Firebrand Read online

  BY ANTONY JOHN

  DIAL BOOKS

  an imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  DIAL BOOKS

  An imprint of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA

  USA/Canada/UK/Ireland/Australia/New Zealand/India/South Africa/China

  Penguin Books Ltd, Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  For more information about the Penguin Group visit penguin.com

  Text copyright © 2013 by Antony John

  Map illustration copyright © 2013 by Steve Stankiewicz

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  John, Antony.

  Firebrand : an Elemental novel / by Antony John.

  pages cm

  Sequel to: Elemental.

  Summary: In a dystopian United States, the colonists of Roanoke Island must find safety at the mysterious Fort Sumter, but as they get farther from their home, their elemental powers begin to fade.

  ISBN 978-1-101-60006-1

  [1. Fantasy. 2. United States—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.J6216Fi 2013

  [Fic]—dc23

  2012049122

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for

  author or third-party websites or their content.

  To Rose

  Contents

  TITLE PAGE

  COPYRIGHT

  DEDICATION

  CHAPTER 1

  CHAPTER 2

  CHAPTER 3

  CHAPTER 4

  CHAPTER 5

  CHAPTER 6

  CHAPTER 7

  CHAPTER 8

  CHAPTER 9

  CHAPTER 10

  CHAPTER 11

  CHAPTER 12

  CHAPTER 13

  CHAPTER 14

  CHAPTER 15

  CHAPTER 16

  CHAPTER 17

  CHAPTER 18

  CHAPTER 19

  CHAPTER 20

  CHAPTER 21

  CHAPTER 22

  CHAPTER 23

  CHAPTER 24

  CHAPTER 25

  CHAPTER 26

  CHAPTER 27

  CHAPTER 28

  CHAPTER 29

  CHAPTER 30

  CHAPTER 31

  CHAPTER 32

  CHAPTER 33

  CHAPTER 34

  CHAPTER 35

  CHAPTER 36

  CHAPTER 37

  CHAPTER 38

  CHAPTER 39

  CHAPTER 40

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CHAPTER 1

  It was hard not to feel as though the world was ending. I stared at my tattered clothes, touched my bloodied lip, and winced from the pain of opening my mouth. I’d been able to block everything out as long as we were fighting for survival. I’d even relaxed for a moment at the thought that we had won. Now I wasn’t sure what winning meant.

  Below me, the ship, still at anchor, tilted gently from side to side. Light filtered through the bank of windows that ran along one side of the cabin. After the night’s hurricane, everything seemed still. But the sense of foreboding that had consumed us for three long days was very much alive.

  We. Go, signed my deaf younger brother, Griffin. He looked as ragged as I felt, with disheveled hair and cuts across his face and arms. Beneath the grime, though, he seemed more alive than ever. They. Find. Us, he added.

  I understood him well enough. This was no ordinary cabin. It belonged to Dare, the pirate captain who’d kidnapped our families and destroyed our remote Hatteras Island colony a few days earlier. And we’d just discovered that he was our uncle. His cabin had been locked all night, but now it was mysteriously open. Until we could explain everything, Griffin was right: We couldn’t afford for our colony’s Guardians to find us here.

  But what about the logbooks arranged in chronological order above the desk, and the machinery bolted onto the shelves? There were answers in this cabin, explanations about who we were and where we came from.

  Just. Little. Time, I signed.

  Griffin’s eyes shifted to the door and back to me again, reminding me of the stakes if we got caught. But what he signed was, All. Right.

  As always, we were a team. And neither Dare and his pirates nor the Guardians’ lies about our past had done anything to break that bond. If anything, we were stronger than before.

  I ran my hands across the machines and watched them spark to life at my touch. My element, whatever it was, still felt new. Power pulsed from me instead of flowing. I picked up a thin metal cylinder and focused my energy on controlling the light that instantly shone from one end. The beam seared through the dusty air and cast a yellow circle on the ceiling. It grew dimmer as my concentration waned.

  I put it back carefully on the shelf.

  Griffin turned his attention to a large map hanging beside the desk. Meanwhile, I touched each machine in turn, watching in wonder as they responded with lights and sounds and dials swinging wildly. Dare wouldn’t have kept them all these years unless they were important, but I had no idea what they were for. It was exhilarating and frustrating. I was glimpsing something extraordinary here, but the picture made no sense.

  I moved along to the final machine: a black metal box with two protruding knobs. I placed my fingers on it and channeled energy as before, wondering whether I’d be rewarded with lights or something else.

  I leaped back as a man’s voice filled the room. Heart pounding, I looked around for whoever had spoken, but the room was empty. Silent too. I studied the machine more closely. It couldn’t have come from there. What machine could possibly trap a human voice?

  Griffin had turned to face me. He must have felt the floor move as I jumped. Now he waited for an explanation.

  He wasn’t the only one.

