Treasure of the Fire Kingdom (The Elemental Phases Book 4)

by Cassandra Gannon

  Obviously, they hadn’t listened.

  Kahn blamed Chason for fucking up his cousin’s last request.

  “Back off.” He shoved Chason backwards. “You touch me, again, and, I swear to Gaia, your corpse is gonna be real visible to everyone. I’ll dump it in the middle of the Agora.”

  It would be an interesting fight if the two of them ever came to blows.

  In contrast to Kahn’s guerrilla warfare training, Chason had been raised as an officer and a gentleman. When Mara was alive, Chason had been like the hero from a Frank Capra film. So, neat and tidy and good. Chason was the kid who’d helped little old ladies cross the street and donated his allowance to help homeless pet shelters.

  Personally, Kahn always thought the guy was a pansy.

  Even carrying half his former weight, this new obsessed Chason would be a worthy opponent if the two of them ever battled it out, though. At least he had some balls.

  His sunken face darkened wrathfully. “I will have my Match’s body back. I don’t care who else I have to bury.”

  “I did not take Mara from her grave.” Kahn ground out, still positive that this was another Chason witch hunt. In Chason’s new post-Fall reality, everyone was always a suspect, regardless of how stupid the evidence. He’d accused everybody but Big Bird of stealing Mara, at this point. “We’ve been over this fifty times! Just listen to what you’re saying, for God’s sake. Are you crazy? I mean are you seriously fucking crazy?”

  “Yes.” Chason said flatly. “I am. I know that. And I don’t care.” He pointed at the tattoos on Kahn’s arm. “What do those mean, exactly? Mara had two on the inside of her arm for her parents. Smaller, though.”

  “She wasn’t a warrior.” It took Kahn a second to catch up with the question. Insane-Chason often jumped topics, like his mind was always racing. “Her marks were…”

  “What do they mean!?” Chason interrupted. “Can you read that language?”

  “All Light Phases can read it, dumbass. The actual words are none of your business.” The tattoos varied from person to person. They were usually prayers or laments. Kahn’s were all poetry. He would never decipher them for Chason. Period. They were between him and his lost family. “If you were so interested in our language, maybe you should have asked Mara about it. You know, before she died.”

  The words were full of acid, because a part of Kahn would always blame Chason for Mara’s death. Okay, not just a part. Half of Kahn blamed Chason. Blamed him for not being a better Match. Blamed him for taking his cousin to the Magnet Kingdom. Blamed him for Mara being alone when she died.

  The rest of Kahn blamed himself.

  Chason gazed at him blankly for a long moment. “I should have asked her about the language.” His tone suggested he was talking to himself, not Kahn. Chason did that a lot, too. Just sort of faded off into his own world. “Of course, I should have. I should have done so much differently…” He gave his head a sudden, forceful shake and focused on Kahn. “I need you to read this for me.” He extracted a sheet of paper from his pocket and held it up. “Do you know what that says?”

  Kahn snatched it from his hand. He squinted down at the Xeroxed page for a beat and then swore. “Where did this come from?” Chason shouldn’t have this. No one should have this.

  It was right off the side of the Light House’s most sacred site.

  In the vast Light Kingdom, there were only a handful of stone buildings and, ironically, they were some of the most beautiful, mysterious structures in the universe. Ancient generations built temples of granite in the Light Kingdom. The ruins still remained, but their exact purpose had long since been forgotten. The jungle swallowed up the secrets, leaving nothing behind except twisting vines and strangely carved rocks.

  Elemental scientists constantly petitioned the Light House to let them examine the ruins.

  The Light House constantly told them to fuck off.

  Kahn spent most of his time wandering among the ancient structures. He knew them better than anyone. Symbols like these were carved into the monoliths, some kind of proto-language left by God-knew-who. No one else should have pieces of these forgotten words. It made him furious that Chason, of all people, would show up waving them around.

  “Well?” He tore his eyes from the page and scowled at his cousin-in-law. “What is this?”

  “It’s a photocopy of the Justice Tablet. Can you read it?”

  “No.”

  “Fucking liar.” Chason started for him, again. “It looks just like those tattoos. Tell me what that says!”

  “I can’t read it! It’s not really our language. It’s older. Different.” Kahn was telling the truth about that, but he wasn’t sure why he bothered. “Every fifth or sixth word, I can take a guess at, but that’s it.”

  If the Light Phases took the ancient language to the Water House or some other intellectual stronghold, it probably could have been deciphered. They could have used the modern variation to code-break it or whatever. But, that wasn’t going to happen. The Light Phases didn’t play well with others.

  Chason still didn’t believe him. Kahn could read it in his swirling eyes. “Do you want Mara back or not?” He snarled. “Do you like her being out there alone?”

  Black rage poured through Kahn. A frenzy like he’d never known. “You let someone take Mari, not me. You wouldn’t give her back to her people for burial and now she’s gone! That’s on your head, not mine.” His mind constantly whirled with nightmare scenarios of what could be happening to her body.

  “She was my Match. The Queen of the Magnet House. Her people were the Magnet Phases.”

  “Yeah, your loyal, asshole subjects who you love so much, right? You wouldn’t know a single one of them in a line-up, anymore, your highness.” Kahn jabbed a finger at him. “This is all your fault, so don’t you ever say I don’t want my cousin back. You stole Mara in life and you let someone else steal her in death.”

