Mira swung the sword. The end rail of the stair banister split in two. “You let them bind her with their talisman!”
“Ladon tried to get them off me.” Rysa held out her cuffed arm. “He tried to help! The Burners would have eaten me. Mom!” She slapped Ladon’s shoulder again. “Put me down! I can help her. Please!”
Ladon glanced over her shoulder at the child. His face scrunched up as if he thought putting her down was the worst idea ever, but he let go anyway.
Mira swung the sword and Dragon’s outline momentarily blazed in the air.
“They were never going to eat you, daughter!” She swung again. “Why didn’t you stop them in Wisconsin? You are the Dracos! Why didn’t you cause—” And again. “—enough of a distraction she could activate on something else?”
Another swing. “Anything else. Her cell phone. The grommets in her shoes. It didn’t matter! My present-seer showed me dragon and I can’t hide her any longer and you should have been enough.”
Mira dropped to her knees. “Why weren’t you enough?”
A sob lurched from her mother’s throat, raw and evil-sounding and full of scorching pain like she’d swallowed fire.
Rysa hauled her mother to her feet. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t—”
Mira leaned forward. She blinked her glassy, chaotic eyes, and screamed directly into Rysa’s face. “Stay away from me!”
The sword in Mira’s hand rose.
Rysa should have ducked. She should have squirmed or screamed or done something, but the woman in front of her, the woman screaming hatred into her face, was her mom. The woman for whom she’d cooked dinner when her joints hurt too much.
The woman for whom she’d put her adult life on hold so that she would be home to help.
The real reason Rysa fretted about leaving for graduate school. Her attention issues ate her life, but her mom she gave to willingly. What else was she to do?
The sword passed by the top of Rysa’s head. Her mom wouldn’t have cut her. She didn’t mean—
Mira lifted into the air.
Dragon threw her mom at the patio door. She hit hard and dropped, but landed on her feet still holding her sword.
“Momma don’t want you no more, skankadoodle!” The child laughed from the top step and jumped up and down like she rode on a pogo stick. “But wwwweeee looooovvvveeee yyyooouuu.”
She blew Rysa a kiss.
Mira’s body jerked and jolted as if she stood on a fault line and an earthquake moved the world under her feet. Her eyes flitted from Rysa to Ladon to the child and back in a random pattern, and at random intervals.
And her hair, usually smooth and braided, flared around her face like a jumbled ball of yarn. Mira—this woman Ladon had told her was not nice, whom he said was a kingmaker—her mother, looked like she’d catch rats with her bare hands.
Then eat them raw.
Mira’s back straightened. Her spine elongated and her chin lifted. She stood tall for the first time since they found her—for the first time, Rysa thought, since they’d moved to Minnesota.
“Have you figured it out yet, Ladon-Human?” The tip of her sword scraped across the tile floor at the base of the patio door. “She’s a singular.”
Ladon placed a hand on either side of her waist, but he didn’t look at her. He watched the Burner child. “You have all three Fate abilities,” he said to Rysa.
So it was true. She was right. Past, present, and future chased each other around in her head, but they looked the same—flat and tentacled and nasty. She was her own inattentive triad.
“Can you see the Burners, daughter?” her mom whispered. Rysa barely caught her words. They seemed to bounce off the patio door glass, amplifying on their own as they smacked against Rysa’s eardrums.
“No one can read Burners,” Mira continued. “Too much chaos. Burners—monsters without fate.” She chortled, a rough noise that sounded as if ash was about to come out of her nose. “Except now. They have you. They have purpose. They’ll be unstoppable.”
Rysa looked down at the cuffs around her wrists. Her biceps ached from carrying around the metal’s weight. Chaos weighed more than people knew. Yet she carried more randomness on her shoulders every day than a normal person without her issues carried in a lifetime. So she should be used to it.
But this was too much. Was she as much Burner as she was Fate? Would she end up like she feared, her mind burned away?
“Mira!” Ladon roared. His big arms encircled Rysa. “Why do you do this?”
