by Bo Savino
* * *
Ryssa opened her eyes and tried to focus on her surroundings. She frowned, attempting to place where she was through the throbbing in her skull. The room was dark, and she was in bed. How had she gotten there? She tried to remember, but couldn’t.
The throbbing intensified as she pushed herself into a sitting position. Why did her head hurt so much? And her stomach? The lower part of her body growled in response, bringing a slight smile to her lips. She was hungry. One mystery solved.
Ryssa eased her feet over the side of the bed, moving slowly to work through the dizziness that accompanied the pain in her head. Her Team uniform lay at the foot of the bed—the replacement uniform sent from Madam Quinn’s after the fireball incident on the training field.
Madam Quinn had said it would take some time to complete. How much time? She tried to think. As Ryssa pulled the uniform on, her gaze wandered around the room. The beds were empty. Where is everybody?
“:They’re not here.:” Darkwind said.
“:Really?:” The headache jolted with a momentary sharpness. “:I thought I told you that unless you have something useful to offer, I don’t want to hear from you.:”
She stopped. She had told the Sprite that—when? It hurt to think about it. Distraction, she decided. That’s what I need. Move my body to distract me from the pain in my head.
Ryssa started across the floor of the room, her thoughts roaming. She tried to take her mind in a direction that would give her some bearing on her present state. The Sprite. She recalled interrogating Darkwind about—about what? That got her to the door. When she wrapped her fingers around the handle, she remembered. Dahlia Nightfall. Darkwind wouldn’t talk about it, and she had been angry enough to say that, just before—
Ryssa opened the door to an abandoned common area. Oh yeah—right before the storm elders came to get me. Jerks. Her flash of annoyance with them was punctuated by yet another burst of pain.
A single tray of cinnamon rolls and fruit could be seen on the cushion of the sofa outside the girls’ room. Ryssa made her way over and sat before breaking off a bite-sized chunk of the first pastry she grabbed. It was still warm. The Brownie had known she was awake. She stopped short of calling out a thank you, remembering it wouldn’t be taken well. Instead, she showed her gratitude by working her way through the contents of the tray.
She leaned back on the sofa, sucking the last traces of icing from her fingers. Her stomach felt better and even the pain in her head began to subside, allowing her to think more clearly.
The storm elders. I bet they’ll be a little more careful now. Ryssa felt a small bit of vindictive satisfaction. But it didn’t last long. Weariness settled over her at the memory of her work with them those past few days, and with that feeling came depression.
She had tried, really tried, to work with the storm, no matter that they thought her focus wasn’t there. It was—or had been. The simple fact was that she was a failure. Sure, she could call the magic and see the magic others called. She just couldn’t do anything about it without Reggie. What good was the magic if she couldn’t use it?
Now she had figured out part of the emotional side—but would the knowledge do her any good? Or would it just hasten her down the path of insanity, like Dahlia Nightfall?
Even when she had combined the emotional lines with the storm elders’ lines of magic, she hadn’t woven them together. It was more like she had jammed them into place and used her hands like tape to hold them there.
“Forget this,” she mumbled and got up from the sofa.
“:Where’s Reggie?:”
Darkwind remained silent.
“Hmph,” Ryssa said out loud and headed out of Team Phoenix common area. At the top of the ramp, she gazed out over New Faery City with indecision. A noise drew her attention and she looked down to see her Slaugh guard staring over the city in much the same manner she was. Oh, right. Like that would’ve changed.
“Do you happen to know where my brother is?” Ryssa asked, trying her best to be polite through the various stages of her frustration.
The Slaugh turned to her and cocked its head. It stayed in that position for a moment, staring through her, not at her—or at least that’s what it felt like. The creature’s eyes came back into focus and it nodded. Ryssa stood waiting, but the creature indicated nothing more.
“Will you take me to him?” she gritted out through her teeth. “Please?”
The creature grinned, sharp teeth filling the lower half of its face. Ryssa glared. The Slaugh silently laughed at her and turned to lead the way through the streets to the right.
Nothing’s changed, Ryssa realized as people nervously hustled from her path. Her irritation grew. I guess this is how Dahlia felt before she went off the deep end—at least I can’t feel their emotions like she could.
Ryssa stared at her feet, trying to act as though she didn’t care. At least that way she wouldn’t have to see the way people looked at her. She wanted to scream at them, but then they’d think she’d gone wonky for sure. No, it was better to focus on her feet, ignore the people, ignore the subsiding pain in her head.
