Page 11 of A Dance With Fire
Shula waited, counting the heartbeats that followed. Just when she started to lose all hope, Fanny pushed herself to her feet and walked cautiously towards her.
“You have a lot of explaining to do, Shula Azzarh.”
Fanny’s hands were firm as she gripped Shula’s shoulders. Though she was small, she was strong. She had to be for her act, and she hoisted Shula up as if she weighed nothing, and all she gave was a tiny grunt.
Shula’s every muscle screamed in protest as Fanny pulled her in that first step. Her knees shook and she tried as hard as she could, gritting as she placed one foot after the other.
At a slow and excruciating pace, Fanny helped slip her into Shula’s tent. She was glad she decided to always keep apart from the others and even more grateful for her hindsight now.
“Do you think anyone heard or saw?” Shula asked as Fanny set her down on plush pillows. The moment her back hit the material, she hissed out her pain.
Fanny stood across from her at a protective distance. Though she’d brought her here, she was still staring warily, like Shula would lose control at any moment and attack. Her hands pressed against her hips. “I don’t think so. You know they all sleep like the dead during the day.”
A small blessing, really.
Shula sat up and winced as her back muscles pulled. “Fanny, can you hand me that mirror over there?” She needed to know what her back looked like, why it hurt.
Fanny frowned. “Aren’t you going to explain things to me?”
“I will, I promise I will, but I have to see my back.” She felt blood trickle down her wounds.
She sighed with exasperation but did as Shula obliged, hoisting up the full-length mirror and bringing it over to her.
As carefully as she could, Shula stood on wobbling knees and flicked her hair over her shoulder. Angling her body, she let her back face the mirror, and turned to look at the reflection.
Fanny gasped.
“What in god’s name happened to your back? Is that some sort of Essos curse?”
Shula couldn’t find offense at the word. Not at that moment.
Not when what she was looking at was far more surprising. It did look like someone had taken a blade to her back. It looked like they had embedded steel deep into her flesh and carved images. Two circles in a straight line starting just below her neck and down her spine with curving flames in the center.
Twin flames carved in flesh.
Davina’s vision of the future... it had come true.
The wounds were little more than bleeding, mangled flesh, but Shula could still make out the design as if it had been carved with a talented hand. She didn’t understand it. She didn’t want to understand. She wanted it off. Bile rose to the back of her throat and she forced it down.
“What’s that?” Fanny was staring at her back with open disgust marring her features.
“I don’t know.” Shula didn’t have to lie about that. She didn’t know if it was the price of suppressing her magic or something else, something more sinister.
Davina’s words came back to her, prophecies and premonitions that had been too disjointed for her to make any sense of. Even when this had happened, she couldn’t understand why.
Robes of white and red.
Chains of iron.
Demons and scars.
One thing was certain: there was still more to come. Shula didn’t want to know what.
“Are you lying to me?” Murder laced through Fanny’s words. It was the most violent Shula had ever seen her, her blue eyes flaring as she stared down her slightly large nose at Shula.
“I’m not.” And she didn’t want to talk about the markings on her back anymore. She would find Davina, and she would demand her answers. If she ever got that far. First, she had to speak to Fanny, to convince her not to turn her into the emperor’s soldiers.
As quickly as her wounds would let her, Shula turned and grabbed a spare tunic thrown carelessly on the floor. Wincing as she put it on, she let it settle over her thighs, covering the worst of her nudity. Once she settled into her pillows, she gestured to Fanny to have a seat across from her.
