Phoenix Heart: Episode 5: Grand Hadri

by Sarah K. L. Wilson

  Judicus was deadly calm. I had begun to realize that he was often calm when he was upset.

  “I’m fond of Mally – despite how she is both a symbol and a very flawed girl at the same time. But I’m much fonder of my sister and my mother.” Gundt ground his teeth loudly enough that I could hear them and Judicus quirked an eyebrow at him. “What? Did you expect me to say, ‘I’ll do anything to save the ai’sletta. Even if it means hurting my own family?’ Is that what you expected?”

  Gundt’s voice was laced with fury. “I thought you were a good man. Self-sacrificing. Loyal.”

  Judicus leaned forward so that his pale face was only inches from Gundt’s. “I. Am.”

  Uh oh. This was not going well. I laid a hand on each one’s shoulder.

  They both looked at me with identical looks of surprise and I raised my eyebrows.

  After a moment, Judicus coughed awkwardly, his face growing scarlet. “And of course, she’s your family, too, Sersha.”

  I nodded, but I tried to convey compassion with my eyes.

  “And when the time comes, it will be you alone who can save her from us,” Gundt told me. “Because you didn’t take the vow. And the vow was laced with a sting.”

  I cocked my head to the side.

  Gundt shook his head. “I don’t know what kind of sting, but I felt the cold bite of magic.”

  “Not rope work,” Judicus said, though he was nodding, too.

  “Then maybe the rumor is true,” Gundt said. “Maybe an oath to a king of Briccatore is truly binding in the ancient sense.”

  “It wasn’t so with my father,” Judicus muttered.

  “Your father was no king.”

  Judicus lunged and I didn’t know what they were talking about, but I had to stop them.

  I wrenched at Judicus as he wrapped his hands around Gundt’s neck and throttled him. Gundt wasn’t fighting back. He just let it happen. When I finally dragged Judicus off of him, he coughed, long and ragged.

  This time I stepped between them shaking my head and signing, enough, enough, enough between them.

  They seemed to understand.

  “He shouldn’t have said that about my father,” Judicus said with a trembling lower lip and while I didn’t understand what the insult was, I nodded gently and looked at Gundt.

  “He’s right. I apologize.”

  “And I shouldn’t have choked him,” Judicus said, deflating.

  “Also correct.”

  Judicus scooped up the waterskins and began to fill them, and I was pretty sure it was to hide his face so we wouldn’t see him blinking angry tears away.

  We both let him do it for a moment and then Gundt spoke again through a raw throat.

  “I swear to you, Judicus, that I will try to find every way possible to save your family while also honoring my vow to protect the ai’sletta. I will spend my own life, if this is what it takes.”

  Judicus turned to him sharply and yes, there were silver tear trails on his cheeks.

  Gundt nodded, chewing his lip and looking shamefaced. “I will not ask you to risk them. I only ask that you help us try to do the impossible – try to help them and the ai’sletta both.”

  “Yes. Okay,” Judicus said, and his shoulders heaved again as he turned back to fill the waterskins and he choked on a sob.

  Gundt turned back to me. “When the time comes and an opportunity arises to keep your kinswoman from the Grand Hadri, take it. And I will do everything I can to stay out of your way.”

  So now, it was up to me.

  Chapter Ten

  The spicy beans were better than I’d expected. The conversation was not.

  The moment the sun set, the Flame Riders insisted we join them around the fire. The excuse was the beans, but what they really wanted to know was why we thought the Stryxex were real and why we thought they were hunting phoenixes.

  Kazmerev was born in the midst of their grilling and to my relief, he relayed our story as simply as possible and then spoke for me as they asked questions.

  “There was no way you could have saved Hallimore?” Dalissa Fenwan had asked, her wrinkled face troubled as she regarded me.

  “And you were sure Arturo was gone?” Refrento pressed, as if I would have failed to see a massive phoenix made of flame and light.

  “You’re sure you saw these Stryxex? Who else saw them?” Duche Olliman asked.

  I realized Duche was a title when the others stopped addressing him by it.

