Chapter 294
The few dozen pilgrims still on the branch waking to a gaunt man in a ragged red-and-gold coat walking among them, arms spread, steam pouring off his scarred lips.
crouching beside a young widow clutching an empty jar, voice soft as a confessor's.
looking up at him. Then down at her empty jar. Then over at Aska on her stump. A warm amber glow lighting faintly under her shawl, over her heart.
drawn as smoke curling toward her, and sliding off the amber glow at her chest like water off a hot pan.
The Kindler moving down the branch, crouching, whispering, preaching, and at every pilgrim who ate at Roffe's table, the same thing: the amber glow, the hiss, the smoke of his words sliding away. An old man shrugs. Two sisters look at each other and laugh. Karin's widower turns his back.
sitting up on the branch where he fainted, grey, enormous, Bakasura's shadow curled round him, his stomach roaring.
(Amber light in his eyes, like a hearth catching.)
straightening up, staring at the cook. At the warm glow round every pilgrim. His own breath steaming. Shivering.
from the supply cart, white robe still floury, standing between the Kindler and the pilgrims, shaking, the amber glow in his chest.
turning to the nearest crack in the branch, where the Burn's fire glows, kneeling, and putting his mouth to it. Drinking the fire out of the branch like a man drinking from a stream. The crack going dark. The next one. The cooking fires under Roffe's three stoves pouring sideways into his mouth.
running up the branch with Krydog beside him.
standing, swollen with fire, his ribs glowing through the rags of his coat like a stove's grate, his scarred lips white-hot. And still shivering.
A town square at night, a travelling show's wagon, a young fire-eater in a bright red-and-gold coat, juggling torches for a crowd of children, swallowing flame for coins.
The same square, the same night, and the city burning: Sentinels with torches, houses going up, people running. And the young fire-eater standing in the middle of it, not running, swallowing the burning roofs, the burning market, the burning street, an amber book opening in his chest as he eats a city.
in the present, stopping dead on the branch.
looking at him, recognising him at last, a slow terrible smile.
a long beat. Not defending himself.
The Kindler on the black branch, swollen with a whole kitchen's fire and the Burn's own, his ribs a glowing grate, throwing his head back and breathing out: a river of white-gold flame wider than a road, a dragon's breath, roaring down the whole length of the branch, down the chalk tables, down the line of sleeping pilgrims, down onto both crews and the cook and the dog.
And down the branch, small against the flood of fire, Roffe getting to his feet, swaying, one huge hand raised.
His heart, drawn through the leather armour. The Gluttony script in rings round his hands like the rims of bowls blazing amber. One beat.
Every person who ate at Roffe's table (pilgrims, both crews, the thin acolyte, Aska) lying down inside one heartbeat: not falling, resting, as if every heart on the branch lay down by a fire at once. A warm amber stillness over all of them. And the dragon's breath pouring over them, through them, burning robes, scorching skin, and in that beat not one wound bleeds.
in the fire, curled asleep in the amber stillness, her sleeve burning, her arm burned, and not bleeding, not crying, breathing slow, safe, for one beat.
The flame passing. The beat ending. Everyone on the branch getting up, singed, smoking, burned, and whole: every wound already closing at the edges, no blood on the black charcoal anywhere. And in the middle of them, the one heart that didn't rest: Roffe, standing, grey, swaying.
sitting down hard on the upturned Mätt, his face gone grey, his stomach roaring like a landslide.
rising out of Smurjan's shadow and catching the cook as he falls, the great jaws cradling him like a pup.
Krydog, through the smoke, going down under a second gout of flame and getting up inside it, ba-dum, ba-DUM, healed, Rising Fist into the Kindler's glowing ribs. The gaunt man folding, fire spurting out of his mouth.
Svala on a Flight-Line through the smoke, cutting the Kindler's ragged coat off one shoulder; Rougeina Swapping a pilgrim out from under his next breath with a cooking pot; Perne, far below, Fjärran, a crimson tear: "…He's running out. Ribs going dark. Ten breaths left."
staggering back up the branch toward the pyre, the glow in his ribs dimming, shivering harder than ever, the steam off his lips thick as smoke.
sliding past the crews, past the pilgrims, past the cook in the maw's jaws, to the top of the line. To the stump. Where a woman of charcoal sat, a minute ago, to eat.
The crews holding the branch in a long line, facing down the slope at the Kindler, at the Everlasting massing below. All of them facing the wrong way.
Out of the pyre-smoke behind her, silent: white-hot chains, a dozen of them, thrown by white-robed hands, closing round her arms, her waist, her throat.
yanked off her stump backward, the chains searing into her charcoal, her smoke-hair streaming, her coal eyes wide, not screaming. Looking down the branch at the crews' backs.
the only one facing the right way, lying on her warm footprints at the foot of the empty stump. On his feet. Barking, once, enormous.
Every head on the branch turning. Too late. Up the pyre steps, through the smoke, the Everlasting dragging a woman of charcoal in white-hot chains toward the summit, toward the black hill of the Ember King's ash.
at the foot of the pyre steps, shivering, smiling up at her with his white lips.