Her Minnesota home crackled and groaned as if some part of it had turned Burner.
The nasty thing in her head woke up the moment her foot dropped out the passenger side door of Ladon’s van. Its tentacles burst from her mind like some terrible hybrid child of Athena and Cthulhu.
She’d blacked out again.
But this time, she remembered the vision: Her mom. Her dad. A fire. Her toy dragon, the one she’d lost when she was little, when she and her mom moved here, to Minnesota. She’d put it in her suitcase, the purple bag with the silver handle her mom bought her for the move, between her jeans and her pajamas with the stars and comets looping through the fabric.
But when she opened the case in her new bedroom, her dragon had vanished. Gone, like her dad.
Now, in her living room, she dropped to her knees on her mom’s special rug. The burgundy one, with the abstracts—the one her dad had brought from Argentina as a gift. Mira had rolled it up herself, tied it herself, and dragged it on her own out to their moving van the day before they left California.
It had been the last thing she’d pulled from their old house.
Rysa blinked. Where was her mom? “Oh God oh God oh God,” she mumbled, not thinking about her words. Or her body. Or the random flickering of images behind her eyes. Memories, not memories, visions, not visions—the nasty thing’s tentacles pierced her life.
And squeezed.
Her stomach felt as confused as her head and she wanted to vomit. Paying attention had never been this hard. The nasty dropped a whole new other reality into her brain and she had to parse both it and the real world.
Fire crept through the walls of her house. It groaned again, a body in the throes of a death fever. She smelled Burners. Where was her mom? Where—
The ceiling boomed. She looked up as the house rocked. She knew: In the attic, her mom swung a sword, bright and smooth and older than America. A brilliant blade made for a Prime Fate by the hands of an artisan of unparalleled character.
Rysa tried desperately to keep down her stomach’s contents. She knew what-is. Things she shouldn’t, like the vision-memories of what-was. She knew things from them, too. Points of importance highlighted because everything else looked like a movie.
She’d become… omniscient, even if she couldn’t remember anything or make sense of it. She really was a Fate, a monster—
Ladon skidded across the carpet and dropped to his knees next to her. She hadn’t seen him come around the corner from the kitchen. Hadn’t heard him call her name, even though she knew he had.
More information she shouldn’t know popped into her mind: Her meds were in the inside pocket of his armored jacket. He’d seen them on the counter and scooped them up, just like he scooped her up, now.
Above them, in the attic, her mom swung her blade. The ceiling buckled upward, snapping and groaning in pain.
A Burner imploded.
She curled her arms around Ladon’s neck, the only movement her body would make, as all thoughts of her meds disappeared.
“Rysa!” His voice flowed over her and his strong arms enveloped her body. Strong arms lifted her to her feet. “The fire’s spreading. We need to leave.”
“My mom’s in the attic. With Burners.” Everything inside Rysa screamed to run for the steps to the upper floor of their split level. Ladon held her on the entry level, in the living room equidistant from the front door, the patio door to the back yard behind the dining table, and the kitchen wall. Right in the middle of the most open area in the house. Under the vaulted ceiling rising a story and a half to the attic above. In perfect view of the open sitting room at the top of the steps.
In the one place in the house they couldn’t hide from Burners.
Rysa crunched against Ladon, even though he didn’t want to help her.
“What did you see?” But as he spoke, his chest shifted. He pulled her flush to his side.
A sprinkle of safety dusted her tremoring mind. She could snuggle warm and calm with this man, safe from every Burner on the planet. Even if he didn’t care about her mom or any other Fate.
“You’re crying.” His fingers spread over her lower back.
She stiffened. He touched her back, like Tom used to. Tom, her no-good—
Ladon’s head jerked toward the open banister between them and the upper sitting room, and his hand moved to her hip. His fingers splayed a little up, then slightly forward—he positioned his hand so he could move her quickly if he needed to.
She looked up at his face. His goggles hung around his neck, the muscles of which tensed, along with his jaw. Every movement, every adjustment was meant for one purpose—to keep her safe.
