by K. Gorman
“An aftershock?” Robin asked dryly.
Down the alley, Mieshka met Ketan’s sharp stare. “I doubt it.”
Even if these hadn’t been the first ‘earthquakes’ she’d felt underground, they would’ve been suspicious. The Earth Mage had already attacked her once, and she knew Sophia’s intervention couldn’t save her forever—not with the determination she’d seen in his face. Not with the power of a Fire crystal within his grasp.
Going off alone had been a mistake.
She slid her phone out of her pocket and passed it to Robin. “Call Roger and Sophia,” she said in a low voice. “Get them here, now.”
Robin glanced up at her. “What should I say?”
Mieshka pushed herself off the wall. She hobbled past Robin onto a flatter part of the alleyway, crutch pocking the ground beside her. “Tell him it’s the fight that he’s been looking forward to. Tell her it’s Michael.” She took a breath, looked at Robin. “And you should run. Get away from us.”
In a fight between Elementals, Robin was even more at risk than an injured Meese.
For a second, Mieshka thought she’d argue. Blue eyes bored into hers with an indeterminate expression, full of emotion.
But then, she gave a sharp nod.
And she ran.
*
“Shouldn’t we run, too?” Ketan eyed her crutch and bandages. “You’re not exactly in top form.”
He’d moved in closer. Flecks of gold reflected onto his rough hoodie from where her eyes caught him in their light. His skin was dark—lacking in the spell-lights that would make him a Mage—but a solid heat radiated from him. Now that they were alone, the air shivered and folded between them, hot as a desert.
That was the thing about Mages and Elementals. Mages had spells, could do more things with their Element, could teleport and track and bind. Elementals had nothing but power. Pure, unaltered energy, raw and wild and clear.
The Phoenix rose in her like magma in a volcano, and its light blistered through her eyes.
She fixed him with a grim, steady stare. “He can track us. Through the ground. So, unless you’re really good at flying…”
Ketan nodded. He looked away.
“You can run, though,” she offered. “He’s not looking for you.”
He shook his head. “You’re injured. I’m not going to leave you alone. Besides, I spent the past few days looking for you. I can’t just run away.”
The past few days? Why? She snuck a better look at him, taking in his disheveled appearance and hard expression. There were bags under his eyes, which seemed to be a common trait in the Underground these days. She and Ketan matched in that regard.
“Have you ever fought a Mage before?” she asked.
“Elementals only. What’s the difference?”
She stared at him, an eyebrow raised. He didn’t know the difference between Elementals and Mages? Christ, he knew a lot less than she had given him credit for.
“Elementals can’t beat Mages,” she said. “This won’t be much of a fight.”
A stone skittered in the alley behind them, bouncing off the wall in the dark as if it had been kicked. The place seemed brighter than before, the shadow not quite so complete—but maybe that was the effect her eyes had, glowing in the dark. Or maybe it was the adrenaline widening her pupils. Tension tightened her shoulders, pulling at her wounds, sending little spikes of pain through the warmth of her Element.
Quiet resumed. Ketan stepped closer, and the heat of his Element mingled with the fire of hers.
Then, they heard footsteps.
“I see you found a new friend.”
Michael’s voice boomed in the alley, lilted with an accent that seemed to slice the tops off of the harder vowels, making his sentences smoother, his tone richer.
Fear drove through her, rooting her to the spot. She couldn’t have run even if she’d tried. Even Ketan, beside her, had grown unnaturally still. They held their breath, listening to Michael’s slow, sure step.
The Earth Mage appeared as a shift in the darkness. He coalesced out of the shadows slowly, the dim lights of the alley casting his skin in a deep ocher. His shoes scuffed quietly on the broken concrete. With every step he took, the ground beneath her feet thrummed.
By the time he stopped, maybe five meters away, the vibration buzzed through her bones.
Michael studied her, lip curling at what he saw. Her heart pounded in her ears. Fear narrowed her mind, focused the scene. Under his gaze, her wounds throbbed.
