by Melissa Grey
Echo felt Caius nudge at her knuckles. She gripped his hand so tightly it had to hurt but she didn’t care.
“Echo!”
Caius dropped her hand, reaching for weapons he didn’t have. Echo looked around frantically for the source of the shout. When she saw who it was, a strangled sob escaped her. Two little Avicelings, members of the group that had liked to follow her around like she was the Pied Piper, picked their way through the rubble, holding each other up. Flint’s cardinal-red feathers made the bloody gash above his eye look almost black by comparison, while Daisy limped along, her downy blue feathers matted with sweat and dust. But they were in one piece. Echo jumped over a fallen support beam and swept them up in her arms, apologizing when Daisy winced in pain. Caius hung back, watchful gaze trained on the tunnel ahead.
“You’re alive,” Echo murmured, pressing her lips against their feathery heads. “Oh, thank god.” She pulled back. “What about the others?” Her army of sticky brats. The orphans she helped the Ala care for. She was their Artful Dodger. That was what Ivy liked to call her. Tears blurred Echo’s vision, and Daisy brushed them from her cheeks with a dirty hand.
“They’re okay,” Flint said with a sniffle. He tightened his hold on Daisy. “They’re trapped in the Ala’s room, but we heard them through the door, and they’re all okay.”
Relief washed over Echo, but it didn’t last long. “The Ala,” she said. “Was she still in the cells?”
Daisy nodded. “Altair and Rowan were there, too.” Fear made the Aviceling’s eyes go wide. “Do you think they’re hurt?”
The Nest’s jail had been designed to nullify magic. Not even the Ala with all her power could transport in and out. If they’d been in the cells, they would have been helpless. Daisy’s lower lip trembled, so Echo said, “I’m sure they’re fine. I’m gonna go after them. You two find someone who can get the door open and free the other Avicelings. Do you remember the evacuation drills Altair made you all run?”
“The ones you said were a waste of time?” asked Flint. Blood trickled into his eye, and Echo wiped it away.
“Yup,” she said, “those. Do it just like we practiced. Get help and then get out of here. It’s not safe.”
“When will we be able to come home?” Daisy asked, voice small and scared.
Echo shook her head, the urge to sob or scream rising in her chest. The answer was never, now that the Nest had been exposed, but Daisy didn’t need to hear that. Not now. Not yet. “I don’t know, sweetie.”
A crash sounded from the far end of the hallway. Flint started trembling, while Daisy cried softly. Echo kissed them both on the forehead before ushering them away from the direction of danger. “Go. Get help.”
She watched them go and tried to convince herself that it wasn’t the last time she would ever see them. Caius took her hand in his and pulled her along. The sound of metal squealing and breaking made Echo quicken her cautious steps. The stench of gas hung heavy in the air, and she prayed it wouldn’t lead to an explosion. Avicen streamed past them, away from whatever was causing those unbearable noises. Echo and Caius fought against the tide of moving bodies. Nobody gave the Drakharin in their midst a second glance. The closer Echo and Caius got to the noise, the greater Echo’s sense of dread grew, almost as if the stain on her soul were spreading. Like an infection.
They were almost at the Nest’s jail. Echo broke into a run, ignoring Caius’s plea for caution. There were fewer Avicen here; the only ones who lingered had white cloaks soiled by dust and grime. Warhawks. Echo heard Caius’s sharp indrawn breath behind her. If they realized who he was, he was dead. She spared him a glance; the dirt still hid the scales on his cheekbones well enough. She hoped it stayed that way.
The heavy metal door leading to the cells had been blown clean off its hinges. It lay, broken in two, in the middle of the corridor between the rows of cells. Melted iron bars twisted together, sticking out like a row of metal thorns. At the far end of the long room, Altair was on his knees, digging through the rubble with bloodied bare hands. He looked up as Echo entered, meeting her gaze. His orange eyes were hard and haunted, his mouth a taut, grim line.
