The wind shifted and blew smoke across the open square. Karris coughed, her eyes burning. But just as she finished coughing, she thought she heard a crack.
Another crack, and then, just a block away, a chimney came crashing down into the torched remains of a house. The dawn was red—a trick of the smoke and spectrums, not a heavenly mirror to all the blood spilled here.
Karris began searching the town, looking for survivors and surveying the damage. Do what’s right, do what’s in front of you. The town hadn’t burned easily. The buildings were stone, albeit with wooden supports, and the trees were green, either from manual watering—the river ran right through town—or from their roots reaching deep enough. But every single building in the town center had burned down completely. That meant red drafters.
They must have walked through all the buildings, spraying red luxin on every wooden beam.
Karris searched for two hours, climbing over rubble in the streets, sometimes having to go around whole blocks. She wrapped a wet cloth around her face, but still got lightheaded, coughing frequently. She found nothing other than more corpses and a few mournful dogs. All the livestock had been taken. The town church had been the site of a small battle. A luxiat’s body lay decapitated like the rest, outside the doors of the church. Karris could imagine him denouncing the soldiers outside, trying to protect those of his flock who’d sought sanctuary within the walls. Inside, she found pruning shears, an ax, and knives, and a pair of cleavers, and one broken sword, and decapitated bodies. And dried, burned blood everywhere. The beams here were seared but hadn’t caught fire. Either clumsy drafting, or religious fear, or the fact that the ironwood beams, imported from the deserts of southern Atash, were so old and dense.
The pews, however, and the bodies had burned. Karris was in a daze, whether from inhaling smoke or just becoming inured to the tableau of death and suffering. In the back corner of the church behind the stairs, she found a young family, the father with his arms wrapped around the mother, who was sheltering a child. The soldiers hadn’t found these. They’d died in each other’s arms from the smoke. Karris checked each of them carefully, feeling for the faint tremor of life at each neck. Father, dead. The mother, a girl not yet out of her teens, dead. Karris took the swaddled babe in her arms last, a boy. She prayed under her breath. But Orholam turned a deaf ear; there was no life in his tiny breast.
Karris staggered. She had to get out of here. She put the dead babe down on the nearest table, only to see it was the altar. She careened up the main aisle of the church, past smoldering pews on her left and right, images of another time, another sacrificed babe, joining the horrors before her eyes.
She was almost out when the floor collapsed.
Chapter 25
“You need to make some choices, Kip,” Gavin said.
From all he could tell, Kip had only been unconscious for seconds or minutes. It was still dark, the stars burning coldly overhead, the fire not yet scorching his clothes despite its nearness to where he’d fallen. The strangling red luxin mask was gone, though there remained a light coating of dust, gritty and sharp on his skin.
“I’ll kill you!” Kip said. He couldn’t trust anyone. Everyone was a liar. Everyone was just out for himself. Fear rose, and that made the anger flare as it sometimes did, hot and fierce and uncontrollable. He sat up, eyes locked on the Prism’s face. The man looked at him coolly, unapologetic, merely curious about what Kip would do, ignoring his words. Kip wondered if he could conjure giant green spikes from the fire to impale the man.
Smart, Kip. In the middle of Orholam only knows where, you’d kill your guide? For what? For not tolerating your peevishness?
Not betrayal, Kip, a lesson. Kip shivered. He’d really thought Gavin was going to kill him. And that was the point. He had given Gavin no choice but to show that he couldn’t be handled, not by a child. He was not only older than Kip, he was smarter, and harder, and more experienced, and he demanded respect.
And that was… appropriate.
But that didn’t stop Kip’s shivering. If only for a few seconds, he’d really thought he was dying—and there had been nothing he could do about it. But this was the one man who could show him how to never be powerless again. This was the man who could teach him how to avenge his mother and Rekton. And Kip was going to sit in silence and stubbornness?
With as much dignity as he could muster, Kip retook his seat on the log. His knees trembled, but he was able to sit without disgracing himself further. “Sorry,” he mumbled, looking away. He cleared his throat so he wouldn’t squeak. “What choices?” he asked.