**This feels familiar, right?** the youth prompted.
The dancing flames created achingly familiar images Cita couldn't place.
**
A three-storied brick building with windows graced by pale lintels all down the front. A similar ashen sign graced the wall above a massive bank of glass doors.
**
Cita squinted into the fire.
**The building ... you have to remember it.**
"Something's missing. There's another building. It's off to the side." Cita leaned forward, searching the flaming images. "Why isn't it there?"
**
Teenagers in white button-front shirts and navy slacks or skirts arrived in front of the building. Bookbags rested on shoulders; stacks of books ladened arms. The students gathered in clusters, chattering.
**
Cita rose to his knees, crawling closer to the flames.
"Cita?" a deep voice called.
"Shh — I need to know what they're saying." Susurrations quivered out of hearing.
**You shouldn't have said that,** the youth warned.
"What who is saying?"
Ignoring Bilal, Cita glanced at the youth before returning to the blazing images.
**
"Did you hear about …"
"Yeah, and …"
"But ... Mr. Smith …"
**
Cita threw his body away from the flames, but couldn't pull his eyes off them. A crawling sensation fingered up his back. Red washed his vision and ringing filled his ears.
"Cita!"
Like an old cellophane film, the images flared at the edges.
**
The teenagers filed into the building. A grey-haired, coverall-clad man pushed a wheelbarrow down a sidewalk.
**
Cita followed his progress.
"Come away from the fire, Cita. Please."
**No, don't. You're almost there,** the grinning youth said.
**
The wheelbarrow rounded the corner of the building.
**
Dread pooled in Cita's stomach and his mouth filled with saliva. He swallowed hard.
"No. No. No. No." He mashed his fists against his ears.
"Watch out!" a distant voice cried. An animalistic shriek echoed, drowning the remaining whispers.
The images would not let him escape.
**
Another brick building stood with shattered windows high on the single-storied carcass. The crumbling red bricks were stained black, and twisted metal joists were visible beyond the empty frames.
**
"He's loose! Everyone fall back!"
"Someone grab a bow! We'll take him from a distance!"
"Aahh!"
"Donovan's down! Come on — distract him," Nathaniel called.
Horses whinnied.
"Cita! Move!" Bilal's bellow finally pulled Cita from the fire.
Cita turned, still on his knees, to see Nocturne loose and charging the guards. His mind tried to force his body to react. Behind him, the fire blazed hotter.
"He's beautiful," Cita said.
Crimson swirls climbed up the stallion's legs to paint across his body. He had darkened from a red-brown to velvety black. His muscular frame was thinner, almost sinuous.
Nocturne snaked his head and snapped at a guard.
The guard fell back with a terrified shriek.
Behind the stallion, two guards struggled to drag another who had fallen away from the danger. The fallen guard was of no help; his leg twisted at a grotesque angle. Beyond the guards, Michael staggered to his feet, cradling his arm.
Nocturne reared and shrieked before dropping back to earth and charging at Cita. The guards remaining in his path scattered. Bilal ran to intercept the Infected stallion.
Cita struggled to his feet. He looked at the wagon where his bow was stowed away from the fire. He darted a glance back at the stallion. Then at Bilal, too far away to make a difference. Cita fumbled for his daggers.
"Fat lot of good these will do!"
Deep blue haze wrapped his vision.
**This is how you do it.**
He faced the charging stallion while grim certainty filled his bones. He sank into a crouch. The purifying fire at his back flared higher and hotter, shifting to blue.
Nocturne did not slow. He screamed in equine rage as his dark eyes reflected and echoed the dancing blue flames.
Before the front hooves could crush him, Cita dove to the right. He slashed at the leading leg, severing the tendons at the knee.
Nocturne tried to follow, but his leg couldn't respond and momentum carried him into the fire. His full weight came down on his other foreleg. It broke with a sickening snap, tumbling the stallion further into the flames. His furious screams were laced with pain as he thrashed in a futile attempt to regain his feet. The swirling patterns on his hide flared blue, matching the flames as they devoured the still-living horse.
Cita fixed on the stallion.
"What did I do? What right did I have to destroy him?"
*You destroy everything,* the icy shadow at Cita's back whispered.
Another scream harmonized with Nocturne's shrieks. Cita clamped his hands, still clutching his daggers, over his ears.
Cita stumbled as Bilal dragged him away.
The guards collected themselves and helped the injured back to the wagon. Nathaniel assisted Michael, who was still cradling his arm. Michael stared at Nocturne writhing and shrieking in the flames.
Bilal released Cita at the wagon to spin him around, patting and checking up and down.
Cita shoved the hands away, gasping for breath.
Bilal's mouth moved, forming words that drowned in the echoing shrieks.
"What?" Cita shouted.
Bilal grabbed one of the guards' bow and arrows and returned to the fire. From a careful distance, he aimed and shot. Nocturne thrashed again, weaker now. Then he fell still and silent. But the howling continued. The scent of charred flesh drifted on the wind, and black smoke streamed skyward.
Bilal returned and placed the borrowed weapon in the wagon. Nathaniel nodded in thanks, not pausing in his assessment of injuries. Michael and Donovan bore the worst wounds; Michael's sword arm was broken, and Donavan's lower leg bone poked out in a compound fracture. Nathaniel had them loaded into the wagon. They rounded up the panicked horses again.
Nathaniel delegated guards to transport the injured back to the township and return with more reinforcements. Cita drifted toward the fire, enticed like a siren-snared sailor. It danced a little lower as he approached. Before he could draw close, Bilal pulled him back again.
"Don't touch me!"
