“RAFEN! RAFEN!” the voices howled.
What was he doing? They needed him; how could he be so selfish? He rose painfully and turned to face them.
Annette flew into his torso, still gripping the copper rod. Rafen fell heavily onto his back and everything momentarily went black. He wanted to rest and never wake again. His body was instinctively struggling of its own accord. He commanded it to relax; everything was fine; it was time to sleep; night had come. Annette had her free hand over his mouth, choking his breath. Rafen’s body shuddered to a still as the copper rod found his throat again. Above his, Annette’s face was crazy, snarling with fury.
A red-hot coal, his phoenix feather twitched within his hem. Someone had rubbed lava into his chest. Annette’s hand stifled his scream. Rafen snatched the copper rod. It vibrated in his grasp, fighting to reach the two big veins in his neck. With strength he hadn’t known he possessed, Rafen pushed it away. The phoenix feather was killing him; his whole torso was alive with pain. Rafen writhed beneath Annette, loosening her grip over his mouth. He kicked her hard from beneath and felt a joint slide backward. Annette screamed, rolling off him, clutching a dislocated knee. The copper rod was still in her hand. Sitting up, Rafen grasped his hem and pulled the scathing feather away from
his skin. Glimpsing his surroundings – the bleak, grassless cliff, the seething forms of Nazt, and Annette howling with pain – he understood he had to get out of here. The heat of his phoenix feather lessened a little.
Throwing himself against the heavy air, Rafen surged forward, snatching the copper rod from Annette’s unresisting hand. Annette shrieked, trying to rise. In Rafen’s grasp, the copper rod threw itself forward, dragging him toward Nazt.
Zion, help me! Rafen thought frantically.
He threw himself back against the copper rod’s strength, trying to regain his lost ground. Annette couldn’t get up; she lay on the ground sobbing, her hands over her ears and her body shivering as Nazt cursed her. All the hands were reaching for Rafen, but he had vowed they would never touch him again. He stumbled backward, falling over Annette. Magnetically attracted to Nazt, the copper rod jerked him to his feet again.
If I get to Annette and grab her, we can get back, Rafen thought. The copper rod had brought them here. Maybe it worked in reverse. He threw himself back against the rod again, staggering into Annette’s legs. Revived at his touch, Annette sat up and grabbed Rafen’s waist, dragging him down onto her lap. With an almighty exertion, he shoved the rod against her chest and planted his shoulder against it, holding it in place, willing it to take them back. It struggled violently.
“Zion – please!” Rafen begged.
The ground beneath was whirled away and everything spun. Rafen closed his eyes, his breath frozen in his chest. Behind his eyelids, a gold form flashed – the Phoenix as he had first seen him in the cave where he had received his feather.
Chapter Forty
Flight
They hit the ground, Rafen still partially on top of Annette. His eyes flicked open.
They were back in the large clearing. The philosophers still stood in a circle, looking at each other uncertainly. Their muttering died
away as they saw who had returned. To their right, the second Tarhian was tending the first Tarhian’s back. The copper rod shot away from between Rafen’s shoulder and Annette’s chest, and Rafen swiftly raised his hands to his throat to prevent it getting cut.
But the rod sped past him into the trees, quieting the chirping
bats.
“Where—?” Asiel said in shock.
A few new beech leaves, shorn off branches, fluttered to the ground. There was silence. Annette slumped on the ground beneath Rafen, sobbing. Rafen crawled off her, his body shaking uncontrollably. He was going to black out any minute.
Then someone said, “All right, yer better let him go.”
Fresh alarm awoke in Rafen. He turned his head to see a philosopher curse as Sherwin evaded his grasping hand and scampered into the circle. One of the Tarhians sniggered. Rafen couldn’t blame him. The aim was to get out of the circle, not in it.
Sherwin clutched his sword, the big bruise on his head a brand in the moonlight.
“I think I recognize what’s left of your face,” Asiel leered. “I’m glad you’ve come back. I’ll finish what I began.”
“Unless I’m mistaken, yer got shot,” Sherwin said.
“A bullet is a small thing,” Asiel said, pointing his Ashurite nhanya at Sherwin. “Stay where you are, boy. You amuse me.”
