“Let me help you,” Rowena said as she stood. The light grew as the spell infused the fungus. It would be safe enough to risk the tunnel…and whatever traps remained. “If I remember correctly, it isn’t far.”

  Camille stood before Rowena could lay a hand on her. “I can move on my own. I have two good legs.”

  “Ah.” So, not shock. And Rowena had already seen her in a fierce anger, flashing eyes and snapping words. This had to be something beyond even that. “Camille, I am sorry about not showing you the right door—”

  “Is that all you’re sorry for?” She looked at Rowena, and her calm seemed to shake a little. She stepped closer. Rowena tried to back up but ran into the wall, pinned in the narrow passage. “Well, that’s okay, don’t worry about it.” She smiled sweetly, like a cat happy to have cornered its prey. “Mistakes happen.” She was even closer now; the smell of apricots filled Rowena’s nose, and the light jumped around Camille’s features as Rowena’s hands shook. Camille’s full, smiling lips were close enough to taste if she inched just a little farther. “Just look at me. I got pulled out of my life because I wanted to help, and each time I do, I get censured or yelled at or told to walk home as if I’m beyond useless, but do I let it affect me? No.”

  Rowena licked her lips, more frightened than she’d been of the gaping outdoors. “I’m…sorry.”

  Camille’s glance flicked toward Rowena’s mouth. Rowena braced herself for a kiss she hadn’t realized she wanted so badly until that moment. She let her eyes slip closed. Only the rush of air told her Camille had backed away, leaving her completely un-kissed.

  Camille leaned against the opposite wall some feet away. She had her head cocked, and her smile had changed a little. Still predatory but now also…satisfied.

  Rowena straightened her clothes and cleared her throat again. She gestured down the tunnel. “Shall we?”

  “After you.”

  Chapter Eleven

  When Sydney saw the smoke in the morning sky, she rejoiced. Finally, a village. She knew this land couldn’t be completely devoid of people. It might be a fat lot of nothing, but someone would dash well want it. Even in the middle of nowhere where she’d grown up, neighboring villages weren’t more than a half hour away. People always spread out over usable land. And the smoke was coming from a large clump of trees that might turn into a jolly good-sized forest.

  But as she watched the smoke, she frowned. It seemed rather a lot for one village. A town? Surely not a city, unless the lizard people had made one.

  “Fire,” Ember said, shading her eyes from the sun. “Should we go around or investigate?”

  Her tone said she’d rather investigate than do anything else in the world. Sydney tried not to be too condescending when she replied. “It’s a settlement. See how the smoke climbs in individual plumes? That means chimneys.” Lots of them, all puffing away on a temperate morning? She told herself not to be a pessimist, but her pulse had picked up, and her head filled with alarm bells.

  “Ah,” Ember said. “And since we need supplies, we’ll be going?” Her eyes practically shone.

  Sydney had to laugh, but it curdled quickly. Too much smoke. “Yes, but please remember everything you were taught about asking strangers impertinent questions.”

  “What if we’re about to leave, and we don’t care if the villagers throw us out for being impertinent?”

  “Then it’s fine,” Sydney said, grinning. But that smoke kept growing, and she began to think it was a larger fire, maybe several close together. Not a wildfire, then. They tended to fill in the spaces between rather quickly.

  When the first tendrils of smoke blew over them, Sydney’s stomach turned over. The acrid scent carried charred wood but also roasting flesh. She paused, her heart dropping. “They must be…cooking meat,” she muttered, tasting bile even though she wanted to believe that the village had picked this day to smoke livestock for the coming winter. But there was another, more sinister smell that came and went.

  Burning hair.

  “By the flame,” she said, losing herself to memory. She’d walked woodenly through a small village south of Kingston, inhaling that hideous smell. They’d burned a witch alive.

  And the small village in front of her now wouldn’t need so many fires, wouldn’t have so many witches to burn, wouldn’t smell so much stronger than in her memory.

