Sisters of the Fire Read online

  SISTERS OF THE FIRE

  KIM WILKINS

  www.harlequinbooks.com.au

  CREDIT: Craig Peihopa

  About the Author

  Kim Wilkins published her first novel, a supernatural thriller, in 1997. Since then she has successfully maintained a busy writing career, as well as earning a PhD and holding down a job as a senior lecturer in writing and publishing at the University of Queensland. Under her pseudonym, Kimberley Freeman, she has published seven novels of epic women’s fiction. She is published in nineteen languages and has written for adults, young adults and children.

  For fun, she likes to hang out with her chihuahuas and ride her bicycle up mountains.

  PRAISE FOR DAUGHTERS OF THE STORM

  “There’s a richness of invention here, with the feel that Wilkins knows far more about this world than she reveals… Oh, and it also has the delightful warrior princess Bluebell. You’re going to want to meet her.”

  Black Static

  “I didn’t read this book—I devoured it—greedily. In Daughters of the Storm, Kim Wilkins, a masterful storyteller, presents us with a rich and detailed historical fantasy … a vivid and diverse world where faith, magic and individuals collide.”

  Karen Brooks, author of The Brewer’s Tale

  “Wilkins’ world-building is notable for its subtlety; she conjures an intriguing setting with political and religious complexity but avoids miring the reader in unnecessary detail. …the evocative storytelling and the occasional twist will keep the reader entertained.”

  Aurealis

  “Kim Wilkins is one of my favorite Aussie authors, and Daughters of the Storm has only increased this conviction. It’s a strong story, beautifully written and full of surprises. I love the heart in it, and the deeply human quality to all the characters. Their loves and their flaws bring this story to life. Wilkins’ world-building is seamless, evocative and engaging. Brilliant fantasy. What’s not to love?”

  Kim Falconer, author of The Blood in the Beginning

  PRAISE FOR KIM WILKINS

  “Wilkins confirms her increasing maturity in creating believable mythological worlds.”

  Canberra Times

  “Kim Wilkins has a gift for creating narratives that swivel between the world of fantasy and reality. This is a tribute to the measured purposefulness of her prose … Inhabitants of the real world will be seduced by this fantasy.”

  Sydney Morning Herald

  “Rich with the dense texture of authoritative research.”

  The Age

  “Wilkins’s human characters are endearing and her mythic monsters spring into vibrant life.”

  Publishers Weekly

  “Wilkins is one of Australia’s most assured and interesting storytellers.”

  Aurealis

  “… superb world building … intriguing, genuine, rich.”

  Kirkus Review

  “One of the most gifted and versatile writers Australia has ever produced.”

  Kate Forsyth

  “Rather than relying on standard fantasy tropes, her stories are informed by detailed research into the periods in question.”

  Publishers Weekly

  “Wilkins combines great craft with solid knowledge and understanding of the core material. [Her] skill is demonstrated in not being overt about it but letting her historical knowledge sit under the motivations and actions of the characters.”

  Thirteen O’Clock

  “There’s a richness of invention here while the characters are perfectly realised, people with feelings and internal conflicts between doing what they wish and what they know as right.”

  Black Static

  For Bek, Charlotte, Fi, Lizzie,

  Nic, and Meg: the best sisters I never had.

  Contents

  About the Author

  Praise

  Prologue

  One

  Two

  Three

  Four

  Five

  Six

  Seven

  Eight

  Nine

  Ten

  Eleven

  Twelve

  Thirteen

  Fourteen

  Fifteen

  Sixteen

  Seventeen

  Eighteen

  Nineteen

  Twenty

  Twenty-one

  Twenty-two

  Twenty-three

  Twenty-four

  Twenty-five

  Twenty-six

  Twenty-seven

  Twenty-eight

  Twenty-nine

  Thirty

  Thirty-one

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  Rowan kept many secrets. Some were big and some were small. Some she had been told to keep, and some she kept to protect herself. By the time she was seven, she had so many secrets that she decided to draw a special code to remember them all. After supper one evening, she took off into the sapling grove behind the house with her bone-handled hunting knife and a stick of charcoal from the fire. Carefully, while the day cooled off the land and the evening breeze thickened in the oaks of Howling Wood, she drew her diagram in the corner of the fence Snowy had built.

