There was nowhere in the city or in the slum crowded outside the walls that seemed like a good place to possibly accidentally set on fire. Kiri needed to figure out the new aspects of her Firebrand ability, but her opportunities for practice were just not what they had been in sparsely-populated Westfall Valley. She had never laid down a line of fire before like she had that night at the Outsiders hideout, and if she’d been thinking about it she would never have even tried. Clearly there was a lot more she could do as the Firebrand than she had thought, and it would be foolish not to learn as much as she could before she needed it.
It wasn’t that the city didn’t have any green or open spaces. There were several beautiful parks as well as the grounds of the academy that were filled with trees and grass and flowers. There were even relatively private areas in these parks. They might do for a tryst, ut they weren’t isolated enough that it would be reasonable to expect no one to notice a fire. So, Kiri had to wait for a chance to go to the country. She had come to Laed near the beginning of the month so it was nearly three weeks before the Bridge Days came. There were two this month, but she hoped not to need both of them. If she just picked a direction and walked surely she would come to an isolated place in much less than a day. It was a good thing she had happened to pass Yensa and her husband Cole poring over a map in the entrance hall preparing for their own Bridge Day trip, or that might have been just what she did. As it was, she was better able to pick a direction that looked promising; according to Cole’s map there was a wetland to the east. It would be relatively unpleasant, but unlikely to catch fire.
There was no highway to the east as far as Kiri had ever noticed in all the times she went that way to prevent the Rounds. The city gate opened right into the warren of ramshackle buildings of the Outside slum. There weren't even proper streets in the Outside, though the shacks were built with a sense of order, leaving wide enough pathways to serve the purpose. But these were liable to end suddenly in yards like the one where Colin lived. Though she’d set out confidently, Kiri quickly found that she didn’t know her way around at all. She didn’t even think she could find Colin’s house from down here on street level. All the landmarks she knew were rooftops, since she had always come that way. She wasn’t looking for Colin’s house anyway, just trying to get far enough east to get out of the slum. If she managed to find the highway, that would be easiest, but she planned to set out off-road into the countryside soon anyway.
Kiri tried not to grind her teeth as another dead end forced her to backtrack again. There had to be a more direct way through the slum than this. There was no way rich people who wanted to go east took these winding ways through the Outside. Surely they had made themselves some sort of path so they would have to spend as little time as possible among these people who they viewed as scum. Perhaps it would have been a good idea to have been a little more thorough with her planning than a mere glance at a map. She might even have been able to bring one along. Not for the first time, Kiri was forced to regret her impulsivity. At least she had had the sense to wear her least-nice dress. She still looked overdressed for the area, but hopefully not rich enough to whet the appetites of the criminal element. She didn’t want to get pick-pocketed again.
Her meandering path brought Kiri near a street vendor whose cart wafted the tempting odors of meat pies. The sun was nearing its zenith, and Kiri realized it might be some time before she was in the country at this pace, so she decided to spend a little of her money on a pie. She had plenty to spend. All the extra hours of work she had taken to avoid Yensa and her friends had lined her pockets nicely. Money, while not her actual objective, was a good excuse for taking the work. It was possible Yensa did not feel the penniless country-girl Shaela was avoiding her, but just chalked it up to her need for money.
The area where the street vendor had set up lay at the intersection of several of the makeshift streets of the slum. It seemed to serve as a meeting square for many people. It was crowded with knots of people eating, talking and smiling. In the middle of scanning the crowd Kiri froze, her throat squeezing with fear. For just a second, turning down one of the streets away from the square, was a face that had haunted her nightmares. It was one of the Untouchable’s people, here in Laed. She knew him. Even worse, he knew her. She reassured herself that he had been turning away; he probably hadn’t seen her. Maybe she was imagining things, and it was just someone who resembled him. Kiri slowly blew out the breath she hadn’t noticed holding.
The vendor cleared his throat, making Kiri jump and whip back to him. He was holding out a pie to her. “Here you go, miss,” he said. “Five snips, please.”
Kiri pushed her lips into a smile. She managed to get enough air together to murmur “thank you” as she accepted the pie. She fumbled the coins as she tried to dig them out of her purse one-handed. They clattered into the dirty street.
Both Kiri and the man behind her in line bent at the same moment to collect the coins. Their heads clunked together. The young, pleasant-looking man backed off with a hand on his head.
“Ow,” he said. “Sorry about that. Are you alright?”
She nodded and hid her blushing smile by bending back down to gather her coins. He scooped up a handful and dumped them into her palm.
“Well,” he said, as Kiri handed five snips to the waiting vendor and tucked the rest into her purse. “It looks like we’re both about to have a pie. Would you care to enjoy yours with me?”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“Oh, no,” Kiri said, and immediately felt bad for responding so negatively, so quickly, to someone who had helped her. “I mean, thank you, but I’m busy.”
“Of course,” he said. He cocked his head to the side and gave her a disarmingly warm smile. “Well, until later then.”
