Prince of Time

Chapter Forty-Four - Ashes

Tobiah was almost through the tunnel when the heat struck him from behind, scorching the back of his neck. He froze still, the runners behind colliding with him, turning back.

“Haliwen succeeded!” Mithien told him, swallowing down a sob. “Etheron is burning.”

Tobiah stood like a statue, an unwelcome thought suddenly forcing its way through his brain.

“Sorry.”

He turned and barged through the crowds, shoving people aside, not caring if they were injured or dying. He ran back the other way, ignoring their protests and warnings, cursing all the gods above for the life they had given him. He ran towards the flames.

  There were people still in Etheron. That much was obvious. People who had been trapped. People who had gone to fetch something precious from home. People who were trying to help others. People who simply weren’t fast enough.

 And Zeno. Zeno was in Etheron, amongst the flames, burning. Tobiah could taste the magic on his tongue. He knew, without a doubt, that Zeno would be in the heart of the inferno. He knew that he had to find him.

Ane was lost in the mountains. They had no food or water, nothing to keep them going. Children fell behind and there was nobody left to carry them. They staggered on, weeping silently, a plume of smoke disfiguring the sky behind.

“Where is this retreat?” Ane asked Caran, her voice hoarse in her dry throat.

“I don’t know,” Caran said, hopelessly. “I’ve never been there before.”

A wail erupted from the ranks, a desperate hopeless sound. Ane knew it well. It was the sound of a breaking heart.

The train of refugees stopped and Ane walked slowly back through them to the source of the noise. The girl was young and plain, her hair wispy around her face. She held a baby tightly, rocking back and forth, howling.

“It’s her brother,” a boy said, briefly. “He won’t wake up.”

Ane prised the bundled child from the girl’s arms. A tiny face peeked out, eyes shut. Ane took the pulse and her heart sank into her boots. She was holding a corpse in her arms.

“Dead,” she said, quietly.

The girl screamed in pain, holding on to herself, face swollen and puffy and streaked with tears. Grief made her ugly; it made the world ugly.

“It’ll be ok,” the boy sat beside her and wrapped his arms around her. “It’ll be alright.”

The girl clung to him, howling piteously. Ane wondered at their story, at their relationship, at their future. But it didn’t matter now. Pasts and futures didn’t matter now. What mattered was a dead baby.

 She placed the child out of sight on a rock, trying not to think about how the crows would come down and pick the bones clean, feasting on the newborn flesh, swallowing the eyeballs.

“Help her walk,” Ane told the boy. “We cannot stop.”

The boy half-lifted the girl up. She held him tightly and he held her back. They walked, each keeping the other standing, like broken trees locked together.

 Ane walked, the nameless baby sleeping at her hip. The mountains rose on all sides, inhospitable. They were lost in the hills, lost where they were not wanted. Night was drawing in. Strength was waning.

 Ane wanted to do the right thing. She wanted to be strong to the last, to remain calm and comforting and welcoming for her charges. She wanted to kind and gentle all the way through, to heal.