Trial by Fire

“Boil out the fever. Sweat out the sickness. Burn out the rot,” Rowan chanted. He dipped his brush into the wooden bowl and began painting runes onto Lily’s skin.

Lily’s body flamed and roared like the fire. The cool touch of the brush made her shiver. The paint sizzled when it hit her feverish skin. Every stroke of Rowan’s brush sent cooling waves through her, and her sweating body rose up to meet the touch of the bristles. She could feel the paint oozing into her system, mixing with her sweat and changing. Growing strong.

Tristan followed behind Rowan, winding Lily’s painted flesh with the strip of gauze as if he were wrapping an injury. Sweat and paint and magic soaked into the wrappings, becoming medicine. Rowan painted all the way around one leg up to the thigh and stopped. Then he painted the other and stopped. The wrappings were removed and hung by the fire. Tristan lit a bundle of sage, flamed it out, and let the clarifying smoke waft up into the growing web of damp, red-blotted gauze. Rowan painted her arms in the same spiraling manner, with Tristan following in his wake with yard after yard of gauze. They stopped only to hang the saturated wrappings in front of the fire and to stoke the flames. Rowan eased Lily up to a sitting position and began painting her back. She could feel his breath on her drenched neck, could feel the paintbrush sliding and sizzling across her skin. More gauze was pressed into the design Rowan had drawn on her back, and then he laid her down again.

Rowan’s hands shook when he started the spiral out from her navel. His brush traveled up, across her fluttering ribs, wrapping around her breasts. Lily could feel the tight coil of the spiral sinking into her, the heat settling low in her belly like a knot of want. The teasing touch of the brush became unbearable. She reached up and brought Rowan’s lovely mouth down to her. His lips were so cool against her fire-bright skin that she sighed, drawing from them deeply as if she could drink him. Tristan’s hands lifted her, wrapping her, brushing against her body while she kissed Rowan. Both of their eyes slid closed, and their willstones glittered on their chests.

Rowan broke away and paused, swallowing hard. Lily’s hands were in his hair. He untangled them gently and moved determinedly to Lily’s throat. Concentrating, he painted a small design around her willstones. The spell sank into her lungs, filling them with fluid and cutting off her breath. Gauze followed before she had a chance to panic, soaking in the sweat and paint, and lifting the heavy spell off of her. Her skin cooled. Her lungs cleared. She took a deep breath.

“It is done,” Rowan said. His and Tristan’s willstones darkened. Rowan stood and got Lily’s robe, covering her immediately.

Lily sat up. The sun was down. The yards of gauze needed to dry before they could be cut into tiny tabs no larger than Lily’s pinkie nail. Just one tab under the tongue could clear all infection out of a sick or injured person’s body. Lily sighed, knowing that thousands could be healed by what they’d done in a few hours. The city sparkled in the darkness outside Rowan’s huge windows. Instead of feeling tired, she was energized, her body humming with the adrenaline of two kinds of hunger.

“Let’s go out,” she said. “I want to go out. Actually, I think I need to go out.”

Rowan and Tristan shared a look. “A crucible’s craving is her mechanic’s mandate,” Tristan said. “You’ve already ignored that once tonight.” There was a scolding note in Tristan’s tone, like Rowan had done something they both knew was wrong. Rowan dropped his head.

“I know I did. But I still think it’s too dangerous. Gideon has a man stationed right across the street, watching us,” Rowan said.

“It’s dark. I can use a camouflage spell, and he won’t even see me,” Lily said, standing.

“It doesn’t matter if you get past that one guard,” Rowan countered. “There are spies all over the city looking for the Outlander girl hanging out with me.”