With a shout, I fly out of the chasm north of the burning house and then gulp down a less sulfurous breath. The air is thick and dark with smoke, though, and doesn’t taste much better. I tilt, swooping around and scanning the meadow for signs of Griffin.
There!
I squint against the acrid burn of rising smoke and see Griffin stumbling across the grass. He staggers toward the cliff, damaged and unsteady on his feet, but my heart still sings in relief. I need him. Griffin helps me to see things differently. To see myself differently. Courage and strength were already there, but the most fundamental part was lacking: belief in myself. Through the mirror of his eyes, I finally saw someone worth knowing and fighting for. By his side, there’s no more hiding or walking in the shadow of my potential. Griffin won’t stand for that, and I find that lately, neither can I.
As I fly toward him from the side, Griffin falls to his knees near the edge of the pit and lets out a bloodcurdling howl. It chills me to the very marrow of my bones. His cry still echoing off the mountains, he reaches up and fists both hands in his hair. He pulls, rocking hard.
Fear sends goose bumps crashing over me in a wave. He’s too close to the edge, desperate and devastated, and I’m suddenly terrified he’s going to try to follow me over the cliff. I might be able to fly, but I can’t carry him out.
A hot ache bursts beneath my breast. “Griffin!”
His dark head jerks up. He turns toward the sound of my voice, and his eyes widen, standing out in his blood-streaked and sooty face.
Tears burn my eyes. I close in on him, wobbling as I try to slow down.
His expression goes from stark and hollow to pure shock. He jumps up, reeling back from the cliff. “Cat?”
“Yes!” I cry, holding back the sob of the century.
A glassy sheen coats Griffin’s eyes as I crash down nearly on top of him, my legs jarring hard when my feet hit the ground. The sob flies from me, and I pitch forward. Griffin meets me halfway. Our bodies collide, the shock of him vibrating through me. Heat. Muscle. Bone. We’re both too injured to slam into each other this way, but neither of us cares. I throw my arms around his neck and hold on.
As if his legs can’t hold him up any longer, he sinks down, dragging me down with him. We both end up on our knees, and Griffin clutches me so tightly that my ribs ache. I find his face with my hands and grip his jaw hard. We kiss, a frantic crushing and melding of lips. I taste sweat and blood, mine and his, and he groans against my mouth. It’s not a sound of desire. It’s the sound of just barely not breaking.
“I thought you were dead. I was sure you… And I couldn’t…” His breath hitches, and he shudders. Seeing his lashes spike with moisture nearly breaks my heart.
My own breathing is far from steady, and my throat is thick with tears, but I need to say something that will take the fear out of his eyes—and the horrible, misplaced guilt from his voice.
I look at him straight on, knowing he’ll never look away. “You think I’m that easy to kill?”
He makes a strangled sound, and I know he recognizes the exact same words I used at the circus fair the night we first met. He swallows and keeps staring at me, but he doesn’t look quite so heartbreakingly terrified anymore.
“I remember when you said that. That’s the moment I fell in love with you.” Taking my face in his hands, Griffin brushes his thumb across my lower lip. “You and your smart mouth.”
My heart swells, and my mouth tingles under his touch. I kiss his thumb.
Griffin curves his hands around my head and pulls me in to him, tucking me against his chest. For a moment, we both stop, needing to feel skin and heartbeats and breath.
“I won’t leave you,” I say almost savagely, clutching the back of his ruined tunic. Griffin is smart, kind, fair, strong, broad, bruised, and mine. I am never letting him go, and he’s never getting rid of me. We have a life to live. Together.
He draws back, looking down at me. “I know, agapi mou. But I thought you’d been taken.” His eyes flick over my feathers, and nervous heat rises in my belly. It fans out, spreading toward my neck and face.
I sprouted wings. Helpful? Yes. Attractive? Debatable…
Still kneeling and wrapped in Griffin’s arms, I glance over my shoulder and try to extend my wings. They folded back down at some point after I landed without my really even thinking about it. One side snaps out, impressive. The other ignores me completely. Great. Nothing is ever easy.
