Firewalker Read online

  Rowan nodded. “The Pack is usually what stops Outlanders from going farther west than the Great River. And the Hive may as well be a brick wall. More like a legend, really—” He broke off, his brow furrowed.

  “Hasn’t anyone tried to study them and maybe find out how to get past them?” Lily asked.

  “The Pack doesn’t let you sit quietly and observe them, Lily. If they catch your scent, they track you. Then they come to kill you.”

  “What about the Hive, then? They’re like bees, I’m guessing.”

  Rowan shrugged in a noncommittal way. “Sort of.”

  “Bees leave you alone if you leave them alone. I’m sure there’s a way to study them quietly while they … gather nectar or whatever.”

  Rowan looked at her like she was insane. “Most people who encounter the Hive are never heard from again. There are two kinds that we know of—Workers and Warrior Sisters. I’ve seen a few of the Workers. They just look like large bees, but the Sisters are different. I think I saw one from a distance once, but I didn’t stick around to study her, Lily. No one does. If you see any member of the Pack or the Hive, your best bet is to run.”

  “So, no one knows anything about them?”

  “We know that the Pack and the Hive are more organized—but no one knows why, exactly. The theory is the Pack adapted so they can coordinate to hunt buffalo. The Hive is just…” He trailed off and swallowed hard. “You just run.”

  Lily could tell Rowan didn’t want to talk about the Woven anymore. She leaned closer to him with a warm smile to coax him out of his dark thoughts. “About that. You hunted bison on the Great Plains? On horseback?”

  Rowan shrugged. “How else are you going to do it? Buffalo are fast.”

  God, that’s so hot.

  Right, Juliet? Wait—you just—

  “You just did it!” Lily squealed out loud. “You figured out mindspeak!”

  “I did! And you heard me, even though I didn’t mean for you to,” Juliet said, her exuberance dampening. “That’s pretty terrifying. My thoughts are, like, out in the open now, aren’t they?”

  Rowan met Lily’s eyes and grinned. “You’ll get better at controlling it, Juliet,” he said, eyes sparkling. “But there’s always that chance a thought will sneak out when your guard is down. A clear conscience is your best defense when you share mind space with a witch.”

  Lily suddenly darted forward and kissed Rowan—partly because she wanted to, but mostly to distract him. If he looked hard enough, he’d easily see that her conscience was anything but clear.

  So I can kiss you in front of your family, Lily?

  We’ll make it up as we go along, Rowan.

  Lily looked down at her plate, her appetite gone, while the rest of her family chatted happily with one another. None of them had anything to hide, but she did. Rowan gave of himself entirely, but she had secrets. She had Lillian in the back of her mind and a burning need to know more about her, no matter how much it hurt Rowan. In that moment Lily realized that Rowan was a better person than she was. She had to make sure he never found that out.

  * * *

  That night, Lily tossed and turned. Guilt kept her awake—guilt and temptation. She thought of what she was already hiding from Rowan, and as midnight came and went and she felt Rowan fall into a deep dreamless sleep, she somehow convinced herself that one more secret wouldn’t make that much of a difference.

  Lillian? Did Rowan bring the shaman to the Citadel?

  He did. And the shaman told my mother that she had a talent that not many women have. Women gifted with power are almost always crucibles, and the best crucibles become witches. But she was a farseer. She could see into other worlds, like the male shaman can, which is very rare. He told me that I had that ability, too, and that it would get stronger as I got older. He also told me that if I didn’t learn to control it I would end up like my mother.

  Terrifying.

  It was, Lily. I was so scared of becoming like her I didn’t tell anyone what he’d told me. I didn’t want anyone to think I was sick-minded, you know?

  Yes, I know, Lillian. Sometimes I look at Mom and I see so much about us that’s similar. All I can do is hope that I don’t turn out like her. I’m ashamed that I think that.

  I was ashamed, too. Which is why I started training with the shaman in secret. I didn’t even tell Rowan.

  Show me another memory. I won’t tell Rowan. I promise.

