Heir to the Sky

by Amanda Sun

  The Phoenix opens her beak and lets out a deafening screech. I clasp my hands over my ears, unsure which way to run. The forest is burning, and large branches snap off with ancient groans, blocking the way back to the citadel. We could run into the eastern forest, but we won’t make the edge before she reaches us.

  “Come on!” Griffin shouts, and he wades into the water toward the flaming monster. The water feels thick as honey around my calves as I force myself to run faster toward the center. Just as the Phoenix swoops over us, we plunge under the cover of the lake’s surface. It’s barely deep enough, and as she passes, the water splatters like scalding tea across my back. I cry out, my shout nothing but bubbles in the warm water. I splash upright and Griffin’s already there, another arrow flying toward the Phoenix. There are only a handful of them left in his quiver, and I’m not sure what else to do.

  “Can we drown her somehow?” I ask. “Put out the flames?” Then the rains finally break loose from the slate clouds and pound the lake’s surface around us. They rise like steam off the Phoenix’s back, and her feathers tinge with blue, the color of an even hotter flame. She’s compensating for the rain, I think, so it won’t put out her fire.

  “Maybe her wings are like the Benu’s,” Griffin says. “Maybe they won’t burn us.” He has a dagger in his hand now, his eye on the monster as she curves gracefully through the sky.

  “They’re not,” I shout back, my own dagger held upright for whatever good it will do. “They boiled the lake and singed my back. They’re hot.”

  “But that part,” he says, pointing at the Phoenix’s back. There’s that long line of ridges down her spine, chinked together like scalloped plates of armor. They end near a tuft of yellow feathers on the top of her head, and they’re the only part of her that doesn’t seem to be on fire. They look like they’re made of shining bronze, and I doubt we could stick a dagger in. Even if we could, it would be like a pinprick to a beast like that.

  “I’m going to jump on,” Griffin says.

  I can’t have heard him right. “What?”

  “Next time she swoops by,” he says. “We’re no use down here on the ground. Use a monster’s abilities against it, right?”

  “But you’ll get burned!”

  “We’ll see,” he says, and the mass of light is coming toward us again as the rain pounds and steams off her back.

  I brace myself. He’s right—there’s nowhere to go but up.

  She opens her beak and screeches, diving toward us with her claws and wings outstretched. Every nerve in my body pulses with a panicked scream to run, but I fight it and brace myself.

  I’m the heir of the Phoenix. I will break her.

  Griffin and I wait until she’s so close that she can’t alter her course. Then we spread apart just enough to avoid her oncoming claws. We both reach for the tufts of fiery yellow plumes that cover the skin where her wings meet her body. I grab tight with both hands. The weight of her knocks me off my feet, but I hang on with all my might as I lift with her into the sky. The skin on my fingers is burning and peeling, the Phoenix tilting her black oily eye to stare at me. Griffin is on the other wing and has already pulled himself up onto the ridge just behind her head. He braces his legs and reaches for me, but his hand is too far away. My brain shrieks at me as my fingers blister and scald under the feathers, like I’m grasping a blazing hot pan handle. I can’t hold on—I let go and fall through the air, tumbling down toward the lake below. I plunge down in a flurry of foam, bubbles fizzing in my ears as I swim toward the surface. The lake water is still warm, but it soothes my burned hand as the skin peels away before my eyes. I come gasping to the surface, my dagger still in my other hand. High above the Phoenix is soaring with Griffin on its back. He’s like an insect on her spine, but he’s hanging on to the ridges tightly as he crouches behind the tall back of one of the plates. They’re not scalding, then, or he would’ve jumped down by now. I hear a cry from the Phoenix. Has he stabbed her? I can’t see anything over the thick curtain of rain.

  The current of the water is strong and pulling, but at least I’m not weighted down by the dress I wore in the marshlands. I kick toward the shore, the rain pelting down around me. But I’m not getting closer to the shore. In fact, the edge of the lake is getting farther away.

  I clamp down on the dagger with my teeth so both hands are free, and I swim with all my might toward the edge. I don’t understand. I’ve crossed this lake hundreds of times before. Am I too exhausted from fighting the Phoenix? My heart is thrashing against my ribs and my blood pulses like it’s on fire, but it only makes me feel more alive, more desperate.

