Purpose quickened Brynne’s gait as she walked toward me. The ghost of her many traumas fanned out behind her, dragging like a dark bride’s train in her wake. Swelling and rolling, the cloud extended further, deepening in color. I thought killing Ronan had increased its size, but it lacked the sheen of new pain. What was emerging from Brynne held the drab duskiness of old trauma. And it showed no signs of stopping.
“Such a delicate thing,” Brynne mused, recapturing my attention. She turned her hand, examining the leaking organ from all angles. “It’s hard to believe something so frail could hold power over so many.”
I swallowed my tears. “Put it back. There’s still time. His body will heal.”
Brynne disregarded my plea with a shrug. Nearing the broken areas of grate, she shrunk slightly and skirted around. Guardedly, she glared at the creatures I’d made unresponsive. Her expression was fierce, but I knew she feared they might wake at any moment and devour her.
Maybe they would. I wanted them to. But I’d stolen the crux of their strength. I’d emptied their bodies of what kept them going. I just didn’t know how to put it back.
“Humans,” she said, “perceive hearts as a symbol of love and hope. Dragons believe them a cradle for the soul, a means to final death.” Brynne squatted in front of me. She held her prize up on display. “They’re both right. Love is the fastest way to kill a soul.” Severed arteries protruding, blood dripping; she shoved the misshapen lump in my face. “Don’t you agree?”
I couldn’t speak. My stomach heaved with the smell. I turned my head, but it did nothing to discourage her. Pressing Ronan’s heart against my cheek, Brynne squeezed, letting the warm blood drain out over my neck and down my shirt. I struggled to hold in my revulsion, to pretend it was only water wetting my lips, slipping into my ears and gathering in my bra. I struggled to make myself believe that none of it was real.
But Ronan’s blood was heavy on my skin. Every drop held a memory; his voice, a grin, a touch. They added up, weighing on my nerves, tarnishing my thoughts and soaking through my clothes.
By the time Brynne withdrew, I was shaking and drenched. She stood and opened her hand, showing off the mashed, twisted heart in the center of her palm. “Step one…” Brynne raised the fire in her hand. “Kill the bastard.”
I bit back a tear as flames curled up to ignite the organ.
“Step two…” Excitement glowed in her eyes. “Kill the bitch.”
“Step three,” I said, “Naalish kills you.”
“Yes,” she breathed.
The eagerness in her tone said it all. “That’s what you want?”
“Naalish would never kill her prize lyrriken for a small transgression. But to rob the Queen of her enjoyment, to cheat her of the chance to mete out punishment to the fugitive traitor and her equally treacherous lover…Naalish will have no choice but to execute me with honor, as she would have once done for you. I will give her the satisfaction you denied her. I will be better than you. It’s all I ever wanted.”
As the charred pieces of Ronan’s heart fluttered to the ground, a sudden lucidity overcame me. “You want to die, Brynne? Why the hell didn’t you say so?”
I shifted. I didn’t think, didn’t strain. It just happened. As if nothing whatsoever had been thwarting the process, I altered my body in an instant. Plates replaced skin. Muscles enlarged. I pushed against my bonds with every fiber of strength my hybrid body possessed, and the vines snapped. Rents formed in my clothes as I stood. Fire sparked vibrant from the ends of my hair as I smiled. “Step two… Kill the bitch.”
Thirty-Five
Dropping the smoldering organ, Brynne crushed it underfoot as she ducked my flame. Her evasions resembled an awkward dance as she pranced about, ever mindful of the electrified, busted gates and bodies of the unconscious nageun. By the eagerness in her smile, she was enjoying the conflict. I wasn’t. Ten minutes ago, I’d lost the one thing I thought I never would. But I couldn’t allow myself to feel the loss of Ronan or the sting of his betrayal. Not now. Now, there was only anger. There was hitting my enemy fast and hard, and gaining the upper hand. And I had to, quickly, before my emotionally erratic opponent got tired of playing and resorted to drowning me.
Unfortunately, her speed was proving problematic. Despite Brynne’s unstable mind, she also had excellent control of her flame. So when my opponent arrogantly doused her fire with a grin and moved in with fists raised, I accepted her invitation.