  Mustn’t tell Papa about the sword her aunt Bluebell had given her on her seventh birthday and absolutely, should she ever see her Mama again, mustn’t tell Mama that Bluebell knew where she was all along. Mama was represented with a soft round outline, indistinct as she was in Rowan’s memory; Papa was a strong square.

  Mustn’t tell Sister Julian that Snowy took her hunting every afternoon when she was supposed to be practising her sewing, and certainly never mention how her bow shot was finer and more accurate than her stitching by a hundred miles. She drew Sister Julian with her headscarf over her eyes, to indicate she wasn’t allowed to see the beloved elm bow Snowy had made Rowan, precisely the right size for her child’s hands. ‘Sapwood for the back, heartwood for the belly,’ he’d said, stroking the inside curve. ‘Let the world believe you fearless, but keep your heart soft.’

  Mustn’t tell Bluebell about the prayers to Maava she said every night, just as Papa asked her to. And of course, mustn’t tell Papa about the prayers to the Great Mother and the Horse God that she said every night, just as Snowy asked her to. A long straight rectangle for Bluebell, with her dog at her side.

  Pleased, Rowan sat back to consider her drawings. Her hands ached a little from carving, and her fingers were black with the charcoal she had rubbed into the lines.

  How to represent the last secret, the big secret? Perhaps she didn’t have to. Once, she’d overheard Snowy telling Sister Julian that Rowan had forgotten about her mother already, and it was better that way. But she had not forgotten – she curled up against her mother’s back every night. All it took was to close her eyes and send her shimmering self (that was what she called it – she didn’t know the real word, or even if there was one) out and above the world, where it found Mama and plummeted towards her like a hawk hunting. She found the warm curve of her mother’s back, and she pressed herself against her and slept dreamless every night. Woke up in her own bed every dawn. She knew Mama was sad, but Rowan had no way to tell Mama she was there or to comfort her. Anyway, Mama had another child now, though Rowan couldn’t see him, just feel him when he was there in bed with Mama. The three of them all curled together, a family that nobody could see.

  It wasn’t the only time she sent her shimmering self places, either. Some nights she flew over the Howling Wood, looking for the source of the beautiful singing she heard from time to time. But then the wood coiled in on itself like a labyrinth within a labyrinth, and she couldn’t find it. She would never stop looking, though.

  That was Rowa
n’s very own secret.

  One

  Between the hood of grey cloud and the broad plains, the sun burned low and orange, infusing the world with ambered twilight. Ash glanced at the sky and knew they would not reach home before dark. Unweder trudged ahead of her, heedless of the coming night. Upwards and upwards, past granite tors cooling in the dusk. Her legs ached. Every day for the last month, her legs had ached. Unweder led her over every inch of moorland, through yellow-blossomed gorse that caught on her cloak, and dense curling bracken that grabbed at her ankles. This time he was certain, he said. This time he knew they would find it. He had taken bird form yesterday and flown for miles, finally spotting among the tors what he was certain was a barrow. These moors were dotted with barrows. Most of them were tiny, gaping open to the elements, stone lintels fallen, containing little more than mud and animal droppings. For a month they had been in and out of them all. Fruitless. But a bird couldn’t open a barrow. And Unweder knew he couldn’t protect himself from whatever lurked within it, not without Ash.

  ‘We’re close,’ he called, his voice swept east by the wind. He stopped and turned in a slow circle, his good eye shrewd as a bird’s, assessing the landscape. ‘Definitely close,’ he said. ‘Everything looks different on the ground.’

  ‘It’s growing dark.’

