From Flame and Ash

by Carrie Ann Ryan

  “Still a monster,” Easton drawled.

  “Am I?” He lifted his hand, a bone in his palm. The chains around Easton tightened.

  I heard Easton’s inhalation of breath, but he didn’t make another sound, just stared as the chains dug into his skin, bruising, pulling so tight that I was afraid they would cut into him. But I didn’t make a sound either, because if I did, it would likely make things worse for everybody.

  But all the while, I tried to work my way out of my chains. I was the Spirit Priestess.

  I needed to find my way out of this.

  Because if I didn’t, what was the damn point of any of what we’d gone through?

  “As I was saying, I needed to make alliances.” He pointed towards one of the Creed members. “The Creed has always been in its own little world, don’t you think?”

  The man who had to be the Creed of Wings leader gave Durin a look and then nodded. “We do not work for the Lord of Air. We are…allies. But an alliance with the Lord of Water and his plans seemed just.”

  “You see? They didn’t want my father-in-law. They wanted me. All the connections to my wife? Useless.”

  Rhodes made a pained noise, and I wanted to reach out and help. But instead, I just kept working on my chains.

  “The League works for my brother. They are spies and very good at what they do. But, sometimes, they work for me.”

  Two of the League members gave each other looks behind Durin’s back, and I wondered what that was about.

  Maybe the League had been there that day along the waterfalls to push me away and kill me as well as the rest of my friends on behalf of the king.

  I would have to remember this for later, but first, I needed to make it out of this alive.

  “So, I’ve made my plans, but I had to gain power. Because my brother has the crystal. The crystal of the Lumière, which some say is fading, but it’s only because of my brother. If I were the king, born just two minutes earlier, then it wouldn’t be a problem. I would have found a way to save my kingdom and get rid of the low-born Obscurité. But there was nothing I could do. At least, until now. Because he may have the crystal, but I have the bones.” He held his hands out, and the seabed beneath us shook, but it wasn’t just the ocean floor, it was the bones of the souls he had trapped and killed.

  “Did the boys tell you exactly how you make bone magic?” Durin shrugged and walked towards me, looking down at me with eyes so like Rhodes’ but without their luster.

  “You see, each Wielder has magic within them. I have been taking some of the Wielding from Air and Water Wielders who don’t understand their role in my territory. Because while I can’t siphon their Wielding like the knight of the Obscurité did through their kingdom’s crystal, I can create my own type of siphon with these bones. So, I took the sea, for I am that powerful. I could use the entire sea with my Wielding of Water and crush my Wielders. With just a precise number of artifacts. Artifacts I have been searching for longer than the Fall itself, I can create the bone magic.”

  He smiled then, and my whole body chilled.

  “People thought that bone magic had been eradicated, that it was a mere whisper or myth. But I am the one who brought it back. I am the one with the power. Whenever someone goes against me, I emerge victorious. My enemies will quake in front of me because I’m the one who can take care of those who aren’t my allies. So, Air and Water Wielders that come too close, who don’t understand their purpose, those are the ones I’ve used. Other Obscurité who dare to enter my territory? They learned a lesson and paid the price. Only they couldn’t tell others because they never made it out.”

  I looked over at Easton then. He just glared as if he were planning to rip the flesh from the Lord of Water’s bones.

  Not that I actually blamed him just then. The atrocities that this man had committed were horrendous.

  And if we didn’t get out of here, no one would know. And he would find a way to get rid of all evidence of his lies and horrors.

  “So, I used these bones to protect my territory so I can one day take over Brokk’s rule and become the high king.”

  That wouldn’t be the high king. The high king ruled over both kingdoms like before the Fall, that much I remembered. So, Durin was going to take out Easton now, and then take out Brokk so he could rule both kingdoms somehow.

  I needed to find a way to stop that. Durin looked at me and smiled. But it didn’t reach his eyes. I didn’t think anything could.

