Shadow of Flame

by Caitlyn McFarland

  “Ow!” The polyurethane of the hold had melted around her fingers. Two lines of chalk-dusted dirty yellow oozed down the wall.

  Juli sighed.

  Kai’s chest ached, her nose throbbed, and her hands tingled with latent heat, but it was the fear of losing control that made her pause. She’d set a pile of mail on fire when Juli nagged her about the dishes yesterday. She couldn’t afford to burn something here.

  Kai wiped the melted bits of the hold on her already-ruined pants and stuffed her treacherous hands into her armpits. “Okay, you’re right. I’m a child. Let’s go home.”

  “Ashem! We’re going!” Juli snapped. She gave Kai a rueful smile. “This will pass, okay? You’re going to feel better soon.”

  Kai nodded, but she didn’t believe it.

  Ashem came back down the wall, though Kai only knew because she heard his feet hit the ground. He dropped his magic mind barrier just in time for some long-legged girl to walk by, give Juli the stink-eye and whisper loudly to her friend, “I’ll take him. You should ask if he’s got a brother.”

  Kai rubbed her thumb along the callused tips of her fingers and barked a humorless laugh. “Yeah, Kavar is super attractive—I mean, they’re twins, right? But it’s kind of a turnoff when he tries to eat you. Or, you know, assaults your mind like you’re a freshman in a miniskirt and he’s a drunk dudebro at a frat party.”

  Ashem scowled, his eyes glazing like they did when he talked to Juli mind-to-mind. Juli laughed quietly at the same time Ashem snorted—they did that a lot, simultaneously reacting to something Kai couldn’t participate in.

  “Drunk dudebro.” Ashem tried out the words, his amused, dark velvet voice carrying hints of both Persia and Wales. Likely his eyes had glazed because he was asking Juli exactly what Kai meant. Sometimes Ashem wasn’t great with slang—it changed too fast for the dragons to keep up with reliably. “Accurate. Especially when he was younger.”

  Juli touched his cheek as if she’d known Kavar a thousand years ago, before Ashem and his brother had ended up on opposite sides of a war. As if she could feel the depth of Ashem’s loss.

  Kai watched them. It hadn’t been quite two months since they’d heartsworn, but Juli and Ashem had become almost as synchronized as Ffion and Griffith.

  Sadness ambushed Kai at the memory. As synchronized as Ffion and Griffith had been, anyway, before Griffith had died.

  It wasn’t like any of the heartsworn people Kai had known had lost themselves—their personalities remained as independent as ever. But they were profoundly aware of each other. Physically, mentally, emotionally.

  Kai picked up her harness and clicked the carabiner. She couldn’t imagine having that kind of connection with Rhys.

  “You could,” Ashem murmured.

  Kai snapped out of her reverie and glared at Ashem. “I told you to stay out of my head.”

  Ashem was not intimidated. “I’m twenty-seven hundred years old. I don’t need to read your mind. I can read your face.”

  Juli raised an eyebrow. “He’s right, though, Kai. Being heartsworn is like—” She colored slightly.

  Ashem’s stern mouth turned up at one corner. “Like what, hamsar-am?

  Juli glared at him. “Go away.”

  Ashem’s voice, as always, was brusque. “Talk and walk. If we’re going, let’s be gone.” He glanced around, scanning the twenty or so other people in the gym. Then again, more slowly. The too-casual expression on his face made the skin on the back of Kai’s neck prickle. “Something is off.”

  Ashem picked up their discarded equipment and headed toward the front desk, presumably to return it. Or maybe just terrify the guy working the register.

  Kai shook off an uneasy feeling. Ashem felt like “something was off” at least twice a day. It was losing its dramatic effect. “So, you were going to tell me what it’s like?”

  Juli had started gathering the few things they’d left by the wall—their boots, Juli’s massively oversized purse—but her eyes lingered on Ashem’s broad back. “It’s like he belongs. It’s not an intrusion. I’m as much in his mind as he’s in mine. When we argue, when I tell him to get out, I’m just putting tape down the middle of a room. I don’t really want him gone.”

  Kai laughed. “Like freshman year?”