  Okay, Lily …

  … I’m running along the wall. My Walltop guards see me pass, but I have no fear that they will tell anyone on the Council or in my Coven about the meetings I’ve been having up here. Walltop guards would rather die than betray me. That’s why I chose this place over any other spot in the city. My secrets are safe here.

  I arrive at the guardhouse and duck inside. It is a Spartan place. A fire pit blazes in the center of the bare-brick room and a few sticks of unpadded furniture bend under the thick bodies of my guards.

  “Is he here yet?” I ask the room at large.

  The guards stand as one and chant, “My Lady,” in perfect, deep-toned unison. Again, I am struck by how archaic the customs are up here. A room full of huge, rough men and women and all of them avert their eyes like I’m some kind of goddess.

  It unnerves me to be so revered, but the more time I spend up here the more I understand it. I’ve learned that every warrior on the wall is gifted. Not one of them has opted out of being claimed by me, as happens sometimes with the city guard, and unlike my city-level guards they are much more talented—talented enough to feel the true power of my willstone. Apart from my mechanics, only Walltop guards can appreciate the kind of strength I can give them, and only they crave the Gift as much as a mechanic would. They are better warriors for it, but never entirely whole people without it.

  I can feel the tug of all their minds, and tonight I can’t help but give in to their craving. The fire bends toward me. A witch wind moans around the flames as I gather heat. I change the heat into force and fill all of their willstones with a few drops of my strength. It’s enough. I watch as every eye droops with euphoria. Every mouth parts. Every heart pounds. I can feel my strength welcomed into them like rain in the desert.

  This is the danger I must avoid—the lust to fuel an army. I will always want to possess them and fill them with more than just this little jolt of power. I will be tempted to build a pyre and fill them with the Gift.

  I am one of the few who can go to the pyre and live, and I will always want war because of this. The history books are clear about firewalkers—also known as warmonger witches, depending on what book you read. I know the history of my rare kind, but still fight with myself. It feels too good to fuel an army to not want war. This is why I let so few of my claimed get close to me, and why I exclude all my mechanics except Rowan. I rein in my lust for violence. I will not allow myself to become a warmonger witch, like nearly every firewalker before me has been.

  I think of Rowan and take enough strength from the thought of him to cut off the communion with my Walltop guards. Rowan is vessel enough for me.

  Leto steps forward. “Thank you for that, Lady. Your guest is in my private quarters, as always,” he says, his voice rough with gratitude. I tip my head in acknowledgment.

  I show myself to Captain Leto’s tiny quarters, and let myself into the sweltering heat of the shaman’s makeshift sweat lodge. Inside there is only a desk, a fire, and a cot to furnish the room. On the cot sits the old shaman. He is tall and slender, and his limbs are long and gangly. His cinnamon-colored skin is wrinkled, but his hair is still coal black. He has streaks of red and yellow paint on his cheeks and eagle feathers braided into his long, silky hair in the old way. Rowan’s hair would look like that, if he ever let it grow—which he won’t do no matter how much I beg. He thinks it would make him look like a savage.

  “Have you eaten today, girl?” the shaman asks, as he always does.

  “No,” I reply, ignoring the fact that he calls me “girl.�
�� Strangely, I’m not offended. From him it feels like an endearment. “No food, no water. As usual.”

  “Good.” The shaman pats my knee in a grandfatherly way. “I want to talk with you before we spirit walk.”

  “Okay,” I say tentatively. The shaman is not a chatty fellow, and he usually saves his speech for teaching. “About what?”

  “The Woven,” he replies, his eyes far away. The shaman straightens suddenly and looks me in the eye. “What would you do to get rid of them?”

  I’m stunned. I stare back at the shaman and think of all the times Rowan has awakened next to me in bed, screaming. I think of how many times I’ve tried to drop into Rowan’s nightmares to lead him to safety, only to find him on a never-ending plain, being chased by countless monsters. He’s always a child in his nightmares about the Woven. And he never, ever escapes them.

  “Anything,” I whisper. “I’d do anything to get rid of the Woven.”

