by Melissa Grey
The figures approached, closing in on her.
“What do you want?” It felt like her brain was on a time delay. She thought the words in one language and spoke them, a fraction of a second later, in another.
One of the hooded figures spoke, and Echo’s mind raced to translate its speech. “You know what we want, Samira.”
From the folds of the figure’s robe, a hand emerged holding a long knife, the blade curved and wicked. “There is power in you,” he said, never breaking stride as he approached. “A great and terrible power. You are both the key and the curse.”
She turned to run, but there was nowhere to go. All around her, hooded figures closed in, long cloaks gliding across the grass with an audible hiss.
“No,” she begged. “Please.”
The man holding the knife was so close to her now, she could see the gleam of his eyes beneath the hood. The light caught the scales on the backs of his hands and scattered across his knuckles. The circle closed in around her. She took another step back, only to collide with the person behind her. Both of her arms were seized. She struggled, but no matter how hard she pulled, bare feet slipping on the grass, she couldn’t break free.
“Why are you doing this?”
“The light has chosen you,” said the man with the knife. Over his shoulder, she saw the shadows among the trees writhe as if they were alive. As if they were listening, eager to witness the macabre tableau unfolding within the circle of stones. “But so has the dark. We cannot let the kuçedra go free.”
He raised the blade, holding it level with her throat, its steel shining in the moonlight.
Fear, both hers and Samira’s, made Echo’s heart pound wildly. It felt as though it would burst right out of her chest. “What are you talking about?” Echo asked. “What’s a kuçedra?”
“There is no light without darkness,” said the robed man. His voice had a distant quality, as if he wasn’t quite talking to her so much as about her. The figures in the circle repeated the words after him, like some kind of prayer. “No life without death. No gain without loss. No savior without a destroyer.” His hood angled toward her, as if he was studying her from its dark depths. “One cannot exist in this world without the other. The kuçedra,” he added, pity slinking into his tone, “is your other half. Your mirror image. And we cannot let it free. You are a danger because of who you are. Of what you are.”
Before she could react, the man drew the knife across her throat. A warm rush of blood flowed down her neck. Her knees buckled, and she sank to the ground. They lowered her gently, reverently. Her life bled out of her, hot and sticky. Blinking up at the stars, she tried to speak, but all that came out was a wet gurgle. It took a few seconds for the pain to register. It followed in the knife’s wake, sharp and hot.
The light has chosen you. They thought—no, they knew—that she was the firebird. But the firebird was not what frightened them.
The hooded figure leaned over her, bringing up the knife to lick at the crimson slick of her blood along the blade. He passed the knife around the circle, and each member of the group cradled it as if her blood was something precious, something sacred. The man who killed her knelt beside her, cupping her cheek with cool fingers.
“Your sacrifice will be remembered,” he said, lips stained cherry red with her blood.
Echo felt her heartbeat slowing, each agonized pump pushing forth less blood than the one before it. She should have passed out by now, but something in her fought for every scrap of consciousness she could hoard before it was stolen from her. She blinked up at the sky, taking in the stars that floated above, arranged in constellations of light that told stories to anyone willing to connect the dots. For a brief, disjointed moment, Echo was glad that Samira had at least had this—one final view of something beautiful—before her life was snuffed out.
Súton, Echo remembered suddenly. Croatian. “The inexorable approach of the end.”
And then Samira’s heart pounded its last beat, and together, they died.
CHAPTER SEVEN
With a gasp, Echo opened her eyes, fingers scrabbling at her throat. The memory of her blood—Samira’s blood—spilling from the wound was so real that she could almost taste the coppery tang of it on her tongue. She pressed her hand into the skin of her neck, remembering the way she’d felt it split beneath the blade. The memory of pain remained even if the wound hadn’t.
The Ala’s hand hovered near Echo’s shoulder, as though afraid to touch her. “Echo? Can you hear me?”