  Juli’s mouth pinched. “You were a slob. You still are. At least Ashem makes the bed.”

  “Oh, come on. He leaves his socks everywhere.”

  Her face turned from prim to pained. “I know.”

  Kai laughed and peeled off her climbing shoes. After pulling on her socks and boots, she stashed her climbing shoes, harness and chalk in her gym bag. “I’m going to stuff this in my locker. I’ll be right back.”

  Juli, who was flicking through something on her phone, nodded absently. Kai glanced over at Ashem, still returning rented equipment at the front desk. Technically Kai wasn’t supposed to leave his sight outside of their apartment, but the locker room was just around the corner. She shouldered her bag and crossed the springy gray floor.

  “Are you off the clock?”

  Startled, Kai jumped and spun, her hands involuntarily heating. It was Gina. Kai blew out the breath she’d been holding and tried to dampen the sarcastic snap of her voice. She was about 50 percent successful. “Yeah. That’s why I wasn’t working.”

  Gina was tall, Mediterranean and favored pink workout pants and tight black tops. “Oh, right.” She giggled and tossed her hair.

  Kai grimaced. “Do you need something?”

  They turned down a cement hall lined with contest posters, awards and pictures of people climbing Skull Cave and The Arsenal. Gina followed Kai into the locker room, watching as Kai crouched in front of her locker and spun the dial on her lock in awkward silence.

  Annoyed, Kai asked, “Is your shift over? Ollie set some killer routes—”

  “Cute shirt!”

  Kai started. Gina was right next to her. She reached over and touched Kai’s left sleeve. Kai made a face. It was just an old, long-sleeved T-shirt. “Uh...thanks?”

  Creeper.

  In a quick, smooth move, Gina hooked a finger beneath the hem and yanked it up, revealing the opalescent indicium where it swirled over the left side of Kai’s stomach.

  “What the—?” Kai overbalanced and stumbled, hitting the wall of lockers with a bang.

  “You are heartsworn to the false king.” Gina smiled. “Owain would like to speak with you.”

  She lunged.

  On instinct, Kai spun away, ducking under Gina’s arm to roll across the floor. It took her brain a minute to catch up to her body’s new Wingless speed.

  She was under attack, and there was no one here to save her except herself.

  Owain’s name rang in her ears, out of place in the mundane world. Owain, the white dragon, who had killed Rhys’s father and started a war. Since killing Rhys was the only way Owain could repair the mantle—the power to control every dragon on the planet—and since killing Kai would cripple Rhys, Kai assumed “speak with you” was code for “kill you slowly.”

  She should be afraid, but she wasn’t. This was almost a relief. As if part of her had been waiting for the other shoe to drop for over seven weeks, and now it had.

  Kai held up a hand, backing toward the door. If she bolted, she could reach the main area of the gym and Ashem.

  Ashem!

  He’d been there when she needed him at the coffee shop, but since then she’d been more and more adamant that he stay out of her head.

  That had been a bad idea.

  Inside her, the firestorm sparked and raged until her entire body vibrated with power. “Listen, you don’t want to mess with me, okay? And I don’t want to hurt you.”

  Gina made a derisive sound. “That reporter was right. You have a highly inflated opinion
of yourself, don’t you, Kai?”

  Rage.

  Kai charged Gina, grabbing a fistful of sleeve and yanking down. It tore, revealing a scrolling pattern of pale blue scales.

  Yup. Squealy Gina was a dragon.

  Pale blue scrolls...pale blue... Ashem had taught her a little about the clans. Pale blue scrolls meant Derkin, from the Mediterranean.

  Gina pulled back with a hiss, and the smell of singed hair stung Kai’s nostrils. Gina’s skin had turned an angry red where Kai had touched her, blisters rising. She spat something at Kai in Greek.

  Kai crouched, her weight on the balls of her feet, her arms outstretched. She wiggled her fingers, hoping that they would ignite, but nothing happened. Inside her, the fire grew uncomfortably hot. Like it had when Rhys had turned her into a human flamethrower to beat Owain.

  Gina backed away, straightening to her full height. With a frown of concentration, she placed the tips of her fingers on her forehead. When she pulled them away, they glowed. She flicked, and four quarter-sized balls of pale blue light flew at Kai.

