Shadow of the Phoenix

by Rebecca Harwell

  Her cheeks burned. She looked at the dirt, at the scuff marks her boots made as she shifted her weight. Anywhere but at the accusatory stare that Marko now leveled at her. “Marko, I…” The words died in her throat. She swallowed. “You know?”

  “I know.”

  “How?” she choked out.

  “Your appearance before Councillor Aster when the false treaty was to be signed. You spoke, and though you tried to disguise it, I knew your voice. After that, it did not take long to piece everything together.” Marko laughed, but it was hollow. “You must think me an idiot. Poor Marko, the fool. Running in circles around me, having the confidence of my fiancée, of the captain of my Guard. Everyone in on it but me. Wearing that thrice-damned cloak right in front of me.”

  Marko’s words went on and on, each one a new barb. A curious onlooker or two stopped for a moment to witness the scene, but the unusual emotion with which their new Duke spoke soon had them scurrying off. In the midst of the resistance’s headquarters, he and Nadya might as well have been totally alone.

  “I never thought that, Marko,” she tried to say, but the words sounded disingenuous. “I hated lying to you, believe me.”

  “How can I believe anything of you?” Marko stared at her as if she was a stranger, and it struck right at her core, twisting sharply.

  He hadn’t deserved the deception, Nadya knew, because Marko was a good person. Marko, who despite her Nomori heritage and his royal lineage, never thought less of her. Never spoke down to her. Looked up to her father, paid deference to her grandmother. Marko, the Duke’s son, who invited an unknown Nomori girl to be his adviser, who took serious note of whenever she spoke. Kesali’s husband, who embraced the Nomori as his own and fought for them against Wintercress.

  Marko, her friend. Her friend whom she had lied to, whom she had nearly betrayed with Kesali, and whom she had stood before as the Iron Phoenix without saying a word.

  Marko’s voice barely rose above a whisper as he said, “You owed me the truth, Nadya. A long time ago.”

  She said nothing, for what could she have said? He was right.

  “Nadya Gabori, say something,” he commanded. Not as her friend, but as the new leader of what remained of Storm’s Quarry.

  “I—I do owe you the truth. Always have.”

  “That’s it?” He stared at her with shining eyes. Around them, the work of the resistance faded into the background, no more than a gentle thrum. It was just the two of them, and Nadya had nowhere to escape.

  “What else is there? I am sorry. I wanted—no, that’s another lie, isn’t it?” She sighed. “I did not want to tell you. I owed it to you, I know, to tell you of my blood.” Even here, she did not dare utter the word nivasi. “But I never wanted to.”

  “Why not?” Marko’s voice cracked with unshed tears. “Why didn’t you trust me?”

  “I do trust you, I just—”

  “You were my friend,” he whispered. “We were on the same side. I trusted you, but you never could trust me. Neither could your father or Kesali, apparently.”

  “Leave them out of this.” Nadya put a hand to her chest. “Be angry at me all you want, Marko, but they lied in order to protect me. Not out of any malice toward you.”

  “I am angry at you.” Marko sighed. His shoulder slumped forward as he drew a deep breath. “Gods help me, I am furious, and I wish that were the worst of it.”

  “You and Kesali?” she ventured as his silence stretched out.

  “Haven’t spoken on it. She treads lightly around discussions of you. Now I know why.”

  No, Nadya thought, nausea spreading across her tongue, he really didn’t.

  “Fate has a terrible sense of humor, I think. We have moved forward, neither of us daring to bring it up, because of the Cressian invasion. Because of our duty. That’s what has always bound us, hasn’t it?”

  Nadya stared at him. The bitterness in his tone was so unlike the Marko she had known. Could one secret truly have done this to him?

  “Imagine it, Nadya. Your wife, the commander of your Guard, and your trusted adviser and friend. All liars. I had only my father—” His voice hitched. “Now, I have only my city. And even that slips through my grasp.”

  She wanted to embrace him, to attempt to mend what her secret had broken, but such an act wouldn’t be welcome, she knew. He looked at her with the skittishness of a March deer, as if she was the hungry sabercat. The wariness in his gaze hurt, and she realized, with a sour feeling, it was unlikely to go away.

