Page 45

THIRTY-FIVE

“ D on’t make a sound,” said the woman holding the knife.

Kel’s lungs burned. The woman’s grip tightened around the blade’s dark handle.

Slowly, Kel raised her hands.

“Give me your tele-comm,” the woman barked. Kel obeyed.

The woman—dressed in black leathers not dissimilar to Kel’s—smiled. Another figure stepped forward from the unraveling tapestry of smoke and trees. He quickly bound Kel’s hands behind her back with thick rope.

Kel risked a glance up. Savita was still fighting the other phoenix. Blood was dripping from their blinding silhouettes into the hungry flames below.

“Come with me,” the dark-haired woman said. Her skin was weathered and tanned, her navy eyes glimmering in a way that made a shiver run down Kel’s spine.

She reached an arm toward Kel and her sleeve hitched up. On the underside of her wrist, Kel spotted a tattooed symbol: two overlain double spirals, red and blue.

Kel met the woman’s navy eyes. The Fume.

She knew the cult was scattered around Cendor, some hiding in the backs of temple pews, while the more extreme members pulled stunts like what she’d witnessed in Fieror, or read about in her mother’s postcards: freeing caged sprites or lowering sea-monster nets.

But hiding in Vohre Forest, too? Were they so pious that they thought themselves immune to phoenix tempers?

To the chaos unfolding in the skies above?

The woman pointed toward a patch of trees untouched by the blaze. Fear lifted the hair on Kel’s neck. All she could hear were screams at her back. “I can’t leave—”

The woman pushed the sharp knife harder into Kel’s throat. Kel swallowed.

With one last glance at Savita, closing in on the wild phoenix overhead, Kel stepped away from the clearing.

Though she felt the heat at her back, the inferno lit nothing ahead. They were heading somewhere darker. Hungrier.

The two Fume members kept pace behind her. The knife’s edge was cold between her shoulder blades.

“Where are we going?” Kel asked.

“Stop talking,” the woman snarled.

The man—barely more than a boy—whispered, “It’s her, isn’t it, Bryna? The tamer from Fieror.”

“ Hush ,” the woman—Bryna—ordered.

They walked in silence, the sound of the clashing phoenixes disappearing in the dark. Kel focused on the shadows ahead, searching for escape routes. Were other cultists helping the wild phoenixes? Hurting other riders? How had they found them so quickly in Vohre Forest’s wilderness?

The path opened up ahead of them, tall figures appearing through the dim space.

Ashes. There was a whole flock of people hiding out here, all wearing the same dark camouflage.

“Get to the clearing,” Bryna called to the others. “Those wretched riders will have scattered. Uncollar as many of their phoenixes as you can.”

Kel felt bile rise in her throat. She prayed that Sav remained airborne, free from the Fume’s grasp. If nothing else, she was relieved that the Fume only seemed to use knives for weapons. She doubted she could have escaped a sancter rifle.

“What are you going to do to me?” Kel asked, her voice ragged.

Bryna didn’t reply. Silently, she led Kel to the center of the small glade.

Kel tripped over a fallen log, stumbling as she adjusted to the darkness.

A small lamp hung on a branch overhead, offering just enough light to see that the rest of the glade was shrouded by thick, thorned branches.

The path they’d come down was her only escape.

The space was circular, speckled with gray and bright green, and Kel noticed new foliage trying to claw through empty earth.

This must be a rebirth site , Kel thought in awe, despite her fear and numb muscles.

She tried to calm her breathing, steady her thoughts.

Bryna had taken her tele-comm. She had no weapons on her and her leathers didn’t hide anything useful.

The log she’d tripped over, the length of her forearm and lying just to her right, could be useful—if she managed to free herself from her bindings.

She flexed her hands. The ropes were almost tight enough to cut into her wrists. Her leather bracelet slid against the rope.

Kel stilled her movements. She risked a glance back; she could only see so far through the shadows, but she didn’t think anyone was behind her.

She couldn’t move her hands enough to reach for the emergency button sewn into the leather—if it even worked out here—but she could grip the bracelet band itself.

The sharp metal pin holding the two bands together could be enough to break through the bindings on her wrists.

“If you’re not going to kill me, what do you want?” Kel asked, trying to distract Bryna.

Bryna gave a toothy smile. In the dim light, her teeth glistened like a wolf’s maw. “You and any other riders we catch are going to face trial for stealing what does not belong to you. You’ll face justice.” Her voice was a low mix of gravel and growl.

“Bryna,” the boy said. “Stop it. She’s not going to help us if you keep scaring her.”

“ Help you?” Kel scoffed. She wriggled her hands, hoping it looked as if she were easing her discomfort. Pain lanced through her fingers as she tried to rotate the bracelet to feel the sharp metal pin. “Why the hell would I help you? You’ve killed people. You’re not activists—you’re monsters.”

Bryna sighed. “Jaron, go help the others. Now. ”

Jaron pouted, turning wordlessly back down the faint path they’d come.

Bryna stepped toward Kel. “We’ve seen your face around Vohre.

