Page 4 of Phoenix Fated (The Phoenix Guardians #4)

"Don't tell me my big strong alpha is afraid of ghosts?" Tyler teases. "Here's the thing about ghosts I learned when I was a kid. If you don't believe in them, then they don't exist."

"They exist," I say.

"Dammit."

We continue our descent, only pausing to pick through and examine the ruins of what must have been the flyerwrights' workshops.

Then we reach the bottom, and the town curves around the edge of the gorge into where the cliff has split in two.

Almost nothing remains here, just scattered and half-buried debris.

The bow of a flyer juts up from the sand.

It doesn't matter if it's in working order or not; there's no way we will be able to dig it out.

The caves lie just ahead, gaping mouths nestled below natural overhangs in the cliff face.

The shape of the wall blocks our view of the ocean and has dampened the sound of its roar to a purr.

The wind is what speaks in this place, and its voice rises from a whistle to a howl as it flows through the chasm.

I hold my hand up to shield my eyes from the glare of the sun and the stinging sand.

Inside one of the larger openings, I can make out the shadowy shapes of what look like intact flyer frames.

"There," I say, trying to contain my excitement.

"I see it," Kalistratos replies.

"Let's go, let's go," Tyler says, and we break into a jog.

The wind calms as we approach the cave's entrance, deflected by the shape of the overhang. We're greeted with an eerie silence, and an odd odor.

Tyler's forehead crinkles. "Why does it smell like someone fried their laptop?"

"Their what?" Kalistratos asks.

"It could be the smell of the flyer cores," I say.

"The heart of a flyer," Kalistratos tells Tyler. "They give them life through a very unfortunate source of power."

"Something tells me it's not gasoline powered," Tyler replies.

"Phoenix feathers," I say darkly. "Harvested from enslaved Phoenikos."

Tyler's shoulders slump. "Jesus Christ..."

"It's tough being popular," says Kalistratos, smiling dryly. "Seems like everyone wants a piece of you."

As my eyes adjust to the light, I see that the flyer frames at the cave's entrance are bashed up against the rocks, like a pile of discarded oyster shells.

"At least we won't have any trouble finding fuel," I say. "Kalistratos, we can pluck your tail feathers first."

"Pluck your own tail feathers, you damn phony monk."

Using a Gnosis spell, I command my illuminated staff to float freely by my side and climb up the pile of flyers to get a look inside. Kalistratos comes after me.

"Tyler, wait here," he says.

"Fuck that. I can help."

He moves Eggy to his back and finds his way up the mess of broken timber. A proud grin forms on Kalistratos's face.

"What are you smiling at?" Tyler demands.

"You've come so far. I remember when you struggled to climb a tree!"

I reach the top, and as I move from hull to hull, I direct my staff into the dark wreckage.

Its green light spills through the gaps, throwing a cartwheel of shadows onto the cave wall.

I'm searching for something useable. Then I see it, deep within the wreckage—a flyer core.

It's been dislodged from whichever ship it once powered, and lies cradled by broken timber like a discarded amphora.

It's made of a dark metal and looks like a small kiln or furnace.

"The mouth is on the other side," I say. "We must turn it."

"Ready?" Tyler says as we gather around it. "One, two, three..."

Moving it is quite a task. The three of us are straining, and Kalistratos nearly loses his footing on a precariously angled hull plank. The wood is soft and brittle, and it starts to creak and groan along with us.

"Son of a bitch weighs a ton," grunts Tyler.

"Almost there," I say. "Almost?—"

With a loud snap, a plank gives out and the core tumbles away like a loosed boulder. Kalistratos grabs Tyler and pulls him out of the way as it smashes through the side of the hull and flies to the ground below with a loud gong . We all exchange a glance.

"Shit," Tyler says, staring at the hole in the wall with wide eyes and gripping Kalistratos's bicep. "That wasn't me."

Then the structure begins to make some very concerning sounds.

"Take him and go ," I say urgently to Kalistratos.

I know his powers are weakened right now—he doesn't have enough phoenix energy to halt time for all three of us.

Kalistratos's eyes flash with acknowledgement, and in the span of a heartbeat, I feel the surge of his power washing over me like a crushing wave.

He and Tyler vanish from in front of me, reappearing on the ground outside the wreckage in a blur of motion.

I grab my staff and launch myself from board to board, the structure groaning and splintering beneath my feet.

