Shadow of the Phoenix

by Rebecca Harwell

  Before he had a chance to draw his saber, Nadya struck. Her hand shot out, slamming downward into his chest and knocking the breath from his lungs. He slumped to the ground, unconscious.

  Levka nudged the soldier with his boot. “Out like a lamp. You are efficient, if nothing else.”

  She couldn’t decide whether that was a compliment or an insult, so she opted not to respond. Instead, Nadya peered into the cabinet he had been guarding. Its polished maple surface looked so out of place against the rocks and moss that made up the temple’s walls. Inside, sat a single glass vial, no bigger than her forefinger.

  It reminded her of the vials that physicians distributed their medicines in, but she doubted this had any medicinal properties. Nadya picked up the glass vial and sniffed it. It smelled like water, with a faint metallic tinge to it. She frowned. Did they collect it from somewhere in the temple? she wondered. Why put a guard on something like this?

  “Could it be important?” she asked. “It cannot be just ground water, can it?”

  “The scientific and alchemical achievements of Wintercress far outstrip any other nation in the known world,” Levka said without looking up. “You could be holding a corrosive acid. Or the means to an explosion without gunpowder.” He flipped open a notebook and began reading, muttering under his breath in Cressian. His eyes slowly widened. In the quiet of the temple, with only the soft lapping of the Brine of Lazuli in the distance, Nadya heard the thump of his heart quicken.

  He had found something.

  Levka began reading more intently. “The scientists interpreted those carvings of nivasi as we did, with some connection to craters and falling stars. But they pulled out the myth. There’s quite a bit in here about the Protectress mythology being a foolish children’s tale.”

  Nadya hadn’t expected anything else of Wintercress. They disliked her people even more than Erevans, if that was possible. “But what does it say they found?”

  “I am getting to that,” Levka snapped. Instead of annoyance, however, excitement laced his tone. “They did experiments, some right here. Apparently, something about this place was conducive to their studies. Many of the subjects died. It took months to get the correct proportions in the serum.”

  That explained the scent of death that hung underneath the salt-tinge in the air. She did not want to consider how many bodies had been carelessly dumped around this place.

  “The nivasi aberration is physical,” Levka read slowly. “Whether it takes the form of changes to the body to allow incredible strength or to be immune to flame, these mutations manifest themselves physically. Even the mind manipulator had physical changes to his body.”

  Nadya shuddered at the memory of Gedeon’s void-like eyes. Where once the memory would have overtaken her, however, now it remained only an unpleasant, bitter-tasting image in her mind. She had the strength to resist falling back into the darkness.

  “Furthermore,” Levka continued, ignoring or unaware of her discomfort, “Nivasi are only found among the Nomori people, and rarely. The Nomori themselves are anomalies among the other known races in the world. Their so-called psychic gifts and physical prowess, segregated by gender, still defy scientific explanation, but a thorough study is ongoing in the imperial court.”

  Nadya wondered how many of her kin were taken from Storm’s Quarry after the initial invasion in the name of such scientific study. She would have to tell Kesali; once they expelled Wintercress, they needed to get their people back.

  “It goes on for several pages to describe the peculiarities of the Nomori,” Levka said, flipping through the manuscript. “But this, this is where it gets…interesting. They hypothesize that the physical remains of meteoroids—stardust, if you will—is the origin of nivasi power. If ingested at a young age, it combines with the natural Nomori gifts, augmenting them in such a way to produce something entirely different and far more dangerous.”

  He pointed to the glass that she held. “That vial contains stardust dissolved in water, concentrated to a point that it would affect even a non-Nomori. What you are holding is the essence of the nivasi.”

  Levka’s words echoed around in her mind, and yet Nadya could not grasp them.

  “It makes quite a bit of sense, actually.” Levka continued to speak, but his words sounded faded and as if from far away to Nadya. “Nivasi are supposed to be incredibly rare among the Nomori. Once every century, perhaps. That’s what the old writings indicate.”

