by Jamie Foley
Kira’s hands began to shake as she watched Vylia work—a familiar occurrence after she escaped danger. Something she was becoming more used to every day.
“You didn’t give her what she wanted,” Kira said quietly to Vylia.
“Neither did you,” Vylia said with beaming pride, then looked at Sousuke. “Did you hear her this time?”
Sousuke shook his head. Tekkyn did too.
“Strange,” Kira mused.
“She doesn’t like men, if the legends are to be believed.” Vylia sniffed and glared at the chalice. “It seems our history scrolls need some sorting out.”
Kira’s heart ached. Vylia seemed as fragile as a lily, but she’d just proven to have remarkable strength. People like that didn’t cross Kira’s path every day.
“I . . .” She didn’t know how to phrase it. She didn’t want to leave her new friend. But Ryon . . .
“I know.” Vylia put a hand on hers. “I hope this isn’t the last time I see you, Kiralau.”
Kira returned her hopeful grin. “Aeo leywa ai shea.”
Vylia tilted her head. “Excuse me?”
“It’s a saying in the Ancient language I learned from the Roanoke tribe,” Kira explained. “It means, ‘the creator be with you and protect you.”
Vylia’s blue eyes softened. “And with you.”
Ryon watched the tails of the trace cats twitch. Striped cats, not like the wild ones. These ones were tame. Shiny saddles.
Maybe he should be scared that they would eat him. But he was happy. They were nice kitties. So pretty.
Pretty.
A blur motioned before him. Soft colors, slow movement.
Oh! A person. Blurry person.
She was pretty. Yellow eyes like the bright sun. Silver hair like his.
The nice lady. The nice cousin. Cousin Illi.
He smiled at her. “Hi.”
His voice sounded strange. But that was okay. Everything was okay.
“Idryon?” Illi said.
He heard her voice! Clearer than before. A nice voice. But he didn’t like the name she called him. He didn’t remember why.
“I’m Ryon,” he replied. His tongue felt thick. But that was okay. Everything was happy and good.
Illi turned and said something muffled to another blurry person. Something about salts. He liked salty things. Like cheese.
She gave him something to smell. Strong and sharp! He jerked back.
His head hurt. It was not okay. It was not good.
Ryon blinked through the sudden migraine. What was . . . Where was he?
He focused on Illi. Illiana. Snorted out the smell and breathed deep. “Illi?”
Why had he called her that? He hadn’t since they were kids. But then, when was the last time he’d seen her? How many years? His head hurt.
“Yes, it’s me.” Illiana smiled at him—a beautiful smile. “Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Ryon grimaced at the throbbing in his head and looked around. His vision . . . something was wrong. Many people he didn’t know. And yet he felt safe.
“Yes,” he said. “Where am I?”
“We’re going home,” Illiana said. “You’ve been gone so long.”
Home? Ryon frowned. Did she mean the root-cave? Or the palace? He didn’t have a real home. He wanted to build one. With a girl. A different girl with bouncy hair. What was her name?
He didn’t remember. She was so new. Maybe she’d only been a dream. Yes, she was too perfect. A dream.
Ryon gazed up at towering trees covered with flowering vines. So much green. The jungle . . . ? But the palace was by the beach. Black sand, bright sky. Clear waters. Pretty fish.
Pain skittered from one temple to another, growing worse each time he tried to think. “Emberhawk land?”
“The Emberhawk Sovereignty, yes.” Illiana smiled. “How would you like to be king?”
He must not have heard her right, but his hearing was much clearer than it had been . . . however long ago. “Cori is king.”
Illiana’s face looked like she smelled something bad. Did he smell bad? All he could smell was that yucky salt.
“No, I am the queen,” she said. “And if you marry me, you’ll be the king.”
That was scary. Lysander was supposed to be king. And if he didn’t, then Cori. And if he didn’t, then Illiana’s husband. But that couldn’t be him. They were cousins. His head hurt.