And, for the briefest, clearest moment, she understood just how outpowered they were.
Fighting the Mage was laughable. There would be no getting out of this. Not again. Even if Robin managed to get a hold of Sophia, he wouldn’t fall for the same trick twice. And unlike in the lab, there was little water in this place. Maybe a bit in the garbage, or hanging in the muggy air—but not enough for a true fight. Not with so much earth around.
Michael had changed clothes. Gone was the fitted suit he’d worn to escort her to the lab. It had been replaced with something leaner, sharper, more tucked into his body. Colored in shades that blended in easily with the alley’s shadows.
Clothes that belonged more on an assassin than a tenured Earth Mage.
The change of attitude was striking. Like he’d been only toying with his goal before, but now played for keeps.
He stopped a short distance away, just out of reach of the gold her eyes projected. For a second, he didn’t say anything. He tilted his head, like a bird trying to see something more closely.
“And your old friend has run off.” He tsked. “Such loyalty.”
Mieshka took a step forward, leaning heavily on her crutch. “I didn’t want her involved. She doesn’t have an Element.”
“Neither should you, thief.” He sneered through his syllables. Then, he appeared to understand the implication of her sentence. Curiosity flared as his eyes flicked to Ketan. “And this one does?”
Ketan’s face was a mask, hardened into a blank, unreadable slate. He stayed still under the Mage’s scrutiny, unmoving.
But Mieshka could feel the tension roll off his body. Heat touched her skin, hot as a kiln.
Michael’s face twisted in disgust. “Such vermin.”
The Earth Mage lifted his arm. Metal glinted.
For the first time, Mieshka noticed the syringe.
Oh, crap. Was that some sort of knock-out drug, or something more… permanent?
Maybe it was empty. Maybe he just planned to take some of her blood like last time.
Somehow, she doubted it.
He hadn’t come here to absolve her. He had come here to kill her. And if he couldn’t get the Phoenix while she was alive, he would extract it from her corpse.
New fear shivered into her system. She gripped her crutch harder, its wood groaning under her fingers. Flutes of fire slipped onto her knuckles like tiny, fiery insects. Her bandage blackened. Smoke curled into the air.
Michael smiled.
Then, behind him, a shadow moved.
Mieshka had seen Roger fight once, but not like this. Before, they’d been in a clean, bright hallway. He’d seemed sharper there, like the white of the tiled walls had deliberately contrasted with the dark of his clothes, laying all his technique and his subtlety bare.
But the alley’s scant light and thick shadows concealed his dark clothes and smooth movements like an apex predator in a forest. A living, moving, deadly piece of the Underground.
Michael might have been the Earth Mage, but Roger knew the Core better than his own skin.
He made no sound. If Mieshka had been at a different angle, or if Roger had been trying to hide from her, she wouldn’t have known he was there.
And, for a second, she thought Michael hadn’t known, either. Roger slipped in behind him, quick as a dart.
Crunch!
A spike of earth pierced upwards, faster than Mieshka had thought possible. Michael spun around, green sigils flashing to vivid life on h
is skin.
Roger swerved, ducked, and spun away.
He moved like a demon. Like something not quite human. Humans made mistakes, stumbled, hesitated.
Roger didn’t.
He fought like it was second nature. Every step he took was perfect, instinctual, and the give-and-take between him and Michael played out like a mongoose worrying a cobra.
That’s not to say it was neat, because it wasn’t.
It was fast, hard, and bloody.
Mieshka couldn’t tell who drew first blood. Roger moved much faster than Michael, but Michael didn’t need speed. The earth rippled and shook with each shift and step of his, and he’d filled the air with sharp, floating chunks of rock pulled free from bricks and concrete.
She and Ketan were out of range—but just barely. Bits and pieces of brick, mortar, and hard-edged concrete skipped back down the alley, raining against the tops of her shoes, the sleeves of her jacket.
Ketan pushed in front of her, and the heat of his Element flushed the left side of her body. He acted like a shield. When the next wave of stones rained toward them, she heard them pelt against his front. One smacked hard across the knuckles of his bare hand.
