None of them said anything, but Jynna found herself wishing that her brothers would use their magic, just as Delon had suggested. Surely the god would understand this one time.
"So what do we do?" Blayne asked, looking at Delon. Jynna couldn't be sure, but she thought he was probably thinking the same thing.
"We go outside," Delon said. "And we wait for the healer, just as
Papa told us to."
The boys held each other's gazes for several moments, but they said nothing, and at last they ushered Jynna out into the darkness. Papa was still on the porch, leaning heavily on the railing. They didn't speak, though all three of them stared back at him as they descended the stairs. Eventually he went back into the house, leaving them alone in the cool night air. The sky was clear and the moons shone overhead, both of them still well short of full.
"What if they die?" Jynna asked, starting to cry.
Blayne shook his head. "They're not going to die." But he wouldn't look at her as he said it, and she knew he was lying.
"They might," Delon said. "Don't lie to her. Not about this." He took her in his arms and kissed the top of her head. She couldn't remember him ever doing such a thing before. His shirt smelled faintly of hay and sweat, as Papa's often did, and she pressed her cheek against it. "The healer's going to come, and maybe he can save them. But if he can't, we'll take care of you. We'll all take care of each other, all right?"
Jynna nodded, but she couldn't stop crying.
They sat down on the grass to wait, and after some time Jynna lay down, her tears still flowing, her stomach hurting, though because she was hungry or sick, she couldn't say. Eventually she woke up again. The boys were standing a short distance away, both of them doubled over. "Hasn't the healer come yet?" she called to them.
She saw Delon shake his head. "Not yet," he answered, his voice hoarse.
"And now you're both sick." She flung it at them, an accusation. Who's going to take care of me if you die too? she wanted to ask, but she couldn't even choke out the words. I'll be all alone! Better she should die than face the world without her parents and brothers.
Neither of them said anything, and in the next moment, matters grew far worse. The sky over the village suddenly flared bright yellow, and an arc of fire streaked across the night, as if Eilidh herself had declared war on the people of Tivston. Again the fire flew and a third time.
"What's happening?" Jynna cried. Somehow she was on her feet. She started toward her brothers, but stopped herself after only a step. Who would protect her? "Is it a war?" she asked. She knew how foolish the question sounded, but she couldn't help herself.
She heard a long moan from within the house-the sound she imagined a ghost might make-and an instant later a bolt of flame crashed through the roof of the house. Burning slats of wood spun into the air and fell to earth, smoking, charred at the edges. Again the moan. It was her mother's voice. She had fire magic, Jynna knew, though of course she never used it. Until tonight. Flame burst through the roof again and Jynna heard a scream. Only when the scream kept going, long after this second flame had died away, did she realize that she was the one screaming.
She forced herself to stop, and doing so she realized that others were screaming as well, in the village, in the houses around them. The sky was aglow, orange like a smith's forge. She could hear the rending of wood and the panicked howling of dogs, the neighing of horses and strange, otherworldly cries coming from the cattle and sheep. Flames and smoke began to rise from her house. The boys hurried toward the door, but both of them seemed unsteady on their feet. Before they could reach the top of the stairs, though, the front wall of the house exploded outward, throwing the boys onto their backs, knocking Jynna to the ground, and showering them all with embers and smoking scraps of wood.
When Jynna looked up again, there were her mother and father, leaning on each other, struggling to get free of the wreckage that had once been their home. They managed to descend the stairs to the ground; then both of them collapsed, their chests heaving with every breath. Mama lay on her back, and abruptly she thrust both hands skyward. Flame shot from her palms as if she were a goddess, or a demon from Bian's realm.
Delon gaped at her. "What's happening to you?"
"I can't control it!" Mama said. "I'm trying, but I can't stop!"
Papa rolled himself onto his knees and let out a piercing cry. And then the skin on both his forearms peeled open, like the rind of some pale, evil fruit, and blood began to run over his hands and soak into his clothes.
It took her a moment to understand what was happening to him. Healing magic. Papa had it, too. Except that he could no longer control it, just like Mama couldn't stop using her fire magic. Was this what would happen to Delon and Blayne? Would it happen to her as well?
She crawled backward, away from them all, tears coursing down her face. "No!" she cried. "No. No. No."
"Jynna!" her father gasped, staring at her, the blood on his arms gleaming in the moonlight. "Go! Get away from here! Get help!"
She shook her head so hard that the tears flew from her face. "Where? Where can I go?"
"Anywhere! Away from here!" He stared at the ground for a moment before meeting her gaze again.
Another pulse of fire flew from her mother's hands, but it seemed dimmer this time, weaker.
"Go north!" her father said. "You know which way is north?" She nodded.
"Go to the lake. Then follow the shore to Lowna. They're Fal'Borna there, not Y'Qatt. They can help you. They can help us."
"You mean with magic?" she asked, her eyes wide.
He hesitated, nodded once. "With magic. Now go! Quickly!"
She stared at him a moment longer. More screams rose from the village. More streaks of flame lit the sky. Not a war, she knew now. A pestilence. A plague. An Y'Qatt plague.
"Go, Jynna!" her father whispered, collapsing onto his side, his blood staining the grass.
She stood and ran.
Chapter 9
The moons were still up as she made her way northward, razor- sharp sickles in the sky, one as pale as death, the other as livid as blood. They were high overhead and gave Jynna no sense of which way was north, but she didn't need them for that. Tivston lay to the south, and though she could no longer see the homes and farms of her village, the occasional flare of fire magic streaking into the night sky told her just where it was. She only needed the moons for their light, and on the treeless plain north of the village, they offered more than enough.
She'd stopped crying, at least for now, made braver than she'd thought possible by the task given to her by her father. Get help, he'd said. And then he'd told her to go to the Qirsi, the Fal'Borna. He was going to let them use their magic to save him, to save Mama and Delon and Blayne. If Papa was willing to go that far, she could hold back her tears for a few hours. She didn't know for certain that they were still alive, but as long as those bursts of fire still lit the sky behind her she had some cause for hope. That's what she told herself again and again. That's how she remained on her feet, how she kept herself moving when all she wanted to do was fall to the grass and cry for her family and her village.
Before long she saw the lake, its placid waters gleaming with moon- glow. Reaching its shores, she realized that she had drifted too far to the east, and she turned westward, following the edge of the water toward Lowna. Toward magic.
She half expected to fall ill herself and succumb to the pestilence before she reached the Fal'Borna. For as long as she could remember, the mere mention of the pestilence had been enough to fill her with terror. The threat of an outbreak hung over her village all the time, a great sword ready to descend, deadly and inescapable. Whenever anyone in Tivston came down with a fever, every person in the village would learn of it. Parents would keep their children at home, even the most dedicated peddlers would avoid the marketplace, the lanes of the village would remain deserted until word began to spread that the fever had passed. No doubt it was the same in every other village in the South- lands. The pestilence was no trifle; it could wipe out entire cities. The fact that all in her family had been afflicted should have marked her for death as well. But though she couldn't imagine ever being hungry again, she didn't feel sickened or weak with fever. And since she'd yet to come into her power, she felt no surge of magic such as those that had taken hold of her father and mother. Grief, anguish, terror: these threatened constantly to overwhelm her. But thus far she'd managed to stave off the disease.