The house popped. The imploding Burner in the attic must have taken part of the roof. A grating noise followed, then the sounds of boots dropping out of the attic access and into the hallway.
Her mom screamed.
Rysa’s focus swung from Ladon and locked onto the shrillness of her mother’s voice as it rolled from the upper floor. The fluttering of her attention issues—the shifting from her visions to the house then to Ladon’s hard muscles with no break or conscious connection—stopped. Everything but her mom grayed out. The world became background.
The Burners will take her mom. “Ladon! They’ll eat her! Please! Please—”
A Burner fell out of the hallway entrance and onto the landing at the top of the stairs. An unbroken stream of expletives jabbered from her little mouth as she jumped up, her tiny finger poking the air in Rysa’s general direction. Her dirty clothes, her matted hair, her backward baseball cap only dressed her malicious Cheshire grin beaming down at Rysa. “Skankadoodle!” the child hissed.
Ladon held Rysa’s arms around his torso as he stepped in front of her. He splayed her fingers over his stomach, his hand over hers. His palm and fingers cupped her entire hand, his skin warm and dry and rough like she’d expect of a man who worked with his body.
“They won’t touch you.” His words reverberated through his chest to the cheek she pressed against his back.
He told the truth. Nothing got by this man. Nothing at all.
A Burner she didn’t recognize flew down the hallway and landed next to the child. Another scream burst from her mother.
The child laughed and jigged around on one foot.
“Your mother must have breathed burndust. She’s frantic.” Ladon leaned back enough to block her sightlines to the Burners. “She’s taken some of their chaos into herself.”
“What?” Her mother breathed the same stuff that was in the shackles?
A massive pulse of energy burst from Ladon, the transfer stronger than any she’d felt so far between him and Dragon. Rysa’s breath caught. She couldn’t see around Ladon. Where was the beast?
From the hallway, Mira screeched.
The rage in her mother’s voice gouged holes in Rysa’s already fractured attention. Many times, she’d heard her mother angry. Seen her face squish like she plotted revenge. But she never sounded like she wanted to kill.
Mira’s foot stomped onto the head of the Burner lying on the landing. The child danced backward into the sitting room and out of range of Mira’s sword. A flash reflected off the raised blade and her finger jabbed the air toward Ladon’s head. “Why did you bring her here?” Mira snarled. “You were supposed to—”
The house shook. Her mother’s head jerked up.
She vanished. Her sword bounced down the steps.
The invisible Dragon jumped off the upstairs landing, her mother enfolded in his forelimbs. Rysa saw her mother’s leg kick, her shoulder thrust, her fist strike the parts of Dragon she could reach. With a thud, they hit the wall between the kitchen and the living room.
Dragon landed on his feet, his big head curling around Ladon to Rysa. Another pulse washed over Rysa as the man and the beast communicated.
Ladon scooped his arm under Rysa’s backside and lifted her against his waist. “We leave.”
Disoriented by the lift, Rysa held tight anyway, doing her
best to track the vanishing and reappearing parts of her mother. This dragon and this man, who didn’t care about Fates, would get them away from—
Dragon bellowed and dropped her mother. She rolled, her hand finding the hilt of her sword before she came up to a crouch. “Touch me again, you damned beast, and I’ll cut you!” She waved the sword.
“Mom! Stop! They’re helping!”
Ladon jerked back when Rysa yelled, but he didn’t let go. She twisted against his torso, reaching for her mom.
“Put me down!” She slapped his shoulder.
“No! We go!” With his free hand, he pointed at the child on the landing. “They’ll take the house.” His jaw set. “Why are Fates so stubborn?”
“I told mammaskank she’s ours!” The child danced around her unconscious companion. She stopped suddenly, her little body holding a mid-jig pose, and kicked the other Burner in the neck. “Asswipe!”
“You let them bind her with their talisman!” Mira swung the sword. The blade sliced and the end rail of the stair banister split in two.
“He tried to get them off me.” Rysa held out her cuffed arm. “He tried to help! The Burners would have eaten me. Mom!” She slapped Ladon’s shoulder again. “Let me down! I can help her. Please!”
