It was not a click that froze the pain away, igniting every nerve in Nadya’s body with fiery energy, but a slow grinding. Like stone moving across stone, or the slow draw of a crossbow before its bolt was released into an unsuspecting target.
Shay was three steps ahead of her, eyes up and ahead, and she appeared to be missing the shifting stonework on her left.
“Shay!”
Despite the pain in her chest, the way it drained her limbs of energy, Nadya surged forward. She launched off a step, praying that she was fast enough.
A snap echoed throughout the staircase.
“What the—?” Shay’s breath washed over her.
Nadya grimaced. She stood between Shay and a trio of iron spikes that had sprung out of the wall. One whiff of their gleaming edges, and she knew them to be poisoned. One had nicked her side before the force of her body had snapped each of the three heads clean off. Mere moments before they would have buried themselves into Shay’s torso.
She turned away from the wall and the spears, ignoring the pain in her side. They stood close enough to kiss, she realized, only Nadya’s mask separating their quickened breaths. Shay looked down at her, eyes shining.
“I guess we’re even now,” Nadya whispered.
“Guess we are.” Shay bit the edge of her lip, and Nadya wished they stood anywhere but the deadly tower of a Cressian stronghold. She followed the movement of Shay’s throat as she swallowed, checking her breath.
Protectress, Nadya prayed silently, not really sure what she asked for. The chance to be alone with Shay, to tear off her own cloak and mask and perhaps more. For that, they needed to find the compound and escape, and then rescue the city.
Just that, Nadya thought with a tired smile. I’ve done worse for less.
She realized they hadn’t moved, even after the poison-coated spikes retreated back to their hidden lair. Shay’s breath filled the space between them. Her eyes sparked with questions that Nadya could not yet answer.
She forced herself to step back. “We need to keep moving.”
“Yes, of course.” Shay cleared her throat. “Damn this place. We’ll be lucky to return to Storm’s Quarry in time with all the traps it’s putting us through.”
They looked to the single staircase that wound up and out of sight, headed toward the very top of the stronghold.
“We’ve been fortunate so far,” Nadya said, stepping forward. She tried to erase the hesitance from her movements. Her father had been right: this place was filled with death that no amount of nivasi power could ensure the destruction of. She only hoped that between the two of them, they could ascend to their goal. “May the Protectress see us through.”
Behind her, she heard Shay mumble, “Stars, I hope so.”
A simple unlocked door stood at the end of the staircase. Shay held up a hand as both inspected the door for any sign of being booby-trapped.
“Not that we would know a damn trap if it kicked us in the face,” Shay said, running her fingers lightly over the framework. “We are two for two for tripping their fancy snares, and those soldiers won’t stay caged for long either.” She leaned back. “Well, there’s nothing for it.” With a light push, the door creaked inward.
The air stank with scents of decaying flowers and rotten meat. Glassware lined the walls, some filled with odd-colored liquids, other with tiny creatures suspended in syrup. A laboratory.
A Cressian woman stood before them. Her eyes ran from one to the other.
“She must be the chemist,” Shay said. “She’ll know about it.” She stepped toward the woman. “You speak Erevo.”
She jerked a nod.
“Good. We are here for the compound that purifies water. The one Wintercress has been hiding here. Know of it?”
Despite her pale face and shaking fingers, the chemist kept her mouth closed.
“Where is the compound?” Nadya rushed forward and grabbed the chemist by her collar. Her feet dangled a finger’s breadth off the floor. “You make it here. I can smell it. Tell me where it is.”
“Hold on,” Shay said, putting a hand to Nadya’s shoulder.
Nadya shook the woman she held. “Where is it?”
The woman’s eyes were so wide they were almost perfectly round, white orbs with the lightest silver iris. Her breath trembled against Nadya’s hands. In a heavy accent, she sputtered, “Th—there.”
“This?” Shay picked up a gray lump from the table. It sat alone on a perfectly round glass plate.
“And the rest?” Nadya could not help the hysterical note that leaked into her voice.
“No more.”
