Starrlings 1: House of Fire

chapter 27

L U M I

Lumi slept poorly on her first night at the college. Her burns pained her, but what kept her awake was her fear of this foreign place, and the unknown future that stretched out before her. She had once had her entire life planned, and now she was lost.

But as she was lying there, wondering why her grandmother had forced her into such a position; wondering why she felt so weak and helpless; wondering why her aunt wouldn't come to save her... another thought entered Lumi's mind. The stars.

In the quiet hours after midnight, Lumi was up and dressed and down the several flights of stairs, through the common room where the fires were burning low, and out the front door of the house, to find a delightfully crisp night, well before dawn.

The sky was dark.

In the volcano palace outside Singtsu, Lumi rarely saw the darkness. The suns lingered over the horizon, sometimes dipping below the mountains before emerging again within an hour. But as Lumi and Tai had made their journey by ship, Lumi had noticed the lengths of the nights getting longer, and she'd remembered her childhood, hiding in the furthest reaches of the Fire Lands, where the suns set every night.

In the dark the school was a strange and unknowable maze, full of shadowy buildings that housed strangers. The darkness was unfamiliar, and it would be terrifying if it weren't for the night sky. Only in true darkness can one see the stars.

Lumi wandered away from the house, to find the large field she'd noticed from her bedroom window. Here the sky was open to her, and she lay down in the grass and stared up into the night.

A whole constellation of light, lit up and burning in the sky above. These were unfamiliar stars, from an unfamiliar vantage, but they were here. She couldn't see the twin fire stars, Jinni and Yainni, but she could see the Maestre and the King's Hammer and the Light Lion - stars that she'd only ever seen mapped in books.

The stars disappeared as dawn broke, bathing the rolling green hills of the school grounds in soft, buttery light from two suns. Lumi found tears on her cheeks now, but she couldn't remember crying - she'd been too enraptured by the dancing, twinkling lights.

Some Fire people believed their ancestors lived in the stars, watching down. Even though these weren't the same stars she saw from the Fire Lands, Lumi had to believe with all her heart that her mother was sitting up there, watching her, looking after her.

At dawn, Lumi realised she would need to get back into the House of Fire before her brother noticed she was missing.

But as she began to stand up, a broad-shouldered woman wearing a cavalry uniform walked past, with a fire tiger following a few steps behind her. Lumi recognised her as the woman who had taken Jinni after he had bucked Lumi. The caval.

"You," she said. "Follow me."

Lumi was so startled by the direct order that she couldn't help but stand up and follow. It felt comforting to have someone tell her what to do, so she could obey. This is what she'd wanted in the fire army - this is what she'd wanted from her brother. She wasn't strong enough to lead, but she would follow and be dutiful.

The woman, Rita, and her kinntiger led her to the kinnhouse, which was a long stone building, downhill from the House of Fire. Here there were already other adults and also students at work in the early morning light, refilling water, cleaning and sorting equipment. There was a smell in the air, so intensely rich and festering, but Lumi had no idea what it was, until she saw a student wheeling a trolley filled with odd shapes wrapped in paper.

"Is that...?"

"Breakfast," Rita said with a satisfied smile. "You need to bond with your tiger. You should be the one to feed him."

"Feed? No," Lumi said, staring perplexed at the woman. "Tigers hunt. We do not feed our kinnling."

The trainer whipped around to stare at her, and Lumi realised for the first time that the woman was from the Fire Lands. The dark hair and eyes were unmistakable.

"This year we have seventy-five tigers living in our kinnhouse, girl. The light lion pride over on the hill is close to two hundred, at last count. Fifty spring bears. Fifty water dragons. You know how big the pack of wolves is? About two hundred, spread across four kinnhouses. A few night horses, and one bloody great falcon. Shall we see what happens if we just unleash them all and let them hunt?"

Lumi swallowed.

"Yes, the woods are big, but there's a pack of wild bears living there, too. We're talking hundreds of magical creatures, all living in this one small valley. If we let them loose to eat, they'd destroy the ecosystem within hours. There's a town up beyond the dam. You want to see what happens if a tiger gets hungry and can't find wild deer? Just because he's your precious kinntiger doesn't mean he'll turn his nose up at a juicy child."

Lumi reeled. "But in Singtsu..."

Rita squinted her eyes at Lumi. "I see how this is. You've lived in that palace up above Singtsu your whole life, where your kinntigers roam free and eat deer and maybe the odd monkey, and you think that's the way it happens everywhere in the world. It's not. We raise animals to slaughter to feed our kinnlings, so they may grant us stronger magic."

"Not in the Fire Lands," Lumi said. "There are no animal farms in the Fire Lands."

Rita laughed. "If you'd ever stepped outside your palace, you would have seen that the lands of Liaohua and Rajashapur are covered in cows. I know the people of your country don't eat meat. But they feed their kinntigers meat, every few days."

Again, Lumi felt her entire construction of the world shift below her feet. If she'd ever done the math, she would have realised that Singtsu was a city with thousands of starrling, and at least three-quarters of them owned a kinntiger. There was dense jungle around the mountains, and Lumi had always made the assumption that every tiger living in the city hunted in the jungle. But now she wasn't so sure.

"So we'll feed your tiger, then," she said. "My tiger is Nix, by the way."

Rita's kinntiger yawned.

The cavalry were releasing the tigers from the kinnhouse and into the yard, then preparing to dole out the meat individually. But Rita left Jinni for last, so that he was the only tiger left in the kinnhouse.

Lumi followed Rita into the shadows of the kinnhouse, to find Jinni sitting in a corner, ears folded back, eyes narrowed, back tense. Lumi felt his tenseness even from here... she could sense his fear.

"Hi Jinni," said Lumi, quietly, in the Fire tongue.

Jinni's ears pricked and he stared at her, his dark yellow eyes taking her in. She felt tiny in the gaze of the giant tiger. She had to look up to look into his eyes - he towered over her while sitting on his hind legs.

Lumi reached out, her palm facing up, displaying her hand to Jinni. She allowed the tiniest of flames to dance in her palm. Jinni huffed, his ears flicking, but lowered his nose to her palm, gently. Her flame died, and she felt his warm breath against her hand.

"Better," Rita said. "He's going to need a lot of work. Now how about we try some exercises?"

She stepped forward, as if she was going to come between Lumi and Jinni, but Jinni let out a snarl, his ears going back. Rita stopped. "Okay, try this. Take a step back, and then bow. Jinni wants your respect if he's going to respect you."

Lumi was surprised by this. She had thought that Jinni should bow to her, to accept her as his master. Bow to the tiger? She lowered her hand, then took a step back, all the while keeping her eyes locked with the beast's gaze. As she started to bow, she realised she would have to break eye contact to deliver a true bow. She was terrified of allowing herself to be so vulnerable in the face of this tiger, who had previously attacked her. But she steeled herself, tensed her muscles in anticipation of those huge teeth latching onto her neck, and performed a deep, respectful bow - the kind she reserved for her grandmother.

• Author's Note •

Hey my lovely Starrlings!

Thanks for reading this chapter. Don't forget to vote!

elle xx