Without warning, Ryssa felt the breath knocked out of her as she was bashed against the wall of a shop she was passing. Absently, she noticed that it felt like the wall of leaves it resembled, springy and cool to the touch. She wasn’t hurt, but once again found herself irritated. For her, it was becoming an all too common state of mind. Meek’s frightened gaze stared wildly at her, and he kept glancing back the way he had come.
“Great.” Ryssa eyed him with disgust, plucking at a bothersome twig that clung to one of the fringes of her uniform. “So now you’re afraid of me, too?”
His expression turned to puzzlement, but still registered alarm. A moment later Ryssa found out why. Blaze Flamebringer rounded the nearest corner with the same members of Team Dragon that had been with him in the sweets shop weeks before. Meek started to bolt, but then seemed to realize that Ryssa wasn’t moving. He stepped in front of her to block the Teams’ approach.
“What’s this?” Blaze sneered at Meek, stopping just out of reach. “Shouldn’t she be protecting you? What do you think you’re going to do?”
Ryssa noted that Blaze’s hair had grown back to full length, spiked at the top with red and orange flamed tips, just as it had been before getting fried. She put a hand on Meek’s shoulder, and he moved to allow her to step forward. But he still seemed ready to jump back in front of her if necessary.
“He’s not going to do anything,” Ryssa said coolly. “And neither are you, Blaze.”
“You don’t have any control over your magic.” Blaze looked back at his teammates with confidence. “I don’t care how much—”
“But maybe others do,” a voice came from Ryssa’s left.
“Get lost, Waverider,” Blaze sneered. “This isn’t any of your business.”
“Really?” The Waverider boy looked at his teammate standing next to him. “Bart—didn’t you just say that maybe we—Nope, I guess it was me who said that.” He shrugged. “I believe I said that maybe we care—which makes it our business.”
Ryssa watched the two boys gratefully. They both had almost the same colored sea-green eyes and waves of white hair curled around their upper bodies like sea foam. Bart was a touch shorter and stockier than his tall, slender counterpart. Ryssa saw impish amusement dancing in their eyes—they were protecting her!
“Back off, Waverider.” Blaze made a move to grab his wand.
Before Ryssa could call out a warning that would have probably been unnecessary, the Slaugh had Blaze’s wrist in his crushing fingers and was bringing the boy to his knees. Its other hand reached out and plucked the wand away, handing it to the boy’s teammates who fearfully grabbed it while trying not to touch the Slaugh. The Slaugh opened its set of sharp teeth near Blaze’s face and growled before releasing him to scramble back into his teammates.
“This isn’t over,” Blaze tried to sneer again, but it
failed to achieve the effect he was obviously looking for. “We’ll see you out of the competition when this is through, Starborn.”
Ryssa blinked in surprise. Why were they singling her out?
“You and your whole creepy lot of losers,” Blaze spat.
The Slaugh growled again, and the crew of Team Dragon beat a hasty retreat back around the corner.
The taller Waverider boy stepped up to Ryssa with a look of concern. “You all right?”
She nodded slowly, noting the dazzling smile that lit up his face.
“Good deal. I’m Taz—this is my brother, Bart.”
“Ryssa—Ryssa Starborn.”
“Yup. We know.” Taz glanced around the street where people had stopped to watch the exchange. “I’m pretty sure everyone knows.”
“Great,” Ryssa rolled her eyes. She glanced at Meek with concern. He nodded to let her know he was okay. She caught sight of her Slaugh guard, and her look turned to gratitude. She took a step toward it. “Hey,” she stopped, frowning with the realization that she didn’t even know its name—and wasn’t even sure it had one, “I just want to th—”
Ryssa found her mouth suddenly covered by hands from both of the Waverider boys, while Meek’s expression turned to horror. Annoyed, she bit into the hand placed over her mouth. Bart Waverider yanked it back with a yelp.
“What did you do that for?” Ryssa angrily stepped away from them.
“Whoa, star-girl.” Taz held up his hands to placate her. “No one thanks the Slaugh—they collect in ways you don’t even want to imagine.”
“Oh.” She had almost forgotten that whole thing about Faery. “Okay, then.”
“Where are you headed?” Bart asked.
“This—” Ryssa frowned, turning her eyes to the little guard who leered at her. “The Slaugh was taking me to my brother.”