Chest heaving, Echo gulped down great lungfuls of air, relishing its staleness, so unlike the fresh scent of grass and woods in the memory. “I died,” she said, voice breaking on each word. “I just had my throat cut. Well, I mean, not my throat, but…”
Echo’s fingers lingered on her neck, feeling the rapid flutter of her pulse, reminding herself that she was whole and unharmed. But it had felt so real. Her gaze darted to the Ala. “You were right. We fucked up. I fucked up.”
The Ala leaned forward, eyes ablaze with a mix of concern and curiosity. “What did you see?”
Before Echo could answer, Caius poked his head around the curtain. “Everything all right?” he asked, as if he knew everything was most assuredly not all right.
“No,” Echo said. “Yes. I mean—I don’t know.”
He nodded slowly. “Anything I can help with?”
Echo shook her head rapidly. “No. I just…” She turned back to the Ala. “I saw a girl.” She looked down at her hands, at the smooth, lightly tanned skin, devoid of scales, stretching across her knuckles. “I was a girl. She was Drakharin. Her name was Samira. And she was scared.”
Caius came to sit next to her on the mattress, close but not touching. She wanted to throw herself at him, to feel his arms wrap around her and forget the death she’d just witnessed. The death she’d felt. His expression softened, and he offered her his hand. She took it, focusing on the feel of his skin against hers. This was real. Not the memory. He gave her hand a gentle squeeze and asked, “What happened?”
“They killed me. Her. They killed her.” Again, the scent of blood filled her nostrils, sharp and metallic. Echo closed her eyes, but that only made it worse. She opened them, taking in her surroundings, grounding herself. She was with the Ala and Caius, in an abandoned warehouse in East London, sitting on a wildly uncomfortable mattress. She was here. Not there.
“They who?” asked the Ala.
“I don’t know,” Echo said. “A bunch of Drakharin in hooded robes. I woke up in a circle of stones, and they came and killed me. They said that the light had chosen me but so had the dark.” She touched her neck with her free hand. “And they mentioned something. Uh, a kushed…kuskera…I don’t remember exactly, I was a little distracted by the awful, violent death.”
Both Caius and the Ala went still as stone. “Kuçedra?” asked Caius.
Echo nodded. “Yeah. Why? What is it?”
He shook his head, one hand rising to rub at his temple. “Is there anything else you can think of that might be relevant? It’s no accident that this was the memory the firebird chose to share with you. Before we jump to any conclusions, I want to make sure we know all the details.”
“There was a forest,” Echo said. “Trees. Stones. Grass.” She scratched her head, fingers catching in the tangles of her hair, half expecting to feel brittle twigs in it. And then she remembered. “Oh. I’m guessing it was about four thousand years ago.”
“How would you have known that?” The tone of Caius’s inquiry was the tiniest bit insulting.
“The stars. Do you remember what you told me about the North Star shifting over time?” He nodded. “Well, when I was looking at the sky through Samira’s eyes, it wasn’t Polaris. It was Thuban, in Draco.”
“I didn’t think you were paying such close attention.”
The Ala cleared her throat, louder than was absolutely necessary. Echo swiveled her head around to look at her, heat rising in her cheeks.
“The mention of the kuçedra concerns me, especially when linked to the firebird,” said the Ala. She leaned back to rest on her heels and ran a hand over the raven-black feathers on her arm.
“Caius, what is it?” Echo asked again. Focusing on the facts made it easier to forget the sensation of steel ripping through skin. She looked back and forth between them. “You both seem a little on edge, and since we know at least one of the firebird’s previous vessels died because of it, I think I’d like to know.”
Caius’s hand gravitated toward Echo’s knee. When she made no move to stop him, he let it rest there. “After Rose died, my search for the firebird was elevated from curiosity to obsession. I wanted so desperately to end the war that had taken her life. My hunt was a sort of penance. I came across a great deal of information, most of it useless folklore and superstition, but there were some primary sources—most of them incredibly old—that mentioned a dark force meant to counter the light. It’s like the Ala said: every action in this world has a reaction. Just as the firebird rose, so did this kuçedra. And if it happened at the same moment, then that might explain the otherwise inexplicable volcanic eruption that occurred on the opposite side of the world from where you were standing.” Caius sighed. “You were right. It wasn’t a coincidence. As to what we’re meant to do about it”—he flung his hands up in a frustrated gesture—“I’m at a loss.”
