Neal watched Markus explain himself and took careful note of everyone’s reactions. He was already over his initial anger that Markus had run off and left them for dead. The kid was cocky and Neal knew that any situation that sent him fleeing would’ve scared Neal off twice as quick.

The other bandits, once Markus explained about the knife the girl took from the pillar, seemed satisfied that all the mysteries were resolved. They seemed more inclined to blame Harish for having taken the job in the first place, rather than Markus, who was as much of a victim as themselves. Jas shook his head and muttered that he’d once had better sense than to mess about with magic.

Neal nodded along, glad that the tension was going out of the air. “I think we all ought to be glad we’re alive and eat this hearty meal Markus made.”

The consensus was in favor of Neal’s suggestion. Markus’s cooking being sufficient to earn him forgiveness for having hightailed it out of the place, they all sat down to their usual post-raid storytelling and eating. There was only one exception to the congenial mood. Harish stayed silent, and never stopped glaring at Markus from under his heavy brows.

“You looked like a scared bunny when we came in here,” Jas teased Markus. This wasn’t the first time bringing this up and Markus didn’t seem to like it. But he was smart enough to pretend, and smiled back at Jas through gritted teeth.

“Yah,” Yates guffawed and waved his half-empty wine bottle at Markus. “Bet he thought we were a bunch of spirits. The old band back from the dead--oooooo.” He finished with a ghostly moan.

“Nah,” Ulf shook his raggedy head and spat out a stray lock that caught in his mouth. “He thought we was invaders. Thief Lord’s agents, or somethin’, since he went and took the magic we was supposed to be finding.”

“How would the Thief Lord know about that?” Neal asked.

Ulf waved a hand dismissively. “He got sources, the Thief Lord has.”

Neal watched Markus fume at the razzing with a false smile all the while. It seemed the young man had the good sense to take it. He was much more worried about Harish, sitting there nursing his grudge, and what he might do about it. Harish was the kind to destroy any complications he did not understand, particularly any that might challenge his position and authority. The rest of the band seemed to have decided to believe that all the weirdness and magic was over, but Neal had a feeling that Harish shared his own suspicion that it was far from done with. The Eldan knife that had started it was gone, true, but it had been gone when Harish tried to strike Markus to strange effect. Harish, and probably Markus too, had to be wondering as much as Neal was just what the limits of this power were. Neal decided to keep an eye out for Markus. Harish was the type who would rather finish him off in his sleep than find out he was now too powerful to dominate.

When the band finally finished going over the events of the day from every angle and decided to settle down to sleep, Markus was assigned the first watch. Neal tried to say awake, staring at Markus sitting by the fire. But one moment he saw Markus silhouetted by the glow and the next he felt a hand shaking his shoulder.

“Not my watch.” Neal muttered, his usual reflex. Then he opened his eyes and furrowed his brow. “What?”

Markus jerked his head toward the north end of the chamber. Neal gave a sigh, then a tiny nod. He didn’t ask or argue, just got out of bed and grabbed a torch and followed Markus. There was a narrow passage at the north end that led into a chamber the men used as a latrine, because it had a sulfurous spring running through its center. On the other side of that chamber another opening led to yet another chamber. To Neal’s surprise, Markus led him to hit. The floor was dangerously unstable, which was why the band avoided it. In some places the floor was merely a thin crust extending over one of several still pools of water. Markus picked his way forward to an area of safe ground that was the widest in the room, enough that you could take a step back without worrying about falling through the floor.

“Well,” Neal said. “What have you got in mind? If it's a mutiny against Harish, I won’t go against you. But I am not sticking my neck out to have it cut, either.”

“No mutiny. Not yet.” Markus said. “I want to test things out first.”

“Test?” Neal looked Markus up and down. “I’m sure I can throw you, boy, if that’s what you have in mind.”

Markus shook his head and rolled up his sleeve so Neal could see a bright spot on his arm faintly glowing with its own internal light.

Neal’s eyebrows buried themselves in his hair but he said nothing.

“Right.” Markus rolled his sleeve back down. “So the first thing is: hit me.”

Neal shrugged and made a fist. He looked Markus up and down again. “Where?”

