Embrace the Fire Read online

  “You'll never make it under your own power,” Lincoln muttered.

  “I can do it, Pixie,” Iolar replied sharply, as he released the tree and swayed where he stood.

  Lincoln rolled his eyes. “If you insist.” He brushed by Kinna, wrapped Iolar's arm over his neck, and supported the Elf down the hill toward Chennuh. “But now I get to tell everyone that an Elf had to have a Pixie's help to get to Lismaria. Your loss, Elf. Kinna,” he called, “come make sure your Dragon behaves.”

  Kinna stripped Ayden's horse of its reins and saddle, tossing the tack beneath the tree. She swatted the animal on the rump and watched as he galloped north along the treeline. “Best of luck, friend,” Kinna whispered. She glanced once more around the campsite before following the other two.

  * * *

  The Channel of Lise spread a vivid blue ribbon below them as Chennuh's wide wings rode the wind far above it. Lismaria lay like a great, gray blanket, peaks, folds, and valleys rippling the terrain. Across the white, pebbled shoreline, tents dotted the beaches where portions of Sebastian's armies still camped. The woods hid most of the armies, making it difficult to decide where to direct Chennuh.

  The Dragon took matters into his own talons as he banked to the north, passing invisibly over the spread-out army, and came to rest about a fieldspan north of the tents. When he lurched to a stop on the rocky beach, Lincoln vaulted from the Dragon's back, splashing into the surf, shuddering.

  No, a Dragon's not for me,

  A Dragonless Pixie I will be.

  Safe from scale and heat and flame,

  Love for them I cannot claim.

  Kinna rolled her eyes and held Iolar's arms as the Elf slowly lowered himself to the uneven ground, hissing as his wounded leg brushed Chennuh's scales. He hobbled to a boulder that rested beneath the treeline and relaxed against it.

  Kinna leaped lightly to the ground. “All right, if we head south a fieldspan, we can find help for Iolar, and then move inland while we search for Cedric. I want to use your Pixie magic, Linc, to try to get some information on where he's gone.”

  “At your service, as always, m'lady. What do we do with him?” Lincoln nodded at Chennuh. “Can't very well take him with us into the camp.”

  “I don't see why not. Sebastian has all sorts of creatures he brought along.”

  “But a Mirage? Kinna, do you remember the lengths he's gone to to try to capture a Mirage? The prize of prizes, in his mind, at least.”

  “Then we'll make him invisible.”

  “That's still a large Dragon to keep from knocking against anyone.”

  “It'll be fine.” Kinna raised her hand, and Chennuh lowered his head accommodatingly. She brushed her fingers across his sensitive snout before twisting the fin at the top of his neck. He vanished, but his warm breath huffed across her face, and Kinna turned to the woods. “Let's go. Chennuh, we'll stay in the treeline; it's less open. You meet us there. The first tent you reach, stop and wait for us.”

  Fire rolled from thin air, warming Kinna's face. “And don't do that, not around anyone else.” She turned for the woods. “Linc, help Iolar, please.”

  Lincoln scowled but did as she asked, hefting the Elf into the woods.

  Kinna stepped lightly, searching for signs of movement in the trees. The only life she found was a squirrel who scolded them from a treetop and a fox who dashed away at the first sight of them, his white bottle-brush tail waving behind him.

  She stalked carefully, Lincoln and Iolar behind her. The Elf's grunts of pain sounded loud in the mulch-quiet shade. If there were such a thing as a Healing-Touch, she wished she had it.

  “Kinna, stop!” Lincoln's voice hissed behind her.

  Kinna turned to glance at the Pixie. His orange, spiked hair glowed brilliantly in the green depths of the woods, and his eyes lit with ... fear?

  Something crunched underfoot two spans to Kinna's left, and then a loud howl sounded from her right.

  Bodies of beast and man plowed pell-mell through the trees, and Kinna, Lincoln, and Iolar were caught in the middle of an onslaught between two colliding forces. Sebastian's crest decorated the cloaks of the soldiers on one side, Erlane's blue with a pattern of white stars on the other.

  Swords met shields, and roars of Ogres and Dragons shook the ground. The keening wail of a Pixie's song wrapped the woods in enchantment, but a Direwolf's howl drowned it out and the enchantment faded.