  Sydney ran, ignoring Ember’s calls. She recalled the pride in the villagers’ eyes when they’d told her they’d caught a witch just as the knights had taught them. But instead of turning her in, they’d taken matters into their own hands. Her blood had chilled at the sight of such rough justice, and now it became ice.

  She’d never screamed so loudly at anyone in all her life, but now she could barely breathe.

  “No,” she whispered, still remembering that shriveled, pitiful corpse. Of all the fates witches deserved, being burned alive wasn’t one of them. No one should suffer that. Now, she rounded a copse of trees and stumbled up a small hill, then slid to a halt so quickly that Ember smacked into her, nearly sending her off her feet.

  A collection of thatch-roofed houses, little more than huts, sat along a dirt lane, the roofs ablaze. Bloody and blackened forms sprawled in the grass and the dirt. Movement from the left caught her eye, and her hope leaped, but it was only a few pieces of washing waving from a line.

  A roof collapsed with a groan of wood. Sydney jumped and shielded her face from the roar of the heat and the billow of smoke that burned her lungs. Ember dragged her back a few steps, coughing, and Sydney joined her, her throat burning as if filled with hot lead.

  “What is this?” Ember yelled. “How did this happen? Is everyone dead?”

  Sydney couldn’t respond, could barely listen, but her mind still worked, and one of Camille’s stories leaped to the forefront; Kells killed everyone they met and razed the very ground behind them.

  Something moved at the end of the lane, and Sydney squinted. Through the shimmery air, a dark cloak flapped around a short body walking away from the carnage. A taller person strode beside the short one, then both bent over something, unhurrying.

  “There,” Sydney said through gritted teeth. Anger began to throb within her. Anyone who wasn’t gaping or running from this had to have something to do with it. She wanted to run through the flames, but her training cautioned her otherwise, and she dashed around the fire, close to the line of trees. She kept her eyes on the bending figures and saw two more, another cloaked as the lizard people had been and another human with a shaved head, leather armor, and hashmark tattoos running up both arms.

  Camille’s voice came again. Tattoos were how the Kells numbered their kills. Both humans had them along with several bloody lines, placeholders to be filled in later. They bent over a corpse and laughed as they pawed it.

  Looting the dead.

  Sydney drew her sword, her fear and disgust lost among the blood and fire. Her head pounded, and rage clouded the edges of her vision.

  One of the Kells spotted her charge and scrambled back, calling a warning. It wouldn’t help him.

  Sydney swung as soon as she was close, catching one of the Kells as he backpedaled. Before he could raise his weapon, she took him across the neck, right across the artery. She pivoted away from the spurt of blood and turned for the next one. Steel rang out behind her as Ember engaged the lizard people.

  The last Kell grinned, showing white teeth in a dark beard matted with blood. His sword was shorter than hers, wider, and he swung it with unschooled grace. She dodged, expecting him to take advantage of her distance to find better footing, but he lunged clumsily.

  Heartfire bloomed in Sydney’s hand, and she swung for these villagers, for the witch who’d met a fiery end. The Kell threw himself to the ground, grabbed her ankle, and yanked.

  Sydney cried out as she fell. She swung heartfire wildly. The Kell bashed her hand aside, wincing, and the smell of burnt flesh washed over Sydney anew. He cocked his arm back, sword angled at her chest. She cried out, terror rising past her rage.

  A cloaked form crashed into the Kell’s side, sending him stumbling. Sydney pushed up, her heartfire guttering in the face of her sudden fear. Ember leaped to her side and lifted the lizard person out of the way. She must have thrown him.

  The knights never covered that in training.

  Ember faced the Kell. His arm was red, the skin puckered from where he’d touched the heartfire. He brought his sword on guard. Sydney lurched up, seeking to put the Kell on the defensive, but he attacked at every opportunity, even when he had to take a wound for his effort. Between Sydney and Ember, he was soon covered in cuts. They took turns defending while the other attacked. The Kell’s style was reckless, almost careless, and his wounds didn’t seem to pain him. Sydney knew then how they won so many battles. They didn’t care about their own skins.