  The old writings. The ones that warned the Nomori of her kind, calling her monster, creature, beast. Tears sprang to the corners of Nadya’s eyes. She had overcome that hate by believing that the Protectress had chosen her. Had bestowed this strength upon her.

  Levka’s voice droned on. Each word was a nail into her heart. “Despite their recorded rarity, three known nivasi have come out of Storm’s Quarry in the last twenty years. An extraordinary, and very dangerous, surge. If exposure as an infant is what turns Nomori into nivasi, then Storm’s Quarry could be a factory of these monsters. The Kyanite Sea is thick with stardust, as it now sits where a fallen star once did. Even the fresh water within the city’s walls must be tainted. That is where your nivasi blood comes from, if Wintercress is right. And I believe they are, considering they recreated the process to turn one of their own into a weapon. Your Nomori blood is saturated with stardust. Sheer bad luck. It could have been any of the Nomori children born in Storm’s Quarry.”

  As he spoke, Nadya’s breath grew ragged. The vial slipped suddenly from her hands. Levka swore and dove forward, catching it. He struggled back up to his feet.

  “Get ahold of yourself, Nadezhda,” he said, but she hardly heard him.

  Levka grabbed her arm. In the distance, she heard him yelling into her ear. “Calm down! Do you hear me? The nivasi come from stardust, nothing more. This, this is as much nivasi as you are.” He waved the clear vial in front of her face, but Nadya barely saw it.

  “This is our answer, Nadezhda.” The vial’s contents sparkled in the flickering lantern light as Levka tilted it back and forth.

  “It’s a lie,” Nadya snapped. “It’s another Cressian trick, a trap they laid with their alchemy. Poison!”

  “Just because the truth isn’t what you want to hear”—anger rose in Levka’s tone—“because it means you aren’t different from Gedeon or Durriken the Butcher. No gift of your Protectress separates you from the monstrous nivasi that have plagued this world for generations. Your abilities are not divinely given. It was the random chance of fate that you ingested enough stardust to be twisted into one of the nivasi. Nothing more.”

  Nadya did not respond. Her arm shot out before she could think better of it, and Levka shouted, “No! This is our answer! Can’t you see that?”

  She pulled the blow just in time. Levka staggered backward, but the vial in his hands was safe.

  “Never,” she whispered, “never compare me to him again.”

  Levka’s eyes were wide and his fingers that held the glass trembled. For days, he had needled her, only now pushing far enough to see what he might unleash. Nadya sucked in a harsh breath. She didn’t want to hurt him, but his words dug deep into her skin like barbs, and her first instinct was to tear them out.

  “Nadezhda.” He began speaking again quietly. “You don’t have the power to overcome the Cressian nivasi, and we don’t have time to study all of these notes to see if she has a weakness we could exploit. We have to use this.”

  “So?” Nadya asked, but her voice was low and hoarse as Levka’s inevitable plan hurdled toward her, unstoppable.

  “So,” he said slowly, holding up the vial to her, “you consume this. Let its stardust mix with what’s already in your blood. If you take this, you will be strong enough to move buildings, I’d guess. You could crush a man’s chest with a single brush of your fingertips. Think of it. Take the power like Wintercress did, and become strong enough to defeat them.”

  “No.” The whisper turned into a shout, clawing its way out of her r
aw throat. “No!” She backed away from Levka and the vial of evil he carried. “I won’t.”

  Levka’s words were drowned out by the sound of blood pumping through her ears. Nadya turned and ran. She leapt off the ledge and landed in the soft mud, slipping. Her trousers were covered in grime when she struggled to her feet, but Nadya couldn’t care less. She ran, following the wall of ancient carvings that seemed to mock her. It’s lies, lies you’ve believed, they chanted as she sprinted past.

  A small opening in the mosaic wall of the temple appeared in front of her, and Nadya took it. She plunged into darkness. As her eyes adjusted to the dimness, she skidded to a halt.

  Before her stood a shrine to the Protectress.

  It could be nothing else. The small space was lined with a thin shelf of soil that held the remnants of flowers long rotted. At the center, a pool, dried up, was carved into the cave floor. Above the pool, the Protectress stood.