“Make more,” she ordered.
“I cannot.”
Nadya dropped the woman. She hit the floor on her knees, crawling away from the two nivasi. Nadya hardly paid her mind.
There was no more.
Nadya clenched her trembling hands. She turned, glancing over her shoulder to where the Cressian chemist huddled in the corner.
What would it take, the darker part of her mind wondered, to force this woman to make more of the compound? Could it even be done in the time they had? Would the threat of shattered hands and crushed ribs be enough to motivate speed and accuracy? She could do it, she knew. The Iron Phoenix was the terror of Storm’s Quarry and beyond. Even those who looked up to the vigilante and those who knew the truth, like her father or Kesali, still feared what the Phoenix was.
Images flashed across her thoughts. Of pinning Levka up by his throat, feeling how brittle his life was. Of snapping Gedeon’s head so his suddenly empty neck frothed with blood. Not under the influence of another nivasi, but the Iron Phoenix, doing exactly what needed to be done, uncaring of the blood trail she left behind.
Could she torture the city’s future out of the chemist who quaked before her? She raised a clenched fist, and the woman winced, muttering a fast string of Cressian that could be nothing but a prayer.
“Nadya.” Shay put a hand on her shoulder, and Nadya came rushing back to herself. In one word, Shay had pulled her back.
She looked up into those dark eyes, shining with concern. Can I ask it of her? Will she ever trust me again?
There was no choice. Not with Shay standing next to her, restraining her darker impulses. The Phoenix does not have to be a killer. She repeated it over and over again until that path, of shadow and blood, disappeared entirely from before her.
“I am fine,” she said, though it could not have been further from the truth. “Shay, I have to tell you something.” She needed to do it now, before her nerve failed and Storm’s Quarry paid the price.
A friendship for a city. A cheap price and an unbearable one at the same time.
Dozens of heavy footsteps took the words from her.
The chemist yelled, her Cressian words shrill. She climbed to her feet. Shay’s blades flared to life in her hands, and the chemist shrank back against the wall. In a heavy accent, she said in Erevo, “Barbarians. You will not escape here alive.”
Shay sprinted toward the door, looking out before slamming what remained of it shut. She turned to Nadya. “Not good. They will have reset all the traps, and it sounds like those soldiers you locked up managed to blow their way out.”
“Can we fight through?”
“Doubt it.” Shay hefted her blades of fire. “I’m willing to try if you are, but we do not know what other nasty surprises they have. Put that together with angry Cressian soldiers armed to the teeth…”
“Right.” Nadya looked around wildly. Nothing in here but vials and bottles, their chemical contents beyond her understanding. “We need to run for it. You have the compound?”
“Safe and sound.”
Her gut roiled, but Nadya shoved her nerves back. Escape now, speak to Shay later.
The room held no windows. Its only light came from oil lamps mounted on the walls. Nadya put a hand on the stone. “South.”
“What?” Shay jumped as pistols went off. Lead tore through the mangled door. “Now is not the
time to lose your sense!”
“Which way is south?”
Shay stared at her for half a moment as the first Cressian soldiers burst into the tower. Her blades flashed to the left. “There.” In the same breath, she cut down the first soldier whose saber struck at her.
Protectress, let this work. She took a precious second to steady her stance, then launched forward. One hand reached out and encircled Shay’s arm. The other nivasi yelped, blades instantly vanishing as Nadya dragged her toward a solid wall of stone.
Nadya threw her shoulder into the blow, channeling every bit of strength she had at the wall. Either she succeeded, or they ended up in a tangled mess, served up to the oncoming soldiers like fresh-cut meat on market day.
Underneath the cries of the Cressian soldiers, Nadya heard Shay muttering a host of colorful curses as she closed her eyes, face screwed up for impact.
Stone exploded outward as she collided with the wall. Dust turned to fresh night air, and arm in arm, they fell down to the earth below.
*
Shay could not remember screaming, though her throat ached after they hit the ground.
After Nadya had grabbed her and thrown them both out a stars-cursed tower.