Yet, I had to be careful. Physical contact afforded me no buffer from Brynne’s ghosts. If what was swirling and billowing around her demanded in, I wouldn’t have to worry about Brynne’s water. I’d drown in her pain just as fast. If it goes that long, I thought, venturing a glance at the unstable grate with the broken hinge. Our movements had once more riled the creatures below. If they got out, in such a frenzied state, we were both dead.
Raising my scaled forearms, I blocked Brynne’s strike. Undeniably dexterous, her jabs and hooks were well-placed. Her kicks were a blur. Knocking her fists aside, as I worked to avoid the arc crackling over the grates, I watched her stance. I tracked her movements; waiting, searching for a pattern, an opening, a mistake—anything.
Brynne stepped right. Too wide, I noted, as her left arm extended in a forward punch. Easily sidestepping the blow, I thrust a fist into her side. After two more rapid hits, I spun and thrust an elbow back into her nose. With a grunt and a dribble of blood, Brynne stumbled. I moved in, and she brought a swift boot up into my stomach. Jumping to her other foot, she pivoted and landed another kick. I knocked away her third and staggered back out of range.
An excess of pride hardened her small jaw as Brynne watched me press my arm in close against the ache. I knew what she was thinking. It was what she’d thought of me all along, what Ronan thought and Oren, and every lyrriken on Drimera thought: my time away had damaged me. But for being half human, none of them had a clue about humanity. It wasn’t their limitations, their inability to churn out fire or water that defined them as a species. It wasn’t their soft outer skin that made them weak. It was what burned inside that made them strong.
Like the nageun. Only, all that burned inside them was pain.
Brynne circled me. Displaying a series of impressive flips, she grew closer with each rotation. Her legs were short, but her smaller body mass gave her more air, making her kicks, as she drew near, remarkably high.
“Show off,” I grumbled, as I held my position, letting her come to me.
As her scaled left leg cut the air in front of my face, I dropped and punched her right. The limb buckled. Brynne came down, and I went up, striking her in the throat. Grabbing her beaded hair, I brought her nose into my knee, and more blood darkened the already grotesque stains on my tattered clothes. Rising up fast, Brynne slammed her head into my chin. I shoved her away, and she hit the floor with a thunderous clang. The nageun sprung at the grate. They pounded up, far too hungry now to be cowed by the charge that shook their bodies.
The hinges hopped. More metal bent and snapped. Claws reached through the widened slats, and I discharged a long surge of fire in their direction. As my warning shot rolled over the grating, Brynne rolled the other way. She came up onto one knee, well out of reach, with the batons in her hands. Pivoting smoothly, she launched one at my head.
Metal skimmed the edge of my hair as I leaned back to avoid the blow.
Spinning the other baton in her grip, Brynne got to her feet. She ran at me. Water sprayed from her outthrust hand. I avoided the stream, but all it took were a few droplets to reach the inside of my mouth. They multiplied and dripped down my throat. Gagging, I faltered. She dropped low, whacking my left knee with the metal baton, then high—thrusting its end under my ribcage. Spinning in a squat, Brynne struck my other knee, came up and slammed the baton across my face. Scales cracked. Water sprayed from my lips as I panted through the pain and retreated.
Avoiding the progressively widening gaps in the grate, I backed up toward the dark window. I eva
luated the constant trickle down my throat. It was an irritation, a distraction, a way to unbalance me. But it wasn’t enough to block my air. Whatever fantasy Brynne had of killing me, it wasn’t by drowning.
She vaulted toward me. Again, I held ground. As Brynne’s landing brought her within range, I picked up the wooden chair and smashed it into her head. She crumbled at my feet, but her grip on the baton didn’t waver. I didn’t have the patience to break it.
Stealing the knife from her belt, I knelt, and jammed the blade into her wrist. The blue plates covering her hide slowed the weapon’s breach. I used two hands and shoved deeper. Pushing the blade in, driving out the blood and making her scream, the baton fell from Brynne’s hand. It rolled away and down through the grate with a distant splash.