“Hey,” Taz smiled. “That’s where we were headed, too. Heard from Loo that he’s got some kind of foot game thingy going on with a weird ball.”
“Football?”
“Yeah, that’s it. We wanted to check it out. It kind of sounded like fun. Mind if we tag along—seeing as how we’re going in the same direction anyway?”
“Sure.” She shrugged. “But are you sure you want to?”
“Why wouldn’t we?”
Ryssa pointedly stared at the cluster of people shuffling away, most sending sidelong glances her direction.
Taz laughed. “No worries, star-girl. We don’t care. By the way—wicked piece of magic on the lake the other day.”
Ryssa smiled.
It didn’t take long to reach the field where Reggie was entertaining not only the members of Team Phoenix, but also a few others, who, like Taz and Bart, had decided to try their hand at a good old fashioned game of foot—
Wait—were they wearing wings? Ryssa’s mouth gaped open.
Reggie took off running across the field, the ball tucked under his arm. A mound of dirt erupted beneath his feet, but he didn’t stop, he just launched himself into the air—and straight into one of the Slaugh who swooped in from out of nowhere to drive him into the ground.
Ryssa covered her mouth with her hands, until her twin rolled over with a groan and started to pick himself up. He climbed to his feet and shook his head, sending grass flying around him. He looked up to see Ryssa and gave her a big smile. Calling for a time out, Reggie tossed the ball to a girl dressed in a Team Firefly uniform and headed across the field to meet her.
“Ryss!” He threw his arms around her and wrapped her in a heartfelt hug. “I was so worried about you.”
“Yeah.” She hugged back with affection. “I can see that.”
“Hey—a watched pot never boils.” He pulled back to check her out. Searching her face, his tone turned serious. “You okay?”
“A little headache, but it’s starting to go away. I’ll be all right.”
The rest of Team Phoenix gathered around, expressing delight at her recovery. The members from other Teams stood off on the sidelines, watching and waiting. Ryssa noted the wing straps attached to those who’d been playing.
“Bat wings?” She raised an eyebrow.
“Yeah.” Reggie laughed. “We’ve sort of tweaked the rules a bit to accommodate natural Fey tendencies.” He looked over his shoulder at the Slaugh who had made the aerial tackle. “A couple of them wanted to play, too, but we couldn’t get them to understand that they’re supposed to keep their feet on the ground.” He added in a side whisper, “Actually, they kept trying to cheat, so we adjusted the rules to even it up.”
“But bat wings?”
“They hold up better under a full tackle,” Reggie grimaced. “Aurelius was pretty sore when we damaged half a dozen of the training sets.”
Ryssa laughed.
“You want to play?”
“No, I don’t think I’m up to it—but I brought a couple more players.”
“Cool.”
“:Are you sure you’re okay, Ryss? You still look a little pale. Want to talk about it?:”
“:Not yet.:” Ryssa shook her head. “:I’m sure—later.:”
Out loud she said, “I’ll just be a sideline spectator for now.”
“I’m glad you’re up.”
“Me, too,” Ryssa admitted, but Reggie was already heading over to help Loo fit wings to Taz and Bart.
Ryssa sat down at the edge of the field and watched. Moira waved to her, and she waved back.
“Don’t even think about it.” From out of the corner of her eye, Ryssa saw Meek edging away. She turned her head to look directly at him. “Sit.”
He scowled with a rebellious challenge in his eyes, and she softened her tone.
“Look—just a couple of yes or no questions, okay? I think I deserve that much, don’t you?”
Meek looked resentful, but he nodded.
She glanced around to make sure everyone was out of hearing range. “The Green Knight—is that you?”
Meek screwed up his face as though he wanted to say yes, but couldn’t bring himself to do it.
“Okay then—is it some kind of projection of your essence?”
Meek nodded.
“But you have about as little control over it as I do my magic.”
Meek nodded with an expression that said that’s-pretty-much-the-size-of-it.
“So the Black Knight, then—that’s some kind of essence projection from your dead twin?”
His face scrunched up again, but he nodded and shrugged at the same time.
“You think so—but don’t know for sure?”
Meek nodded, more fully this time.
“All right.”
Meek seemed to be waiting for her to ask more, but she didn’t. She wasn’t sure what else to ask, or what else he could answer. She wasn’t even sure what to do with the information she already had. Eventually, she’d sort through it. For now, she settled in with distracted thoughts to watch the others play the New Faery version of football.