  ‘I’m not afraid of the dark. Nor should you be. Especially you.’ His eye still roamed. The other was hidden under a patch permanently now. ‘That way,’ he said, nodding at a steep grassy slope.

  ‘I will follow,’ Ash said. She always had.

  ‘Good girl.’

  Within half a mile, she saw it herself. A hump in the land, with granite slabs laid out atop it. To anyone who wasn’t searching, it would disappear between the naturally occurring rock formations. A narrow alley between rocks led steeply down to the entrance. The path itself had been laid out with small square stones, overgrown by grass and weed. They found themselves in a crevice where layers of cold gathered and lingered. The lintel stood a foot above Ash’s head. A large slab leaned crookedly across the entrance, cracked directly through the middle, left to right.

  ‘We’ll have to move this,’ Unweder said, and looked at her knowingly.

  ‘Let’s try with our hands first.’

  ‘If you say.’ He shrugged one shoulder, reminding her that one of his hands was all but useless. It was a sore point between them.

  ‘Do what you can,’ she said.

  They positioned themselves on either side of the slab and heaved against it. It wouldn’t budge.

  ‘Ash?’

  ‘Once more,’ she said, not meeting his eye.

  Heave. It gave a little. Ash moved her feet out of the way. One more heave, and the top of the slab overbalanced. Unweder leapt back. The rock slammed to the ground with an enormous thud.

  ‘Now we can climb over,’ Ash said.

  ‘We’ll need light.’

  ‘I know.’ Ash hoisted herself up and over the remains of the door, her feet landing in a shallow puddle of icy water. She stood a moment, stilling her mind and her hands, with her right fist clenched. Concentrate a little, just a little. Slowly, she unfurled her palm. A small circle of soft blue-white light shone from it. Shadows ran as Ash extended her palm in front of her. There were strange carvings on the walls of the barrow, circles and lines that belonged to a time long before hers.

  Unweder dropped softly to the ground beside her. ‘Here we are,’ he said, and she could hear the suppressed excitement in his voice. Unweder wanted to find a dragon and dragons were known barrow-dwellers. He knew all seventeen locations in Thyrsland that dragons had ever been seen, and Ash had followed him to fifteen now. Unweder wanted to adopt the dragon’s body as his own, shift his shape into something mighty and sublime. Ash wanted to find a dragon too, but for different reasons; hidden reasons.

  ‘It’s deep,’ Ash said. ‘You can feel the chill air goes on.’

  Unweder took a deep breath. ‘Can you smell that?’

  Ash could only smell old stone, limey and inert.

  ‘It’s the smell of centuries. Lead the way with your little light, Ash.’

  She reached for his hand and held it firmly, her other palm still extended. The barrow tapered to a tunnel, and he had to walk behind her, tightening his fingers in hers. The dim light barely penetrated the darkness as they left the entrance behind. Ash’s shoulders brushed against the carvings, and she shuddered involuntarily, as though some ancient hand had touched her.

  Unweder spotted it first, his gasp both awed and disappointed. The tunnel opened to a large chamber whose walls curved away. She imagined they must form a large circle, but couldn’t see that far. In front of them were bones.

  Dragon bones.

  Relief was warm and liquid through her limbs. They had found one. It was already dead. Long dead.

  Unweder released her fingers and squatted on the cold floor with his hands pressed mournfully into the creature’s skull. Ash moved closer to provide light, even though her hand was beginning to ache. The dragon’s body was perhaps the length of two horses; the bones of its tail, if laid out straight, would make it twice that length in total. Its head was smaller than she had imagined. Two sharp ridges rose on either side of its skull.

  Ash’s light caught the glimmer of precious objects in small piles all around the skeleton. Coins and cups and plates.

  ‘How did he die?’ Ash asked.

  ‘She,’ Unweder answered. ‘Only the females are this small. And she died of old age.’ He ran his fingers inside the creature’s jaw. ‘Many teeth missing, the rest worn down.’

