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  In the Shadow of the Volcano

  Imogen Howson

  Copyright February 2011 Imogen Howson

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  A free read set in the world of Heart of the Volcano and Blood of the Volcano. It takes place four years after the events in Heart of the Volcano, and a year before the start of Blood of the Volcano.

  Contents

  In the Shadow of the Volcano

  About the Author

  Other Books in This Series

  In the Shadow of the Volcano

  It was not yet dawn when Eleria let herself out of her house and began the cold walk towards her death.

  As late as last night she'd been fighting against it, trying to make herself believe that she need not do this, that just this one time, just for her, the god would show himself merciful. And eventually she had fallen into the darkness of sleep still clinging to the thought that she'd hidden her gift this long, and she could continue to hide it. Her powers weren't dangerous, she wasn't a shifter or a fire-wielder, she wasn't a danger to anyone, what harm would it do to keep quiet, keep hidden, keep safe?

  But when she'd woken, into morning so early it was hardly morning at all, she'd woken sweating and shivering, her choices stark before her.

  She could give herself up to the priests, to the god as a willing sacrifice, let her sin—whatever sin it was that had invited this demon-borne power into her body—be burnt away, walk clean into the afterlife.

  Or she could run. Leave the walled city that was the only world she'd ever known, flee out across the desert, hoping that somehow, somewhere, she'd find sanctuary. But others had tried that. Eleria had heard the screams of the maenads as they were set loose to hunt them down. Had, later, sometimes heard other screams, when the fugitives had reached no farther than outside the city walls before the maenads caught up with them. She couldn't do it. If she must die, she could not face the thought of it being at the hands—the claws—of the maenad pack.

  She could stay and wait to be found out. And when they did find out—which they will, oh gods they will, there's no escaping the priests—there would be no mercy for her. There would be only the forced leap into the volcano. Or the cliff edge, the ropes, the weights tied to her ankles. Or, again, the maenads. And they'd never believe that Arach hadn't known. He'd be questioned—her mind shrank away from the many ways in which they'd question him—and if he couldn't satisfy them of his innocence it would be the maenads or the volcano or the cliff for him as well.

  For the first time, in nine years of marriage, she was glad they'd had no children.

  This early, the streets in their part of the city were chill, quiet and empty. Cutting down the narrow flight of steps that led towards the eastern wall, beyond which the temple—and the volcano—stood, Eleria brushed against the overhang of a star-rose bush and water showered down over her shoulder, each droplet spiky-cold even through her robe, bringing the dew-chilled scent of flowers with it.

  Arach had scattered star-rose petals over their bed once. Not for their wedding night, that awkward hour of clumsiness, embarrassment and—on both sides—suppressed fear. But later, on that other night, months later, after the awkwardness had become familiarity, then friendship, then caught fire and turned to something they hadn't known to even hope for.

  It hadn't been the first time she'd felt pleasure—that had happened surprisingly soon, belying everything her mother, Arach's mother, three aunts and a cousin had told her. And the gods knew it hadn't been the first time Arach had got pleasure from it. But it had been the first time she'd felt more than pleasure, the first time the world had shrunk to contain nothing but him and her. The first time that, afterwards, they'd stayed locked in each other's arms, shaking in an aftermath of emotion neither had expected.

  If my gift had appeared before then, if I'd known before we married, before I came to know him, that I was unclean, would this have been easier? She'd had little to live for in those days, born into the lowest caste in the city, growing up with the disgrace of being the only family to have shown, in generation after generation, none of the holy gifts. There'd been no marriage offers, and she'd been approaching twenty, nearly too old for any offers to come.

  It had changed overnight. She remembered her father pulling her from their burning house, falling onto hard-baked earth, coughing against the smoke that had nearly suffocated her. Then getting to her feet, looking across the blackened ruins to see Aera, her younger sister, half naked in the still-smoking rags of her nightshift, staring down at her hands. Hands that had been full of liquid fire, hands that showed the wakening of the highest of all the gifts: the ability to shift into not just fire but lava, substance of the volcano-god himself.

