Breath of Fire

by Amanda Bouchet

  Yet here they are. And there I was…

  “What are you waiting for?” I cry. “What do you want?”

  “For you to cease your temper tantrum,” Mother answers. “It’s unbecoming.”

  Temper tantrum? Unbecoming!

  “You. Are. A. Monster!” With every word, I carve a deeper gash across the Vrykolakas’s chest. Its stinking blood nauseates me, but I don’t stop, blind to the gore, insensible to anything but my twisting emotions, my hammering hate.

  “Your fits have always been a waste of my time,” Mother says. “And now you’re wearing men’s rags and trolling the Sintan swamps for companions when you could be draped in Fisan pearls and associating with Magoi worthy of our line.” The creature’s chin jerks toward Griffin. “He pollutes you every time he touches you. Don’t think I don’t know where he’s been, and how it’s changed you. Your blood is different.”

  Ichor—visible for the first time in my life. Did Griffin somehow do that? I’d hardly call that pollution. More like power.

  Pointed canines flash in a snarl. “A gutter rat plowing a future queen.”

  A gutter rat? Griffin? She sends soulless, undead creatures to hunt down her own daughter, and yet she still believes she’s the superior person in all this?

  Something violent and out of control breaks loose inside of me. I drop my sword and tear into the Vrykolakas with my bare hands, sinking up to my elbows in order to yank out its festering guts. I slap them in its face—her face—grinding and watching them smoke as my hands heat with a God-like power I can’t seem to control. I scream. I scream, and I keep screaming. I can’t stop.

  Griffin bands an arm around my waist and lifts me back. I twist, kicking and shouting, spraying everything around me with black sludge. I smell like death, but I don’t care. I’m beyond caring. I want to rip my mother apart like I should have done years ago, even if it’s not really her, and she doesn’t really feel it.

  Griffin sets me down next to him. Low and furious, he grates out, “Don’t talk to Cat. Don’t come near her. Ever.”

  The Vrykolakas is still standing—and healing—proving it’s really hard to kill something that’s already dead. The monster takes a menacing step forward, Mother sneering “Filthy Hoi Polloi usurper,” in guttural tones from its mouth.

  A concentrated line of translucent green, fast and strong, slams into Griffin’s chest. My heart takes a sickening dive, but he doesn’t even flinch. A circular hole gapes in his leather armor. The skin underneath is perfectly intact. Relieved, I thank the Gods for Griffin’s total immunity to harmful magic.

  “What sorcery is this?” Andromeda demands.

  “The kind that ends you,” Griffin says, his voice lethally soft.

  The creature’s glowing eyes narrow to slits. Neither Griffin nor I move, not giving away the men sneaking up on the Vrykolakas’s back. Andromeda must have thought our friends would be laid out longer by her hit. She underestimates them. She underestimates us all, and maybe the fact that I’ve claimed these men as my family offers them some kind of protection, some small portion of the natural resilience alive in my Olympian blood.

  With predatory silence, Carver swings his sword, beheading the Vrykolakas in one clean sweep. Mother’s magic implodes from the clearing like a reverse breath, pulling the air from my lungs.

  I stagger, and Griffin steadies me by drawing me against him. He holds me tight. I stifle a sob, knowing that when that stupid, irrational ember of hope I never should have kept burning for Mother died like a spark under a careless boot, it snuffed a certain part of me out of existence right along with it. Any lingering naïveté—lost.

  “Are you all right?” Griffin’s grip is almost painful, leaving me airless, but that’s okay because his warm, solid body is still there for me to be crushed and breathless against.

  I drop my forehead against his chest. “I love you. I love you. I love you.” It’s the only thing keeping me sane. Without him, I would shatter.

  Holding me, Griffin presses his lips hard against my hair. “I love you, too. I love you forever.” His words warm the top of my head. My heart. My everything. I want to crawl on top of him, into him, where I’m safe and treasured.

  “Forever,” I vow. “In this world, and in the next.”

  “Kardia mou. Psihi mou.” My heart. My soul.