If the plan had not worked so well, if Nadya had not taken the impact of the fall, if she had not half dragged Shay out of range of arrows and muskets, Shay might be angry.
But she couldn’t be. It was so damn perfect, just the thing she would do, despite Jeta’s caution, and then throw her success in the face of all who said she couldn’t.
Knowing that, however, did not stop the roiling within her gut as they trudged back toward the sea and Storm’s Quarry. She was pretty sure it wasn’t until the crest of the crater that held the Kyanite Sea came into view that she remembered how to breathe.
“Never again, Nadya Gabori, never.” She bent over, trying to regain some sense of sky and earth. “Leaping out of buildings is your thing, not mine.”
She glanced up, half expecting to see an easy smile on Nadya’s face. The clouded uncertainty there sent uneasiness deep into her chest.
Trying to ignore it, Shay straightened. “We did it, then, yeah?” She wiped at the black oil that had worked its way into the corner of her eye, stinging. The compound lay safe in her other hand, fingers closed around it protectively. “This little rock is going to save your city.” She looked down at Nadya, expecting to see elation, or at least relief, on her face.
Nadya’s eyes held a tiredness befitting those four times her age. She shifted from foot to foot, not meeting Shay’s gaze. Instead, her eyes swept out across the landscape. The wonder her expression had held just hours before had faded completely and, in its place, worry.
“Nadya, we have the compound.” Shay put a hand on her shoulder, shaking her slightly. Stars, that girl was built like stone.
Not the time to think about how much you like that.
She licked her lips, which had suddenly lost all moisture. “Take it back to your father, to the Duke. Be a hero. Wipe away memories of the solstice…” Kiss me again.
Nadya flinched. “I…I can’t.”
“You can’t?” When Nadya did not respond, did not even look at her, Shay crossed her arms. “What is it? What haven’t you told me? You kissed me, convinced me to fight at your side, risking my life, I might add, not to mention throwing me out a window, but this entire time you have been holding something back, and I need to know what it is.” Her voice quieted, losing its accusatory edge. “I deserve that much, Nadya.”
“You’re right, you do.” She sighed. “It’s not enough.”
“Not enough.” The kiss? Shay’s throat constricted. You knew she would pick Kesali. Do not be surprised by this. The kiss, it was a ploy for your help, devious for her, I did not think she had it in her—
“The compound. It is not enough.”
Oh. “Oh.” Shay struggled to bring her mind back to the impending doom facing Storm’s Quarry. Somehow, the way Nadya’s lips looked when she frowned, the sharp curves, the tightly held emotion, that was far more important. She cleared her throat. “What do you mean? I thought that was the whole point of this. Break in, steal the compound, and drive Wintercress out of the city without starting a war.”
“We are out of time.” Nadya’s hands shook at her sides, knuckles white. “I thought there would be more of the compound there, but Wintercress had a fail-safe all along.”
“Making small quantities, preventing theft,” Shay said. Not surprising, given what Nadya had told her of Councillor Aster.
“The Duke must make a decision at dawn, and he will choose to sign over Storm’s Quarry to Wintercress.”
“I don’t understand.” And she didn’t. Nadya was dancing around something, and whatever it was, it kept drawing her eyes away from Shay, kept her shifting from foot to foot.
“Duke Isyanov, he is a peacemaker. He values the lives of his people over all else. The compound we recovered”—and Nadya caught Shay’s hand that held it, cradling her hand in soft fingers—“is not enough to keep the waters pure until Storm’s Quarry’s sages can uncover the secrets behind it. The Duke will never sacrifice all the lives that would be lost while they searched for answers.”
Shay glanced at their entwined hands, holding the hope for the future of the city. Nadya’s city. “Then what hope is there?”
Nadya looked up at her, eye wide and shining in the starlight. “The hope is your sister.”
“My—” Her sister. The perfect Nomori daughter whose touch could determine the essence of a thing. The girl whose gift betrayed her nivasi nature to their parents, who ended her life in Storm’s Quarry. “My sister?” Shay snatched her hand away, and Nadya let her go. “You used me.”