“No.” Ryon shook his head and leaned away from her.
“You don’t want to live in the palace? Everyone would listen to whatever you said and love you and do whatever you ask.”
Ryon shook his head harder, but it only made his headache worse. He didn’t want to marry his cousin. Most royalty did that, but he didn’t want to. He wanted Dream Girl and her blue eyes and the way she looked at him. Like she was playing a game she always wanted to win. And she did always win. But he liked that. She was smart and funny and pretty . . .
What was her name?
She liked him too. Definitely a dream.
“Idryon?”
He looked back at Illiana. Her smile wasn’t pretty . . . it was fake.
She took his hand in hers, and he realized that his wrists were tied together.
“Please,” she whispered. “You will legitimize my claim to the throne. You will have anything you desire. You won’t have to give me children—I have a paramour in mind for that. You need only to be my consort, and I will do all the work. Just marry me and live in luxury the rest of your days.”
“No.”
Illiana frowned. “Don’t make this harder than it needs to be.”
Ryon pulled against the rope around his wrists. “No!” Pain sliced through the fog in his mind. The world became sharper. Clearer. Darker.
Kira. Her name was Kira.
Ryon shot to his feet, but his legs were rubber. He stumbled into someone. Xavier. He looked sad.
“Muddlewort,” Illiana said as she turned away with a swish of her cloak.
Xavier grabbed him. Shoved something liquidy down his throat. It tasted like horseradish. He coughed it out, but more replaced it.
His head didn’t hurt so much any more. Xavier helped him lie down.
Everything was okay. The sun came through the leaves so bright. So pretty.
Pretty.
Brooke lay on the ground, motionless. Death surrounded her.
Nothing moved except the treetops with the occasional humid breeze. Not the piles of golden armor on every side. Not the bodies of trace cats. Not Dimbae.
Brooke squeezed her eyes shut and wondered if death would claim her, too.
She couldn’t move without the pain in her back crashing through her. At least the blade hadn’t run her through. She couldn’t tell how deep the wound was. Deep enough to cripple her. The slightest movement sent a blinding jolt through her nerves.
How much time had passed? How long before infection would set in? How long before she died of thirst?
Was no one coming?
Coriander’s camp must have been overrun.
That must be why the vultures hadn’t come yet. They were already feasting.
Or they were afraid of a certain lake wyvern. Where had it come from? Why hadn’t it killed her, too? Why had it just left instead of consuming its prey?
And if it were really the same one from that awful fiery night, had it followed her all the way from Jadenvive?
It was the same one. She’d seen it battling the giant hawk. Same size, same flashing umber scales, same keen intelligence in its strange eyes.
Her people whispered of a guardian fire-spirit. A Phoeran elemental sent by the creator to guard Jadenvive. His name was Felix Kael Tae—the green-eyed fox.
But that wyvern wasn’t a fox, and he wasn’t guarding Jadenvive.
But elementals could shape-shift.
Brooke lolled her head to the side and admired a paradise flower that blossomed over a dead soldier like a grave tribute. What did the wyvern matter? It was g
one.
Perhaps she could get up and walk if her wound closed itself well enough. She didn’t know how long that would take, if it were possible. Even if she had the means to stitch it, she wouldn’t have been able to sew up her own back.
Better to let it claim her and rid the Katrosi of the biggest failure of a chief they’d ever endured. Heron was already dead, so revenge wouldn’t be so straightforward. Long Root could be halfway to Darkwood by now, where she could neither reach nor find him.
She didn’t want Dimbae’s death to be in vain. But what did she have left to live for? Maybe she could finally be with Lysander—and actually wanted to—but the dreamthistle had surely taken him by now. And her own survival wasn’t looking probable, either.
Fate was nothing short of cruel.
A tear slipped through her lashes and dropped into her ear. Somehow she still had tears left.
