Within seconds the whole camp was ablaze, and the air weighed heavy with ash and thick, grey smoke. Fia held her mouth tight, covering her nose with her sleeve. At times, as they ran, she caught the shape of a figure sway in the dispersing smoke as it swirled, but then the figure would disappear. What was that? She fought back her rising panic, clenching her fists tight at her sides to stop them from shaking. “What’s happening?” She coughed the words out and covered her mouth at once.
The heat and the commotion were unbearable, and the smoke burned at her lungs. Sweat pooled on her forehead and strands of hair stuck to her face as a shrill horn sounded through the flurry of flames. Screams came from behind, but they kept pushing on into the night: men, women carrying babies, young children, all running and stumbling beside them.
They ran until they were clear of the camp, across a small stream that glittered silver in the moonlight, and away into a dark forest.
“All those people!” Fia looked back, sucking long, deep breaths of clean air into her lungs. It burned, too, but in a different way from the smoke of the blaze. Her head was clear of the foggy sensation, but her legs were weak, and she knelt to steady herself. Just breathe. Stay calm.
“We need to keep moving, to get to higher ground,” Alexander said, as his eyes scanned their group.
Fia could still hear faint cries for help from the burning camp. Alexander, ignoring her protests, took her by the waist and dragged her away with the others.
She was too weak to argue. The angel held his arm firmly around her, but she felt feathery light and was sure her feet weren’t touching the ground. Her chest thundered with adrenaline, and she still wasn’t sure if she’d died or if this was all a terrible dream. What kind of guardian angel are you?
Their group had grown larger. Altair had joined them, along with the men and women Fia recognised from the tent. Young and old clung to each other in the dark, dressed in animal skins and running barefoot through the forest. She tried to piece together what she’d seen—the primitive tents, the lack of footwear. Uncontacted civilisations still existed, didn’t they? Fia was sure she’d read about them online.
The dense trees gave way to large, rocky areas where boulders jutted out of the earth at awkward angles. There were still trees here, but they were smaller and sparser as they ascended a slope with loose stones underfoot.
Finally, they stopped moving, high above the burning camp and far away from the inferno, the forest separating them. They’d reached a caved section of the hill they’d been ascending, well protected from their attackers.
“Everyone got out, but we lost a few horses,” a young man said quietly to Altair.
He nodded. Fia opened her mouth to object but decided against it. You’ve been hearing all kinds of things…who knows what you heard?
The cave was vast. Areas lit up with torches and small fires by the people from the camp, each taking a small space for their families to rest for the night. A fire had been lit near the entrance, and a large group had crowded around it to keep warm. Fia looked at each of them, all bronzed, with vibrant wooden beads and threads around their necks and wrists. She rubbed her palms against her jeans, trying to figure them all out. As she counted her breaths, she looked for anything familiar—not that she knew much about cultures that refused technology.
The night had fallen still. Though Fia could smell the burning camp on her clothes, the air was crisp, and the smoke blew far into the distance. The sky was clear, and the stars, accompanied by the moon—moons—shone brightly through the forest. There were no streetlamps here to distort how bright they were. Okay, so you’re not dead, but this is a long way away from London. The thought was oddly liberating. If only she could calm her nerves. She recognised nothing, and she pulled her legs close to her chest with a shiver.
An elderly woman passed Fia a rough blanket, and she wrapped it around herself gratefully. Alexander muttered a few words to Altair before making his way back to the entrance and out into the night air. He glanced over his shoulder to look back at Fia as his wings spread wide. With one smooth motion, he was airborne, and she followed his silhouette, disappearing into the dark sky until he was nothing but a shadow in the distance. A real angel. She ran a hand over the bandage on her head as Altair approached. Another burst of anger shot through her as she realised Alexander had abandoned her, again.
“We owe you some answers, child.” Altair’s voice was soft. “Come, sit beside the fire.”
