Page 46

THIRTY-SIX

K el leaped over fallen logs and slipped over hot moss as shadows hissed at her sides. She hurtled down the path until the ground opened up like a maw, and smoke and orange gales greeted her.

The clearing’s fire had calmed. Or, at least, new flames weren’t adding to the bright storm.

A few wild phoenixes lazily picked at the ground at the edges of the clearing, though Kel couldn’t see a single rider or collared phoenix.

She couldn’t see any other Fume members, either.

Had the others managed to escape? Kel couldn’t bear to think of the alternative.

A symphony of unholy screeches echoed down the abandoned CAPR path in both directions. Phoenixes. But which ones? Distant trees ignited and flurries of orange streaked the air.

She glanced around the clearing once more, heart pounding in her throat—and sucked in a sharp gasp. Relief almost made her knees buckle. The Alchemists had finally thrown her a scrap of luck.

Savita stood at the opposite edge of the clearing, her great head twisted back into the feathers of her wing, no care for the carnage around her. She didn’t even glance up as Kel jogged closer.

Kel slowed a few steps from her phoenix. Savita’s silver collar still gleamed around her throat.

Nausea rose in her. Never, not once , had she thought of Sav as a prisoner. She couldn’t start now.

Fire lit the crimson ground encircling Savita like a bloody halo. Around Savita’s dark claws, a chain of entrails slithered through the grass. Kel’s stomach lurched as she spotted a small mountain of blood, shredded innards and feathers beneath tangled vines.

Kel didn’t give herself time to take in the scene. She reached for her phoenix’s neck. “Ready to get out of here, Sav?”

But just as she was about to pull herself into the saddle, she saw two figures clad in black leathers emerge from the smoke. Fume members. Each carried a small dagger.

Kel lunged to Savita’s side.

She ducked her head, again grateful that neither of them carried sancters. Maybe Bryna had been telling the truth. Maybe they’d hold a fair trial before making any kind of fatal decisions? Or perhaps they were worried about frightening the nearby wild phoenixes, picking at their own grim meals?

But as Kel wrapped a hand around Sav’s saddle pommel, a scalding pain flared in her right hip.

She stumbled to the ground, a guttural scream escaping her throat. Her knees throbbed at the impact, embers beneath them searing into the leathers. She bit down on her lip too hard and tasted copper blood.

With shaking hands, she reached down and clutched the dagger.

Her vision was blurring, burning away at the edges as she pulled the weapon free of her hip.

She screamed out as another glint of silver sliced past her.

At least the cultists seemed to be aiming at her—not Sav.

Kel placed an unsteady hand on her hip. She couldn’t feel much beyond the heat, but blood quickly seeped through her fingers.

Savita lifted her head with a low grumble, as if a fly had bothered her. She looked down at Kel, then at the two approaching figures.

As Kel wobbled to her feet, Sav let out a scream the likes of which Kel had never heard.

Kel was surprised her eardrums hadn’t burst. The cultists stumbled back from the force of Savita’s cry, sharing a wary glance. Even the other wild phoenixes lingering in the clearing skittered back, receding into the skirting trees.

“ Shit ,” Kel mumbled, biting down on the blistering pain burning into her. She tried and failed to lift her left leg into Sav’s saddle, more blood pooling into her leathers as she moved.

Biting down on her lip, Kel staggered forward.

Savita let out another shriek and lifted her wings.

Like a coiled snake, Sav struck her long neck toward the cultists.

The two figures scrambled out of the way.

Sav’s beak came down on the ground where they’d stood, catching a cultist’s dark leathers in her maw.

She pulled back as the fabric tore and thrust her beak into the sky, toward a small patch of blue above the trees.

Perhaps just wide enough for her to fly through.

Sav was ready to leave, whether or not Kel joined her.

Sharp, all-consuming agony speared through Kel’s hip as she lifted a foot into Savita’s stirrup. She shoved her weight onto the saddle and threw her other leg over Savita’s body, an agonized scream tearing from her throat.

Kel pressed a hand to the wound in her side as Savita flapped her wings.

