Breath of Fire

by Amanda Bouchet

  My heart beats faster. A sudden tightness grips my chest. Has Selena decided to approve of Griffin after all?

  She turns to Griffin next. “Excellent idea with the kissing. The crowd needed a reason to get behind you. You were boring them to tears with the lack of brutality and bloodshed.” She heals a shallow gash on his upper arm and then moves to the bruise darkening his left eye and cheekbone. The skin is split. “Unexpected mercy, romance, mystery… They appeal to even the most fickle and violent of hearts.”

  Selena slowly circles Griffin, satisfying herself there’s nothing else. Griffin inclines his head in thanks. She nods back without any irony, which I assume means the Underworld has, in fact, frozen over.

  Carver and Jocasta have no injuries at all. Selena moves on to Kato and then to Flynn, smoothing out bruises and cuts. These small fixes take almost nothing out of her, which is good, because next time will be worse.

  I lean against Griffin while she works, settling my cheek on his solid chest. He took off his leather armor, and I can hear the low, steady thump of his heart. “I’m offended that you kissed me out of strategy.”

  His arms close around me, and ribbons of heat wind through my body.

  “It was pure torture.” His eyes glitter like the first stars at dusk as he lowers his head and presses his lips to mine.

  CHAPTER 30

  Griffin slams into me, locking his arms around my torso. The impact from the full force of his hard body jars the air from my lungs and propels me backward through the pelting rain. He twists, and his back slams into the sodden ground. His grunt hits the top of my head, and then he rolls, ending up like a lead weight on top of me.

  Metallic feathers pepper the wet sand where I just stood, their serrated edges flashing in my peripheral vision. The harsh, tinny sound of more feathers sliding loose somewhere above us in the arena grates in my ears. The huge, relentless Stymphalian Bird is about to rain down more blades.

  Griffin cages my head with his arms, leaving no part of me exposed. Metal sings, and blades splat into the muck around us. Griffin hisses air in through his teeth, and then something warm starts spreading over my hip.

  My heart jumps up and punches me in the throat. “How bad?” I ask.

  “Not bad,” he grits out.

  Men always say that. I free a hand from underneath him and then carefully run it over his side. His breathing changes when I hit the long, lethal feather. It’s low on his waist and goes straight through the side of his leather armor to plant its sharp tip in the sand. Most of the blade missed. If I were any wider, it would have sliced me, too.

  “Bone?” I ask. It’s close to his lowest ribs.

  He shakes his head.

  I grip the feather between my thumb and forefinger, holding it awkwardly to avoid the razor-edged sides. “I’ve got it. Shift left.”

  Griffin slides sideways off the edge of the blade. I leave it in the sand. There’s nowhere I can hold the creature’s metal feather that won’t slice my hand to bits.

  Griffin twists his head to search the dull sky. Rain runs in rivers off his face and onto mine. “It’s circling for another pass.”

  He pumps up off me, grabs my hand, and we rise together. The dark stain on his side makes my stomach clench, but Griffin looks like he doesn’t even feel it. We run hand in hand, and the crowd, dry under their festive, multicolored, oiled awnings, erupts into wild cheering.

  The sight and sound sicken me. The mix of pageantry and violence, so like the daily punishment of life in Mother’s court, turns my stomach in a way little else can. In both places, murder is a sport, and the trophy is prestige, gold, and the fear you put in other people’s eyes.

  The audience seems to love us, though, which I suppose I should feel some satisfaction about. Griffin and I became the darlings of the arena overnight—lovers in the Games, northern Magoi and southern Hoi Polloi, Fisan and Sintan, flouting convention left and right. Their unexpected, enthusiastic support, overriding even their initial thirst for blood, proves what Griffin has been saying all along. Thalyria is ripe for a change, and Thalyrians are hungering for a new reality, whether they realize it or not. While old prejudices run deep, especially among the Magoi minority, it took one relatively boring combat for many of the people gathered in Kitros for the Agon Games to conceive of something different and then throw themselves behind it—behind us.

  Of course, it would be more gratifying if I weren’t certain they’d love to see us suffer horribly before we ultimately triumph.

