Cry of the Firebird (The Firebird Fairytales Book 1)

by Amy Kuivalainen

  “That will not be necessary. We have another assignment for you.”

  “Oh?”

  “Bring her to us, Aramis. We can teach her.”

  “With all due respect, she would never come with me. She is closely tied to her companions and will not leave them.”

  “I did not say ask her to come to us. I said bring her to us.”

  “She would not react kindly to force and I find the thought of hurting her unsavoury. Her magic tends to rise up and protect her and would be a force to reckon with.”

  “You do it Aramis or I will send another team to extract her and they will not be so delicate. The choice I leave to you. You told me her lineage wouldn’t be an issue for you so stop making this personal.” The line went dead and Aramis fought the urge to throw the phone into forest and be done with it.

  ***

  “You have two hours,” Trajan told Aramis firmly. His eyes were changing to full red when Anya squeezed his hand hard. It was early the next morning and it was so cold Anya had the hood up on Eikki’s jacket so the thick fur would keep her head warm. Trajan turned and kissed her cold nose and her lips.

  “Be safe. I really don’t want to have to come after you,” Trajan said softly.

  “You won’t have to. I will be back soon. Enjoy the peace and quiet,” she joked. He smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes. They hadn’t slept much the previous night and Anya felt guilty when she saw how worried he was.

  “We will return soon, Trajan,” Aramis promised.

  “If anything happens to her, I will hold you responsible.”

  “We are leaving now,” Anya said to stop another inevitable argument. She stood on tiptoes and kissed Trajan long and hard. She wished, not for the first time, that she could have just left with him and let someone else deal with the gates. Aramis cleared his throat loudly.

  “Yeah, I’m coming.” Anya sighed and let go of Trajan’s hand before following Aramis into the forest.

  Anya didn’t realise how much she had missed the forest, her forest, until they were under the heavy pine branches. She hadn’t explored this Eastern side for a long time. She had missed the berry picking season while she had been away. There wasn’t a cloudberry to be seen and it made her feel sad and nostalgic for her childhood. Eikki had spent a lot of time with her picking berries, mushrooms and wild flowers. He named all the types of trees that they passed until Anya knew them by heart. Pine and birch, aspen and rowan grew wild and thick.

  Eikki would sometimes run a callused hand over them and greet them. “Hello grandfather birch, grow strong old friend,” he would say cheerfully. Anya thought this was natural practice until she said good morning to the aspen tree on her first day of school and a boy had thrown a rock at her.

  “Do you know your boyfriend is very intense,” commented Aramis breaking Anya out of the flood of memories. “If I didn’t know better I would say he is insecure.”

  “He is under the impression that you are going to try to kidnap me.”

  “Why would I want to kidnap you? You have to save the world remember?” Aramis held her hand as he helped her over a slippery tree trunk. Her magic rushed towards him and into him. He smiled a little but didn’t mention it.

  “He knows that. He isn’t as trusting as I am,” Anya replied as she took her hand back. Aramis reached into his pocket, pulled out a small silver flask and offered it to her.

  “Drink some of this, it will dull your magic down and help me shield you when the time comes.”

  Anya took the flask and eyed it sceptically. “If this is drugs so you can kidnap me more easily it won’t work.”

  “What makes you so sure?” Aramis was looking amused. Anya remembered what he’d said about no one being able to stop him if he wanted to take her.

  “When the Nehemoth took me, Völundr gave me drugs to dull my magic down and you know what happened? When I saw what they had done to Trajan it burnt it out of my body.”

  “Then you really have nothing to fear,” he shrugged.

  Anya opened the flask and took a long swig. It had a most unusual taste like some kind of sweet berry liquor. She tried to identify the flavour but it kept changing and finally evaporated with a tingle on her tongue.

  “No, I have nothing to fear,” she said as she looked at him levelly. He was smiling at her, his silver hair in a tangle from the wind. The buzzing under her skin quietened quickly, making it feel like it was never there. The absence of it made her feel unusually empty.