  “But, Lyric, in order for me to have all the power, I know there’s one piece I’m missing.” I stiffened, my whole body frozen.

  “And while I would’ve preferred you to have all five elements, four will have to do. I had heard that it takes great distress for you to unlock an element. So, sending the Kraken like I did should have worked. But, somehow, you escaped. As did the others. We sent the Creed to you, and yet you survived that, too. And none of that brought out your new elements. But there is no more time. I need what you have, so I will use you, Spirit Priestess. You will be what brings me the power to take over the lands and be who I was born to be.”

  Rhodes and Easton pushed against their bonds then, and so did I, all of us trying not to feel as if our efforts were futile.

  “The Spirit Priestess is among us, long live the Spirit Priestess.”

  And then the water came.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  At first, it was just a drip, as if the top of the dome were leaking. But then it was more. The Lord of Water moved back, his Creed and League surrounding him as they disappeared into the shadows.

  I assumed they made their way to the surface using their combined Water and Air Wielding, their ticket to safety. But as they did, they didn’t close or seal the bubble. The water came in a wave then, crashing into the side of the dome as if it were a snow globe and the water was just being poured in. The water smashed into one side and then curled into a wave before folding in on itself to hit the seabed. The action splintered the bones, moving them in all directions. A few came at me, slicing my skin, scraping my face, my hands, my arm, my leg. Any part of me that wasn’t held down by chains or completely covered.

  “Try to get out!” Easton yelled.

  “Just try,” Rhodes whispered.

  “I can’t!” I screamed.

  I looked at Rhodes as we each tried our best to overcome the bonds. “I’m so sorry,” he shouted. “So sorry.”

  I swallowed hard and rocked, trying to break free.

  “Just hold your breath, Lyric,” Easton called out. “I’ll come for you. No matter what, I’ll find you.”

  I wanted to believe that. Wanted to trust that the three of us would find each other. That we would win. Would live.

  But it was hard when the world seemed to burn around us. Burn…and drown.

  The bubble quickly filled with water, and we were the pieces inside our makeshift snow globe of death.

  The pressure was too much, and our Wielding wasn’t protecting us anymore. There was nothing.

  This was what I had always feared, too much water pressing down on me. My lungs burned.

  My eyes were open, but it was so dark I couldn’t see anything. I couldn’t hear Easton over there. I couldn’t even hear my own breathing because I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t do anything.

  I could just hope, pray, and thrash against my bonds. But I knew it wouldn’t be enough.

  I would never be enough.

  Not like this.

  It was all too much, the pressure, the water, the fact that I couldn’t reach out and help the others.

  We were going to die like this. And the Lord of Water was going to use whatever artifact he could to suck out our Wielding and make himself more powerful. And then he would use our bones for more magic, to take more souls, and enslave an entire kingdom. An entire realm.

  I couldn’t let that happen.

  I pushed against the bonds, even as my head went light, the lack of oxygen too much. But it was no use, there was no co
ming back from this.

  And then I blinked, and I was suddenly standing at the center of a clock, twelve shadowed figures staring at me as the four elements slammed into my body. I dripped on the ground beneath me, creating a mud pile in the soil.

  I had been here before. Many times, in fact. When I first learned of the Maison realm and these magics, I had been called to these dreams. I had seen the clock with the twelve Spirit Wielders, though I hadn’t known who they were at the time.

  I had seen courts and ladies and lords. I had heard the whispers and saw the balls and gowns of a time when there hadn’t been war.

  And then I’d seen the elements of five. Each one calling to me as if a siren song. I had seen them all. But it hadn’t made sense. Hadn’t been anything at all to me. Not really.

  It had only been a dream. Just an idea of where I would be one day, though I had never truly made it there.

  I looked up, drenched, covered in cuts and bruises, gasping for breath.

  A blink.

  A blink, and I was here.

  But this was still a dream, I wasn’t really here.