  “So what will you do now?” she asked quietly. She noted the guardsmen that patrolled the cavern. Twenty, maybe more. She and Marko stood two hundred paces from the nearest tunnel exit, with a dozen buildings and even more innocents in the way. And Shay was still in the Bulwark with Kesali.

  Protectress, if this goes badly, do not let Shay do anything we will both regret, Nadya prayed.

  “I will fight for my city. I will protect its people.” Marko straightened. His right hand reflexively went to the rapier belted at his waist. “Kesali and I will lead the resistance against Wintercress, and we will win.”

  “Does that include protecting it against me?”

  “What?” Marko voice carried genuine surprise.

  Nadya held her ground even as bits of her world began slipping away beneath her. “Your duty is to protect Storm’s Quarry. Some would say I’m one of its greatest enemies. So what will you do? Will you order your Guard to hunt me down? Do you wish to strike the killing blow yourself?”

  “I…” Marko hesitated. His hands fell limp against his sides. “I don’t want to kill you, Nadya.”

  “Then what do you want?” Her brusqueness surprised even her. “I cannot go back in time and make this right, so what would you have me do?”

  “The Iron Phoenix is dangerous.” He spoke as if reciting from a book.

  She held out her hands, throwing away any regard to the activity that surrounded them. “I am the Iron Phoenix, Marko.” Her seal of the Protectress burned hot with those words. Once, Nadya would never have been able to utter them, not without overwhelming revulsion and guilt. She had spent over a year coming to terms with her powers, her past. The death her hands had wrought and the lives her hands had saved.

  Nadya could not blame Marko for being tongue-tied. He had had far less time to accept that his friend and the infamous vigilante of Storm’s Quarry were one and the same, and much of that time had been spent leading his city through a war.

  “I know.” He sighed. “My father deemed it necessarily to work with your…alter ego…once. In doing so, he saved Storm’s Quarry from Aster’s plotting. I can do no less now that Wintercress has overtaken us.”

  “You will have me in your war?” Marko nodded, and Nadya continued on, despite a sharp voice inside her pleading to not press her luck. “And afterward?”

  The new Duke of Storm’s Quarry squared his shoulders. “There will be a reckoning, Nadya. I cannot let the crimes of the Phoenix stand. Once this is over, you will need to answer to the city.”

  She swallowed. Did you expect any different? she chided herself. A temporary truce was the best she could hope for. If they managed to win, she and Shay could leave Storm’s Quarry for good and make a new life away from memories of the Iron Phoenix and the Shadow Dragon.

  That is, if Shay decided to stay on to fight. Nadya curled and uncurled her fists, feeling the sharpness of her fingernails sinking in her palms. Too many uncertainties hounded at her, but she needed to rise above it for the sake of her city.

  “You said you had a message for me. Or was that a ruse to get me to come out here so you could shout at me?”

  “I gained no satisfaction from this, Nadya. You should know me better. Better than I know you.” Marko looked at the ground, unwilling or unable to meet her gaze. “Your father sent word that your mother is…the damp is taking her. She doesn’t have much time left. He suggests that if you want to see her before she passes, go now.”

  The world stoppe
d.

  Nadya breathed, but her lungs got no air. The cacophony of sounds of the cavern, from the chattering of old men to the clanging of rapiers to the low crackle of the smithy, faded out until Nadya heard only her own heartbeat.

  Then that too dwindled away, and a great nothing washed over her.

  It was suffocating, bringing back the worst memories of Gedeon’s control.

  My mother is dying. The words were so detached that they came from outside her, echoing around in the nothingness. My mother is dying. Again, as if repetition would make it more real.

  “Where is she?” Nadya asked, the only words she could get out of her rapidly closing throat.

  My mother is dying.

  * * *

  Shay hated this place.

  The cavern felt suffocating, its air thick with the smell of oil and sweat. The heat was nearly unbearable, even for her. Shay had stripped off her tunic and tied it around her waist. Even in just the thin fabric of her undershirt, she sweated like a cold forge.

