Pavel's face hardened and a burst of sickly yellow sorcery roiled across the space, slamming me against the crystalline walls. He'd missed hitting me squarely, but even the glancing blow was painful. My skin burned with the potency of his magic. With pain in my eyes, I threw a stream of sorcery in his direction, not as an attack, but to distract him long enough that I could run to the edge and dive through the cloud.
I mourned as I fell. Mourned the relationship between mother and son that had been shattered in that attack. I had known that he would do so—to think otherwise would have been foolish—but to have him enter the room with that murderous stare and unleash his hatred upon me squeezed my heart until it wanted to burst. Had he hit me cleanly, I would have died.
As I plunged through the cloud and then into the clear sky, I tried to erase the memory, but it stained my thoughts. I fell, fell, fell, oblivious to the world around me until I heard Zora calling my name over and over. Eventually, I gathered myself enough to stop my descent, the impact to that invisible earth jarring to the bones in my hips.
"Katerina," said Zora, softly.
"I didn't think it would hurt so much," I said. "What kind of world pits a son against his mother?"
"What will you do now?" asked the bird-skull.
My surroundings looked no different than before. There were clouds all around me and I hung in space between them. The scene was serenely beautiful, but I couldn't enjoy it.
With a heavy sigh, I started climbing upward, lamenting that I'd allowed myself to fall for that long. What had it been, a minute, or two, or five? How far can a person fall in that amount of time? I knew enough about the physics to know that I'd made a terrible mistake in not stopping sooner. I'd given Pavel too much time to pursue the Firebird without competition.
After a couple of hours of climbing, to distract myself from the burning in my thighs, I posed a question to Zora.
"Where do the Great Ravens come from?" I asked.
"No one knows," said Zora. "We've just always been."
"Does that mean you have no heritage? No history?" I asked.
The skull squawked in amusement. "We're frighteningly individualistic. No Great Raven is like another. That's why we're so great."
"And humble," I retorted.
"Humility can be a crutch for the unwilling," said Zora.
I grunted. "Fairly spoken."
The wind was cool and at least the light did not overwarm my flesh.
"It must be nice to not have a history dragging you down," I said.
"It's both freeing and damning," said Zora.
"What if I'm wrong about my son? Or what if he's right? What if I'm meant to stand on their side?"
"Is anyone meant to do anything?" said Zora.
"History is a place we come from, a starting point. But it shouldn't define us," I said with a heavy heart. "But I have my doubts."
"Are these doubts or your love for your son?" asked Zora.
"I can't rightly tell," I responded. "I guess the question is: can anyone truly escape who they are?"
"That would depend on your view of free will," said Zora.
A flash of crimson radiated across the bottom of a cloud far above. I couldn't see the Firebird, but the reflection of its fiery plumage made spotting it against the white clouds easy. The speed at which it flew suggested pursuit, though I couldn't imagine how Pavel was moving fast enough to keep up with the Firebird.
"Merde," I muttered. "It means he's figured out a way to use sorcery to go faster."
After a couple of abortive tries, I found a method of locomotion that worked. Much as I had in the Shard of Time, when I needed to jump a great distance, I imagined a great hand lifting me through the air. The sorcery worked well, but it was challenging to remember to put land beneath my feet after each jump.
Before long, I was taking great strides into the sky, leaping distances of thirty to forty feet before jumping again. I scanned the clouds for signs of the Firebird.
"Katerina," said Zora as the wind rushed past us with each stride, "do you know what you're going to do when you see your son again?"
"What do you mean?" I asked, despite knowing in my gut what she implied.
"Can you do battle with him? Kill him if you must?" said Zora. "Can you overcome your instincts?"
I didn't answer as I concentrated on climbing faster. A flash of yellow burst from a cloud far to my left. I veered in that direction.
When I reached the area where I had seen Pavel's sorcery, I stopped and surveyed the sky. Zora spotted them before I did. The battle had moved beneath me to an area of hazy cloudlets, like white lilies on a pale blue pond.
