Firestorm

  For Paul

  Now it’s your turn

  ‘Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change’

  Frankenstein, Mary Shelley

  ‘In dreams begins responsibility’

  W. B. Yeats

  CONTENTS

  EXCERPTS FROM: The Last Days of Sartya

  PART ONE

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  PART TWO

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  PART THREE

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  EPILOGUE

  GLOSSARY OF PROMINENT STARS

  EXCERPTS FROM

  The Last Days of Sartya

  To understand the Starborn’s role in the downfall of Sartya, it is necessary to understand how she came to find herself in Acre. Raised in rural Rairam, she was, for many years, unaware of her heritage. Taken to the fallen citadel of Naris by Brégenne and Nediah – names now well known to many – she came into contact with the last Starborn, Kierik, who died shortly afterwards. Interested parties may seek out the text, Starborn, the only account she has given of this period.

  After restoring Rairam to Acre – an act equal to her father Kierik’s in magnitude – the Starborn gathered a fellowship around her and crossed the border. Much of what happened next is uncertain – the Starborn has not given any official account – but sources describe her journey through Acre as tumultuous. Her slaughter of five hundred Sartyan soldiers did not endear her to the military, and though many see this act as the catalyst of the empire’s fall, cracks had already started to appear in its façade.

  The rise of the Defiant, for example, whose consistent sorties chipped away at imperial control. They were too well funded, too well connected; it became clear that their ragtag operation was merely a front for the greater organization known as the Republic, whose network of influence had strengthened invisibly, hidden from imperial spies. When Khronostian assassins began to remove the most prominent nobles in court, Sartya was undermined on all sides. In such turbulent times, defections were inevitable.

  Arguably the greatest defection – some have called it betrayal – of all was General James Hagdon’s. It is still unclear how long the commander-in-chief of the Sartyan Fist had held sympathies with the Republic, but with such a powerful man on its side, the clandestine group could finally leave the shadows and declare itself the official opposition to the Fist.

  With Hagdon went Relator Realdon Shune, now recognized as a High Wielder of Solinaris. Despite his advanced years, Shune publicly abetted the erstwhile general in his murder of the emperor. The death of imperial rule might have been quick and clean were it not for another key player in the struggle for power: Iresonté, Captain of Sartya’s stealth force. Ignoring the Khronostian threat, she rallied the army around her, promising the conquest long denied Sartya: an invasion of Rairam.

  The Starborn’s primary concern, however, was Khronosta and its threat to undo history with the aid of Medavle, one of the Starborn’s companions, and the last living Yadin – that ageless race created by the Wielders of Solinaris. Did the Starborn experience guilt for her role in bringing him to Acre? Or was the danger so great that it transcended all personal sense of obligation? Whatever the case, the Starborn prepared to battle Khronosta, while the Republic confronted Iresonté.

  Turbulent historical periods have one overwhelming thing in common: the role of the individual. The Starborn was not the only major player in the downfall of Sartya; indeed, her companions carved out their own paths. What of the former slaver, Char Lesko, revealed as one of the dragon people? What of his guardian, Ma, who turned her back on Khronosta? And what of those who accompanied the Starborn into Acre: the Wielders, Nediah, Kait and Irilin, Brégenne and the man known as Kul’Gareth, about whom such fanciful stories are told? The following chapters will examine each in detail in an attempt to illuminate this tempestuous era.

  PART ONE

  1

  Kyndra

  She was a being of light.

  Stars in her skin, power in her veins, her mind full of their names. She had but to call, to focus her will, and they would hearken to her. She clenched fists of molten fire and smiled, armoured in Tyr, shielded behind a field of force that clung to her flesh.

  She was a being of darkness too.

  There were no roads between the stars, only the void, lightless, unchanging. The chill emptiness, numbing her to any feeling, dwelt in the paths of her heart, and she could no more brighten them than she could the void itself. The curse of the Starborn, she thought. The price I paid for my power.

  The air rushed past her face; it was much colder up here amongst the clouds. Birds swooped and soared a safe distance away and the ground was a hazy blur.

  ‘Is this as fast as you go, Boy?’

  Kyndra glanced over her shoulder at the woman called Ma. Dark-skinned, dark-eyed, dressed unfamiliarly in fleece-lined clothes to combat the chill, she was looking forward, past Kyndra, towards the horned head of the dragon on which they flew. ‘The eldest will not waste any time.’

  In answer, the dragon tipped sharply into a roll and Kyndra’s hands contracted on the black scales. Her stomach swooping, she watched the ground become the sky and then right itself. Ma was swearing. ‘Do you want to kill us?’ she shouted. ‘Fly straight, fool.’

  Kyndra half smiled. She leaned forward and scratched the dragon’s huge pointed ear. The scales were thinner there and warm, and she remembered a time when he’d stood close beside her, the rush of a stream in their ears, grass underfoot. He’d been human then.

  Not human, Kyndra corrected herself. She felt a faint ache at the memory, a distant regret. But what mattered was that Char – Orkaan – was now his true self, that he could carry them to Magtharda, riding the rising winds of an Acrean winter.

  ‘I am not a cat.’