  Then I hear the rush of water, and I realize the problem. I’ve dropped into the lake too close to the waterfall. When she arose, the tidal wave must have broken away the crust of earth and turned it into a roaring flood of water. The current is pulling me to the edge of the continent. I’m going to go over, to fall back down to the earth.

  I thrash my legs through the water, my arms crashing through the surf. But the shore keeps shrinking away from me. Mouthfuls of water splash in with every heaving breath, and I cough and sputter, lungs burning. I know now about the barrier surrounding Ashra. I know if I fall I will likely survive. But if I fall without Griffin, if I break a leg or an arm or pass out, I will be easy pickings for any monsters prowling below. If I fall now, unless Griffin can take out the Phoenix, Ashra will burn and the people will die. Ashra will burn to ashes, its namesake, like the Phoenix burned before it.

  The current batters my shoulder against a sharp rock and I cry out, spinning helplessly through the water. I feel blood oozing down my back, sticky and cold as it spills into the frothing waves. Thick brambles of entangled vines stretch out over the rocks, and I grab at them with blistered fingers. Their thorns stick into my skin, but they hold as the current grasps at my tired legs. I’m safe for a moment, and I hold on with every fiber in my being.

  And then the thought strikes me. The words of the annals that Elder Aban reads from every year at the Rending Ceremony. The Phoenix burned herself up in her effort to rend Ashra from the earth and throw it into the sky. Water will not douse her flames, but if she overexerts herself as she did then, wouldn’t she turn to ash and soot? Already her flames are heating up, her plumage no longer the first brilliant yellow we saw but flaming in reds and oranges, her back tinting blue where the rain is hitting her.

  We can’t douse her flame, but we can burn her out.

  I have to tell Griffin. I have to let him know how we can defeat her. He knew all the weaknesses of the monsters on the earth, but I’m the one who knows the Phoenix’s weakness. This time I’m the one who knows what to do.

  My muscles burn as I grip the vines stretched over the rocks. I’m not sure I have the strength to pull myself out of the water, or whether the vines will hold my weight. I kick against the current and pull myself up to see over the boulder. Flames lick the far ends of the vines—the whole shore is on fire. The rain beats down on the smoldering foliage, producing a thick layer of smoke that spreads over the rocks like gray mist. Climbing up isn’t an option. I hang on to the vines as the water pelts my skin, not sure what to do next or where to go.

  “Kali!” Griffin’s voice shouts over the storm in a faraway cry. “Kali!”

  I see the Phoenix high above, Griffin crouched on its back. She’s in the eastern sky above the lake, and Griffin is holding tightly to the bronze plate with one hand and waving with the other. “Wait!” I think he shouts, but I can’t be sure.

  Wait? It’s not like I can do anything else.

  But I see him reach into his dagger belt and take out a blade. He sticks it deep between the ridged plates and the Phoenix lets out a screech, turning her head to snap at him with her golden beak. The feathers at the tips of her wings flare blue as she lowers in the sky. Griffin drives in another dagger with his foot, and the Phoenix turns her
head to the other side, shrieking at him. They dip below the edge of the continent and out of sight.

  A moment later I see her wings flapping, and they surface just to the northeastern edge of the waterfall. And I know what Griffin’s doing.

  If I can let go at the right time, he’s going to try to catch me.

  If I miss, I’ll plummet back down to the earth, my future uncertain.

  It’s a huge risk. But my fingers ache and sting tangled in the briars. I can’t hold on much longer, and I can’t climb up to the burning shoreline. There’s nothing to do but go over the edge of the waterfall.

  I watch the Phoenix approaching. She tries to fly away from the edge of the continent, but Griffin uses the daggers he’s driven into the ridge to steer her down and around. I can’t believe he can command a monster that big. He must have struck nerves in her spine or something—either way, she looks irritated and unhappy, completely distracted.

  I look at the misty edge of the falls, bordered by outcrops of sharp rock. I have to time it carefully. There’s only one chance.

