Fallen Flame

J. M. Miller

My rough skin had reached its weekly limit, the pressure crushing, digging into my body. It was time for my cleansing.

With closed eyes, I let thoughts of the day drift into nothing, enjoying the seclusion. Aside from sleep, there was little time I had completely to myself. All the other hours were spent alone in a different sense, silently protecting one person, often in rooms filled with many others. My life as a Guard.

The old bathhouse groaned lightly, wood walls and well pipes settling as the busy daylight hours gave way to the still night. The quiet solitude soothed my tired mind and aching body. For while my daily presence usually required obedient silence, my mind and body were always active, always alert.

I breathed in the solace and held fast, knowing the next breath would be pained with the biggest agony in my life, what I'd always known as my weekly cleansing. Curling my hands along the rounded edge of the only bathing tank left in the empty Guard house — my personal bathing tank — I took that next breath then threw myself into the cool, clear water. My skin instantly seized, every inch held hostage as the burning pain took hold, the water unyielding as it attempted to break into the scarred barrier that would forever reject it. Familiar as the process was, it remained excruciating. My body never adjusted, never even so much as numbed its reaction to the sensation, despite all the days, all the years.

The coolness disappeared in a flash, the water absorbing the heat of my agony. I opened my mouth and released a scream that was instantly swallowed by the mass of liquid pressing in from all around. My outer layer sloughed off by the time my garbled cry ended, the water finally penetrating the hard, ashen skin and freeing it from the smooth layer that lay beneath. I stepped out of the tank, newly shed and exposed. The air kissed my red-orange skin with spiked lips as I watched the old charred flakes settle to the bottom of the tank.

I am human. It was a daily reminder, whenever I caught sight of myself, looked at my skin — whether charred and cracked or smooth and red. But I am not like the others who surround me. Their eyes stared with curiosity and disgust, but, more often, averted with fear of the truth. For when I was an infant, I was said to have been scorched by magic. Something only whispered about in lore and cautionary tales, about a time before all on our island were born, when magic was said to rule.

My very presence was a constant reminder that it was more real than they wanted, that the monsters weren't as far gone as the stories told huddled around supper spits and celebratory gatherings suggested. I had been burned too close to home, nineteen short years before.

Without a courtesy knock, the jagged oak door swung wide, hinges squelching at the sudden movement. I turned toward the noise, already pulling on underclothes to wrap my bare body, since there'd be no time for the rough outer layer to reform in the open air as I usually allowed.

Haidee's sharp eyes scanned the dim bathhouse then stopped abruptly as soon as they spotted my bareness, the vibrancy of my skin halting the urgent words that forced such an obtrusive entry. Only two people had laid eyes on my body immediately after a cleansing, and she wasn't one. I'd been careful throughout the years. Always fully covered, especially in the rain. The element of life had become my true enemy, an external weakness. My coal skin color had never been the issue and blended in with the array of Garlin's people, but red-orange would be a different matter altogether and likely more frightening than the outer texture they already feared.

"Vala ..." My name slipped through her lips as unconsciously as her scarred hands had fallen from the blade at her waist down to her sides. Her whole being was clearly stunned by my appearance, even more affected than the day I'd marred her speckled russet brown skin.

"What is it?" I snapped, not bothering to hide my annoyance at her intrusion. She was my most trusted ally on the Guard, one of the only people who agreed to help me train when I was young despite the texture of my skin. Mostly because her mother, Saireen, had been the one to find me those years ago and kept me when my own mother had never come forward to claim her blood. Haidee was ten years older than me and started work as a chateau handmaiden like her mother before joining the Guard. She'd served more years than me, but I was the one who became the Guard's most powerful weapon, which also meant I'd been given one of the most prized details. The prince.

No matter how annoyed I was about her seeing me in this state, she had reason. And there was only one that mattered.

She shifted, the sword grip at her belt handled loosely once again, her eyes blinking frantically. "I apologize for —"

"No need," I interrupted, securing my mass of stringed hair plaits into one and moving for my outer attire. "What's wrong?"

"He's gone." Her lips turned down. "His room is empty. I was to take over watch, but there was no Guard on spot when I arrived."