Ladon glanced over her shoulder at the child. His face crunched like he thought putting her down was the worst idea ever, but he dropped her anyway.
“They were never going to eat you, daughter!” Mira swung the sword and Dragon’s outline momentarily blazed in the air. “Why didn’t you stop them in Wisconsin? You are the Dracos! Why didn’t you cause—” She swung again. “—enough distraction she could activate on something else?” Another swing. “Anything else. Her cell phone. The grommets in her damned shoes. It didn’t matter! My present-seer showed me dragon and I can’t hide her any longer and you should have been enough.” She dropped to her knees. “Why weren’t you enough?”
A sob lurched from her mother’s throat, raw and evil-sounding and full of scorching pain like she’d swallowed fire.
Rysa tried to haul her to her feet. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why didn’t—”
Mira leaned forward, her eyes glassy with chaos, and screamed directly into Rysa’s face. “Stay away from me!”
The sword in Mira’s hand glistened, catching reflections. Above them, the child laughed.
Rysa should have ducked. She should have squirmed or screamed or done something, but the woman in front of her, the woman screaming hatred into her face, was her mom. The woman she’d cooked dinner for when her joints hurt too much. The woman she’d put her adult life on hold for so she’d be here when her mom needed her.
The real reason Rysa fretted about leaving for graduate school. Her attention issues ate her life, but her mom, she gave to willingly. What else was she to do?
The sword passed by the top of Rysa’s head but missed. Her mom wouldn’t have cut her. She didn’t mean—
Mira lifted into the air.
Dragon threw her mom at the patio door. She hit hard and dropped, landing on her feet, her sword still in her hand.
“Momma don’t want you no more, skankadoodle!” The child laughed from the top step and jumped up and down like she rode on a pogo stick. “But wwwweeee looooovvvveeee yyyooouuu.” She blew Rysa a kiss.
Her mom’s body jerked and jolted as if she stood on a fault line and an earthquake moved the world under her feet. Her eyes flitted from Rysa to Ladon to the child, and back in a random pattern, at random intervals.
And her hair, usually smooth and braided, flared around her face like a jumbled ball of yarn. Mira, this woman Ladon had told her was not nice, who, as he said, was a kingmaker, this woman, her mother, looked like she’d catch rats with her bare hands.
Then eat them raw.
Mira’s back straightened. Her spine elongated and her chin lifted. She stood tall for the first time since they found her—for the first time, Rysa thought, since they’d moved to Minnesota. “Have you figured it out yet, Ladon-Human?” The tip of her sword scraped across the tile floor at the base of the patio door. “She’s a singular.”
Ladon picked Rysa up off the floor, his face a mask of confusion. He placed a hand on either side of her waist, but he didn’t look at her. He watched the Burner child. “You have all three Fate abilities,” he said to Rysa.
Past, present, and future chased each other around in her head, but they looked the same—flat and tentacled and nasty. She was her own inattentive triad.
“Can you see the Burners, daughter?” her mom whispered. Rysa barely caught her words. They seemed to bounce off the patio door glass, amplifying on their own as they smacked against her eardrums. “No one can read Burners. Too much chaos. Burners—monsters without fate.” She chortled, a rough noise that sounded as if ash was about to come out of her nose. “Except now. They have you. They have purpose. They’ll be unstoppable.”
Rysa looked down at the cuffs around her wrists. Her biceps ached, tired from carrying around the metal’s weight. Chaos weighed more than people knew. Yet she carried more randomness on her shoulders every day than a normal person without her issues carried in a lifetime. So she should be used to it.
But this was too much. Was she as much Burner as she was Fate? Would she end up like she feared, her mind burned away?
“Mira!” Ladon roared. His big arms encircled Rysa. “Why do you do this?”