Injured as she was, she appreciated the gesture.
They stayed quiet, tense, watching the fight.
As the seconds turned into minutes, she fully appreciated the extent of Roger’s skill.
Blood ran down his face in slender, smeared lines. His right hand was soaked. She saw it when one of Michael’s attacks sent Roger skipping back toward them like a crow.
His fingers were slick and dripping.
Ketan pressed his hand into her shoulder, pushed her farther away, but Roger was back into the fight in the next second. A few drops of his blood landed on the ground, looking black against the dirt and broken concrete.
It soon became clear that Michael was only toying with him.
A single dark line dripped from a cut on his cheek, but no emotion cracked his mask. There was no urgency, no distress, no fear. If he felt pain, he didn’t show it.
In fact, he smiled.
Roger skipped back from another attack, avoiding a spike that stabbed up from underneath him, as sharp and narrow as a fence pole. It sliced a tear in his shirt. She caught a flash of skin.
Michael’s smile grew.
But when he slipped around for another attack, like he’d done time and time again, Roger pulled something from the back of his belt.
His hand blurred.
The alley exploded with green light.
Mieshka stepped back, waving a hand in front of her eyes. Dots of retinal burn blotted out her vision. She felt Ketan beside her. Heat wrapped around her elbow as his fingers tightened on her arm.
Something skittered away from the fight, glittering like ice as it skipped over the broken concrete toward Ketan and Mieshka. It came to a stop just beside them.
The glass knife.
The concrete had bitten its surface, ruining its translucence with cracks and scratches. As the dots cleared from her vision, she saw the blood smudged on its handle.
A second later, Roger sprinted after it.
Spikes of concrete snapped at his heels, closing in with every step. The ground below them rumbled, loosened.
And, above, a rock the size of a baseball came tumbling from the sky.
Too late, Ketan shoved Mieshka to the wall, covering her with his body.
Roger spun, twisting around. His back slammed into Ketan. Weight domino-ed Mieshka into the wall, pain flaring from her wounds.
Thump.
The sound had a heavy finality to it. If they hadn’t been in a fight, if the Earth Mage hadn’t been throwing rocks around, she might have thought that someone had dropped a couch. Or a bedframe.
The pressure lifted as Roger stepped away from them.
Blood dripped from his hand. His clothes were more ripped than she’d realized, more close calls with the Earth Mage’s ruthless Element. He breathed heavily, chest and shoulders visibly rising and falling. Sweat gleamed on his forehead.
Slowly, he bent to retrieve the knife.
“Meese,” he said. “Why are you still here?”
Her face flushed. She spluttered, jaw dropping open.
But Roger had already moved on to Ketan.
He said nothing, but his eyebrows raised a fraction.
Then, he turned back to Michael. He pocketed the knife. From his other side, he retrieved the same green thermos she had seen him with earlier.
The smell of acid filled the air when he twisted the cap off.
That woke her up. She shook her head, clearing the fog that had rooted her to the spot for the last two minutes. As Roger stepped forward, she bumped Ketan lightly with her knuckles.
“Let’s go.” She glanced down the alleyway to where the Earth Mage stood. “If we can.” She met his eyes and then glanced down at her crutch. “I can’t do it alone.”
He got the hint. She gritted her teeth as he put his shoulder under hers, propping her up. Together, they hobbled away from the site.
They didn’t make it far.
The earth buckled beneath her feet. Ketan’s arm went rigid around her, catching her fall. Mieshka yelped as it pulled on her stitches. She grabbed for her crutch, but it jerked from her grasp, flying up into the air like a living thing. Green light slipped and shivered over its charred wood.
It snapped in front of her like dry kindling. Shards of broken wood fell to the ground.
Then, behind them, a flurry of footsteps sounded.
Ketan took one look over his shoulder, then pushed her down. Pain blotted out her vision. The air whistled as something flew over his head. Rocks smashed into the bricks beside them and landed with heavy thuds farther down the alleyway.