At the top of the stairs, the child clapped. “Are you done yet?” she asked. “The roof’s burning. You set it on fire when you popped that dickwad dumbass putz from Indiana in the attic.”
Her face wrinkled into a sour mask. “Indiana. Full of idiots.” She turned in a circle, then pointed at the threshold between the kitchen and the dining area in front of the patio door. “Don’t know where he’s from, but it ain’t Indiana.”
Billy moved so fast he managed to duck under Dragon’s lunge. He punched Rysa’s mom in the face.
Mira bounced against the plate glass. A new screech ripped from her throat. She swung her blade but it missed its target.
Billy snickered. Mira raised her sword.
For the briefest moment, for an instant so fast split-second was too long, the room dropped into total silence.
The walls and the furniture and the people—Dragon and Ladon—defined in Rysa’s perception as if outlined by a black marker.
The Burners vanished, cloaked in their chaos, but they left a smudge on the present as points where the universe crisped and withered.
Her nasty Fate’s abilities whipped, uncalled, between all of them, sensing, looking, licking. Seeing.
And within that absolute essence of right now, Rysa knew. She saw Dragon’s intent—to get her out. She felt the fractured disconnect of Ladon’s need to help and his desire to leave the Fates to their fate.
But she knew nothing of her mother. Like the Burners, she saw only a crisped shadow.
Then her mind flashed as if someone had set off a firecracker behind her left eye.
Something new took over her vision—the house gone. The walls reduced to ash. The moon traveled the sky filling and emptying, and trees behind the house grew dry. Their leaves dropped for winter.
Reflecting off the bottom of roiling clouds, south of what was her home, she saw what-will-be—both downtowns burned, St. Paul to the left and Minneapolis to the right. She looked to the east—suburbs burned. To the west—flames licked the sky.
“You see it, don’t you, daughter? The future? Your future-seeing uncle warned me. He said the world will burn and burn and burn and a singular would be the key.”
What-is crackled into Rysa’s vision again, but this time the tentacles of her nasty flickered like the flames used in her chemistry class to heat gas to glowing.
Rysa’s mother pointed at her again. “The moment I realized I was pregnant with you I knew he spoke the truth.”
Now Rysa knew it, too. She would set fire to the world.
“You’re the Ambusti Prime, daughter. The Prime Fate of the Burners.”
Chapter Nine
In front of Ladon, from the shadows by the patio door, the burndust-addled Mira of the Jani Prime accused her daughter of terrible future deeds. She glared at Rysa with twisted and evil features, and tipped her sword toward Rysa’s cheek.
Against his chest, Rysa’s breath hitched. Her lips fluttered and her eyes grew huge. And Ladon knew all the pain he felt moving through her body was his fault.
He should have tried harder to remove the shackles when she activated. He should have run more lights on the way into St. Paul. They should have gotten to Rysa sooner.
Twenty-three centuries he and Dragon had fought battles and dealt with Burners. Twenty-three sets of one-hundred-year intervals, a meaningless measure of time for someone who’d lived through so many of them. Yet they’d persevered and done what they were supposed to do.
Every single one of those actions and reactions dropped onto their heads like a grain of sand blown in from the desert. Twenty-three centuries and sometimes Ladon wondered if he still had the strength to move through the dunes of his life.
“Mom,” Rysa whispered.
The young woman clinging to his arm carried no such weight. Yet the boulder of her new existence would smear her flat if he and Dragon did nothing—or worst, the minimum necessary to finish this job.
He’d been annoyed by her questions in the van. Irritated when he realized she was Jani. But she didn’t deserve this. No one deserved vile insults hurled at them, especially from a parent.
So Ladon folded her tighter against his ribcage. He wrapped his arm around her back and spread his fingers protectively across her shoulder blades.
Rysa wasn’t the terrible things Mira spat from her Burner-confused mouth. The beautiful, overwhelmed woman he held cared more for her mother than any other Fate he’d known. More than her mother had earned, now or ever.
More than he would merit, if she cared for him.
