Chapter Seventy-five: Fire and Water

They never let her leave her prison. It didn't matter how many times she performed, or how well, or how weak from the heat or the rain or the hunger she was; she was trapped, just like the animals forced to suffer in their cages, fed just enough to stay alive, but not enough to fight back.

She was a danger to herself and others, they told her, and she grew to believe every word of it. She burned her own home to the ground, had murdered her own parents. She deserved to be in her cage, paraded about like a spectacle, forced to use her powers to perform tricks for anyone who paid enough.

Dying was a wish, but they would force her to eat if she refused. Her own powers wouldn't take her life, either. She had tried, more than once, to set herself aflame, and succeeded only in incinerating the rags they dressed her in between shows. When it came time to perform, they dressed her in doll clothes, painted her face, and put her in a scratchy golden wig to cover the filthy, matted mess of dull yellow that was her own hair. A life-sized doll, able to summon fire in the shapes of dancing horses and bears, able to juggle balls of fire, who couldn't die at her own hand because fire didn't harm her.

No one knew she was a Barian, except the ones who owned her.

Every morning, they would bring her days-old food and a single small cup of water. They told her the same thing.

"Perform well for us today and maybe we'll let you touch your gem."

At first, she believed them. When they refused every night, she believed she hadn't satisfied them. She acted out on days she had performed her best and was still denied the touch of her soul. But her cage was built specially to withstand her flames—with what, she didn't know—and she only infuriated them. As punishment, they threw rocks and beat her from between the bars of her cage with sticks or rods.

After a while, she kept her mouth closed, her head down, and performed the tricks, day after day, withstanding insults and things thrown at her. Sometimes they threw spoiled food, which she would eat when she was alone to ease the hunger pains if she could keep it down. If they hurled water at her—have a drink, witch—she waited until they were gone and squeezed it out of her clothing to drink.

She was always so hot.

It was a particularly scorching summer day in southern Arclight—at least, she thought it was Arclight, judging by the river to the southeast—and sweat drenched her wool dress. Someone had put salt in her morning water, making it undrinkable, and the lack of moisture in her tiny body was wearing on her. She could barely stand from the dizziness, let alone juggle, dance, or summon flames shaped like mountain cats.

"The witch looks thirsty," one man jeered, and threw water at her. "Here's some water, witch."

When he turned away, she fell to her knees and wiped up the water on the floor of her cage with her hand, lapping it desperately from her skin. Sweat rolled from her forehead, dragging the heavy face paints in smears down her face. She couldn't wipe it away. It might get on the dress and she would be denied food in the morning for ruining the cloth.

Maybe I'll die tonight, she thought. She shouldn't be too hopeful. If she fainted, they would probably just hit her again, and she would wake up with no food or water tomorrow either way.

She wiped her hand over the floor, searching for any remaining water to soothe her parched lips, and froze when she saw two figures standing outside her cage, watching her.

Many humans and Barians alike came to these shows to jeer, but she had never seen a woman so tall as the one now bending to see into the cage. The woman next to her was probably a foot shorter, despite being of average height herself.

The scorching sunlight glinted off the silver jewelry standing out against the tall woman's obsidian skin. She peered at the witch in the cage through dark eyes, no emotion in her face.

"She looks like a porcelain doll."

The witch remained silent.

"That may be," the other woman murmured, "but I feel suppressed power from her." She reached through the bars of the cage, a small cup in her hand. The witch's eyes darted from the cup to the woman's face, where green marks stood out against her tawny skin. "Drink. You look thirsty."

It wasn't in the same voice as the countless humans who threw water in her face. It was gentle. And when the witch took it and pressed it to her lips, the water was cool and sweet, the greatest relief to her weak, burning body.

The two women continued to watch as she scooped the last drop of water from the bottom of the cup. The tall one remained emotionless, but the other had a look of curiosity, head tilted.

"I'd heard there was a witch here," she said in a casual tone, "but you're not a human at all, are you?"

The witch looked between the two women and decided they must be expecting an answer, so she shook her head.

"Barian?"

A nod.

"Where is your soul gem?"

Another shake.

