A Promise of Fire

by Amanda Bouchet

  “You have!” Carver grins.

  “Not. Answering.” Nope. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Beta Sinta look up.

  “There are different kinds of spanking,” Carver goes on, his tone getting friskier by the second.

  I press my lips together to keep from smiling. “Enlighten me.”

  He shakes his head, looking as if I’ve just confessed to a colossal tragedy. “That must mean you haven’t been spanked enough.”

  I’m pretty sure spanking is a metaphor now. “No,” I agree sadly, playing along. “Not nearly enough.”

  Before I know it, he’s on my other side, slapping my ass with his sword again. I let out a screech that would make a Harpy proud, swing, and slice air.

  Laughing, Carver dances to my right and feints, tricking me into stepping the wrong way, and then hits me again. “I could help you with that. Just say the word.”

  He’s flirting again. What a pest. My rear end is a strange mix of numbness and heat. I refuse to be smacked again, so I drop my guard, lower my eyelashes enough to distract, and turn my voice a shade breathy, stepping right into Carver. “With an offer like that, how can I refuse?”

  He gapes at me. Clearly, my reciprocating was the last thing he expected. I whip a dagger from my belt and plant it at his groin, pricking just enough to make him yelp. Carver freezes.

  I cant my head, saying coolly, “I haven’t been spanked much because I do the spanking.”

  Beta Sinta laughs, startling the birds in the branches above. “Carver,” he says. “She just handed you your balls.”

  Carver grins. “That’s all right, as long as I get to keep them.”

  I can’t help it. I laugh. Carver takes advantage of my distraction and sweeps my feet out from under me. I land on my side, a rock digging into my hip. He leans over, maybe to help me up, but I twist and kick him in the jaw. Not too hard, but hard enough. He reels back, and I jump to my feet, raising my sword. We spar again until he disarms me, sending my weapon spiraling across the clearing. In a blink, his blade is at my heart. I leap away with a series of backflips and then pick up my sword again, ready.

  Carver’s eyebrows fly up. “Where’d you learn that?”

  “The circus. When Alyssa was pregnant, I used to fill in for her on the tumbling routines.”

  Instead of trying to engage me again, Carver sheathes his blade, signaling an end to our practice. He approaches, giving me a bold once-over. “I like a woman of many talents.”

  “I think you just like women.”

  He gets an odd look on his face, a flash of vulnerability, gone so fast I might have imagined it. “All shapes and sizes,” he magnanimously admits.

  I roll my eyes, and he throws a sinewy arm across my shoulders, hauling me against his sweaty side. “You use a sword well enough, but that’ll only get you so far, especially because you’re tiny and weak.”

  Frowning, I pinch him really hard.

  “Stick to knives,” he says, twisting out of my grip. “Do some magic. Only engage in one-on-one combat if you’re sure you can win.”

  In other words, my sword is for show. Sheathing it, I throw his arm off me. “I want to get better with a blade.”

  He shrugs. “You have other skills.”

  “Men don’t understand discretion. My goal is to survive on my weakest abilities. That saves other talents for when I really need them and doesn’t reveal important skills to any idiot who might be watching.”

  Carver laughs. “You and ‘discreet’ don’t belong in the same sentence.”

  I pinch him again. His response is to grab me and wrestle me to the ground. I’m pinned in five seconds flat. I know because he counts.

  A shadow looms over us. “Go for your swim, Cat.” Beta Sinta doesn’t look amused anymore now that Carver is lying on top of me. “Then I have questions.”

  I scowl. He gave me three days, which is actually more than I expected. My mood souring, I toss him a dirty look, wiggle out from under an extremely uncooperative Carver, and then head for the stream. At least I get to bathe alone.

  Dry and dressed, I amble back to the clearing, in no hurry to answer Beta Sinta’s questions. Kato came back with two rabbits, and I caught a fish. It kept bumping into my legs, so I snagged it, thinking it must be a gift from Poseidon.

