Read Online After the Fire (After the Fire: Book the First) by J.L. Murray - Free Book Online

arm when I wouldn't give it to him. Then he
threw me across the room.”
    “What
kind of bauble?” said Eleni.
    “I
do not know what it was,” said Alin, closing his eyes. He
opened them wide again, as if starting awake. “Full of
lightning, it was. Extraordinary.”
    “Your
promise,” said Eleni, “was to save a piece of jewelry for
me?”
    Alin
swallowed with effort, his throat muscles working. “My promise
was to keep you here as long as I could.” His chest heaved. His
eyes rolled up, then back down. He looked as if he was trying hard to
focus on her. “Safe...in the village. Something...get you.”
    “Why
did she leave?” said Eleni. “Why did she leave me here?”
    “She
left...to save...you,” said Alin. “Something...get you.
Far worse...than living...iron box.” Alin closed his eyes then
and exhaled noisily. And then he was gone.
    Eleni
knelt down and touched his face. She closed her eyes and listened to
her own breath for a moment. When she opened them again she looked at
Alin one last time. Then she set the cot on fire. “May your
journey to the Underworld be a pleasant one,” she said under
her breath. She walked out of the house and looked around.
    The
buildings she had set alight were burning to ashes. She suddenly had
no wish to continue wasting her energy on this place. Except one
more. She walked to the blacksmith's workshop. Metal sheets were
propped up against the meager shack. Tools lay strewn about, probably
by the Reivers.
Eleni looked at it for a long time. It hadn't been the blacksmith's
fault. He was only following Cosmin's orders. She remembered being
led away as a child, out of the gates that had been so recently
finished. She remembered how they shone so brightly in the sun it had
hurt her eyes. The wall was brown with rust now. She had looked back
over her shoulder to see her mother crying, being held back by
several women. They were cooing comforting things to her. No one had
cooed to Eleni. They had yanked her this way and that when she locked
her legs into the earth. The two men had hauled her through the gates
and moments later she had her first glimpse of the box that would be
her home and her prison for many, many winters. They had pushed her
in. She wanted to burn them, to make them stop, but her mother had
always told her that was so terribly wrong. When the door latched for
the first time, she had cried until she fell asleep on the mat they
had given her.
    Eleni
wiped her face angrily with the heel of her hand. She looked at the
blacksmith's hut, her eyes clouding with anger and sadness and loss.
As she turned her back on it, she sent out a burst of fire from her
hand, still dripping with her own tears. She walked away without
looking back as it erupted into flame.
    As
she walked out of the gate, she saw a figure standing in the field.
The sun was bright all around him, but he seemed to be somehow in
shadow. She knew him then, not as Fin. She remembered another name.
    “Alaunus,”
she said to him when she had walked to him. “Do they call you
that? Alaunus?” She didn't realize how weak she was until she
spoke to him. Her voice was raspy from the smoke and she felt as
though she might fall over.
    “Yes,”
he said, looking at her, his face serious.
    “How
did I know that?” said Eleni. “How do I know so many
things when I have not yet lived a true life?”
    “Because
you are extraordinary,” said Fin. “Are you all right?”
    “The
Reivers...”
Eleni looked down so Fin would not see the emotion on her face. Her
dress was blackened and burned up to her knees and elbows. And
smeared with blood and dirt. She looked back up at Fin almost
defiantly. “You were right. She was not there. She has not been
there for a very long time. She left. Alin said it was to save me.
I...” She trailed off and looked away from him. He just watched
her, his eyes studying her.
    “Eleni,
I'm sorry,” he said finally. He reached out a hand to touch
her, but she shrank from