  It is like a Duke or a Canta, Kazmerev explained to me as the others were debating whether to believe us. With three humans and two phoenixes testifying to the facts, it was hard to dismiss them entirely, but no one wanted to believe that legends had arisen and were trying to kill them.

  “We’ll have to stop at all the caches,” Dalissa said eventually. Worry marred her face. “We can’t afford not to check them out. And we must leave word for anyone else.”

  “It won’t be enough.” Refrento was the most emotional of them and when he glared at me like that it made me want to freeze in place. “What about the ones like her who are too new to know their own strength. What about them?”

  Dalissa shook her head. “We can’t do everything Refrento. We can only do as we can.”

  Refrento pointed a meaty finger at Gundt. “You should be making her do heat exercises. She should be meditating. If she’s being hunted, she needs to be prepared.”

  “I’m a Guarding Flame,” Gundt said easily from where he was rolling his blanket. “Not a nursemaid.”

  I looked at him, worried. Were there things I should be doing? Was I slacking, somehow?

  He winked at me and shook his head. Whatever they were, he didn’t think I needed to be doing them. But now I was worried. Gundt had a different approach to most things than I did. What if he wasn’t teaching me the way he should? Should I beg one of these others to teach me?

  Sersha, stop.

  They were right that we were threatened and running out of time.

  Sersha, Gundt is a good teacher. Trust him.

  Gundt looked up and met my eyes and there was a little hurt in them. I felt my face go hot.

  “See? Even the girl knows this goes beyond you, Gundt,” Refrento said. “Hand her over to us and we’ll take on the duty of training her, brother. You can go about your business after we finish the Grand Hadri’s task.”

  “Is that what you want, Sersha?” Gundt asked quietly, but everyone was so quiet that it felt like they were all hanging on my answer.

  I shook my head no.

  “Then best finish eating and packing your things. We leave before the hour is over. I’ll take my charge into the town to find what information I can,” Gundt told the others.

  “No,” Dalissa said. “We’ll all go together. We all need a real bed and a bath and more Flame Riders means more people to scout for information. I have a friend who owns the Figleaf Inn on the quarry side. Let’s spend the night and morning looking for what information we can find and gather there for an afternoon of rest. I’ll pay.”

  And then, without asking anyone if they agreed, she dashed the fire out and grabbed her own things before launching into the air. To my shock, Duche Olliman was only a few strides behind.

  Rude.

  She couldn’t just order us all around like that!

  Sersha, Kazmerev said gently. It would seem that voicelessness has not taught you how to hold your tongue.

  They couldn’t hear me. Only he could.

  Please, make it easier for me. It is hard not to respond.

  I felt my face growing hot – again.

  I should have thought of that, but I was too embarrassed to apologize even when we took our places on his back, Judicus sitting jauntily behind me as if this was a pleasure ride and not vital travel.

  I was too embarrassed for the whole flight to say a word in my mind – which might have been best because it gave me the chance to practice holding my mental tongue.

  But when we arrived at the city, I co
uld hold my thoughts in no longer.

  I had thought the last city we’d seen was huge. It was like Landsfall compared to Rafinnette. This place boggled the mind. Nothing could be so large, could it?

  I could get lost here and wander for days.

  My jaw dropped open as I watched it unfurl ahead of us.

  “There’s the quarry,” Judicus said, pointing just past the wall of the city on the far side. “And the high houses, and the guild chapters, the river and the docks, the barracks stacked up like bricks.”

  Sersha, Kazmerev interrupted, Gundt is trying to get your attention.

  I glanced to the side to see Gundt on Huxabrand. The female phoenix’s eye flashed in the moonlight.

  Yes, I’m telling her, she said irritably.

  Gundt’s eyes met mine and he nodded at me like he was trying to give me courage.

  Gundt knows we can’t go flying into cities while we’re visible, Huxabrand said. And Sersha is very visible up there. So is Judicus. She needs to learn not to be.

