Ashes and Flame

by Aiden Bates

  But he believed in me. That helped. More than I honestly thought it would.

  Outside the tent, I could have sworn I heard something scuffle over the ground. I held my breath, waited, tried to stand outside my sudden anxiety. Maybe just an animal. It was so quiet. I should have heard anything living as it breathed and padded around me.

  “Have you thought about it?” a voice asked. Soft, barely more than a whisper. Easily the wind, except it had too much structure, and I knew those were words I had heard.

  Words from outside the tent.

  Cautiously, I answered. “Thought about… what?”

  “What I asked you before,” it said.

  My heart crept into my throat and beat heavy and loud, so that I had to rasp around it. “Who… who are you?”

  “I asked a question,” it reminded me.

  I swallowed my heart down, or tried to, and clutched at the bag in my lap. “I’ve been too busy to think.”

  “You’re not busy now,” it pointed out.

  “Fair,” I muttered. “Are you the book?”

  “No.”

  Okay. Not that I trusted the book not to lie to me, but… it was, fundamentally, a book. I wasn’t sure that it was capable of being anything except exactly what it was, even if it was some mythical manual. “I don’t know where gods come from,” I said. “I just figure they always were. That’s what the stories all say.”

  “No,” the voice said, “they do not. Religions sometimes say this. But the old stories never do. Wherefrom did Zeus arise?”

  I searched my memory from grade school. “He was… ah, Cronus and Rhea’s son. The youngest; the one that slew his father.”

  “And Odin Alfather?”

  I flushed with embarrassment, which was ridiculous given that I was almost certain I was talking to myself. “I don’t… something about a bull? No—Bor and Bestla. Or—”

  “So the story goes,” the voice mused.

  “I don’t understand where this is going,” I breathed. “Or if I’m even sane. Who are you? The djinn?”

  “The fight you think you’re fighting,” the voice said softly, almost by my ear, “is not the fight being fought. Read the book, Daniel. Read to the end. No matter what happens.”

  I jerked away from the sound, and looked around for the source of it.

  Nothing. I was alone.

  The book throbbed under my hands, through the leather of the bag. Like a living thing. Like a heart, steady and strong. As if it beat in my own chest, or in some place deeper and vaster than that. Like the heart of creation itself.

  In a flash, I felt that beating. Short-lived, but unmistakable for what it was.

  And then, outside the tent, a peal of thunder groaned softly across the sky. I looked up, the feeling gone, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up.

  There was a crash outside. Fabric tearing as a flash of light burst across the side of my tent. My blood became electrified in an instant as I shot to my feet. It was here. It had worked.

  Shit. It had worked.

  For several seconds, I was paralyzed, frozen where I stood. Amy’s words were in my ear and in my head but distant. I hadn’t prepared for this. I wasn’t ready. I couldn’t possibly fight something like this.

  But there was a plan. Ninety seconds. At the most. I just had to last for a minute and a half.

  I lowered the bag to the floor of the tent and reluctantly let it go. Best if it was out of sight and not easy to get to. Then I pulled the zipper of the tent flap and stepped out into the night.

  The fire had died hours ago. Half the sky was in darkness, the other half liberally sprinkled with stars that were fast being swallowed up by blackness. It was just enough pale light between them and half the moon to show me those thrashing tangles of the tent as something inside shredded the fabric in a fury.

  I could only see it because the moon and starlight didn’t illuminate it. The rest of the ruined tent was bathed in the pallid glow, but the djinn was a patch of moving darkness. One that slashed at the tent and then turned on me.

  It surged toward me. My heart paused in anticipation of stopping forever.

  An invisible force held the djinn in place. It struck a wall where the trap was laid, and the ground shook from the impact.

  I gained a tiny amount of confidence back, and took a step toward it as it seemed to calm, those ember eyes watching me. “I upgraded,” I said, my voice shakier than I liked as I took another step. “I’m learning. And I know that’s not what you have to look like. You may as well show yourself to me. It’s just us now. I’m not running anymore. I don’t have anywhere else to run. We can be civil. I know, I’ve met another of your kind. A cousin, anyway. You have a face, and a voice. Talk to me.”