“Just not my face,” Markus said.

Neal hit him in the stomach, hoping Markus wouldn’t stumble back into one of the pools.The moment Neal’s fist contacted Markus, there was a loud snap and a bright flash of light. A wake of pressure pushed back against Neal’s hand, as if Markus’s stomach had hit him back. He brought his other hand up to rub the ache away and flexed his fingers. Markus looked at him with wide, excited eyes.

“Ugh, that aches. But--wow! No one will hit you twice, I can say that.”

“No, you will.” Markus said. “I want you to hit me again.”

“Not going to happen,” Neal said. “My hand hurts!”

“Not with your fist this time,” Markus said. He reached for his belt and pulled out the long wooden spoon he used when he made porridge.

“You want me to spank you with that?” Neal grinned. “Like yer mama done when you was little?”

Markus held out his arm. “Hit me here,” he said. “As hard as you can.”

“What?” Neal said. “I’ll break your arm. How about a few smacks on the backside?” He swept the spoon out of Markus’s hand and cocked it back.

“You won’t break my arm,” Markus said. “The wood will break first. I’m…almost certain. Now do it. I need to know for sure what will happen.”

“Because of the mutiny?” Neal asked.

“Exactly,” Markus said. “Now come on, hit me.”

Markus ducked his head a little as the blow came down, flinching. It made Neal feel like a bully, but the kid had asked for it.

CRACK!

The noise was loud enough to leave Neal’s ears ringing, and the accompanying flash was so bright he was blinded for a moment. The spoon never touched the skin. In the instant before he hit resistance the wood had shattered spectacularly, leaving Neal holding only a splintered end.

“Are you hurt?” Markus asked.

“Hurt?” Neal was confused. He shook his head. “Whoo, that was...I mean, no. No, I’m not hurt. A little bit of an ache from when I hit you earlier, but I don’t think this time hurt me at all. I wouldn’t want to be the spoon.”

“Hmmm,” Markus said. “There is one more thing I need to know.” He pulled out a small knife.

“Ah.” Neal’s felt his stomach turn as he realized what Markus intended. His voice came out hard, even though he wanted to be patient with Markus. “No.”

Markus’s expression hardened on turn. He said nothing, but Neal could see a muscle in his cheek clench. He wasn’t surprised that Markus didn’t take no for an answer. The boy was about as movable as a tree root. That doggedness had been the reason that Neal had convinced Harish to bring him into the band in the first place. He thought it would be useful to have someone that wouldn’t give up when a job got tough. Markus opened his mouth, but Neal cut him off before he could argue.

“There’s no time,” Neal said, grasping at the first thing that came to mind. “We need to give an excuse to the others for that noise.”

“You’re right,” Markus said. He nodded sharply and slid the knife back into his pocket, his face turning back toward where the others had been sleeping. “They must have heard that.”

They quickly went back. As Neal had guessed, by the time they reached the main chamber the others were headed towards them. They were laughing and teasing and shoving each other, clearly thinking the noise couldn’t be any real danger. Neal shook his head. They should be more on their guard, especially after the Standing Stones.

“What happened?” Harish demanded.

“Stalactite fell,” Neal said. “Nearly killed us. Don’t go to the north end of the latrine. It’s not stable.”

“Which way is north?” Jas asked.

Just before they reached the others Markus leaned over and whispered in Neal’s ear. “Tonight.”

Neal gave one quick nod, but he wished he could’ve pretended not to hear. He was in for it now. Harish hadn’t wanted Markus to join the group at first, but Neal had talked him into it. Harish had thought the boy’s bullheaded determination would lead to trouble. Smart man.

~

It took both hands for Kiri to unsnare her skirt from the inch-long thorns of the vine she hadn’t noticed winding its way through a low oak sapling. Finally freed, she recovered her walking stick from the ground. She had picked it up by habit, and not because she was in any state to be conscientious, near the beginning of her hike. She tried to pay more attention to hostile vegetation as she made her way deeper into the trees. There were trails in the woods she might have taken, but she wanted to have no chance of running into anyone. Before setting out on her hike she told her sisters she was going to visit Mala--and told Mala she had to stay home with her sisters. Kiri just wanted to be alone. For two days, she had been constantly surrounded by people, and she had done her duty, made it through. She’d stood the night-long vigil in the drizzling rain with all of her family standing close against the cold. In the dawn light, she had laid a flower on her mother’s grave, and even managed a few words. Now, she just wanted to get away. She needed some peace. Well, and there was another reason, too.

