Page 47

THIRTY-SEVEN

H arsh lights forced Kel awake. It took a few blinks to clear the sleep. For too long, all she could see was smoke and a red sky.

Eventually, Kel placed her surroundings.

The room was long and empty. There was one figure, a thin girl with dark hair, in a hospital bed at the opposite end of the hall—either dead or asleep, Kel couldn’t tell.

A green blanket with floral stitching cocooned her like a body bag, and the square nightstand to her right was crowded with lilies.

The twenty other beds around them were pristine and empty. Kel tried to prop herself up on her elbows. Her arms wobbled and she gritted her teeth. As sweat began pooling down her back, she surrendered back to the bed.

The only light came from the media screen hovering overhead. The sharp colors sent a pang through her temples and she averted her eyes. They snagged on something to her left, an awkward, unmoving shadow at the foot of her bed.

Coup.

Neck kinked to the right, slouched into the folds of an armchair, Coup’s eyes were closed, an open book splayed across his thighs.

She squinted back up at the screen. Some news broadcast flashed to a clip of their last CAPR race. Wild flames tore through the video and Kel was back in Vohre Forest, shrouded by smoke and fire and silver weapons.

She remembered the race that had gone astray. The darkness that drowned her.

Savita had let her fall.

Kel shoved down the memory as her lungs seized. She barely felt herself bolt upright, adrenaline numbing the pain.

“ Ashes! You’re awake!”

The book on Coup’s lap crashed to the ground and, faster than she could follow, he was by her side. His golden eyes lit the room, chasing away the room’s shadows.

“How do you feel? Should I call a nurse?” Coup asked.

Kel tried to suck in lungfuls of the cool night air, but all she managed were thin gasps. “Sav—is she okay? The other riders… are they alive?”

Coup’s brow pinched. He searched her face before the crinkles smoothed. “Four riders died. Three more are in critical care. Two phoenixes vanished. No one knows if they were uncollared or killed. Everyone else got out.”

Kel swallowed. Chills ran down her arms. “How did we—where am I—when did we—what—”

“You’re in Cristo’s hospital wing,” Coup said. He shuffled further onto her bed. Not touching her, but close enough to feel his heat. With the strange chill hollowing her bones, it took everything inside her not to curl into his unexpected warmth.

Slowly, she lowered herself back into the bed. “How did I get here? What happened?”

Coup helped her sink into the pillows. “One of the riders managed to get a message to the CAPR officials on-site. They found you at the forest’s edge, not long after you… fell.” Coup’s jaw tightened. “That was almost a week ago. They brought you straight here.”

Kel forced herself not to sit up again. Alchemists. Everything hurts . “A whole week ?”

The red burns at Coup’s neck had faded to pink scarring. A year could have passed.

“You were waking up when they brought you in, so they induced a coma and took you straight into surgery.” Coup sucked in a shaky breath. “The airbags in your leathers cushioned your fall. But the broken bones and internal bleeding… you were in surgery for so long, Kel.”

His voice was flat, careful, like a tamer approaching a new phoenix. “But you’re stubborn. I knew you’d never leave Savita.”

Even though Sav had left her.

Kel’s chest ached. “Where is she?”

“She’s safe.”

Kel frowned. The words should have been reassuring, but Coup’s tone was all wrong. “Is she in the aviary? Or—did the Fume get her collar off? Did she rebirth? Is she—”

“She’s fine . Breathe.” Coup placed a gentle hand on her left arm.

“What aren’t you telling me?” she demanded.

Coup made a sound—something between a sigh and a chuckle. “Savita is in her usual private suite, probably cleaning her feathers and demanding a second dinner. Dira’s been by her side every spare second.”

“There’s something else, though, isn’t there?”

Coup looked back, into the empty shadows. “Dira would kill me for telling you while you’re still healing. But you’ll kill me if I don’t.”

He leaned to the right, beside her bed. His chestnut curls fell over his forehead. She wanted to brush them away. She wished she could do anything but lie here and wait.

Coup sat back up; in his hand, harshly folded, was a newspaper.

“Page six,” he said, grimacing.

He helped Kel flick open the pages and propped the copy of Nova Press high enough for her to read. Even in the dim light, her eyes snagged on the giant headline branded across both pages. The image of Savita, more flame than phoenix, took up the top half of the feature article.