The fall was exhilarating. I nudged my descent with my magic, screaming through the sky like a bird of prey. Neither the Firebird nor Pavel had seen me. I was pointed directly at my son. A full unleashing of my magic would silence his voice forever.
"Do not hesitate," said Zora from around my neck, sensing my reluctance.
The purplish wave of sorcery hit Pavel directly in the back, knocking him head over heels in a noodle-armed spin. He fell, limp and unresponsive, like a comet.
"It's done then," said Zora.
"No," I said. "That was not a killing blow. Only enough to stop him."
Zora made a noise, but I ignored it. The Firebird had stopped and hovered in midair about one hundred feet from my location.
"Greetings," I said, keeping my hands wide in the universal sign of nonaggression.
The Firebird made no move towards me.
"Your feathers are quite beautiful," I called across the space.
As the Firebird hovered, bits of flame dripped off the end of the feathers, like an oily rag burning.
"I've been sent here to retrieve a feather," I said, hoping honesty would prove virtuous enough. "If I complete this task, I can gain passage to another land, which I must do, to stop a terrible war. I would not ask if it weren't important. May I have one of your feathers?"
The Firebird made no move towards me, but neither did it fly away. I took that as a positive sign.
"Katerina," said Zora, "Pavel's back."
Flying up towards the Firebird, which had not noticed him, was my son, making great leaps and bounds. I leapt in his direction, flying through the sky like a soaring bird.
The Firebird made no move to escape. I placed myself between Pavel and the Firebird. My son showed no signs of slowing. He was still a couple of hundred feet beneath me. As he climbed, I had an idea of what to do.
"Prepare to strike and strike hard," said Zora. "Like you did when you destroyed Count Toropov at court."
"No," I said. How did Zora know my role in that? Only a few people knew that it had been me.
"No?" asked the bird-skull incredulously.
I held my arms wide, once again in the sign of nonaggression.
"I'm not going to fight you, Pavel," I yelled. "I can't. I brought you into this world. I can't send you from it."
"This is a mistake," said Zora. "He'll kill you. He's not letting his heritage blind him. Strike quickly while he's distracted."
Pavel slowed, but kept climbing. I didn't dare glance up to find out if the Firebird was still there, but I assumed it was, or Pavel would have changed direction.
"Stop, Pavel," I said, my hands still wide. "Let's find another way to resolve this, without killing each other."
He stopped about thirty feet from me, looking up at an angle.
Zora whispered at my neck. "Don't let the past ruin the future."
Pavel stared at me, his brow knotted in a ridge. His hands were fists at his side. Then Pavel's gaze shifted, indicating the Firebird was moving.
I glanced upward, only for a moment, but when I looked down, a wave of yellowish sorcery snaked through the air towards me. Rather than block or leap out of the way, I kept my arms wide.
"No!" screamed Zora.
The sorcery blasted me in the chest, though when I opened my eyes, I was unhurt. A glance down revealed how I'd survived
the attack. The bird-skull around my neck was burnt and blackened. Zora had redirected the magic into her.
"Zora?" I asked, holding the still warm skull.
Pavel, though initially confused, moved in for a second strike. I threw myself out of the way; his sorcery scorched the air as it passed.
Before I could do anything else, sharp talons grabbed the back of my jacket, yanking me through the air. The Firebird was carrying me through the sky away from Pavel.
My son tried to pursue, but the Firebird made long, powerful strokes with its wings, carrying us across the wide spaces between the clouds. I cradled the bird-skull in my hands, wondering how I'd misjudged Zora. She'd somehow redirected the magic that would have hit me, taking the brunt of the sorcery, and now she was gone.
The Firebird set me down on a firm piece of cloud. Neva's hut crouched in the mist not far from my location, though my limbs were so heavy with Zora's loss, I barely acknowledged it.
When the Firebird flew away, I stared dumbly at the empty bird-skull. Black scars marred its once pale surface. I was so engrossed by my sorrow that I barely acknowledged that something bright lay in the mist at my feet, giving it a ruby glow.