We know you’re the one who helped tame the phoenix released so foolishly in a city center.

” Darkness pooled in Bryna’s eyes. “We are not usually so brash. But we will do whatever we must to protect Cendor’s true gods. ”

“Then we have something in common,” Kel said. “I don’t want to see phoenixes hurt any more than you do.”

As subtly as she could, Kel fumbled for the metal pin. It fell into her fingers a few strained seconds later, cold and sharp enough to cut rope. Kel sent up a silent thanks for Rahn’s layers of premeditated protection.

“Then why are you working for a man who would see every one of them in captivity?” Bryna sneered.

“But we don’t have time for that argument.

We caught wind of this foolish race from some allies and managed to sabotage it overnight.

” Bryna laughed. “Just when I thought CAPR couldn’t sink to new lows. ”

Kel’s stomach dropped. On this, they agreed.

Bryna turned away, just a fraction, and Kel managed to pinch the bracelet bands together, stretching the leather until the metal pin popped free.

She felt the emergency button jutting out of the hard fabric and pressed down on it—but her hands were at too awkward an angle to press hard enough.

Instead, she squeezed the metal pin between her right thumb and middle finger, slowly beginning to saw at the thick rope binding her hands at her back.

Bryna shook her head. “We decided to use this race to try a first of our own. The Fume should no longer work in the shadows. If CAPR is growing bolder, then we must, too. After setting up the blockade, we lured a dawn of phoenixes here to cause a distraction. The plan was to free your phoenixes and leave any human survivors to find their own way home. But then we saw you .” Bryna trailed the knife along Kel’s jaw.

Kel stilled her sawing, halfway through the rope.

“And we knew that you deserved a choice. Face trial with the Fume’s council, or teach us what you know. ”

An absurd bubble of laughter rose up Kel’s throat. Her chest heaved, hiding how her shoulders rotated as she sawed the rope. She was so close . “What could I teach you? Why would I teach you? You’d uncollar every phoenix and let them annihilate the entire island.”

Even as she said it, though, she remembered the uncollared phoenixes, so in control of their own power. But triumph quickly replaced her fleeting uncertainty, as the rope fell to the ground behind her.

Kel flexed her freed hands. The bracelet fell too, before she could catch it, and Kel was glad for the knife on her cheek, because Bryna’s gaze was locked on the same spot.

“The media calls you the ‘phoenix whisperer,’ you and that fallen hero of yours,” Bryna snarled.

“You speak to phoenixes in a way that few can. You’ve earned their trust, and you don’t try to remould their savagery.

You can teach us how to speak with them.

We want to protect them—but they don’t always let us. You can change that.”

Another short, manic laugh burst through Kel.

This couldn’t be happening. The Fume, who criticized Cendor and CAPR and the media, had bought the ridiculous rumors that had been spread about Kel.

They believed what the news outlets had told them.

For the first time, Kel was thankful for the ridiculous media coverage.

She had no power. Not over phoenixes or her fate. Cristo was the one pulling her strings now.

“You’re trying to protect them, but only how you see fit,” Kel spat. “Everyone believes that they know best. That they can be the solution. The truth is that phoenixes don’t want you to protect them, and yet here you are, going against your gods’ wishes under the guise of worship.”

Bryna sneered. “For all your knowledge, you’re still such a naive little thing. You don’t think we would leave the phoenixes alone if we could? Phoenixes can’t defend themselves against council technology. This is humanity’s mess. It’s not a phoenix’s job to clean it up.”

Kel bit down on her tongue. She hated that she agreed with anything this woman said. It was their mess. But beneath the weight of CAPR and council tech, what power did any of them have?

“You can’t care that much about phoenix safety if you’re out here waving knives around,” Kel taunted, keeping her freed hands clasped at her back.

She just needed Bryna to turn … to give her a chance to flee into the darkness surrounding the glade.

The distant screaming would lead her back to Savita.

Bryna raised an eyebrow. She reached into a pocket and retrieved Kel’s tele-comm, waggling it in the air. “ You were armed with a weapon, too. Something that directly controls your phoenix. But you weren’t planning to use it, were you?”

Kel opened and closed her mouth. “I’m not going to help people who threaten me.”

Bryna pursed her lips. Slowly, with a steady grip, she lowered the blade.

Emotion tangled in Kel’s stomach. Knots of confusion and something else—something the same color as pity, but sharper—tumbled through her.

But Bryna’s eyes were averted, and she half-turned as she slotted the knife into a holster at her waist. It was the moment Kel needed. Moving as fast as she possibly could, she grabbed the log to her right and swung it toward Bryna’s head.

There was a sickening crunch as wood connected with bone, and Bryna crumpled to the ground with a moan. Kel sprinted toward the path they’d come along.

“Free your phoenix, girl,” Bryna rasped, as Kel fled into the darkness of the forest. “You know she wants it. She deserves it.”

Kel, swallowing the lump in her throat, refused to look back.

“If you ever change your mind,” Bryna cried, “you know where to find us.”