Closer to them, Roger muffled a pained yell.
The smell of acid burned the air.
From down the alley, Michael gave a slow clap.
“Well done,” he said. “You almost got them all.”
Mieshka craned her neck to look around Ketan’s shoulder. Michael moved slowly down the alleyway, never putting a foot wrong on the broken concrete. His mouth twisted into a small, crooked grin. The clapping of his hands seemed loud in the sudden quiet.
Her breath hissed through her teeth. Pain throbbed from her wounds, but she clenched her jaw and levered herself farther out from under Ketan.
Fire brimmed on the hand that pressed into his shoulder. With a thought, she pushed the flames back under her skin.
Then, her gaze found Roger.
He stood nearby, outwardly stoic. But she knew him well enough to notice the list in his stance. Dust coated his right shoulder, marring the perfect black of his sleeve. The joint looked wrong, though she couldn’t pinpoint exactly what was wrong. Roger took shallow, pained breaths.
After a moment, she realized why.
A boulder the size of her head sat on the ground nearby. As she looked around, she noticed four other, smaller boulders scattered around her and Ketan.
Frost glittered on their sides, and a noxious, pale smoke wisped up from their surfaces, tinging the air with an acrid smell.
Roger’s special acid water, turned to ice.
But he hadn’t had enough water to redirect the fifth from its path. By the way it lay, he must have used himself to push it away.
Michael stepped closer, dragging out the last two claps with a sarcastic sneer. The cut on his face was shallower than she had thought, and it looked like the blood had already stopped flowing. His gaze slipped from Roger to her, and her heart froze. He met her stare with the focus of a snake intent on its prey.
The Phoenix touched her consciousness. Fire crept through her skin like veins in a leaf.
There was a specific smell that heat made—different from smoke, different from burning, different from the ozone of lightning. It was the smell of a black rock baking in the desert sun, of an oven Element turned orange with energy, the smell of hot glass in a forge, or magma with
out the volcano.
Pure, unpolluted fire.
That was what her skin smelled like as the Phoenix rose inside of her. Ketan noticed it first. She could tell by the sudden look he gave her, and the way he edged farther from her, as if she might burn him.
Which was silly. He was a Fire Elemental, and an ally. She’d sooner set fire to the moon.
But he treated her like a wild thing. Unpredictable. Elemental.
And maybe she was. Maybe that was what the Phoenix made her.
It had been a long time since she’d set fire to Ryarne’s sky, and longer still since she’d had any remarkable connection with the firebird. Nowadays, it spent a lot of time in the back of her mind, seemingly asleep. Her glowing eyes were the most exciting thing that had happened, in terms of her Element, since the raid on Cyprios—and they weren’t much at all. More a feeling than anything tangible and useful.
Now, fire burned in her brighter than gold.
She nudged Ketan’s shoulder, and he moved out of her way. Tiny licks of flame slipped between the cracks in her fingers. She left a couple on his jacket when she moved, leaning on him for support. They settled into the seams of his jacket like tiny, wayward stitches.
Now that she was standing, she could see the extent of Roger’s injury—or at least guess at it. By the way he stood, shoulder cocked down in an awkward angle, she thought he might’ve broken something, or maybe dislocated it. It had happened to her mom once, back in Terremain. The kick of a special new cannon had wrenched her shoulder wrong, and it had taken months to heal. All the little strained tendons needed time to grow back.
And, even a year later, she’d still felt an ache. Especially when the weather turned cold, like it had on the front two months before she had died.
Mieshka shook the thought from her head. She stepped forward, and Ketan stepped with her. She eyed Michael, tilting her head as a piece of hair fell in front of her eyes.
They watched each other for a long moment.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“The same thing as before,” he answered.
“You can’t have him. He’s mine.” Heat rose in her as she said this, as if the Phoenix heard and agreed. Flecks of dim gold reflected onto Michael’s clothes as the light in her eyes fluctuated, the colors smoldering like hot coals in a fire.
