Breath of Fire

by Amanda Bouchet

  “Because royal soldiers kept stealing everything and burning your homes?”

  He nods. In the fading light, his features are like the granite peaks in the distance, angular and hard. “Tax collecting wasn’t just about taxes in the south. It was about pillaging, meaningless destruction, and instilling fear. My father built an army big enough to get them to finally cease those types of raids, at least in our corner of Sinta, but no victory will ever make me forget those endless days of weaving after the royal soldiers came. The stinging cuts. The bloody hands. The work songs with their plaintive, sliding tones. The smell of sheaves upon sheaves of freshly cut hellipses grass in whatever was left of the house.” He brushes his long, strong fingers over the thick blades next to him, watching them bend. “The lifeless. The mourning. The girls, some younger than Kaia is now, leaving for the nearest city to sell whatever they could, even their bodies, for Charon’s obol to pay their loved ones’ passage to the land of the dead.”

  I unconsciously press my hand against the coin that’s always in my pocket, the one I’ll never spend. We all carry one. With the lives we lead, we’d be insane not to. There’s no crossing the Styx without paying the ferryman first, and the Shadowlands are no place to end up for all of eternity.

  I’ve sometimes wondered how the Griffin I know could have slaughtered Sinta’s entire royal family, men and women alike. Luckily, they were an unfruitful lot, and there were no children in the castle because when he brought his army to their gates, he wiped them out, just like they’d callously wiped out so many people before that, victims of royal greed and senseless violence, people who weren’t just nameless and faceless to Griffin.

  “Why weave at all if it brings back those memories?” I ask.

  He shrugs. “It’s a part of me. It always has been. I don’t know how to stop.”

  “Then why didn’t I see you weaving before? There was hellipses grass everywhere. You could have made an entire supply of household goods in the time it took us to reach Castle Sinta,” I tease, trying to take some of the new grimness from his expression.

  Griffin’s teeth flash briefly in the growing dark. “There was no time. You were distracting—and that’s putting it mildly—and I was always busy making sure you didn’t escape or maim me for life.”

  I roll my eyes, although he does have a point. “Then what are you making now?”

  He looks at his empty hands, studies them, flips them over, frowns… “Nothing, as far as I can tell.”

  Giving him a sour look, I turn my voice as dry as Sintan dust. “You’re a thespian wonder.”

  Griffin leans back on his elbows, sighing dramatically. “It was a sad day when I had to choose between being a warlord and having a career on the stage.”

  I have to bite my lip to keep from laughing. “I still want to know what you’re doing with that grass.”

  He looks over at me in a way that makes my heart start fluttering like a damn butterfly in my chest. “Patience, Catalia Eileithyia Fisa. I’m not doing anything yet.”

  I scowl. Patience is not one of my middle names.

  CHAPTER 12

  I jolt awake to the shriek of an owl. The five of us surround the campfire, and Griffin and the others are on their feet before I can blink. I’m just tossing off my blanket when a deafening noise makes me curl in on myself. I duck my head and cover my ears as a bone-jarring, body-seizing boom rolls through the valley.

  When power stops warping the air, I stagger to my feet and look for the Chaos Wizard in the dark. The moon is high and bright, reflected off the lake, and I can see him just fine. He hasn’t moved. He’s right where we left him after several hours of waiting for a big, fat nothing.

  He looks straight at me—maybe he never stopped looking at me—and thumps his staff on his crumbling porch. The same debilitating, magic-heavy sound rends the air and shatters my head. I double over, gasping, and Griffin leans protectively over me, not affected in the same way at all. I find his waist and hold on, my head buried against his abdomen.

  The Chaos Wizard’s deep voice resonates along with the last of the terrible noise. “Harbinger. Approach.”

  Dazed, I try to shake off the aftereffects of those two thundering blasts of pure Olympian magic. Somehow, I step away from Griffin, my head still spinning. Griffin automatically moves with me, and the wizard thumps his staff again. I cry out, crushing power nearly putting me on my knees.

  “Harbinger alone,” the wizard commands.

