Chapter 5: Part 3 - A Shallow Grave

Finding Spark in the vastness of Fireheart Rise was, on the face of it, absolutely impossible. Oska had passed through the region only a handful of times and found it didn’t have much to recommend it. Sweeping brown grasslands, pools of oily water, ridges of harsh black rock ‒ Spark could hide herself there for months without ever being found. But Oska had something on his side that would help. He had Auri.

He couldn’t imagine she’d gone with Spark willingly. This wasn’t like being ‘kidnapped’ by Marissa, whom Auri trusted implicitly. The charr was unknown to Auri and there was nothing welcoming about her gaunt, black-robed form. In fact, she was downright sinister.

Which meant Auri was likely bound, or drugged, or otherwise incapacitated ‒ but she wasn’t helpless. When Oska passed through the outpost at Sati Passage, a message of sorts was already waiting for him. A charr worker straightened from the machine he’d been tinkering with, wiping his oily claws on a rag. “Are you the Valpari?” he asked gruffly.

Warily, Oska moved closer. “Who’s asking?”

The charr grunted. “A girl about your size passed through here on the back of a dolyak. Wanted me to give you a message.”

Oska’s pulse sped up in hope. “Was she hurt? What message?”

“Didn’t look hurt to me. Just not exactly… lucid.” The charr frowned. ‘Not lucid’ might mean Auri had been drugged, but Oska knew she could be odd even on her best days. “She said you had to look for the glow.”

The glow. Oska’s heart performed a somersault. That was an old game, one they’d played when they were small. Auri had left trails of glowing ice around their family home, making them smaller and smaller until Oska was the only one who could spot them. If she’d done that here, in Fireheart Rise…

“How long ago did she pass through?” he asked urgently.

The charr, already turning back to his machine, shrugged. “Half a day. Can’t go fast on a dolyak, though, no matter how much you growl at it.”

Growl? That had to be Spark. It sounded like she was in a hurry. She surely wouldn’t have been sloppy enough to let Auri speak to an outsider otherwise.

Oska raced away from the outpost, already alert for Auri’s clues. He found the first along the road to the west. The blob of ice was barely the size of his thumbnail and it was melting fast, but its glow stood out to Oska like a searchlight in the dark. He knew he’d have to move quickly ‒ and Auri would have to be careful. Spark wouldn’t take kindly to discovering she’d been outwitted.

The road began to turn north and Auri’s trail continued. Oska spotted dots of ice on rock walls and trees, on boulders and on patches of dry ground almost hidden by the rusty grass. Sometimes, the trail would vanish and all Oska could go on was instinct. By the time he was halfway across the plains, it was enough. He’d been away from Auri for so long that he’d almost forgotten what her presence felt like, but now…

She was there, a glow of a different kind against the edge of his thoughts, far more persistent than the ice. She still felt distant, somehow subdued, but it was unmistakeably her.

Oska put on a fresh burst of speed. He knew it would be sensible to conserve his strength, but he couldn’t bring himself to slow down. Auri was out there. She knew he was coming. She was waiting for him…

And so was Spark.

Oska’s speed almost ended him. He’d lost sight of the road some time ago, but there was a worn trail ahead. It descended into a grey and dusty valley, first passing through a narrow canyon between two ridges of rock. Oska was in such a hurry that he almost sprinted right into the razor-sharp wire that had been strung across the gap.

It was the glint of light against metal that made Oska skid to a stop just in time. Perhaps Spark had intended the wire to knock over anyone who ran into it; it would probably catch a charr somewhere around the waist. Oska was small even by human standards, though. Running into the wire would have easily slit open his throat.

But beneath it, still glowing faintly, was another of Auri’s ice markers.

Oska slipped under the wire and crept forwards. Had Auri placed the ice there as a warning ‒ or had Spark seen it first and laid the wire over it as a trap? It didn’t matter, Oska realised. It didn’t matter whether Spark knew he was coming, though she almost certainly knew she’d be pursued. He’d fight her the same either way.

“I’m here for you, Spark.” Oska let his voice carry. The valley below was dotted with the stumps of felled trees and looked like it had been scorched. He couldn’t imagine many less welcoming vistas. “This is your last chance to let Auri go.”

Oska heard Spark before he saw her. When he turned, she stood halfway up one of the ridges, a malevolent black shadow against a blood-red setting sun. She didn’t appear to be armed, but Oska knew looks could be deceiving. An engineer like Spark could have a dozen tricks quite literally up her sleeve.

But so did he. Oska slid a dagger into his palm and began to circle, until the sun was no longer behind Spark. She didn’t move. “Weir gave me up,” she said, her voice flat.

“Erin would say he’s worried about you.” Oska spun the dagger over the back of his hand, neatly catching it again with a flash of steel that made Spark narrow her eyes. “I don’t care why he did it. Maybe he just got fed up with your lies.”

“I’ve never lied to Weir,” Spark said stiffly, her gaze drifting away from Oska. She was looking for his back-up, he realised. After a moment, she folded her arms. “You’re alone?”

Oska shrugged. “You took my sister, which means you made this personal,” he said, trying to sound casual, trying to keep Spark off guard. He could be up on that ridge in two bounds, sliding his knife between Spark’s ribs… But she might be wearing armour beneath the black robes ‒ and he had to know where Auri was before he killed her.

Because he was going to kill her. Erin had said he had a choice to make, but Oska had already made it. The moment Spark let down her guard, she would be dead.

Spark bared her teeth. “You need to get your priorities straight, boy. Are you going to choose family, or protecting the world as part of Light’s Memory? You can’t have both. Your sister is the most dangerous thing I’ve ever had possession of. Tyria would be better off without her.”

“I could say the same about you.”

Spark’s vicious smile widened and she spread her arms wide. “You wouldn’t be the first. So what are you waiting for, boy? Your sister is nearby and she’s unharmed ‒ for now. You either win and take her from me, or I bury both of you in a shallow grave. Which is it to be?”

Oska thought his snarl was every bit as fierce as Spark’s, even without fangs. He raised his dagger high, letting it catch the light again. “I don’t know, Spark ‒ but I’m ready to find out.”