  I wrap my arms around his waist, clinging to the one thing I’m sure of in this world. Through damaged armor—steady heartbeat, steady breath, steady Griffin. The broken pieces of my soul that are still retrievable start fitting back together again as a breeze blows, silence falls, and the trees rain ashes.

  CHAPTER 10

  I lift my face and stare at the Chaos Wizard’s distant hovel, nerves fluttering in my belly. Cold, blustery air whips across the Frozen Lake. Magic nips at my skin with sharp little teeth, but the slight sting is nothing compared to the rush of power proximity to the Ice Plains brings. I breathe deeply, soaking it in along with the hint of frost on the wind.

  After the disaster in the woods, we changed course and headed straight for Kitros, an outlying district of Tarva City. We replaced our ruined gear and clothing, and I used the time to rest and recover. For some reason, Griffin’s life force stopped transferring to me during intimacy, and no tingling warmth helped me regain my strength this time. Maybe I finally got back everything I initially gave, or maybe the seemingly increased ichor in my blood is the reason for the sudden change. I don’t know, and there’s no one to ask.

  What I do know is that now that we’re finally in Fisa, all I really want to do is turn around and go back to Kitros. It wasn’t that bad, even with its nerve-racking proximity to Castle Tarva, its ruined neighborhood that everyone avoids, and the city’s entire population going berserk over the upcoming Agon Games.

  My gaze leaves the hovel to sweep out over the lake. Whitecaps crash against the icebergs dotting the surface. Somewhere in the vast, deep-blue water, a giant three-tentacled trout trolls the depths. More than eight years ago, instead of swallowing me whole, Poseidon’s Lake Oracle granted me the gifts that got me out of Fisa, helped me to hide, protected Beta Team more than once, and saved Griffin from a mortal wound.

  On the far side of the lake, a rippling green meadow stretches toward the first great, snow-glazed mountains, their towering sides clothed in patterns of aqua glaciers, crumbling shale, and weathered rock. Whorls form in the lush grass, the blades dipping and swaying like millions of primitive dancers moving to a mysterious rhythm only the wind and valley can hear. I strain and can almost hear it, too, just like I can almost taste the bracing flavor of magic on my tongue and feel the whisper of forces beyond any of our imagining setting my senses alight.

  I open myself up to the strong sensations, almost foreign to me after living for so long in Sinta and largely in the south. The glacial shard in my pendant pulses with magic, and power explodes from somewhere deep inside of me. Lightning webs over my skin, crackling and bright, and the whole world suddenly takes on an orange hue, as if consumed by fire.

  Gasping in shock, I try to tame the sizzling currents. When I can’t hold them back, I vault off Panotii, afraid of hurting him. I back away, and the ground under my feet darkens and smokes.

  Griffin spins Brown Horse around and then leaps down, calling out to me. His voice is frighteningly distant even though he’s right there.

  I hold up my hands to keep him back. His gray eyes widen at my expression, and then narrow when lightning surges out at him, narrowly missing his arm.

  Inhaling sharply, I ball my hands into fists and tuck them against my middle. “Stay back!” The grass around me starts to smolder. Hellipses grass. Everywhere. Dry as kindling. Thunder rumbles, vibrating in my chest.

  “You can’t hurt me.” Griffin keeps moving toward me.

  “I could burn the field.” Memories of the inferno in the woods send panic snapping through me like wi
ldfire.

  “You won’t burn the field.”

  “You can’t be sure!”

  Low and steady, he says, “You can control this.”

  I scoff. “Do you even know me? Self-control and I aren’t friends.”

  Griffin stops. “I do know you. You’re the strongest, most stubborn, most determined person I’ve ever met. And I’m not talking about self-control. I’m talking about willpower.”

  My hands shake, jittery with magic I can’t contain. Usually, I can’t get it out. Now I can’t keep it in? “Isn’t it the same thing?” I ask.

  He looks at me hard. “Is it?”

  “I don’t know! I just want it to stop.” No, that’s not true. “I want it to come when I need it. I want it gone when I don’t.”

  “You need to master this.”

  “I don’t even know what this is! Half the time, it’s not even there!”

  “Then figure it out.”

  “Oh, that’s helpful!”