“He ran down here when it attacked. He wanted to protect her” was all he said. He returned to his task, heedless of the sharp stones and scraps of metal that tore at his skin.
The air whooshed out of Echo’s lungs, and if not for Caius’s steadying grip on her shoulders, she would have fallen.
No. No, no, no, no. Her wobbly legs moved of their own volition, bringing her closer to the person Altair was trying to dig out.
She fell to her knees beside the general and joined him, moving slabs of rock to the side, not caring about her own pain. A muffled groan sounded from beneath the rubble. It was wordless, but Echo recognized it anyway.
He was alive. Rowan was alive.
But it was not just his tawny feathers that Echo saw as Altair cleared away the debris.
A raven-black arm was draped across Rowan’s torso, its dark feathers slick with blood. It looked as though the Ala had thrown herself atop Rowan to shield him from falling debris.
Altair let loose a string of curses in Avicet, too quickly for Echo to understand. Every sound blurred into white noise, and the ringing in her ears returned.
Altair lifted the Ala’s limp body off Rowan with a tenderness Echo wouldn’t have known he possessed. He cradled her in his arms, and Echo knew immediately that he never would have executed her. Not in a million years. Despair—true, deep despair—clouded his eyes. Echo knew he and the Ala had a history, but it wasn’t until that moment that she understood how deep their history ran. She had thought they hated each other, but only something that had once been love could turn to a hate as petty as theirs. “This isn’t what I wanted,” Altair said, more to himself than to Echo. He looked up at her, expression stricken. “I only wanted to get your attention, to talk to you, to make you see reason.”
The Ala shifted. Altair brushed dirt from her forehead, his fingers gentle against her skin. She coughed and tried to raise her head.
“Be still,” said Altair.
The Ala reached for Echo, who seized the hand offered to her. “There was a woman in the hallway,” Echo said, words tumbling forth in a rush. “She said shadows did this. How is that possible?”
“Ku…” The Ala choked on the word, as if speaking required more effort than she could spare. “Kuçedra.”
The Ala’s hand went slack in Echo’s. Kuçedra? Echo’s stomach dropped. She didn’t know much about the kuçedra, but she knew enough to be sure that she didn’t want to have to face it without the Ala. Which it looked like she was going to have to do. For now.
Rowan groaned again and blinked slowly, his eyes glassy, probably from a concussion. Aside from that, he didn’t appear to be gravely wounded. The Ala had shielded him from the worst of the attack with her own body.
Caius reached down to help him stand and Echo turned back to the Ala. Please don’t die, she thought.
As if answering a prayer, the Ala’s chest rose and fell with a shallow breath.
Echo exhaled a relieved sob and placed a hand on the Ala’s forehead, the only part of her that seemed safe to touch. She looked so frail in Altair’s arms. The second Echo’s skin made contact with the Ala’s, her sense of dread spiked. The feeling she’d had near the gateway doubled.
At the edges of her sight, the shadows seemed to move, as if coming alive.
Echo rose, brushing her dirty hands against her jeans. She stepped away from Altair and the Ala, searching the dark corners of the room. “It’s still here,” she said.
Fire flickered to life in Echo’s open palms. Her emotions were running hot. She didn’t even need to think about summoning it. It simply sprang to existence against her skin. “Show yourself, you piece of shit.”
And it did.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Darkness pooled in the center of the room. Echo realized with increasing horror that it wasn’t a singular shado
w, swollen to a massive size, but a collection of them, an amorphous, writhing mass. They were the same shadows Echo had seen curling around the trunks of trees in Samira’s memory, and this time a primal part of Echo knew, with certainty, what it was. It was the darkness that had come before all things, that would outlast all things, that would consume the entire world whole if it was not stopped first. It was the thing the Drakharin in Samira’s memory had feared.
It was the kuçedra. The Ala had said the name, but seeing it made it real.
The shadows ceased their undulations, as if recognizing Echo’s presence.