  Kinna grabbed the knife she carried in her boot with a silk-smooth motion, grateful for the hours of practice she'd put into knife-throwing in the Rues the previous winter. Still, she did wish for Ayden and his sword.

  Lincoln had stumbled out of the way with Iolar, struggling to deposit the wounded Elf beyond the perimeter of the fight, but his panicked face rounded to her.

  “Go,” she yelled. “Get him to safety.” She knew he wouldn't; his responsibility was her safety, and she knew he took that responsibility seriously.

  He hesitated.

  She ducked a spear that swept past her head and lodged into the tree behind her. “Go, Linc! Get him safe! That's an order.”

  To her utter surprise, he actually obeyed, turning and half-lifting, half-dragging the Elf into the woods beyond the tumult.

  A Phoenixdimn directed his creature directly over her head to crash into a wall of Dryads, and the entire row of them burst into flame. The poor bird twirled in a fall of ashes, slamming against a tree. Kinna could no longer see the rocky shoreline, and she had no awareness of Chennuh's presence. A heavy weight slammed into her, sending her airborne.

  She slid into a tree trunk, a frisson of pain lancing her side and her spine. Her vision hazed and light exploded behind her eyelids. When they cleared, a Valkyrie advanced on her, one of Nicholas Erlane's; her cloak was a brilliant navy with the triad of stars sprinkled across one shoulder. Her helmet sat low on a fierce forehead, and her wings curled over her back.

  The Valkyrie's spear rose. Kinna rolled toward the creature's feet, the spear missing her shoulder by less than half an orlach. The Valkyrie yanked her spear free and raised it to slam it downward again, but Kinna's dagger sliced deep into the seam between the creature's mail and her armpit, burying itself into the Valkyrie's chest. The Valkyrie shrieked as she sank to the ground.

  Kinna pulled to her feet again, and backed away, horrified. She'd saved her own life, but at the expense of another creature's. She turned and ran into the Valkryiedimn who had directed his creature. The Dimn's panicked gray eyes stared into Kinna's. “What have you done?” he whispered.

  Pain vibrated through Kinna, and the world fell silent. The noise of the battle deadened beneath the waves of agony that radiated from her stomach. In a slow motion, she looked down, touching the hilt of the dagger the Dimn had lodged beneath her ribs.

  A wisp of air escaped her lips, and the ground spun in a circle, fast and faster, until Kinna fell, dead silence her only dirge.

  The creatures moved around her, each their own mediator in a bargain for life, and the Dimn and soldiers stirred the mulch and foliage of the forest floor, but she heard none of it.

  The peaceful rays of the morning sun filtered through the leaves far overhead, and the cries of a Pixie's song accompanied her toward the light.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Ayden

  Luasa's thoughts had been conflicted all the way over the Channel of Lise and beyond. Psuche loyalty choked out thoughts of Chennuh; any time she began to pine for her mate, she put on an extra burst of speed, determined to placate Ayden's wishes.

  Ayden had begun feeling selfish before Luasa's wingtips had even cleared the shores of the Forgotten Plains.

  “Don't worry, Luasa,” he breathed. “You can go back to him as soon as you set me down on Lismarian soil.”

  She snorted her derision for his idea. He smoothed his hand over her hot scales, the burnished mirror blackening as they always had before he had broken his Ash-Touch.

  I wonder... he thought. Before, when Chennuh's tattered wing had nea
rly grounded the Dragon for good, Ayden had touched the wing, day by day treating it with his Ash-Touch, and gradually, the tattered wing had healed. Is it possible my Fire-Touch would do the same thing? With the Ash-Touch, Ayden had never been able to touch any other living beings; only Dragons would survive his contact. Perhaps with the Fire-Touch, he could continue to help the beasts.

  A life with Dragons was all he knew.

  You could know something else. His thoughts scattered across a flame-haired girl who still slept beside cold embers far behind him.

  Luasa crossed the shores of Lismaria. Far below, Ayden could see Sebastian's army tents spread near the shore, clustering thickly along the foot of the Marron Mountains. He banked Luasa, straining to find the command center, where Sebastian would be huddled with his men.

  He could rain fire on the King; between Luasa's quick flames and his own Fire-Touch, they could take out any number of soldiers and target the King.