Once, twice…

And then they soared into the sky.

Kel glanced down, through the dense foliage.

She could see the cultists beneath them already retreating from the now-empty clearing.

Kel gritted her teeth as black spots danced across her vision, begging to consume her.

She tightened her grip on the pommel and tensed her thighs.

She hadn’t had time to buckle her legs; if her arms gave out, it would be a quick fall.

She couldn’t give in, not now . Not until Savita was safe.

Savita screeched as the tips of her wings caught in the branches of trees. Three hard, frustrated beats later, she broke through the foliage. Kel ducked low as Sav pushed, pushed , against the last layer of greenery, and then, suddenly, they were above it all.

The sky was a hazy watercolor of blue and gray. A heavy, charcoal cloud rose above the clearing.

Kel bent forward and lay a palm against Savita’s neck. “We need to get back to the CAPR crowd and find help,” she rasped.

Kel coughed as they ascended through the climbing smoke. Savita swerved toward the forest’s edge and loosed another violent scream.

She clung to the saddle pommel as Savita jerked again, and Kel finally saw why.

One of the wild phoenixes—a ruby-colored creature—barreled toward them from the heart of the forest. The phoenix’s charcoal eyes were locked on Savita, two pinpricks as opaque as the forest beneath them.

The muscles in Kel’s arms screamed as she braced herself against the saddle. Sav was flying higher, higher, and Kel’s legs were still unbuckled. Then, the smoke thinned and Kel cleared her lungs with dry coughs.

The ruby phoenix—a blood phoenix—was larger than Savita, her wings almost twice the width.

But Kel knew that Sav was faster, smarter .

As the wild phoenix dove and struck out, Sav refused to retaliate.

Instead, Sav dashed to the right, then the left, barely evading the ruby phoenix’s dagger-sharp bill.

Sav dodged another strike, swerving so hard Kel flung a hand back to keep herself from falling.

The wild phoenix released a deep, throaty cry. It struck forward, fast as a viper, yet Sav easily avoided the sharp peak of its beak.

Kel kept one hand pressed to her searing wound and the other clutching the pommel. Sav’s movements tossed her around like a puppet and jarred her bleeding hip.

The blood phoenix let out a monstrous caw and dove once more. Savita lurched to the left, almost throwing Kel from the saddle.

The wild phoenix’s talons caught a handful of feathers from Sav’s right wing. Kel winced as Sav wailed in pain, but her phoenix still didn’t attack. She hung in the air, anticipating the blood phoenix’s next move.

The wild phoenix was familiar with this terrain, and used to fighting other phoenixes.

But Kel had seen the red light gleaming in Savita’s eyes when chaos had broken out in the clearing.

She’d seen the way Sav had battled the other wild phoenix in the sky, leaving nothing but shredded organs and broken feathers around her.

Slowly, the wild phoenix’s attacks grew slower. Its wings heaved faster to stay aloft. The small spurts of fire that had danced across its back were being blown out like candles in a storm.

Only then did Savita attack.

Sav plunged down like an arrow. Kel screamed as Savita speared the wild phoenix’s midriff, a great, meaty section that bowed around Sav’s beak as she pulled back and struck again.

Again. Again. Again.

Kel struggled to keep a grip on the saddle pommel. Savita’s movements were too erratic. The wild phoenix was barely conscious, and still Savita launched forward.

Sav pivoted to attack from another angle, and Kel’s grip slipped. She flung her hand from her wound to reach for the saddle pommel, but her hand was slick with blood.

Savita tilted to the side, and Kel fell.

Limbs too heavy to flail, Kel dropped through the sky like an anchor. Wind whipped her cheeks and she watched red beads float above her, unable to keep pace. Darkness flared across her vision.

Even as screams and smoke surrounded her, Kel wasn’t afraid.

The fall to the forest was short, but not so short that Sav couldn’t catch her.

She’ll catch me. She’ll catch me.

Kel kept falling.

She’ll catch me.

As the black dots turned to a blanket, Kel felt the first slivers of doubt.