  Kato guts the fish and skins the rabbits and then whittles something with his knife while Flynn does the cooking. Carver patrols the perimeter, staying relatively close. I look through my satchel, taking inventory of my possessions and trying to hit Carver with kalaberries from the bush next to me every time he comes near. Beta Sinta must get tired of waiting because he finally pins me with an impatient look and motions for me to join him near the fire.

  “It’s time,” he says when I reluctantly plop down next to him. “I want to know about the Fisan royals.”

  I lean back on my elbows to get away from the heat, glimpsing the first of the night’s stars overhead. “And I want a lamb steak slathered in butter oregano sauce with tiny red potatoes fried until they’re crispy.”

  The look he gives me is flat and devoid of humor. “And I want one bloody night when you answer the damn question and finally realize there are bigger issues here than your obvious love of sarcasm, evasion, and sullen silence.”

  I purse my lips, suddenly extremely uncomfortable. Something stirs inside me. Guilt? “We can’t always have what we want.”

  “Clearly,” he growls.

  I glance at him, frowning. Not that he’s wrong—I am sarcastic, sullen, and evasive—but he’s always in a bad mood after I spend time with Carver. Or Flynn. Or Kato.

  Is he jealous? That’s ridiculous.

  An achy tightness clamps around my heart at the idea, though, squeezing hard. Heat unfurls in my belly and then crawls up my neck. “I thought you cared about your team.”

  His eyes turn tempest gray. “Have you decided to be part of the team?”

  I thought that was obvious. I shrug.

  He stares at me until I almost squirm. “Then you can start by telling me what you know about the Fisan royals.”

  I know a lot. The question is what to tell Beta Sinta. There’s a dark look in his eyes tonight, making me wonder how much bending of the truth I can get away with.

  I stretch my legs out and cross them at the ankles, hoping I look more relaxed than I feel. “The Queen, Andromeda, had eight children.”

  “Andromeda. Ruler of men.”

  “Ruler of men, women, children, large monsters… She controls everything and everyone. The King Consort, Dimitri, is useless. He sits around looking pretty and donating seed for her womb.”

  “Eight children and Alpha Fisa. A busy woman.”

  He mentions children first, which intrigues me. “What with terrorizing everyone, especially her own kids, I imagine she hardly has a second to spare.”

  “Why have eight children only to terrorize them?”

  I sigh, throwing my head back. “Sinta’s going to get squashed.”

  “What makes you say that?” The sidelong look he slants me is heavy with warning.

  Here’s something I never thought I’d say… “You’re too nice.”

  Beta Sinta’s eyes spark dangerously. “I’m fairly certain the Magoi royals weren’t thinking I was nice the night I plowed through them with my sword, and you’d do well to remember what I’m capable of, too. Don’t cross me, Cat. Ever.”

  I mock shudder. “I’m so scared.”

  He ignores my sarcasm, his hard stare hitting me even harder than usual. “I’m just as capable of making people miserable as other royals. I don’t do it for fun. That doesn’t mean I won’t.”

  Did he just threaten me? “Fine. I like to provoke. Warning ingested.” And spit back out. “You’re big and bad. I’ll try to remember.”

  He arches a dark eyebrow. I think his lips twi
tch. “So. Eight children.” He pokes a stick into the fire, sending sparks spiraling into the gathering gloom.

  I actually respect the way Beta Sinta can end an awkward situation and move on as if nothing happened. We brawl? So what. Everyone gets up, and it’s done. I swim around naked high on euphoria? It’s forgotten. Pretty much. I think… I insult him and insinuate that he can’t protect his realm? He tells me he’s as mean as the next guy when he wants to be, and it’s over, back to the eight children.

  “Eight children should be enough to ensure the bloodline even with all the fighting among them. Andromeda is Alpha. Like most royals, to avoid coming under constant attack from her own children, she spent their childhoods teaching them to fear her and to hate each other. To them, she’s terrifying. Untouchable. They fight to become Beta, to inherit the throne. It’s suicidal to even think about trying to eliminate an Alpha like her.”

  “But Betas challenge Alphas,” he argues.

  “Not Alphas like Andromeda. But yes, otherwise, if the Alpha’s power dwindles, and when other threats, like siblings, are taken care of.”

