Treasure of the Fire Kingdom (The Elemental Phases Book 4)

by Cassandra Gannon

  Hope had rarely been so touched. “Thank you.”

  Teja rolled her eyes. “Just hurry up and kill her already.”

  “Hope!” Kingu jumped into the room, his eyes frantic. “Are you alright? Has she hurt you?” He quickly glanced at his mother to make sure she was still sleeping and then back at Hope. “Treasure, I don’t want you anywhere near this place.”

  “Don’t worry. This’ll only take a sec.” Hope seized hold of Kay’s hand.

  “Stop!” Tessie jumped into the room with Job and the rest of Hope’s family. “Hope, damn it! You can’t kill Kay!”

  Teja intercepted Tessie when the Quintessence moved to stop Hope. “Leave her be.”

  “She’s going to destroy the universe!”

  “Fire Phases don’t destroy.” Teja said flatly. “We protect. It’s rule eight.”

  The rest of the Fire House nodded in agreement. Rule eight was one of the biggies.

  Apparently Kingu had met her relatives. Hope glanced up at him. “By the way, I’m not a Color Phase.” She told him a little belatedly.

  “I don’t care if you’re a Cardboard Phase, just so you’re Hope.”

  “You told him we came from the Color House?” Satour snorted in disgust. “I’d rather be dead.”

  Alder shuddered at the very idea. “We’re Fire Phases, Kingu. You’re one too, now, so… you’re welcome.”

  Job sighed. “They’re going to be a terrible influence on that boy.”

  Kingu ignored them and tried his damnedest to get between Hope and Kay. “Please come away from here. I can’t stand seeing you touch her. If you want to end the world, I can think of sixteen other ways we can try, but not this. I don’t want you here!”

  “I’m not going to end the world.” Hope looked up at him and smiled. “Trust me.”

  “You know I trust you. You were right about everything, Hope. You’re my soul mate and my Match and I’m sorry about earlier.”

  “Really? I’m not sorry, at all.”

  “Well, I’m not sorry about all of it obviously, but I’m sorry I was a jackass. I can make it up to you. Come with me. Please. Kay is evil and I don’t want you exposed to…” He trailed off as Hope took hold of his wrist and settled his palm on her lower abdomen. “What are you…?” He stopped short as his powers sensed the same thing Teja’s had. The same tiny movement Hope had felt in that memory sharing.

  Life.

  Kingu’s eyes snapped back to Hope. His expression of total shock was something she would be snickering about for the next several millennia.

  She winked at him and squeezed Kay’s hand as tight as she could… Pulling all those incredible, world changing energies out of Kay and giving them to Kingu’s daughter.

  Kingu said that the powers wouldn’t pass to him, but that the Khaos could only be held by someone in Kay’s bloodline. His mother thought she’d be protected because the energy had to go to a female and she’d only had a son. She thought no one would dare kill her.

  But, Hope was willing to bet that the stupid moron had never consider what would happen if Kingu had a little girl.

  A child created out of a bond that Kay would never understand. With a mother who was enough of a Star Phase to make the energy drain happen just by willing it and enough of a Fire Phase to know just how to win this fight.

  Rule number one of being a Fire Phase: All real power is born from love.

  Kingu’s mouth parted as he realized what was happening. His gaze flew back to Kay, who was shriveling away right there on the bed, and then back to Hope. “She’s fading. You’re draining her into nothing.”

  “No one hurts my Match.” She said simply. “Not ever, again.”

  Kingu’s swallowed, his eyes bright. “I love you.” He cleared his throat and laid his other hand over her stomach, too, looking overwhelmed. “Is the energy too much for the baby to hold, though? It’s so much power and she’s so small. I would go back into chains in a fucking second before I risked…” He let out a reverent sigh when he felt their daughter safe and sound inside of her. “God, she’s strong.”

  “Of course she is. Look who her parents are.” The baby was perfect and loved and already stronger than anyone could imagine.

  Hope pulled her hand free of Kay’s grasp as the woman disappeared completely. Without her powers to sustain her, Kingu’s mother vanished into dust.

  Gone.

  Just as she always should have been.