  The pillar of shadow hovered for a moment longer, before it gradually coalesced. Claws became fingers, attached to hands, and arms, and a chest that had a lean, muscular stomach below it and hips with legs all clad in some flowing fabric that seemed to be still partly shadow. An angular face set with eyes that still glowed like embers took shape above it all, with hair that swept back in a slick mat bound into a knot. “I think that we have little to say. This will not hold me long.”

  “No,” I agreed. “I didn’t think it would. But in all the time I’ve been running, we never exchanged words. I thought… if I was going to give up, I may as well have a face-to-face meeting.”

  His eyes narrowed suspiciously as he looked around the camp once and then settled that gaze back on me like he could burn me from where he was. “If you like. Here we are. Have you prayers to make?”

  “I’m afraid not,” I muttered. “Seems pretty clear the gods aren’t listening, I think. It was Ivan Baranov’s people that sent you. Right? To get the book?”

  “You imagine that he had only human mages among his believers?” the djinn wondered.

  I exhaled revelation. “So… you’re doing this for him? He’s dead. More than dead, the way I hear it.”

  “Time is long,” the djinn said softly. “Very long. And we are patient.”

  It took everything in me not to look up at the sky. I hadn’t been counting. How long had it been? I hadn’t accounted for where Rez might actually be up there. He’d have to come in from an angle unless he happened to be right above me. And he needed a signal, if he couldn’t see this far.

  “Without me,” I pointed out, “the book is useless. No one else can read it.”

  The djinn cocked his head slightly, like a bird eyeing prey. “As I said: time is long. You are not the first. Nor the last. Another will read.”

  “But why?” I said. “You can’t do anything with the knowledge. You people don’t understand—I couldn’t explain what it says if I tried, it’s not the sort of information that can be jotted down somewhere and used by anyone. This is pointless. Ivan didn’t know what the book was, can’t you see that? He never read it himself, he thinks it’s some instruction manual but believe me, it isn’t, it’s not useful to anyone—”

  “You know nothing,” the djinn said calmly, but firmly, as if chastising me for answering a math problem wrong. He held up the locket. The locket that held a bit of my soul, which had made him think that I was in one tent while I hid myself in the other. He looked at it as it dangled from his fingers, swaying. “It is not the contents of the book that are of true worth. It is the one who reads the book who is of immeasurable value. But you were not content to read. You ran.”

  “I killed five of Ivan’s followers,” I said. “I had to run, they would have killed me.”

  “You?” He gave a soft, hollow laugh. “Nonsense, child. You cannot sin. You could not sin, at least. Do you not see that you are chosen? Ah, I see. Ivan knows precisely what the book is. It is you who have not yet grasped its purpose.”

  “That’s not—”

  He stood straighter, his chest swelling as he took a breath and exhaled. He cracked his neck, and took a step beyond the boundary of the trap. Even as we spoke, as I tried to keep him talking, h
e’d been carving away at the magic, loosening the barrier, until it couldn’t hold him. As he’d said, it didn’t hold long.

  Not nearly long enough, anyway.

  The hand that held the locket lowered, and he cast my bit of soul aside like it was a used bit of trash. His form took on slightly less definition. “We will find another.”

  “You won’t have the chance,” I hissed. Fear flooded me. I spread my hands, reached for it, pulled it in, and let it flow through me as fuel as my magic buzzed along my nerves.

  The fire that gushed out from around me was dark. Hot enough to hurt, but not the bright white that Rez had brought out of me. Still, it shocked the djinn. He flinched as his arms rose, and his arms became clouds of darkness that spread and pushed back, shielding him from the fire. The darkness came closer as he pushed through it.

  My mind raced. I reached for other things to burn. I was furious that Ivan wouldn’t leave me alone, even in death. That his people wouldn’t just let me be. That this asshole hadn’t been hired, or sent, or bound—that he was the kind of psychopath that just believed the lies of a dead would-be necromancer prophet. I threw that fury into the fire, and it burned a little brighter, and slowed the djinn’s advance. It didn’t stop him, though.