  Frowning, Griffin helps to steady me. In a low voice, he asks, “Why is he calling you that?”

  Straightening, I press my lips together and don’t answer. I have some explaining to do. Later.

  The awful noise subsides, and I move cautiously forward, my tunic flapping in the wind that picked up again as if in answer to the wizard’s magic staff. By the time I cover the short distance to his porch, I feel almost normal again, only a slight hum in my veins reacting to the residual power in the air. I dip my head, attempting humility, although I don’t think we’re in any real danger—except of total hearing loss.

  The Chaos Wizard doesn’t bang his staff again, thank the Gods. “Zeus and his daughter Athena choose to aid you in your quest to secure the herd of Ipotane.”

  My eyes widen. Fantastic! No explanation necessary and two Gods on our side. I could dance a Fisan jig.

  “You must make a worthy offering to the herd Alpha, Lycheron, to keep him from killing you on sight.”

  Huh. Cancel the jig.

  “Propose a challenge. The Ipotane cannot resist a competition, but Lycheron will only play male Alpha to male Alpha.”

  For the first time, the Chaos Wizard’s swirling eyes land on Griffin, and I have to resist the urge to jump in front of him and shield him from the wizard’s unsettling gaze.

  “A bargain must be struck.”

  Uh-oh. A bargain means us promising something, too.

  “Zeus has spoken.”

  My jaw drops. What? That’s it? “What offering? What could Lycheron want?”

  The wizard doesn’t answer. He just stares at me like before, his eyes infinite and so immeasurably full they’re void.

  Turning, I stomp back toward the others. They meet me halfway.

  “We waited hours under that frankly disturbing stare; I just got a thumping headache and a magical ass-kicking; and that’s it?”

  Griffin seems at a loss as well. “What do we do now? Leave?”

  The owl I heard earlier swoops low over our heads, lands on the wizard’s shabby roof, and then hoots.

  Griffin’s eyes sharpen on the bird. “The owl is the symbol of Athena.”

  “Climb the northeast needle of the Deskathi Mountains,” the wizard abruptly continues. “The glacial caves hide a treasure that will please the Ipotane Alpha.”

  Shock hits me like a Giant’s fist. “But those caves are a labyrinth!” One I’ve hardly ever heard of anyone going into. I’ve never heard of anyone coming out.

  The owl hoots again, and a ball of twine appears in the wizard’s hand. He tosses it to me with an awkward, underhanded throw, the gift barely reaching me from not even twenty feet away.

  “Ariadne’s Thread. It will not end. It will not tangle.”

  I grip the coiled string, feeling its magic nip at my palm. “What will we find there?” I ask.

  “Only the Harbinger and the fair one must enter the caves. The other three must not.”

  Kato. Me.

  “Beware Atalanta’s bow. Find the lyre before the three-headed beast. Heed the Goddess’s needs.”

  Well, that’s not vague at all! “Why only us? What’s the treasure?”

  “Athena has spoken.”

  “Wait!” I cry. “Where do we find the Ipotane?”

  The wizard just stares, his gaze whirling and vacant again.

  I look at the owl, my eyes pleading.
“Athena? Please.”

  The owl cocks its head and looks at me like I’m a rodent it might eat for dinner. Round, amber eyes pulse with an inner light. It’s perfectly still. Not even its feathers ruffle in the wind. Its sharply curved beak snaps once, the menacing click loud in my ears. Goose bumps spill down my arms. I keep looking at the bird, but for all I know, I’m being a fool, and it’s just an owl.

  Nothing happens. Frustrated, I pocket the thread, wondering what to do next. After a while, the wizard turns and shuffles into his house. The weathered door swings shut behind him, the snick of the latch hitting me like a sucker punch to the gut.

  I glare at the closed door in disbelief and then mutter a curse that probably makes Flynn want to wash out his ears. “Everything he said is completely useless without the actual location of the Ipotane! Bloody useless, crazy, swirly-eyed son of a—”

  Griffin’s hand lands on my shoulder, and I whirl.

  “That didn’t help us at all!”

  “It did.” His voice is calm and reasonable. I hate calm and reasonable.