Sherwin gazed at him evenly before turning to Rafen, who was quaking on all fours. Sherwin blanched. It was plain he had expected Rafen to do some fighting.
Rafen’s phoenix feather seared again. Clutching it, Rafen groaned. The copper rod was returning. Grasping her knee, Annette struggled up from the ground. As if she knew what he was thinking, she stared at him, her face pale green.
Rafen managed to rise. Behind him, Frankston swept forward, grabbing the back of his neck with one hand.
“Stay, Rafen,” he said. “Yes.”
When Rafen grabbed Frankston’s arm, he discovered there was kesmal in the nobleman’s touch; a swarm of singing waves pulsed in Rafen’s head, warping his sight. He felt faint.
“Death,” Frankston exhaled.
“’ey, stop!” Sherwin yelled, running across.
A greenish spiral burst in the air. Sherwin was lost in the cloud of smoke that accompanied Asiel’s attacks.
Distracted, Frankston unintentionally lessened the flow of kesmal. Rafen threw his head forward, breaking away from the purple-robed lord and stumbling forward.
“Sherwin!” he yelled in a choked voice.
The air around them turned cold. Having ducked Asiel’s blow, Sherwin crawled out of the smoke, shell-shocked and coughing. The wind stirred leaves around the clearing. Annette limped behind some Ashurite philosophers. Frankston jerked Rafen back by the hair.
A horribly familiar form broke out of the beeches right of the clearing. The philosophers opened the circle again, bowing low. The Lashki stepped forward, his black eyes focused on Annette and his yellow teeth showing. The putrid smell of corpse washed over Rafen, whose face burned when he saw King Robert’s gold circlet on the Lashki’s head. Sherwin had risen and turned around, oblivious to this next development. He found himself directly before the Lashki, who held the copper rod to his chest, caressing it as if it were his baby. Without looking at Sherwin, the Lashki pointed the rod and sent a blue beam toward his head. Sherwin dodged again with unusual speed, falling over himself.
The Lashki paused two steps from Annette, his attention dragged to a struggling Rafen. A ghastly smile appeared on his face.
“Can it be?” he said, talking more to the copper rod than anything else. “At last… everything is explained.”
He stared into Rafen’s face, captivated. Rafen frenziedly tried to wrench himself free from Frankston. Stepping forward, Asiel grabbed Sherwin’s throat, his bony fingers tightening when Sherwin tried to reach Rafen. The Ashurite laughed silkily.
“I have been mistaken,” the Lashki crooned, and Rafen imagined for a stupid moment that he was giving a belated apology. However, the Lashki was looking at the scuffled paw prints on the ground. “All those months of fruitless search! How careless of me. No more. Nazt shall feed on your flesh, Rafen.”
His face became dangerous, and the copper rod went up. At the same moment, Rafen transformed with his little remaining strength. He bolted forward, leaving a handful of fur in Frankston’s
hand. A blast of blue meant for Rafen narrowly missed Frankston, who threw himself sideways.
Before the copper rod lowered, Rafen surged toward the bottom of the Lashki’s moth-eaten robe. His one chance for survival was attacking. The rod descended on his furry back with a dull thud. The pain hit Rafen like a stone, and he lunged forward, freeing himself from the rod’s touch, preventing it from taking him anywhere. When Rafen sunk his teeth into whatever was be
hind the robe, they came against bone unusually quickly. He clamped his jaw shut on it with a horrid crunch, twisting his head violently to ensure breakage. The crack that followed was an encouraging sound and sensation through his jaw. The Lashki’s scream drowned out everything. Rafen’s canines came away with slimy, cobwebby flesh clinging to them. There was no blood and no taste – only revolting, rubbery texture. He skittered away, spitting all over the ground.
He had been mistaken. There was a flavor, like nothing he had ever tasted before. Visions of corpses leapt up before Rafen’s eyes: a child lying face down in a river; travelers in homespun garb scattered in twisted positions on the mountains; Sianian soldiers staring up with glazed eyes; King Fritz propped against his chamber windows, his throat a gaping red hole; Prince Thomas, his horrified face fixed, and dark stained holes in his emerald tunic.
Rafen felt like a cannibal.
He had transformed, though was still on his hands and knees, sucking frantically at the taste in his mouth and spitting hard onto
the ground. An explosion of blue filled his right peripheral vision.