  The next day Aera had gone, fetched by one of the temple high priests, and, still bewildered, shaken by the change that had come upon them, Eleria watched as their family's status soared, as marriage offers flooded in.

  Arach's family had made the most valuable of those offers—the bride-price had included an artisan's apprenticeship for both Eleria's brothers—and Eleria had gone to him, not hoping for anything beyond an escape from perpetual maidenhood, and the children for whom she'd longed.

  Even then…oh, it wasn't that she thought it would have been easy to leave those hopes, to walk towards death by fire. But now, walking not just from her own life, but from Arach, from everything they'd built over nine years of shared passion, love, hope, disappointment and grief over those longed-for children that, after all, had never come… Ah gods, anything would be easier than this.

  Eleria jerked her robe up over mouth and nose, cutting off the faint sweet scent of the roses. Harder or not, she had to do it. Should have had the courage to do it three years ago when the gift first showed itself, instead of waiting, endangering Arach as well as herself, making their household an unholy place, opening both of them to the vengeance of the god.

  She left the steps behind her, turning into the long spiral of the street that would lead her to the next short-cut. The houses rose into shadows high above her, every slit window—built narrow to protect against the sand storms that swept regularly across the desert lands—dark and sleeping. In just her lifetime, nearly every family in the whole city had sent someone to the temple. Those who, whether by birth-blemish or gift, found themselves marked as priest, servant or sacrifice.

  Even through the cold fear enveloping her, shame breathed its sweaty breath down her neck. Everyone else performed their duty, paid their price. Was this, the cowardice that had made her shrink for three years from what she knew she must do, a sign that, despite the god's favour that had come eventually to her family, she was still nothing but trash from the city slums? Unholy gift or not, she should welcome the chance to do the god's will, to give him the gift of a willing sacrifice.

  My family gave him Aera! We gave him Aera, and she died of it. Is that not enough?

  They'd been permitted to see Aera twice a year during her five years of training, but even the first time, when they were directed into the cold, sparse antechamber where she received them, Aera had become already not a fifteen-year-old sister, but a legend, a fire-maiden in training to become the first fire-priestess in ten years. The time after that she was a stranger, a still-faced novice priestess whose hands and arms showed the scars of the lethal power she was learning to control. Someone of whom it seemed sacrilegious to speak, the way they would have done
if she'd married and moved away, or even if she'd died. They'd never found the right way to talk about her after that, so eventually they did not speak of her at all, and the next year, when the time came to pay the permitted visit, Eleria's mother was the only one to go.

  Then, four years ago, at what they knew was the end of her training, when she should have passed her final tests and become the fire-priestess, the message had come that she'd failed. At the last moment, shut in the labyrinth with the sluice-gate open and the lava thundering towards her, she hadn't been able to summon her gift that she'd trained for five years to learn. She'd died, burned to death in the lava flow, the volcano-god taking her as a sacrifice in place of the priestess he'd been promised.

  The whole city mourned, hysterical people sobbing in the streets, the Prince himself making a public speech of sorrow and comfort. Eleria had mourned too, but she'd known that she was, like the rest of the city, mourning the fire-priestess, symbol of the god on earth. Not the little sister whom she'd walked to school, whose bloody nose she'd mopped up when she ran into the corner of a wall, let creep into bed with her when she had a bad dream. That little sister had gone a long time ago.

  Gone to—taken by—the god. Is that not enough? Why must he have me too?

  The question was blasphemy, but blasphemy hardly seemed to matter any more. Her gift already made her a blasphemer. The worst kind of blasphemer, whose gift was an affront to the god himself.

  The thought came, an additional cold horror: If Aera had not died it would have been she to whom they delivered me for execution.