  Griffin flashes me his pirate’s grin, and my insides shift with something that has nothing to do with the magic storm. “You do know what it is. I know what it is. Emotion.”

  “Emotion?”

  He nods. “Fear. You get scared, really and truly scared for someone who is not yourself, and there it is—lightning.”

  I keep my lightning-charged hands pressed hard against my stomach. “That doesn’t mean I know how to control it.”

  Griffin steps close enough that when our gazes lock, I see the white-gold web around me reflected in his eyes. He dips his head, and his mouth brushes my ear, his voice a rumbling caress. “Excitement.”

  I shiver, thunder rolling through me along with his voice. Excitement. A heady thrill did course through me a moment ago. The freedom. The wind. The magic-laced air…

  Griffin threads his fingers through my tangled hair, cradling my head with both hands. He tilts my face back. “I see you need a demonstration.”

  “A demonstration?” I echo dumbly, my pulse quickening.

  His thumbs skate over my jaw. “Delivered in sign language.”

  “That’s called a distraction, and it’s probably not the most effective way to calm me down.”

  He dips his head and kisses me until my toes curl in my boots. But the soft way his lips move, how he gently holds me—it’s a kiss meant to soothe. Soon enough, the lightning dims, and my hands start to cool.

  Griffin pulls back, looking decidedly smug as he slides his boot over some blades of smoldering hellipses grass, extinguishing a budding fire.

  “You got lucky,” I tell him, my lips still tingling and warm.

  He grins. “I know just what you need. And you love me for it.”

  I roll my eyes. “Good Gods, what an ego.”

  He spreads his hands. “No more lightning.”

  “That’s because you distracted me. Not because I controlled it.”

  “Maybe that’s the key to controlling it,” Griffin suggests. “Get your mind off it. Stop being scared.”

  “Because it’s always that easy,” I say tartly.

  Before he can answer, the others surround us.

  “What just happened?” Leading Panotii behind his own mount, Kato watches me with a crease between his brows, his blue eyes dark with concern.

  “Well…” I say with exaggerated patience. “It’s called kissing. I won’t offer to demonstrate, but I can probably find a number of women who will, although”—I look around at the acres of swaying grass, the wind-tossed lake, and the lonely hovel—“probably not right now.”

  Kato grunts, a spark of humor brightening his eyes. “Because that’s exactly what I meant.”

  “I know!” I flick what’s left of my windblown braid over my shoulder. “I’m uncanny like that.”

  Flynn doesn’t crack a smile, although I get one from Kato and Carver.

  “There was lightning all over you,” the auburn-haired warrior says. “Not just your hands.”

  I shrug, not nearly as unconcerned as I’m trying to appear. “There’s a bright side to everything. My own lightning doesn’t burn off my clothes.”

  “When was the last time you were this close to the Ice Plains?” Griffin asks.

  Turning my head, I scan the landscape, hauntingly familiar despite my only having been here once before. My eyes stop on the Chaos Wizard’s modest dwelling. “A long time ago. But when I was younger, I was near the Ice Plains a lot, and I never turned into a walking storm. Ios was the first time.”

  “Doesn’t magic mature?” Carver asks. “So tiny Magoi aren’t running around setting off earthquakes and floods and fires?”

  I chuckle. “That’s a good point, especially for Elemental Magic. It doesn’t usually manifest until later—early teens or so—and even then, it still needs to grow. The stronger it is, the longer it takes.” I think about the ichor in my blood, about the thunder and lightning in my veins. But I’m not an Elemental, so what is this?

  I look at the dilapidated house again. I’ll bet the Chaos Wizard knows.

  As if my thoughts summoned him, a man steps out onto the porch, leaving the front door ajar. Anxiety shoots through me. He’s just a form in the distance for now, but I recall every detail about him. Tall and willowy thin. Worn white robes and a twisted staff, the sacred olive wood shiny and black with age. Stringy hair, entirely gray and reaching well beyond his waist, contradicted by a face that doesn’t look a day over thirty. Smooth skin, not particularly tanned. Stained fingertips on his right hand, as if he spends his days grinding herbs between them. I remember him as if our last encounter were yesterday, just like I remember his terrifying words, resonating voice, and swirling eyes.