  Ember slashed low, and the Kell thrust his hips back to protect his knees. At the same time, he swung for her head. She dipped lower, and Sydney knocked his attack wide. He switched his focus to her, but Ember stayed low. When the Kell tipped backward with a cry, Sydney knew Ember had used the Kell’s previous trick against him.

  The Kell hit the ground, his head bouncing off the hard-packed dirt, and his sword fumbling from his hand. Sydney lifted her sword to gut him, but Ember rose in front of her, and Sydney whipped her sword to the side, cursing and stumbling.

  Ember raised a leg and bashed the Kell in the face with the sole of her boot. He went limp. Sydney glanced around for more, but they were alone, the others dead. She slid her sword home and breathed hard, the scent of fire and flesh clinging to her nostrils and trickling down her throat, making her gag.

  She pointed at the Kell, unable to speak yet, but Ember seemed to understand her question.

  “For answers, yes?” Ember said. “Perhaps he will talk more than the lizards.”

  Sydney nodded. That was sensible, yes, but the bodies in the road still cried out for vengeance.

  * * *

  Ember had never had to take in so much new information at one time. And none of it was nice. Maybe a little exciting, but only because her heart was beating so loudly she could hear it in her ears. It wasn’t the good kind of exciting, but the kind she’d rather be done with. And she couldn’t share it through her connection with Rowena, had no one to explain it into small, digestible bits she could easily process.

  She’d gone through the dead while Sydney tied up the Kell. Sydney didn’t seem to want to kill him now as much as she did before. Wisdom had conquered anger, as Rowena said. And maybe he would talk more than their captured lizard person had. Maybe the Kell had known the names of these people; maybe they’d done something to him, and he’d had to kill them. She wanted to believe that, but based on what Sydney said, she feared it wasn’t true.

  Even if it was, would that make this sight better?

  Probably not.

  Ember studied face after face, but though the villagers were many things—blood-soaked, terrified, cut down in mid-run—alive wasn’t one of them. She found the body of a child inside the trees. It seemed a good place to sit and shed the tears that had gathered behind her eyes. She’d never seen a child before except at a distance, a speck on the landscape from her view on the mountain. This one should have been running and playing, eating, drinking, having fun with friends, or grumbling about chores like a child from a story. She should not have been dead.

  Ember understood Sydney’s rage, then. As she’d looked for living people, the corpses had seemed almost false, something from a dream or maybe husks waiting for a new purpose, but this one…

  Rowena’s villagers never gave her children. Maybe this sadness was the reason why.

  The grass rustled as Sydney kneeled beside her. “Do you want to bury them?”

  Ember wiped her tears with the back of her hand. “Is that what they would have wanted?”

  “The hierarchs of Kingston say that flesh is but a shell, that true life lies within, residing in the mind, the seat of reason. When a person dies, they say their true self escapes and finds the meaning of existence, so the body means nothing.”

  Ember didn’t like the sound of that. There were so many better things than reason. “Do you believe that?”

  “Not really,” Sydney said with a sigh.

  Ember smiled and leaned in, receiving an arm around her shoulders.

  “Burying them just seems more…respectful than leaving them where they are,” Sydney said.

  Ember didn’t think corpses cared about respect, but if it would make Sydney feel better…

  By the time they finished burying the villagers, the day had worn to afternoon, and the Kell was awake. The exertion had dulled Ember’s grief and anger, so she was in a better place to question the Kell without putting her fist through his face.

  Sydney seemed to feel the same, though Ember could almost feel the coil of heartfire burning within her. As she stood in front of the Kell with her arms crossed, tiny tendrils of flame licked through her fingers.

  Ember kneeled beside the Kell and hauled his bound body into a sitting position against a tree. He stared without fear. They’d moved a small way from the village, which had burnt to cinders behind them. The Kell didn’t even glance in that direction.

  “Why?” Sydney asked through gritted teeth. She jerked her head toward the remains of the village. “Why do that?”

  “Because they were in our path,” he said, his voice heavily accented.