  Can Gundt tell her how to be? Kazmerev said. I do not know the ways of riders – or if I did, I have forgotten them. When I was reborn as a new phoenix for Sersha, I lost many of my memories.

  Gundt says that’s normal.

  They were talking over me. It made my cheeks flame even though people had been talking over me all my life.

  It’s not the same, little hawk.

  What’s not the same? Huxabrand wanted to know.

  She feels that we are overlooking her.

  Really? He had to tell her that? I did not trust Huxabrand with my emotions.

  Good, Huxabrand said. Because Gundt is saying she has to learn to be quiet. Quiet with her mind – easy to forget. If she can do that then she can make you all invisible while she’s riding you.

  I’d always been easy to overlook and forget. The trick was to figure out how to be seen not how to be ignored.

  I think she’ll find this difficult, Kazmerev cautioned. Perhaps we shouldn’t rely on it.

  Wait? Why did he have so little confidence in me? He’d just heard me saying how easy it was to overlook me. I gritted my teeth and concentrated on how I was always overlooked and not seen. This would work.

  You are making me shine brighter, little hawk, Kazmerev cautioned.

  I wanted to curse when I opened my eyes and realized he was right.

  It’s not those who feel sorry for themselves who walk without drawing attention to themselves. It’s those who are very confident that they are valued and loved who do not need to grasp at people’s attention.

  Was I blushing before? I was blushing now.

  Perhaps we should try again later, Kazmerev suggested.

  It shouldn’t be so difficult, Huxabrand protested, but when I glanced at Gundt he nodded at me, and then Huxabrand sighed.

  Fine. He says fine, she can try again later, though really, she should be able to do this. Doesn’t she feel safe with you, Kazmerev? You make me feel safe.

  Was that phoenix flirting? I looked back and forth between them.

  Kazmerev made a sound that was like a human clearing their throat and Huxabrand’s mental laughter rang between us.

  I was grateful when Judicus broke in. “If you’re all finished with whatever private conversation you are having, and if we are skirting around the city instead of flying directly toward it as the others did, then can I recommend we try the area near the eastern gate? There is a district there known as the Spice District but what spices are sold behind the careful facades of the merchants there are not all of the permitted varieties, if you catch my meaning. If I was hiding someone I had kidnapped, low on allies, and seeking refuge, that is where I would go.”

  I was surprised when Kazmerev relayed that to Gundt and even more surprised when Huxabrand said, Besides which, Gundt’s family keeps a small suite of rooms over one of the mercantiles in the Spice District. She could be staying there.

  Was it too convenient that we were just thinking of this now, or had Gundt already been thinking that when we set out and just failed to tell the others? Based on how he wouldn’t meet my eyes, I thought it might be the latter.

  “Oh, lovely, you’re flying toward the Spice Gate, nicely done,” Judicus said. “Cassanetta would have had to recruit new guards and where better than among the criminal element?”

  I was only half listening to him. Something had nudged at the edge of my concentration. What was it?

  There it was again. I hadn’t imagined it. But what was I noticing? With so many things to look at, and these new revelations about what Gundt knew and wasn’t saying, it seemed impossible to pick what didn’t belong.

  There it was again. I caught a full glimpse this time and froze on Kazmerev’s back.

  Stryxex.

  They were here in the city of Rafinnette.

  Chapter Eleven

  Now would be a good time to be invisible! Huxabrand suggested as we plummeted to the gate.

  Gate. Gate. Gate, Kazmerev gasped, and I understood why. He didn’t want to think about anything else – like about how the Stryxex were zipping toward us, eyes glinting in the moonlight. I also didn’t want to think about that. Or about how there were five of them. And I’d only ever seen two before.

  “Please tell me those aren’t Stryxex,” Judicus whispered in my ear.

  But, of course, I couldn’t.

  Hide. Hide, Huxabrand was chanting, but I couldn’t hide. I didn’t know how to make us invisible.

  We hit the ground outside the city walls with a fump of dust. I stumbled as my feet were suddenly under me and Kazmerev was gone. Behind me, Judicus grunted letting go of me as we hit the ground and rolled.