  With a deep breath I placed my fingers on the machine again. The voice returned instantly: “Fort Sumter, Charleston, South Carolina. This is a recorded message. All Plague refugees are advised to join the self-sufficient colony at Fort Sumter, Charleston, South Carolina. This is a recorded message. All Plague refugees are advised—”

  I pulled away. I recognized the name Carolina—I’d seen it on a map of the mainland—but I had no idea what the other words meant. I knew what Plague refugees meant, though. Unless we could recapture Roanoke Island from the pirates, that’s exactly what we were.

  I wanted to tell Griffin what I’d heard, but we didn’t have signs for the new words. I still couldn’t believe I’d made the machine work at all.

  Griffin was back to studying the map again. He swept his fingers across it, committing the details to memory in case he never saw it again. It wasn’t an ordinary map, either. Hatteras and Roanoke Islands were just ghostly outlines, whereas the areas of water that surrounded them were filled with indecipherable details. At the top was a large inland waterway marked Chesapeake Bay. Farther down was the sliver of Hatteras Island, our former home. Toward the bottom was a place called Charleston. And at the mouth of Charleston harbor, someone—presumably Dare—had added four words: Fort Sumter refugee colony.

  Griffin raised a hand. I assumed he was going to sign again, but instead he was completely still. As a panicked expression darkened his face, he pressed his other hand fla
t against the wall, closed his eyes, and felt for vibrations.

  I didn’t ask him if he’d picked up on something. I could hear the footsteps.

  Go, he signed. But he must have known it was too late for that. We’d be seen leaving, and forced to answer questions about things we barely understood.

  “Thomas!” Kyte’s voice rattled along the corridor. He was self-appointed chief of the Guardians and my greatest critic.

  Who? demanded Griffin, unable to recognize anything but the vibrations of the footsteps against the ship’s worn planks.

  Kyte, I returned.

  For a moment, I considered calling Kyte to join us. I imagined his surprise as he realized what I’d been able to accomplish with my element—the one he’d kept secret from me my entire life. But then reality kicked in. It was more likely that he’d turn against us. He’d link us to Dare, our uncle, and hold us responsible for what had happened to the colony. He’d always hated me, after all.

  I closed the cabin door noiselessly and leaned my weight against it.

  Kyte was trying each door, so I grasped the handle as he reached ours. He twisted it sharply, but I held it fast. His breathing was heavy on the other side of the wooden door.

  “Thomas?” he said quietly.

  I held my breath and waited.

  “Thomas?”

  I closed my eyes.

  A few moments later, he turned on his heel and walked away. His footsteps grew quieter. I breathed again.

  Griffin leaned against the wall as though he was tired—of running, and fighting, and hiding. And lying. I knew how he felt. Over the past few days, we’d dragged the truth from a lifetime of lies. But already the deception was starting up again.

  The difference was that this time, we were the ones with the secrets. And I didn’t feel bad about that at all.

  CHAPTER 2

  We had to leave immediately. Kyte would have suspected that something was wrong when he couldn’t find us. Other Guardians would be joining the search soon.

  Griffin’s eyes were fixed on the door handle that had mysteriously come unlocked during the night. I knew without asking that he was thinking the same thing as me—that someone had wanted us to see this cabin, with its mysterious machines and logbooks that chronicled the history of our world. Had that same person wanted us to learn the truth about Dare being our uncle? And that our Guardians, every last one of them, had always known it?

  We left together and latched the door behind us. Toward the end of the corridor, the trapdoor to the ship’s hold was closed. The stench from below still lingered, though, a reminder of the days our families had spent locked up in the belly of the ship.

  Unfortunately, there was still one prisoner on board.

  I covered my mouth with my tunic and checked on our father. He was imprisoned in a metal mesh cage in a room beneath the stairs. We wouldn’t have discovered him at all except for the trail of blood that led to a hidden door. The lock on his cage was too strong to break.

  Father hadn’t moved. Aside from the shallow rise and fall of his chest, he looked like a corpse, battered and bruised.

  Griffin touched my sleeve lightly. Until we could find a way to get Father out, it was best to let him rest.

  Up on the deck, we filled our lungs with the fresh salt breeze. The last of the heavy dark clouds had flown away to the north, and the late-summer sun was searing through the wisps that remained. In the bright light, the events of the past three days seemed like a nightmare from which we’d finally awoken. But it had been real, all right.

  Four days before, a storm had caught the Guardians by surprise. They’d sent us to the hurricane shelter on Roanoke Island. When we’d emerged the following day, we’d discovered that our colony was on fire. Pirates had kidnapped our families too. Only five of us were left: me and Griffin, my friends Alice and Rose, and Rose’s younger brother, Dennis. Finally, the pirates had come after us, which enabled us to slip aboard their abandoned ship.

  Somehow we’d survived. It should’ve been something to celebrate. But as I looked around me now, I felt nothing but panic.

  The four Guardians were sprawled across the deck like a school of dead fish washed ashore at high tide. Having been cooped up for days, they should have been stretching. But only Kyte was well enough to move. The others lay still, heads turned toward the sun. Their faces were gaunt, lips chapped.