Echo looked at the Ala. “Any ideas?”
“I would like to consult my books,” the Ala replied. She stood, straightening her skirts. “I’ll telephone if I come across any pertinent information.”
“And we’ll do what we can on this end,” Caius offered. “Though I’m not sure how much help we’ll be.”
The Ala accepted Caius’s offer with grace, but she, too, seemed uncertain of what they would actually be able to accomplish from their hiding spot. After several hugs and promises of more food, the Ala departed. Her power electrified the air as she summoned the in-between, and Echo was left staring at the place where the Ala had been standing, the fading tendrils of the in-between the only sign she’d ever been there.
Echo flopped back on the mattress, throwing an arm across her forehead. There was a nascent migraine tingling at the space between her brows. The combination of past-life remembrance and contemplating the destruction of a dark force she was at least partially responsible for unleashing was almost too much to bear. “What now?” she asked.
“Well,” Caius began, “to start, we need to get Jasper back on his feet.” He smirked. “We can’t have our best thief out of commission.”
A stray lock of hair fell in front of Echo’s face. She blew it upward with a strong puff of breath. “I resent that remark.”
A soft smile ghosted across Caius’s lips. “While you were asleep, the rest of us got to talking. Jasper said he knows a guy who might be willing and able to help.” Hearing the former Dragon Prince spouting colloquialisms like knows a guy would never not be endearing. He was picking up their slang.
Echo snorted. “Of course he knows a guy. Who is this guy?”
“A warlock.” The corners of Caius’s lips turned down in a slight frown. “And one Jasper thinks might not be inclined to betray us. At least not immediately.”
“So, do we just like…call him?” Echo hoped the answer was yes. Caius’s attempts to navigate modern technology was her new favorite pastime. It had taken three days of suspicious staring before she’d convinced him to use the microwave. And they’d all agreed never to mention the time he’d put aluminum foil in it. Phones were a newfangled breed of sorcery he was just beginning to master.
“Apparently, this warlock responds only to requests made in person. And Jasper warned me that he could be exceedingly unpleasant.”
“A warlock? Unpleasant? Surely you jest.” Echo sat up, running a hand over her hair. It was still a mess from the night before, strands of it falling loose while the back felt like birds had nested in it. Under normal circumstances, she would have felt self-conscious, but sharing living quarters with four other people had corroded the integrity of her personal boundaries to the point where they hardly existed. “Leave it to Jasper’s criminal acquaintances to be difficult.”
“Present company excluded, I take it?” Caius chided.
She knocked her knee against his. “Of course. So when do we head out?”
“We aren’t heading anywhere.” Caius stood, holding out a hand to help Echo up. She did not take it. “I’m going alone. You’re too valuable. Jasper’s injured. Ivy needs to stick around to take care of Jasper. And Dorian is going to babysit you all, to make sure nothing exciting happens and no one sneaks out.”
And by no one, he meant Echo.
“Absolutely not,” she said. “Nobody goes anywhere alone. That’s what you said the first day we holed up in this dive, remember?”
“You’re staying here,” Caius said, “and I will entertain absolutely no argument on the matter.” There he went with his princely voice and his royal edicts. Echo was loath to admit it, but his points were maybe, slightly, potentially, infuriatingly valid. “And as you are so fond of reminding me,” he added with a fleeting smile and a deep breath, “some rules are simply meant to be broken.”