  Despite the rebellious boiling of her thoughts, Eleria's feet had kept moving, automatically taking her along the route to the east. Now she came to a flight of steps that opened onto one of the many courtyards within the city. Closed-up stalls stood around it, awnings pulled down and fastened tight, sheltering not only the goods but the stall-holders who slept under their stalls. Eleria went softly across the middle of the courtyard to the entrance of the street at the other side, afraid to wake anyone. It was no time for a respectable woman to be out alone. And she could not bear the shame of telling anyone what she was doing.

  So afraid was she of waking them that, when a sound behind her betrayed someone else's presence, she jumped and jerked around, hands going up to pull her robe farther over her face.

  But the man who stood behind her knew her hands as well as he would know her face, knew the way she walked, knew her eyes, her toes, the tilt of her head. The robe was no disguise.

  His name left Eleria's lips in a horrified gasp. "Arach."

  "That's right." He took two strides forward, seized her arm in a hard grasp and pulled her into the shadow of an overhanging building. His fingers bit through the sleeve of her robe into her flesh. Outside their bed, outside passion, he'd never touched her that way. And what she felt in his grip was a long way from passion. He was angry. As angry as she'd ever seen him.

  She hadn't thought of what to tell him if he found her leaving, hadn't prepared the lie that would keep him safe, keep him out of the way until it was over.

  She fumbled for it now, needing some form of words to reply to the question she knew was coming. Where are you going, Eleria? What are you doing?

  But it wasn't that question he asked at all. Instead, eyes blazing into hers, voice hard even though he spoke quietly, he said, "How dare you do this without telling me."

  She stared up at him, shaken by the anger she'd hardly ever seen aimed at her. "I— Do what?"

  His hand tightened till he was actually hurting her. "Don't lie to me." His voice cracked on the last word, suddenly loud, and alarm jumped through her.

  "Don't. Arach, don't make a noise—"

  "You're telling me to keep it a secret? Am I the one determined on getting myself killed?"

  How can he know? How can he possibly know?

  "Arach, I—"

  He pulled her farther away from the courtyard, farther into the shadows of the sleeping street, then stooped over her so his voice would not be heard more than two feet beyond where they stood. "You're going to the temple to give yourself up. To let them kill you. Gods, Eleria—" his voice cracked again, and she realised the hand that held her was shaking, "—how could you do that without telling me?"

  Nothing was making any sense, but that sound in his voice got through to her as nothing else could have. "I'm protecting you," she said. "Arach, if they thought you knew—"

  He wasn't listening. "You were going to let me find out when it was over. When they'd killed you. You were going to let me wake up not knowing where you were, not knowing what had happened till they sent word you'd been burned or drowned or—" The crack went through his voice again, broke it into pieces. After a moment he stopped trying to speak.

  She put her free hand up to his face. "Arach, please, listen. If they thought you knew, if they thought you'd concealed it, you know what they'd do to you. I couldn't warn you. I couldn't. I had to protect you."

  "You want to protect me? You want to save me pain?" He took hold of her with his other hand, pulling her around so they stood breast to breast, inches apart. "You've concealed this for three years, Eleria. Did you never think—" anger leapt through his voice, "—did you never think of just keeping it concealed?"

  But that was too much. She could no longer make sense of anything he was saying. Three years? He knew? All along, he's known?

  While she stood, bewildered beyond comprehension, even the ground under her feet unsteady, he let go of her with one hand, pulled the robe back over her face, and turned her to face the entrance to the courtyard. "I'm taking you back home."

  She pulled back. "No. I have to go. You have to let me. Arach, please, don't make me have to do this again."

  "You're not doing it again."

  "I have to. Arach, you're not listening to me."

  "You've had three years for me to listen." He spoke through his teeth, towing her back across the courtyard. She stopped struggling, still terribly aware of the sleeping stall-holders all around them. Foolishly, despite having mere hours to live, she did not want them to wake to see her being fetched home this way, an errant wife and a righteously angry husband. They'd never done this, she and Arach, never had public arguments, never raised their voices loud enough so their neighbours would hear.