“You saved my life,” Fia replied, tucking her legs beneath her as she sat. “Thank you.” Exhaustion throbbed through her bones, begging her to lie down, but rest could wait. This was no time for sleep.
“It was Alexander who saved you, but we will come to that later.” Altair threw some salts onto the fire, and it flashed in blues and greens, like burning driftwood. The flames flicked and twisted higher into the night.
“My name is Altair, and these are my people.” He gestured around the fire. “Once you fell through the window to our world, you were no longer on Earth.” The fire danced, and the flames swirled into an image of Fia, falling, endlessly, down a muddy slope. She gasped, but the others around the fire sat silently, waiting.
“I leaned against a wall—it might have been a grave,” she replied, barely audible. Was it only a few hours ago? “What do you mean, this isn’t Earth? Where is…where are we?” The hairs on her arms stood up, and for a moment she felt like she had as a child, locked in the empty storeroom cupboard at her old foster home, crying in the dark.
Altair looked into the flames. “Our worlds are very similar, from what the angels have told us. We do not know how or why they are linked, although there are many theories. It is not often that people fall through. There are few stories and even fewer survivors.”
Fia reached again for the bandage around her head. The fire flickered with images of people falling through gaps in the air, straight into a lake, or into the middle of an ocean, or onto the peak of an icy mountain.
“You have come to us at a time of great suffering.” Altair’s face was grim and severe with the weight of his words. “Our world is at a crossroads, and some have chosen to take advantage of this.”
The flames flickered with the forms Fia thought she had seen during the attack on the camp. So they had been people, after all. And she thought that being able to see an angel made her crazy. But this, this was…She breathed in deeply, exhaling through pursed lips and willed her expression to remain blank.
“We call them the Makya.” The fire flashed with images of destruction, and of the Makya—half human, half flame, solid, and yet ethereal.
How could they be fire and people all at once?
“We are known in Ohinyan as the Navarii. My people’s history with the Makya goes back further than most.”
The fire changed, revealing a large desert, with hundreds of tents—a camp a thousand times bigger than the one that was just devastated.
One, two, three. Each breath she counted scraped against her throat. Other worlds, angels, fire people. What was this place? Fia wanted to run, far away, but she knew her legs wouldn’t carry her. And where would she run to, anyway?
“We were not always a travelling race, but we were made nomadic when our home was destroyed many years ago by the Makya. Many of our people went to the place of souls, and it was only with the angels’ help that we survived.” The fire blazed with wings of ebony, tan, ivory, and auburn, angels firing silvery arrows from the sky into the inferno below.
Fia brushed her hand where Alexander had held it and pulled her blanket closer at the thought of his blue eyes gazing into hers. They were like sunlight on water. Get yourself together, Fia. You’ve known him for like five whole minutes.
“We adapted, and we have never stopped travelling since. The nomadic lifestyle suits us best—we move with the seasons.”
The flames rose above them, revealing a blaze far greater than the destruction they had fled from earlier that evening. The spitting, burning
wood imitated piercing screams before fading into ash, and then black as the angels disappeared. Darkness was all that remained.
“That was the coming of the second sun, the sun you will see rising in the morning. But now, the third sun is coming, and the attacks have started once more.”
The flames shot high into the sky in an explosion of light, balling at their peak into a bright circle and flashing a multitude of colours: lilac, crimson, indigo, vermillion, cyan. Finally, a new ball of orange rose from the flames, growing bigger and bigger.
“Wait, your sun is dying?” Fia asked. She played through the similarities and differences between their worlds. Surely, this was a bad thing?
“It is dying, child. Yes. But it means an end, a beginning, the cycle.” The flames revealed the changing seasons, birth, marriage, and death. “It is a time of change, of new beginnings. For some, like the Makya, it is a time to take advantage of the atmospheric differences in our world, when the energy is shifting, and to use that advantage for gain and for power. Ohinyan may be in darkness for a while, but I am hopeful for the light that will follow it.”