  Ember shuddered, and Sydney’s hand glowed white-blue before she took a deep breath. Ember tilted her head at the Kell. “She’ll kill you for saying such things. I might kill you.”

  “You will wake me,” he said calmly. “This is a dream. You are dreams. You should be thanking me for sleeping, for when I wake, you will cease to be.”

  Sydney kneeled swiftly. “Don’t give me that shit.”

  He leaned forward as if to meet her rush. “Prove me wrong, little dream.”

  Ember put her hand on Sydney’s arm. She had many questions, and she didn’t know how many she could ask before Sydney’s anger undid her. “You kill all the people you meet in dreams?”

  He shrugged. “What else are dreams for?”

  “And your comrade lying dead in the field?”

  “Is now awake.”

  Sydney sneered. “And the lizard people?”

  He seemed thoughtful, then shrugged. “Special dreams, created by another dreamer.”

  “Another Kell?” Ember asked.

  He shook his head, smiling as if enjoying himself.

  “So…” Ember put her hand on Sydney’s arm to stop whatever outburst she might have. She wanted to understand this Kellish philosophy. “The Kells are not the only dreamers?”

  “There is also the Nightmare,” he said, grinning like a madman. “We walk through our dreams, but he controls them, creating, destroying.”

  Ember held his gaze, getting lost in bright blue. “Who is this Nightmare?”

  “The ancient one, the winged one, the eater of flesh and spirit.”

  Ancient, winged. She didn’t know how one ate a spirit, but when she put the first two characteristics with the scaly nature of the lizard people, she had only one answer. “A dragon?”

  Sydney scoffed and stood, breaking the spell of the Kell’s gaze. He switched his grin to her. “It does not matter what a dream believes. The Nightmare will still come for you, gobble you up.” He made a slurping noise.

  Ember slapped his knee, bringing his attention back to her. “Did this Nightmare…create the lizard people?”

  “He is the father. We help him.”

  “Of all the ridiculous fucking things I’ve heard,” Sydney yelled. “You’re telling me that a dragon has been breeding with Kells to create a lizard person army?” She put her arms on her head and walked in a circle. “I never heard such a load of shit in all my life.”

  The Kell had a satisfied smirk and shrugged again. Since they couldn’t prove that they weren’t dreams, there was no way to sway him, but they could get as much information as they could.

  “Will the Nightmare be angry that you told us this?” Ember asked.

  He laughed. “Whether you wake me or he does, it does not matter. I will meet him again in the real world, after he is victorious. You cannot stop him. You are dreams, and he can make of you what he will, do you not see?” He sighed. “Of course not. You are not really alive. I pity you. I pitied them.” He nodded toward the village. “It must be terrible to be a dream. Better to die here than be less than alive.”

  “Pity this.” Sydney drew her sword in one smooth motion and stabbed him through the throat, drawing her blade sideways.

  Even as he died, he smiled, his eyes full of wonder, and Ember wondered what it would be like to live completely unafraid.

  Sydney breathed as if she’d just run a mile. Ember took her shoulders and gently turned her from the dead Kell. She didn’t need to ask if Sydney was all right. Her expression wobbled from angry to horrified to grief-stricken.

  “I shouldn’t have done that,” Sydney said shakily. She bent and dragged the bloody tip of her sword through the grass. “I shouldn’t have… I just…”

  “It’s all right.”

  “It’s not, it’s not, I…”

  Ember hugged her, offering comfort as Sydney had once offered it to her. Sydney wept into her neck, her cries loud and unabashed. Ember thought to turn her away from the horror of the village, but then she might see the horror of the Kell and her own rage. So, Ember just held her tighter so she wouldn’t look at any of it.

  * * *

  Sydney knew she was walking quickly, but she didn’t realize she was almost running until she paused, out of breath, and leaned on her knees.

  They’d both wanted to get away from the shattered village, but Sydney hadn’t realized she’d actually been fleeing. Shame washed through her, and not just because she’d run away. She’d cut down that Kell in anger. A bound, unarmed man, and she’d slaughtered him. How was she different from those villagers who’d burned the witch?