I urge the extended one to relax again, and it folds down against my back, brushing the ground.
“Do they hurt?” Griffin asks.
I shake my head. “No, except for when they first popped out. But I hope you like wings. Now that they’re here, I have no idea how to put them back inside me again. Or if I even can.”
His brow furrowing, Griffin smooths one hand over my feathers. They’re surprisingly sensitive, and a little shiver cascades down my spine.
Gruffly, he says, “You could grow horns for all I care. I love you. All of you. Inside and out.”
I take a deep breath. “Good to know.” In fact, it warms my heart immensely. “Because depending on which Gods added their ichor to my veins, which apparently a bunch of them did, I could end up with pointy ears or a beard someday.”
Griffin grunts, processing that, I guess.
“Speaking of Gods…” I look around, but the God of War is nowhere to be found. “Ares helped me out of the pit. He got the wings out of me. I’m part Nike—or something like that.”
Griffin grunts again—more processing, I think—and then murmurs, “Winged Victory.”
I frown, not feeling very victorious. Alive, though, and that’s what matters.
“Maybe Ares contributed something to my blood, too.” That would explain a lot.
Griffin doesn’t look okay with that. In fact, he looks downright pained.
“My affable nature?” I ask, trying to lighten his scowl. “My peacekeeping skills?”
Not even a smile. It’s too soon to joke.
“Is Little Bean all right?” Griffin’s eyes drop to my middle.
Glancing down, I smooth my hands over my lower belly. “Snug as a bug on a sheepskin rug.” I can sense her powerful life force inside me and feel her steady heartbeat. It’s faster than mine.
“Good Gods!” Mother’s voice slices through me like a knife made of ice. “I’m not even surprised. You land on your feet wherever you go.”
Griffin and I jump apart and scramble to our feet. Griffin throws out his arm, pushing me behind him. Shock roots me to the spot. There’d been no sign of Mother when I flew over the meadow and the house. I’d thought she was gone!
But now she’s within striking distance, one of my knives in her left hand and my sword in her right. She probably wanted Griffin’s, but it’s too heavy for her to wield. Ianthe’s pearls circle her head, holding back her loose hair. She’s dressed in her own clothes now and looking like herself again, although I hesitate to call that human.
“Nice robes,” I say, coming alongside Griffin. She’s wearing all black, and I’m sure it’s for the sheer intimidation factor.
“They’re for your funeral,” she answers.
I curl my mouth into a cool smile, forcing myself to show no fear. But the truth is, she does scare me. She scares the ever-living magic out of me.
“Or yours,” Griffin snarls.
Mother laughs that off, and I barely suppress a shudder.
“Wings.” She looks me up and down with distaste. “How hideous.”
I notch my chin up. She’s not fooling me. I see the envy in her eyes, turning them even greener. And I feel her lie punch through me, hot and pounding. “Jealous?”
She snorts. “Chances are, you don’t know how to use them.”
Truth. Unfortunately. “I figured out up versus down.”
Her tone
cutting, she says, “Mediocrity suits you. It’s a good thing, since that’s all you’ve ever striven for.”
“And sheer evilness makes you special,” I answer in kind.
She smiles. Of course that doesn’t insult her.
I may have more raw power than she does, but I have no skill, and Mother knows it. So far, I’ve survived on luck, help, and accident alone, and today was no exception.
“Why did you ever even try to teach me about magic?” I ask, knowing that much of my ineptitude comes from refusing to listen to a word she said. I was so focused on not using my magic like she did that I ended up not using it at all. “So that I could be your spy in Galen Tarva’s court?”
“It was in my best interest for you to survive there. With proximity, you could have controlled him.”
“I’ll never alter minds, not even someone like Galen’s. A person’s free will isn’t a toy to play around with.”
She scoffs. “You have no ambition. You don’t deserve any crown, let alone mine.”
If ambition means terrorizing people for fun, then she’s right.
