Bound by Firelight (Wickery, Band 2) - Hardcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Dana graduated from the University of Texas at Austin and is an active member of the DFW Writers' Workshop. She lives in Miami, Florida, with her husband. She is the author of Cast in Firelight and Bound by Firelight. To learn more about Dana and her books visit danaswiftbooks.com or follow @swift_dana on Twitter and Instagram.

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Chapter One 

I Meet Up with the Love of My Life and Almost Throw Him off a Roof

Adraa 

The sky crackles with color. Magic jets into the air and explodes in mist and sizzling lights. The festival is in full swing. It’s loud. It’s blinding. And it’s the best thing I’ve seen in the past two months. 

Booths and stalls have popped up overnight. Ornate silk banners in the nine colors of magic are draped and fastened to every frame, making the brocade ones dedicated to the recent fallen scarce for once. The streets flow like a river as currents of wizards and witches hunt for the best food stall or for a good spot to shoot some of their magic in the air and add to the glazed smoke screen of color. Children and the Untouched who can’t cast throw powders instead and splash their friends in the face. Although the real Festival of Color isn’t for months, this impromptu celebration radiates joy. 

It feels like forever since I’ve seen the populace let loose like this. But if I were to drop from my shadowed rooftop, their happiness would melt. And by all nine gods, that’s the last thing I want. For weeks Belwar has been repairing and rebuilding the city, and tonight we celebrate the new western flying station, the reconstructed homes, the life still thriving in this small coastal country. If there is anything my people deserve right now, it’s one night of peace, of safety. So I stay nestled in my hiding spot, my eyes on the streams of color bursting in the sky, but my attention drifts to the bloodred magic in my hands condensing into my mask and then disintegrating into smoke over and over again. I know I’m saying the words, pulling the magic from the intricate design of my Touch to create the spell that blurs my face and makes me the Red Woman, and yet I don’t quit my muttering. 

It settles the heartache. 

As do the squeals of kids’ laughter below me, sounding bright and full of life. I didn’t realize how much I was depending on the festival to showcase how my people might be able to keep going. After my magic was used to cause Mount Gandhak to erupt, killing one hundred twenty-nine people, my country has trudged through grief, repaired the city, and, most achingly, accepted the suspicion that I, Adraa Belwar, did this to them. 

I’ve been living behind my vigilante persona for weeks, and I have to stop myself from plastering the thing to my face once again, right now, and become . . . become anything but the villain the city thinks I am. But I’m trying. I’m trying to feel okay with being just Adraa Belwar for a solid minute and a half as my country celebrates its color and diversity and strength to live on after destruction. 

Luckily, no matter what they think of me, I’m still here. Every night I slip past my added security and watch for any sign the Red Woman is needed. That I am needed. 

A thud echoes behind me. Footsteps. I whip around, mask adhering to my face instinctively and the bloodred of my magic smoking in my palms as I ready a ramming spell to throw the intruder off the roof. 

“Hey. Don’t kill me. I brought you food,” a familiar voice says. 

The lights from the street below illuminate Jatin Naupure, my boyfriend. Boyfriend. It’s strange thinking of him that way, considering he was my fiancé first, then a weird mix of rival, partner, and crush, though we were hiding our identities from each other for months. And now, he’s just . . . my person. 

My defense vanishes and my magic evaporates. “Okay. I guess I’ll let you sit next to me.” 

“Don’t act like you didn’t save this spot for me, Smoke.” 

I smile at the truth of it. I even kept the shingles warm with some red magic. When Jatin sits a second later, I can tell he notices the heat, but he only smiles and hands over my bowl. Roasted silken fish sitting on a bed of rice and smothered in a spicy red curry wafts into my nose. I take the bowl greedily. 

“How’s our favorite sociopath?” Jatin asks, scooting closer to me. 

I glance down at Nightcaster, who’s buying a witch a lamb chop on a stick. It would be somewhat endearing, watching him try to impress her, if I didn’t know the true Nightcaster. A cage-casting wizard from the Underground who couldn’t open his mouth without saying something revolting. We’ve been following him for weeks hoping he will lead us back to some scrap of evidence that we can use to prove a group of criminals called the Vencrin and the ruler of the country north of us, Maharaja Moolek, are working together. Or at least that they worked together to try to utterly destroy our cities when Mount Gandhak erupted. 

“He hasn’t been punched in the face today.” 

“The night is still young.” Jatin pauses. “And he hasn’t seen us yet.” 

“True.” 

Down below, Nightcaster pulls his bicep into a curl. Even from here I can make out the tattoos that run up his upper arm, mimicking the swirled designs of the gods’ Touch. 

“Gods,” I sigh. “It’s sad just watching it.” A breeze draws the scent of roasted silken fish back to me and I dig in. “Have I told you this is my favorite?” 

Jatin takes a bite from his own bowl and smiles. “I think it was in one of your letters once.” 

I frown. “I don’t remember writing that to you.” Maybe it was when I was really young and the letters I sent to Jatin still felt like something my parents were forcing me to do. At the time I couldn’t fathom accepting an arranged marriage with the most arrogant boy I’d ever met. When love felt like an absurd question and marriage a horrifying inevitability. 

“No, I mean the parchment was stained with it.” 

I knock against his shoulder as he laughs. “Stop lying.” 

“I could show you. I kept them all.” 

I side-eye him, my gaze tracing his strong jaw and thick black hair. “You kept them all?” 

“What? You didn’t?” 

“Well, yeah, I did. But you know that post in the Belwar courtyard where we train? I pinned them there as motivation to beat you. Can’t say they were well taken care of.” 

“Even the love letters? I’m hurt, Smoke.” 

“No”--I soak the rice in the curry and take a big bite--“those I burned.” 

“I don’t believe you,” Jatin says, so casually my lie loses its footing. 

I open my mouth to joke he’s not the only one, but it rings too close to reality. For the past few weeks we’ve been patrolling the streets, responding to the signal that Jatin created and saving people. We’ve even made a competition out of it. But that’s what I’ve been doing underneath starlight. In blazing daylight it’s councils upon councils with my father and the five rajas of Belwar as they accuse me and call for a truth-spelling trial to determine my crimes. 

“Adraa?” Jatin whispers, sensing like always when I’ve started to spiral and tangle in my own thoughts. 

I shake my head as if to clear it. “Hey, thanks for responding to the signal yesterday. I couldn’t manage to get out of the meeting.” 

Jatin pauses. “They still want the hearing?” 

I can hear my heart hammer. “My parents are still trying to convince the rajas it’s not...