  “Holy crap.” Tessie gave her head a slow shake. “Kingu, your Match just got rid of Kay. Like got rid of her, got rid of her.”

  “I know.” He smiled at his aunt, not looking like he wanted Tessie dead, at all. “Hope is a warrior.”

  Hope beamed at the compliment. “So are you, monster. And with us as her family, our daughter is going to be amazing.”

  “She’ll be destroying planets by the time she’s twelve.” Job predicted.

  Djinn gave a misty nod. “Yep. Oberon would be so proud if he knew.”

  “He knows.” Hope was already trying to think of a female derivative of “Oberon” to name the baby. She leaned forward to hug Kingu, smiling as his arms came around like he was afraid she would break.

  “You are my soul, Hope.” He whispered into her hair, his hand still on her abdomen like he couldn’t stand to break contact with his daughter. “You’ve given me everything.”

  “I love you.” Hope met his eyes. “You’re free of this place forever. Your future is with me and our baby in the Fire House. Don’t make me kidnap you to get you there, because you know I will.”

  “I would go anywhere with you.” He said simply.

  “Good answer.” Hope began, only to stop short when she looked up at Kingu, again.

  Something was happening right in front of her eyes. Something terrible.

  “Kingu?” She whispered in horror.

  “What?” His brows drew together when he saw her expression of dismay. “What’s wrong?”

  “Your face.”

  He automatically glanced towards the French revival mirror on the wall and gaped at his reflection. His monstrous features melted away, shifting so he was… handsome. Amazingly, head-turningly, Golden Age of Hollywood handsome. The Elementals were a race of lovely people, but no Phase came close to how supernaturally gorgeous Kingu suddenly became. From his chiseled cheekbones to his perfectly tanned skin to his crystal blue eyes, he was transformed into a storybook hero straight out of a fairytale.

  “Kay’s gone.” Tessie put in softly. “She must have been the one keeping you looking like that.”

  Kingu looked back at Hope in astonishment. “I’m not a monster anymore.”

  Hope could’ve cried in disappointment. “Oh no.” She blurted out. Except… shit! That wasn’t at all supportive. Quickly rallying for his sake, she blew out a breath and gave him a reassuring smile. “I’m sorry. It’ll be alright. Don’t panic. It’ll be… fine.”

  It wasn’t the end of the world. He didn’t look right anymore, but he was still her Match. The important thing was she was here for him through this painful transition. He was Kingu. His appearance didn’t mean anything. She needed him to know that.

  “At least you’re still very big.” She said bracingly. “Don’t worry. We’ll deal with the rest of the… prettiness together.”

  Kingu squinted down at her. Then over at the other Fire Phase who were all staring at him with clear and understandable regret.

  “Fuck man, Hope’s kid was all set to be awesome looking.” Alder whined.

  Qadesh nodded sadly.

  No one even had the heart to complain about the cursing.

  Kingu blinked at all of them.

  Job looked like he was trying not to laugh.

  “How tragic.” Missy lamented. “He was so beautiful, too.”

  “He’s still beautiful!” Hope snapped. “Kingu, don’t feel bad about this. Really.” She laid a hand on his arm. “You and I have a much deeper connection than just how spectacular you used to look. E
ven like this, I’m still very attracted to you. I swear.”

  Kingu’s mouth curved like she’d said something wonderful. “Thank you, treasure.” He ducked his head and his lips pressed against hers.

  Hope forgot all about his GQ makeover, her arms winding around his neck. Whatever he looked like, he was still her monster. Nothing else mattered.

  Kingu pulled back first, his gaze still dancing with amusement, and very deliberately snapped his fingers.

  Hope’s eyes widened as he changed back into himself. His real self. With the red eyes and the magnificent dragon-like features. “Oh thank God.” She blurted out and laid a palm over her chest in relief.

  Kingu grinned at her. “I think Tessie’s right. I can control what I look like, now. My mother’s powers were keeping me like this, but, with her gone, I can change…”

  “No! Don’t change!” Hope shook her head vehemently. “I don’t ever want you to change.”

  “Yeah, I picked up on that from your traumatized expression of support when you saw the other me.”