“Cruelty isn’t ambition,” Griffin says with utter conviction. “Setting limits on great power takes more strength than you’ll ever have.”
My heart skips a beat. Maybe two. My Gods. Griffin just put into words what it seems I’ve been subconsciously doing my entire life. But unlike Ares, he doesn’t think I’ve thrown away my tools. He thinks I’m strong.
Mother’s eyes flick to Griffin. “Don’t speak in my presence, Hoi Polloi.” She holds up my sword, making a show of inspecting it. “Is this Thanatos? The sword you named in my honor?”
“Not in your honor,” I answer. “In warning.”
“Of my impending death?” Her laughter is like a metal rake scraping deep furrows into my confidence. “I could hand you this blade right now. You’ll never do it. You don’t have it in you, and that’s why you’re a fool and a disappointment. All that power in a useless, cowardly package. You’re the one I should have handed over to Otis instead of Eleni.”
Rage explodes in me, coloring my vision black. “Don’t talk about Eleni. Don’t even say her name. You don’t have the right.”
“You’re a failure.”
“Why? Because I don’t look forward to adding matricide to my list of family kills?” Sarcasm masks the knot around my heart, but the pressure inside me makes it hard to speak.
“Cat’s never disappointed me a day in her life,” Griffin says flatly, and the fact that no lie burns through me tells me that his capacity to forgive and forget is huge.
Mother freezes. For a moment, she looks taken aback. “Give it time. You haven’t known her long.”
“He knows me better than you do,” I snap.
“He doesn’t know the darkness in your heart.” Her expression hardens again. “He doesn’t know how you’re made.”
Well, I do. I know exactly how I’m made. More or less. On the inside, I belong to the Gods.
As if to reward my acceptance of my birthright, and maybe even my destiny, a surge of power wells up from deep inside me, and lightning webs down my arms. The Elemental Magic explodes from my fingertips, charring the ground at my feet.
I lift my magic-bright hands and aim them at Mother. “You’re the one who doesn’t know how I’m made.”
Mother spins to the side, and my bolt hits the whirling material of her gown, punching a smoldering hole through it. She turns on me, livid, and I feel her try to push a fierce mental command straight into my brain.
It strikes me like an ice pick, cold and sharp. I gasp. Pressure and pain cut me off from my magic, and it takes all my strength to fight off her silent attack. My lightning sputters and dies like a guttering torch, but I shove her so fast from my mind that she reels back.
She shakes her head, feeling the backlash of her failed compulsion. Then, sneering, she says, “You’re not entirely useless. You did take care of the Tarvan royals for me, although I can’t imagine how.”
Her tone and expression are everything they need to be in order to make me doubt. In Castle Tarva, it was Ianthe and Bellanca, Griffin and Flynn. Cerberus. I hardly did anything besides rattle my tail and run my mouth. Not entirely useless pretty much sums it up.
Mother points the gleaming tip of my own sword at me. “And now, with a little help from Thanatos, Thalyria will be mine.”
“Never.” Griffin steps in front of me again.
Mother lunges with a quick jab. Griffin shoves me back hard while evading the blade himself. Mother swings again, keeping him dodging as her left hand toys with my knife. I watch her fingers adjust, tighten. She’s going to throw.
Before I can warn Griffin, Little Bean does something that twists my insides. Her energy explodes with something that feels a lot like fright. Definitely distress. It stops my heart dead, and I know, just know, that Mother is trying to get to her again. She’s battering her mind, and Little Bean is fighting back.
My lower abdomen goes rock-hard, and my hands fly to cover it. A pained breath hisses between my teeth.
Griffin turns back to me, alarm written all over his face.
“No!” I shout, dread hurtling through me.
He whips back around in time to see Mother release the dagger. He twists in front of me and doesn’t make a sound when the knife sinks deep into his middle, but I gasp in fright.
My horrified gaze snaps back to Mother. I’m wholly unsurprised that she used Little Bean as a distraction. What I can’t believe is that I didn’t see it coming. Her throwing aim has always been average—thank the Gods—but she sneers in satisfaction anyway, flashing Thanatos in her other hand.