“Right,” Kiri scurried away, letting him move to the front to get his own pie. She didn’t want to linger, but instead ate her pie on the go, still making her winding way to the east.
Eventually, Kiri found the east highway. Once she was walking on it, the buildings of the slums quickly fell behind and she was soon in open country. The countryside was fairly flat, without a significant hill or ridge to be seen, much less the mountains that always marked the horizon in Westfall Valley. She could see ahead and a little south of the road a patch of darker green that seemed to be the swamp she was making for. At a guess, it looked like an hour's walk away. As soon as there was a gap in the traffic on the road large enough that no one would see her do it, she stepped off the pavement into the brush and made for the swamp at an angle to the road. She moved quickly, flinching at the bushes snagging (and probably tearing) her dress, wanting to get out of sight of the road as quickly as possible. The openness of the countryside made it a harder task than it would have been in Westfall Valley’s hills and trees. When she could no longer make out the road behind her, she pulled off her dress and bunched it up under one arm. She was, as usual, wearing her Firebrand clothes underneath.
It was a good thing she had changed, because she had misjudged the distance to the swamp. Even though she moved much faster in the Firebrand outfit, it still was several hours before she reached marshy ground. The grass was different here, and the ground softer. There were a number of short, bent trees. Here and there, peeking through the grass, Kiri could see patches of greenish water. From everywhere and nowhere she could hear the chittering and squeaking of innumerable insects.
There were several possibilities for her power she had been thinking about over the last few days. She decided to start with one that seemed least likely to work, but most useful if it did. Since she was unlikely to get many chances to practice, it seemed best not to hold back.
The idea came from the wall of fire she had made in the Outsider’s headquarters. It had been an effective shield, but Kiri thought it could be improved. Laying the fire down in a line as she moved her hand meant that it left vulnerabilities as she made it. Anyone who kept a level enough head could get around it before she finished it. There was also the problem that if she wanted to put it all the way around her she would have to turn her back. If she could make it happen all at once, that would eliminate those problems. And she had an idea of how to do it.
There was a bent, mossy tree nearby. Kiri hung her dress over one of the less-mossy branches and moved away so that she was out of the circle of its shade and under the open sky. She didn’t know how high the flames would go.
The sun had sunk low at her back. It had taken a lot longer to get out here than she had expected when she set out from the city. Between the time lost in the slums and the long walk, she had already lost most of the day. There wasn’t a chance of getting back to Laed before night, so it seemed she would have to sleep out here. Hopefully the ground was not too wet. She could always hike part of the way back if necessary, but she’d rather be able to practice right up until dark.
Squatting down, Kiri pushed her hand flat against the ground and curled her fingers just a bit into the dirt. It was only slightly moist, so that was good news. But checking the moisture level of the ground wasn’t what she was here for. She curled her fingers more, enough that the soil resisted. Immediately she felt the heat build in her palm, but it dissipated at once into the soil surrounding her hand, warming it--fast. Kiri could feel the heat rising around her arm as the earth began to cook. She pulled her hand up out of the earth, wiped it on her pant leg and sat back on her heels to think.
The key was to control exactly how much fire--or heat, or whatever it was--energy--went out from her palm, and more importantly, where it went.
Kiri placed her palm against the ground again, but this time she experimentally bent her fingers a little more, and then a little less, until she found a point where, while some heat did leak out and spread across the ground, much more built up in her palm. She waited perhaps two seconds while the heat built, then slammed her palm flat down as she straightened her fingers completely. Almost immediately, a circle of fire leaped up around her, close enough that the rush of heated air stirred her hair. It was closer than she would have liked, but still, a very promising result.
Kiri spent the next hour practicing making a fire shield this way. She even discovered that by varying the orientation of her fingers she could direct it in a line instead of a circle, which would probably be more useful. Needing to trap herself in a circle of fire seemed like more of a worst-case scenario.
The other thing she wanted to try would be less useful, but a lot more fun. She had focused her lightning before many times, but always had sent it arcing away from her hand. Now she wanted to see if she could burn things with direct touch. She started by laying her hand against a fallen branch. Then she quickly twitched her fingers, first making them just a little clenched, then straight. She felt a burst of heat and pulled her hand away. A perfect print showed on the branch, like it had been branded there. A little more practice and Kiri was able to focus the heat into one fingertip. After some more adjustment she managed to keep the heat sustained for a little while. She traced a curling pattern on the branch with her hot index finger, and stepped back, pleased.
It was getting dark, but Kiri had just one last thing she had to try. She curled her fingers, then flung her hand up and away from her body as she opened them. A ball of flame burst above her, like a firework, touching her face with light and heat.
Satisfied, Kiri stretched out on the ground. Within a minute she was back up and spread her dress out on the ground and curled up on it. The ground might not be soaking wet, but apparently laying down on it was enough to squeeze a little of that moisture out. At that moment, she didn’t care how dirty her dress got.