  I look away from the cheering spectators before I do something rash and rude and search for the Stymphalian Bird against the clouds. The creature is the same color as the knife-metal sky, as fast as thunder, and has been easily keeping Griffin and me separated from the rest of our team. We’ve spent this entire round so far diving out of the path of deadly feathers and sprinting in the opposite direction of where we need to be.

  As I sweep the arena for signs of the bird, my eyes snag on the royal box. The Tarvan royal family is in attendance this time, having come the handful of miles from Castle Tarva to neighboring Kitros. No one is smiling in the luxurious, sheltered seats. Unsurprisingly, the royals look downright hostile, and they’re watching Griffin and me with blatant antipathy.

  The heavy rain obscures my vision, but something pulls at my gut and makes me look more closely at a woman in the back. She’s young, maybe eighteen. She stares at me, her hair snapping on the damp wind and tangling into a mess. She doesn’t move. She doesn’t care.

  Familiarity slams into me like a tidal wave, drowning me in sudden shock. Her hair is the darkest of browns. Long, wild waves fly out from under a circlet woven with what I know must be fat Fisan pearls. Her nose is straight and long, her back stiff, her frame small yet generous. Details I haven’t laid eyes on in over eight years surge out at me, or maybe my mind supplies them automatically, because even from a distance, I know she looks just like me. Thick-lashed, elongated eyes that are a shade brighter than spring leaves. Dark, slashing brows. A firm chin that juts out in almost perpetual defiance. Shoulders that curl inward when she’s scared. And lips that lift naturally at the corners, giving her an expression of secret, closely guarded humor when nothing about her life is funny.

  A violent mix of emotions propels something savage through my breast. Looking at that young woman, I suddenly feel capable of the kind of destruction that can tear a world apart. I burn to start with this arena. I physically ache to stop what’s sure to become a bloodbath and to take the look of permanent dread out of one Fisan girl’s eyes. Mostly, I want to rip into myself. I failed her. Utterly.

  “Cat!” Griffin shouts.

  He’s right next to me, but he sounds far away. I breathe shallowly, in a rapidly narrowing void. My vision tunnels, shadowy around the edges, my little sister imprinted like a pinprick of pain in the blinding middle. Six years my junior, always hiding in Eleni’s room because she was scared of the boys. They were horrid to her. They were horrid to everyone.

  “I left her.” Light-headed, I reach for Griffin’s arm. “Eleni would never have left me behind.”

  Griffin frowns. Then he whips around. He pushes me behind him and then wields his sword in a deadly arc, hitting the huge Stymphalian Bird with a jarring, metallic clang.

  My whole body jerks in shock. My hearing sharpens, and my eyes focus again. I turn and see the lethal creature spinning off to one side. It recovers before it hits the sand and then swoops back up with a piercing cry.

  “What happened?” Griffin growls. “Where did you go?”

  He just saved my life. Again. His hair is soaked through and curling around his face and neck. Rain drips from the ends, streams from his nose and chin.

  Swallowing, I blink water from my eyes. “Ianthe is here.”

  Griffin’s eyebrows slam down. “She won’t recognize you.”

  My cosmetics are layered on, and the
kohl around my eyes is an exotic, sweeping disguise that flares outward toward my temples like a swirling tattoo. It won’t wash off in the rain. It doesn’t matter. The woman in the royal box is still looking at me, her fists clamped against her middle, her face stark-white, and her mouth half open. She looks on the verge of a scream.

  “She knows. She could betray me at any time.” To the Tarvan royals. To the world.

  Griffin’s eyes turn a steely gray that matches the storm-dark sky. He grips my elbow and starts moving. “One problem at a time,” he says, rushing us toward our team.

  Thunder rumbles, dulling the thuds and grunts coming from the opposite side of the arena. I squint through the curtain of rain. Jocasta has her knives out, but I haven’t seen her take a shot. Her back is to the wall. Carver, Kato, and Flynn are in front of her, but they’re outnumbered and struggling without Griffin and me. They’re facing Fisans and Fire Magic, and if it weren’t for the soaking wet conditions, they’d probably be dead.

  We’re halfway to our teammates when dully glinting wings, a strident call, and the blade-sharp ring of feathers sliding loose force us off course again.