If only she had been better to Lysander the last time she saw him. Now that she thought back on it, she was glad Heron was dead. He deserved it. But she hadn’t known that at the time. If only her last words to Lysander had been understanding or even thankful. She didn’t want to think about how things might have turned out if he hadn’t shown up.
What would her life have been like if she’d chosen to marry and raise a family instead of chasing after her career? How many children would she have by now? Would she be happy?
She grabbed at her broken headdress. Tore her hair as she wrenched it free. Threw it into the jungle and snarled at the pain.
“Be careful with that!”
Brooke jolted and searched for the source of the voice.
A fox sat behind her, its white-tipped tail curled around itself. Its eyes glowed so brightly that green magic seemed to flit from them and evaporate. Just as the wyvern’s had.
Brooke froze. Had that fox just spoken?
“Love-cursed humans have no respect,” the fox grumbled, staring after the headdress. It turned back to her. “Are you just going to lie there forever?”
Her mouth opened, but no words formed. Finally she managed, “Are you Felix Kael Tae?”
The fox’s tail flicked. “And you’re Brooke of House Stillwind. Spearmaiden. Former chieftess. Annoying as a grackle.”
Brooke frowned. “I am the current chieftess.”
“Wrong,” Felix said. “Ulysses is the new chief, since you ran off at the most inopportune time.”
Brooke stared at him. She’d only been gone a few days. Ulysses had usurped her?
“That can’t be,” Brooke said. “The Elder of Aether told me to leave. He said he’d inform the council.”
The fox tilted its head. “Yeah, I don’t think he had a chance to tell them.”
Brooke glared. Clearly she shouldn’t trust this strange creature that had randomly popped out of the trees. “What are you, exactly? What are you doing here?”
Felix sighed. “I really don’t feel like going over it again.” One of his black-tipped ears flicked to the side. “If you don’t already know, your spies were the worst.”
Brooke narrowed her eyes at him. “Have you been spying on me? They say you guard Jadenvive, but I’ve also heard you’re the guardian of chiefs.”
The fox laughed—an adorable yipping sound. “Mortals are always so self-centered. No, I’m not your personal babysitter. And if I guarded the city, it wouldn’t have been overtaken by the Malaano.”
Brooke’s insides twisted. “What?”
The strange green eyes pierced her. “Jadenvive now belongs to the children of Malo.”
Her pulse stalled. He was lying. He had to be. Jadenvive couldn’t have been attacked right as . . . she . . . left . . .
The elder’s words shot through her memory. “You are in grave danger. If you don’t leave at nightfall, you will die.”
Had the elder foreseen the attack? No—surely he would have warned her and they could have prepared the defenses. Evacuated the civilians.
But then, why would the creator’s vision only include danger to Brooke when the entire city was at risk?
And how could her scouts not have spotted a Malaano invasion large enough to take the city? Only a force with Phoera to cloak them could hope to . . .
The Emberhawk. They’d been working with the Malaano the entire time.
Zamara’s attack on Jadenvive had just been the gut punch to soften them up for the killing blow.
Brooke realized she was hyperventilating. This couldn’t be true. But somehow, she knew it was. The pieces fit together too well.
She clenched her fists. Bleed them!
Felix was still watching her. Like a bear examining a fish caught in a net.
“How do I know this is true?” she whispered.
The fox shrugged his little orange shoulders. “I have no interest in lying.”
“Where is Ulysses?”
“He’s hiding in the root-tunnels with the survivors who weren’t captured. Idryon, Kiralau, and the Malaano princess among them.”
Brooke released a breath. That was good news, at least. “And the elders?”
“Most are alive, living trapped in the city like everyone else. The violent one is in prison. The Elder of Aether did not survive the assault.”
Brooke closed her eyes. Darkness, oppressive and all-consuming, pressed down on her as if the night sky had slowly fallen to suffocate her.
What could she do? Jadenvive was the speartip of the Katrosi tribe. The other villages didn’t have warriors in enough skill or number to retake the city. And even if they did, she was no longer the chief to command them.