As the darkness grew closer, the shadows began to coil around each other to form a single shape. Its neck was long and sinuous, its wings wide and thin, like a bat’s. Clawed feet gripped the air as the beast was borne aloft by the powerful beat of its wings, tail flicking from side to side. With every flap of its wings, Echo thought she could hear a symphony of smothered screams, as quiet as a distant sigh. And that was when she knew.
They weren’t shadows.
They were souls.
Trapped in that monstrous form was every life lost to the conflict between the Avicen and the Drakharin. Theirs had been a self-fulfilling prophecy. They had feared the darkness, and in that fear, they had created it. Their hate and violence had nursed the kuçedra as it grew, waiting for its destined foe.
Waiting for the firebird.
Waiting for Echo.
The souls trapped within it screamed, piercing Echo’s eardrums until they felt like they were bleeding. The shadow grew louder and larger as she watched. Fresh souls, gleaned from the attack on the Nest and Grand Central, added to its mass. Its shape solidified: the wings scraped against the walls, the wickedly long tail swished through the air, beating at debris, and its fanged mouth howled in a grotesque mimicry of the wailing souls it held inside itself.
It looked like a dragon. It must have taken the form the Avicen feared the most, Echo realized. Even now, she could feel it leeching her fear, feeding on it. The Avicen’s fear during the attack had molded it like putty.
Caius bent to draw the blade of a fallen Warhawk. Altair put himself between the Ala and the kuçedra, sword in hand. They were both skilled fighters, with centuries of experience between them, but they wouldn’t so much as scratch this monster. How could steel pierce flesh made of darkness and despair?
“Get them out of here,” Echo told Caius, never taking her eyes off the beastly form dominating the room.
“I’m not leaving you.”
Of course not.
“Fine,” Echo said through gritted teeth. “But do me a favor and stay out of my way.”
With a bloodcurdling screech, the kuçedra attacked, lunging forward, its shadows expanding. From the corner of her eye, Echo saw Rowan lifted off his feet. He crashed into the bars of a cell and collapsed onto the floor. Caius leaped out of the way, tucking into a roll as the kuçedra lashed out. Altair darted in, slashing at the belly of the beast, to no avail. Their attacks didn’t seem to inflict any harm, but they were good for one thing: distraction. The kuçedra wheeled on the men, momentarily forgetting Echo.
Fire blazed in her hands, crawling up her forearms with sizzling tongues of black and white. Power swelled inside her, greater than she’d ever felt before. She gathered as much of it as she could, focusing on the flames in her hands. The jail was illuminated by her glow. She felt like a force of nature. Instead of fighting the firebird for control of her body, she let herself become it.
The firebird was the light in the darkness. They were natural enemies, the firebird and the kuçedra, and the latter had made the grievous error of hurting people Echo loved.
The kuçedra’s head swiveled. For a brief moment, staring into its black eyes felt like falling into nothing. The abyss called to Echo, beckoning her closer.
She lifted her hands and let the blaze surge forward. The flames weren’t merely black and white; this fire was a prism of light, containing every color of the spectrum, shining so brightly that it made even Echo’s eyes burn.
Good, Rose intoned inside her skull. Echo felt Rose add her own strength to the flames. And she wasn’t the only one. The too-tight feeling returned to Echo’s skin, as if she would burst from holding all that power inside her. She felt them all—all the vessels of years past—pushing outward, lending whatever they had to give to the fire. Echo could not defeat the kuçedra on her own, but she was not alone; every soul the firebird touched blazed through her. The power was not hers; she was merely its conductor, directing it straight at the heart of the beast.
Soon, the room was so bright that Echo couldn’t see a thing. With a final, heart-stopping scream, the kuçedra vanished, its shadows dissipating like smoke.
Echo collapsed to her knees and the fire died, plunging the space into darkness. She heaved, but there was nothing in her stomach to vomit. She had only minutes before she blacked out, depleted of power, and that was an optimistic guess.
She struggled to raise her head. Altair was staring at her, his gaze hard and calculating. What he was thinking, she didn’t know, and in that moment, she didn’t care. Caius rushed to her side while Rowan limped toward her, but all Echo could think of was the Ala. She crawled to the Ala’s still form, taking one of her cold, clammy hands in her own as her vision blurred at the edges and her head swam.