  Char’s voice was soft thunder; Kyndra felt it rumble through his body. She stopped her scratching.

  After a moment the dragon said, ‘Did I ask you to stop?’

  ‘He’s very bossy now,’ she commented to Ma and the woman snorted.

  ‘He always was.’ She slapped the dragon’s flank, though Char probably couldn’t feel it.

  ‘If you’ve finished discussing me, it’s getting dark,’ he said. ‘We should look for somewhere to land.’

  ‘Go ahead, Boy, your eyes are better than ours.’

  They flew for another five minutes or so, while the colour of the sky deepened to purple. And then, without warning, Char tipped into a steep dive. Kyndra heard Ma shriek a curse; the woman had her eyes closed and was desperately clinging to the dragon’s back. The ground was rushing to meet them and it looked sharp. Splinters of rock poked up from the earth like the stony spines of an enormous beast. Char banked again and – not for the first time – Kyndra wondered whether he really had got the hang of flying.

  There was a surprised bleat, so loud and close that it made her jump. Char’s muscles bunched; he snatched at something, his sleek head darting out with the speed of a striking serpent. Then they were off, the dragon’s powerfu
l wings sweeping them up and away from the rocks. Ma let out another stream of curses.

  Char’s reply was muffled. He briefly turned his head to look at them and Kyndra saw something woolly between his jaws, a goat. They landed on a high plateau, partially sheltered by wind-bent pines. The dragon crouched, letting Kyndra and Ma slide stiffly from his back. A second unfortunate goat was clutched in his front claws. He dropped it and, without further ado, began to crunch up the one in his mouth. Ma winced.

  ‘That’s yours,’ Char said graciously when he’d swallowed, nudging the bony creature towards them. Then he spat out a slimy, sodden bundle. ‘I hate the wool.’

  Ma eyed their evening meal unenthusiastically.

  ‘I’ll prepare it,’ Kyndra said. ‘We kept them in Brenwym.’

  The name of her home might once have stirred in her a surge of longing, but not any more. She’d been to Brenwym, seen the town being rebuilt … watched her mother sobbing into her stepfather’s shoulder. Reena missed her. She wanted desperately to know whether her daughter was alive and well. Alive, yes, Kyndra thought, but well …

  She shook her head, dispelling the image of home. She was better now than she’d ever been. It was a relief not to struggle with her feelings, to rid herself of all that foolishness. She was able to think clearly, to see what must be done.

  ‘That man – Hagdon,’ Ma said once the goat was spitted over the fire, ‘he is keeping our Wielder safe, I hope.’

  ‘One of Hagdon’s companions – Amon Taske – is looking after him,’ Kyndra said, picturing the fragile old man. She still had Kierik’s memories of him – when Shune’s hair was brown, his cheeks unlined, facing down a Starborn before the other high Wielders on the eve of Solinaris’s fall. He had somehow defied the passage of time, using the Solar to extend his years.

  Prompted by that thought she said, ‘Can you really send me back in time to challenge the eldest?’ The whole idea still sounded outlandish.

  ‘I can,’ Ma said shortly. Fat dripped into the fire; the flames hissed and spat. ‘But first I need the power the Khronostians used to construct the dragons’ prison.’

  ‘Why? Will it make a difference?’

  ‘Yes.’ Ma leaned forward and poked a stray piece of kindling into the fire. ‘That power is drawn from a Khronostian’s own timeline. Once freed from the prison, I believe it can be … repurposed.’ She pressed her lips together; for a moment her face darkened with memory. ‘The du-alakat paid a high price for locking the dragons away. Some were disfigured so severely that they could no longer function. I saw enough before I fled.’

  Kyndra glanced at Char. The dragon was stretched out across the ground, his head tilted, as if listening closely. It was such a Char pose that she almost smiled. ‘What do you mean a Khronostian’s own timeline?’ she asked Ma.

  ‘It is my fault,’ the woman whispered, staring into the flames. ‘As the founder of their order, I taught them how to feel their own time streams, to become aware of the river in which we all stand. With enough practice, enough discipline, it is possible to venture a little way in either direction. But if exercised incorrectly or greedily, as the eldest has done, the power to move through time exacts a price on the body.’ She paused. ‘Eventually, it exacts a price on the mind as well.’

  ‘Should I call you by another name?’ Kyndra asked.

  Ma shook her head. ‘Khronos is long gone. This is no world for a man of peace. He taught through meditation, not violence.’ She retrieved a kali stick from her belt, ran a hand along its length. The smooth wood gleamed in the firelight. ‘I am Ma of the Beaches now,’ she whispered.

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Char said in his dragon’s rumble. ‘Khronosta was searching for the Kala. You spent twelve years with them – they raised you. Why didn’t they realize who you were?’

  ‘For those twelve years, I was only Mariana. Unusually gifted, but otherwise unremarkable. I had no memories of my previous life. I grew into them later.’ Ma switched her gaze to Kyndra. ‘Much like you and your memories, Starborn?’

  ‘Yes,’ Kyndra said. She no longer felt any hostility at the use of the title, remembering the stifling mix of shock, anger and despair it had once caused her. ‘It was around the time I came of age.’