  “I wish you would have given me some of that a few days ago. It would have stopped me from hitting the vodka so hard.”

  “It’s not given to humans because it becomes too addictive. Come on, we have a long way to go.”

  “I have a question.”

  “I thought you would.”

  “How are you going to shield our presences from the Darkness?”

  Aramis smiled knowingly. “Like this.” There was a strong pulse of power as he waved his hand over his face and was gone. Anya saw a slight movement in the air, like a heat wave from a road on a hot day. She waved her hand through it and felt the fabric of his shirt. Fingers touched her face lightly and Aramis materialised in front of her. She looked down at her feet and they weren’t there.

  “Don’t panic, you are just under the shield. Come, we’ve got a lot of ground to cover.”

  “It’s a shame you couldn’t shield a car so we wouldn’t have to walk. It would give us a lot more time to find Ilya’s knife.”

  “Cars are too complex and it would be too dangerous to try. Just because they can’t see us doesn’t mean they can’t hear us. Is a thirty minute walk through the forest with me such a trial?”

  Anya didn’t know if he was teasing her or not. “I have to keep a close eye on you in case you try to kidnap me.”

  Aramis looked worried before he asked, “Have you thought about coming to the Illumination for training and guidance?”

  “Sorry Aramis, it sounds too much like school to me. That and imprisonment. They would want the debt repaid in some way and the price will always be too high.”

  “For someone who knows nothing about us you are extremely perceptive.”

  “No, I know how the world works. Nothing is free. No one is going to have that kind of power over me.”

  “That is true in many ways but you could do with more training. The sky’s the limit for what you are capable of. You are Yanka’s granddaughter. Yanka was one of the greatest Powers the world has ever seen.”

  “You say that like you knew her,” Anya commented. Aramis hesitated and quickly covered it up. “You did know her, didn’t you?” Anya grabbed his sleeve and pulled him back.

  “Anya, please lower your voice. Remember they can hear us still.”

  “But you knew her.”

  “Yes. Now can we go?” Aramis asked shortly before adding more gently, “Can we speak of it later?”

  “Fine. But this conversation is not over,” she warned as she pushed past him. Why did he not tell her about Yanka to begin with? She turned to see if he was still following her and she glimpsed the look on his face. He looked like he was a world away. He also looked extremely guilty. She would get Ilya’s knife then she would get a confession out of him.

  They walked to the edge of the forest and surveyed the open field stretching out before them. The black charcoal skeleton of the house and barn marred the otherwise perfect land.

  “I can’t see anyone,” Anya whispered.

  “Look along the forest line just past the house.”

  Anya squinted but couldn’t see anything. “I don’t have Álfr eyes,” she pointed out. He dug around in his pockets and handed her a rifle scope. She took it and rescanned the tree line.

  “Paska,” she swore. Men were moving about and a few were definitely not human. “Can they see us?”

  “No, but they might be able to sense us if we take too long.”

  Anya handed back the scope. “Let’s get on with it then.” Aramis drew a
knife from the inside of his coat and kept it low. Its blade was thin and as long as Anya’s arm. Its silver edge was engraved in elegant swirling designs. “Are you going to need that?”

  “You never know.”

  Anya took a deep breath and stepped out into the open. There were no cries of alarm so she strode across the all too familiar fields and toward the black rubble of the house. Vasilli had done an extraordinary job of destroying the place. If it wasn’t for Yvan she would have been in that fire. She wished Yvan was there with her to hold her hand.

  “I will give you a minute,” Aramis said gently. Anya walked into the ruins of the house. The fireplace still stood which surprised her the most. She remembered all the bizarre tokens of her family. Perhaps if she had known about her dormant magic she could have seen the magical objects from the mundane.

  “I can’t even remember seeing the knife, Aramis,” she said finally.

  “If it is important to the ritual it would have been hidden someplace where it would be safe from fire or anything else.”

