On Fire's Wings - Christie Golden [63]
It was early yet, and few people were in the kitchens. Most would not arrive until the fire was going well, their particular tasks requiring a steadily burning flame. Kevla began to strike sparks.
Nothing.
It was never an easy task, getting the cakes to burn at all, but today it seemed impossible. Again and again Kevla tried, striking spark after spark and blowing on it gently. But the cakes were simply too fresh and would not catch.
She heard the sounds of more people coming in behind her, talking in soft morning voices. Soon, they would need to begin baking and cooking.
She kept trying. Each time the spark would land on the cakes, flare for an instant, and then fizzle.
Suddenly, anger rushed through Kevla. Sahlik would chastise her for being tardy in getting the fires lit, and it wasn’t really her fault at all.
“Burn, curse you!” she whispered, glowering at the pile of dried droppings.
With a sharp crack, a flame licked upward. A heartbeat later, the fire burned as if it had been lit an hour ago.
Kevla gasped, staring at the fire. How could this be? One moment it was stubborn, moist cattle cakes and now—
She felt sick as the realization broke over her, and sat down hard on the stone. There was only one answer. She was kuli-cursed, despite Jashemi’s calm words. First the dreams, now this. No ordinary person could light a fire with a word.
The hand on her shoulder startled her. She looked up to see Sahlik smiling down at her.
“The cakes are not usually dry when the men go on raids,” Sahlik said approvingly. “You must have a way with fire.”
Swallowing, Kevla managed, “Yes. I must.”
She went through the chores of her day in a state of near-panic, glancing repeatedly at the merrily burning fire. When her day was done, she lay awake in her room all night, dreading sleep, fearing that the Great Dragon would come for her and bear her away to his lake of fire in the heart of Mount Bari. She was surely an abomination, and the Dragon dealt swiftly with such monstrosities.
And yet she did sleep, and the dream was exactly the same: the leaping flames, the bellowed question, “DO YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE?” It was terrifying—it was always terrifying—but there was no new frightening twist. Nor did the Dragon give any sign of leaving its home in Mount Bari to snatch up her waking self.
The next day, Kevla gathered the cakes with hands that trembled. She laid the fire and struck the spark. Again, the stubborn cakes refused to catch.
Kevla licked dry lips. Softly, she stared at the cakes and whispered, “Burn.”
As before, where there had only been a sullen smoldering, now there was a steadily burning fire.
Despite her fear, Kevla smiled.
As the days passed, Kevla gradually began to believe that the Dragon wasn’t going to punish her. Her skills seemed to be useful, not harmful. Each morning, she now lit the fire with ease, no matter how moist the cattle cakes were. Her room, which had previously grown chilly with the desert night, now became comfortably warm with a single word. She certainly didn’t feel like she was kuli-cursed.
One morning, Kevla lingered a little bit longer than usual gazing at the fire she had lit by merely saying, “Burn.” Its flickering flames always called to her, but this time, she seemed to see figures in the fire.
She blinked and rubbed her eyes. No, she was not imagining it. There was Jashemi! She smiled, happy just to see him. He seemed unaware of her presence, his expression troubled. He leaned forward, and the flames trembled. As he moved back, she saw that he held a stick. He had stirred his own fire with the stick, and Kevla had seen it at her fire.
From that moment on, Kevla seized every opportunity that came her way to gaze into the fire. Sometimes, she saw only flames. Other times she saw Sahlik, or Tahmu, or Yeshi. Sometimes she saw the faces of people she did not know at all; strangers somewhere, gazing into a fire, not knowing that the fire was gazing