  ‘But even if you had no memories,’ Char pressed, ‘surely the eldest, or someone else in Khronosta, could have recognized you.’

  Ma looked briefly sad. ‘By the time of my rebirth, it was already too late. The eldest had grown unstable. He had founded the du-alakat, given Khronosta a new warlike purpose. Nothing remains of the people they once were.’ She gave a rueful shrug. ‘And I doubt they were looking for a girl-child. Their memories of me are so warped – they had only the story they told themselves and the promise I had made them to return. The eldest played his part in eroding everything I was until all that was left was the image of a man who retired to a stone beneath the ancient sky in sight of water and learned to master time.’

  The description had the ring of rote and Kyndra wondered whether it was recited by the children of Khronosta just as the Relic devotion had been recited at the Inheritance Ceremony in Brenwym.

  ‘How long ago did you live?’ Char asked almost timidly. ‘As Khronos, I mean.’

  ‘Before the Sartyan Empire when the world was at peace.’ Ma looked at him and then away. ‘For all my mastery, it took me a long time to return. Too long.’

  Kyndra was aware of Ansu listening intently, alongside a star she hadn’t spoken with before: Era. The latter shared a constellation with Pyrth and concerned itself with cycles – of life, death, rebirth. It was the star that ensured a Starborn would always walk the lands of Acre. How many had it witnessed come and go in its span?

  Many, it answered, but it is not my place to remember them.

  Kyndra had a sudden sense of dislocation, as if she were looking back down the ages from a time yet to come. Would her name be noted beside Kierik’s in the pages of Acrean history? Or would she stand always in his shadow? The daughter of the Worldmaker.

  ‘I don’t know you at all.’ Char raised himself, shaking out the spines of his mane. ‘Everything you told me about yourself was a lie.’

  ‘And what would you have had me tell you?’ Ma replied, unexpectedly fierce. ‘That I was Khronostian? That I had once lived another life? That I had betrayed my people and fled my home because I could not let them murder an infant?’ She got to her feet and advanced on Char, as if he were still a young man she could slap for his impertinence. ‘That the infant I rescued was not human?’

  Perhaps Char momentarily forgot his new shape, for he drew back, cringing slightly in anticipation of a blow. But Ma put her palms on either side of his long, narrow face and looked into his eyes. Her human form appeared fragile against his scales. ‘I am sorry for any pain I caused you, Boy,’ she said softly. ‘I pledge to undo the wrong your people have suffered at the hands of mine.’

  They stared at each other a second longer before Ma’s expression clouded and she turned away. ‘I do not know what we will find in Magtharda,’ she said. ‘The Lleu-yelin have been trapped for twenty years.’

  Char resettled himself on the bare rock, his spines sleek against his neck once more. ‘Do you think we will find my parents?’ he asked.

  Ma avoided his eyes. ‘I do not know.’

  ‘I wouldn’t know how to speak to them anyway. What would I say?’

  Kyndra had kept quiet throughout, only part of her listening to the exchange. The greater part busied itself laying plans for when they reached the dragons’ city. Khronosta had to know that they would seek to release the Lleu-yelin. Now that she’d set herself up as his enemy, the eldest wouldn’t allow Ma to gather the power to oppose him. No, it was almost certain that they would meet resistance. Smiling, Kyndra flexed her fingers. Repelling it would be her job.

  ‘What are you smiling about?’

  She’d been staring into the night. The valley below them was utterly dark; the only light coming from their fire
and the stars that shone crisp and clear above. She felt them in her blood. Sometimes she longed to join them, wrapping herself in isolation, removing herself from the world.

  ‘Kyndra?’

  She looked back at the dragon. Char’s yellow eyes met hers unflinchingly and she felt some warmth return. Maybe it was hearing that name – the name her mother had given her, the one she had worn through childhood. Or maybe it was realizing that she couldn’t – and shouldn’t – solve Acre’s problems alone.

  ‘I think the goat is done,’ she said.

  The black dreams began that night.

  She stands upon a precipice, a glittering spire. Solinaris, the fortress of the sun, just as it looked before the first ever Breaking – in the days before Kierik’s mind shattered the world. She is not alone. Medavle is there, feet planted on the treacherous glass, his ageless face impossibly aged. And at his back, a figure, one claw-like hand grasping at the last Yadin. When the eldest sees her, a rasping, choking sound escapes his lips. It takes her a moment to realize it is laughter.

  Kyndra woke, that laughter in her ears. For once, the stars and the night were equally silent and the hairs on the back of her neck stood up in an echo of fear. She hadn’t seen Medavle since he’d fled their battle, but his parting words were seared into her memory.

  ‘The last five hundred years were a mistake. They should never have been.’

  Now, with Khronostian help, Medavle had the power to erase those years. Kyndra suspected his reason for doing so was very different to the eldest’s.

  ‘You don’t care about the world.’ Her own response echoed back to her. ‘You’re doing this for the woman you loved. For Isla.’

  ‘What would a Starborn know of love?’

  Kyndra turned her face away from their dying fire. Reasons didn’t matter. All that mattered was stopping Medavle before he and the eldest ruined them all.