Firene: Crucible

"'Rine! Over here!"

She looks around carefully. Shasta and Valeri and a few other people she vaguely remembers from the Palova are waving wildly at her from a small table at one of the crowded floating cafes clustered by the canal bank. She lifts her skirts delicately and steps onto the barge to join them, a rare smile crossing her solemn face.

"Here, try some of this."

"What is it?"

"Edge. Just try it, you'll like it."

* * * * * * *

She's never realized how colourful the city was at night. There's just the faintest whisper of a breeze up here on the observation platform, and the surrounding buildings are all lit up, each with slightly different-coloured lights, bathing her and Valeri in a hazy glow. It's been the sort of night that Firene's only experienced second-hand in vidstories - her friends surrounding her, the brilliant, witty conversation, and Valeri...

As they walk along the canal, he brushes a strand of hair away from her face and kisses her.

Her father is waiting at the door. She notices the grey streaking his black hair and the lines etched into his face on either side of his mouth, and then the sterile whiteness of his work clothes washes over her, stealing the colour from her surroundings. Dimly, she notices that Valeri's dropped her hand and beat a hasty retreat.

* * * * * * *

"Where the blaze were you?" Shasta hisses.

"Sorry," Firene mutters, dumping her dogskin cape in the back of the water taxi and struggling out of her heavy overdress. The boatman studiously prentends not to notice.

"Your da shutter you again or something?"

"More or less. I'm still shuttered from that business tennight ago with Val, but that's not what he was on a fury about this time. Teddy, bless his dim little head, decided that tonight was the time to tell Da he wanted to be a Brigadier. You can just vis how well that went."

Shasta covers her mouth with a gloved hand. "Oh Builder. How long did he crash on for?"

Firene balances a row of small pots across her knees, daubing metallic dust along her cheekbones and at the corners of her eyes before smearing purple waxstick across her lips. "About an hour. Or felt like, anyway. After that he piped about three or four though, so he was walled out by the time I left."

"Want some Escape?"

"Hah. Does the rain fall black in Dreamingspires?"

* * * * * * *

The klaxon cuts through the landscape of her dreams. The twinking lights slowly resolve into flashing emergency beacons and the flickering glow of flames. Her house is on fire.

Her house is on fire.

Firene stumbles forward in the wake of a team of Clearwater Emergency Personnel carrying a battering ram. The heat barely registers on her consciousness, although her father's lab and the library are completely ablaze. The remainder of the house seems relatively intact, albeit filling up with acrid smoke. She walks upstairs like a sleepwalker, idly noting Ester's bloody corpse in the hallway. She turns in slow motion and sees Tedwin huddled in the space between his bed and the small worktable their father built for his birthday this year. Then she sees the awkward way his head is twisted around.

She's still screaming when the fire crew hauls her downstairs.

* * * * * * *

"Miss."

She stares at the wall. The medic clears his throat awkwardly.

"Miss Omberwell."

He shifts, opens his mouth, closes it again. She stopped screaming when they administered the sedative, but this leaden silence is almost worse.

"Miss Omberwell... the fire... your father was storing several volatile chemicals in your house. Shortly after we found you, the place blew up. We were able to save these..."

He places a handful of sooty banknotes and her mother's jewelry box on the table.

"Im sorry for your trouble."