Another Burner ran at Mira. She attacked, and the implosion blasted the patio door outward in a hail of shards. Glass peppered the backyard, but Dragon snatched the thrashing Mira and rolled out and into the burning flower beds.
Ladon carried Rysa out of the house and onto the burning grass. She gasped and sputtered. Her soul melted in front of his eyes.
Mira clawed and bit, and Dragon dropped her onto the burning deck. Her sword had blown out with the door and now poked out of the back of a lawn chair.
She lunged for it.
“Mira!” Ladon bellowed. The house burned hot enough now that she glistened with sweat. “Come with us.” He reached out his hand.
She would stop the ranting when the burndust wore out of her system. And then he’d make sure she apologized to her daughter.
Mira stared at Rysa, her eyes blank but her brow furrowed, and she tilted her head to the side, like a Burner. Her seer blasted through the backyard and Ladon winced as the jarring clanging of her ability smacked against his mind.
“It’s going to kill her.” Mira continued to stare and her head tilted farther. “Her talisman. It’ll cover her mind with thicker and thicker coats of ash and fire.”
Mira would blister if she didn’t move away from the house.
“Come away.” Ladon held out his hand again. “You can help. Make sure that doesn’t happen.”
Rysa would not die. Nor was she going to face a future full of agony or lies. He’d make sure. This time, he’d respond fast enough.
“Before, when I blacked out, I saw my dad,” Rysa whispered.
Ladon pulled her closer. “You’re safe. We’re here.”
She’d suffered enough.
“He vanished one day. I don’t know where he is.” Rysa pulled away. The brilliance of her seers washed over him and, dazzled by the full beauty of her potential, his hold on her loosened.
Her arms dropped and the damned shackles slid down her wrists.
She didn’t move.
“Mira!” Ladon didn’t know what to do. How was he supposed to help a singular Fate? He barely understood the workings of a triad.
Though he should. After centuries, he should.
Human!
Ladon looked up just as another Burner burst out of the patio door.
Mira screamed and stabbed, and the sword slid into the Burner’s breastbone. He looked down at the wound just as Mira dropped the now-whining sword.
The Burner imploded into a writhing ball.
Mira leaned back as her body tried to counter the implosion’s pull. Then her hand rose, her head tilted, and she slid her finger across the implosion’s surface.
Her eyelids drooped. She stared at her fingertip. Her face slacked as if she’d given up.
Mira didn’t look at Ladon. She didn’t look at Rysa.
Next to Ladon, Rysa’s foot planted and her body tensed in preparation to leap. “Mom!” she screamed.
Ladon lifted her into the air. If she moved closer to her mother, she’d get hurt when the ball exploded. She might die.
Mira licked the liquid from her finger.
Dragon lunged for Mira. Ladon curled around Rysa.
Ladon had seen other Fates breathe burndust. They took it in to cloak themselves in its randomness. It hid them from all seers and made them invisible to their own kind. But he’d never seen a Fate take from an implosion.
She rips at my coat. The beast let go and Mira tumbled through the grassfires spreading across the lawn. I cannot hold her.
“Mom!” Rysa thrashed like her mother and pummeled Ladon’s shoulder. “No no no!”
Something happened that he’d never experienced. Something so utterly brand new he didn’t know how to respond—her seers latched onto his connection to Dragon.
Ladon stopped in his tracks. Dragon rolled onto his back and his hide sparked with wild, mixed-up flame patterns. Rysa connected to them. How, neither he nor the beast knew.
No Fate had ever felt their connection before, much less touched it. Only once had a Shifter heard Dragon, and that was long, long ago, and they never saw the woman again.
But Rysa’s seers curled around their connection in long, finger-like waves, and caressed both his and the beast’s minds.
Her world lurched and his perception followed it down its rabbit hole—every chair, every tree, every blade of grass turned a single radiance. All perceptions held the same importance—the sparkles igniting along the tree’s bark, the fires in the lawns, the sirens in the distance, Rysa’s tears—all of it.