  The worst, however, were the people.

  After the third Oh, who might you be? and the fifth Anything you might need?, Shay had had enough. She nearly sprinted through the settled part of the cavern until she reached the scarred, arching walls that glittered with the remains of gem dust.

  To escape the curious eyes of the resistance, Shay walked the perimeter of the cavern, dodging between makeshift buildings whenever she heard someone approach. With only four hundred currently living and working in the cavern, a new face brought out questions and pestering that Shay did not want to deal with any longer. Word must have spread about how she and Nadya were recovered, and the last thing she needed was their pity or their friendship. As far as Shay was concerned, accepting kindness meant owing a debt, and she’d rather slice off her right hand than owe Storm’s Quarry anything. No, it was best for her to remain out of sight until Nadya finished her business with the young Duke.

  She found an unusual formation on the cavern wall, an indentation wide enough for a seat and hidden from the eyes below. Only the cave rats, eyes white and glassy from generations of living in the dark, skulked about, and Shay thought they were fine company.

  The only disadvantage to tucking herself away from the racket of the cavern was she had no company but her thoughts, and she really did not wish to dwell on her current predicament.

  Her conversation with the Stormspeaker rattled around inside her head. She tried to push Kesali’s words about the pain she’d caused Nadya away, but they continued to come back, stubborn as ever. She knows nothing about us, Shay told herself sternly. She is the one who betrayed Nadya, not me. I have only ever been there for her because I care about her.

  So you’re going to stay and fight for the city?

  Annoyingly enough, the question came in Kesali’s voice, all precise enunciation and commanding tone.

  Shay still did not have a good answer. Nadya would want to, of course. Despite her months on the road with Shay, this was her home, and she felt like she owed it to the people to defend them. Shay understood that, even if she did not have close to the same sense of loyalty to Storm’s Quarry.

  If she was honest with herself, it wasn’t the city that had Shay so on edge. Neither was it the bloodthirsty Cressians or their impossible nivasi.

  It was just how perfectly Nadya fit in. To Storm’s Quarry. With the resistance and its leadership. With Kesali.

  She knew Nadya would never betray her like that, but Shay couldn’t help but think that their ten months on the road together were a fluke, and that this was where Nadya belonged. If that was true, who was she to stand in the way? Traveling away from Storm’s Quarry had brought a terrible despair upon Nadya, one that Shay had not been able to fix, no matter how hard she had tried. A week in this city, however, most of it unconscious, and Nadya had found herself again.

  How could Shay deny her this?

  “Damn it all,” Shay muttered. She threw a fragment of rock at the cavern floor, causing the nearby rats to freeze. “Damn it all to the stars.”

  If Shay went one hundred years without seeing the Stormspeaker or hearing her talk again, it would still be too soon.

  “Shay!”

  Unfortunately, the fates seemed to have an awful sense of humor.

  She turned to see Kesali striding toward her hiding place. “Damn the stars,” she muttered again. How in the known world did the Stormspeaker find her here? She glanced suspiciously at one of the blind rats that scuffled in the dirt near her seat, wondering if the rats themselves had betrayed her location.

  Sighing, she stretched her sore muscles and looked down at Kesali. “Did you come to berate me again?” Shay asked. “Must we rehash everything we just went through?”

  “I am here to give you information, nothing more.”

  Shay frowned. “Couldn’t a messenger have sufficed? Be honest, you want to yell at me again.”

  Kesali sighed audibly. “I didn’t trust this to a messenger, for Nadya’s sake.”

  “What’s happened?” Shay jumped down from her perch, wincing as her ribs twinged in pain. “What did the princeling tell her?”

  Kesali ignored her jab at Marko. “Her mother is dying. She has been for a while—damp in her lungs—but she has little time left. Nadya left to go see her.”

  “Ah.” Shay kicked at the ground uncomfortably. She and Nadya had never seen eye to eye on family. Between Shay’s bad experiences with her own and her anger at Mirela Gabori’s treatment of her daughter, she and Nadya had mutually decided it was best not to discuss such things.

