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Chapter 3: The Girl
Part 4
"Tell your people to light the fire in the middle of town,” said Frix. “Tell them right now with your voodoo or however. I’ll call back my friends. They’ll see the smoke. The force in the north won’t dare stick around if they know you’ve raised that kind of alarm.”
She paled. “I… I can’t tell them.”
Aha. He figured she’d either buy it and do their mission for them, or he’d get to the bottom of her witchy claim. His hand stole back to the hilt of the sharp.
“I spent my cycles trying to stop you, earlier, it was a frightful stupid thing to do,” she said, “I should have called for help when you shot at me but I panicked. I can’t cycle back up unless, unless…”
Now he was confused. Cycles?
“Unless what?” he said.
She was on the verge of tears, but her face brightened now. “Unless you lend me some of yours.”
“Lend... what?”
“Take my hand!” She sat up straight and leaned toward him, fingers outstretched.
His right hand was still wrapped around the hilt. Every second that he wasted, Mossa moved farther away. This little witch was wily and smart. He thought his plan was pretty clever, could she have outwitted him right now? She seemed genuinely distraught.
“Please,” she said.
No one he’d ever heard of had willingly touched one of the witches, much less held their hand. He thought this as he watched his fingers float out towards hers. They touched. He expected a seizure or explosion, but she waited. Her hand was soft.
Frix clenched his jaw, and let his palm close around hers. Her huge eyes fluttered shut.
A scratching sensation bloomed in his wrist, but this time it wasn’t aggressive. It was warm, brushing and caressing along his arm like spots of sunlight through the surface of a lake. His muscles relaxed as it pulsed into him, and the world began to take on a reddish hue. He felt lighter, almost like he was floating—then sudden vertigo as the ground remained right where it was but seemed to rush away at the same time.
He became much more aware of a deeper sense of the land, patched together by strands of that warm, brushing feeling. Impossible, yet, he felt it. Then: a chiming sound. It floated, wavered, then resolved into this girl’s voice, though he couldn’t make out the words. But he knew she was speaking. The chimes sparkled as they wrapped into a fiery bundle and shot up and along an arc. Frix knew it was an arc the same way he knew where the hopjacks ran, the same way he knew where the sun would rise or where the pathway stars would appear. You knew it if you knew how to look for it. You knew it by feel and by heart.
The arc was part of a gathering of lines, sprouting out of the north like a mountain geyser. They all came from the bloodlight pyre, except the right name was communal stone. He could see it, a floating rock surrounded by regular rocks. Except he wasn’t seeing any of this—he saw a witch clasping his hand, her eyes shut and her whole chest pulsing with red light. He couldn’t tell if that’s what was making his vision change colour or… or… but it was sleepy, and lovely, and…
Cold.
He was on his butt, and a chill blasted through him. She no longer held his hand, but instead crouched in front of him. The red light from her body had disappeared. She smiled, eyes jubilant, teeth radiant, tender curls of hair framing her jaw in a way that was—
“What just—” Frix started, shaking his head.
“It’s done. The flames have heard their calling; the stone will have a feast. Thank you, thank you.”
“You mean they’re lighting th—”
She kissed him on the cheek, and a flash of that lovely, relaxing red brush-scratch pulsed through his skull. Then she pushed away and stood before him, the back of her palm pressed to her mouth. Eyes wide, as usual.
“—the pyre.” Frix stared up at her.
She nodded. “Thank you.”
The girl took a step back and turned away, then turned back, sending her dress swirling.
“I’m Atrocity,” she said.
“That’s your name.” His mind whirled with pink strands, echoing chimes and a soft, sparkling voice.
“It is.”
“Frix. I’m Frix of Bit.”
“Thank you, Frix of Bit.” She disappeared into the bush.
He sat for a few seconds, rubbing his cheek, trying to remember the crazy sensation of seeing but not seeing. And those arcs. And that scratchy, wondrous brushing. He knew she was telling the truth about the pyre, but soon found himself scrambling up a tall tree anyway.
Sure enough, when he got to the top, he could see bursts of smoke puffing up from a tiny triangle on the horizon. Soon a heat ripple would follow.
Frix sucked in a huge breath, and sounded his loudest, most urgent hornrat cry. Over and over. On the tenth call, he heard a faint reply, coming from between him and the darkening smoke on the horizon. They had heard, and they were coming back.
He wondered what Mossalea would think of it all, how he managed to light the pyre without even setting a foot near the town. Some details might need to be smoothed over. He waited in the tree, thinking. He had a good twenty minutes or so before the crew would be back.
So he watched, as the jets of smoke turned black, as they erupted into a shower of sparks, then into a tower of brilliant gas and heat. The forest cadence pushed out and away. A thousand birds filled the sky as they fled, and he imagined three times as many more land creatures radiated outward as they gave the fire room and respect. Even the trees felt like they had leaned back.
The angry inferno corkscrewed up and up, shooting flares and a constant pillar of sparking flame. But in comparison to that ethereal fountain of arcing, ruby light, it all seemed rather small.
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