Ladon dropped to his knees with Rysa against his chest. He’d never been connected to a seer before, or felt its power from the inside. Seers danced on the edges of his consciousness, mostly grinding against his mind. Sometimes they filled his head with music, from the few Fates whose souls weren’t polluted.
Musical seers, like Rysa’s. But the Burner chaos disrupted her abilities and made a cacophony, not a symphony. Maybe that was why wrongness backwashed with her seers.
Her siphoning flipped and pushed toward him. The world oscillated from too dim to too bright.
We must leave, Dragon pushed.
Ladon didn’t hear. He didn’t understand. He missed the beast’s words as Rysa’s backwashing vision pulled him in too many directions.
Rysa tightened her arms around his neck. Her terror flickered through his mind like a dancing clown flailing its arms and cackling for her attention.
And his too, now.
Ladon spun with Rysa in his arms and his mind in a desperate spiral as he tried to parse where each individual Burner was located. They danced like idiots through the backyard and surrounded the thrashing Mira. She ran for the trees behind the house.
The British Burner followed.
Ladon let go of Rysa. Mira needed—
Human!
Rysa coughed. She stepped toward Mira and away from him. She moved toward the Burners.
Dragon’s tail swished across the burning grass. He raised his head and stepped between Ladon and Rysa, and the Burners. Protect Rysa! the beast pushed.
By the trees, the British Burner grinned. Mira swung at his head but he dodged and clamped his hand around her elbow. He yanked her closer and the fingers of his other hand skipped over her flesh as if he played a tune.
The ghoul licked the skin from Mira’s forearm.
Mira screamed.
“Mom!” Rysa fought against Ladon’s grip. Her body shook as Mira’s agony echoed in her limbs.
Ladon had seen such attachment before with children, even as adults, whose family was their core. Attachments to parents who soothed tears and celebrated achievements. He never expected to see it between Fates, and especially not between Jani Fates.
Mira wrenched away from the Burner. Blood coated her arm and the talisman bracelet around her damaged wrist slid onto her palm.
Mira of the Jani Prime threw her talisman at Ladon’s head.
He caught it. It hit his hand and he curled his fingers around the gold eagle and the wedding band looped onto the heavy chain.
Rysa snatched the bracelet before he could wipe away her mother’s blood.
Mira yelled again, but her words disappeared into the thunder of the fire.
She said ‘Keep her safe.’ The Burners had formed a wall between Dragon and the trees and the beast backed away. I cannot get close.
“Mom…” Rysa slumped against Ladon’s chest.
The beast’s head swung around and a pulse washed over Rysa. A new vision takes her.
Dragon staggered slightly and the images of flames covering his hide danced out of sync with the real fire surrounding them. Rysa’s siphoning disoriented Dragon as much as it disoriented Ladon.
“My mother’s wedding ring. My mother’s charm. My mother is gone. Vanished like Dragon.” Her breath rushed in stuttered breaks. “Gone invisible to mimic the burning world.”
What was she seeing to speak in such riddles?
Mira screamed one last time. Her shoulders slumped. She pointed through the heat mirages at Rysa but yelled something at the British Burner, something Ladon did not hear.
The ghoul swung to slap, but Mira bolted into the trees. The other Burners watched, their heads swiveling between Mira’s escape and Dragon standing between them and Rysa.
They ran after Mira.
We must leave. Dragon pushed Ladon toward the neighbor’s yard. She distracts them. We must protect Rysa.
“But—” What would happen to Rysa if they abandoned her mother? Even after all Mira had said, Rysa trembled in his arms.
The Jani will retaliate. The Burners are no longer our problem. The beast ran behind the houses toward their van.
The familiar stretching ache as the distance between him and Dragon grew twisted inside Ladon’s muscles. He had no choice but to scoop up Rysa and follow. He ran across a picnic table, and jumped a fence.
Her ice-cold arms sucked away his warmth, though her skin flushed from the fire. Blood from the bracelet smeared her face and hands—and dripped off her fingers.
Games of Fate (Fate Fire Shifter Dragon Book 1) Page 7
