Phae remembered in time to drop low, just as another hand reached for her hair. The man tried in vain to snatch at her, and Phae scuttled away from him, only to hear another horse coming up behind her. Her heart raced with fear and excitement. Twenty against one. Somehow, she knew the Kishion would win. He did not bluster or threaten. He did not need to.
A man suddenly grabbed her around the waist from behind and hoisted her off her feet. She had not heard him slip off his saddle and she started thrashing, trying to squirm free from his grasp. He clutched her tightly, swinging her around.
“Oy!” he called to another Romani, dragging her to the man’s horse. The rider reached for her and grabbed her by the arm. She struck him again and again, beating against his arm, trying to hit his face. The horse shied, but the rider was expert and controlled it. Fresh terror rose inside. The Kishion was boxed in by other riders. He could not see her.
“Lift her higher!” the Romani snarled. “This one is a wildcat!”
“It’s for her own good that the cat purrs!” the one holding her said. “We’ll tame you, lass. Cinder-headed or no, we will.”
Phae struggled, her fear turning into anger. He had called her cinder-haired. Cinder—a word about fire. Her fingers began to tingle. The words came to her mind. Pyricanthas. Sericanthas. Thas.
The man grabbing her arms yelped when those very arms burst into flame. His cloak caught fire and the horse screamed in terror and bolted. All animals dreaded flame. Phae reached down and grabbed the man’s arms that were crushing her middle. Though protected by leather bracers, the leather blackened and hissed and the man’s skin blistered. With a howl of pain, he released her, scrambling to get back from her.
Phae turned and faced him, her hands wreathed in blue-violet swirls. Her anger seared her heart, fanning the power that flooded into her. Gone were the feelings of helplessness. Gone was the timidity and flinching. The power inside her surged like a fountain and she held up her hands, unleashing a storm of flames at the man who was tripping over his ankles trying to get away from her. He vanished into a plume of ash. It felt frighteningly delicious.
Horses shrieked in terror and bolted. In the distance, she could hear the groan of the gate as the Romani inside desperately pulled it closed. Phae stood in a half-crouch, staring at the fire licking the grass where the man had stood. Yellow tongues rippled with heat and charred the grass, spreading with the wind and causing billowy black smoke to rise in the air.
One of the horses was not running. The leader’s mount was caught by the reins, the Kishion gripping it with iron, forcing it to remain.
“Over here!” the Kishion barked at her. He beckoned for her to come to him and swung up on the saddle. She noticed the Romani leader sprawled on the grass, his neck at a crooked angle. The feelings swelled inside of her. Part of her wanted to unleash the magic in her blood against the Kishion. Another part of her cringed at the thought. Surely if a hundred bee-stings could not harm him, neither would fire. But it was not just the logic of the thought. She cringed at the thought of harming him, of betraying him again.
Phae ran to him and let the flames die down inside her. He reached down for her and she reached up to him, grabbing his arm. He pulled her effortlessly up and she swung her leg around the saddle behind him.
“Hold tight to me,” he said to her. The flames began to roar inside the grassland, licking through the dried grasses and blazing into the sky. Stamping the flanks, the Kishion jerked the reins the other way and started the beast at a gallop. Phae pressed against his back, holding around his middle as tightly as she could. They raced against the flames spreading out through the meadow. The ride was thrilling. She found herself smiling, even when she remembered the man she had just killed. It frightened her how easily she had done it, how powerful it had made her feel.
The euphoria did not last long.
Phae knelt by the stream and cupped water in both hands, gulping it down. Her stomach was in knots with anguish. She had killed a man. Yes, he was a Romani. Yes, he probably deserved to die. But she was sixteen years old and it horrified her. She had summoned flames with her hands as a child and had been taught to control her emotions and to control the flames with the Vaettir words of power. She had never desired nor even thought to turn them against a living person before. She swallowed the water and bowed her head, grief-stricken with how easily she had done it and how giddy it had made her feel. Phae loathed herself.
The horse drank deeply from the stream, resting its lathered body for some time. The Kishion crouched by the stream and filled his leather flask. He glanced at her and she tried to look away from him so that he wouldn’t see the tears on her lashes.
“The first death is always the hardest,” he said. “It will fade.”
She wiped her lips. “Coming from you, that is not very comforting,” she answered, glowering at him. “I do not want to be like you.”