  “Then we are screwed because the house is wrecked. It could be at the cabin but there is no way we could get to it in time.” Anya walked around the wreckage, occasionally recognising objects in their burnt and mutilated form. What she had left of the family jewellery had melted in one giant blob. A silver locket with Ilya’s portrait painted in it was blackened and slightly bent but otherwise okay. She pocketed it and thought about the vision she had of him. She would have loved to have been able to talk to him for just a moment.

  She squatted down on the hearthstone of the fireplace and ran her fingers through the ash. The chimney had half collapsed but the mantelpiece was still intact. Her ashy fingers throbbed and her dormant magic sparked.

  “What did you just do?” Aramis asked in a terse whisper.

  “I don’t know; there’s something…I don’t know.” She got back to her feet and ran her hands along the top of the mantelpiece.

  “Step back,” Aramis instructed and held out a hand in front of the brick structure. He shut his eyes and Anya gasped as the fireplace glowed with a faint purple aura. She had seen it do that before but she had been so drunk at the time she thought it a hallucination.

  “What do you see?”

  “It’s glowing.”

  “Follow it Anya. Is it darker anywhere in particular?”

  Anya studied the fireplace until her hand stopped on a brick on the mantel. The concrete seal around it was cracked. She grabbed at it with her fingers and pulled. It came out with much wriggling and cursing.

  “I think I found something.” Anya lifted it all the way out and flipped it over. The brick was hollowed out. There was an oilskin bundle stuffed in the middle of it.

  “It would be the safest place if you wanted to keep it hidden. The protection spell was shielding it from me but it must have recognised you through your blood,” said Aramis. Anya unwrapped the leather to reveal Ilya’s knife. The snarling bear looked up at her expectantly. Even with her magic dulled down it tingled in her hands. There was a shudder in the earth and Anya swayed. Aramis grabbed her to stop her from falling.

  “We need to go. Your magic is spiking again,” Aramis said urgently. She wrapped the knife quickly and climbed out of the wreckage. Still holding her hand tightly they ran across the fields towards the cover of the forest.

  “Just give me more of that liquid I drank,” Anya said as they reached the tree line.

  “I can’t. The gate is trying to link with you. Touching the knife made it worse.”

  They had only been moving through the trees for fifteen minutes before Anya spotted them. “Aramis…”

  “I know, I see them too. We’re going to be attacked. When they do I want you to run as hard and as fast as you can. I will hold them off.” There were five of them and they all jumped at once. Aramis’s knife was moving at the same time, taking down one in the first sweep. Anya knew she should be running but he was mesmerising. He ducked their blows, moving in the air around the bodies, slashing and lunging, dancing to some beautiful music only he could hear.

  She turned to run when another man appeared in front of her. “The witch,” he spat as he pulled a gun on her. She focussed her mind and her magic ran through her. The man dropped the weapon with a yelp. The gun hit the dirt, glowing bright red. He shouted angrily and went for her, hands outstretched like claws. She lifted her hand and he started screaming. Black ash burst out of his mouth as he collapsed, his organs burnt up inside of him. Anya looked down in horror from her hand to the corpse. She had done it again. A shout made her turn. There were three men attacking Aramis at once. The other had already fallen to his blade. She raised her hand again and Aramis saw her. “Anya! Don’t!” he shouted but the men had already collapsed and were screaming.

  Aramis looked from them to her and back again. His face was white with shock. “I told you to run,” he growled as they started to move again.

  “I’m sorry but I am not so cold as to leave a person behind to fight my battles.” Her hand was burning from the power that had come out of it. She felt so tired.

  “I could have taken them!”

  “I didn’t think I just…” she trailed off. All those men dead. She didn’t know why she had done it but it had been easy and instinctive.

  “We will talk about it later,” Aramis promised. He gripped her hand and picked up the pace.

