Moving Targets and Other Tales of Valdemar

I don’t know what Cara told them. I don’t know who else she spoke to. I only know that for all of my first year at the Cloister, there were no burnings. The priests remarked on how unusual that was. They thanked Vkandis for blessing us so.

Yet I knew we weren’t only blessed by the Sunlord. We were also blessed by Cara, who had figured out indeed what she needed to do.

As the first year gave way to a second, though, I grew uneasy. Be careful, I thought, whenever I passed Cara in the halls.

But she hadn’t sworn an oath to be careful. Only I had done that.

Fire starts small. A spark, the scrape of flint on steel, a candle’s flame. Any of these can burn the world.

Any can be extinguished by a gust of wind or a human breath.

Halfway through our second year, the youngest children began whispering about a bright spirit who looked after them. When I heard that, I broke the rules myself to sneak up to Cara’s room.

She opened the door before I knocked and drew me inside. “I know what I’m doing,” she said. “I never tell them how I know what I know. I’ve broken no oaths.”

I opened my mouth and closed it again. She’d already answered all I meant to say.

Cara brushed a strand of dark hair from her face. Her unbound hair fell past the shoulders of her gray nightgown, making her look like a spirit indeed. She was beautiful, I realized, and wondered why I’d never noticed before. I reached for her, then drew away. Visiting one another’s rooms wasn’t the only thing forbidden to male and female students.

Cara drew me close instead and brushed her lips gently against my hair. “I’ve always had so little time, Tamar. So I do what I can, while I can, in Vkandis’ name.”

Her words sent ice down to my bones. I drew back a little. “The priests don’t know it’s in Vkandis’ name. If they knew, they’d say demons guided you, not the Sunlord.”

“The priests are fools,” Cara said. “Or maybe they’re just afraid. Do you know I pray every night, just like we’re supposed to? I pray to the God my courage won’t fail me in the end.”

I didn’t want her to say that. I wanted her to say that of course Vkandis wouldn’t let us burn, that he would spare us both in the end. “If Vkandis gave us these powers, if we can use them to do his will—why would he let us burn for them?”

“I don’t know. But I think I’ll get to ask Him very soon.” The quiet acceptance in her voice made me shiver.

I wasn’t ready to accept anything. “You could run away,” I said. I knew better, though. Guards watched the Cloister by day, demons by night. “If you can see things, don’t just use that to protect everyone else. Protect yourself! I’ll help you, any way I can, I swear it by—”

Cara shook her head. “No more oaths. Not now.” I started to protest, but she sighed softly and took my hands. “You don’t understand. When I see things—I never see myself.”

“Then you don’t know what’s going to happen,” I said stubbornly.

Cara shut her eyes, as if my words pained her. “It’s not myself I see at the end, Tamar. It’s you. Only you.” She opened her eyes again. “The matron will be by soon. You should go to bed.”

I rested my face against her shoulder, just for a moment. The heat that rose in me had nothing to do with my power.

Yet I was good, by then, at dousing heat. I drew away once more, even as I thought about how, if not for the priests, things would have been different between us.

Then again, if not for the priests, perhaps Cara and I never would have spoken at all.

“I’ll be as careful as I can, for as long as I can,” Cara said. “I can promise you that.” But though I begged her, she would not make it an oath.

Protect her, I prayed to Vkandis as I returned to my room. Yet I was a student still. My God did not answer me.

Fire burns, but there’s no need to say that.

Everybody knows that.

Two weeks later, Cara was betrayed by one of the students she tried to help—a girl in love with one of the novices, whom Cara had warned not to speak her feelings aloud. The girl was so angry Cara knew those feelings at all that she ran right to the priests, though Cara warned against that, too.

When the black-robed priests came for her in the dining hall, I wanted to fight them. Only the oath I’d made in Vkandis’ name long ago stopped me.

I wanted Cara to fight them, but of course she didn’t; she just let the priests lead her away.

For three days she was locked away so that she could pray and prepare her soul for the fires. During those days, the priests said, she’d be allowed neither food nor water, in order to focus her prayers.