For all the time since she’d fetched them from her trunk, Kiri had kept the gloves on her hands. Mathilda and some of the ladies from town asked her why, Mathilda sharply and the others gently, but she gave them all the same answer--none but a shrug of her shoulders. No one pressed her for words after that, not even Mathilda. Apparently in a situation like this one she was to be allowed some odd behavior. It was just as well, because Kiri had no idea how to explain away the gloves if someone insisted. She certainly couldn’t tell the truth that she couldn’t take the gloves off or someone might see the glowing spot in her palm. Kiri knew it was still there. Whenever she was sure no one was around, which didn’t happen very many times, especially with the house so crowded now, she snuck a look at it. It didn’t always look and feel the same. Sometimes it was so faint she had to squint to see it. Other times it changed, the heat and light growing together.

The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

Once, when Kiri was talking with Mala, her hand started burning intensely, growing hotter than it had since that first night. She almost panicked, afraid of what might be about to happen--and she knew by Mala’s furrowed brow that her friend could see something was wrong. Through rising panic, Kiri hung on to calm, willing her hand to cool while she carried on her conversation as best she could. The heat slowly faded, but she wasn’t sure if she had been lucky or had really controlled it. That idea, of control, was enticing. The thought of something happening, something like that lightning at the stones, unexpected and unbidden, was terrifying. But if she could call down lightning on purpose...

If she could do it on purpose, then nothing would be terrifying. And that was why she was in the woods: to try to learn to control her newfound power.

The sky was bright blue for the first time in days, cloudless, the sun shining out to burn away the last puddles that were all that remained of the days of rain. It felt clean, and bright, and beautiful. Kiri turned her face up to feel the warmth as she emerged from the cover of the woods into a meadow. There were a few of them around, sunlit gems hiding in the deep wood for any seeker willing to look long enough. Most of them were like this one, a wide grassy depression filled with flowers, dotted with a few small ponds that glinted among the grass. Kiri slipped off her shoes and stuffed her stockings into them. Mathilda would have been horrified. Not only was going barefoot completely unladylike, but there might have been snakes in the grass. Maybe there were, but Kiri felt she would let them alone and they would return the courtesy. Kiri dug her toes into the soft earth as she walked out into the open meadow. It squeezed up between them in that squidgy way she’d always loved. She knew her feet would be hopelessly dirty. Mathilda would hate that too, but the thought of her frown only added to Kiri’s satisfaction. She imagined she could hear the small creatures who lived there skittering off in alarm at such a large invader, but it was probably just the wind. Well, if they weren’t scared of her yet, they would be soon. It was time to figure it out, to gain control.

She stripped off her gloves and pushed them deep into the pockets of her apron. Kiri studied the now-exposed light in her palm, sucking on her lower lip between her teeth. She squinted at the glow, trying to make it get brighter. It didn’t oblige; the glow remained barely visible in the sunlight, frustratingly dim. Kiri huffed and shook her hair out of her eyes. It probably wasn’t a good idea to try to get it to work while pointing it at her face, anyway. The thing to do was to choose something to aim at that wasn’t her own eyes. If she got it really going, quite likely she could start a fire with the lightning.

Everything in the meadow was too wet to catch fire well, so Kiri went back under the trees and gathered a few likely twigs and old leaves. They were soon in a nice secure pile on the mud at the edge of a small pond. She didn’t want to catch the woods on fire, and the pond seemed like a convenient safeguard.

“Now.” Kiri smoothed her skirts down firmly as she stood and took a few steps back from the pile. She stuck her hand straight out, elbow stiff, and dug her toes into the soft mud as if to anchor herself. Then, as a final step, she flexed her wrist and raised her palm, aiming the light at the center of it right at the pile of tinder.

Come on, come on. She started chewing on her lower lip, all the while thinking as hard as she could of that spot on her hand growing warmer, brighter.