"What? Leint was there when I left. Anything amiss?" I asked, quelling the immediate pangs of fear and worry and redirecting my focus. I slid quickly into my worn leathers, gloves, boots, and cloak, then affixed my long sword. With the royal greeting the following day, several ships had already made port at Florisa's Cove, on the low, northern side of the island. There'd likely be stowaways mixed with guests and normal traders, eager to see what our quiet island had to offer, tour our wondrous gardens, drink the wines they loved to import while standing on the very soil the precious grapes were tended. High alert was scheduled to begin at daybreak, a few short — no longer alone — hours away. Apparently, the Captain of the Guard should have started it a day in advance.

"No." She waited for me to position my hood and the flap of material that masked my face before holding the door open for me to pass into the dense night fog. "There was talk earlier, about Prince's Night."

"Prince's Night?" Surprisingly enough, words I'd never heard. I was close to the prince — growing up and training alongside him, sleeping in adjacent quarters, breaking others' bones for him. His secrets were my secrets.

"It's a supposed tradition, or celebration, the night before a prince was to be assessed. The elder men must have informed His Highness or the little lords he calls friends."

"How did I not know of this?" I quickened my pace down the narrow path between the main Guard and handmaiden quarters, navigating the rutted ground toward Chateau Bylor as I had for years, recalling the prince at my side through most of it. Always together. Even as children. Why hadn't he told me about a Prince's Night?

She didn't respond, knowing her fault for not having mentioned it when she'd first heard. I knew her reasoning was built from kindness. Still, the kindness of letting a little talk slide, of allowing me to take an hour of solitude before a week of high-alert events, it was all dangerous. There was no room for kindness.

I accepted her silent guilt as a lesson learned, as punishment enough ... if the prince was unharmed. I had to hope he was unharmed. "Any other information about this Prince's Night?"

"Overindulgence in wine or mead, possibly some form of trials."

"Of what sort?" I wasn't sure I was completely sold on the Prince's Night answer. Haidee wouldn't have disturbed me if she were entirely convinced of it either. If something else had happened ... I shook the emotional thoughts away and focused on my training and my knowledge of Caulden. Had anything bad happened, he would have left me clues. His west tower rooms were the place to start. I knew them well enough — they were my home as well.

"From what I've gathered, Prince's Night is said to be trying but humorous, to see how fit the prince actually is before meeting his potential bride. If he succumbs to the games, can't handle the fun, things could get complicated during the next day's introductions."

"Sounds grand." The entire affair grated on me — him meeting Princess Anja, being shown to her like a prize to judge and measure — but what it really involved was more than worrisome.

Since Queen Meirin Tamir of Islain's first born was female, and had recently come of age, it was time for her to select a consort. Family and land was taken into careful consideration, evaluated for not only their heirs but for skills and kinship as well. Of course, it was all anyone on our secluded island could talk of for months, especially after word had spread that both queen and princess would be traveling instead of summoning the prince, which was the usual practice for the lords of their lands. But this situation was entirely different, and it wasn't exactly cause for celebration like some of Garlin's people thought. Garlin had been separated from Islain for hundreds of years and had only reestablished trade connection within the last twenty, which led to Islain's greater interest of claiming our people, our land. A courtship between the prince and princess would only make that process easier ... and avoid a war we would assuredly lose.

A salty wind climbed the hills from the port, sweeping an endless cloud over the chateau grounds, as it did most nights and many days. Nothing appeared unusual. I checked the chateau gate for signs of disruption first, posted Guards merely nodding at my presence. Peering through the iron slats, only the lights of the cove's towers could be seen in the distance, the dreary glow spreading out over the tumultuous sea, marking our presence and warning any transit ships of the uneven coast along our cloaked island. I turned around to approach the chateau, noticing that the lanterns were dimmed the same as when I'd left for my cleansing. Even in the darkness, the royal chateau's size and elegance was awing. Stones upon stones stacked in extensive walls and pillared columns. Colorful panes of glass fitted into wide-arching windows. The largest building, standing high on the southernmost peak, looked over the island kingdom with its strong presence and comforting assurance.

As I stared out from beneath the edge of my hood at the royal home, Prince Caulden leaving the island seeped into my mind's eye and swept a chill through me. No matter how many times I'd tried to ignore it, the thought kept plaguing me. We'd all thought he'd marry within Garlin and stay to rule. Marrying the future high queen wasn't exactly the most horrible fate for him to have. It was honorable. He'd help rule with the kindness I knew him to always have. But the thought of Garlin and Islain uniting, and him not being here with his mother, with me ...