  Closer, Luasa. The Dragon dipped, her wings passing perilously close to some tall firs.

  That's when Ayden felt it. Lightning burst in his head and pulled him to the right.

  He couldn't have explained for worlds what he felt, but he knew Sebastian was on the other end of that pull. The force—he hadn't felt it since that moment beneath Sebastian's palace in The Crossings when he'd handed the Amulet to the King and felt the power shatter in all directions.

  With a trembling hand, Ayden pointed. Luasa banked once again, her mirrored belly brushing over treetops until she settled in a small clearing north of a craggy silhouette of rocky outcroppings and branchless firs.

  Ayden slid off of Luasa's back, rubbing his hand across the smooth, warm scales of her neck and up to her snout, where he scratched around her nostrils. She shuddered a groan of appreciation, and the pupils in the middle of her smoky irises narrowed.

  Ayden took a deep breath and carefully drew his sword. Luasa stilled instantly, raising her head and inhaling a great draught of air. Her wings beat, fanning a warning downdraft.

  Ayden crouched in the mulch. Sebastian's here, nearby. He knew; he'd felt him. He didn't know what had triggered the feeling, but it had been there in the air. Though he couldn't find the same connection now, he would have bet his own life on the fact that Sebastian was somewhere nearby.

  Luasa was one moment in front of him, and the next, several spans away, her head turning swiftly up, over, down to the ground.

  There. In the clearing ahead, Ayden reacted to Luasa's sense of another person, a living body that leaned against a tree. Another rumbling shudder of Luasa's throat brought the person to their feet.

  “Who's there?”

  Ayden tensed. That same voice had first cast him into a life of isolation and dread, and he'd lived for years, terrified to touch another living creature. He'd had to suffer through another meeting with the man months ago when he'd handed over the Amulet.

  “Show yourself!”

  Ayden's jaw cramped. He descended toward the clearing.

  “Show yourself!” The King's demand fueled Ayden's fire, and he stomped purposefully on a branch, alerting the man to his presence.

  “Sebastian.” Loathing dripped from the word. Ayden stepped into the clearing. “It seems we meet again.”

  A heavy pause stretched. Sebastian broke the silence. “I thought it must be you. What I felt, I haven't felt—”

  “Since the Amulet.”

  “Aye.” Awe and something akin to panic crossed Sebastian's face, and Ayden gripped his sword tighter.

  “So, are you come to gloat?”

  “Over what?” Ayden asked.

  “The wretched curse you placed on me with the Amulet—the ice that freezes my veins and anything else I touch.”

  Ayden didn't reply at first. Sebastian's confirmation of the Amulet's Touches relieved him in a way. He steadied his sword. “You have the Ice-Touch?”

  “Aye, my skin freezes with cold.” Sebastian's tone gave away nothing.

  “And I the Fire-Touch. Opposing extremes as the papyrus said.”

  Sebastian's eyes narrowed in the moonlight. He paced, and Ayden countered, every nerve tingling with awareness of his surroundings. Luasa crouched behind him, just out of sight, wishing to end this man once and for all, and she would have done it but for Ayden's strong No. He's mine.

  Sebastian abruptly lowered his sword, the point resting on the ground. “Perspective is a key ingredient in a pitched battle, don't you think?”

  His calm tone sent Ayden even closer to the raw edge that he struggled not to fall over.

  “On one hand, the adrenaline and furor that stirs in the heart of a soldier on a battlefield is hard to match. Glory and honor for country and home! What could be better?” His rough laugh cut the air. “On the other hand, the Commander watches from his position over the army, seeing the overall picture. He has everything to lose if the battle turns awry, and so his eye is keen and his judgment keener.”

  “Where are you going with this?” Ayden asked, suspicion weaving the timbres of his voice.

  Sebastian held his sword at arm's length, loosening his grip on the hilt until it swung from his fingers, point in the earth. His other hand loosened a dagger. “What say we finish this as surely we were meant to start? Taibe challenging itself. Fire and ice meeting in a grand burst of magic? Hmm?”

  His fingers released the sword and the dagger, both weapons dropping onto the mulch at his feet. “Come, you misbegotten cur. Show me your strength.”

  Behind Ayden, Luasa snorted in rage. Ayden felt the beast's temper course through him, but sense of honor did not allow him to kill a weaponless man, though he'd dreamed of this moment for months.