  Nerves claw a hole in my stomach. That man knows too much about me, things I don’t want to hear, or think about, or tell Griffin. Ever.

  Taking a deep breath, I gather Panotii’s reins from Kato. It galls me to do it, but I need to say something before we approach the wizard. “Even if the wizard points us toward the Ipotane, without any offensive magic, we have very little chance of making it off the Ice Plains alive. I have a hiccup of Dragon’s Breath in me. Without more, or something equally useful, Piers might be right.” And the Gods know it makes me want to vomit to admit it. “Maybe we should go home and rely on the army.”

  “Or you absorb the magic of whatever creatures we come up against,” Flynn suggests. “They attack. You steal. We fight back.”

  “I second that plan.” Like he’s already itching for a fight, Carver sweeps his fingers over the hilt of his sword, a nimble dance of flesh on steel.

  I shake my head. “It’s not always that simple. Cyclopes are colossal and swing a battering ram of a fist. I can’t steal that. It’s not magic. One kick from a Centaur, and your entire rib cage will implode. Then there are the Gorgons. Medusa could show up anywhere. And Harpies and Giants and Dragons. They’re all magical creatures, but that doesn’t mean they always use magic. They are magic. And they’re a lot bigger and meaner than any of us.”

  “I don’t know, Cat.” Kato looks me up and down, his long blond hair flying on the wind. The teasing sparkle in his eyes takes the sting from his words. “You can be pretty mean sometimes. In terms of size, though…” He winces.

  Carver nods his agreement. “Cat is small and weak.”

  I swing the evil eye back and forth between the two of them. Compared to the Minotaur-like men of Beta Team, I am small and weak, which means Carver can get away with this nonsense without frying me with a lie.

  “So glad you’re taking this seriously,” I grumble.

  “What? Life and death?” Flynn shrugs. “Bah!”

  “Been there a dozen times,” Kato says casually, pretending to buff his nails against his leather breastplate. The idiot.

  I glare at all of them, especially Carver. “I am not small and weak.” Well, small ma
ybe. And weak only if they decide to wrestle me. “I have other skills.”

  Carver eyes me contemplatively for a moment. “You could fit in Griffin’s pocket. Well, maybe not your hair.”

  “Oh my Gods! I feel an outburst of lightning coming on!”

  Carver grins. “Do your worst, fuzz top.”

  Griffin chuckles at that, earning his own dose of my evil eye. He appears unrepentant, even when my well-practiced glower lands solely on him. He winks.

  “Gah!” I toss up my hands. “You’re all insane!”

  “Really?” Flynn glances around, looking confused. “No, no. We’re fine,” he tells the horses. “Thanks for asking.”

  I can’t help it. I laugh. We all laugh, and it feels like lifetimes have passed since the last time we did.

  Griffin curves his warm, strong hands around my shoulders, turning me toward him. “I have faith in you. Our greatest weapons on the Ice Plains are here”—he lightly taps a finger against my forehead—“and here.” He taps over my heart.

  I make a face, torn between enjoying his compliment and knowing his faith in me is egregiously misplaced. “Then we’re sure to die because neither of those functions quite right.”

  “They function well enough,” he says, a small, lopsided smile lifting his mouth and making my heart skip a beat.

  “Such high praise,” I mumble, ignoring the flutter in my chest.

  “I’m learning from you.”

  “Good Gods, don’t,” I say. “I’m hopeless.”

  “You’re never hopeless.” Griffin gazes down at me, deliberately changing the intent of my words. “When something matters to you, no fight ends until you’ve won. That’s why we can go onto the Ice Plains and live—maybe even come back with what we went there for. We’ll change the world, Cat, and we’ll do it without the war you fear. I swear to the Gods, we’ll do it with as little bloodshed as possible.”

  My heart drops like a stone. Harbinger of the end. Destroyer of realms.

  “Now let’s go talk to a wizard,” Griffin says, drawing me in close first.

  I lay my cheek against his chest and wrap my arms around his waist. His body shields me from the brisk, buffeting wind, and I inhale a familiar mix of citrus, sunshine, outdoors, leather, and man.