Page 52

FORTY-ONE

K el fought against the cold hands urging her forward. She tried to kick, to fight, but the electricity in her veins had fizzled out. All she had left was fear, ringing through her ears like a distant phoenix scream.

“Let me go!” Kel screamed.

No response. She tried to keep count of their steps and turns, but there were too many. Where were they taking her?

Eventually, she was forced to a jarring halt.

“I won’t keep you here long, Kelyn.”

Cristo. His words were gentle and kind, just like every other lie he’d told her.

“You deserve the truth,” he added.

Then the cold hands were shoving her forward, and the bag over her head was ripped away.

Kel squinted through an unexpected brightness. She’d half-expected her surroundings to be filled with mad scientists, weapons and uniformed soldiers. A skeletal shrine to the Alchemists themselves.

Instead, there was only Cristo, sitting on a tall stool on an empty podium.

The rest of the room—a lecture hall, she realized—was unnervingly quiet.

Overhead lamps were lit, but they weren’t quite strong enough to banish the night.

Cristo’s hands were clasped in his lap. There was a small desk in front of him, jumbled with a tablet, a keyboard, pens and tangled cords.

Behind him, mounted to the wall, was a smart screen the size of a phoenix.

Cristo gave her a pursed smile. Gone were his usual blazer and slicked hair. Instead, the man who sat in his place, with glasses perched low on his nose, was the same disheveled man who had reassured her after Coup’s injuries.

Cristo waved toward the stool beside him. Reluctantly, Kel trudged forward.

“It’s not like you gave me much of a choice,” she mumbled.

He laughed weakly. “I know you probably don’t believe me, but I am sorry about how all of this turned out. I thought I’d have more time.” He lifted his chin. “I have a very busy day ahead, and I imagine that you’re quite cold. I won’t waste either of our time with small talk.”

Kel folded her arms. “Why tell me anything?”

Cristo grimaced. “Though I think it will cause more heartbreak than is necessary, I made a promise to explain Savita’s fate to you. She felt I owed you that.”

Confusion battered at Kel’s anger. Who was he talking about?

Slowly, Cristo stood and moved toward the screen behind her. The wall blared to life, projecting a row of tablet files.

Kel raised a brow. “Did you really bring me to a lecture hall to lecture me?”

Cristo ignored her. A remote in hand, he opened one file, then another, each a seemingly random mixture of numbers and letters. Finally, he clicked on a folder labeled “Council Presentation.”

“I wouldn’t do any of this if I had a choice, Kelyn,” he croaked.

The red veining his eyes seemed even starker than earlier today, like cracked porcelain.

“And I think that will be easier for you to understand if I just show you what I’ve prepared for the council next week.

I have a meeting to discuss further funding. ”

Inside that folder were two more, labeled “Trial One” and “Trial Two.”

He clicked on Trial One and turned back to Kel. “What do you wish to know?”

Kel lurched to her feet, her bandaged torso screaming in protest. “I want you to tell me why you’re killing phoenixes. Why you think that stealing their magic is worth destroying Cendor!”

Cristo simply nodded. The movement was jerky, almost manic.

He clicked on an image that Kel immediately recognized.

It was a classical painting used in temples and textbooks, depicting Landon Ryker and Deja.

The image, bordered by fire, showed one very specific moment from their mythos: Deja’s rebirth, and the resurrection of Ryker.

Cristo ran his hand over the enlarged image, as if to brush his fingers along Deja’s flaming wings. “Deja called forth her own rebirth to save her rider. She shared her ashes with him, and when she was reborn, Landon Ryker was by her side. Healed.”

Cristo raised his arms and gestured around the empty room.

“My research is the closest anyone has ever come to making that myth a reality. No phoenix can biologically call forth their own rebirth, but if I could preserve the magic of their ashes, I could share it with the people who need it. I can cure AB before it destroys everything.”

His voice broke over the last words, and understanding washed over Kel. She thought back to what he’d said when she’d first arrived in Vohre—thanking her for stopping the train for the dead mother and son. Claiming that curing AB was his purpose.

She drank in Cristo’s haggard features and mottled skin. He looked battered and feverish, like a man teetering at a cliff’s edge, a trapped animal desperate for a door.

He didn’t want a phoenix’s magic for their fire, or flight, or even strength. He wanted their regeneration powers.

Her hatred was still there, sharp and consuming. But the pity in her gut fought a little harder for control.

“You… are you sick?”

Cristo startled her with a sharp, barked laugh. It was anything but warm. “I wish it was me.”

Kel frowned. Who would he risk so much for?

Cristo jerked toward the screen, and Kel used the distraction to scour the room. The exits were probably guarded, and with her half-healed injuries, she wouldn’t get far—but maybe she didn’t need to.

Kel glanced down to the small, cluttered desk on the podium. Among the cables lay a black-and-gold fountain pen. It wouldn’t be a useful weapon from a distance—she’d have to get right beside Cristo…

“This might have started in desperation, but I’m so close , Kelyn,” Cristo muttered. “Close enough that I’m willing to rely on some ancient myth.”

Cristo slid a finger across the remote. Another document appeared, full of formulas and chemical symbols. Kel didn’t understand much of it, but she could recognize phoenix temperatures.

Her fingers itched to grab the sharp, expensive-looking pen on the desk. But she needed to keep him talking. She needed him distracted.

“In the story, Deja willingly shared her ashes with Landon Ryker. Deja didn’t die,” she said.

The veins in Cristo’s eyes seemed to darken. “Phoenixes are not the affectionate creatures of legend. You of all people should know this. Your beloved phoenix let you fall to your death in the forest.”