Echo held her other hand up to Caius, and it took everything she had to say, “Get us out of here.”
“No,” Altair cut in. “I will not allow a Drakharin into our refuge.”
They didn’t have time for this. The Ala didn’t have time. “He comes with me or you can forget about having the firebird on your side.”
That did the trick. Though it was clear the idea filled him with no small amount of disgust, Altair nodded. “Wait on the shore, a mile north from the rendezvous point. I will meet you there.” He turned to Rowan. “Go with them. Make sure you aren’t seen.”
“Yes, sir.” Rowan’s voice was quiet and pained, but there was strength beneath it. Resilience. His eyes met Echo’s, and there was something in them Echo hadn’t seen before. He looked as though he’d aged a decade in the past ten minutes. This was war, Echo thought. This was what it did. It took the innocent and remade them in its image. Rowan was no longer the boy who’d tried to teach her how to draw, laughing at her wobbly charcoal lines, or the young man who’d tried to sneak shy kisses when no one was looking. He was a soldier, not a child. None of them were children any longer. Rowan broke the hold of Echo’s gaze and turned away. She wondered if he saw himself reflected in her eyes. If he hated what he saw. She felt Caius’s presence beside her, humming like static electricity. “Get us out of here,” she said again. “Please.”
Transporting four people without the aid of a threshold must have been a herculean effort, but Caius did it. Echo had seconds to feel grateful as the in-between rushed around them and the rubble-strewn ruins of the Nest disappeared.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
One of the first books Echo had ever stolen was a children’s retelling of the story of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. Delicate watercolor illustrations decorated its pages, giving form to a simplified version of the legend. In the supply closet she slept in at the library—long before the Ala had helped her set up a more spacious room on its uppermost floor—a seven-year-old Echo had lost herself in those tales of daring feats and valiant heroes and powerful wizards. She’d imagined that, even with her unwashed tangled hair and sneakers with worn-down soles, she was as brave as Lancelot and as beautiful as Guinevere and as mysterious as Morgan le Fay.
This Avalon was not the land of Arthurian legend. It was a small island in the Hudson River surrounded by strong wards that kept any activity on it hidden from human eyes. At the center of the island sat Avalon Castle, a relic of the excesses of late-nineteenth-century wealth. Once a summer home for the Carringtons, a family of eccentric billionaires made rich off steel, Avalon had been requisitioned by the Avicen after the last Ca
rrington descendent died in the mid-1950s, leaving no children to mourn his passing or lay claim to an inheritance. Just as Jasper’s East London warehouse had been tied up in a nightmare of red tape and false names to protect it from bureaucratic snooping, Avalon was currently listed as the property of one Fulton J. Hawthorne, a man wealthy enough to purchase an entire island with a remarkable view of the Hudson River, whom no one had ever seen before. Mainly because he didn’t exist. The Ala had created him for the sake of the purchase. Even she needed a human face to hide behind on occasion.
Travel through the in-between could only get them so far. The island’s wards made accessing the in-between within the castle an impossibility, so with Echo’s guidance, Caius transported them to a small beach about a mile upriver from the island. She pictured the reeds along the shore, the water lapping at her feet. The Avicen performed evacuation drills once a year. Ivy and Rowan had grumbled about them, and even though the Nest was not Echo’s permanent residence, the Ala had forced Echo to participate as well. Just in case, she’d said. None of the younger Avicen felt the drills were necessary. The Nest had never been attacked. To do so would have been a colossal error in strategy on the part of the Drakharin. After all, neither race had any desire to involve humans in their business, no matter how messy it got. But now, on the shore of the Hudson River, with the Ala lying prone on the riverbank, Echo had never been more grateful for the Ala’s insistence that Echo do as she was told.
“Please wake up,” Echo whispered into the Ala’s ear. “I promise I’ll never complain about anything ever again.”