  Apparently, he wasn’t too worried about her lack of enthusiasm for the teen heartthrob version of him. Kingu seemed delighted that she’d wanted the monster back. Finally, he believed that she had a very definite type and that he was it.

  “There’s only one you.” Hope reached up to touch his perfect cheek. “I’m sorry. I would love you either way, but, if I have a choice… I really like this face.”

  “I think I like it, too.” He ran a hand over her hair. “Or, at least, I like that you like it. And I know they like it.” He nodded towards her family. “Why do I get the strange feeling I’m going to fit right in in the Fire Kingdom, by the way?”

  “Of course you’ll fit in, monster.” Hope leaned up to kiss him again, thrilled when he didn’t turn back into a handsome prince. “We’re your destiny.” She beamed at him. “And don’t worry. You’re going to love the décor in the fortress.”

  Epilogue

  Original Timeline: 2536 AD

  The remaining Elementals said, “Oh no, Daphne, you’re crazy. It will never work. You’ll just end up dying.”

  But, I’d rather die trying than live wondering if I could’ve saved him.

  Daphne, of the Time House- “After the Fall: A History of the Dark War”

  “If you could stop the barriers from ever falling… would you do it?”

  Zakkery, of the Smoke House glanced at her appraisingly. “Probably not.” The sharp, perfect angles of his face were illuminated in the flickering flames from the fireplace. He was playing it cool, but the gears in his head were turning, now. Trying to figure out her game and how he could win it.

  She’d definitely picked the right conspirator.

  Daphne, of the Time House leaned back in her uncomfortable chair and kept pressing. “Probably not” wasn’t a “no,” after all. Zakkery just needed some convincing.

  “Why would you even hesitate to stop the first salvo in the Dark War?” She made her voice sound surprised. “Half a millennia later, the Elementals still haven’t fully recovered from what happened after the barriers fell. The Dark War killed the best of our people.”

  “I know.” Zakkery smirked. “But, it didn’t kill me.”

  Which was exactly why Daphne was paying him this little visit. She’d searched for Zakkery for decades, because she needed his memories more than anyone’s. Zakkery had been there, on that first day. He was the only one who could tell her what she needed to know.

  It had been damn hard to find the guy, too. She finally tracked him down in the deserted and mostly forgotten human realm, where he’d declared himself “Emperor of Earth.”

  Not that anyone else noticed, since the humans had died out five centuries before.

  She’d pounded on his door every day for over year until, at long last, he relented. Today, he’d finally let her in and she planned to take full advantage of his sudden willingness to say something more than “piss off.” If this was going to work, Daphne needed someone with nothing to lose in this reality and who shared her own special brand of moral laxity. Zakkery’s answer just made her more determined to get him on board Team Fuck-Up History.

  Outside his stone cottage, the wind howled like a dying animal and a whiteout blizzard was raging. The thatched roof and lack electricity lend to the atmosphere of cold, bleak, “why the cats would anyone live here?” ickyness. The sooner he just gave in and did what she wanted, the sooner Daphne could never, ever see this dump, again. Gaia forsaken rocks in the Himalayas weren’t her favorite places to travel.

  “Maybe you survived the Dark War, but what of all the people who were lost?”

  “What about them?” He settled back in his own seat and regarded her with an encouraging lack of compassion for all the Phases and humans who’d been slaughtered in the endless war.

  “If they’d all been spared, don’t you ever wonder how different the world would be?”

  “More crowded?” He exhaled another stream of smoke.

  “I take it you didn’t lose anyone?” Daphne had been researching the events surrounding the Dark War for decades, so she was already fairly sure of the answer. Still, if Zakkery had lost some heretofore unknown best friend or favorite teacher or Chihuahua to the fighting it would be an awesome card to play.

  Her usual cover story for her little recon missions was her great historical tome After the Fall: A History of the Dark War. Most of what she’d written wasn’t exactly scholarly --more like a suicide note-- but no ever asked to see any drafts so it didn’t really matter. Most survivors were willing to share their memories simply because they wanted someone to listen to their recollections. Five centuries after the barriers feel, the effects of the Dark War still haunted most Phases.

