating light was so beautiful. It curled like fingers beckoning me. I would never be warm until I lived inside that light. Until it blossomed within me and took root in my veins. My blood could be fire. I could be made of light. I was meant to be light. I would be warm forever.

I let go of the man’s arm. Why had I been holding it? Heart pounding, I crept closer to the flames. The heat kissed my cheeks. I closed my eyes and let it burn my lids. It wasn’t enough. I had to touch that warmth.

My hand crawled into the outlying ashes, near the coals. A long shard of wood lay forgotten, away from the heart of the fire. Only its tip was charred. It must have splintered off from the log. Feeling sorry for it, I picked it up and set its end into the most inviting lick of flame. The wood popped as the flame spread. I pulled it toward me. Beautiful.

So beautiful I would share.

I twisted around to face the man and smiled. My eyes blurred with tears. He would be so happy when I—

He abruptly stood, kicking the chair out from beneath him. He thrashed about the kitchen. I stared dumbly after him, unsure what was the matter. Had he burned himself again?

My gaze dropped to his smoking trouser leg, and fear spiked through my chest. I must have come too close with the flame. The flame still burning on the shard in my hand. The flame closing in on my fingers.

I gasped and hurtled the shard into the fireplace as sparks flew around me. The man screamed. I spun around, crying with his pain. His leg no longer smoked. It was on fire. It ate at the cloth like perfect kindling. I sprang to my feet, limping in agony as I advanced on the man and sidestepped him as I racked my brain for what to do. Terror—his and mine—froze my logic.

At last I remembered the buckets of ice water. Stupid girl. How could I have forgotten?

I raced to them and lifted the closest one, then whirled back to the man as water sloshed at my feet. I was too late. He fled the kitchen. The flames overtook him as they clawed up his tunic.

My heart seized. I chased after him, my movements clumsy as I lugged the heavy bucket. Stop! Come back! His panic had enough hold over me to amplify my own.

He didn’t slow his pace. His shrieking bounced off the corridor walls. I stumbled behind him, leaving a trail of water. Soon all I’d have left would be ice.

He veered right, headed for the dining hall. At least there I could corner him. Feya, please, I prayed. I’ll offer you my soul if he doesn’t die.

I hadn’t intentionally burned him. It was an accident. Wasn’t it?

He flew past an archway into the dining hall, his body nearly engulfed by flames. I rushed into the room and followed him to the large windows at the far wall.

Stop! I can help. I tossed the contents of my bucket at him. A feeble amount of water splashed his face. The ice clunked at his