  His fist cramped. “All right.” He kept his voice measured and even, and leaned his sword against a nearby tree.

  The weapon had hardly left his touch when Sebastian dove, driving him to the ground with a hard thud. Fire shot outward from Ayden's fingertips, igniting the forest floor in a flash of flickering light.

  Ice ringed his neck where Sebastian's hands had found a grip, and Ayden clamped his own hands around the king's. Sebastian grunted as the fire licked across his wrists, and he let go.

  Ayden flipped Sebastian onto his back, and his hand flamed to life, hotter than he'd felt yet. He slammed it down into his enemy's face, but Sebastian blocked the thrust.

  A sphere of ice erupted where their skin met, rising into the air as it expanded. Flickering flame licked the insides of its transparent depths. The sphere grew, floating higher above the two struggling men, changing and morphing.

  Both men stared at it, gripped in a deadlock, neither able to move.

  “What is that?” Ayden grunted.

  “That,” Sebastian gasped, shaking with strain, “is the combination of fire and ice.”

  “And where,” Ayden managed, his hands trembling against Sebastian's wrists, “is the Amulet that is the source of all this?”

  Sebastian writhed to the side, and Ayden rolled with him. The ball of ice and fire remained above them, glowing with an energy and heat that felt nothing like natural fire.

  “You wanted hand-to-hand combat,” Ayden gasped as he flipped Sebastian on top of him, the King facing the sky as Ayden wrapped his arm around Sebastian's neck in a headlock. “I think the odds are slightly in my favor.”

  “How so?” Sebastian gurgled. His feet thrashed the ground.

  Ayden tightened his chokehold. “After you cursed me as a child, practicing your fledgling taibe on an innocent boy,” he spat, grappling for control, “I spent years in the back alleys and fighting arenas of West Ashwynd seeking a fortune through fighting. What have you done?” Ayden's boot pinned the king's flailing legs to the ground. “Nothing but sit on your throne and make yourself as hated as possible.” He hissed into Sebastian's ear, and the King flailed.

  Sebastian's boot kicked into the morphing sphere that had grown massive. A blinding flash of white-hot ice and fire shot outward in an explosion that echoed throughout the woods.
The force of it tossed Ayden like a rag-doll into the trees, blinding him for several minutes, slicing through his ears with a high, keening ring that echoed pain everywhere inside his head.

  When his sight returned, the clearing was empty. Sebastian had vanished. Even Luasa had lost her scent of the King.

  Ayden dashed madly into the woods, first one way and then back across the clearing the other way, but he could find no trace of his enemy.

  He collapsed on his knees in the center of the clearing, searching the heavens for the last remaining Stars before the sun took the sky. All the fury that flamed inside of him boiled through his chest and out his mouth in one heartfelt strangled shout. “Why?”

  * * *

  Ayden traced the mountain ranges that rose high above him with a calmer gaze now that the sun had risen. He had no intention of returning to Sebastian's armies, but emptiness consumed him. He'd sought out Sebastian, determined to gain answers, satisfaction, something, for the fire that replaced the ash. But morning had dawned, Sebastian was gone, and he was no nearer a solution than he'd been at the close of the previous day.

  He wished he could revisit Helga, the taibas who had originally given him the Amulet, but when he'd visited her cabin two months after the Tournament, there had been no sign of her.

  “I don't know what to do, Luasa,” Ayden whispered. The Dragon's grunt resounded through her neck, and her warm breath huffed over Ayden's head. “I know,” he scratched the Dragon's snout as he responded to her thoughts. “Chennuh would appreciate us coming back.” Ayden sighed deeply. “I'm not sure Kinna would, though. I left her without an explanation.”

  Luasa snorted again, and this time, flames kindled the neckline of Ayden's tunic. “Watch out,” he snapped, smothering them. “I just got a new tunic to replace my other one. I don't want to burn it off again.”

  If Dragons could smile, Luasa's scaly face would have shown it. She nipped at his shoulder, and Ayden rocketed to his feet. “Fine. We'll go find the others—for now. But I'm going to get answers about the Amulet, sooner rather than later, Luasa.” He stared seriously at her as she rolled on her back, joy rolling off of her in waves. He couldn't quite hold the stern expression, and a smile broke through.