  “It’s not natural. Why not raise her family to be loyal to her? And to one another? They’d be stronger that way. A unit.”

  “Because royals, and especially Andromeda, don’t think like you. Power is their ultimate goal. They challenge each other for it. They kill to get it, and they kill to keep it. Everything else is secondary, including emotional and family ties.”

  “And you gleaned all this while spending eight months in a cage?”

  Eh… “It was an instructive period in my life.” I hesitate and then add, “But I was in the castle for a lot longer than that.”

  He studies me, his eyes dark and metallic in the firelight. Reflecting the flames, they glint a burnished bronze. “How old were you?”

  “You mean in the cage?” That’s not the question I was expecting.

  He nods.

  My lungs constrict in a familiar way, making it hard to breathe through the memory of lies, sneering grins, tempting food just out of reach, fists, flames, and blades, all snaking their way through the bars, and Andromeda’s face, a cold, marble mask, watching it all. “Nine.”

  “Nine!”

  “Don’t look so horrified. I’m lucky none of them killed me. Andromeda had guards on me day and night to avoid it coming to that.” I huff a bitter laugh. “The guards didn’t stop much else, though.” Only Thanos did. For brief, blissful moments I could sleep, and he kept everyone at bay.

  Beta Sinta’s voice turns gruff with anger. “She caged you for your magic.”

  I’m tempted to say “like you,” but things have changed too much for that. It wouldn’t be fair, and he’s nothing like Andromeda.

  “Yes.” It wasn’t really a question, and I don’t elaborate. I don’t tell him how she encouraged the royal children to lie to me, or how she hid me behind screens during gatherings and made Ajax record my every twitch so she’d know who was lying to her.

  “How did you get out of the cage?”

  I stare at the tips of my boots, itching in my own skin, sick with the knowledge that Andromeda made me an accomplice to cavalier murder a hundred times over. “When I found out she was eviscerating people for utterly insignificant falsehoods, I learned to control my reactions. She knew I still felt the lies, but when she couldn’t beat the truths out of me, she let me out of the cage.”

  “Odd she didn’t just kill you.”

  I glance over at him. He could just as easily have said, “Odd she didn’t serve pheasant at dinner.” Sinta might survive after all.

  “I’m too valuable to kill. Kingmakers are rare, and useful. She bribed me. More guards, food, clothing, beautiful accommodations. It worked for a while. I was only nine, and I’d just been tortured and deprived of all comfort for eight months.”

  A mixture of fury and disgust contorts his features. “How did you get away? People don’t just let a weapon like you go.”

  I give him the evil eye. “You should know. But you asked about the royals. Let’s talk about the royals.”

  He starts to say something, but I cut him off. “Of the eight children, four were left. I killed Otis. That leaves Laertes, Priam, and Ianthe. They’re probably busy trying to kill each other off now that they’ve each moved up a rank.”

  Ianthe had only just turned nine when I escaped Fisa City. Priam was eleven, Laertes thirteen. Andromeda was already hard at work turning them into monsters. Otis was fourteen. Now he’s dead.

  “Are they all Magoi?” Beta Sinta asks.

  I snort. “Andromeda’s line would produce nothing less. If by some fluke of nature it did, she’d probably drown the child at birth, like the unwanted runt of the litter.”

  He grunts. “She sounds like a treat.”

  I almost smile. That was funny. It would have been funnier if she hadn’t terrorized me for years.

  “They mostly have Fire Magic. It’s common among Fisan royals, but they can all do different things with it. Needles of fire, Chimera’s Fire, fire whips, fire balls, flaming attack birds… You know, that kind of thing.”

  “No,” he says broodingly. “I know very little of that kind of thing.”

  I stare into the fire. Rabbit fat drips from the spit, making it spark and hiss. “Use your imagination. None of it’s fun.”

  He’s silent for a while, using his imagination, I guess. “Did they attack you with fire in the cage?”

  I sit up, drawing my knees under my chin. “Among other things. Torture is a favorite pastime in Castle Fisa.”