  Aramis saw Anya safe in Trajan’s arms before he went up to his bedroom. As the door shut behind him he ran to the little bathroom and threw up in the toilet. When he had nothing left in his stomach he washed out his mouth. He took off his jacket and slumped down onto the bed putting his head in his hands.

  “Killed them, just like that,” he muttered to himself. “Too much like her.” Watching Anya kill those men was Yanka all over again. So easy. The same glance of vengeance in her green eyes and darkness pouring from her. But she wasn’t Yanka. He could save her. He would wait until after the gates were shut and then he would tell her. He would explain what happened when she killed with magic. Anya was not Yanka. Anya would listen. He would save her from the darkness that was in her. He would save her.

  His cell phone was ringing and he knew what he was going to be asked to do. He picked it up and crushed it, the plastic and glass shattering in his hand. He would have twenty-four hours at the most before they slapped the Rogue label on him. It didn’t matter. In twenty-four hours he would have Anya far away, or if she didn’t close the gates the Illumination would have a war on their hands.

  ***

  “I heard you killed some men today,” Yvan said as he came into Anya’s room.

  “Yes, that was me.” Anya had started listening to the nagging voice kept calling her a murderer and the full weight of her guilt crushed in. That she was able to kill so coldly was disturbing. She kept telling herself they wouldn’t have killed her so kindly.

  “Aramis was being attacked and it just happened like it did that day with Vischto. He is angry at me.”

  “I don’t think he is angry at you. Perhaps worried. I know I am.”

  “He could have saved us on his own. You should have seen him in action.”

  “Was that the knife you were after?” Yvan asked, changing the subject. Anya was cradling Ilya’s knife in her lap. She had been looking at it blankly when he had come in to check on her.

  “Yvan, I’m…um…” She tried to swallow her pride and get the words out.

  “Scared?”

  “Yeah.” Yvan sat down next to her and pulled her into a tight hug. Anya felt the firebird move under his shirt.

  “Don’t worry, shalosť. You will close them and everything will be fine.”

  “You are such a bad liar. I will do whatever I can to close them, even if it kills me.” Yvan’s arms tightened.

  “You are not going to die Anya. Not from this. I don’t want to ever hear you say it again, understand?” She nodded and he released his grip on her.

  “I need to ask you something,”
Anya said after a while.

  Yvan took her hand between his. “You know I will help you in anyway.”

  “Aramis said some things about Yanka today and I was wondering how she died?”

  “That I don’t know. She came across to live here in Mir and I am assuming she died here.”

  “But wouldn’t being a Power have made her immortal?”

  “Even immortals can die, there is always a way. I heard a rumour that her magic became so strong it burnt her from the inside out. But like I said, it was only a rumour. You know, you really should be asking Aramis about it if he implied anything.”

  “I know, he is a too angry at the moment and my magic still goes silly when he is around.”

  “Really? You never told me that.”

  “I didn’t want to tell anyone. Trajan would pack me off right now if he knew. Besides, it’s embarrassing.”

  “How so? The Álfr are magical creatures so it makes perfect sense that it would recognise him.”

  “It’s more than that. It’s like it’s in love with him. I really can’t explain it. It’s like it recognised him.”

  “I don’t know, Anya. I wish I could give you answers and calm your mind a little.”

  “Do you think the firebird would know how to close the gates?”

  Yvan’s eyes glazed over for a second before refocussing. “He said it’s all in your blood and that if you remember the words of your ancestors the magic will come.”

  “Helpful, really helpful.” Anya rubbed her tired eyes.

  “I know it’s pointless to say this again but you will be fine. Look at what we have gone through together in the last six months.”

  “I’m sorry you have been dragged around the worlds on my behalf.”

  “I am not concerned. You saved me. What kind of person would I be if I didn’t return the favour?”

  “You could be a little angry at me for endangering your life.”

  “Would that make you feel better? No. If anyone should be guilty here it’s me. I will accept no guilt or apologies from you.”

  “Nor I from you,” Anya said firmly.