Flames of Ashmore

Chapter Four

Chapter Four

Rowan

We set off at a steady trot, hooves clicking over the gravel lane, and I tried not to be sentimental about leaving everything I’d ever known behind. From the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a fluffy black tail disappear into the bushes and wondered if Spencer had seen me return. The black cat was the phouka’s favorite shape to shift into. He said nobody cared when a black cat was around. They just went about their business without acknowledging he was there. I didn’t know if he’d found Mama, but at least he’d know where I was going when she returned.

At least then I might get to say goodbye.

“Did you notice something weird about that guard?” Aron asked, drawing me from my unpleasant thoughts. “The one that tried to strangle me?”

“The one you punched in the face, you mean?” Dread poured through my soul as I remembered the look in his eyes when he watched me through the bars. “There was a darkness in him.” I shuddered. “Poison.”

Aron’s face was grim. “That’s what I thought, too.”

“Do you think it was the Axis?”

“You know about the Axis?”

“Do I live under a rock?” He glanced around with a pointed look. I rolled my eyes. “Everyone knows about the Axis, Your Highness. Even us sheltered country folk.” I purposely melded my accent to reflect a dialect spoken in the poorer parts of Harlow Springs, gratified when his lips quirked at the corners.

“Knowing the Order of the Dark Axis exists is vastly different from seeing its effects firsthand.”

My fingers trembled against the reigns, and I forced them still. The soldier wasn’t the first person touched by darkness I’d encountered. When I was little, Mama took me into Harlow Springs—one of the only times I’d gone into town with permission. We’d gone in so Mama could trade the blankets and shawls she’d woven during the winter and take orders for the crops we would plant that spring. But when she went into one of the shops outside of town, I’d stayed out front by myself.

He’d come rumbling out of the brush, weaving this way and that. I hadn’t realized it then, but looking back, he was clearly drunk. And he was a mean one. Bottle in hand, he’d sauntered toward me, muttering to himself about things he would do to me. Words I—thankfully—had been too young to comprehend.

He grabbed hold of my arm, aiming to drag me off into the woods. That alone would have been enough to scare me. But it was the look in his eyes that haunted my nightmares, even now. It was a look that spoke of evils too dark and deep to utter aloud. A look that promised pain—not just that he would inflict it, but that he would enjoy it. That look would have been the last thing I’d seen if Mama hadn’t run out of the shop right then. The blast of power she pushed from her hands exploded outward, sending him flying into a tree. I don’t know if she said anything to him when she approached, but the man didn’t try to get up after that. From then on, Mama hardly ever let me leave the farm, though I suspected she knew about my trysts in the village.

Not that she had much say now.

“So, what did you do to get yourself thrown in jail?” Aron asked as we passed the outskirts of Harlow Springs. I was officially farther from home than I’d ever been before.

“I thought the Seer told you what I did?” I tried not to wonder what would happen if Mama found out I wasn’t home. I patted Scout on the neck for comfort.

“No. The Seer told me I was to collect a Daughter of Lugh and bring her to the Choosing. When I arrived, I was told you were in jail. What I wasn’t told was why.”

I shrugged. “Iwentthroughtheveil.”

“What was that?”

Sighing, I rolled my shoulders back one by one. “I went through the veil.”

Aron stopped his horse abruptly and turned to look at me. “Say that again?”

“Nope.” Saying it once had been bad enough.

“You went through the veil?” The alarm on his face was more than enough to convince me to never do it again. “No one goes through the veil, Rowan.”

“Obviously that’s not true.”

Aron shook his head. “What in the name of the gods possessed you to do that?”

Biting my lip, I shrugged again. “I didn’t actually think it would work.”

“You did high magic.”

“Yes.”

“You know it’s illegal?”

“Uh huh.”
“Yet, you did it anyway.”

“Looks like it.”

Narrowing his eyes, he watched me. His shrewdness was unnerving. I had no idea what he was thinking, but I was sure he’d come to some decision about me. I just didn’t know what that decision was. All he said was, “I see.”

“Oh, he sees, does he?” I muttered to Scout. Leaning forward, I rubbed him affectionately on the neck. “What is it that he sees?”

“I can hear, too.”

I rolled my eyes. Grumbling, I followed him as the road wound through the woods, blatantly ignoring his laughter every time my muttering got too loud.

After another hour or so, we reached the outskirts of a small village. Aron said they called it Bri. We planned to stop at the inn, let the horses get a rest while we had our midday meal, but something about the village didn’t feel right.

It was too quiet. Nothing moved or made a sound, not even the birds. As we moved farther into town, the unease only intensified. The little shops and buildings that lined the main street were empty. Not a single person milled about or even peered out from the windows of the nearby houses.