  They’re close now. Griffin shouts at me before they duck out of sight, but I can barely hear him over the roar of the storm and the waterfall. Did he say five? Or dive? Or maybe something else? Five seconds sounds about right to time the fall.

  There’s no time to think. My grip won’t hold out for them to make another loop around me. I squeeze my eyes shut and count down the last three seconds. Then I open my eyes and let go.

  The vines thread through my open fingers as the current pulls me to the edge. I hold my dagger in front as a feeble attempt to ward off sharp rocks. The spray from the waterfall is so thick I can barely see, the water roaring in my ears.

  And then I’m swept over the side and I’m falling, the earth dark and far below the storm clouds. But there’s a gleaming light down there, too. The Phoenix with Griffin on its back, and he’s looking up.

  My mouth fills with frothy water, the spray all around me. But the light is hurtling toward me, and I have to get this right or it’s all over.

  I land against something hard and uncomfortably warm. It’s a bronze ridge near the Phoenix’s tail. I grab with all my might as the waterfall tries to sweep me off. My dagger clanks against the side of the armored plate and tumbles toward the earth. Another flap of the monster’s wings and the waterfall is gone, but the rain is still pounding away, and my hands are throbbing and aching. I scramble to get my legs up the side, but the heat of its feathers scalds my soles through the thin palm branch sandals.

  Then two strong arms grab mine, and Griffin’s face is above me. He’s shouting something, but I’m so tired and panicked that I can’t make it out. He heaves me up onto the bronze ridge as the Phoenix flaps up and down, the motion jerking us both around like a kite in a storm. Far below I see a flash of brilliant light—my dagger hitting the barrier and setting off a pulse.

  Griffin’s strong grip holds me steady as I pull one leg over the ridge. I’m on my stomach, both hands on the plate like the front of a saddle from those long-ago horses. Griffin slumps back, and we can both finally breathe.

  The Phoenix screeches and flies lower, the edge of the continent dangerously near. The bottom of the island, tangled in roots and dirt, comes into view. “She’s going to try and scrape us off,” I shout.

  “Come on,” Griffin says, and with his help I rise. We walk carefully along the bony bronze, hunched low so we can grab the ridges as we climb toward her head. The feathers on her wingtips are a pale blue now, almost lavender, and the color is spreading toward her body.

  “Griffin,” I say as we climb. “I know how to use her weakness against her. Water won’t work, but exhaustion will.”

  He turns, his hand grasping the next armored plate. “Come again?”

  “When the Phoenix has used up all her strength,” I pant, lifting my leg carefully over the next tall ridge, “she’ll burn up to ashes and soot.”

  “Then we better be over the continent when it happens,” Griffin says. “Or we’ll go down with her.”

  The earth is laid out like a painting below us, speeding away at a dizzying pace. We wouldn’t pass through the barrier if we fell from here. There’d be nothing to slow us in the air.

  The Phoenix hovers directly below Ashra as she flaps her wings. The bottom peak of the continent touches the bronze ridges by her tail in a flurry of sparks. A whole chunk of rock shears off and tumbles toward the shadowlands below. The Phoenix readies herself to ram against Ashra a second time, but we’re up near her head now. We brace for the impact, holding on with blistered fingers.

  The collision tosses us to the side, but we don’t fall. The Phoenix stumbles in midair and flaps her great wings, the blue flame spreading along the sides of her body.

  “Come on, girl,” Griffin says, patting the monster on the ridge. “You can fight harder than that!”

  She screeches and bumps against the continent again. It wavers in the sky like an upset top. I stare with wide eyes. Is she really capable of capsizing the continent? “Griffin,” I shout, “we have to get her back up!”

  “On it,” he says, driving the daggers into a gap between the ridges with his feet. The Phoenix squawks and dives toward the earth and up again, circling around Ashra. The plumes that tuft around the top ridge ignite blue, and then we have a problem.

  Griffin’s dagger blades turn yellow-white and melt, the metal oozing into a silvery puddle against her plumes. The hilts tumble off the sides of her neck and down to the earth below. Griffin takes a fresh dagger and gently prods the tip into her skin and lifts it up. The end of the blade is warped and melted, gleaming with heat.