Rafen looked up; he was going to face death.
A yellow wall sprang between him and the Lashki’s kesmal. It shivered and hummed slightly the moment it was hit. Yet its golden warmth breathed life into the surrounding atmosphere.
The philosophers had started fighting. Three streamed toward Etana, who stood next to Rafen, her silver scepter in her hand, her red hair like flames in the night breeze. Delirious hope leapt within
him. Etana swung her scepter around horizontally, releasing a fan
that shot in several directions at once. Two of the philosophers defended themselves. The other fell, scrabbling at the shining yellow mark on his neck. To Rafen’s right, the Lashki battered the wall with his rod, sending a dozen cracks through it. Behind the Lashki, gangly Kasper wrestled Asiel and freed Sherwin from the philosopher’s grasp. Asiel’s nhanya blade lay on the grass a little ways from them. Sword in hand, Sherwin ran behind another philosopher, who was hurrying to the Lashki with ingratiating words. The philosopher choked mid-sentence as the tip of Sherwin’s blade appeared between his ribs. The two Tarhians had fled, leaving the woman, and the last two philosophers struggled to stop Annette running too. The Lashki now pressed his fingers against the shield, injecting forks of blue into the gold surface.
Rafen forced himself to his feet, swaying. He whipped his sword out, reeling around. Perhaps if he fought the ghoul now, he could rid Siana of its false king once and for all – or die trying. Even as he thought it, however, something horrible within said that the Lashki wouldn’t go until his supporting army of Tarhians and philosophers was overwhelmed too. And what if the copper rod took Rafen to Nazt again?
Just as the wall to his right fell away like shards of glass, a man
grabbed his arm and pulled him forward into the trees. When Rafen threw himself back against the man’s grip, Robert shouted, “What are you doing?”
Stumbling over his own tired feet, Rafen surrendered to Robert’s tugging.
“Pursue them, now!” the Lashki shrieked, demented.
Any minute now, he was going to start that horribly fast running of his… and then Rafen remembered he couldn’t run.
Blue burst on the air behind them. Yellow shafts collided with it, causing a ground-rocking blast. The branches behind them closed over the view of the clearing, and Rafen halted. Robert jerked him forward by the arm, saying some words Queen Arlene would never have approved of.
“What about Etana and Sherwin?” Rafen said rapidly. “Where—”
Sherwin and Kasper rushed through the beeches to their right. Etana shoved through the branches behind and joined them. A raccoon scampered higher in alarm.
“What are you waiting for?” Etana shrieked. “Run!”
They ran. The trees bumped up and down around Rafen. Several times, he tripped and fell headlong, and Robert had to help him up. Behind, the Woods were alive with pursuers. Explosions set oak branches on fire, split elm saplings through the middle, and sent clouds of night birds rising from the trees. The slices of blue were coming nearer. By now, all Rafen wanted was to get as far away from the rod as possible. He could still feel the touch of Nazt on his skin.
*
Everyone stood silently in a group, panting. A semblance of peace had settled over the Woods again. Rafen had been standing in a trance for some time, his head bowed. He straightened, looking around wildly.
“Where are they?”
Robert, Kasper, Etana, and Sherwin stared at him with the concern healthy people have for invalids.
“It’s all right, Rafen,” Etana said. “We’re only stopping to catch our breath.”
“We don’t have time,” Rafen spat. “We have to run!”
“It’s all right, Raf,” Sherwin said, white-faced and splattered with another man’s blood. “We’ve lost them. Are yer all right?”
“We haven’t lost them,” Rafen said.
Kasper clapped a hand on Rafen’s shoulder. “You’re as jumpy as your twin, old chap,” he said.
“What?” Rafen said, without understanding. “What about the others?” He stared at Sherwin.
“It’s all right, Rafen,” Robert said. “Francisco told us where you and your friends might be. We found the two women and the old Tarhian general. I have no idea why you wanted to save him, but we’ve moved them all to our hideout.”
“Where?” Rafen asked weakly.
“Here,” Etana said, indicating around them.
Rafen realized they stood in a crater filled with blossoming buttonbushes and scattered with large gray rocks. Above, a film of kesmal blurred the shapes of the trees on the slopes.