“Aron?” I didn’t raise my voice above a whisper. Something about this place felt wrong. Tainted. I didn’t know how to describe it any other way. Beneath me, Scout shifted his weight, pawing the ground with his hooves.

Aron raised a hand. Gone was the light-hearted camaraderie we’d shared on our journey from Harlow Springs. The boy I’d enjoyed had been replaced with a soldier facing an unknown danger. His gaze was cool and calculated, surveying our surroundings with the skill of a hunter seeking his prey.

Dismounting without a sound, Aron beckoned me forward, one hand resting on the hilt of his sword. Holding out a hand, he helped me down, then tied both horses to the post. “Stay here. I’m going to take a look around.” His deep voice took on a rough quality, each word steeped in authority. My escort was used to giving demands and having them obeyed. He was a prince, after all.

I’d never been great at following orders.

Stealing the knife from my pack, I followed him.

Aron moved down the road with stealth and speed, keeping to the shadows, each step part of a graceful dance. I followed along behind him, trying and failing not to make any noise. The further we got into the village, the worse things became. Doors were bashed in, some hanging from their hinges. Shattered glass littered the ground outside broken windows. The air itself smelled of acrid smoke and burning flesh.

What happened here?

When we turned the corner to the village center, we saw the bodies. Someone had installed a makeshift whipping post in the middle of the square. From the looks of it, villagers had been tied to it and tortured, surrounded by what must have been the rest of the village. Until their lives too because forfeit. The bodies of the dead had been piled off to the side and burned, save the poor souls bound to the post. The decorations for the Festival of Lugh still hung around the square were a colorful macabre backdrop for a vision of horror.

My stomach churned. Living on a farm, I’d been around dead bodies before. Granted, none of them had been human, but I was no stranger to the inevitability of death. This was so much worse. Rushing to the edge of the road, I let myself be violently and thoroughly sick.

“Who did this?” I wondered when I was through, my throat a raspy mess. I would do anything for water.

“Raiders.”

I blanched. My whole life, I’d read stories of adventures, of run-ins with raiders, so I thought I’d understood what Ashmore was like now, what it had become after the second rise of the Dark Axis, but nothing had prepared me for this. “You’ve seen this before.” I didn’t pose it as a question. Face grim, he nodded. “But they were innocent. What could raiders want with a sleepy little town like Bri?”

Aron kicked a heap of ash and I prayed to the gods it didn’t contain human remains. “This is what they do,” he said. “They take from the innocent, giving them tragedy. Then the Dark Axis swoops in, feeding them hope that joining is the only way to fix it. They convince them the terror is the work of the gods, that the Goddess herself decreed the atrocities the raiders commit, and they convince the broken hearts to follow them into the darkest recesses of their soul. Then they take that, too.”

“I don’t understand.” I stared in dismay at the charred remains of the town. “What’s their agenda? Why Bri, of all places? It’s a lumber town in the middle of the woods. What could they have to gain?”

“Fear, allegiance. Reliance. Take your pick. Say someone has a gift in addition to their goddess flame. If Gabriel wants it, the Axis offers them protection for their allegiance. If they refuse, the Axis provides…incentive. In this case, well.” Arms wide, he indicated the remains of Bri. “This is what they do when they’re opposed. If the Traitor Gabriel wants you, your only choices are submit or die. It’s part of what makes them so dangerous.”

Drawing his sword, Aron swung hard at the remains of the porch. The gleaming metal cut clean through the wooden column. He was shaking, but I knew it wasn’t from effort. I felt the same way. We’d gotten there too late to help the town. I couldn’t imagine what was going through Aron’s mind, knowing he couldn’t save the people he’d sworn to protect. I didn’t know how to help him, but I knew I couldn’t be in that courtyard anymore.

Aron must have sensed it. “Come on. We need to get back.”

When we reached the horses, I was grateful to see Scout. The Shire horse pushed against me, searching for apples. Pressing my face into his thick, black coat, I wrapped my arms around him and let myself be comforted.

Someone screamed in the distance.

“Stay here,” Aron commanded, drawing his sword once more. “I mean it.” Before I could say a word, he was gone.

Uneasy, I looked around. I knew I wouldn’t be any use to him on foot, but maybe if I could get a good vantage point. One of the buildings had a corner that jutted out just enough for me to hoist myself up on the roof. I didn’t have the fighting skills Aron must have in his line of work, but I wasn’t helpless. Climbing, for instance, was my second-favorite hobby.

