Phoenix Rising

by Rebecca Harwell

  The empty staircase gave Nadya space to watch the city, and from the nearly untarnished marble steps, the city’s plight did not seem that bad. The higher she climbed, the more beautiful Storm’s Quarry appeared. The setting sun gave a pink glow to the marble walls, and when it disappeared behind the horizon, the stars reflected down between wisps of cloud, softening the edges of the great wall. From here, the damaged section could not be seen. As Nadya finally reached the last of the stairs, the city looked positively gorgeous. She wondered if this was what those who lived up here saw day in and day out. How they could truly know the ugliness that rooted itself in Storm’s Quarry if they never took a closer look?

  The gates stood locked, with a couple of guardsmen posted at the top. She stayed in the shadows of the buildings that bordered the grand staircase. A bit of scrambling up the side of one, and she stood above the stairs. It took only a little effort to jump over the wall and into the palace tier. The guardsmen were none the wiser.

  In the back of her mind, she wondered if Shay would find breaking into the palace this easy. If she meant trouble for the Duke and his family, she’d probably have no trouble getting this far. As Nadya ran across the roofs of warehouses to the west side of the palace and spotted Kesali’s window, her stomach turned sour at the thought of Shay being able to do the same.

  When she reached the window ledge of Kesali’s room after climbing the shear palace wall, she paused. What am I doing here? she wondered, her pulse racing in a way that had nothing to do with exertion.

  The window opened, and Kesali stood in front of it.

  “You came.” Kesali smiled. She wore only a nightshirt, embroidered with unnecessary white frills. In the moonlight, the cloth lit up like something from another realm. Her hair, unbraided, fell about her shoulders. Nadya swallowed. She looked beautiful. Against the dark wood of the room, with its carved furniture and velvet drapery, she looked as if she had stepped right out of a master painting. Or as if Nadya had stepped into one.

  “Everything all right getting here?” Kesali whispered, touching her shoulder.

  “Yes, of course. No problems.” Nadya looked around. “Why are we whispering?”

  Kesali nodded toward the door. It was made of the same dark wood as the rest of the room, inlaid with gold filigree. “These are my chambers, but Marko’s are just through there. He is probably asleep, but I’d rather not find out.”

  Nadya listened. Underneath the pounding of her own heart, she could make out a soft heartbeat from the adjacent room. She heard no footsteps, but no telling whether he was awake or not, though.

  “So,” Nadya began. Her mouth tasted like sand. She shifted from foot to foot. Here, she felt as out of place as a courtier in the second tier bathhouse. Her rough Nomori dress, dust-splattered legs, mussed hair—they did not fit with palaces and ribbon and gold trim.

  “So, indeed.” Kesali touched her chin. “Do not look so nervous. You are acting like you’re about to bolt out that window at any moment.”

  In truth, Nadya had been considering it. Escape certainly seemed a lot safer. She looked away. “Your note didn’t—didn’t say why I was to meet you here. Do you need something?”

  She held her breath, waiting for the answer. Part of her hoped Kesali had not called her here to once again ask for the Phoenix’s help. But another terrified part of her was desperate for that to be the case.

  Kesali took her hand. “I just wanted to see you.”

  Nadya felt her world spinng around and around her. “Oh.”

  “Are you all right?” Kesali tugged on her hand. “You aren’t moving, Nadya.”

  “Oh, sorry.” Nadya told her limbs to work, and they did, but numbly. Kesali led her over rich brown carpet to the four-poster bed that dominated the room. It was covered in blankets and pillows. Nadya almost forgot her nerves as she surveyed the finery. Fabric like this was more trouble than anything in the lower tiers, with the perpetual damp of the city making it near impossible to keep free of mold.

  Kesali sat down and patted beside her. Nadya tentatively joined her. The layers of finery bent under the weight.

  “You look like you’re seeing ghosts,” Kesali said with a smile.

  “No, I just…I have never seen anything like this.” She looked around at all the finery. “I knew you were Marko’s betrothed and living in the palace and everything, but seeing it…”

  “Does it upset you?” Kesali asked.