The shorter woman—apparently in charge—jerked her head at the tall woman, who gave a curt nod before walking away. They stared at one another in silence, Ilya nursing the empty cup in her hands, wishing for more. There was a nearby commotion in the direction the tall woman had gone, though the witch couldn't make out words.

Finally the other spoke. "What is your name?"

The witch opened her mouth but the only sound she could make was a scratchy growl. She hadn't spoken in nearly a year. She coughed a few times and tried again, this time managing a semblance of a word.

"Ilya."

"Ilya." The woman nodded, and repeated the name a few times. It almost sounded foreign to hear her name spoken aloud for the first time in nearly a decade. "My name is Polara. The sullen one with me is Pherka… here she is."

Sudden warmth coursed through Ilya's body, so different from the exhausting heat she normally felt. It was as if she were being bathed in warm water and fed a decent meal, something she had only experienced twice since being in this traveling sideshow, only the comfort of it spread through her entire body. She was stronger than she had been in years—

Pherka held a hand through the bars of the cage, a small pink gem dangling from the silver chain, and Ilya lunged at it with years of desperation.

The moment her fingers touched it, she gasped at the raw flood of energy now coursing through her body.

"A Barian with your potential doesn't need to be wasting in this cage," Pherka said, and grabbed the lock on the door. With one fluid movement, she ripped it off. The door opened, and for the first time, Ilya had a chance at freedom.

Polara held out a hand. "Will you come with us?"

Ilya held her soul gem to her chest. "Where?" she whispered, voice raspy.

"Baria," Polara replied.

"The… capitol?"

"Yes."

Only elites lived in Baria. And these two Barian women were offering her a chance to join them there?

Ilya swallowed, suspicion building. "I won't… perform… again."

"You will not," Polara agreed. "You see, Pherka and I… are two of the Seven Emperors of the Barian Kingdom." She smiled at the look of bewilderment Ilya knew must be on her face. "Will you come back with us? We think the others would like to meet you."

The rain had finally stopped. But Ilya paid little attention to what was happening outside the palace. Enough was happening within.

She touched the lacy fabric of her high-necked dress covering where Vector had grabbed her and thrown her into the table. Vector would have killed her, had Polara not interfered. There was no bruise on her true body, but she knew her porcelain human skin would be marred in purple and green the next time she turned back. She thought about going to find a Healer and ordering them to Heal her—she was certainly within her bounds to do so—but it seemed a waste, when she wasn't planning on being human again for a while yet. And she had withstood much worse in her younger days. Next to the years of starvation, dehydration, and physical beatings in the traveling carnival, Vector was just one more monster she would find the proper revenge to exact upon.

She snapped shut the journal of Kazuma Tsukumo she had recovered from Durbe and set it on the foot table by her chair. Under any other circumstances, Alasco's treachery would have taken precedent over everything else. Given that one lord had escaped prison, another was wandering the western mountains in the middle of the night without any knowledge of the events rapidly unfolding back home, and the third was hellbent on killing every one of the others, Ilya couldn't find the energy to be concerned about Alasco's use of a lethal plant that he had used to attempt to murder General Mizael. She couldn't even be angry about the fact that this plant had once been used to try and kill her.

"How the hell did I get so paranoid?" she said out loud.

It wasn't the first time she'd wondered this question of herself, and it wasn't really a mystery why she was. In her early days as a lord, she refused to show her back to anyone. At least three lords had died rather abruptly in the twenty years preceding her—as far as she was concerned, that was two too many for Barian lords—and her years spent cowing at the feet of more powerful people shaped her determination to make them bow at hers.

She made her way across the room, minimally decorated with nondescript rugs and light colored silk tapestries, and stopped at her mirror, framed in a simple oval of silver. Staring back at her was a pair of tired blue eyes, wrinkled and flaking at the corners. She ran a finger over the stress lines on her brow. She was ageing, and at a much faster rate than she had once thought; no wonder, when she had overextended her powers for too many years and drawn too heavily on the destructive nature of Barian World. Being a lord was no easy task, either; the stress was much greater on those who ruled.

Don't worry, Ilya, a small voice said, you needn't worry about growing old.