From the roof, I could see the whole village, but it was hard to tell where the scream came from. Bri was surrounded by the Aelydian Forest on one side and the trade road on the other. The road would go all the way up through Trion and into the province of Nemeria. They were the only two towns on this side of the Highbern Mountains, but I couldn’t see the significance of destroying a tiny village in the middle of nowhere. Was the Dark Axis so ruthless they would kill women and children in a village that meant nothing in the grand scheme of the island?

The little boy came running out of the trees. He couldn’t have been more than eight or nine, but from the terrified way he was barreling down the road, he’d already seen enough violence for a hundred lifetimes.

Just as I reached the edge to climb down and help the boy, his pursuer emerged from the tree line. He was a bigger fellow with a round belly and dark, shaggy beard. He huffed and puffed as he ran after the boy, but even so, his legs were longer, faster. He would catch his prey in a matter of minutes.

But not before he passed directly beneath me.

Gripping the knife in my hand, I perched at the edge of the roof, legs bent and ready to spring. Neither of them had seen me yet. If I timed it right, I should be able to take the man by surprise, allowing the boy to get away.

Just a few more steps. Widening my arms, I adjusted my balance. One more, come on. Leaping from the roof, I flew through the air, landing square on the man pursuing the child. My knees hit him in the chest, effectively knocking the wind from his lungs and stealing his balance. He went down like a house of cards, taking me with him.

Big hands reached for my throat, trying to find purchase, to crush my windpipe. I squirmed beneath his grip, using my knees and elbows as weapons against his thick frame. One well-aimed kick to the groin and I was able to pull free. Without thinking, I gripped the knife with both hands and plunged it into the attacker’s chest. I felt the blade slide between flesh and bone, felt it puncture a lung, then reach his heart. The man let out three wheezing breaths before falling silent.

I stared down at the body beneath me, horrified at what I’d just done. I’d killed a man. Never in my life had I wanted to harm. I’d learned to fight as a measure of self-defense, not as a weapon. Now I’d used those same skills meant to preserve life to take it instead.

“Rowan.” Cautious, Aron stepped toward me, taking my measure in one thorough look. Blood covered my hands, my fingers wrapped tight around the polished wooden hilt of the blade still stuck in the man’s chest. Reaching down, Aron hooked his hands beneath my arms and hauled me to my feet, turning me so my back was to the body. I heard the sickening squish of flesh as he pulled the blade free, and squeezed my eyes shut. The man’s face would haunt my dreams until the day I died.

Aron retrieved a white linen handkerchief from his pack. The unsullied fabric bled crimson as he cleaned the man’s blood from the blade. Flipping it around, he handed it back to me, handle first. I took it without a word.

“What were you thinking?” He didn’t raise his voice, but the silent reprimand was enough to make me flinch. “I gave you an order to stay put. You disobeyed me and almost got yourself killed. Why didn’t you use your goddess flame?”

“I don’t have one.” I stared at my hands, still covered in blood, and began to shake. I’d killed a man. Armed only with a knife against an unknown enemy, I’d tackled him to the ground and taken his life without even a flicker of power. My mother would have skinned me alive.

Aron narrowed his eyes but failed to hide his alarm. “What do you mean, you don’t have a goddess flame? Everybody has a goddess flame.”

“Not me.”

“You attacked a grown man, without any powers, wielding only a knife?” He enunciated each word in a precise manner, disbelief coloring each one.

“He was going to kill the boy.”

Aron scrubbed a hand over his face. “No wonder the Seer wants you at the Choosing.”

The Choosing. For a moment, I’d forgotten all about the festival, or that we were going to Deithe at the behest of the Seer. Blood soaked through my white tunic. I wondered if they’d even let me in.

“Rowan,” Aron’s tawny eyes searched my face. “The Seer wouldn’t personally request your presence at the ceremony if she hadn’t seen something about your future. There’s no way you aren’t going to be Chosen. If you don’t have a goddess flame, how do you expect to survive?”

“It’s the Choosing, Your Highness. Nobody survives being Chosen.” I tried to keep my voice steady, but my vocal cords betrayed me. “I guess that means I don’t.”



We cleaned up when we reached Trion, but we didn’t stay long. By some miracle, Aron was able to get the blood stains out of my clothing. Even with my imminent death lurking over my shoulders, I’d never been as jealous of being forgotten by the Goddess as I was watching him lift those stains with magic. Aron said nothing, just told me to bathe.

We rode into the night, finally taking refuge at an inn in a tiny border town just inside Nemeria. Yesterday, I’d never left Harlow Springs. Now I’d been to two other provinces that weren’t my own. Tomorrow we would cross the harvest fields of Nemeria and enter Eladan. The Temple City of Deithe was just inside the Eladan border. Never in my life had I imagined I would get to see this much of the island, and I was only seeing the trade roads and inns.