  Nadya shook her head. “Of course not. This doesn’t change a person. Though, I suppose all that responsibility must come with a few perks to make it worth the cost.”

  “Doesn’t yours?”

  Her thoughts went to leaping across rooftops, nothing but wind and sky, to the exhilarating fight alongside another who understood the thrill, and she nodded. “Yeah, it does.”

  Silence grew between them. Nadya bit her lip. She looked anywhere but Kesali’s face. There were some fascinating veins that ran through the marbled ceiling, and she studied them until Kesali’s whisper broke the silence.

  “I feel like we have not seen each other, not really, in a long time.”

  “Since the solstice?” Nadya asked.

  “Before that. Since…since everything. The solstice, the Phoenix, the storm, Marko…we are young women and drowning in responsibility that would make our Elders cringe.” She paused. Her fingers touched the back of Nadya’s hand, tracing lazy circles on it. Nadya held still. Electricity ran up her arm.

  “I need to apologize. Yes,” she said before Nadya could deny it. “I do. I’ve been distant. Purposefully, these past months.” Her eyes never left their hands.

  Nadya shook her head. “I understand. You were shocked. Scared. I know how unnerving it is, how…frightening what I am can be, and I am sorry if I ever made you think you had to do something or feel a certain way, or—”

  “No.” Kesali clasped her hand. “No. Nadya, look at me.” Their eyes met, and nothing but truth remained between them. “It was not that, never that. I am not afraid of you. I do not care that you are nivasi.”

  Her heartbeat remained steady and firm, but Nadya’s ricocheted all over her chest. “You mean that.”

  “Of course I do. I’m sorry that I made you think that. It was my own selfishness that kept me from you. I was afraid, but not of you. Of us.”

  “Us,” Nadya breathed.

  “I know my duty. I have for a long time. And I embrace it. Always have. But the only times I wish I didn’t have to bear it is when I am with you.” Kesali leaned closer until their noses nearly touched. “You know I love you.”

  She kissed Nadya. Softly at first, then more insistent. Nadya froze only a moment before melting into the kiss. Kesali’s hand ran up and down her arm, igniting warm shivers on her skin. She tasted like cinnamon and chilled grapes and dancing around the fountain at Arane Sveltura. Nadya reached up, entwining her fingers through Kesali’s hair.

  After an immeasurable moment, Kesali’s lips left hers. “Nadya,” she whispered, grasping her hand.

  Nadya could barely breathe. Kesali stroked her cheek. “Nadya, I stayed away because I was afraid if I let myself get close to you, I’d give everything up for us.”

  “And now?” she asked hoarsely.

  “Now, I don’t care. After seeing you over the past week, I realized going without seeing you is like going without a limb. I can’t do it. I am not giving you up. My duty does not need to dictate my heart.”

  She kissed her again, taking all Nadya’s conscious thought away.

  Except one: Be careful. In control. This was not a moment she wanted her father’s voice in her head, but Nadya could not help a few of his mantras about control from running across her thoughts.

  Her hesitation must have shown in her movements, because Kesali paused.

  “Is this too…sudden?” she asked.

  “No, I want this. Ever since our dance on Arane Sveltura, I’ve wanted this. You. But…I do not want to hurt you.” Nadya looked away as she spoke.
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br />   Kesali wouldn’t let her hide. She put a warm hand under Nadya’s chin and raised it to meet her glowing brown eyes. “You already speak of an end before it’s begun? Nadya—”

  “That is not what I meant.”

  “Oh.” Kesali bit her lip.

  Here it is, Nadya thought. Forget their duties, their city. This is what will keep us apart. I am different from you. Down to my blood. “I am nivasi,” she whispered.

  “You know I don’t care.” Kesali put her hands on Nadya’s shoulders and eased her down until she lay on her back. She ran her fingers along Nadya’s tunic, down her side, past her hips. Nadya fought to keep still and not rise to the touch.

  “Kesali, I might…”

  “Nothing. You won’t.” She reached out and stroked Nadya’s hair, running her fingers through the wisps that had escaped her braid. “I trust you.” Kesali leaned over her and kissed her. “Let me show you.”