“The next one’s for you, Talia mou.”
The mocking endearment is like one of her stinging slaps across my face. My wings snap out in response, and her eyes widen in surprise. I hide my own surprise behind a heated glare as I grab Griffin’s arm and try to pull him behind me. His face has washed of all color.
Locking his jaw, he growls, “Stay behind me.”
“Stay behind me,” I growl back.
He looks at me like I’m insane, like he would never use me as his shield. I step around him before he can react. Maybe I am insane. I have no combat magic, and my lightning is a sham. But double standards don’t work with me, especially from the man I love.
There’s a deafening crack of timber from above, and the hermit’s house falls in on itself with a ferocious upheaval of fire and smoke, likely burying the real witch inside—already good and dead, I’m sure. Mother doesn’t leave loose ends.
Sparks roar upward from the collapsed structure, turning the sky red, orange, and black.
“Apocalyptic,” I say. “A fitting backdrop for you, Mother.”
Her eyes narrow. “Certainly your end of days.”
“How do you figure?” I ask.
“I’m the one holding the sword.”
I smile, and it’s vicious. I’ve kept this secret from her for years.
I turn invisible, and Mother gapes in shock. Ha!
I dart forward. All it takes is one sharp punch right above her elbow, and she drops the sword with a gasp. I kick it back toward Griffin. Before scrambling away, I reach out and wrench Ianthe’s circlet from Mother’s head, taking some of her hair along with it.
Mother grabs her head, her face contorting in rage and confusion. “That’s mine!”
I backpedal and reappear out of hitting distance. “Then why did Ianthe have it?”
“She took it, the little wretch.”
“Why do you want it?”
Mother eyes the circlet, her mouth flattening into a line. “Where’s Ianthe?” she asks.
“Somewhere safe.” I hope. “Out of your reach.” Definitely.
“There’s nowhere out of my reach.”
Another smile shapes my mouth into
something I’m glad I can’t see. But I would like to see Mother try to confront Lycheron. Maybe get a hoof in the face.
“I’m keeping this.” I back away another step, and Griffin comes up beside me with Thanatos in his hand. I try not to think about the knife in his gut.
“As you like.” Her tone goes back to cool and detached, but her eyes say otherwise.
I grip the pearls, dying to know what’s so special about them. But getting Griffin to running water so I can heal him is more important.
I look at Mother. Can we end this here? Now? No war. No army. No innocent deaths to regret. She must have used a lot of magical energy on steering the crows, the Harpy metamorphosis, and tossing everything around. And she just wasted more power on a failed attempt at compulsion. She might not have another truly dangerous trick up that black sleeve of hers—at least not until she can rest. That kind of magic doesn’t just take power; it takes a deep well of it, and hers might be mostly dried up.
And yet she’s standing here, unarmed. Is she really that confident? Or is she bluffing? Is this another one of her mind games, and just by asking myself all these damn questions, I’m already losing?
Her eyes dart to the circlet in my hand, and then it hits me. She doesn’t want to leave without it.
“This amplifies magic, doesn’t it?” I clutch the pearls harder in my fist. “It’s spelled to channel more power. That’s why you want it.”
Her lip curls. “Don’t be stupid. My power is already huge.”
I spread my hands a little, waving the trinket she wants. “Then why are you still here?”
“To watch your Hoi Polloi husband bleed to death.” She smiles. “The longer I keep you busy, the weaker he gets.”
My stomach drops hard. I can help Griffin, even with my limited healing skills, but I need to get him to the stream and act soon.
I fold back my wings and reach out for my sword. We’re out of time, and I won’t ask Griffin to kill for me, even though I know he would. He gives me Thanatos without a word, his expression strained. The hilt is warm from his hand and seems to hum against my palm with a song to sing me, or a ballad to tell. I wish I knew how the story ended, but only silence travels up my arm.
Heart on Fire (The Kingmaker Chronicles Book 3) Page 17