  I thought of my family, of Harry, of what I had done. How I had run, and left them to always wonder if I’d done it on purpose or not. I dug into that old, aching sorrow, and dragged it out to burn it as well. The fire wavered, fed by something that should never have gone stale. But that pain had begun to ease, hadn’t it?

  Because of Rez. Because he dared to love me, to face my fire and hold me tight through it. I reached for that. For what he felt for me and what I felt for him—but as I took a step back from the advancing wall of burning darkness, I found that I couldn’t throw that into the fire. Maybe it would burn bright and hot. Maybe it would save me. But some part of me worried that if I burned it, it would be lost like everything else that burns.

  So instead, I grasped that fear, that desperation—the lingering terror that I had something perfect and impossible, and that I would lose it one day—and I burned that. That I could do without, if it really was burned away. I tore at the last bits of a defense that I hadn’t entirely realized I put up between us. It was a wall that I didn’t need. But it was strong, and deep. And it burned.

  The fire went from dark crimson to bright orange. I spread my arms, imagining myself a phoenix wreathed in flames of rebirth, rising from ashes, and let myself howl with agony and relief as I gave up all of that pain and fear to the fire.

  And from above, I heard my mate’s roar in answer.

  It split the air. It shook the ground. His fury struck the world like a divine hammer, and a moment later my fire was joined by a liquid torrent of flame only slightly cooler than my own. It washed over the earth, scorching everything, as if it would swallow the world and leave behind only him and me.

  I caught a flash of darkness and lightning. Two blazing eyes rushed me, but didn’t strike. They shot past me.

  Fleeing.

  I let the fire go, and it washed away from me like a tide, dying in the air around me. My part was done. I’d pinned it, hurt it, kept it busy. Now, it was Rez’s turn.

  His massive form swept down. I caught a glimpse of a great red-gold eye as he banked and swept low across the desert, before his wings beat and he sped off after the smoking djinn.

  The excitement that we’d managed to get even this far swelled in my chest, and I let it out with a howl that I hoped my mate could hear.

  It was short-lived. My voice caught in my throat. My chest tightened like there was a vise crushing me from both sides. My head split like an icepick was being slowly driven through my forehead. The book. Had the djinn gotten it?

  In a panic, I stumbled into the molten remains of my tent, brushing aside still-burning scraps of plastic to find the bag. It was there. With me. So why?

  “What?” I demanded. “What do you want? What did I do?”

  This was worse than ever before. I pulled the book free, tried to open the cover, but my fingers were weak. The pain grew sharper, deeper. It seemed to run down the middle of my being, as if it would tear me in half.

  I screamed, and clutched at my head. “Rez!”

  But the name died on my lips, as unconsciousness rose up and gave me the relief of a dreamless dark.

  25

  Rez

  I was gaining on the bastard. He was fast, but he didn’t have my sleek form, my powerful wings. I cut the air, trailing smoke and flame from my jaws in anticipation of bearing down on him, my dragon raging at the affront of a threat to our mate.

  He was, however, more agile. The cloud of thundering smoke and darkness juked to one side, and the joints of my wings strained as I flicked my tail and twisted to follow, then beat hard to regain speed. If I had to, I would chase him for miles and miles. There was nowhere to hide. My mate was safe, and would stay that way if I could put an end to this threat.

  I swooped in above the djinn, already heaving a breath to gush dragonfire over his feeling form, when something inside me twisted.

  Daniel. I knew it instantly, but it wasn’t a feeling I’d ever experienced before. It was disorienting, like something inside me, invisible but vital, was being slowly torn down the middle. I snapped, snarled, as if I could bite the pain. Something was wrong with him, and the tearing inside me became a pressure in my mind—if I left, and went to him now, when I was so close, this problem would be back. He would learn, and strike us knowing that we were joined now, and that there would be no isolating my mate from now on.