For one terrible moment I look up—everything above me is coming down in a thunderous avalanche of wood and metal.

Below, Kalistratos hangs onto Tyler's shoulder, sweat streaming down his face as both of them scream at me, their voices lost in the deafening roar of destruction.

A massive beam plummets toward my head. I throw myself sideways, feeling it crash into the platform where I'd been standing a split second before.

The impact sends me sprawling across boards that crack and buckle under me.

I scramble forward as the flooring disintegrates, and something—a broken mast, a chunk of hull—slams into my shoulder, spinning me around and launching me toward empty air.

Instinct takes over. I swing my staff in a desperate arc, driving the tip deep into solid wood, and use the momentum to vault myself upward through a gap in the collapsing maze.

As I fall backward, three pole shards fly down at me like giant arrows with splintered tips set to rip a hole through my torso. Gnosis energy blasts from the end of my staff, bouncing off them like green chain lighting and shattering them into a shower of splinters.

I tuck hard, somersaulting backward as splinters whistle past my face.

The ground rushes up to meet me and I hit it in a hard crouch.

The avalanche roars down above me. I reach deep for my phoenix power, and thrust my hands toward the earth.

Rock responds to my call, surging upward in a protective half-dome that breaks the avalanche of debris like a wave on a ship's bow.

The thick haze of dust slowly dissipates as the last few pieces of wood bounce across the ground and roll to Tyler and Kalistratos's feet. Tyler's slow applause echoes around the now silent cavern.

"You just had to do that flip, didn't you? Fucking show-off," Kalistratos says through a grin.

"Pleased you liked it," I say, bowing.

We gather around the flyer core lodged in the sand. Kalistratos and I set it upright, revealing a mouth that belongs to a decorative face worked into the metal—complete with an outstretched tongue and two bulbous eyes inset with crystals for pupils.

"How does this thing work?" Tyler asks with a frown as he crouches down to look inside the mouth.

I hold up my arm and red, green, and gold feathers appear from my elbow to my hand in a wash of sparkling light. I pluck a small tuft of feather and place it into Tyler's hand.

"Any more than this and it might shoot up into the ceiling," I say. "Kalistratos, rope?"

He gets a length of rope out from his satchel, and we tie it around the middle of the core.

"If it functions, then all we'll need to find is a flyer platform with a proper harness to focus its power," I say. "Go on. Place it inside."

Tyler places the feather on the metal tongue and recoils back when it's instantly sucked inside.

A moment later, a low hum emerges from within the core, followed by a glow matching the colors of my feather.

The eyes take on this color and begin to shine brightly, and then the core shudders and rises off the sand, stopping just at my shoulder where it bobs gently in the air.

"Who wants to hold the floating head?" I ask, holding up the line.

"Ooh, me," Tyler says, taking the rope from me. "I'm gonna call him Tim."

"Tim?" Kalistratos repeats.

"Kinda looks like an old manager of mine. Tim. Same buggy eyes."

"You're adorable," Kalistratos says.

As I lead us deeper into the cave, I point out the huge sections of tree trunks littered across the ground. "They would've used these to move downed flyers around. A good sign we'll find something further in."

A gentle tug on the rope sends the core gliding forward, and it follows just behind Tyler like an obedient dog.

"That smell is getting stronger," Kalistratos observes as we near the tunnels at the rear of the main chamber. He scowls and covers his face. "Cheesus."

A warm breeze flows out from the pitch-black tunnels ahead of us, carrying the acrid, sickly-sweet smell on its back. It's coming from deep within the caves—and getting stronger still, despite us halting our advance.

Tyler pulls the front of his chiton up over his nose. "Uh, is it just me, or do you guys hear that too?" he asks nervously.

A steady, droning buzz rises over the hum of the floating core. The wind tugs at our robes and kicks up a whirl of sand.

"Sounds like a beehive," Kalistratos says.

Tyler grabs and pulls on our arms. "This is giving me a really bad feeling. I think we need to turn around, right now."

I hurl a ball of light down the tunnel, its glow briefly illuminating the rough rock walls.

For a heartbeat, there's nothing. Then the light dims, overtaken by something writhing and vast—a churning mass of translucent wings, gleaming coal-black shells clicking and scraping, razor-sharp mandibles snapping hungrily in the darkness, all building to an ear-splitting roar that reverberates all around us.

"You're right, run ," I say, just as the swarm explodes from the tunnel mouth like a geyser of nightmares.