  He looks at me and I stare back at him. Our steering mechanism is gone. We’ve lost control.

  TWENTY-SIX

  “HANG ON,” GRIFFIN shouts, and we duck as the Phoenix approaches Ashra’s rim. From here we can see the forest burning, the crowds shouting and staring and pointing from the village of Ulan. The shining blue crystal of the citadel gleams with reflected firelight as we pass over it. Elisha and my father are down there somewhere in the chaos.

  The Phoenix flies over the outlands and past the outcrop of rock that stretches from the side of Ashra—my realm of one, the fireweed drowned out by the raging rains. The thunder and lightning have moved on, but the rains pelt down. The winds are blowing the clouds toward Burumu, and soon we won’t have the storm to dampen the Phoenix’s strength.

  We need to bring her down now.

  Griffin grabs the last of his arrows and shoves it firmly into the gap in the ridges. The Phoenix screeches and the arrow lights with instant flame, the arrowhead melting into her skin.

  That’s it. We’re out of weapons.

  “Is that all you can do, you roasting chicken?” Griffin shouts. “Come on! I thought you were a beast of legends. You’re just someone’s dinner caught on fire!”

  He’s grinning. Has he lost his mind? I doubt the monster understands what he’s saying. But she squawks, and blue explodes down the trailing kite feathers of her tail. She might not understand the words, but she understands the tone.

  Griffin jumps from side to side on the ridges. “You going to let your prey take you for a ride, are you? Let’s hope the dragons and hazus aren’t watching. For shame!”

  “Stop jumping around!” I shout. “You’re going to fall.”

  “We have to bring this bird down with us,” he says, his eyes gleaming. And the Phoenix’s whole tail and wings are rippling with blinding blue as her beak snaps at Griffin. It’s working. I run down the ridges of her back and stomp on them, shouting at the monster with all my might.

  “You liar!” I shout, and I’m surprised at the strength of my voice. “We believed in you as the protector. And you’re nothing but another stupid sky beast!”

  The Phoenix snaps at Griffin and he flips out of
the way, steadying himself two ridges behind. The feathers around me are undulating like a lava flow as we jump and shout at the bird.

  “I trusted you!” Tears blur in my eyes. I can’t tell if they’re from the smoldering heat or the frustration and heartbreak, but the world is distorted and hazy, the thick raindrops clinging to my hair and skin. “I was ready to let my life burn for you. But now I’ll burn for myself.” I stomp around a bit more, and the Phoenix is circling, distracted, over the gleaming blue crystal of the citadel.

  And then there is a roll of repeated thunder, only it’s not thunder at all. The airship is rising from the landing pitch into the sky, its metal pipes clanking into place and aimed at the Phoenix.

  They fire.

  The ammunition smashes into the Phoenix with the weight of iron cannonballs. They melt on impact, falling to the ground half-shaped, but the impact is enough to send the Phoenix spiraling through the sky. Griffin and I hold tight to the ridges as we spin upside down over and over. I can’t tell which way is up and which is down, and somewhere in the light and dark and rain and sky there is another volley of fire, and the world ignites in pure, gleaming blue.

  The Phoenix lets out a horrible screech that rings in my ears and through my head. She beats her wings furiously as we lurch through the sky. Griffin has been thrown back to the ridge beside me. The beast’s plumage is pulsating with blue light, and her flames crackle with electricity. It’s like the storm dragon’s crystals lighting up. And I know what happened the moment after that.

  I grab Griffin’s hand and we look at each other, the only constant as the world around us spins and burns. We have to let go and hope there’s land underneath. “Time to go,” I say. And he trusts me. We drop from the monster’s back.

  The world is wind and pelting rain as we fall. But after a few seconds we land on my outcrop, the fireweed trampled underneath us as we roll across the grass. Griffin tumbles past me and over the edge, but our hands are tightly locked and I pull him back up. We lie there gasping while we hear a third volley of ammunition from the airship, whose puttering form is slowly chasing the lurching Phoenix. The beast lets out one last horrible shriek and crashes hard into the side of the continent.