  He nods, like he thought I might say that. “On a spirit walk, I found a world that was like ours, except for one thing. The Woven have been eradicated.”

  “When? Where?” I say excitedly.

  The shaman sighs and tilts his head back to stare at the ceiling. “When?” he asks ruefully. “Maybe too late. Where? In one of the hardest worlds to find, buried between millions of cinder worlds.” He looks at me, and I’m shaken to see deep regret in his eyes. “It’s a miracle place, folded between so much death and destruction I’d never have thought it could be possible.”

  I know what that means. It means only one universe out of thousands that were nearly exactly like it got it right. One slip, one wrong choice, and the path to a Woven-less world will end in destruction.

  “But it’s there,” I say, my face bright with hope. “We can go there and find out how they got rid of the Woven, and bring the secret back here.”

  “We’d be stealing something from a world we ought not to have,” he says gravely. “We’d be puttin’ the Great Spirit out of balance.”

  “The Woven are what’s out of balance,” I say angrily. “They are a mistake that witches made, and that a witch should fix.”

  “It will be hard to get there. There are no versions of you, or any of your loved ones, alive in that world,” he says, his eyes stern. “You’d have to jump without a lighthouse.”

  “How did you find your way there?” I ask, my voice small. It’s treacherous to spirit walk without the lighthouse of love to guide you through the darkness between the worlds and I’ve never even considered trying to worldjump to a place where there was no other me, Juliet, Mom, or Rowan. I look at him, my brow furrowed. “Is there a version of you there?”

  “There is,” he says darkly.

  “And do you love me?” I ask him, my voice quavering. It’s an awkward thing to ask, but the shaman is not one of my claimed. He could only be my lighthouse if that other version of him loves me. I realize as I say it that I want him to love me.

  “Not there,” he says gently. “And that me is dying. When he goes I’ll lose my lighthouse and we’ll have no way to find that world again. I’ve watched that world for months, hoping to learn the solution to our problem by watching alone, but time’s almost up. We can’t wait anymore. I’d go myself but—”

  “You’re not a witch,” I finish for him. “You can spirit walk, but only a witch can transmute a body into pure energy and make it worldjump.”

  “Could you send me?”

  “You’d have to be one of my claimed so I could key into your energy, and you don’t even have a willstone,” I say, not bothering to keep the frustration out of my tone this time. His antiquated ways about willstones have always annoyed me, but until now I’ve respected his taboo about keeping witch magic and shamanism separate. Little good his respect for the old ways does us now. I sigh and try to be more respectful. “Even if I were to send you, I’d still have to know where I was going. It has to be me.”

  “Yes,” he whispers. “But stealing from another world is an evil thing, Lillian. I question whether I should have told you ’bout this at all. I’ve already got an account of my evils to settle with the Great Spirit, and maybe I shouldn’t be charging debts onto your soul, too.”

  “As far as I’m concerned, the only evil here is the Woven,” I say. He looks at me with a worried frown, like he sees a moral flaw in my statement, but he can’t bring himself to argue against his own wishes. It’s my turn to pat his knee. “It’s okay. This decision isn’t yours. It’s mine. And if it’s evil, then the evil is mine, too…”

  Stop. I can’t take this anymore, Lillian. You killed him. You sent the shaman to the oubliette to die. You actually had me fooled for a while. I was starting to see things your way, but there is no excuse for what you did to him. How could I have been so stupid?

  Wait, Lily. There’s still something you need to know about Chenoa and the shaman. The account he had to settle—

  Chenoa? The Outlander scientist you were so desperate to kill, you sent out an army to mow down a defenseless tribe? Rowan’s tribe! You say that you did everything for Rowan, but you went to war against him and his people. I must have been out of my mind to have listened to you for so long. Just shut up, Lillian. I don’t want to hear you anymore.

  You want to bury your head in the sand? Fine. But first ask yourself this. Would you have worldjumped into the unknown to find a way to get rid of the Woven—even if the shaman told you it was evil?