  Rose bustled around the deck, handing out water canisters. She pointed to the stern, where we’d tethered our sailboats the night before. “I got the bags from the sailboat holds,” she said breathlessly. “The boats were ruined, so I cut them free. But the bags are fine.”

  Her clothes hung slick against her. Her long blond braid flopped against her back. Of all of us, she’d been most desperate to rescue her parents—not just for herself, but also for Dennis. Now that they were reunited, she looked tired and relieved. Watching them, I wondered how things would change from now on. Rose and I had felt closer than ever on Roanoke, but it was no secret that her parents disliked me.

  I rummaged through the bags and removed the remaining water canisters. Along with a little medicine, it was all we’d been able to bring with us from Roanoke Island. There’d been clothes and fruit and metal implements too, but we hadn’t been able to carry it all. That would have to wait until the Guardians were strong enough to return. If they got strong enough.

  Alice sidled up. She was the same age as Rose, but taller, with unkempt black hair and a perpetually suspicious expression. “It could be worse,” she muttered, looking around the deck at the motionless Guardians.

  “How?” I asked.

  “Well, we didn’t find any dead bodies,” she said with typical directness. “Your father, my parents, Rose’s parents . . . they’re all here. Ananias and Eleanor too.”

  As if he’d heard his name, my older brother staggered toward us. Ananias rubbed his legs, trying to get the muscles moving again. Apart from his soiled clothes and bruises on his arms, he looked mostly unharmed. The look on his face showed that he was as relieved to see us as we were to see him.

  “What’s wrong with everyone?” I asked him quietly.

  He looked around as if he wasn’t entirely sure. “They’re dehydrated. The pirates wouldn’t give them food or water.”

  “Them?”

  He lowered his voice to a whisper. “They kept us separate from the Guardians at first—me and Eleanor. Locked us in one of the cabins with blankets and water and food.”

  He tilted his head to the left, where Alice’s sister, Eleanor, sat alone a few yards away. Ananias and Eleanor were usually inseparable, so it was alarming to see them apart. Not as alarming as the bruises that ran along both her arms, though. They were yellow-brown, not purple or red, which meant that she’d been beaten a few days before, when everything started.

  “What happened, Ananias?” I asked gently.

  “The pirates kept asking us questions,” he said. “Stuff about a seer and a solution. Maybe they figured we’d give in quicker than the Guardians, but we didn’t know what they were talking about. So they hurt her. In the end, they threw us in the hold as well.”

  It was killing him that they’d hurt Eleanor instead of him, and that he’d been unable to stop it. He’d feel even worse once he discovered that it was Dare who had made sure he wasn’t harmed. An unwanted gift from the uncle he didn’t even know he had.

  Ananias stared at his hands. “I wanted to use my element to escape. I thought . . . maybe if I created fire, I could burn a hole through the side of the ship, and escape through it. But we were below the waterline. I’d have flooded the hold and drowned us. Either that, or suffocated everyone with smoke.” The words came out fast, as if he was protesting his innocence.

  “What exactly did they say about a solution?” I asked.

  Nearby, Kyte coughed loudly. “What does it matter? The solution is
make-believe.”

  “You’ve heard of it?” murmured Ananias, incredulous.

  “People have talked about a cure for the Plague ever since it started. Doesn’t mean there is one.”

  “Dare believed it,” I reminded him.

  “Dare was a delusional tyrant. Anyway, Rose tells me he’s dead. Drowned, she says.” Kyte pointed to Roanoke Island, only two hundred yards to the east, and choked out a single laugh. “With him gone, none of the pirates will be stupid enough to believe in this folly anymore.”

  Alice, who was inspecting the massive sails for damage, spoke up: “We can’t take that chance.” She waved her arm across the deck. “You all need time to recover. And while you do, we need to stay away from this place. They still have guns. Remember?”

  “No! If we leave this place, our elements will fade.”

  Everyone fell silent. Even Kyte must have realized the enormity of what he was saying, because his hands shook as he swigged from his canister.

  “What do you mean, fade?” I asked.

  “Don’t pretend you didn’t notice what happened to you on Roanoke. How everyone’s elements are more powerful there.” He wiped his mouth with a dirty sleeve. “You leave this place, you risk losing your element completely.”

  “What element would that be? The one you’ve kept from me my whole life?”

  Rose raised her hand. “Please! Can we all calm down?”

  “Calm down?” repeated Alice. “We’re next to an island that’s crawling with pirates. The same pirates who kidnapped our families and tried to kill us. How can we be calm?”

  “I’m just saying . . . let’s talk it through. Be reasonable.”

  “Reasonable like your father, you mean?” Alice sneered. “What do you think of that, Thomas? Your dear Rose thinks her father is reasonable.”

  I wished she hadn’t said that. She was just trying to get a rise out of Kyte, but at our expense, not hers. Sure enough, Kyte’s eyes flashed from Rose to me, simmering with anger.

  Alice flashed a triumphant smile. “You should be happy, Kyte. You’ve done everything in your power to get Thomas and Rose together.”