My eyes had barely fluttered shut when Aron banged on the door. Groggy, I swung my legs over the side of the lumpy bed and padded my way across the bare wood floor, clutching the blanket over my shoulders. The door creaked open with one sharp tug. “What?”

Aron looked me up and down, annoyed. “You’re still in bed? Rowan, we have to get to Deithe by nightfall. The Choosing is tonight. If we get on the road now, we should make good time. I thought you would be up by now.”

“Up? Aron, I literally just fell asleep.”

A wrinkle formed between his golden brows. “You fell asleep six hours ago. I could hear you snoring through the walls.”

Heat flushed my cheeks. “I don’t snore.”

“Get dressed, Rowan. We leave in half an hour.”

I was down in half of that, letting the bittersweet coffee brew flow through my veins and wake me up. Scout offered me a weak neigh in greeting, and I reached up to rub his soft, dark nose. “I know, buddy. It’s too early for me, too, but his highness insisted.”

“And he was right to do so.” Aron’s face was serious, but his eyes sparked with amusement. “He’s already tacked up. Once he’s finished eating, we can get on the road. Here.” He tossed me a bundled linen napkin. The delicious aroma of fresh, warm bread wafted up to meet me.

Eager, I unwrapped it, ripping off a piece of the roll and shoving it in my mouth. I’d never tasted anything so good. “This is fantastic.”

This time, Aron laughed. “I thought you’d like it. Eat up, then mount up. You’re expected at a feast tonight.”

“Oh, goodie. More opportunities to make a fool of myself.”

He didn’t answer with more than a chuckle, and as we rode out of town, neither of us discussed my impending doom. Aron was right; the Seer wouldn’t have sent him if there wasn’t a reason. There were always a few girls each year that didn’t make the trip, and the ceremony still went on without a hitch. So why me? What did the Seer see in my future that made me special? It certainly wasn’t anything in my past. I’d lived a hundred lives in fiction, been on each of those adventures more times than I cared to count, and still I’d done very little living on my own. Now I might never get the chance.

I brooded for most of the ride, preferring to say nothing about the night’s agenda to Aron, and instead, opting to ask him questions about his life and the royal family instead. “What’s it like?” I asked him, after hours of being on the road. The sun was beginning to dip below the horizon, and everything was bathed in shadow. “To be the crowned prince. The heir.”

“I’m not the heir.”

“You’re not? But I thought the prince was the heir?”

Aron shook his head. “The line of succession doesn’t differentiate between genders. The crown passes to the first born until the prophecy is fulfilled. My elder sister, Aria, is the heir to the throne. She’s the palace healer. I chose the Royal Army. But one day, she will be queen. At least until the eochair arrives.”

“The eochair?” My mother had spoken enough of the Old Tongue for me to pick it up a bit, but that was a word I didn’t know.

“The Key. The one who will shift the balance of light and dark, deciding the fate of the island.” He glanced sideways at me, searching my face for a joke. “You’ve really never heard any of the prophecy?”

I shook my head. No, I’d never heard it. I knew very little about the Choosing. Mostly the parts my mother wanted me to be afraid of. But she’d never told me why the ceremony began in the first place, other than it was decreed at the end of the Great War. She didn’t even tell me about the line of succession. That was something I should have known. It was basic, something I would have learned in primary school, had I been allowed to go. A bead of resentment began to form in the pit of my stomach. I was beginning to think I didn’t know much about Ashmore at all, which was exactly Deirdre Harper’s plan all along.

“I mean, I know there is a prophecy. That it’s somehow supposed to stop Gabriel and the Dark Axis from destroying the realm, but I don’t know what it says.” Nobody ever told me.

“The prophecy states that the Key will be the one to decide what side wins. She’ll be accompanied by two Guardians, who will help her fulfill her destiny and save the realm.” Aron’s jaw tightened. “Or destroy it.”

“Seriously? The fate of the realm rests with a few teenage girls? Sounds like the gods messed up a bit with that one.”

Aron’s face was haunted when his gaze met mine. “I hope that isn’t true.”

The road led up a shallow slope before rounding a small copse of trees and disappearing into the valley below. Aron stopped at the peak. “There it is,” he said, his voice soft as a cool breeze in the late afternoon air.

“Deithe.” From up here, it was just a city, all white stone buildings and colorful banners, smoking chimneys and winding roads. There was nothing special about it, and still it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. Deithe. I was going to see the Temple City of Deithe.

I only hoped it wasn’t the last thing I’d ever do.