Kel winced. She’d tried not to think about it, about that moment—but Cristo was right.

Kel had always loved Savita’s ruthlessness.

Her power and savagery. And despite everything she’d learned, everything her father had taught her, a part of her had always thought that she was the exception to Savita’s nature.

She thought that Savita would protect her.

She’d been wrong. Her time in the hospital was proof of that.

But that didn’t mean Sav deserved to die. It just meant that Kel had let her hopes pervert reality.

“Savita did what any phoenix would do. She doesn’t deserve to die just because her nature doesn’t suit yours.”

Pain flashed across Cristo’s face. “Maybe you’re right. But either way—one thing is clear from my research. A phoenix needs every single molecule of their ashes for a rebirth. We can’t save our own unless they die.”

Unless Savita dies.

Kel inched forward. Just a mere breath from the pen.

“You can’t get away with killing her,” Kel barked, as Cristo turned to face her. “Everyone in CAPR knows Savita’s name. If she disappears, there will be questions.”

Kel’s stomach dropped as Cristo’s lips twitched. “What makes you think I didn’t plan that?”

Kel tried to calm the shaking in her hands. “You’re lying.”

She hated this. The back-and-forth—the game of cat and mouse. Cristo might claim he was sorry, but no one with regret would make a fucking slideshow of their victory.

Cristo’s smile deepened, the first truly menacing expression she’d ever seen cross his face.

“Despite what you probably think, I didn’t recruit you for this purpose.

At least, not at first. When I initially asked my recruiters to keep an eye on the Howlers, I had no idea Savita was nearing a rebirth.

But I have very intuitive people working for me, Kelyn.

One of my best scouts—he used to be a tamer, you see—was convinced that Savita was nearing a rebirth.

We have technology monitoring every race across Cendor, tracking every phoenix using Cristo tech in their collars.

Even before you arrived in Vohre, Savita’s vitals were fluctuating in ways I’d been carefully searching for.

So when I heard that you’d refused my offer, I…

nudged you in my direction. Your farm was already so deep in disrepair.

It just needed a little spark to catch alight. ”

Ice trickled down Kel’s spine. “You… you destroyed my home.”

She’d thought that everything had been her fault. But Cristo had burned down her aviary. Cristo had been pulling her strings toward him all along. Was that why he’d helped her start the farm’s rebuild? Out of guilt?

The regret twisting Cristo’s features confirmed Kel’s suspicions.

“I had the emergency team on-site paid off to report it as an accident. I never wanted you hurt. I was simply running out of time.” He ran a hand through his hair.

“Once you’d accepted my offer, I began fanning the flames of the Howlers’ publicity.

Savita needed to seem wild, untamed, so the council would step in.

Then I would have a councillor deem Savita dangerous and unfit, and they’d allow me the courtesy of killing Savita myself.

It would be a tragedy, but a legal one.”

Kel’s nails dug into her palms. She refused to process his words, refused to let him distract her. She just needed him to turn away—just once…

“You couldn’t have known what would happen in Vohre Forest that day,” Kel snarled. “You can’t take credit for this.”

Again, Cristo merely smiled. “I funded the latest race through Vohre Forest to see how Savita would respond to different environmental stimuli. I wanted to see if reintroducing Savita to her ancestral home might speed up her rebirth.”

Kel’s eyes bulged. “You can’t have known the Fume would show up.”

Cristo shook his head. “No, that was a tragic error. But I needed to conduct more research on Savita, and the only time she’s comfortable enough to allow her vitals to shift is when she’s racing.

Your first race in Vohre went too well and didn’t give me the results I hoped for, so I…

engineered two more anarchic environments with competing species to test her reactions.

The sprites gave us some headway, but it still wasn’t enough. ”

“Coup almost dying on the track wasn’t enough for you?” she snapped. Disbelief sharpened her words.

“Coup is a wild card, and largely did my work for me.”

“But why would you risk Savita rebirthing outside of your compound? Somewhere you couldn’t control?” The questions sputtered out of Kel like a dying engine.

He wasn’t making sense. But then again, Kel recognized the desperation on his face, that of someone willing to go to the ends of the earth for a loved one. He was lost to fear.

Cristo frowned, as if the thought had never crossed his mind.

“I have people tracking Savita’s vitals every hour, every second.

There was no chance of her rebirthing away from my compound.

I simply hoped it would speed up the process.

And since I own the majority of Vohre’s news outlets, I’ve always controlled the narrative. ”

Dread shivered down Kel’s spine. She’d never thought of how Cristo’s power would seep beyond his compounds. How could the world let one man have so much control?

Cristo’s eyes shined. Kel couldn’t see the person who had given her a new carving kit, who had promised her safety.

Kel wanted to spit at him—to scream, to cry.

But she refused to waste her anger—or the opening. When Cristo turned back toward the screen, Kel made her move.

She lurched for the pen and jumped toward Cristo. Shoving her elbow into his back, Cristo cried out, stumbling forward. With the weight she’d thrown at him, Kel lost her balance and toppled down on top of him.

They fell to the ground in a heap. Pain speared her hip, but she managed to climb onto Cristo as he began to crawl away. Pen in hand, she let him rise onto his knees. She maneuvered behind him and though he was strong, the second he felt the cool, sharp metal against his throat, he froze.

Kel half-expected a dozen armed soldiers to burst into the room. But nothing changed, nothing shifted, other than the pen as Kel tried to keep her hand steady.

“We’re going to walk out of here,” Kel spat. “And you’re going to take me to Savita.”

Kel jammed the pen deep enough into his throat that red beads flashed against the metal. “Do you understand?”