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A Phoenix First Must Burn

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by A Phoenix First Must Burn (retail) (epub)


  The dragon shifted and shimmered, and then Lyle stood there before me. “What do you mean? What’s happening?”

  “The spell the sorcerer was doing yesterday required mermaid tears, which everyone knows are used for transformation, and I just didn’t think about it until now . . . Ugh, then the Minister of War’s son was turned to stone . . .” I slapped my forehead. “Hansen’s spells had my brain all muddled, but now that I’m outside his influence I can see what he’s truly about. He’s planning on helping an invasion.”

  Lyle nodded. “Let’s go back to my village and tell the elders what’s going on. I think we can help. Besides, I think it’s time the people of Klydonia remembered why the dragons were left alone in the first place.”

  I had a moment of worry. What if I was wrong? But then Lyle shifted into his massive form and gestured for me to climb aboard, and I put my doubts aside.

  For once, I was going to believe in myself.

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  The dragon elders were more than happy to follow me down into the more populated part of Klydonia. It turned out that while they lived a very good life in the mountains, they were quite bored.

  “We haven’t had a single battle in at least fifty years,” cried one of the older dragons, who looked like the kind of nice old lady who would bake cookies for everyone in the village. “I miss the crunch of bones.”

  I wondered if I was making a mistake bringing a pride of dragons into Klydonia, but there was nothing in the treaty that said they couldn’t fly toward the bay.

  And so, I scrambled up on Lyle’s back and hoped that I was right, even though it meant that my country was being invaded.

  As the dragons came into sight of the bay, it quickly became clear that my hunch had been correct. Ships fired on the castle complex, the sounds of screams and fighting coming from inside the complex itself.

  “We have to destroy those ships,” I yelled at Lyle, and he let loose a low bellow that the rest of his pride echoed. An amethyst dragon with emerald eyes and two other smaller ones peeled off toward the ships, and as Lyle tilted toward the castle complex, flames were already engulfing the sails and masts of the invaders.

  “Can you put me down in the center of the castle?” I wasn’t sure what exactly I would do, but one of the books had told of a spell for repelling invaders. I was hoping it was still active, because I now had no doubt that Hansen was a part of this. I had to stop him before this invasion became an all-out war.

  Lyle landed softly in the middle of the main court, which was eerily abandoned. It was usually the source of much activity, and the absence of people frightened me.

  “Halt!” cried men in a livery I didn’t recognize. Their pale skin marked them as not from Klydonia, and their speech was rough and harsh. They stormed the court and flashed swords that caught the sunlight. Lyle took a breath, but before he could unleash a fiery blast at the soldiers an incandescent blue light hit him, shifting him from his dragon form back to the boy I’d met in the moonlight.

  “Lyle!” I cried out.

  Hansen walked out from behind the soldiers, Ernst by his side, their faces smug. Hansen’s usual vacant expression had been replaced by a sneer.

  “Oh, Melie, it’s too late. We control the castle, and there’s nothing you can do.” Well, at least he’d finally gotten my name right.

  Lyle was on the ground next to me, and I fell to my knees beside him. “Are you okay?”

  “Yes. It hurts to have the transformation reversed like that, but I’ll be fine.”

  I took a deep breath. I was going to believe in myself, even if I just wanted to curl into a ball and sob. “Okay, I have a plan. I’m going to need you to run toward the gardens. Can you do that?”

  The soldiers moved toward us, and Lyle nodded. Without warning he jumped to his feet and ran toward the flowering arch that was the entrance to the palace complex gardens.

  The soldiers were stunned for a moment, but then chased after him, Hansen and Ernst on their tails. After all, Lyle was a dragon; I was just an apprentice with unremarkable abilities. Which one of us was the greater risk?

  * * *

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  But I was also a girl who had read the entirety of the spell section in the royal library.

  I ran toward the Liberation Fountain in the center of the court and away from the direction everyone else had gone. Perhaps Hansen’s teacher had suspected what the sorcerer was about and hadn’t told him about the true use of the fountain. Or maybe Hansen’s translation had actually been wrong, not just wrong to protect the knowledge from aspiring sorcerers like me. Either way, I jumped into the fountain, sliced my palm on the sharp horn of the unicorn rampant in the middle of the sculpture, and said, “By my blood, by my heart, defend Klydonia from those who would tear her apart.”

  The book I’d read had said the spell was meant to be a last-ditch effort against invaders, triggered by the blood of the High Sorcerer of Klydonia. I’d banked on that part being an embellishment, and that any Klydonian would do. And I was right.

  What it hadn’t said was that the spell would unleash a herd of very angry, very murderous unicorns.

  The unicorn rampant at the top of the fountain shook its head and charged off the marble pedestal, heading right for the gardens. A few others ran into the castle complex itself, and the sound of screaming and swords clattering to the ground echoed from every corner. I had, it seemed, unwittingly unleashed a bloodbath.

  Whoops.

  I sat in the courtyard and watched as the unicorns tore every last soldier to pieces, and tried to remember that if not for the enchantment, it would have been us.

  It didn’t much help.

  Lyle came back from the gardens, covered in blood. He sat next to me on the edge of the fountain.