  I swat rain from my eyes, frustration and fear driving a foul curse from my mouth. “I don’t know how to kill it!” I’ve lost all but one knife in the bloody swamp that is now the arena, and Griffin has hit the creature a dozen times all over its armored body. We haven’t found a single chink.

  “Then get control of the bird!” Griffin shouts over the downpour.

  “I’m trying!” So far, my efforts at compulsion have slid right off, doing the sum total of giving me a pounding headache. I can’t latch on to the bird, and I haven’t had any success in wresting it away from the Magoi driving it, either. She’s too strong. And I can’t concentrate when we’re constantly under attack.

  Like Griffin’s shadow, I stick close to him as he keeps the creature at bay. Feathers slam down, and we dart left, then right. He knocks a serrated blade away with his sword, sending it flashing end over end. A few steps later, Griffin yanks me into him. My braid follows a split second later, and another feather slices off the end, taking the leather tie and about five inches of hair. I gasp, a shot of pure adrenaline jolting my pulse into overdrive.

  My hand gripped fast in his, Griffin takes off again as my braid starts to unravel. “Too close, Cat!” he snaps over his shoulder, fear for me sharpening his tone.

  I race after him, breathing hard. “Not everyone has wings on their feet! Just Hermes—and apparently you!”

  He scowls, still holding on to me. We stop and track the bird as it spirals back around, preparing for another pass.

  “Catch the bird like you did the spiders,” he barks over the rain.

  “Spiders are stupid!” I bark back. “And their driver was unconscious when I latched on to them. This is a magical creature and a team member in its own right. It’s not the same!”

  Griffin makes a series of quick, preemptive strikes, driving the bird back up into the storm before it can unleash more feathers. “Then we take out the Magoi controlling it.” His eyes flash briefly to mine, hard as rocks. “By any means.”

  I nod, more easily resigned to the thought of killing than I should be. Maybe because I’ve had so much practice.

  We sprint across the arena again. Rain pelts the top of my head. My sopping hair bounces against my back and tangles with my arms. The reddish-brown muck drags at my boots, slowing me down. My foot catches on something left over from a previous fight, and I pitch forward, landing on my hands and knees. I sink up to my wrists in a revolting puddle, my loose hair swinging down into the gruesome sand. My stomach turns over hard. I wrench my hands free and scramble to my feet.

  Ahead of me, Griffin stops and turns around. “Faster!” His voice whips past me on the driving wind. A cloud bursts overhead, and rain shatters down.

  “Where’s the bird?” I yell over the sudden, violent downpour. I can’t see our team anymore. Our enemies. Anything!

  A metallic nightmare materializes just above me from out of the storm. I throw my arms over my head an instant before the Stymphalian Bird’s bronze beak jabs down with bone-jarring force.

  Mother of Zeus! Fire races across my right hand. I snatch it down, cradling it against my stomach as the monstrous bird swoops back up, disappearing into the rain again.

  Griffin races back to me, lifts my hand, and inspects the wound. He curses violently. There’s a two-inch gash. It’s deep. In some places, I see bone. Rain washes the blood away as quickly as it appears, adding to the stains around us.

  I press my lips together and breathe roughly through my nose, the short bursts not giving me enough air. I try to make a fist. Only my thumb moves, and throbbing heat explodes toward my elbow, making me gasp.

  I look at Griffin, my eyes wide. “I can’t hold a knife.” Or a sword. Or even hit—my left hook isn’t worth thinking about.

  His mouth thinning, Griffin scans the clouds for the Stymphalian Bird. Not seeing it, he takes the time to rip a strip from the bottom of his tunic and then wrap it around my hand, tying it tightly.

  “You can throw with your left,” he says, letting go of my injured hand.

  “I’m not as accurate.”

  “You’ll still be better than everyone else.”

  Tingling, burning warmth climbs steadily toward my shoulder, and a new seed of fear sprouts in my belly. Poison? My whole arm feels heavy.

  Jocasta cries out. We both turn toward the sound and start running just as the rain eases back to a steady but not so blinding downpour. I hold my bandaged hand hard against my chest, trying not to jar it. White-hot pain pulses from the wound. Air whistles between my clenched teeth.

