The Firebrand Legacy Read Free Page B

it did not speak of romance. It was
almost…anatomical.”
    Didda froze, but Carine was determined to
protect the door. She grabbed the long end of the table and pulled.
It grated against the floorboards. Her back ached, but she pulled
anyway, batting the quilt away as she tried to turn the table to
the door.
    Carine had always told herself that the
dragon was a greater threat than the Heartless Ones. After all, the
Heartless Ones hadn’t entered Navafort for two hundred years.
Carine had been telling herself for days that those sorcerers would
not think to check Navafort’s borders after all this time. The
Heartless Ones wouldn’t like to come this far south. They preferred
the colder climates of other kingdoms, like Fletchkey and Wyre.
They wouldn’t risk dying when Kavariel delivered the flame.
    But, like Kavariel, the Heartless Ones were
unpredictable. The Heartless Ones weren’t a strategic army, but
renegades whose motives and goals were known only to
themselves.
    “I really think I lost him,” Mom repeated,
threading herself out from behind the pile against the door. “I’m
sure he wasn’t a Heartless One. Besides, I don’t think he followed
me home. I really think I lost him.”
    Didda hugged Mom. A bead of sweat trickled
down Carine’s forehead. She pulled the table all the way to the
door as Didda said, “Don’t worry. He probably wasn’t a…he probably
wasn’t anything to worry about. Probably just a land-hungry soldier
from Padliot, come to take back the terrain he believes to be
theirs. It’s a good thing you ran.”
    Mom smiled, and Carine dodged around the
table to push it the rest of the way. She held back tears. This was
their safe house. She was supposed to be safe.
    “Oh, sweet Carine,” Mom said, pulling her
into a hug. “Don’t worry. I’m sure I was just seeing things. Let me
get some water. I think I’m just dehy—”
    A fist slammed into the front door. Carine
jumped and Mom shrieked. Didda trembled.
    All at once, every fear culminated in one
grating sound. The three stood amid the furniture, but on the other
side of the board that was the door, metal scraped wood.
    A practiced, unwavering note emitted as a
blade etched one, two, three, four slow strokes. A shadow flickered
through the razor thin cracks between the door’s vertical wooden
beams.
    They were being marked.
    No one dared to speak.
    They were holding onto each other. Carine’s
arms wrapped around both her parents’ waists as their arms fell
over her shoulders. Their hug and someone’s pounding heartbeat was
both comforting in their solidarity and frightening in their
collective helplessness.
    The etching stopped.
    Didda emitted a sigh of relief, but Carine
watched the door. She had her eye on the lock.
    The bolt was in place. She had just set it.
But now, in the silence of five slow heartbeats, the bolt moved out
of place. The door unlocked.

6 Heart for a Heart
    The door rammed open. When it met resistance
against the stump, table, and bench, an eye appeared in the gap.
The man saw the family huddled together and smiled thinly beneath
his full red beard. Carine shivered.
    The man uttered a foreign word.
    Immediately, the furniture in the doorway
lifted off the ground. Carine ducked as it zoomed through the air.
The bench and table crashed into the shoe shelves. Everything broke
and fell in pieces.
    The large man eased the door open and
entered.
    Carine held her parents tighter, wishing to
wake up from this nightmare.
    “My name was once Selius,” he said in a thick
Padliotian accent that made every second or third word sharp, like
he was angry. His boots bore the Padliot seal, and the sword at his
side was too thin to be from Navafort. His hands were empty,
meaning he had no enchanted tool with which to open the door.
    Selius seemed to be from Padliot, sure, but
no mere soldier could obliterate furniture. This man had magic. He
was a Heartless One.
    “What do you want?” Carine said, pulling
herself from