  Carved of the same dark stone as the temple, the statue towered over her. Deep green moss clung to the carved folds of the robe she wore. In her hands, the statue held a five-petaled flower. Underneath the hood, she had no face.

  Nadya fell to her knees before the statue.

  Hear me if you’re there, she pleaded silently, but the words begged to be spoken aloud. “If you truly are our Protectress…”

  The statue before her looked solemnly on, the featureless face eternally serene. Nadya felt none of the tranquility of the shrine.

  “Tell me there’s another way. That I do not have to become a monstrosity in order to save my home. My family.” Nadya’s voice choked, and her eyes welled with tears. “Tell me there is more to nivasi nature than stardust and bloodlust. Tell me…” She couldn’t force the words out.

  Tell me I am different from Gedeon.

  No response came from the faceless statue. Nadya grasped her seal and slowly tugged it off. The metal, smooth and warm from years of wear, felt alien under her fingertips for the first time. She ran her fingers over the etching of a five-petaled flower, a smaller version of the carving before her, and prayed.

  Hear me if you’re there.

  It could have been mere minutes passing, or it could have been hours that went by as Nadya knelt at the shrine of the Protectress, silently praying for answers different than the one they had uncovered here. She was given no response.

  Footsteps on gravel broke through the silence of her plea, and Nadya turned.

  Levka stood at the entrance of the shrine. He shifted from foot to foot, no doubt ready to bolt if she made an aggressive move toward him. “Have you finished?” he asked. Instead of the usual smug bite, his voice carried only fatigue.

  Nadya wiped her face. She sniffed and stood. Turning her back on the cracked statue of the Protectress, she nodded. “Yes.”

  “And?” A note of fear echoed underneath his words. Nadya ran her gaze over him. Dark circles hung under his eyes, and he clutched that Cressian vial with white knuckles.

  His city is dying, and his only hope rests on the decision of his greatest enemy, she realized. Levka was a great many terrible things, but he was loyal to Storm’s Quarry to a fault, and now…

  Now, it rested on her. The fate of Storm’s Quarry always had, it seemed.

  “I will take it.”

  The tension ran out of Levka’s body as his shoulders slumped forward. She heard his heartbeat calm. “Good. Here,” he said, holding out the vial.

  Nadya shook her head. “No.”

  “What? But you said—”

  “I will take it,” she repeated, her own heartbeat thudding against her chest. “But not now. I want to wait until we get back to Storm’s Quarry.”

  Levka frowned. “We don’t know how long it will take for the effects to take root. You should do it now. Why wait?”

  Nadya took a deep breath. “Because once I take that, I will be dangerous. If it increases my strength as much as you say…” I will be a danger to everyone near me. Including Shay. “Please,” she said finally. “Please, I need a chance to say good-bye.”

  He stared at her for a long moment before nodding. “You’ve earned that much. I will send a message to the resistance, letting them know we are returning with a way to combat the Cressian nivasi. Are you ready to depart?”

  No! her mind screamed, and the statue behind her seemed to echo the word. But Nadya swallowed and nodded stiffly. “I am.”

  With a soft clink, she dropped her metal seal at the base of the statue and left the shrine without looking back.

  Chapter Seventeen

  It began slowly. Fewer patrols along the battlements and in the Nomori tier after sundown. A lack of response when a scuffle broke out among the drunkards on the second tier. Deserted outposts along the lower parts of the great staircase.

  Then, one day, a barricade sprang up between the second and third tiers. White Cressian uniforms blazed in the hot afternoon sun as they patrolled along the staircase and the interior battlements. Those who tried to cross between tiers were denied entry.

  A new decree from the Crown Prince came out: the lowest tiers of the city were to be quarantined to stop the spread of plague.

  Hope strengthened each swing of Shay’s forge hammer. Against all odds, and her own pessimism, the resistance’s plan was working. Prince Trillium had withdrawn all but a skeleton guard on the lower tiers. All that remained before the final assault could occur was for Nadya to succeed in her mission to find a way to defeat the ultimate weapon that Wintercress had.