  Was I dead?

  Was this my eternity?

  “You must unlock,” the one at twelve whispered. “The Gray is coming.”

  The Gray?

  “Say what you really mean,” I shouted. I was so done with all of this. I had been thrust into this world with nothing but a promise of answers, and yet no one had given any to me. I had lost my friends, my future, and my family. And yet they expected me to just know what to do.

  What the hell was this prophecy anyway?

  It didn’t make any sense. And it never would unless someone told me why I was here and how I could help. No one seemed to care about that. They just wanted to wait for me to have all the answers and save them.

  I was done.

  Spent.

  Because I didn’t have the answers.

  And I was scared that nobody else did either.

  “Where am I? Am I really here, or is my body dying down there below the sea? What about Easton? And Rhodes? Why can’t you just do something?” I threw up my hands, and Water, Earth, and Air raged all around me, creating a spiral of causation and causality.

  “You will not know the answers until you know them all. The Gray knows. The Gray sees.”

  I glared at Four, the one to my right and slightly behind me.

  “Now you’re speaking in riddles that don’t even make sense. I know part of the prophecy. But it’s not enough. I’m dying down there, and you bring me back inside my head? I’m not breathing. I’m dying. I’m probably already dead. Is this my hell?”

  “You’re not dead, Lyric. But you must unlock the final element. You must break it. This one will be the worst. The one you can’t completely control. But you will find a way.”

  I turned on my heel and looked at Six.

  “Why can’t you help me? Why does it all have to be shrouded in mystery?”

  “Nothing worth fighting for is easy,” Seven said, and I swear it took everything within me not to throw something at her. Old sayings and platitudes that meant nothing weren’t helping. Nothing was helping.

  “You won’t tell me what I need to do. You won’t get me out of this. You won’t do anything. For all I know, this is my actual hell and I did die down there. Why can’t you let me out? Why can’t I break the bonds? Why won’t you at least let me help Rhodes and Easton? They didn’t ask for this. They were just trying to help me.”

  “You would sacrifice yourself for the two boys who you thought might be soulmates? Who you must find a connection to?” Two asked, and I turned to the Spirit Wielder.

  “Isn’t that my role? To sacrifice everything?” Two sighed and looked at me, the Wielder’s eyes vacant and shadowed. I didn’t know what else Two meant by his or her statement, but I didn’t have time to ask. It wasn’t like I’d get an answer anyway.

  “Your role is to save the kingdoms, to fuse together the realm. But in order to do that, you must use your elements. So, you must unlock the fourth one. You will know what to do when the time comes. As will we.”

  “Are you saying that you don’t know now?” I asked, exasperated and growing colder. I might be in my mind right now, but my body was dying. I had a feeling that when I was in this type of thing, time moved far faster than in real life, and that was the only reason I was still alive to do this.

  But I was running out of time.

  I was going to suffocate, die from the pressure, and then I wouldn’t be here to yell at the Spirit Wielders who couldn’t help me.

  “Much is unknown. We don’t live where you do. We can’t know. We are not all Seers and foreseers. We are the ones who are here to try and help. But we were banished long ago. We are not what we once were. And although we try, it’s not enough. We can only do so much. You must do the rest.”

  I looked at One, and my shoulders fell. They were right. No one knew anything, just a prophecy laden with mystery and what seemed to be untruths.

  “You must unlock the final element, not for yourself, but for those you love.” I looked at Three and shook my head.

  “How do I do that?” I asked, tears falling down my face. “How can I help them? They’re dying, and there’s nothing I can do.”

  “Look inside yourself, Fire is there. Fire can take Water, and such the element that you are. You will use the four, and you will find a way to protect those you love. Because it is not you for who the elements Wield, it is for those you love.”

  “But…”

  “You can love both. And in the end, you will choose. But that is not for now. First, you must save yourself and then the world.”

  “I have to unlock Fire,” I whispered, looking down at my palms.