Winded, sweat-soaked and trembling, Brynne lost hold of her water. It vanished from my throat. “Bitch,” she cursed.
“You have no idea.” Yanking the knife from her arm, I thrust it toward her heart. Brynne lifted her other hand and pushed a stream of fire into my face. The room flared white. I fell back hard on my ass, and the knife fell from my grasp.
Eyes throbbing from the sudden heat, over the stench of my own singed hair, I smelled the blood from Brynne’s wound. She was close.
Wait for it...
Through the fading glare I caught a glimpse of her arm coming around me from behind. Rising fast, I threw my body backwards and slammed Brynne into the strip of stone wall framing the dark window. Her impact must have activated the switch. As she slid down to the floor, the glass shimmered. It lightened and disappeared, releasing an odor of carnage that turned my stomach.
I threw a glance into the chamber. The ground was pitted and puddled with blood. Heavy streaks of red lathered the walls. I stared at the nails, still imbedded. The steel heads were wet with fibrous morsels, but they were impaling nothing. Ronan was gone.
There were other nails on the wall, but not a single body.
I spun at a blur of movement.
Brynne was scooting away. Fury twisted her bruised face, like I’d committed some great atrocity in forcing her to retreat.
I wiped the blood trail from my mouth. “Where is he?”
“Disposed of,” she replied with a trembling shrug. “I saw no reason to keep his filthy carcass around. Unless…” She offered me a swollen exaggerated grimace. “Did you want to cry over it? Bury his pathetic remains in the ground like a human?”
She laughed, and I didn’t give her what she wanted. I didn’t scream or cry, I just remembered how I’d closed my eyes. How I hadn’t looked at him. I hadn’t met his stare or said a damn thing as he died.
So many times Ronan and I had parted ways. Yet we’d never actually said goodbye. Now we never would.
Anger, grief, regret; they were boiling inside me. My head ached. My muscles burned. I couldn’t breathe for the cloud of emotions pressing against my chest. Deep and concentrated, they pushed at me from the inside, bursting to get out. But these ghosts weren’t mine. I was merely holding them.
Brynne rose into a slow crouch. The attitude in her stance and expression implied she was done playing. So was I.
We raised hands at the same time. Our fire collided. Sparks flew from the stream. Orange arcs showered down onto the metal and bounced into the water below. Neither of us eased up. We kept the pressure on, and Brynne offered me a smirk of approval. She moved to speak.
I didn’t care what craziness might fly from her mouth this time and cut her off. “I’m sorry for what happened to you, Brynne. I’m sorry for what you’ve become. But it’s not my fault. You should never have been brought into the Guild. They missed something when they picked you. An imbalance, a genetic defect you inherited…something.”
“No,” she snarled. “You did this to me. What’s wrong with me is your fault!”
“It isn’t, Brynne.” I stared with sympathy at her still-widening ghost. It pulsed around her, far and wide, writhing like it felt its own pain. “This madness was always in you. Something would have drawn it out eventually, whether Ronan and I left or not.”
Red laced spittle flew from her mouth. “You lie!”
“Every day. But not about this.”
A strained scream of rage and frustration fled Brynne’s throat, and her fire flared brighter. I ducked as it roared like an orange-red thunder cloud, mushrooming over my head and billowing into the next room. As it sputtered out, a lonely wisp of smoke curled up from her palm. Her head hung low. Thick ghostly arms of suffering wrapped around her body, squeezing her soul as it had for so many years.
Brynne’s trauma was a double-edged sword. It weakened her, skewing her focus even as she drew strength from it. Unlike the nageun, I thought, my eyes moving from the motionless bodies on the floor, to the rattling grate behind Brynne. It bucked and shook as the creatures struggled to widen the gap and push up from below. Pain was at their core. It was their motivation, their weapon.
An odd notion struck me. Maybe it can be mine.
I brought my hands together. Turning my thoughts to the trauma I’d taken from the nageun, I drew fire up into my scaled palms. I released the double torrent of flame, and a film of black slipped out to wrap around the orange.
It was like dropping a weight I’d forgotten I was holding.