  Ash imagined the dragon, curling up here around her paltry treasure, solitary and old. A pang of sadness, familiar and marrow-deep. ‘To be alone is a terrible thing,’ she said, so softly that Unweder didn’t hear. He was poking around at the walls, looking for other chambers.

  ‘Nothing, nothing, nothing,’ he said, exasperated. ‘They sometimes mate, and when they do, it’s for life, you know. I’d hoped there might be a male around here, but it seems she was an old spinster. No evidence of anything having lived or breathed here in many years.’

  ‘I can’t hold the light much longer,’ Ash said.

  ‘You underestimate yourself.’

  ‘Can we go?’

  Unweder scooped up a handful of coins and filled his pockets.

  ‘Careful,’ she said. ‘There may be old magic.’

  ‘Too old to hurt us, like this poor old lady. Get some gold, Ash. You know we’ll need it.’

  She did as he instructed with her free hand, filling the deep pocket on the front of her apron. It clinked softly, weighing her down. The trek home would be long and tiring.

  Unweder turned to the skeleton and put his hands around the skull again. ‘I want to bring this.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘A keepsake.’

  ‘I’m not helping you carry it.’

  He tried to scoop it towards his chest with his good arm, lifted it, then dropped it again, laughing. ‘You’re right. It’s too heavy, too far. If only we hadn’t had to sell the horses.’

  The horses. Ash had bought them from a stable near their fifth location. She’d walked them home happily enough, only to find that neither of them would tolerate Unweder anywhere near them. A week later she’d returned them, and only got half her payment back. So it was on her own feet that she had travelled the length and breadth of the west country, through forests and across plains, in and out of barrows and caves, up and down hills and valleys. All to find, at their third-to-last location, one dead dragon.

  ‘I’m leaving now,’ Ash said, because Unweder seemed so reluctant to abandon the skeleton.

  ‘Very well, very well. If you must rush me.’

  She led the way again, out towards the daylight. Gratefully, she extinguished the light in her hand, and cool clarity returned to her temples. She climbed over the broken door, helped Unweder over.

  Then felt the rumbling.

  ‘Unweder?�
� she said.

  ‘Old magic,’ he gasped.

  The rumbling came from behind them, from the barrow, shaking the ground. The sound of beasts in stampede, wild whinnies and snorts.

  ‘Run,’ Unweder said, and Ash ran, up the narrow crevice and out onto the tor, where dim evening had taken hold. She glanced behind her to see ghostly horses pouring from the barrow, gravel rocketing up behind their hooves. There was no way she and Unweder could outrun them. She seized her companion’s arm and pulled him behind her as she faced them down, arms twisted back and around Unweder. The thought was half formed before the word poured out of her, a word she didn’t know, and would never remember later – something between stop and stone. It echoed sharply for miles and up to the clouds. A cold thud gathered around her, little half-glimpses of phantom hands, grey as carved stone but moving softly to connect over her and Unweder, hands that disappeared from her sight if she looked at them directly.

  The ghostly horses sensed the invisible barricade and reared up, parting around it, pouring past Ash so fast and so loud that she felt them like wind on her cheeks. Their mist-white manes streaked behind them. Speed and power. It rattled her clothes, making the coins in her apron jingle. Her blood thundered with the thrill of it.

  Moments later, they were gone. The barricade dismantled itself as the elementals dispersed back into the rock and ground. She released her arms and turned to Unweder.

  ‘Right,’ he said. ‘Let’s head home.’

  Home was a grass-roofed hut fashioned from a hollow in the ground and woven sapling trunks, with an earthen floor spread with rushes, under a huge oak tree whose roots made the hut’s foundations. Half a house and half a grotto, Ash mused. After their seventh location, they spent less and less time building their homes and making them comfortable. They usually didn’t stay for long, although the four long wintry months in a cave on the grassy southwest downs of Micelmold had passed agonisingly slowly. Which year had that been? The first? The second? They blurred into each other sometimes, the locations, the seasons. It had been four years and two months since she had last seen her family, and she was barely the same person any more.