At the top of the stairs, the child clapped, an evil look of boredom on her tiny features. “Are you done yet?” she asked. “The roof’s burning. You set it on fire when you popped that dickwad dumbass putz from Indiana in the attic.” Her face wrinkled into a sour mask. “Indiana. Full of idiots.” She turned in a circle, then pointed at the threshold between the kitchen and the dining area in front of the patio door. “Don’t know where he’s from, but it ain’t Indiana.”
Billy moved so fast he managed to duck under Dragon’s lunge.
He punched her mom in the face.
Mira bounced against the plate glass, a new screech ripping from her throat. She swung her blade but it missed its target. Billy snickered.
Mira stepped forward, closer to the dining room table, her sword up and ready to strike.
For the briefest moment, for an instant so fast split-second was too long, the room dropped into total silence. The walls and the furniture and the people—Dragon and Ladon—defined in her perception as if outlined by a black marker. The Burners vanished, cloaked in their disorder, but they left a smudge on the present, points where the universe crisped and withered.
Her nasty whipped, uncalled, between all of them, sensing, looking, licking. Seeing.
And within that absolute essence of right now, Rysa knew. She saw Dragon’s intent—get her out. She felt the fractured disconnect of Ladon’s need to help and his desire to leave the Fates to their fate.
But she knew nothing of her mother. Like the Burners, she saw only a crisped shadow.
But then her mind flashed as if someone had set off a firecracker behind her left eye.
Something new took over her vision: The house gone. The walls reduced to ash. The moon traveled the sky filling and emptying, and trees behind the house grew dry, their leaves dropping for winter.
Reflecting off the bottom of roiling clouds, south of what was her home, she saw what-will-be: both downtowns burned, St. Paul to the left and Minneapolis to the right. She looked to the east: suburbs burned. To the west: flames licked the sky.
“You see it, don’t you, daughter? The future? Your future-seeing uncle warned me. He said the world will burn and burn and burn and a singular would be the key.”
What-is crackled into Rysa’s vision again, but this time the tentacles of her nasty flickered like flames. Like the flames used in her chemistry class to heat gas to glowing.
Rysa’s mother pointed at her again. “The moment I realized I was pregnant with you I knew he spoke the truth.”
Now Rysa knew it too: She’d set fire to the world.
9
The gas station explosion on the eastern edge of The Cities had slowed Ladon and Dragon down. He wondered if he should have run more lights. Driven faster. Stopped all this by finding Rysa sooner.
In front of him, from the shadows by the patio door, the burndust-addled Mira accused her daughter. Her features twisted and evil, she tipped her sword toward Rysa’s cheek.
Against his chest, Rysa’s breath hitched. Her lip fluttered and her eyes grew huge. And Ladon knew all the pain he felt moving through her body was his fault.
Twenty-three centuries he and Dragon had fought battles and dealt with Burners. Twenty-three sets of one hundred year intervals, a meaningless measure of time for someone who’d lived through so many of them. Yet, they’d persevered and done what they were supposed to do. Every single one of those actions and reactions dropped onto their heads like a grain of sand blown in from the desert. Twenty-three centuries and sometimes Ladon wondered if he still had the strength to move through the dunes of his life.
“Mom,” Rysa whispered.
The young woman clinging to his arm carried no such weight. Yet the boulder of her new existence would smear her flat if he and Dragon did nothing—or worst, the minimum necessary to finish this job.
He’d been annoyed by her questions in the van. Irritated when he realized she was Jani. But she didn’t deserve this. No one deserved vile insults hurled at them, especially from a parent.
So Ladon folded her tighter against his ribcage, his arm around her shoulder and his hand spread protectively across her shoulder blades.
Rysa wasn’t the terrible things Mira spat from her Burner-confused mouth. The beautiful, overwhelmed woman he held cared more for her mother than he’d ever seen a Fate show. More than her mother had earned, now or ever.
More than he would merit, if she cared for him.
Another Burner appeared. Mira attacked, and the implosion tore the door outward in a hail of shards. Glass peppered the backyard, but Dragon rolled through the burning flower beds, a snatched Mira thrashing in his forelimbs.
Games of Fate (Fate ~ Fire ~ Shifter ~ Dragon #1) Page 6