Cita jerked his arm away. Bilal held his open hands up. Wide-eyed, Cita gasped for breath. His fingers ached as they clenched his daggers. Nathaniel started toward them, but Bilal waved him off.
"No," Bilal said, shaking his head. "Stay here. We can make sure it does not spread from here." He took a step back.
Cita's bones melted and he drew a full breath. He returned his gaze to the fire. It snapped angrily and slowly faded from blue to red.
"This is so familiar," he whispered, unable to hear himself over the echoing screams.
*****
Night fell by the time the fire subsided. Fresh guards watched over the embers while Cita dozed in the back of another wagon. Bilal walked alongside the slow vehicle and watched over the exhausted group as they returned to Lord Blaah's keep.
The keep's stable yard was lit by torches when they arrived. Cita limped toward the main hall with bow and quiver in hand.
"Maybe someone can point me toward the kitchen. Or my bed." He caught a whiff of himself. "Or the baths? Do they even have baths? Oh, yeah. The innkeeper said they share baths." Cita shuddered.
A hushed, angry voice drew his attention back to the courtyard. Rashida confronted Bilal under the torches.
"'I've got it,' you said. 'Leave him be,' you said. 'I'll watch over him,' you said. And you drag him out into the countryside to confront the Infected and light an almighty bonfire. Could you be any more WITLESS?" Rashida's voice rose on the last word. The guards in the yard froze.
"You have no room to talk," Bilal answered. "But this is not the place to discuss the matter. Hush."
"Don't hush me!" Rashida began. She fell silent as Cita approached.
"And how does a blind woman know I'm here?" Cita snarled under his breath while heat burned through his limbs. The torches flared as he spoke louder. "Don't stop on my account. Please continue. Exactly why were you to leave me be? So you can sell me to a selam — whatever that is?"
Sharp golden eyes jerked to Cita's face but would not meet his gaze.
"Cita, you must be tired. Let's get you tucked in bed." Rashida tried to shoo Cita toward the doorway.
"Now I should go to bed and let the adults sort things out? After being … babysat all day," Cita spat the poisonous words. "I think not." He whirled, bow still in hand, and ran out of the courtyard and down the only familiar road. Furious thoughts blinded him and a headache pierced his skull.
Bilal's shout rang out behind him, "Jas povtorno nema da uspeam!"
'I will not fail again.'
*I told you that you couldn't trust him.* The shadowy figure kept pace at his shoulder without trouble.
'Why would they trick me? What do they have to gain?' Cita's mind spun dizzily and his breath sawed in his throat.
By the time Cita reached the field, his breath was harsh in his throat, his ankle screamed, and he could run no further. The guards edged away as Cita collapsed to the ground next to the fire ring. He dropped his bow and quiver into the crushed stubble. Unseeing, he stared at the embers and Nocturne's charred bones.
*No. Don't stop. Keep running. That's what you're good at.*
"I wish there was something — one thing — I could count on," he sobbed, gasping for air. "I'm as bad as Nocturne. He trusted Michael. Look at him now."
*You could have counted on me.* The shadow slipped closer, not quite touching Cita's shoulder. *And you can still trust me. I know what you need, and I'll take care of you.*
"No. No-no-no-no," Cita protested. The field's stubble pricked his forehead as he pressed it to the ground. "I can't go back."
**But you want to go back,** the youth accused.
"Not to him!" Cita screamed, flailing at the shadow. The guards shifted farther away, drawing their blades. One ran for the tethered mounts, riding into the night.
The shadow laughed. *You'll always be mine.*
**Fine.**
Cita looked up, and the youth wavered into existence. He faded in and out nauseatingly, like an old film that wasn't tracking. His voice was faint.
**Try this. Remember Nocturne? As he was?**
The embers flared in the darkness. The shadow drew back. *What are you doing?*
Cita latched onto the thought of the stallion. He saw him flaunting Michael's stolen glove and cantering around. The two romped merrily before Nocturne consented to return the spit-slicked leather.
**That's it.** Flames sprang back to life as if freshly kindled.
*Stop it!* The shadow's voice was commanding, yet laced with tones of panic.
**Don't listen to him. Keep going.** The youth fizzed and faded into the night.
Cita lost himself. Hoofbeats thundered in his ears, blending with his brief memories of the stallion.
"What about when Nocturne charged the Infected?" Cita wondered. "Was he already Infected? Did something tell him to clean up the others? What could even do that? Or did he see a threat to his rider and stomp it?"
A cold finger of doubt grazed his spine and Cita stifled a sob.
*Does it matter?* the shadow asked. *He's dead, burned to ashes and bones.*
"It's not fair," he whispered. "Why did they have to ..." He broke off as a warm breath hit his face. Startled, he looked up.
A black muzzle, patterned with swirling red flames, almost nudged him. A flaming stallion pawed the ground before him. He reached up to touch the beast but stopped short as his hand grew hot.
"Nocturne?" he gasped. "But how?" Cita whirled as hoofbeats approached. Several new guards rode up at a gallop, and in the lead was Bilal. His wonder died as his anger flared anew.
The flame-born Nocturne shrieked silently, rearing and slashing his hooves at the new arrivals. The guards' horses bolted. Bilal threw himself from his mount, rolling across the stubble.
"That was so cool," Cita mumbled as the one-winged man popped to his feet. "Wait, I'm mad at him. Aren't I?" Cita rubbed his aching head. The shadow had fled and the youth was gone.
Bilal strode to stand in front of the guards and gestured for them to sheathe their weapons. Cita realized with a jolt of shock that the blades had been pointed at him.
"Cita. We must talk, you and I."