  This was the one chance. The chance to make sure that my mate and I were free to move on with our lives.

  Hold on, Daniel, I thought, as much to myself as to him, and gave a roar of thunder as I hurtled toward the fleeing darkness.

  I sucked in air, and sprayed fire. Not directly at the djinn, but to his left. We were moving so fast that it almost immediately swept back across my face and wings, giving me a cloak of bright orange and red. But it did what it was meant to do. The djinn jerked to his right.

  Ancient instincts drove my muscles. I banked just a moment before he did. I caught the air hard, and swept around, and those bright eyes of flame seemed to flare with shock as I plowed into the darkness with jaws wide, a howling torrent of dragonfire pouring from my throat.

  The fire engulfed him before he had time to put up a defense. And I struck what was in the center of the shadows and smoke—something solid. A body. He wasn’t immaterial after all; just carried by some magical cloud of darkness.

  I sank talons into the djinn, and drove him toward the ground. His magic was still powerful. Some invisible force dragged at him, tried to free him and send him fleeing off to tend his wounds, but it wasn’t stronger than my claws, and when I chomped down, it certainly wasn’t stronger than my jaws.

  I didn’t even bother to slow our descent. The ground rushed up. I tucked my wings, and curled myself around my prey at the last moment. The ground hit hard, and I went rolling and bouncing across it. Pain exploded along my shoulder, then down my back, and into my tail. I failed to tuck a hind leg properly, and felt something near my ankle crack.

  But I had him. A small, thrashing thing. Lightning crackled across my scales, seared against my nerves. But all that did was hurt, and make the muscles of my jaw contract. I bit down deeper, surprised in a distant sort of way just how tough the motherfucker was, but it didn’t matter. He wasn’t made of metal, or anything that didn’t bleed.

  Ichor was on my tongue, staining my jaws. I staggered to my feet, and thrashed my neck. When that didn’t work, I thrashed again, toward the ground.

  And I kept doing it, again, and again, until the invisible force waned, and the thrashing stopped, and the djinn no longer beat against my jaw or hurled lightning into my eyes. I hadn’t even realized that my vision was halved until I dropped his broken body on the hard desert floor. The rage had so overtaken me that I felt nothing when i
t happened, but now realized I was blind in the left eye.

  It didn’t matter. It would heal, most likely. All that mattered was the crumbled, bloody body in front of me. And very soon, that wouldn’t matter either.

  I lowered my head, and drove a talon through the djinn’s thigh as he began to move again, sluggish but still alive. He hadn’t screamed. Not once. He only stared defiance now, as my jaw opened wide, and a rush of caustic air mixed with liquids in the back of my throat.

  Some might have wanted to hear their enemy beg, or scream in fear, or otherwise let it be known that their last moments were horrifying. Not me. All I cared about was that my mate would be safe.

  And with that in mind, I exhaled a river of fire, roaring into the night, again and again, until there was nothing left except a patch of earth slowly cooling where the djinn had died. That, and a tiny glowing star.

  The bit of Daniel’s soul that Ivan had taken. I huffed at it, blowing away the ash. So small, so delicate. Balanced on one forepaw and one good hind leg and my tail, I plucked it up between two talons and dropped it into my palm to hold it close to my chest.

  The exhaustion and pain tried to sink their talons into my mind and muscles. Tried to drag me down. It wasn’t done yet. Not all of it. Daniel was still in danger from something I wasn’t sure I could bite, or rend, or burn. I staggered back, my broken hind leg unable to take weight, unwilling to risk losing the precious trophy I had won back for my mate. Had to get airborne. I tried to make sense of my surroundings. Where had we come down?

  There was an edge to the world at my left. I limped to it and peered down into a shallow canyon. Not ideal. But while one of my wings was sprained, neither was broken. I glanced back once more at the glowing earth, now a deep, dull red. Just to check. And when I was sure, I let myself topple forward and off the cliff, praying silently that my wings would hold, and that Daniel would still be with me when I found him.