  “Wow,” he said, his eyes kind of wide.

  “Yeah,” I murmured. Klydonia would be safe, but I couldn’t help but feel sorry for the soldiers being torn asunder by beautiful horned horses.

  After about a turn of the hourglass the unicorns returned to where I sat. One by one they bowed their head in salute and retook their place on the fountain, some of them shrinking and twisting so that they were little more than hand-sized engravings. I closed my eyes, but every time I shut them I saw soldiers being run through by beautiful golden horns.

  I was going to have nightmares for months.

  People started to come out of the buildings, some badly injured, but most were okay. They saw me sitting on the marble bench, hand bloody, and began to murmur.

  “Who set the protectors free?” came a reedy cry near the double doors. The crowd of people parted, and an old man with very dark skin wearing heavy robes limped toward me.

  “Um, I did. Sorry?” I suddenly felt very, very bad about releasing the unicorns. Although I had been entirely correct about Hansen being awful.

  The old man’s eyes widened, and a smile split his face. “It’s the sorcerer foretold by the prophecy!”

  The crowd erupted into cheers, a few people even crying. I took a step back, and Lyle was right behind me. It had been a long day, and while I was ready to believe in myself, this was entirely too much.

  “Hey, so, uh, I know a really cool place up in the mountains if you want to get out of here,” he said. “We could watch the leaves change.”

  I didn’t know what the prophecy was or why people were suddenly celebrating, especially when the courtyard was still pretty full of dead soldiers. But I knew a good offer when I heard one.

  I turned to Lyle and nodded. “Let’s go.”

  THE GODDESS PROVIDES

  By L.L. McKinney

  Led by the bite of icy steel pulling at her brown wrists, Akanni flexed her fingers, trying to regain some of the sensation stolen by the shackles. Clink. Clink. Clink. The chain that bound her to the soldier bounced against the scabbard at
his hip. The steady rhythm matched the thud of his feet on the cold, packed dirt.

  “Make way,” he boomed, his voice sharp with self-importance. Bodies shuffled aside, clearing a path.

  The soldier gave the chain a yank, jerking Akanni forward. “Keep up.”

  Pain tore at her ankles and feet. Hunger twisted in her gut. A pounding had set in behind her eyes last night and refused to fade, but she breathed deep and slow.

  I am stone. I am the mountain.

  Dozens of dark eyes followed their progression.

  “That’s her,” voices murmured, the sound flowing in and out like waves.

  “Kazili Heshenae.”

  “Cursed.”

  Brown faces crowded in and around each other to get a look at the princess turned prisoner. The forsaken one. Akanni lifted her chin and met as many of those gazes as possible.

  You are all going to die for what you’ve done.

  The ground curved upward, and Akanni struggled briefly to keep her footing. The soldier did not slow. He moved with purpose, his armored shoulders back and his head high. Muted moonlight danced on the embroidered swatches of red stitched into emerald cloth at his back, made to look like bloody slashes in the fabric. It was the banner of Tosin the Lion. To Akanni, it was the mark of a betrayer.

  Higher they climbed. The chill crawled up her limbs, stiffening them, but she would not falter. For three days she had marched, exhausted, humiliated, but she would not break. Not yet.

  The wind carried the scent of soot, iron, blood-soaked earth, and winter cold. The smell of war. Fire flickered in the torch stands now lining the path. The crackle was like whispers on the air, warning of the danger ahead. At the top of the hill, a massive structure of leather and thatching rested at the center of the city of war tents. The trappings were extravagant, giving it the appearance of a fortress. Banners snapped in the breeze, all of them bearing the same green scarred with crimson claw marks.

  The soldier stopped in front of two guards posted on either side of the entrance. “Watch her.” He handed the end of the chain to the one on the left, a wisp of a man, a boy really. He was not much taller than Akanni, and appeared younger than her seventeen seasons. His eyes, wide and uncertain, darted back and forth between her and the one who had brought her here.

  “Watch her,” the soldier repeated with a lifted finger. “Closely.”

  “Yes, sir.” The boy’s dark hand shook as it clutched the chain.

  “And show some balls.”

  “Y-yes, sir.”

  The second guard drew back the flap so the soldier could enter, then followed him inside. Voices filled the air in their wake, quiet, muffled.

  Akanni drew her shoulders back and mustered as much of her royal bearing as she could. “Tosin is conscripting children into his armies now?” She kept her voice quiet.

  “I am not a child.” The boy lifted his chin, even though his voice did falter slightly. “It is an honor to serve the Lion.”

  “Tosin the Lion.” Akanni spat the words in mockery. They tasted foul, putrid, bearable only by the weight of the anger coiling inside her. “Tosin the coward.”

  “Watch your tongue.”

  “Tosin the murderer. His hands are stained with innocent blood. His soul is rot. He would be a king, but all he will rule is death.”

  “Tosin . . . Tosin will lead us into a new age. A new prosperity. We will be blessed. The Goddess provides. But you would know nothing of that, would you, heshen! Blasphemer!”

  A rush of wind swept over the hilltop. It snatched at the cloak around Akanni’s shoulders and batted at the flames in the large basins on either side of the door, nearly snuffing them out.