  Sinking into the rich bedspread, Nadya let her. It was almost nothing and nearly everything at the same time. Soft kisses. A touch that raised chills along her back. There were laughs too, quiet ones, for fumbled clothing and stubborn hair that kept falling in their eyes. Nadya found herself forgetting her fear for the most part. Never completely. She returned all that Kesali gave her, just a little more carefully, a bit more restrained. Maybe with time, she would learn to trust herself as much as the woman she loved trusted her.

  Beneath Kesali’s room, the hum of servants making their nightly preparations slowly faded away, leaving nothing but the night’s lullabies. Outside, the carrion crows that roosted on the palace roof began their moonlit calls. Wind whistled through narrow gaps in stonework.

  Nadya closed her eyes. Her hands ran along Kesali’s curves. The outside world faded away until all that remained was their shared heartbeat, their breath.

  Until that silence was broken by Kesali’s soft grunt.

  Nadya snatched her hands away. Blood gummed up underneath one of her nails from where she had pressed a bit too hard against Kesali’s fragile skin. Several drops welled from the cut on Kesali’s upper arm, running down to the blankets.

  “It’s all right,” Kesali said, breathlessly. She sat up and planted warm kisses along Nadya’s shoulder. Nadya found herself leaning into Kesali’s touch. “It is just a scratch. I told you, I trust you. You don’t have to be afraid.”

  “I hurt you, Kesali, and you are lucky it wasn’t worse.” Lucky, like those who escaped her grasp the day Gedeon turned her mind into his, her body to an automaton that carried death in every step.

  She winced, trying to shove the tidal wave of memories back, but it was too much. Kesali’s concerned face retreated. Behind the sudden scent of blood, Nadya’s demons roared to life. She gripped her head. Her hands were no longer her own. Darkness everywhere. A deep sludge that wrapped around her waist and pulled her down, down through a screaming pyre of bones that she had built.

  A cloak flowed about her shoulders, black instead of gray. Its length stretched outward until it left the room, loomed over the city, covering Storm’s Quarry with its suffocating embrace. Long live the Phoenix, Gedeon’s voice called.

  Shut up! Nadya’s fingers dug into her palms. A whine escaped her lips. You are dead. You are dead.

  Dead. Dead. Dead. Killed by her hands. Ripped apart by a strength that could never be natural, could never be loved…

  Something shattered under her grip, its crack splitting through the dark spiral. Nadya blinked. She took several breaths. I am in the palace. In Kesali’s room. Each breath was a stone, anchoring back to the moment, to what was real.

  “Nadya?”

  Kesali’s voice. It soothed the remaining pains of the flashback. That is, until Nadya looked up at her. Her eyes were wide, and she held her hands at her side and out, as if calming a spooked animal.

  Nadya looked down at her own hands holding the splintered remains of one of the bedposts. The bed’s canopy hung broken, its edge ragged from the intensity of her flashback. “Sorry,” she whispered, knowing no apology would be enough. “I didn’t mean…”

  “I know.” But Kesali’s heartbeat galloped across the quiet of the room. She stared at Nadya like one might a rabid beast, once a friend turned mad by a disease running through its blood. “What happened?”

  “Just…memories.”

  The full weight of the word settled over both of them.

  She swallowed against a throat that was bone dry. “I need to go.”

  More than anything, she wanted Kesali to beg her to stay.

  “You’re sure?” Relief hung off Kesali’s words, or was that Nadya’s imagination? “Nadya, I don’t—I’m not afraid, I just…you are so far away.”

  And no bridge could overcome the gap between Nomori and nivasi.

  She could not look at Kesali. “Yeah. I need time to think.” She stumbled off the bed toward the window, climbed through, and leapt down, taking Kesali’s soft okay with her into the night. If her eyes teared up a bit when she raced down the stairs, she blamed it on the wind.

  Chapter Eight

  What am I doing here? Nadya asked herself for the third time that morning. Looking around the street, she shielded her eyes against the sun. Most clouds had gone the way of the floodwaters, and she almost missed the oppressive, impenetrable cloud coverage that usually hung over the city.

  She raised her hand to knock, and hesitated. Did one knock on their own door?

