Page 65

FIFTY-TWO

“ W e have to land!” Coup screamed.

Two more sancter shots raced past them. Coup tried to shoot back at Cristo with his rifle—but without a saddle, it was too hard to balance. His shots were wild and nowhere near Cristo or his phoenix.

“If we land, he’ll take Savita,” Kel shouted, gripping Sav’s feathers tighter.

Desperately, Kel tried to spur Savita faster. Cristo must have had a saddled phoenix waiting for him, in case something went wrong.

“He’ll shoot us if we don’t!”

When more electricity raced past, Coup added in a low, pained voice, “She’s growing too hot, Kel—I can’t hold on much longer.”

Nausea flooded Kel.

Cristo would rather shoot Sav—shoot them —than let them escape.

Kel knew Sav could outpace Cristo’s phoenix if she wanted to.

Her rebirth was helping her to soar faster than ever before.

Faster than a god ; she’d almost entirely burned through Cristo’s collar.

Kel doubted it had any controls left in it.

Sav likely had no clue the collar was useless anymore.

But Kel could smell Coup’s burning leathers and could hear the pained groans he tried to swallow.

She felt her heart break as she pressed her fingers against Savita’s neck, guiding her firebird toward the ground. Toward her death.

Kel wasn’t sure where they were. Perhaps somewhere just beyond Vohre’s southern outskirts.

She could see the distant, shadowed outline of the forest connecting Vohre to Fieror.

A few miles east, she could just make out the train tracks that ran between the cities.

But there was no familiarity to their surroundings.

Just brown grass and cracked dirt and the kind of scorched earth that likely meant a phoenix had rebirthed here, decades—perhaps centuries—ago.

Cristo landed just a few yards away. Kel gritted her teeth against the gales beneath his phoenix’s wings as she and Coup climbed off Savita, who tilted her head in confusion. Sav wanted to return to the air, probably to find somewhere safe to rebirth.

Kel placed a shaky hand against Sav’s flaming wings.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. Kel prayed that Savita understood.

In the sky, Kel hadn’t been able to see more than Cristo’s bobbing head. Now, she watched him limp toward them in black riding leathers. His phoenix—a large, mahogany-red creature—stayed still, tamed far beyond what phoenixes ought to be.

Cristo approached, pointing his sancter at Kel as Coup aimed his own rifle at Cristo.

“It’s too late for Estra,” Kel breathed, leaning into Coup for support. “Just let Savita go.”

There was a wild gleam in Cristo’s eye. His gaze darted between Savita’s charred collar and Kel. “I wish I could. But it’s not too late; if I let your phoenix go, I’m sentencing my own daughter to the grave. You can’t make me do that, Kelyn.”

Cristo’s voice shook. Kel caught a glimpse of the man he might have been when he began this crusade. Before he chose to slaughter phoenixes. Before his only thought was of his daughter.

“You can’t even force her back to the track. She’s burned through your controls,” Kel spat.

“You don’t know that Savita can heal Estra,” Coup added. “None of your experiments have been successful.”

“You’re wrong,” Cristo shouted, raising his sancter higher.

“The last phoenix that rebirthed—we managed to contain the magic of their ashes. We’ve kept it alive.

But the longer the phoenix stays dead, the weaker the magic grows.

We didn’t stabilize those ashes in time to have enough magic to heal my Estra.

But with Savita…” he said, as panic winked in his eyes like fading stars, “… I know it will work.”

Cristo’s eyes locked on Coup. “Warren—you won’t be able to shoot me before I take down one of you. Are you willing to risk it?” He gave a slow, maniacal smile. “I am.”

Coup’s arms shook. He shifted in front of Kel, and, slowly, lowered his rifle.

“Toss it,” Cristo sneered.

Coup obeyed, cursing under his breath.

Smiling, Cristo walked forward. He picked up Coup’s rifle and threw it toward his statue-like phoenix.

“I was just like you when I was young. Ambitious. Zealous. And I would have given my life for my phoenix.” He ducked his head, though something about the movement felt staged.

Scripted. “Their magic lures us in, and we hope that if they simply trust us, they might offer us a taste. But in the end, they’re nothing but wild, heartless monsters.

” He glanced at Savita, then Kel. “Savita is not tame, Kelyn. Take her collar off, and she will leave you here to die.”

Kel’s fingers itched at the challenge. She wanted to defy his truth, to prove that his words were nothing more than lies manufactured to suit his needs. Savita was hardly even collared anymore, and she was still here, wasn’t she?

But then she thought of her failed race through Vohre Forest. When she’d fallen from Savita’s back, and she’d been so sure that Sav would catch her.

She’d trusted her phoenix down to the fiery depths of her soul, and Savita had chosen to abandon her.

Would Sav do the same now, if Kel removed the familiar weight of a collar?

The itching in Kel’s fingers crept up her arm. Cristo’s words echoed through her bones.

“You’re wrong,” she breathed.

Kel didn’t believe that Savita could save her.

But Sav’s worth didn’t come from what she could offer humans.

Somewhere, in the buried crevasses of her heart, Kel knew that Savita was a wild beast. She’d known it from the first time she’d seen the phoenix.

Savita deserved to roam freely, unhindered by a collar or Kel’s whims.

Savita owed Kel nothing beyond what she chose to bestow. She was the rightful god of this island, and Kel considered herself lucky that she’d known Sav at all. She’d felt a god’s touch, and as long as her fiery, immortal beast was safe, she didn’t care if AB took her. Her family was safe.

She might not have a phoenix’s power—but she had her own. She had her father’s name, and the ruthless fire that all Cendorians possessed.

Kel lifted her hand. Cristo’s eyes sharpened, tracking her movements. She only had a second to act.

As fast as her leaden muscles would allow, Kel pitched toward Savita. She grappled with what remained of the collar, shrouded by blistering heat. The thinned metal fell away like clumps of charcoal.

“ No! ” she heard Cristo shout, maybe Coup too, as a sancter shot filled the air once more.

Lightning burned through Kel’s shoulder just as she heard the sharp click of Savita’s collar. The metal fell to the ground.

A moment later, Kel did, too.

“Kelyn!” Coup screamed, and then there were hands on her. Coup’s face floated to the center of her vision, surrounded by black spots. She couldn’t feel the wound—but she could feel a strange, hot numbness spreading over her. It made her blood flare hotter.

Beside her, Kel felt Savita’s heat flaring, too. Without the collar, her magic was no longer tempered. Savita’s flames flickered from honey to orange to scarlet. Squinting, Kel watched Savita shine brighter than she’d ever seen. Brighter than the stars above them. Brighter than the sun.

Savita’s light chased away the shadows that tried to pull Kel under. With Coup’s hands pressed against her wound, she tried to turn her head toward her phoenix. Her beautiful, immortal, merciless phoenix.

Two more sancter shots echoed through the sky, but Savita was faster. If Cristo wanted her dead rather than free, he’d lost his chance. Faster than she’d ever seen Savita move, the firebird launched into the sky. She was no longer a bird, but a trail of fire and rage.

More lightning followed Savita’s path, but she’d climbed too high.

Though the injury to Kel’s shoulder might not kill her, she couldn’t find the energy to stand.

She wanted desperately to see the patterns that Savita carved through the sky, to watch the red and orange and yellow smother the black.

But by the time Kel managed to turn toward Savita, toward the great screeching that claimed the sky, she saw only smoke.

Savita was gone.