  “The others just happened. I was angry, or we were dying…just like I am now. So, why isn’t Fire coming?”

  “Because you’re afraid.” I looked at One as the Wielder spoke. “You cannot control the other three, and you are afraid you are not going to be able to control the fourth. But it won’t matter whether you can control them if you can’t unlock them. So, first, you must find a way to get through the fear and find the Fire. Not for yourself, but for the boy who lost his mother, for the boy who is losing his father. Do it for the boy who looked at you with wide eyes as they slit his throat. Do it for the others. Your Easton and your Rhodes will die right now in the next few moments if you do not unlock Fire. You will die too, but you already knew that.”

  “Unlock the Fire,” they whispered as one.

  “Become the Fire.”

  “Find the Fire.”

  “Unlock. The. Fire.”

  “Do not let the souls of those you love die,” One shouted.

  “I can’t,” I gasped. “I’m trying. I promise I am.” I looked down at myself and tried to imagine a lock surrounded by flame and then tried to pull at it. I attempted to picture a key unlocking it. Nothing was working. Why wasn’t it working?

  It had happened on its own before. But I couldn’t make it happen.

  “Your soulmate is dying, save him.”

  I looked up, my eyes wide. “What?”

  “Save him.”

  And then I looked down at myself and imagined the Fire, imagined the answers, imagined so much.

  They were wrong, I didn’t know anything about who could be my soulmate, but I needed to save my friends. I needed to save those who had protected me for so long.

  I needed to save myself.

  So, I thought of Arwin. Of Easton. Of Rhodes. I brought to mind the old woman who had died giving me the last bit of prophecy in that cave with the Earth pirates. I could see Rosamond’s face when she tried to get us out of the estate. I imagined the weak-looking little boy who had cried in the Fire territory because there wasn’t enough food.

  I imagined all of it, and I watched it burn.

  Because if I weren’t careful, the world would burn, it would drown, it would suffocate. There would be no more saving it from itself withou
t a savior.

  I had to fulfill the prophecy.

  And that meant I needed to unlock Fire.

  I imagined Rhodes, and then I pictured Easton, and I thought of what they were feeling right now, the crushing weight of their suffocation, each oxygen molecule escaping them one by one. They were dying.

  I couldn’t be too late.

  And then it snapped into place, making a slightly audible sound that didn’t even echo.

  It just slithered out of its shell as if it were afraid. No, as if I were afraid.

  I focused on the flame, what I had always admired. I had always wanted to hold the Fire in my hand and watch it dance upon my palms. Even when I was younger, I had looked at fire and was transfixed.

  Now, it was within me.

  So, I held up my hand, my eyes closed, and the Fire came.

  But with Fire, came danger and power.

  And then I was no more.

  I was just the flame.

  The roar was immense, shuddering through my body as the bonds broke around me, as did Easton’s and Rhodes’.

  I wasn’t controlling it, it was controlling me. Somehow, the water sloshed away from us as if the sea were parting, and we staggered to our feet. Standing on the bones of those who had been sacrificed before us and surrounded by towering plumes of the sea as fire fizzled all around us, a swirling vortex that flew into my hair and into the others as if the air were mixing with it, the Wielding having a mind of its own.

  Easton and Rhodes gasped, their bodies shaking as they looked at me, each reaching out to me. But I wasn’t Lyric.

  I was Fire.

  The ground beneath us cracked, and all four elements moved around me, trying to compete for which could win, but I was the Fire.

  Rhodes and Easton yelled at each other, commenting and then using their own Wielding, and then we were airborne. Somehow, Rhodes pulled us to the cliff’s edge. We were no longer in the water, but I was not the same.

  I was not Lyric.

  I was the Fire.

  And as I stepped one foot and then the other onto the land belonging to the man who had tried to kill us, who had attempted to take us all, I knew that I needed to protect those who couldn’t save themselves.