The feather was warm to the touch, glowing with an inner fire. I trudged back to the hut, my feet climbing wearily to the door. I practically fell through.
Neva waited on the other side like a sentinel. She plucked the feather from my grip, and then almost in an afterthought, snapped her fingers, and the rings around my ankles flew off and into her hand.
"My congratulations," said Neva, lips pressed and jaw tight. "You have won the Nightfell Games, earning the boon which you requested. I shall take you back now."
Neva swept from the room without so much as another word and I collapsed to my knees. I'd won, but I'd sentenced my son to eternal servitude with Neva and lost what I thought was a friend.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
The journey back to Kings Mountain took little time. I spent most of it in a daze, cradling the silent bird-skull in my hands, hoping Zora would speak to me.
What bothered me most was the reference to Count Toropov. The only people that knew I had been behind his disgrace at court were dead. And Zora had once mentioned my daughter Anastasia. I hadn't thought much about it since, but it told me Zora was much more than I had originally assumed. Had the Great Raven been serving someone amongst the Russian nobility? Maybe even someone close to me? I knew it was not Catherine, for she’d shared her secrets with me.
No one bothered me when I reached Gastonia. Toothless and the others had had their fill of Djata's inventions. Once the engine reached the proper pressure, I left the village and headed back to Philadelphia.
The passage of time was painfully slow. Without someone to speak to, I relived the battle with my son over and over. Even though I had achieved my goal, had it been worth the price? And what did it say of my heritage that I was willing to sacrifice so many to achieve my goals?
I drove the whole way without rest, arriving at Franklin's estate in a daze. When I stumbled into the courtyard, I found an olive-skinned, beautiful woman wearing an Ottoman-styled dress sitting in a hand-carved rocking chair with Aught in her lap beneath the sunshade. Her pale eyes flickered over me, at once observing and dissecting me with a fierce intelligence that bordered on painful. She had scandalously short dark hair and a pleasantly oval face despite the sharpness of her cheekbones. For a moment, I thought I'd burst into the wrong courtyard.
"Home, Kat," said the automaton pangolin in her metallic voice as she jumped off the woman's lap and scampered over, placing a tiny, comforting paw against my leg. I smiled, despite my exhaustion.
"I would pick you up, Aught, but I'm not sure I would stay standing. I drove the whole way back without rest," I said, glancing cautiously at the woman.
The woman, wearing a caftan robe with a beaded leather belt around the middle, stood up suddenly. She ducked beneath the sunshade, moving closer to address me.
She spoke in a nearly perfect English I could only dream about. "I once stayed up for three days while I was working on a new magnatronic torque enabler. I found the more I focused on the task, the easier it was to ignore the desire to sleep."
"I am Katerina," I said, avoiding the use of my last name as I looked up into her face.
"Apologies for my forwardness"—she held out her hand—"I am Nasrine Topaz. It is a great honor to meet you, Princess Dashkova. Ben has spoken much about your exploits. I would love to learn more about this magic you control."
"Ben has returned?" I asked, forgetting my manners. I'd been so long from court.
"We arrived only last night on a transatlantic airship. We got stuck in New York when storms blew up the coast," said Nasrine. "I am waiting to attend to the workshop in the Thornveld, but Ben said he must configure the gate first to allow me in."
Her hand remained poised in midair, so I took it, expecting a dainty courtly touch, but she commandingly took my hand and pressed her lips against my fingers. The unexpected caress of her lips against my skin sent a warm shock through my midsection.
"I am truly honored," she said, standing straight again. She was a tall woman, slightly wide in the hips.
The clues began to accumulate in my head. "Are you the...?"
She knew at once what I was speaking of, her never-resting gaze exploring every nook and cranny of my face. It was slightly disorienting and pleasant at the same time. I matched her insistent gaze while our fingers were still grasped.
"Newest member," she said, shaking her head. "Not yet. Ben asked me to meet the rest of you, so you might decide for yourselves."
"Kat!" exclaimed Franklin as he burst into the courtyard with Brassy in tow behind him. Nasrine released my hand and returned to her rocking chair, picking up a mug that had been resting on the table.