  You know I would have. You’re not the only one who’s woken up next to Rowan while he’s having a nightmare. I’ve felt his fear and I hate them for it. The Woven never should have been created in the first place.

  Then is it so impossible to imagine that maybe all the choices I’ve made—evil as they may seem—are the same choices you would make if only you knew the rest of my story? Everything I’ve done has been to save as many lives as I can. To save Rowan’s life.

  Go away, Lillian.

  CHAPTER

  3

  Lily could still smell Rowan’s delicious Christmas-in-January dinner when she awoke with a start. She wiped her mind clean of Lillian, wanting to kick herself for being so naive and so weak. How could she have listened to her for so long?

  Lily got out of bed, feeling a strange disquiet. A quick glance around her room proved she was alone. But something was wrong. She could feel it.

  Rowan? Where are you?

  Living room.

  Lily padded downstairs on her tender feet and found Rowan on the couch. The couch was made up like a bed and he wore a pair of her dad’s old pajamas pants. His face was lit by the blue glow of Lily’s laptop, his eyes staring at the screen.

  What’s going on, Rowan?

  He slid over in his makeshift bed and Lily sat next to him. On the screen was an ancient black-and-white photo of a pile of bison carcasses. He clicked on another link, and Lily saw a vast field scattered with countless dead bison.

  At least when Outlanders die fighting the Woven, we get to go out bravely. There is no dignity in starving to death.

  The bison slaughter was only one part of it, Rowan.

  Lily took the laptop and typed in “Native Americans, smallpox” and let Rowan read. When he was finished, Lily typed in “Trail of Tears.”

  She sat beside him for the next hour as he browsed through one atrocity after another. They both read about how the different tribes were rounded up and forced on death marches across the continent to the reservations. They both learned the many different paths the Native Americans were forced to take, all of which were different legs of the journey known as the Trail of Tears. They stored those paths step by step in their perfect willstone-enhanced memories. Finally, Rowan pushed the laptop aside.

  I can’t read anymore tonight, Lily.

  Do you want me to go?

  Of course not.

  Rowan pulled Lily against his chest and leaned back against the pillows. He was quiet for a while, just holding her. “The route that went through Arkansas on the Trail of Te
ars? That’s where my dad and I used to hunt. I was born somewhere around there.”

  “So, you’re from Arkansas?” Lily asked, trying to get her head around it.

  “I guess so,” he said, shrugging. “We don’t call it that in my world, of course. It’s confusing because there are some things about our histories that are the same.”

  “I know,” Lily said, sitting up. “And I think I’ve figured it out. Our worlds used to be one. Then the Salem Witch Trials happened and our worlds split. Everything in history before the trials is the same in both worlds, but after, it’s all different.”

  “Our worlds split?” Rowan brushed her hair back. “Why do you think that happened?”

  Lily smiled down at him. “It’s always happening. Every choice we make is the splitting of one universe into two. In one universe, you go right, in another universe you go left. During the Witch Trials here, the witches were hanged.”

  “And in my world they were burned,” Rowan said, catching on. “It was the burning that gave the witches incredible power—the ones who survived the pyre, that is.”

  “And they took over your world,” Lily finished. “In my world, they died or ran away from Salem and hid.”

  Rowan looked at Lily admiringly. “How do you know all this?”

  “Your shaman told me,” Lily replied quietly, resting her head back down on his chest. “So, what tribe are you from, Rowan? You never told me. Cherokee? Choctaw?”

  “Mostly Cherokee, but the tribes in my world have evolved. We’re not ‘Native Americans,’ as you call them. We’re Outlanders. We’re the survivors of the Woven Outbreak and the throwaways from the cities, so we’re mixed now. Outlanders are a bunch of different races all blended together and we speak whatever language mash-up we need to in order to get by,” Rowan answered, stroking her hair. “My mom was white, you know, but she never spoke a word of English.”

  “You remember her?”

  “No. But I was told she had blue eyes.” He tilted his head and looked down into Lily’s green ones. “And red hair.”

  “That explains it, then,” Lily said, smiling up at him. “That’s why you can’t lay off the redheads.”