Her eyes snapped up, to the edge of the mirror where a flash of black flitted behind her. Resisting the urge to turn around, she focused her energy into her hands, and studied the room behind her through the reflection.

There was no way anything or anyone should be in the room with her, but Ilya's rampant paranoia dictated that she take no chances. She pretended to adjust her hair as she strained her eyes for any sign of the shadow in the room with her. She wouldn't let it know that she was aware of its presence. She forced her breathing to steady.

There—she spotted it sitting in the chair she had vacated. It was her favorite chair, with a firm cushion and a straight back to help with her posture, and she was filled with rage that it dared sit where she sat.

So she incinerated it.

The shadow—or whatever it was—flitted away from the chair, but she maintained a steady barrage of attacks, driving it back, back, back, toward the balcony door, where she got a good look at it. Vaguely humanoid, but definitely a shadow; it didn't appear to be tangible.

"What the hell are—"

Her question was cut off with a scream as a second shadow flitted underneath her; she pirouetted to keep it from touching her but ended up stepping directly on the other, and her own shadow was swallowed up in it—

I have to get out of this room, she thought frantically, and the nearest way out was right in front of her.

She sent a wave of fire toward the balcony door, shattering the glass, and jumped for the balcony. Tiny edges of superheated glass nicked her skin but she barely noticed, because as she looked down into the gardens, where Vector stood smiling the same way he must have when Vector's predecessor Liam fell to his death, the blind panic was overtaken by a much stronger emotion: fury.

She knew whose shadows were tormenting her.

"I'm going to kill you," she said, and jumped from the balcony into a portal.

Fire had always bent to her will and obeyed her every command. It was no different now, wrapping its wispy tendrils around her in a protective embrace before her feet even hit solid ground fifty feet below. She strode forward, flames winding their way around her hand and up her arm, wrapping her in flaming armor. Never before had the desire to kill overwhelmed her. She had killed, many times, but always out of pragmatism and protection, self-preservation and occasionally to make an example of her victim. But this monster in front of her had threatened her comfortable way of life, her kingdom, her, and she would eliminate this threat with the full force of her power. She had wanted to kill before, but now she thirsted for it.

The self-serving smirk in his eyes never faltered as she aimed bolts and spheres of fire at him. He dodged and deflected, feet dancing with an uncanny nimbleness as he backed away and she strode forward. She had the advantage here; she barely needed to think of what she wanted the fire to do before it responded, and he had to move and react. He would get tired before long and she would incinerate him.

"You seem agitated, Illy," Vector called out as he hopped backward over a burning shrub. "Sorry, the little shadow monsters were the only way I could get you to come outside."

She responded by setting aflame a rose bush next to Vector's elbow. He didn't react until he saw it almost catch his sleeve, and even then it was only to pull his arm away. There were few remaining plants lining the path that she could burn but even so, she had him trapped in the center of the walkway. And he had backed into a broken crystal fountain, a facet of the gardens that even he seemed to have forgotten, as he glanced down with surprise in his eyes before turning his head back to Ilya.

"Burn in hell," she said, and set him ablaze.

He fell to his knees, shrieks echoing across the gardens and across the spires of crystal below. Clawed hands tore at his robes, shredding them into ashes; when he collapsed onto the ground and rolled over, his screams subsided, and Ilya released control of the flames.

She approached, cautiously. Though he was unmoving, she fully expected him to reach up and try to choke her. When she paused, far enough away that she could react should he stir, she registered two things. The first was that she smelled smoke from the burning plants around her, but the stench of burned flesh and clothing were absent. The second was that he had collapsed next to the crystal fountain, which was not operational but still had several inches of water sitting in it; it was rainwater, she realized, and surely someone who was burning would seek out anything to put out the fire. He couldn't have missed the water, just inches away. And it had been too simple to drive him into a corner where he hadn't even tried to fight back. His powers were weaker than hers, certainly, but he could have staved off her attack for a few moments, long enough to carry out his plan… whatever it had been.

But then, she thought, taking a step back from his smoking body, he never would have lured her out to the gardens without knowing exactly where he was going to lead her and how he was going to kill her.