  With a curse, the boy bent to grab a log from the small pile of wood just to the side of the basin nearest him. He only had one hand to work with since he was holding the chain to her shackles, but he managed to toss wood onto one flame and then the other. The fires slowly revived, as if wary to come out into the freezing night air.

  “That’s what they call me, isn’t it?” Akanni kept her eyes on the peeking flames, her voice distant in her ears, hollow. “Kazili Heshenae. Princess of Blasphemy.”

  The boy fell silent. She could imagine the look he was giving her. Many had given it in the years following her renouncement of the Goddess. It was the kind of look often reserved for those with the white sickness, a look of disgust mingled with a pitiful contempt, but still a healthy dose of fear; for if you get too close you could contract it. Stand too near someone who had angered the Goddess, and Her disdain could afflict you as well, and nothing angered the Goddess more than blasphemers.

  Well, almost nothing.

  No one could have predicted the heir to the throne, of all people, would turn away from the Goddess. Not when her mother was among the most devout in all of Oramec. So devout, in fact, that as well as her duties as queen she bore the mantle of High One, chief priest of the palace.

  Every day of her life, Akanni remembered her mother waking early for prayer and staying up late for the same. If she could not make it to the grand temple for worship, she would go to a little room where candles and incense burned, and offer up praise and reverence. She taught Akanni with patient hands how to make the Goddess’s mark in the earth to bless it before offering thanks and prayer. She showed Akanni with gentle touches how to bring a swift and painless end to sacrifices, then till the blood with the earth and use the clay to mark her body during times of fasting.

  “The Goddess visits us in our temples and prayer closets,” her mother had said one time while making the mark. “But those of true devotion can earn Her rhakah, the greatest of Her gifts. That is when Her will inhabits the body as if it were a temple. I seek this blessing for myself, and for you. If it is to be yours, you must be strong, like stone, and steadfast, like the mountain.”

  Her mother was strong.

  Her mother was steadfast.

  Even when the white sickness came on her, Akanni’s mother danced and sacrificed and abstained, ever fervent.

  A frail heart and iron guts had finally forced her mother from the temple and into her bed, where she held Akanni’s hands in her now too-thin ones.

  “It is not for me to decide which path I take.” Her mother’s fingers like talons, the bones bulging, she was barely able to mix the clay, but she painted Akanni’s face; three lines under each eye, two dots above each brow, and a stroke of her thumb from Akanni’s hairline to the tip of her nose. “The Goddess provides, Akanni. Always.”

  Her mother was prayerful.

  Her mother was faithful.

  Her mother was devout.

  The sickness claimed her still.

  That was when Akanni stopped believing.

  “Kazili Heshenae,” Akanni repeated as the memory of her mother’s final night faded, and the flames in the basin near the boy bearing Tosin’s colors flared. She lifted her eyes to him. “You should run.”

  The color fled his face, leaving his brown skin mottled. His throat worked in a thick swallow and his eyes widened all the more, white and frightened.

  He parted his lips as if to speak, but the flap to the tent swung open, the other guard holding it to the side. “Bring her.”

  The boy nodded and stepped quickly into the tent, drawing the chain with him. Akanni followed.

  I am stone.

  Inside, an oppressive heat swallowed her. Sweat prickled against her skin almost instantly, and her lungs struggled to take in air for the briefest of moments. The aches in her body intensified, threatening to drag her whimpering to her knees, but she held fast. She bit into her lower lip hard enough to taste blood. The sting struck sharp against her swimming senses.

  Laughter sounded from the far side of the tent. Propped against a bed of furs, rugs, and pillows large and small, lay Tosin. His pale skin was red from the heat and pockmarked with scars, m
ost of them his own doing. Before taking on this venture of warlord, Tosin had professed himself a holy man. He was a practitioner at the temple, no one of any true import, but despite that, he’d managed to win over many of the Goddess’s worshipers. He was cunning and manipulative, and when her mother passed and Akanni renounced the Goddess, he saw that as his opportunity for more. He pleaded his case and took up the now-empty role of High One. The mantle would have fallen to Akanni’s shoulders, but she had cast that aside. In that way, her blasphemy had indeed brought this trouble down on her.

  “Kazili.” The word poured from his lips like runover from his goblet. “You look well.”

  Chained for three days and nights, hauled alongside a horse like little more than cattle, she knew she stank of exhaustion and exertion and, to her furious shame, the bitter odor of how she’d had to relieve herself while walking, given no space or privacy to do so. The cold had helped to mask the smell, but in here, in the heat, it crawled up her nose, along with the cloying, familiar smell of blood and drink. Fresh slices along Tosin’s bare flesh where it was visible past the layers of his robes meant he likely had recently finished letting, to honor the Goddess.

  “It has been so long since last I saw you. Three seasons, if memory serves.” His eyes trailed over her faintly trembling frame, and it was all she could do not to lose what little bit was in her stomach.

  I am the mountain.

  “It was during the High Solstice,” he continued, smiling wide beneath a line of shaggy black hair on his lip. “The day of the festival.”

  “The day you murdered my family,” Akanni spat between clenched teeth.

 

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