Embraced by the ghosts of the nageun, my fire barreled across the distance. The dark blaze struck dead center of Brynne’s chest and lifted her off the floor. As the impact propelled her backwards, I thought I saw the cloud peel off from the fire and envelop her. But before it could adhere, she lost momentum. Brynne landed hard on the broken grate, and the metal gave way. Her body hit the water below with a splash, followed by the haunting cry of a nageun swarm.
Extinguishing my fire, I listened for the feast that would follow.
When I heard nothing, I stepped closer.
The air near the hole smelled of roasted skin and blood, but as I peered over the jagged edge, there was no sign of Brynne or the creatures. Nothing sat on the rough stone ledge that lined the wall. There was only a heavy swirl of red in the water as it stilled.
I started to climb down.
A gruff voice behind me said, “Leave her.”
I turned, fire smoldering, ready to strike, as three heads of a familiar-looking balaur ducked the stone threshold and entered the room. Scales on one arm torn, blood splatter wetting his chest and all three necks, Coen’s six eyes stared at me with three different colors and three different expressions; amusement, frustration, and relief.
Dropping my hand, I shook my pounding head. “Coen, you’re worse than a freaking wad of gum on my shoe.”
They looked at each other. Their faces lost expression.
My sarcasm had sailed over all three of their heads.
With a concerned scan of the room, Coen approached me. Watching the muscles move beneath his scales, I had a brief flash of his human forms, naked and tangled in my covers.
Stupid dream.
He stopped to stand beside me. The center head spoke. “We must go.”
“No. I can’t. I—” I don’t know what I did. I don’t know what that was. “I need to be sure. I need her dead.”
Teal eyes blinked at me. “And I would love to watch you make her that way. But the hungry ones will finish her, and we have no more time.”
“What if they don’t? What if the nageun don’t kill her?”
He grunted. “Nageun kill everything.”
“Not those,” I said inclining my head at the limp bodies behind him.
His neck weaved as he glanced around in open appreciation at the six ‘empty’ nageun lying atop the grates. “Interesting…”
The third head huffed in impatience. “The nageun didn’t kill you because you were rescued. Now, express your gratitude quickly, before we are forced to fight our way up as well as down.”
“Screw you,” I snapped at him. “I rescued myself. And I didn’t ask you to fight your way anywhere for me. So unless you’re going to do somethi
ng besides gloat and argue like an asshole…” I pointed past him. “Door’s over there.”
Coen’s heads stared at me. The outer two were offended and annoyed, but a flicker of amusement lit the middle gaze. “Our obvious character flaws aside,” he said with apology, “there is no debating one fact: to survive, we must go. Lyrriken blood has been spilled. Illusions are in place to hide our kills from view, for now. But we cannot be discovered here.”
The left one nodded. “Guard change is moments away. When the posts are found empty, the alarm will be raised. Squads will be sent. We will be discovered with you, the traitor. This day will not end well.”
“Name me one lately that has.” I looked one last time down at the water. Then I locked eyes with Coen’s gray ones. “Can you camouflage us while we get out of here?”
“Not while we’re moving,” he scolded, my ignorance eliciting a pained, disappointed frown. “And before you ask, balaur do not swim. What we need is a way out that won’t get us flayed, drowned, or eaten. Any suggestions?”
Thinking, my gaze wandered. Once more, I could see the ghosts of past trauma, drifting along the floor and climbing the walls. Their presence was noticeably heavy near the back wall, where one inky cloud bled into the next. There was no separation, no distinguishing of their edges. As the cloud swayed and rolled, I noticed empty chains around the poles in front of the wall. Dark stains colored the stone. Pain and sorrow brushed the tops of my boots, and a chill swept over me.
I stepped back, but there wasn’t any point. There was too much to avoid.
Staring at it won’t help.
Yet, something was there, on that far wall, blinking inside the darkness.
The twinkle came again, and I stepped forward.
Coen called to me. I didn’t reply. I couldn’t break my focus. The black was parting with my steps, drifting over my legs, cold and full of need. Desperately, it wanted acknowledgement, but I kept my eyes on my target and pushed it back.
Nite Fire: Flash Point Page 37