Day 70 of the Molten Season, Year 1509 of the Alchemy Age

HOWLERS' PHOENIX: THE DEBATE IGNITES

The Howlers CAPR team have taken Vohre by storm. Since arriving in Cendor’s capital just two months ago, they’ve already snatched two gold prizes, almost at the cost of their young rider’s life.

The most recent race at the edge of Vohre Forest—already dubbed a once-in-a-decade tragedy—seems to have revealed more than cultish sabotage, though. An inside source has claimed that, once more, the Howlers’ phoenix is a danger to Vohre’s citizens.

The Howlers’ tamer—Kelyn Varra, the sweetheart of their dashing rider—was riding the volatile phoenix in the most recent race.

Not long into the race, the phoenix, Savita, abandoned Varra to engage in a lethal fight with wild phoenixes.

Varra remains in critical condition at Cristo Private Hospital.

Was this a consequence of the race’s unexpected mishaps?

Or is their phoenix truly out of control?

After beloved rider “Coup” was injured previously, the latter seems more and more likely.

Our source confirms that multiple employees at Cristo Industries are wondering when the Cendorian Council will take matters into their own hands.

Many have speculated on whether tech billionaire Canen Cristo has already spoken with the council, given his close relationship with several councillors. It is suspected that the council will soon assume control of the situation, if they have not done so already.

Rage threatened to explode through Kel. It quickly drowned out the unsettling, knotted emotions she felt when she thought of Sav letting her fall.

She threw the paper to the floor. “When did Nova Press become a gossip magazine? I can’t believe this.”

“It’s disgusting,” Coup muttered. “But nothing is going to happen to Sav.”

“Is there any truth to the article? Have councillors contacted Cristo?”

Coup shrugged apologetically. “If they have, he hasn’t told us. He’s been locked in his office for the last week. No one has seen him.”

“I need to visit Sav,” Kel said, feeling breathless.

She’d heard the horror stories of council interferences. It was rare. CAPR was a deadly sport, and the council all but endorsed its risks. They only interfered when they decided a phoenix was not just a danger to people, but to their spectacle.

They killed the phoenix and destroyed its remains.

Kel tried to push herself up again, but anger had sapped what little strength she had.

Coup sighed. “Dira’s spent every night with Sav since the race. She’s given me updates—with pointless, Kelyn-level detail—every morning. Nothing’s changed. No more scientists.” Coup paused. “We won’t let anything happen to Sav.”

Coup had no way to fight the council—and yet his words washed over Kel in cool, reassuring waves.

She ached to reach out for his hand, to twine their fingers and thank him for being at her bedside when she hadn’t been able to offer him the same.

She didn’t know how to sculpt the crushing relief she’d felt at the sight of him, slumped in that chair with a book on his lap.

“Thank you for being here,” she forced out, the words stilted and brittle.

Coup smiled, a small hitch of his lips, so different from his usual, all-consuming grins. Kel stilled as he reached out and, gently, traced his thumb across the space between her brows.

“It was so strange watching you sleep for the past week,” he murmured. “Seeing you without a frown was unsettling.”

He’d stayed by her side the entire week? The thought flushed her cheeks. She hoped she hadn’t drooled too much.

“Don’t get used to it,” she warned. “I’ll be back to my usual scowling self soon.”

Crescent dimples dug into Coup’s cheeks. “I hope so.”

He leaned his forearms on the side of her bed. Kel tried to swallow her rising pulse. “Careful, rider. It almost sounds like you missed me.”

Coup’s eyes darkened to bronze and a strange laugh escaped him. It was a full-body, disbelieving sound that bathed Kel in the same unusual mix of dread and weightlessness as Savita’s screams.

Kel frowned. “What’s so funny?”

Coup shook his head. His smile turned oddly sheepish. “Can I tell you a secret, tamer?”

Her breath hitched. “Sure.”

Despite the shadows, Kel swore she spotted the faintest blush creeping up his neck.

“I lied to you, weeks ago,” he admitted.

“What? When?”

“When I told you I’d only met your dad once, in the public aviary I worked at. That wasn’t true. Your dad used to come in all the time to check on the phoenixes. I can’t count how many times we talked.”

Confusion buzzed through her. She didn’t know what kind of secret she’d expected—or hoped for—but it hadn’t involved her father. “Why is that a secret?”