We Set the Dark on Fire (We Set the Dark on Fire, #1)

by Tehlor Kay Mejia

You will find a way to make a life you love, said her mama’s voice in her heart. No matter how different it is from the one you left.

Once he left, Dani felt like she had just sold her most valuable possession for a handful of dried beans. She wanted to chase after him, force him to acknowledge the hard work she’d done to reach this moment, the life she’d never know because she’d chosen his.

“Ha! Me? Insecure?” she asked. “I’m sorry, have you seen me?” But Dani saw her shoulders stiffen under the crisscrossing straps of orange silk. “You know, I’ve heard you can be beautiful and still be a cruel, small-minded person with few qualities that endear you to others. But that may have just been a rumor.”

“Well,” said Carmen lightly, and Dani’s chest tightened further still. Whatever Princess Carmen had to say on the subject, Dani was sure she didn’t want to hear it. “I suppose they’ll keep carrying on until they’re not hungry anymore.”

She couldn’t help it; she had expected more. Wanted more, even. But this was just intimidation. Manipulation. The same kind perpetrated by all boys who thought they were stronger than girls.

But he was already shaking his head. “You can do this,” he said. “That training of yours . . . The way you slip into a lie like it’s a whole new person. You’re a hundred shades of a girl. You hold those shadows and bring them to life when you need them, and they’re flawless. Look how far you’ve risen, how many people you’ve fooled.”

“I’m talking now,” she said, and he closed his mouth. “I don’t need you to tell me how impressive I am, or how well-suited to your task. I’m well aware of my own skills. You think you can see something in me first? Give a purpose-starved girl a compliment and turn her to putty in your hands? Think again. I know I’d be good at what you’re asking. But you said it yourself: I value myself and my potential above all. So what you’ve failed to tell me, besides some run-of-the-mill attempt at blackmail, is why I’d want to risk my life for you.”

“I’m . . . trying,” he said with a self-deprecating smile. It took a moment for him to look up again, but when he did his face was more open. Honest. “Look, you’re right. And I’m sorry. It was an insult to think I could bully you or flatter you, so I’ll just tell you the truth. The reason you should help me is that people are suffering.” He spread his hands helplessly in front of him. “They’re starving. They’re sick. They’re dying just because of where they were born. And that’s what we do. We try to stop that. Sometimes we don’t succeed, but sometimes we do. And we need your help.” “Speaking to a girl like an equal,” Dani said. “Was that really so hard?”

Instead, she prayed to the god who gathered shadows to conceal her as well as he could, the goddess who lived between her heartbeats to keep them slow and steady.

What are you doing? asked a shrill voice in her head, but it was a million miles away as Carmen’s breath hitched in her throat and she reached out, brushing a wayward strand of hair out of Dani’s eye where it had fallen as she bent over the flames. Was this what the goddess of hearts did when she wasn’t tending to steady beats? Dani had never known her, the rosy-cheeked girl from her mama’s stories, but she felt her in the room tonight.

Some people said this conflict, the one they would not officially call a war, had started thousands of years ago during a falling-out between two brother-gods. But here, today, Dani could see that was just a fanciful story, perpetuated to give people an easy answer. The real answer was harder. Prejudice. Privilege. Hatred.

Maybe the Sun and Salt Gods had walked with mortals all those years ago. Maybe one had betrayed the other. But there was nothing left of that story here today. This was politics. This was humanity, and the refusal to recognize it. The realization felt like another small chip coming off the foundation Dani had always trusted to remain solid beneath her.

“We can’t,” Carmen said in her ear, pulling her back, holding her close against her chest. “Not now, do you understand? Not right now.”

wide as she wordlessly pleaded for understanding. “I know.” Carmen looked like she’d swallowed something bitter that was taking a long time to go down. “Carmen, they didn’t—” “I know.” “It was the officers. They—” “I know, Dani. I know.”

“Your parents died, and ever since, you’ve been doing your duty to them. To their memory.” He nodded and this time he didn’t try to interrupt. “My parents didn’t die,” she continued. “I don’t know if that’s fair, if it’s right or wrong, if it’s the goddess of luck or just a big damn coincidence. I don’t know. But they lived, and they raised me to believe in the idea that my safety was the first priority. That no matter what I did, no matter how far it took me from them, it would be worth it if I could have a better life than they did.” “They love you,” Sota said simply. “Yes,” said Dani, taking another deep breath. “But that love made their world shrink. It began and ended with me, and with the hope that I would be safe and prosper. I’ve been trying to honor their sacrifices, and their hopes, and their dreams for me, just like you’ve been trying to honor the memory of your parents.”

“Mateo and his cronies won’t stop until every last one of their dissenters has been silenced,” he said. “And the more threatened the privileged feel, the more drastic the measures they’ll be able to justify in the name of ‘safety.’” Whether it was his injuries, or the shadows growing longer, Sota looked suddenly weary. “I don’t know what they’re capable of anymore. This new generation doesn’t seem to play by any of the rules we’ve learned to fight against.”

But Dani knew now that to crack open what you thought you knew, to allow it to scar with truth, that was what made you truly strong.

“The past may comfort us,” she said to the fire. “But it cannot feed us.”

Dani weighed her options one more time. She could tell Carmen to go back to sleep—she was still halfway under. It would be so much easier that way. But Dani wasn’t a lone wolf anymore. She had faith. In the girl next to her. In the power they had claimed together.

“Dani, I knew who I was when I was nine years old. I knew I could talk adults into or out of anything. I knew who I wanted to be and who I wanted to love. I never, ever expected to meet someone like you. To feel the way I feel about you. Even if this wasn’t what I thought was right, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you, don’t you see?”

In that moment, Dani thought she could see right through Carmen’s amber eyes, right into the goddess who lived in her soul. She didn’t ask again why Carmen was coming with her. She didn’t need to.