CHAPTER EIGHT
The streets of Seoul pressed in on Caius from all sides, the balmy July air suffocating. Neon-lit glass and metal canyons stretched in all directions, thrusting into the night sky with their garishly bright signage. His breath came in quick, uneven pants. Sweat beaded on his skin, and he worried that his scales were in danger of showing through the concealer Echo had smeared on his cheekbones. He balled his hands into fists, short nails digging into the flesh of his palms, and closed his eyes, shutting out the assault on his senses. It was easier to adjust if he didn’t have to look at everything all at once. Echo had continued to protest his departure, right up until the moment he’d conjured a way through to the in-between in one of the warehouse’s wide archways, in a large room on the ground floor that he assumed must have once been used for packing and shipping goods. She hadn’t wanted him to go alone. Right now, he almost wished that he’d listened to her.
Dealing with modernity was easier with Echo by his side. It gave him the option of focusing on her instead of on the visual chaos of the world around him. At home, in his library at Wyvern’s Keep, he had books from every era of human history, but there was nothing in a book that could encapsulate the reality of experiencing it all. He’d never considered himself claustrophobic before, but there was something about the crush of people around him, filling the nighttime streets of Seoul with energy and noise, that made his chest feel as though it were being compressed.
He reached into his pocket to touch the iron ball bearings he’d brought with him. Iron was the only thing that could neutralize a warlock’s magic. The ball bearings were small enough to go unnoticed. Though they wouldn’t deflect a spell entirely, they would lessen the effects of one.
Someone bumped into Caius from behind, uttering something in rapid Korean that sounded vaguely exasperated. Mumbling a quick apology, Caius set off down the street, scanning the array of signs for one bearing the same equal-armed cross that had helped them find the warlock in London. So far, Caius had passed well over a dozen small storefronts, each lined with blinking lights. Some sold inexpensive plastic trinkets geared toward tourists; others had placards out front that boasted a myriad of different foods, some local, some imported. A medley of scents wafted through open doors and windows. Caius was tempted by a stall selling soft rice cakes submerged in a sauce that promised to be as hot as it was red—dukbokki, the vendor called it—but he had a job to do and a warlock to find.
He nearly walked past the sign. If it hadn’t been for the slight shimmer of air around an otherwise nondescript entrance, he would have missed the cross carved into the door’s warped wood, overwhelmed as it was by the surrounding lights.
“Don’t bother knocking,” Jasper had told him. “Only newbs knock.”
Ne
wbs. The evolution of language was a strange and marvelous thing.
Caius pushed the door open. As soon as he crossed the threshold, he felt a faint buzz of energy, like he was walking through a wall of static electricity. He paused, one hand still on the rusted doorknob. It must have been the warlock’s equivalent of a doorbell, announcing his presence. When no one rushed from the shadows, he let himself relax. A small, dying fern sat in a clay pot in a corner, while dust motes danced in the rectangle of light let in by the open door. Two metal folding chairs rested against a wall, right next to a brass accordion gate. A single lightbulb dangled from a chain in the center of the room, its faint glow barely enough to illuminate the space. Caius closed the door behind him. The sounds of the city outside immediately died, letting fall a silence too complete to be natural. An effect of a cloaking spell perhaps. Away from the city’s chaos, Caius breathed a little easier, the pressure in his chest dissipating with each exhalation.
It took his eyes a moment to adjust to the semidarkness. After a few seconds, a loud rattle erupted from the elevator shaft behind the accordion gate. Inch by inch, an old-fashioned elevator slid into view, ascending from below. It was empty, save for a single dried rose in a vase in a small alcove in the far wall. Caius pulled back the gate and stepped inside, inwardly cringing when his weight made the elevator dip just enough to be terrifying. He had a complicated relationship with elevators. As with most modern contraptions, they hated him, and he hated them right back. Upon reflection, perhaps it wasn’t that complicated a relationship after all.
He turned, looking for a panel of buttons. There was none.
Caius let out an exasperated sigh. Damn warlocks.
He turned to the small vase tucked into the alcove at the back of the elevator. It was cut crystal, decorated with a ring of human figures, delicate and detailed, writhing in either pleasure or agony, limbs intertwined, mouths agape with silent screams. The rose’s sanguine petals were as soft as satin beneath Caius’s fingertips. He followed the curve of the bloom down to the stem, trailing a light touch over the rose’s leaves and thorns.