It did not change at all. After a few minutes passed without her hand feeling any different, Kiri snuck a peek at her palm. If anything the spot was dimmer and cooler than it had been before.

“Well, fine,” Kiri said. “That does not work at all.”

What had made it get hot before? One possible explanation, the first to occur to her, was that she had been upset, every time. Kiri thought she might as well try letting her emotions go, test if that was the important factor. She rubbed her hand against her skirt and blew out a long breath. As she held her hand back out, she let her thoughts go back to the places she had been keeping them from for days.

It was too easy to become upset, much too easy. Once she let go, it was hard not to go too far, to keep her crying tamed so that she could keep trying to burn that stubborn pile of tinder. Or was it her hand that was stubborn? Kiri hiccuped between sobs, then burst out laughing at herself. Of course that hadn’t helped. Her face was wet and messy, but her hand wasn’t any different.

“Fine, fine,” Kiri said. So it wasn’t the emotions themselves that were somehow the source of the heat in her hand, though that would have made a certain sort of sense. It must be something else that happened at the same time as getting upset, something connected somehow. Kiri paced back and forth a little as she tried to think of what it might be. She didn’t want to entertain the possibility that her lightning was as unpredictable as its wild cousin. No sooner had that thought come along than she noticed that her hand was not just getting hot, it was very hot. A glance down showed her fingers to be clenched so tightly in a fist that her knuckles were white. Her mind flashed back to standing atop the pillar, clenching her fist...opening it...

Her hand was almost unbearably hot now. Quickly she knelt down in front of the tinder she had piled up and opened her hand, pointing right at it.

The lightning jumped and fire flared up so fast she had to scramble out of its way. Kiri was very glad she had placed the fuel at the edge of the pond. Even so, one ember had gone far enough to start a separate fire, away from the pond, and despite the wet vegetation it was burning vigorously, showing every sign that it would spread fast.

Kiri cursed herself for not having brought anything to put a fire out. The close fire, the intentional one, she knew she could put out easily with a sweep of water from the pond, but the other one was trouble. For a few futile moments she tried to throw scoops of water onto it. Without anything to carry it most of the water escaped between her fingers before she reached the fire. Then, it occurred to her to take off her apron and use that. She dunked it into the pond, and it came up coated in muck and moss and dripping. She beat at the fire, now hot enough that she darted her hands back after each strike to give her arms a moment to cool. The apron was turning black, but the fire was going out, as well. She dunked it in the pondagain and went back at it until she had beaten out the flames. By then what she was holding was not recognizable as an apron. It was green with moss, and scorched, and even had a few small holes burnt right through. In short, it was ruined.

“Now how am I going to explain this?” Kiri said aloud. She could imagine the expression on Mathilda’s face at the sight of the apron. “Maybe I should just show up wearing it.”

It would almost be worth it, just to drive Mathilda crazy. Kiri’s oldest sister seemed convinced that Kiri was an incurable tomboy, but still managed to get mad at every tomboyish thing Kiri did. Which made Kiri just do more, to throw it in her face. Mother had been right: Kiri was not at her best around Mathilda.

With a shrug, Kiri threw the apron on the fire. Better for it to be gone than to show up in a burnt apron. She would be leaving for The Leaning Pillar in two more days. Mathilda most likely never would know it was missing.

~

Mutiny was easy.

A few simple, carefully thought out preparations were all that was required to smooth the way to success. In order to support Markus’s mutiny, Neal needed the assurance of that success; he didn’t much care for fights he didn’t know in advance he would win. Less so now after the disaster at the standing stones. Since he also couldn’t be sure Harish would win, and Markus had made it clear that he intended to challenge Harish’s position, there wasn’t an option that didn’t involve fighting. With that in mind, Neal wanted the fight to be as one-sided as possible. The goal was to make it certain.

One by one, Neal found time to have a few quiet words with each of the other members of the band. He left out Harish, but the band leader didn’t notice; Neal had always been friendly to the underlings. Neal explained to them Markus’s new ability, and shared with each what had happened in the cave. He emphasized that a man would have to be a fool to go up against something like that. Provided no one decided to nip a possibly dangerous situation in the bud and attempt to do Markus in through some unconventional means in the middle of the night, Neal felt confident the planned mutiny would go smoothly.