  When we stopped rolling and I was able to sit up my heart was in my throat.

  Kazmerev? Kaz?

  No reply.

  Where was he? What had happened to him? Panic clawed at me.

  A dark shadow dropped beside us and I put a hand over my mouth. Beside me, Judicus hissed, leaping in front of me protectively, but the figure turned slightly, revealing his profile picked out in the moonlight. Gundt.

  “They were tracking the phoenixes. I think they can smell them. We should be safe if we can get inside the city. I don’t think they want normal people to see them yet.”

  But we didn’t know that. It was all guessing. And now Kazmerev was just gone!

  “Come on. Let me do the talking at the gates.”

  “I have as much pull as you do, Flame Rider,” Judicus said, his voice low. “And unlike you, I am good at speaking with people and not making them my enemies.”

  “Are you? My half-sister didn’t seem very fond of you. Neither did Captain Rackham.”

  After a moment, Judicus whispered. “Fine. You do the talking.”

  He seemed upset, but I couldn’t focus on that for long. I was worried. I didn’t like Kazmerev being gone, and I didn’t understand where he went. When he was alive, he was with me ... wasn’t he? I mean those other phoenixes disappeared and then reappeared but he hadn’t said anything before he was just gone. That didn’t feel like him. He hadn’t said anything to Gundt or Huxabrand either.

  “Sersha,” Gundt whispered, “Are you okay?”

  I shook my head. What if Kazmerev was hurt or ... what if he was dead? Really dead? Like in the way where I couldn’t bring him back?

  “We’re almost at the gate. We’ll talk on the other side.”

  I chewed my lip and wrapped my arms around myself. I didn’t like this. I was barely listening when Gundt talked us through the gate. The guard didn’t seem to mind his curt responses. I should have been tracking where we were going as we slid into the night of the Spice District. But I was so distracted that within a few turns I was hopelessly lost. I knew that Judicus and Gundt were looming over me, walking so close I could touch either of them very easily if I wanted to. Without a word exchanged, they were guarding me. And I should have been grateful and watchful and helpful. Instead, anxiety ate at me.

  “Sersha,
” Gundt whispered. “Kazmerev vanished to protect you. He’s inside waiting to come out again, okay? He forgot how to do it, but he remembered when he saw the other phoenixes earlier. That happens with phoenixes reborn into new hearts. They forget things. He’ll be back, just you watch. He’s a bright flame. He’d never leave you unless it was to protect you.”

  But it wasn’t okay because I didn’t feel him in there and I didn’t think Gundt knew what he was talking about.

  I barely paid attention as Gundt paid a man a shining coin at a small tavern and spoke in hushed tones about his sister. I still wasn’t focused when Judicus leaned in close, whispering about nothing in my ear and smirking to make anyone who saw us think we were a couple flirting rather than two people on the hunt.

  We slipped out of the tavern again.

  “She was here,” Gundt murmured. “They saw her, but they don’t know which way she went. I can get into the townhouse, but not until tomorrow unless we want to break in?”

  There was a long silence and Gundt said, “Well?”

  We were standing in a huddle beside the tavern. No one could overhear us.

  “We should go now,” Judicus whispered. “We can search her apartment. I can ... I have ways of tracking if I use a little energy. And if we’re going to an inn right afterward, maybe Sersha will lend me just a little more and I can mark the trail to start tomorrow evening. I don’t like the idea of wasting time. Any time. What about it, Sersha?”

  “Lend you energy?” Gundt asked in a low tone. He didn’t sound pleased.

  “It was an accident,” Judicus said, turning to me. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to take it before. I’ll always ask in the future. I didn’t ...”

  “You took something of hers without asking?” Gundt asked, looming over Judicus. “Some of her life?”

  “Not everyone can offer that,” Judicus stammered. “And to do it you have to be wide open. I didn’t know I was –”

  “No excuse!” Gundt roared, raising a fist.

  I dove between them, setting one hand on Gundt’s fist and holding up one hand to Judicus. Had they almost come to blows? This was ridiculous.