I moved around the front of the chateau and gazed up at Queen Havilah's blackened windows and balconies. "You told no one else?"

"I didn't feel it necessary to alarm Her Majesty or the captain. You know Caulden best." Haidee's words held no malice, no bitterness despite the envy I knew her to harbor for my position.

I moved noiselessly through the main courtyard, searching for any unusual shadows around the edged gardens and stone entry arches. The sentinel Guards at the great doors parted as soon as they spotted me, allowing room for ten men, and not even a breath passed between them in my wake. They knew better. They'd learned to keep away, having either caught sight of my daily training, hearing others' whispers, or seeing the burns another had suffered. From the corner of my eye, I glanced at Haidee's bare hands, their scars one instance of proof. Others walked around worse off, while a few who had dared threaten the prince now only moved with the sway of the sea, their bodies tethered to stone and tossed from Crypt Cliff on Garlin's southwestern side.

Our trained footsteps emitted the faintest of echoes into the main hall then up the western spiral stone stairwell. The dead quiet unnerved me more than usual, the unlikely chance of the prince's peril growing more possible with each second, each hurried step. The post outside the prince's quarters remained empty. While I was glad Haidee hadn't notified anyone else of his disappearance, it was also a risk. If we found that something more significant had happened, more lives than his would be at stake.

I opened the door to the main sitting room, taking in every detail. Half ashen logs blazed within the fireplace, the snapping of the large flames stealing my attention first, calling to me as they always had, humming a drawing tune, as if they had taken over my head as well as my skin. Another effect I had to live with. This one, though, I'd only ever shared as a child with Saireen, who had wisely told me to keep it hidden. She knew that truth would only garner more attention and more fear — another cursed difference. So it remained our secret. Even on her deathbed two years before, she'd never said a word. Not even to her only true born, Haidee.

"There's water on the washroom floor," Haidee said, tearing my focus from the fire.

"He was bathing when I left earlier," I replied, moving toward the opposite hall where my room door stood ajar, exactly as I'd left it. The flames from the main room couldn't reach inside, folding my simple space in the darkness I preferred each night. The blankets on my bed remained untouched, two books still stacked at the side.

Haidee's muffled voice cleared when I stepped back into the main room. "I noticed the splashes before I came to get you, but what I didn't see before were these light smudges on the floor."

Walking over then crouching beside her, I confirmed, "Boot prints. No sign of a struggle. Leint has to be involved." I ran an exposed fingertip through the watery print, ignoring the stinging on my thickening skin. Some of it cast off, a dusted shadow of myself left inside the thin puddle. "Chatty, that one. Ever since his reassignment to this detail, he's been taking any chance to talk with Caulden. He's lucky the prince seems to enjoy their conversations. Otherwise, I'd have him removed for dereliction."

"Perhaps the Prince's Night celebration needed a willing Guard and an opportune moment."

"Opportune because of my absence." Noticing something red and orange in the water's drab reflection of the stone room, I stood and moved around the curve of the tub to the high wash basin. One mourning flower had been tossed inside. A few of its petals curved over the edge, like flames gasping for air as the rest of its delicate corolla and stem bathed within the water.

Some of Haidee's numerous thin brown plaits slipped over her shoulder as she nodded and ran a scarred finger over the water where mine had been shortly before. She was probably thinking more about my skin and what she'd seen in the bath house, or possibly considering only the task at hand. With her, it was difficult to tell. She'd left Saireen's house to become a chateau handmaiden right after her mother took me in, so we hadn't really considered ourselves sisters. Once upon a time, I would have liked to. Unfortunately, I felt she didn't favor the same sentiment. Her mother had loved me enough to risk burns throughout my childhood. No matter how many times Haidee had begged her to stop comforting me, Saireen always refused. Her argument was that children needed to be held, comforted with kind hearts and a loving touch, not fearful eyes and cold gloves. In Haidee's mind, I supposed I'd only caused her mother pain.

I blinked away thoughts of the past and stared at the flower again. There were only two places they were located on the island, and I was willing to bet my life that no one would dare drink wine and hold trials in the queen's private conservatory from where this one had been stolen. "Whether or not Prince's Night is true, at least we have an idea of where to look."