Markus was the first up that morning, as usual. He made breakfast, as usual. He even added a little sugar to the porridge pot: a rare treat. When everyone else was settled with their porridge bowls in their laps, he stood.

“I am taking charge,” he said. “From here on out, you all answer to me.” He did not yell, but his voice was loud enough to stop them all cold. Harish came out of it first. He slapped his knee and guffawed.

“Ah, that’s a good one boy!” he said. “The King should have you for his jester.” He had a smile on his face, but his eyes were angry as a building storm.

Everyone else stared at their food, except Neal. He kept his eyes on Harish and Markus. This was a moment not to be missed. There was one big question left about Markus, and this should settle it.

Predictably, as Markus’s set expression made it clear that he was in fact not joking, Harish’s face turned red and he lunged at Markus, blade leaping to hand with the speed and skill that had made him the band’s leader

Markus just stood there unflinching. Neal had to admire it. Markus gave every appearance of complete and utter confidence in his power. The other men had abandoned the pretense of studying their food. Neal had given them a heads up on what Markus could now do, something that Harish didn’t have. They all wanted to see what would happen. Harish hesitated only a moment in the face of Markus’s confidence before he thrust his blade straight into Markus’s chest.

The crash was tremendous. The sword burst into pieces with a huge flash of light. Thrown back from Markus' chest, the pieces clattered among the other bandits, who scrambled out of the way.

Harish flew backwards and stumbled onto his backside, sitting stunned. His shaking fingers were still closed on the smoking hilt of his prized sword.

“I intend to run a tighter ship than Harish has.” Markus spoke without a glance at Harish. His voice sounded muffled in Neal’s ears, still ringing in the aftereffects of the sound of Markus’ power. “Pack up quickly. We leave in one hour.”

“Where are we going?” Jas righted the bowl of porridge he had dropped in the scramble.

“I will tell you that when you need to know it.” Markus said, fixing the other with his gaze until he dropped his eyes.

“Yes, sir!” Neal quickly put a grin on his face. It was time to set an example for the others. He hopped up and gave Harish a little nudge with his knee. “Come on, boys! We’ve got work to do!”

~

Over the next two days, Kiri took every spare moment to sneak into the woods. She needed to learn more about how to use the lightning in her hand. One lesson she had learned from her first experience was to be prepared for fire. Even though she couldn’t think of a single good explanation for doing so that she might be willing to share, she decided to risk awkward questions and bring along a bucket for water. At least the ponds meant she could fill it on site. Full, she could only carry it a few paces; she never would have been able to bring it so far into the woods.

Her experiments led to several useful discoveries. Kiri found she could control the intensity of the beam by how hard she clenched her fist. If she barely let her fingers brush her palm before she opened it, she created a spark that was about the size of one caused by flint striking steel. She also found that if she held her fingers stiffly outstretched the lightning would continue until she relaxed her hand. It did not change in intensity from how it started out.

It was the afternoon of her third day of trekking to the meadow. Today was her last chance to practice before she would move to The Leaning Pillar. In the time she had been here, Kiri had managed to burn another apron. The bucket lay empty on the ground beside her and a number of nearby trees bore strange horizontal burn marks. They were the victims of an exciting new discovery. Kiri found that if she changed the direction her hand was pointing while sending out the lightning, the beam would continue. In retrospect, she realized she should have tried that one out with a much weaker beam. In fact, she thought of a fun way to try that…

Kiri searched the area until she found a relatively smooth fallen bough, stripping off the bark and smaller branches as she carried it back to her small practice clearing. First, she closed her hand a careful amount and angled it just so, then opened her fingers, stiff and straight. By moving her hand slowly and carefully, she traced letters on the wood. Satisfied, she ended the beam, smiled, and tossed the branch on the ground. Time was up. There was a little bit of dirt on her fingers from the wood so she brushed off her hands on her skirt then swept up the bucket as she walked out of the clearing.

The letters on the wood were still lightly smoking. They read:

The Firebrand Was Here