  At dawn, a week after Shay’s perplexing encounter with the Cressian nivasi, a young Nomori boy came hurtling through the camp. “Message for the Duke! Message for the Duke!”

  Marko no longer flinched, Shay noted from where she stood at the smithy, when someone referred to him by his father’s title. He had been sparring nearby with several of the new recruits, but now dropped his practice rapier off and waved the messenger forward.

  The young Duke scanned the message for only a brief moment before looking up and finding Shay’s gaze across the raised platform of the smithy. He nodded once.

  Her stomach began buzzing with a sickening sensation as she followed him through the cavern’s paths.

  In the Bulwark, Shay finally got her hands on the note. She ignored the others in the room—Kesali, Marko, and Shadar—and her fingers shook as she unfolded the parchment.

  Today is the twenty-fifth of the dry season, the message read. Tonight, we will leave and begin traveling back home. We have found what we sought, and we should arrive on the final day of this season.

  Today, Shay thought, and her chest tightened. She would see Nadya soon, and if the message was to be believed, she and Levka had been successful in their mission.

  Below the neat script of the former magistrate, a familiar hand had scrawled a brief note: You are the price I pay to save my city. Forgive me.

  Shay dropped the note. It floated down to the floor with barely a sound, and yet to Shay it sounded like the very walls of the cavern shook. Forgive me, Nadya had written, and yet Shay couldn’t help the anger that roiled in her chest.

  Damn this city! Damn this city and all it has taken from me.

  Face burning, she turned and left the Bulwark. The Guardmaster shouted after her, but Shay was past listening. Cursing under her breath, she stormed through the center of the cavern. People took one look and dodged out of her way. Before long, she reached the far edge of the tunnel that she and Nadya had originally been brought through. A lifetime ago, it seemed.

  She stopped, and it was only then that Shay realized she had been followed.

  “No one will stop you.” Kesali stepped up beside her and gestured at the tunnel’s entrance. “If you try to leave. No one would pursue you.”

  Bitterness welled in her throat. “So, I’m a coward, then? A scared little girl who runs from a fight? Or am I a selfish bastard who only fights when they have something to gain? It’s hard to remember.”

  “That’s not what I meant.” The Stormspea
ker stepped closer to her, extending a hand. Shay didn’t move as Kesali grasped her shoulder. “I do not know you well, Shay, but I know you would die to defend Nadya. To defend your forgemaster. That makes you a hero, not a coward. But I cannot ask you to die defending a city that has done nothing but spurn you.” Her hand fell away. “Or a resistance that never trusted you as it should have.”

  Forgive me. Nadya’s haunting note echoed in the silence of Shay’s thoughts. She could only imagine what had been found in that ancient Nomori temple for Nadya to write those words. What solution to the Cressian nivasi could possibly demand such a price from them both? Hadn’t this damned city taken enough from them? Shay’s hands curled into fists. Whatever it was, it couldn’t be worth it.

  You promised! she screamed at only herself. You promised when all this began that nothing would separate us.

  That thought faded, and Shay turned to look back at the cavern of the resistance. It buzzed with more activity than usual, each person wearing an expression of grim determination. By the smithy, Alla handed out armor to a line of waiting fighters. Shadar stood ten paces away. Every newly armed person that passed him got a nod and a handshake. Rats scurried along the edges of the cavern, carrying the message out to those stationed around the city. Peanna’s handiwork, Shay knew. Even old drunk Filipp had gotten up off his rock. He shuffled around, carrying boxes and parcels to and from different areas of the cavern.

  She wasn’t fighting for Storm’s Quarry. Or those who had thrown her out so many years ago. She was fighting for the people that scurried about before her. For Alla and Filipp and Peanna. For the Gaboris and their devotion to Nadya. For Marko and Kesali, who, despite everything, had taken in an unknown nivasi like her.

  For the place she had found here.

  If Nadya’s note held the truth, and their relationship was the price to be paid for the salvation of Storm’s Quarry… Shay swallowed against the thickness in her throat. Then these people were worth it.

  “You aren’t going to be rid of me that easily.”