  Kai tried to roll, but slipped. The soles of her shoes had melted into a puddle around her feet. One of the blue balls hit her on the shoulder.

  Blankness. She didn’t know who she was. Where she was. What she was doing. And why was she so hot? Sweat dripped from her nose now. It pooled in her lower back and made her body slippery against the shiny finish on the concrete floor, which scorched beneath her hands. Her clothes were smoking.

  Wham.

  A foot came out of nowhere and connected with the side of Kai’s face. Her head snapped to one side. Pain exploded in her cheek. Bright sparks danced across her vision. She tasted blood.

  Then her brain came back online. The locker room, the fight, Gina, the annoying new girl/secret dragon assassin.

  Gina aimed another kick at her face and Kai flattened herself to the ground, spitting blood. She’d never been kicked in the face before. It hurt, and the pain only made her angrier. She grabbed Gina’s ankle as it whistled past her ear.

  The firestorm inside her had built into a tornado, booming in her ears like derailed freight train. The first trickles of true fear shivered down Kai’s spine. If the fire didn’t find a way out soon, she was going to burn.

  Gina screamed. The sound and smell of sizzling meat filled the locker room. Fury turned to horror. Kai let go and lurched to her feet. Gina, who had tottered back, leapt toward Kai again.

  Kai couldn’t move. The inferno inside her was unbearable now. It had nowhere to go, nowhere to go, nowhere to—

  Fire erupted from her body. Gina screamed, a crackling, bloodcurdling sound. The fire alarm sounded, and Kai was drenched in a shower of freezing water. Still, the fire raged. There came another awful, crackling howl.

  Kai fell to her knees, but the fire didn’t stop. It had found a way out, and Kai could do nothing but hold on until it died and pray it didn’t take her with it.

  A full thirty seconds later, the flames flowing from her body weakened, the once-storm collapsing into a pile of dim embers inside her.

  One breath, then another. Things in the lockers were burning and the wooden benches were on fire, but the room was mostly concrete and the sprinklers were doing their job. Kai forced herself to her feet. Her clothes crumbled to ash and the ends of her hair were singed.

  “Gina!” she shouted, wading through flame, smoke and steam. “Gina!”

  Across the room, curled against the blistered orange lockers, lay the charred remains of a woman.

  “Oh, my...” Kai spun and stumbled into the hall. She heaved, losing her breakfast all over the hard floor, then heaved again. Shouts bounced down the concrete walls to her from the main area of the gym. The fire alarm blared. Emergency lights flashed. She coughed, choking on smoke.

  She’s dead. I killed her. She’s dead. I’m a murderer.

  A deep voice barked an eloquent string of swear words. “Blood of the Ancients. What happened?”

  Kai wiped her mouth on the back of her hand and reached for Ashem, shivering so badly her teeth chattered. It felt like someone had filled Kai’s bones with ice. She hadn’t been cold in so long that the feeling was almost more terrifying than Gina’s attack. Ashem lifted her, his dark jaw set. Legs shaking, Kai leaned on him and clutched the hot metal of the sun-pendant necklace until the edges bit into her flesh. “I k-k-killed someone.”

  “Sunder me.” Ashem yanked off his shirt and shoved it over Kai’s head, the short sleeves of his undershirt revealing the indicium that twisted around his muscular arm, black scales against bronze skin. “Who did you kill?”

  “Kai!” Juli, pale as a ghost, appeared behind Ashem. She stripped off her coat and bundled it around Kai’s body. “Your face! You’re covered in blood!”

  Fingers pulled back her eyelids, and Kai looked dully at Juli. Everything felt muffled, like there was a fog between Kai and the rest of the world. Her knees gave out, and Ashem had to pick her up and cradle her like a baby.

  In a disconnected way, Kai wanted to tell him he probably shouldn’t have. She was pretty sure she was going to throw up.

  In her head, Gina screamed, and Kai bit her tongue until it bled to keep herself from doing the same.

  Juli looked up at Ashem with wide eyes. “The fire department will be here soon. Police. They’ll question her.”