“What is this place?” Rafen’s own words echoed irritatingly in his head: What is this place-place-place?
“It is King Fritz’s Hideout,” Etana said, taking his hand. Her blue eyes, as bright as Rafen remembered, were worried. “We’re quite safe, Rafen. We led them in a circle. They couldn’t catch up. The Lashki couldn’t run, because you bit his leg, and the philosophers were too busy trying to help him.”
“An’ he didn’t really want help,” Sherwin added.
“This place is all protected by kesmal, see?” Etana said. “All you have to do is descend the rope ladder.”
She indicated a large black hole near a round rock. The idea of going down into the darkness chilled Rafen and he hung back.
Kasper approached the hole. “It’s quite easy, Rafen,” he said. “I’ll show you.”
Groggy, Rafen swayed. Sherwin threw an arm around him, partially supporting him.
“I’m not going down there,” Rafen protested.
“It’s all right, Raf,” Sherwin said. “Yeh’ll be fine. We’ll do it together, okay? I’ll go first and guide yer feet.”
Rafen grabbed Sherwin’s arm with his hand. He gripped it tightly. “Don’t leave,” he begged, shivering. “I don’t want to go back.”
Sherwin looked at him as if he had lost his mind.
Chapter Forty-One
The
Phoenix’s Healing
After what felt like years later, Rafen was in an underground chamber with one low-slung wooden bed against an earthen wall, a blindingly scarlet tapestry hanging above it. Rafen kept blinking, wondering how he had gotten here.
Etana was talking to him, and Rafen only vaguely understood her. Doubled over with terrible stomach cramps, he kept groaning involuntarily.
“You are perfectly safe, Rafen,” Etana told him. “All that remains is for you to lie down and rest.”
The crimson-gold blur of her hair vanished. She had departed through a doorframe somewhere. He lay down on the sagging bed. The thin mattress smelled musty, but after seven months of sleeping on the ground, Rafen should have been grateful. Yet his agonized stomach forced him to sit up again. He shivered. A corpse disintegrated; someone was run through; people were massacred; a woman shrieked; thousands of naked forms extended clamm
y hands; they were tearing his skin from his body; they were screaming his name, over and over; someone was strangling him; he bit something foul.
He trembled, cross-legged on the bed. As his hand crept up to a comfortingly warm patch in his hem, soft golden light to his left drew his attention. He turned his tired red eyes to see.
It was the Phoenix. Rafen stared. Maybe he was dead.
The Phoenix looked back at him with eyes of flame and ash. A smoky red mist hung around his body, and it spread through the room like incense. Colors filled Rafen’s vision: the smudged black and zealous gold of the Phoenix’s glowing wings and tail; the blood red of the neck, spine, and curled crest; the ivory of the beak. The Phoenix had grown since Rafen had last seen him. His body alone was the size of an adult’s. His tail, which was a vibrant spiral, was double the body’s length. The Phoenix rested on the earthen ground like a huge peacock, his long neck curled around so the head nestled on the silky upper wing.
Rafen thought he could look at the Phoenix forever. Then the misty black fingerprints on his arms from the Hands reminded him strangely of almost seven months without properly devoting a thought to Zion, months of only occasionally begging for help when he felt he really couldn’t handle it. In the first three months after he had thought the Selsons were dead, he had nurtured his grief. Those had been months of blood and claws and fangs. It had seemed like glorious forgetfulness and strength, though was really benightment. Erasmus had fought this side of him, and Rafen stole Wynne’s place in his mentor’s heart until his death. Then Sherwin had jerked him out of his self-pitying again. Sherwin had been a gift from Zion. Later, to silence his own conscience about Erasmus’ death, Rafen had triggered a hopeless rebellion. After, he had thought Zion had failed him.
Still, Rafen didn’t understand. He stared at Zion. He didn’t understand why all those people had had to die. He didn’t understand why Erasmus had died. He didn’t understand why Alexander had never appeared, and Siana still wasn’t theirs again. He closed his eyes and let the red warmth of Zion press against his eyelids. It was enough. He remembered a life he had forgotten all this time – a life of endless flight, perfect obedience, perfect purpose; a life that Zion’s voice and words had permeated. He wanted that back.
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