“The others don’t seem as hopeful as you,” Fia said, looking from Altair’s face to the people around the fire, who held each other, sullen.
Altair almost smiled. “I am more than one hundred years old, child. I learned the story of our ancestors from my great-grandfather, who learned it from his great-grandfather before him. The coming of a new sun is a time of many things. Many will become bones of the earth, a part of Ohinyan, a part of forever, of the never-ending cycle. But many more will survive into the new era. It is the way of our world, of Ohinyan.”
Fia watched the flames, flickering with scenes of life, of animals, of strange people in thick furs and of children laughing, of animal-like creatures on two feet walking and talking amongst them, some with pointy ears and tails. She bit back her anxiety, rubbing her sweaty palms on her knees once more. Sophie would have said something reassuring, something to keep her calm. And Jo, Jo would never believe this, even if she’d been sitting beside her. Just breathe. They’re going to take you back. Just breathe. There had to be a way out, a way back to Earth.
Families huddled together around the fire, chatting quietly as the smallest children were tucked in for the night with palm fronds and grasses. Fia tried to return her blanket, but the old woman just smiled and pulled it tighter around Fia’s shoulders.
She had so many questions. The bandage was coming loose from her head, and Fia tucked an end under itself. How am I going to get back to London? She felt a twinge of guilt as she pictured Jo, turning up at her flat with coffee and leaving after getting no response. She couldn’t lose Jo, too. Henry… Would he even notice she was gone? He used you. It doesn’t matter what he thinks.
Her eyes were bright with the fire as it shifted colours. The images faded, the flames flickered blue and green like before, and then settled back to a golden glow. She knew exactly what Sophie would say. Fia huffed a quiet laugh. She’d probably say, what a great adventure. It was a crazy thought, but that was Sophie.
Fia chewed her lip, silently ordering herself not to cry. She could die in this world. She touched her head again, feeling for the wound, and winced.
The group stirred, and the same young man that had spoken to Altair when they arrived in the cave rose to his feet. Whispering to the old man, he raised his bow, inclining it towards the opening.
A shadow cast over the entrance to the cave. There had been no sound from their feet touching the ground, but when Fia looked up, Alexander had returned with a young woman.
“Alexander, brother.” Altair reached for the angel’s arm, holding it for a moment before welcoming his travelling companion.
The woman was exceptionally tall—taller than anyone Fia had ever seen, and at least a head taller than Alexander. She was beautiful—perfect, symmetrical face kind of beautiful. Her skin was pale, even by the light of the fire as it flickered against her ebony, plaited hair. Her worn leather boots reached up past her knees, and she was decorated in silver. A large, jewelled belt sitting almost as high as Fia’s head reflected the fire, whilst enormous silver cuffs ran up her arms and around her athletic biceps. On her head and dipping down towards her eyes sat a large silver circlet, with a glittering blue stone in the centre as dark as her eyes.
“Lady Noor,” Altair greeted her with a bow of his head.
“Altair.” She bowed back.
They sat together beside the fire, their polite introductions turning into hastened whispers. The families dispersed into different areas of the cave, settling down for the night beside their sleeping children.
Fia’s tired, aching body trembled with the effort of staying awake. She had far too many questions to fall asleep, but the temperature inside the cave had dropped, and the exhaustion of the night’s events had caught up with her. She wrapped the blanket tightly around herself as she waited for her chance to speak, her eyelids becoming heavier. Her questions would have to wait until morning.
Chapter Three
Noor
The Lady Noor gazed over to the spot where Fia slept. The bandage around the girl’s head had become tattered and stained black with ash in some places. Dark black circles bloomed beneath her eyes; her skin pale with fresh scratches. The girl appeared too frail to have lived through such a fall.
“I’ve received word that the windows will become more unstable with each passing day.” Alexander flexed his wings to adjust his position. “As the sun dies…” He lowered his eyes. “Unless the witches find a solution to get her back, she’ll be trapped here.”