Liam had died under mysterious circumstances, seemingly committing suicide by crashing through the door to his private balcony and flinging himself from the palace to the gardens below. No one had understood why; some palace staff swore to their dying day that they had heard him screaming at someone—or something—inside his quarters before they heard the crash. But there couldn't have been anyone else in the room, because the door was locked from the inside. And it couldn't have been foul play from Vector, who was in the gardens when Liam fell. There was no reason to suspect anything else… until she saw the shadow monsters in her room.

Then she understood, but it was too late.

She half-turned to meet the strike she knew was coming, but wasn't quick enough, and Vector's clawed hand wrapped around her neck for the second time that night as his other found the gem on her chest through her clothing.

"If you hadn't gotten so wound up," he whispered, claw wrapping around the gem, "you might have noticed sooner."

And he ripped it from her body.

For only the second time in her life, she underwent the excruciating forced transformation into her human body. Her insides writhed and reformed, replacing Barian systems with human ones; skin disintegrated to leave behind bones that were covered in the soft human flesh; her already tortured breathing stopped abruptly while her human throat emerged. Worst of all was her mouth, which slit her face in half while tiny bones tore through her newly formed gums, and her jaw, which formed last and made a horrendous crunch as its hinge appeared.

She tried to scream through it all, but Vector's grip on her throat made it difficult to breathe. She was already becoming lightheaded from the pain. But there was one thing she could do—she focused the trickle of energy still remaining in her body without her soul gem into her soft human hand and grabbed Vector's wrist.

His scream was genuine this time, not the false act he had put on with the illusory Vector no longer lying motionless at the base of the fountain. But it wasn't a scream of pain; he was furious, and he dragged Ilya by the neck with labored breaths—one step, two steps, three—

"You… killed Liam," Ilya choked out. Her feet scraped against the ground helplessly as he pulled her along. She dug her nails tighter into his rough skin. "Scared… him to… death with…" Her mouth formed the word illusions but her breath gave out. Tiny dots of light filled her vision.

"I didn't expect you to figure it out," Vector hissed, and despite Ilya's weakened flames burning his arm, he didn't relinquish his grip. "You know, Ilya, you were the only one I was worried about. Your powers are greater than any of the rest of us, and you were snooping where you weren't supposed to."

The book, Ilya realized hazily. It was him, after all.

"The traitor Durbe was supposed to die at the pyre," Vector whispered, "but no matter. You will still drown."

For the first time since she had cowered in her prison at the traveling sideshow, Ilya knew the fear of death.

He plunged her face into the hot water of the fountain, which steamed violently as the weak flames covering Vector's arm were extinguished. She struggled to push him away but he held her by the back of the neck and ground her face into the smooth crystal at the bottom of the fountain. Her lungs screamed for reprieve, for air; her legs kicked futilely against nothing as her hands reached up, out of the water, for something, anything to hold onto, something to pull herself up enough to take a breath—

—but there was nothing.

I'm dying, Ilya thought through the torture, God damn everything, I'm dying…

Her hands slacked.

…drowning…

Her legs stilled.

…drowning…

She yearned to take a breath of water, to end her pain.

Here's some water, witch. Drink up.

No matter how hard she tried, she could never burn herself.

But she could try, and she would take Vector with her.

She reached her hand out of the water and focused with the sliver of self-awareness she had left in her body to catch herself on fire.

Vector's hand jerked back as the water steamed angrily; she breached the few inches of water remaining in the fountain and gasped for air. But her flames superheated the acid rainwater, sending clouds of scalding steam all around her. The flames served only to intensify the heat, and she screamed from the pain of her skin blistering and peeling from her bones.

Her voice wasn't alone. Vector crouched in the midst of the cloud, clutching his head in his hands, and his high shrieking was genuine. Though he was inches away from her, she could barely make out his form in the thick clouds around them. In only a few seconds, the steam choked out her scream and began burning her from the inside.

As the scalding steam melted away her soft human flesh and scalded her lungs, Ilya couldn't help but marvel at the irony that the Witch of Baria, who had brought cities to their knees with her flames, would die not from drowning, but from burning.