  “A few fuzzy suggestions and a ball of string?” I fume, outraged.

  “A ball of string that will keep you from getting lost in a labyrinth. I hold one end. You hold the other. It will not end. It will not tangle.” He takes both my shoulders and squeezes. “With this, you can find your way back out.”

  “That’s if we avoid Atalanta’s bow, find a lyre before some three-headed beast, and heed an unknown Goddess’s needs.” Scoffing, I step back from him. “No problem at all!”

  “It’s better than nothing,” Griffin argues.

  “No. Nothing would have sent us home.” The word home sparks an unexpected ache in my chest. I meant Sinta, but having my feet on my own soil again must be doing strange things to my head because a sea of nameless Fisan faces with fierce eyes and olive skin butts into my thoughts, their expressions full of accusation, and worse—hope.

  I quell what’s only my imagination. And guilt for abandoning them. “This,” I say, disgusted with everything, especially myself, “gives us just enough to keep going and get ourselves killed.”

  I glance around me. Carver, Flynn, Kato. Griffin. I can’t risk their safety—their lives—with only this to go on.

  “Who’s Atalanta?” Carver asks. Dark hair, dark clothes, all lean muscle and deadly grace, he’s one with the night. It strikes me suddenly how little I’ve seen him smile lately, as if the darkness he wears so naturally is shadowing him on the inside as well as out.

  I shake my head. “I have no idea.”

  He huffs quietly. “That’s never good.”

  No. My lips thin. Another epic failure. First Mother finding us. Now this. “Yes, well, I’m only mostly all-knowing.”

  No one laughs, which is fine. It wasn’t really a joke.

  The Chaos Wizard’s door creaks open again, and the five of us turn as one. Adrenaline surges through my veins, sudden hope leading the charge. My eyes widen as the strange, powerful man steps back out onto his porch, something flame-licked and glowing floating out after him. It’s a long, sweeping garment of some sort. A cloak? Four others follow, their flickering light softly illuminating the night.

  I watch in utter fascination. Cloaks made of fire? Then my breath catches. Cloaks made of fire!

  Darkness swallows the insides of the garments, making them just deeper shadows in the heart of the night, but the outsides… The outsides are spectacular. Undulating softly in the frost-scented breeze, the flowing folds race with the swift, scintillating currents of thousands upon thousands of thin, delicate threads enrobed entirely in flame. Mesmerizing like the glowing embers of a dying fire, the cloaks give off a steady pulse of red, gold, and heat.

  No matter past encounters, there’s no denying the savage beauty in the element of fire. The white heart. The twist of yellow. The sudden surge of orange, and the occasional snap of blue. Exquisite. Treacherous. Flames make you want to wrap your hand around them, only to come away with nothing but a burn.

  Even from a distance, the smoldering cloaks warm my night-chilled skin with a subtle heat that smells faintly of wood smoke, incense, and burning herbs. Is that what the Underworld smells like? I open my mouth to tell Beta Team where I think these gifts came from, but no sound comes out. I’m amazed beyond words—and it’s hard to stun me speechless.

  Five cloaks float above the porch in an eerie, sweeping dance. Wavering patterns of brightness and shadow play over the wizard’s young-old face, reflecting fire off his eddying eyes.

  “Harbinger. Approach.”

  I can’t move. I can hardly drag my jaw off the ground.

  Kato shoves lightly on my back. “That’s you, Cat.”

  I stumble forward, somehow making it up the crumbling steps without falling on my face. There’s only one person—well, God—that can be responsible for this, and he’s already helped me more than once. He sent Cerberus to my side and kept the terrifying three-headed hound there for years, making sure my watchdog was with me when I needed him most.

  The Chaos Wizard’s booming voice sounds like it should come from a sturdy, young man, not a gray-haired, willow-framed stick of a person of indeterminate age. “Forged in the eternal furnaces of the Underworld. Made from the same fire used to keep the fruits and flowers of Elysium forever in bloom.”