“No, I did need your help—”
“You didn’t. The great Iron Phoenix could have ripped apart a dozen Wintercress strongholds. How can flames compare to the strength of stone? No, you needed my sister, and you thought to warm me up, to trick me with kisses, to steal my trust, and then betray me just as she did.”
Fire erupted along her arms, running toward her chest, spreading through her limbs until she lit up the night like a beacon. Shay did not struggle for control. The grass around her feet burned into charcoal, and a patch of death spread out from her. She barely saw Nadya through the haze of flames, of anger born of years of exile.
“Shay, I didn’t mean for this.” Nadya reached for her, but a burst of fire sent her staggering back. “Shay, calm down.”
“Calm down? That is rich, coming from you.” She shoved back any thoughts of calm, any teachings of Jeta that came to mind. Her anger was her own, hers alone, and it was the only thing she could depend upon. “I thought…”
I thought there was something between us. I thought you cared for me.
Nadya took a step toward her, ignoring the tendrils of flame that lashed out, nipping at her. “I wasn’t sure we would need your sister, but without enough compound—Shay, you have to speak to her, to convince her to help.”
“I do not have to do anything,” she spat.
“What are you afraid of? You are the only one who can. The city will be lost if you do nothing, your city.”
Cold burned in her chest. Her flames flared once, and Nadya yelped, shielding her eyes. In an instant, they had gone out. Shay stood there, heart pounding. She breathed heavily. Slowly, she raised her eyes to meet Nadya’s. “It is not my city. I will happily watch it burn.”
Chapter Fifteen
Shay did not know exactly when she realized that she still held a piece of the compound. Somewhere between Eagle’s Reach and the edge of the Kyanite Sea. Sweat from her grip tinged its edges a darker gray. For a moment, she considered setting it aflame to set if the mass would explode. That, or simply smashing it into the ground and leaving its dust behind, ridding herself of this whole stars-cursed endeavor.
What are you afraid of?
She snapped up, pocketing the compound, and walked more quickly.
&nb
sp; Nadya’s words followed her across the bridge to the great gate of Storm’s Quarry. They played over the long questions of the heavy-eyed guardsmen, drowning out their probing. When she was finally admitted, she thought to outrun them.
Even her fire could not burn the words away.
What are you afraid of?
“I am a damn nivasi,” Shay muttered to herself. A young beggar, with gaunt-cheeks and pus-riddled arms, stumbled away from her, eyes wide and fearful. See, it’s they who fear me.
What are you afraid of?
“No one!” Her sudden shout scared off a few more of the pitiful walking dead, afflicted with the scouring sickness. They scuttled off, whispering about mad Nomori women.
Not nivasi like Gedeon or Nadya. Not Erevan guardsmen or Wintercress soldiers or Jeta in a bad mood. Not the foolhardy dangers that Nadya dragged her to. I mastered my fires, my fear.
What are you afraid of?
In her haze, Shay missed the cutoff to the staircase to the other tiers. Once she realized her mistake, she veered off toward one of the rundown Nomori districts, where the smell of dead fish competed with sea scum and a fresher scent of disease. She froze in the middle of the street. Her eyes darted across storefronts, tracing paths long untrodden yet stored deep in her memories.
What are you afraid of?
“Them,” Shay whispered. She nearly collapsed to the ground with the weight of that confession.
“Damn you, Nadya.” She had known since their first fight, strength against fire, that this was a woman she was going to fall for, and fall hard. Ten years of being haunted by her past, and all it took for the resolve to confront her truth was a few imaginary words from the nivasi she had fallen in love with.
Stars, love. With someone who loved another more, who quite probably hated her right now for turning her back on Storm’s Quarry.
I never had a choice in this, did I?
She set off, following a path she had walked a thousand times in her nightmares.
*
It took several minutes before Shay could lift her hand to knock on the simple door of a two-story Nomori house deep within one of the tier’s poorer districts. One small knock. Like a mewling kitten, begging for a drop of milk.
Phoenix Rising Page 17