Hopelessness stole her strength, her breath. This was the crowning glory of her failure.
Now she could die in shame and be rid of this rotten world.
She looked back at Felix. “What do you want?” she growled.
“I want you to not die and not throw sacred artifacts around.”
Brooke scowled at him as her pulse pumped sickly heat through her veins. “Why do you care if I die?”
“Because I can’t go near the keystone, and it’s not safe here.”
The keystone? Brooke found the brilliant cerulean feathers of her headdress wilting in the grass nearby. “That’s what you’ve been after this whole time?”
“Well, no. I protect it from others who are after it.”
Brooke frowned. “Who’s after it?”
“Anyone with delusions of grandeur. It’s the most powerful object on the planet.”
Brooke stared at him. She was tired of his clipped answers.
She tried to find a less painful position to lie in. “Take it and go. I don’t care.”
Felix snorted. “I was a fool to ever trust humans to guard it.”
“Do I look like I can guard anything right now?” Brooke winced and relaxed into the earth. “Just leave me be.”
Felix took a step closer. “Don’t Katrosi chiefs make an oath to guard the keystones as they’re sworn in?”
“You just informed me that I’m not the chief any longer,” Brooke grumbled.
The fur around Felix’s snout seemed to droop into a frown. “But you have the keystone now, regardless.”
“I just gave it to you,” Brooke said. She didn’t want to spare the movement to point. “Take it.”
“I told you I can’t touch it.”
Brooke glared at him. She knew better than to ask such an open-ended question like “why.” But apparently he wasn’t leaving. “Let me guess: it’s an elemental thing?”
Felix lowered his head and sniffed at her back. “Turn over.”
His eyes struck Brooke as even more unnatural up close. If the brightness of their glow was any indication of magical power, Felix could end her on a whim.
But it sounded like he needed her to carry the keystone or he’d be stuck guarding her headdress on the jungle floor forever. Maybe he intended to help her.
Brooke prepared for the pain as she carefully rolled over onto her stomach, but it didn’t help. She hissed breaths through he
r teeth and gripped the grass hard.
Felix made a pensive sound, almost like a purr as he peered down at her back. “Not as bad as it could be. Still, it needs to be cauterized.” He glanced at her face. “Don’t move.”
Brooke closed her eyes and roared as magma seared into her. Just when she couldn’t take it any more, soothing frost extinguished the heat, leaving a dull ache in its place.
It took all of her discipline not to curse the motherless creature and throw his little fluffy body across the clearing.
“That’ll do for now, but you’ll need some more attention to avoid infection.” Felix sighed. “Don’t do anything stupid just because you know I’m protecting you now. Humans die all the time, and there’s nothing special about you.”
Brooke controlled her breathing as pain throbbed through her back. “What a delight you are.”
Felix snorted. “Get the keystone. I’ll fly you to a place nearby that can tend to your mortal needs.”
“Any place nearby would just send me to my grave faster,” Brooke said in a constricted voice. “Fly me to a Katrosi village if you want to help.”
“Lyzelle won’t kill you if she knows Lysander wants you.”
Brooke’s mouth fell open. “Former queen Lyzelle? Ryon’s—er, Idryon’s and Lysander’s grandmother?”
“Yeah, something like that. I can’t keep track of your lineages and generations and whatnot.”
Brooke could scarcely believe that there might actually be a friendly haven nearby. “I’m not leaving until my friend is laid to rest.” She pointed in the direction she’d seen Dimbae fall.
Felix stared at her. “You’re in no condition to dig a grave.”
“Please bury him for me. It shouldn’t be difficult for a creature of your size.”
“He’s going to rot regardless. Let’s go.”
Brooke cringed. “I’m not going to leave him to the wildlife! Do as I ask or you’ll find out just how much strength I have left.”
Felix seemed to roll his emerald eyes. He scampered over to Dimbae’s body. “You want me to bury him alive?”