  Was it hers anymore?

  She stood outside her parents’ home in the Nomori tier. The metal sign swayed in the morning’s light breeze. It depicted pliers and a diamond, the sign of a master jeweler. The front of the house doubled as her mother’s shop. Nadya had spent many afternoons sitting on the benches there, watching her mother work.

  She snapped out of memory. I should go. After Mirela had used her gift to read Nadya’s seal, she had learned her daughter’s secrets, and Nadya had not seen her mother since. Mirela had not taken the Iron Phoenix’s true identity as well as Shadar, and with everything going on with Shay and Kesali, Nadya did not need her mother to add to that plate.

  Nadya sighed. But that’s why I’m here.

  Mirela would know what to do about Kesali, and what was right and wrong. It all swirled together in Nadya’s head and made her temples throb. She needed her mother’s advice, her sweet-smelling hugs.

  Before she lost her nerve, she knocked.

  After the longest minute of her life, the door open, and her mother stood there.

  Mirela Gabori had only just entered her forties, but her black hair was already graying, and her face carried lines that had nothing to do with age. She wore simple clothing and a grease-stained tunic. She must have interrupted her mother while she was working on a commission. Mirela’s eyes, normally so soft, now looked hawk-like, more like Nadya’s grandmother than she had ever seen them.

  Her mother stared at her without speaking.

  “Papa said…he said I could come…” Nadya’s tongue stumbled over her words. Her face burned. She looked everywhere but at Mirela.

  “Shadar did mention it.” Mirela stood aside, coldly, as if inviting a guest into her home.

  She entered. The familiar surroundings embraced her, shielding her against her mother’s distance. Beyond the jeweler’s shop, the house’s one room stood. Nadya looked it over, drinking the familiarity in. Her parents’ pallet bed. The clay oven. Shelves full of mugs and bowls. And above, her loft. The ladder was set up against the east wall, not in its usual place leaning against the loft.

  Protectress, I have missed this place.

  Behind her, Mirela coughed. Nadya whirled around. She searched her mother’s face for illness, for the lines that her lung disease brought on too young. Mirela covered her mouth as the coughs grew. When she withdrew her hand, Nadya smelled blood.

  “Are you getting your medicine? Papa said he arranged it, but is it enough?”

  “I am fine.”

  “Okay.” Nadya stood awkwardly in the middle
of the room as her mother put a kettle of water over the coals of the oven, heating it up for tea. Mirela said nothing to her. The silence stretched until the atmosphere was so stressed Nadya thought she might snap. When did she become a stranger in this place?

  The moment you were born with nivasi blood.

  “Your father says he is training you.”

  Nadya sighed. “Yes. For control. I’m learning a lot, and it is good to spend time with him.”

  “Learning how to fight?” The question came in a neutral tone, but there was nothing neutral about its implications.

  “Yes, but more than that. How do so without needing…without needing my abilities.”

  She had naïvely hoped she would come home and things would be as they used to be. No mentions of her powers or nivasi or the events of the solstice. But Mirela looked as if she had just begun her questions, Nadya blanched at what her mother would think once she had all the answers.

  “He told me. He says you’re very strong.” Mirela added a packet of cheap ration tea leaves to the kettle. “Is that how all those people died at the Duke’s address?”

  Nadya’s chest constricted. “No, it wasn’t like that.”

  “The Guard says differently. They say the Iron Phoenix was unstoppable.” Mirela still did not look at her, but her face betrayed her thoughts: anger, weariness, and fear.

  Nadya was overcome with the need to change that, to make her mother understand. “Gedeon put me under his control, Mama. It was not me who killed those people,” she said. Perhaps her words would have sounded more convincing had she believed them herself.

  Mirela’s expression did not change. Nadya swallowed against a lump of tears. Her mother did not wear this mask of indifference. Her mother was warm, gentle. Had the revelation about Nadya taken all that away from her?

  “Your father told me of the other nivasi.”

  “Then you know? You understand? Mama, it was not me that day. Gedeon was a murderer, a madman. He and the magistrate and the zealot brought fire and blood on the city. I was only trying to stop it.”