  The Stymphalian Bird doesn’t intercept us this time, and we get a better look at what’s happening with the others. Carver is locked in a fierce battle with another swordsman, their blades so fast and fluid my eyes can’t keep up. It’s the first time I’ve seen Carver truly challenged in a one-on-one fight, and the whining, sliding, and striking of metal is constant and deafening, even over the pounding rain.

  Flynn is farther away, beating back a second warrior wielding a variety of blades. His ax sings a funeral dirge with every ferocious swing, his short sword filling in the gaps. His opponent takes a step back, then another. The man stumbles, his knees buckling under the brutal assault. Fury mottles Flynn’s hard-set face. His eyes are murderous, and the same violent urge rises in me when I see why.

  A long knife sticks out of Jocasta’s thigh. There’s another one in her left shoulder. They match the set still on the warrior’s belt. I can see Jocasta shaking from here. Her teeth clatter from shock. Blood turns the sand at her feet the color of wet clay.

  Snarling a curse, Griffin starts to outpace me again.

  “Trial by fire!” I shout after him. “Look at her. At the knives. She’s okay.” Relatively speaking, anyway.

  It’s Kato who worries me right now. He’s surrounded by two men and a woman, all Magoi, and he’s a bloody, blistered mess. The woman is hanging back. She’s the one driving the bird. There’s a circle of fire around her, burning hot and high in spite of the rain. That won’t stop me from getting to her. It won’t stop Griffin, either.

  The other two Magoi are wielding different types of fire. One is throwing balls of it from his hands. The other is able to turn his whole body into a weapon. Flame coats his skin and, by extension, his sword.

  Fire is the most common type of magic. What makes the difference is how hot it burns, and how long a Magoi can keep it going. Some Magoi have only a few minutes of power in them before they have to retreat and recharge. Others can go on and on. These men are somewhere in the middle, but they’re taking turns attacking, so they never let up.

  I head straight for the fire wielders before the bird can drive us back again. I’m going to take their magic, which means getting burned.

 
My whole body tenses. Once burned. Twice. Three times. Four…

  The taller Magoi, a man with long blond hair so pale it’s almost white, throws a flaming ball at Kato’s head. Worn down and slow to move, Kato only twists enough to avoid getting hit in the face. The fireball explodes where his shoulder meets his neck, leaving a ragged circle of blistered flesh. Kato groans and staggers sideways before falling to his knees.

  The pain in my hand and arm fades in the face of sudden panic. I start to sprint. Griffin keeps moving toward his sister until a sharp call and a metallic clank ring out behind us. He whirls but shouts for me to keep going, so I don’t stop running as the Stymphalian Bird dives at us again. Behind me, wings beat the air with a tinny sound I’m pretty sure is going to replace my usual recurring nightmare. Then there’s a battle cry I know well, a piercing shriek, and a sickening crunch.

  I skid to a stop, turning at the same time. My gut clenches in fear. Griffin is on his back with the Stymphalian Bird squawking above him. He impaled it! But the bird’s lethal wings pound all around him, slicing his skin to shreds. Its tail feathers lacerate his legs, and the bronze beak, sharp and hooked, snaps dangerously close to his face and neck.

  Oh Gods! I can’t let it bite him. It’s poisonous. I know because I can barely feel my right arm.

  Griffin holds the enormous bird above him. His arms strain. The hilt of his sword presses into his chest, all those sharp, churning feathers not even a full sword’s-length away. Their frantic beating doesn’t give Griffin a chance to shield himself, or even to get a foot up to kick the creature away.

  I start back toward him with no idea what to do about a metallic bird that’s as big as I am and a whirlwind of blades. Then Kato calls out for me, a ragged sound that tears my eyes from Griffin. I turn. The flaming Magoi steps in and strikes with his blazing sword. Kato deflects the first blow from his knees, but the second one sinks deep into his abdomen. My heart lurches. Kato’s face drains of what little color it had left as the Magoi shifts his balance and kicks. His burning boot crashes into Kato’s hip and throws him off the blade. Kato hits the sand on his back, and the Magoi raises his sword.