Ben grasped me around the shoulders and looked me in the eyes. His brow was hunched in concern. "If you are here, then it means you were successful. Voltaire told me about the other contests, and of course, your son. I'm very sorry that it had to be him."
An overwhelming feeling rose up into my throat, but I choked it down. I would let those feelings claim me later, but not in front of Ben or this strange woman I didn't know.
"I had no other choice," I said, even though I worried I was wrong. "And now I will not have to worry about him. While he is Neva's servant, he can no longer fight for the Russian side. And maybe someday I can see him again."
Ben squeezed my shoulders and backed away. "Greetings and sad tidings aside, I'm afraid I must press you on other matters. Voltaire told me what he could, but I must hear it from your lips. Is Philadelphia still in danger?"
"That depends, is the guard still standing at the Water Works?" I asked.
He nodded.
"Then we only need to keep our watch until we're well past the third moon. My vision was very specific," I said.
Ben touched the bird-skull hanging around my neck. "Was this the prize of the third contest?"
"No," I said, shaking my head. "It's too hard to explain. The final task was to capture a feather from the fabled Firebird."
Ben quirked a smile. "I've never heard of the Firebird. Is that one of the Slavic myths?"
"Yes," I said, feeling suddenly warm when I realized Nasrine was staring at me. "Flames dripped from its tail feathers, yet I could hold one without injury. In the stories, the hero is sent on a quest to retrieve the feather by a great king."
Brassy spoke up. "Is the Firebird like the phoenix who rises from the ashes? I know this story from when I was a young girl."
"The phoenix," said Ben, "I know this one. It's a symbol of resurrection. It's used in powerful alchemy recipes."
"It is?" I asked as my stomach tightened for some unknown reason.
"You are distressed?" asked Nasrine.
"I..."
At first I didn't know why, but then one possible answer began to dawn on me, seizing my limbs as a cold dread spread through me.
&
nbsp; "Oh no," I said. "I need to go talk to someone."
"What's wrong?" asked Ben.
A suspicion formed. "The Water Works. You need to check it again. Bring extra guards if you must."
Ben looked at me strangely, but nodded and prepared to leave. Brassy got up to go with him.
"No, Brassy. I need you," I said. "Nasrine. Aught. Can you go with Ben?"
"Of course, I would be honored." Nasrine stood and joined Ben, who was still looking at me.
"I need to confirm something. If I'm right, then I'm afraid I've made a very big mistake," I said. "If not, we can laugh about it later."
I took Brassy's hand and we ran out to my steam carriage, which thankfully was still warm. I slid across the leather seat, barely letting Brassy close the door before I pushed the lever into gear.
"Where are we headed?" asked Brassy as she squinted into the fading light of sunset.
I squeezed the steering mechanism, hoping it would give me the strength to do what needed to be done.
"Christ's Church Cemetery," I said.
Brassy's lips bunched into a grimace. "But you didn't let me get the locking box. How can we go in?"
"Don't worry," I said. "It'll just be me inside. You'll have to stay outside in case something goes wrong, so you can tell the others."
"Tell the others what?" she asked.
It only took one glance. Her lips pursed into an "O" before she slumped sullenly against the seat.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Brassy closed me into the mausoleum at the center of Christ's Church Cemetery, where Santiago kept apart from the rest of the city. The sun had only just cut into the horizon like a bright axe. I hoped it wasn't late enough that Santiago couldn't control himself.
I used the cold wall as a guide through the darkness, until my eyes adjusted to the candlelight reflecting from the central chamber.
The rattle of someone sorting through knives on a brass tray echoed from somewhere. My hand reached for the rapier that I'd left in the steam carriage on purpose, so I wouldn’t give Santiago the wrong idea.
"Santiago," I called softly, then again louder when I heard how strangled my voice had been. "Santiago. It's me, Katerina. I must speak with you. It's urgent."
Nightfell Games (The Dashkova Memoirs Book 5) Page 20