“And the angels on Earth?” Noor asked.
Alexander shook his head. “They may not be able to return.”
This was not welcome news. Noor didn’t envy Alexander’s position, but they had to focus on the task at hand. “Altair, we must take her to the nearest coven at once, if she is the one we’ve been looking for, we cannot wait. How much have you told her?”
“We must consider the girl’s safety,” Altair replied. He shifted his weight and said nothing further. Noor knew it was likely the least talkative he’d been in some time. The old man was not fond of witches, and this was no secret to Noor. They were mutual acquaintances only through Alexander, and she trusted Altair no more than she could trust the changing direction of the wind. Apparently, the feeling was mutual.
“I’ve told her very little,” Altair said. “Of the Makya, the sun dying. But nothing of the coming darkness or why she is truly here,” he finished, looking over to Fia.
“We must hurry. Erebus will not wait for us to make a decision.” Noor glanced out at the sky as it became ever lighter with the new dawn.
Altair’s response did not matter. Whether he had told Fia why she was here or not, what mattered was whether she could make a difference. Whether they could all still make a difference.
Rays of light gradually made their way through the trees. She wondered how many more dawns she would see with what lay ahead before turning her attention back to the conversation.
It wasn’t long before the sun was clearly visible in the sky, and the smouldering mass of grey from yesterday's attack could be seen in the distance. The horizon was still, with nothing but quiet birdsong breaking the rustling of the trees.
“We should scout the area. There could still be Makya foot soldiers out there. You and I can cover much more ground, twice as fast as the Navarii,” Noor said to Alexander, already on her feet. “We need to make sure the area is clear before we proceed to the coven.”
Altair raised an eyebrow but said nothing. There was truth to her words, and she knew he would not argue.
Noor sheathed her weapons and readied her glider. There was no use in wasting time.
“See you on the ground,” Alexander called out, as she leapt forwards into the air with precision and grace, her glider opening into the wind like the wings of an eagle.
Her arms held firm to the wooden frame, the canvas spread wide
above her head. There was little that could rival this feeling. The wind against her cheeks, the morning sun enveloping her in its warmth. We cannot let this end. She would protect Ohinyan, no matter the cost. Even if the coven never took her back.
A thick plume of smoke soon cut through the cool wind, and Noor surveyed the damage from the previous night’s attack. The camp was a blackened, crumbling mess. Alexander swooped down alongside her, his arms resting lightly at his sides. He was going slow for her sake.
“I’m going down,” he called over the wind.
“Let me check for Makya.” But it was too late. He was already mid-dive, making his way to the centre of the camp. She scanned the horizon for any signs of an airship and pushed down to dive after him. “Last time I checked, the leader of angels was not impervious to fire,” Noor said, as her feet touched the ground. She folded her glider, resting it in its’ sheath.
Alexander’s face darkened but he remained silent.
The weight of her words dawned on her. “I’m sorry, Alexander, I didn’t mean—”
“No, you’re quite right,” Alexander replied. “But I cannot lead from the shadows. My father was…unlucky. Let’s hope I have better luck.”
They searched the whole camp, or what was left of it. The Navarii were resourceful, and there was no doubt in Noor’s mind that they would salvage most of what was left. No Makya foot soldiers remained, and the only casualties were a few horses that had already become carrion for the birds.
“This was no way for them to die.” Alexander watched as the birds pecked away at the carcasses.
“The people are safe. That is all that—” The birds suddenly scattered, and at once she and Alexander drew blades.
Something hit her from behind, and she rolled forwards as heat licked at her neck. The Makya was thrown off her, taking her glider with it in a tangled mess. But it gave Noor the second she needed to push her blade through the Makya’s thigh as it struggled with the canvas of the glider.
The Third Sun (Daughter of the Phoenix Book One) Page 3