  Emotion and gratitude thicken my throat as the shortest and narrowest of the cloaks settles over my shoulders, my braid tucked safely against the dark, waxy inside of the ample hood. The heat is nearly overwhelming for the split second it takes Hades’s gift to sense my needs and adjust. The glow dims until only a soft splash of light brightens the space around me and a hint of warmth erases the chill of the night.

  Zeus. Athena. Hades. The support of three key Gods is more than I ever hoped for, and yet I can’t help wondering where Poseidon is. Poseidon and his Oracles have never failed me, and his absence now leaves a restless feeling deep inside me that I can’t quite dispel.

  Cloaked in living fire—which I can’t believe I even remotely like—I slide the warm metal buckle at my collarbone closed and then march back down the stairs. The remaining cloaks float after me like a glowing regiment. With or without Poseidon, our path is officially set. There’s no turning back after such a clear sign from the Gods that we’re meant to continue on to the Ice Plains. First Ariadne’s Thread. Now the cloaks. This is survival gear.

  The gently blazing cloaks settle over the men’s shoulders, wrapping them in the flame-free insides. Every single one of them lets out a deep, masculine sound of contentment. The heat coming off their garments intensifies. Apparently, they were cold.

  “This is amazing.” Flynn pulls his cloak closed over his wide chest, his big hands tucked safely inside.

  Griffin sighs in pleasure, hesitates for a moment, but then slips his cloak off with a look of utter longing that almost makes me jealous. Flames race up and down the outside, jumping from thread to thread. “And a beacon in the dark,” he says. “These will attract attention from miles around.”

  I frown. There’s no way Hades didn’t think of that. He’s a God, after all, a deity of the first Olympian generation, even if he doesn’t live on the mountaintop. He may stick to the Underworld, with its amazing and its awful, but he knows what’s around here, too, and the last thing anyone traveling the Ice Plains wants is to attract attention.

  I unhook the buckle and shrug out of my cloak. After being cocooned in its subtle warmth, I’m more aware of the icy wind and actually shiver as I inspect both sides of the cloth. Unlike the exquisite, delicate, flame-licked fibers of the glowing outside, the thicker threads on the inside seem to absorb the dark.

  Wary of any kind of fire at this point, but figuring I’ll heal fast enough if anything magical burns me, I flip my cloak around and then throw it back over my shoulders, the glow on the inside now.

  A curse exploding fro
m him, Griffin lunges for me like he’s going to rip off my cloak. He draws up short when I grin and latch the buckle again.

  “It’s reversible!” All I feel is the same comfortable warmth.

  “You should have let me try that first,” he growls.

  I adjust the folds of my cloak, hiding the flames. “We can’t test magic on you. You’re immune to anything harmful.”

  “Someone else then,” Griffin bites out.

  I frown at him. “How is that a good idea?”

  “It’s a better idea,” he snaps, “because it isn’t you.”

  My eyebrows shoot up. I get it now. And if he thinks for one second he’s wrapping me in glass and pushing me up onto the pedestal along with his sisters, he needs his head examined. “I don’t toss my friends to the Cyclopes,” I say hotly.

  Griffin’s nostrils flare on a clipped inhale. His eyes spark with anger. “I’m not asking you to. I’m asking you to think before you act. Use caution.”

  “I did think. I thought ‘Hades isn’t an idiot. This is probably reversible.’ And guess what? It was.”

  Round one to Cat! Ha!

  “You could have just touched it. You didn’t need to jump to extremes and cover yourself from head to toe!”

  Huh. Round two to Griffin.

  Ducking out of an argument I might not win, I pull up the hood and draw it low over my forehead. “Well?” As far as I can tell, I’m completely shrouded in black.

  Kato breaks the tense silence. “Decent camouflage. Still some brightness around the neck.”

  I glance down, thinking the small glow isn’t worth worrying about.

  Kato claps a hand on Griffin’s shoulder, saying to me, “You just shaved ten years off my life with that stunt. Since you do that often enough, it probably puts me close to the grave.”

  I look at him, something thorny twisting through me. “That’s not funny.”

  Kato looks straight back. “Sometimes, Cat, neither are you.”