  Better for Nadya, she thought, and only a tiny part of her was ashamed at the thought. That woman didn’t deserve to have her there.

  “Well?” Kesali demanded, cutting through Shay’s thoughts.

  “Well?” Shay repeated, but she knew she had to say more.

  Before she could put together the words, Kesali said, “She and her family are in the city. Where she first learned control. Mean anything to you?”

  It did. Nadya had told her of the abandoned storefront she and her father sparred in during the months after the Blood Sun Solstice. “Yeah, I know where it is.”

  “Good.” Kesali waited expectantly.

  “All right,” Shay said. “Is there anything else, or…”

  Kesali frowned. “You aren’t going to stay here, are you?”

  “What I do is none of your business.” Shay gestured into the air. “Why are you telling me this? You’ve made it pretty clear how you feel about me, clearer still how you feel about me and Nadya. What are you trying to do?”

  “I’m trying to help Nadya, if only you’d take a moment to see that.” Kesali’s face softened, and the stoic veneer of the leader of the resistance faded, replaced with a very tired woman. “You need to go to her. She should not be alone in this.”

  Shay’s stomach turned at the thought. Nadya would not be alone; her very traditional Nomori family would be there as well. Revealing herself as Nadya’s lover would bring more complications than support. “I think…I think I will stay here,” she said finally, avoiding Kesali’s gaze. “Nadya does not need the difficulty that I bring, not now.”

  To her surprise, Kesali let out a harsh laugh, causing the cave rats to scramble away in fear. “Well, I guess I was right about you.”

  “Which part?” Shay shot back. “Me being a danger or me being bad for Nadya? Or was it something else? Hard to keep track.”

  “You are selfish,” Kesali said, crossing her arms. “Nadya would do anything for someone, and you hide up here, like a scared bat, too wrapped up in yourself to care about the pain of others.”

  “I’m here, aren’t I? I saved the city once for her, and I am following her into it again.”

  Kesali shook her head. “It’s not the same.”

  “What is that supposed to mean? You have no idea what I’ve done for her. I faced—” Shay swallowed the words. I faced my sister, who betrayed me to my family and nearly got me killed. She drew a dee
p breath. “I do not need your approval, Stormspeaker.” She turned back to her perch amid the ragged walls of the cavern, hoping Kesali would take the hint and leave.

  She did not. “Maybe I don’t know all you have sacrificed, but I do know this. You are more than happy to follow Nadya, to be the soldier who has her back in a fight. But when you are needed to comfort her, to support her through pain that isn’t physical, you vanish.”

  Shay’s chest throbbed with each word. Kesali’s voice seemed to echo about the entire cavern, ringing into her rib cage. “You don’t know me,” she threw back, but it was half-hearted at best. “If you are so concerned, maybe you should go and be with her.” The words tasted sour even as she spoke.

  “I know enough about you. I know—” Kesali paused, and Shay turned to see her wipe at the corner of her eye. She stared at Shay defiantly, as if challenging her to remark on it. “I know that Nadya needs someone with her right now.” Her gaze softened, and for the first time, Shay heard a thick note of regret in her tone. “And I know that the person she needs is not me.”

  Chapter Seven

  “Your father didn’t risk writing their location plainly,” Marko told her. “He only said to go to where you were first taught control.”

  Nadya nodded, understanding, and turned to leave.

  “I am sorry about your mother.” It was, perhaps, a peace offering.

  “Me too,” she whispered.

  Now, an hour past midnight, Nadya stood in the near-deserted streets of the city’s second tier. Rats ran along the gutters, being chased by stray cats and hounds alike. A drunken pair of Erevan men lay slouched together against a charred brick wall. Nadya’s nose twitched at the scent of their seaweed ale. In the distance, the smart clacking of a Cressian military unit echoed off the cobblestones of one of the tier’s main thoroughfares. She had dodged her fair share of patrols on the way here; the mining tunnel had dumped out into the Nomori tier, not far from the city’s prison. It had taken the better part of an hour for her to sneak up here to the place where she was taught control.