  Ashem shifted Kai in his arms. “Not if we get out now. No human could have stood in the middle of that and survived. If someone tells them she was back here when the fire started, they won’t believe it.” He indicated the emergency exit at the end of the hall. “Bring the car around. We’ll take her home. Wash her. Trim the burned parts of her hair.”

  They shoved through the exit door and into the frigid November day. Juli sprinted for the front of the building. The gym had been moderately busy, but not enough for anyone to park in the back.

  “I killed someone,” Kai whispered. Her voice was steady this time, but the rest of the world seemed to be stuttering. Fire alarm, flashing lights and cold, clear air alternated with a deep and terrible blackness.

  Ashem didn’t say anything comforting, but he didn’t say anything caustic, either. That was as good as being cuddled and crooned at, for Ashem.

  “Who was she?” he asked.

  Kai tried to answer, but the world flickered. When it came back into focus, time had jumped. Ashem was putting her into the backseat of Juli’s car.

  Kai tried to grab Ashem’s arm, but her fingers slid off, unable to grip. Cold. Weak. “It was the new girl, Gina. She was a dragon. She saw my indicium.”

  “No. I would have sensed—Wait.” Ashem sprinted back into the building.

  Juli reached back and gave Kai’s knee a quick squeeze. “You beat her, Kai. You’re alive, and you’ll be fine. I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have let you go alone.”

  Kai didn’t have the energy to respond, but she made herself. She’d always pick Juli to back her up in an argument, but she’d rather Gina kick her in the face a hundred times than let her friend anywhere near actual physical violence. “S’not your fault. I knew better.”

  Juli offered Kai a tense smile. She looked nearly as sick as Kai felt, but as usual, she was holding herself together. She craned her neck, looking toward the emergency door. “Mutual culpability, then.”

  Ashem emerged, something black swinging from a thin chain in his hand. He climbed into the front passenger seat.

  “Go,” he commanded.

  Juli pulled away from the curb and around to the front of the parking lot, stopping every few feet to avoid the pedestrians. They pulled onto the main road just as the first fire trucks appeared, sirens wailing.

  Kai’s teeth chattered. “She said Owain sent her. How did he know where to find me?”

  “It was probably that sundering article.” Ashem scowled at th
e bracelet. “We aren’t dinosaurs, we have computers. If Owain saw it, he would have recognized you.”

  Panic constricted Kai’s chest. “My parents.”

  “There’s a barrier over your parents’ home. None of Owain’s people can find it.” Ashem sounded absolutely confident. “Even if the assassin had a partner, your parents are safe.”

  “Kavar—” Kai began.

  “Rhys has captured Kavar.”

  Even in her shocked, weakened condition, Ashem’s words were like a brick to the face. “He captured Kavar? How?”

  “By using these.” Ashem held up the chain with its black pendant, which was shaped like a dragon with outstretched wings. “Onyx. It hides the wearer from Azhdahā like there’s nothing there.”

  Kai thought about Ashem retrieving the bracelet from Gina’s charbroiled corpse and nearly threw up again.

  Juli frowned. “There were too many people to realize she was a blank space.”

  Kai huddled in the backseat, staring toward the gym. Though she could no longer see the building, a black pillar of smoke smoke rose into the sky.

  She watched it rise through the winter air, her fingers twined in the chain of Rhys’s necklace until their tips turned purple.Rhys’s voice whispered, Go back to your life as long as you can.

  Good idea in theory. But the life Kai had known ended the moment she’d discovered dragons.

  Chapter Seven

  Cognitive Dissonance

  Kai’s family demanded their presence at dinner. Her brothers were still in town after Thanksgiving, which meant family dinners every night. Kai’s parents tended to ask too many questions when Kai, Juli and Ashem tried to skip out.

  Ashem and Juli made quick work of things at the two-bedroom apartment the three of them shared. Everyone showered and changed. Ashem had taken their burned clothes to a restaurant garbage bin a mile away while Juli trimmed the ends of Kai’s hair. Kai pulled the inky mass into her usual messy bun and they’d all piled back into Juli’s car to make the ten-minute drive to her parents’ place.