  They reached the flight of steps at the far side of the courtyard, and Eleria pulled back again, grasping onto the single railing with her free hand. "Arach."

  He swung round on her. "I'll listen to you at home. We're not talking about this out here."

  Despair weakened her and she didn't manage to resist as he towed her up the steps. "Ah, gods. Arach, all you're doing is forcing me to do this again. It took me three years to get enough courage to do it this time."

  "Good." He slanted a look back at her, and for the first time she saw the anger lift, saw his faint smile glint out briefly. "If I only have to do this every three years that's not so bad."

  He was laughing at her? "How dare you?" she flashed. "How dare you laugh at me? I'm trying to protect you, I'm trying to do what I should have done years ago, and I'm so afraid, and I'm leaving you and I can't bear it and I'm so afraid—"

  They'd just reached the head of the steps. He stopped dead, and when he turned to face her there was no longer any laughter in his face. He dropped her arm, but only to put both his around her. "Dear girl, I know. That's why I won't let you do it."

  He smelled of sweat, of the warmth of their bed, of the spices she used to scent the sheets, of everything that had meant safety and love for the last nine years. Despite herself, she turned her face into the crook of his neck and shoulder, breathing him in, feeling the smooth warmth of his skin. When she tried to speak her voice broke on the first word.

  "Home," he said, his voice gentle in her ear, brushing against her hair. "We'll talk. I'll listen, I promise."

  She went with him. When they passed the star-roses, the dew-laden scent drifted around them again and Eleria's body seeme
d to contract in longing. If only she'd never discovered her demon-gift. If only she'd never committed whatever sin it was that had allowed it to take hold in her body.

  I don't even know what I did. How could you avoid the touch of the demons if you didn't even know what you'd done to grant them access?

  Arach lifted the latch of their door and pushed it open onto the faintly fire-lit downstairs room, onto the clean, warm smell of the herbs she'd hung to dry over the bed by the far window. When she'd walked in, he swung the door shut, turned the key to lock it then slid the key next to the knife in his belt-sheath.

  "You don't trust me?" Her voice was so tight it didn't sound like hers, and the warmth of the fire did not reach her body.

  He glanced at her, but his face was lost in shadow and she couldn't read his expression. "I did trust you. I trusted you to tell me if you were ever going to do something so damned stupid as this."

  "And if I had told you? You'd have let me go?"

  He gave a half laugh, but there was little mirth in it. "To your death? No, Eleria." He paused a moment. "Despite the vows you had to make on our marriage, you know I've never tried to stop you doing anything you wanted. I've never thought it right to treat you like my property. But when it comes to letting you walk to your death—how can you think I'd let you do that?"

  All the strength seemed to have left her body. She sank down onto the bench by the table where she prepared food. "Ah gods, Arach, all you're doing is condemning yourself as well. They'll find out. They always find out."

  "Do they?"

  She hardly heard the different note in his voice. She spread her hands, helpless. "You know they do. Anyone who tries to conceal it…you know what happens to them. Shifters, water-workers… You remember Coram?"

  "Your sister's friend. Yes."

  "You remember what happened to him? He and his father—they were the most devout people I ever knew. When the demon-gift came on him…I still can't imagine what he, of all people, could have done to let the demons in. And his father knew, and concealed it, they said, for so long…" She shrugged, letting her shoulders slump. Her robe slid open over the dress she wore beneath and she couldn't spare the energy to pull it back up. "But the priests found out. They took him to be executed. So, later, when this—this thing happened to me—"

  "You knew there was no point hoping for mercy."

  She shrugged again, the movement easier than opening her mouth to agree, then lifted her head to look at him. "You accuse me of not keeping it concealed for longer. I did it for three years, Arach. Because I was afraid—for myself, and of hurting you. I can't do it any longer. They'll