  He looks at me strangely, a crease settling between his eyebrows. Compassion? Pity? I can’t tell. I don’t want either.

  “But you absorbed it and sent it back?”

  I shake my head. “Not then. I couldn’t do that then.”

  I see the exact moment he puts the pieces together. It doesn’t take long. “The Oracle. The gift.”

  I don’t deny or confirm, and I don’t tell him I was granted two gifts, or that I’ve felt Poseidon’s presence close to me ever since.

  “The Fisan royals are abominations,” Beta Sinta announces.

  I nod. I couldn’t agree more.

  “What do you say we kill every last one of them?”

  I turn, and my eyes crash into his. For me? “I’d say our goals have common ground,” I answer cautiously, a little breathless.

  His gaze turns even more intense than usual, and heat swamps my insides. “Tell me about the others. The first four.”

  “Why? They’re dead.” Mostly, anyway.

  “Humor me.”

  It’s not in my nature to humor people. I start talking anyway. “Thaddeus killed Ajax. Lukia killed Thaddeus. Otis killed Eleni. And Lukia is missing.”

  “The Lost Princess?”

  I smile vaguely. “Heard of her?”

  He nods. “I didn’t know her name, but I think everyone has heard of the Lost Princess of Fisa. Do you know why she disappeared?”

  “The ambiance in Castle Fisa wasn’t exactly homey,” I answer tartly.

  He grins. It’s wide and unexpected and sends a sudden thrill through me.

  Shifting uncomfortably, I push the feeling aside. “Andromeda trapped Lukia and Eleni and then forced them into an arena, intending them to fight to the death.” I use words Beta Sinta will understand. “They were a team. They worked together to stay alive. The two girls actually liked each other, and Andromeda couldn’t have that. They were growing up, becoming more powerful, thinking. Their popularity was reaching dangerous levels, especially since Andromeda had none.”

  “So she found a way to tear them apart?”

  I shake my head. “They refused to fight. She deprived them of food, then water. When that didn’t work, she got in their heads. Compulsion,” I explain. “Planting ideas. Controlling actions. Making things see
m…not what they are. They resisted. It took seven days and a lot of weakening for the princesses to come to blows. They were both half-dead by then. Eleni was older, stronger, and Lukia’s magic wasn’t useful in combat. But Eleni wouldn’t kill her sister, no matter what Andromeda did.”

  “What happened?” he asks when I fall silent.

  “Eleni could hardly walk. The pressure in her head must have been unbearable. She was bleeding from her ears, her nose, her eyes… She still put herself between her mother and Lukia. Andromeda grabbed her by the hair, said, ‘Weakness does not go unpunished,’ dragged her over to Otis, and handed him a knife. He stabbed Eleni through the heart.”

  “Gods!” Beta Sinta breathes a curse. “That’s barbaric.”

  For once, we agree.

  “Were you still at the castle? What happened to Lukia?”

  “A few days later she was gone, never to be seen again.”

  “What did Andromeda do?”

  “She went crazy. Lukia was her favorite.”

  “She had favorites?” He says that like I just spouted gibberish.

  “Didn’t your parents?”

  “No. Never.”

  I frown, trying to imagine a life like that.

  “Why was Lukia her favorite?”

  I’ve always wondered the same thing. I give him the truth, as far as I know. “Lukia was the only one without fire, like her mother. Their magic was different, more…internal. I guess Andromeda thought that made her special.”

  “Didn’t it just make her weaker?” Beta Sinta asks.

  The ghost of a smile haunts my lips. “Maybe it made her stronger. She had to fight harder to survive.”

  “Makes sense.” He pulls out a long knife, the blade flashing in the corner of my vision. He lifts it, startling me, and my legs punch out on instinct, kicking the knife from his hand. People talk about fight or flight? That’s nonsense. It’s fight and flight. I twist and take off.

  “Umph!” The air leaves my lungs as my chest hits the ground.

  One second Beta Sinta is next to me, and the next he’s on top of me, heavy and volcanically hot. He flips me over and pins my wrists to the ground on either side of my head.