  Zakkery was different, though. Maybe he was haunted by something else.

  “No, I didn’t lose anyone.” The corner of his mouth tilted up at a humorless angle. “I’ve never had anyone to lose.”

  Cats.

  She’d thought as much. Well, she luckily still had Zakkery’s own self-interest to use as motivation. “Still, you sure didn’t thrive after the war, did you? Now, you’re living in the human realm. In the snow. Forgotten and alone. Is that how you pictured your future?”

  He looked like a fallen angel and had a mind like Iago. Why had someone with so much potential wasted his life? Really she was doing him a favor.

  “Hey, I’m emperor of a planet.” He waved an all-encompassing hand. “I can think of worse fates. You seen the Water Kingdom lately?” Zakkery arched a brow, still trying to get a bead on her. “Being here is like paradise by comparison. Besides, I like the cold and quiet. Sometimes tahr wander by. Very zen.”

  “Who the hell is Tahr?”

  “They’re not a ‘who.’ They’re a type of goat.”

  Jesus. Daphne didn’t have time for this. Subtly wasn’t going to work. Time for more direct means of persuasion. “So, your life goal is be a goat herder? That was your big dream as a kid?”

  “What can I say? I love animals.”

  He was so full of cat shit.

  “Uh-huh. Everything you could ever have hoped for has happened and I’m beholding your ideal future, then? Nothing you’d want to change.”

  Zakkery smile gleamed, a taunting glint of teeth and lies. “Exactly.”

  “Great. So, how’s your Match?”

  His smug “what else ya got?” grin faded, anger and bitterness taking its place. He was suddenly paying attention to her. “What the fuck are really you doing here?”

  “I want you to tell me everything you remember the day the fighting began. What led up to it… Where you were… What you were doing…”

  “The day Job died, I was at Gion’s birthday party. Ty threw it for him in the Water Palace. Job was there. So were Cross, Nia, Thar, Brokk, Isaacs, and maybe a few others. They were attacked and people died. What else do you want?”

  “I want to stop the war.”

  “Good news. Most of them have
been dead for centuries. It’s pretty fucking stopped.”

  Daphne shook her head. “I want to go back and stop the war before it even begins. I want to time jump to before Gion’s party and change history.”

  Silence.

  “Great.” He finally sighed. “You’re a lunatic.”

  She ignored that. “You just said you were there on the very first day of the War. At the very first battle. I can go back and change things, so you have the life you should’ve had, this whole time.”

  And so would Daphne.

  “Time Phases have tried going back to stop the Fall and the Dark War before. They only wind-up dead. Fifty-two seconds isn’t enough time to change anything so big…”

  Daphne cut him off. “My powers are different. I can change things.”

  “You sure about that?”

  “Even if I’m wrong, what do you have to lose?”

  He squinted at her. “What’s in this for you? Were you even alive for back then? You don’t seem old enough.”

  “I was a child.”

  “Then, you don’t really remember it.”

  She remembered enough. “I’ve done research on the war. I know…”

  “Research? Can you research the smell bodies, rotting on crosses in the sun?”

  “No, but…”

  “It’s more than a smell. An unholy fucking stench. An acrid, organic, yellow burn in your sinuses.” He gestured towards his temple. “In your brain. During the first months, there were so many executions of humans and Phases that the fog of reeking decay reached everywhere. It was on your clothes. In your hair. You couldn’t escape it. It seeped into your skin. If I close my eyes, I can still smell the vicious, wild stink of it. Anyone who lived through that war can do the same, I promise you.”

  He was right. In so many interviews the smell was the first thing the survivors mentioned. That and the fear that they would be the next one accused of treason and strung up.

  Daphne frowned. “Well, that’s the kind of horror I’m trying to avoid.”

  “And if you were someone who lived through all that horror --Who saw people you’d known all your life pulled from their homes and executed for nothing-- Then, I could maybe see why you’d want to do this.” He jabbed a finger at her. “But, since you’re just goddamn kid, with no clue what you’re even talking about, I don’t think you have the right to try and change what we survived.”