  “The barriers were down! While I was killing Parald, someone came into the Magnet Kingdom and kidnapped her. Otherwise…”

  “I was in the Air Kingdom, trying to kill him, too. And no one got into my home and defiled any crypts while I was gone.”

  “Maybe the difference is, I actually succeed in avenging Mara’s death and you spend your time playing Tarzan in the jungle. Now, do you want to help me look for her or shall I just do this on my own, too?”

  “Fucking hell.” Kahn hissed. He scraped a hand over his intricately knotted blond hair. The black streak at his temple matched his eyes. All the Light House warriors wore their hair long and braided. Kahn had no idea why he continued to uphold the tradition now that there was nothing left to defend. Habit, probably. “If you weren’t such a piss-poor Match, none of this would have even happened.”

  Chason’s expression changed. The ferocity faded into agonizing sadness. “I know.” He said flatly. “But this isn’t about me. Or you. It’s about Mara.”

  Kahn hadn’t been expecting that. He stared at Chason, breathing hard. In his memory, he saw a sudden picture of his cousin smiling at this man. Mara, happy and laughing on her Phazing Day, waving at Kahn from the dance floor. And then on her deathbed, asking him to look after Chason for her.

  Shit.

  Thanks to Mara, he was going to be trapped into helping this dickhead. Even now, Kahn was helpless against his baby sisters and cousin. He’d do anything for them. They used to drive him crazy with their constant problems and ideas. Sometimes, he’d pray for two minutes of uninterrupted silence.

  He’d been such a fool.

  Kahn would gladly lie down and die, if it meant he got to hear to even one more ridiculous demand from any of them. Seeing one of his best swords used to reach things on tall shelves, or having nail polish spilled on his belongings, or being poisoned by his sister Prinny’s cooking… he’d die to have any of that back, now. He shoved the thoughts away, because it was so much easier to deal with the anger than the crippling grief.

  “Why is deciphering this
thing important?” He asked grudgingly.

  Chason pounced on the opening. “So, you can read it?”

  “No. But, if you tell me what you know, I’ll see if I can fill in some blanks. Then, I want you gone.”

  That was apparently good enough for Chason. “Whoever took Mara has the Liberty box. I need to know more about the Tablets if we’re going to find out who it is. This writing could help me with that.”

  Kahn’s jaw tightened. “Alright. Fine. There are ruins here that have that same writing on them. It’s like the archaic form of Light Phase. Mara was the only one left who could read it and she’s gone, so whatever it says is gone, too.”

  “Take me to the ruins.”

  He should let the guy try and find the site on his own. With luck, Chason would starve to death, wandering in circles. “I don’t have fucking time to take a nature hike through the…”

  Light writing suddenly appeared on the underside of the jungle canopy, illuminating the forest in every direction.

  Don’t seek out what you don’t yet understand.

  All answers will come in time.

  This is your final warning.

  Chason looked up at the words in annoyance. “This again?”

  “You saw this before?” Kahn tried to process what that meant.

  “Yeah. A couple months ago someone bat-signaled my sky back home and these messages have been showing up ever since. I figured it was some Light Phase fucking around and I’ve been ignoring them. Wait,” he flashed Kahn a suspicious frown, “are you doing this?”

  “Of course not, you asshole.” None of the other Light Phases in the kingdom would have written such a thing either and no other Elemental had the power to pull off a light trick like that.

  What the hell was going on?

  Chason’s head tilted to one side, his gaze tracing the letters over and over. “Oh my God.” He finally whispered. “He’s been planning it.” Purple eyes cut back over to Kahn. “How could he project skywriting into my kingdom without the Liberty Box? The barriers were still up, then. He must have planned to take my Match, all along. This,” he waved a hand at the glowing message, “this is him. This Light Phase has Mara.”

  Kahn’s jaw tightened. Logically, there was only one explanation. One that all the Light Phases already suspected, but didn’t like to mention to outsiders.

  “Another Light Phase must have survived the Fall, then.” He glanced over at Chason. “Someone we don’t know about. And, if the bastard’s been hiding for the past two years, ripping down barriers and kidnapping women’s bodies… chances are nobody’s gonna break out the fatted calf to him welcome home.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  The elements seemed to rage around us.

  Gaston Leroux- “The Phantom of the Opera”

  “I could just kill the guards for you.” Kingu offered for the tenth time. “Really, it wouldn’t be a bother. Or I could make the entire building vanish…”

  “No.” Hope tugged him down beside her and peered at the Cloudland’s prison through the puffy pastel bushes. It was a hard, rectangular structure amid the pretty, curved landscape. “I told you, I don’t want you thinking I’m trying to sell you my body for personal gain, so you can’t do anything. Now shhh!”

  Kingu sighed. The two of them were hiding in the foliage at the edge of the park. Only morons as stupid as the Banished Phases could have missed them lurking around the perimeter of the jail. Hope was not a subtle woman. It was an endearing trait and one Kingu identified with, but they really were wasting the whole morning on this misadventure.

  “What if I promise to only think about what I’d be gaining? Then could I…?”

  “No.” Midnight blue eyes looked up at him earnestly. “Really, this is all for your own good. Once you see that I’m being completely upfront about how hot you are, you can absolutely help me explode buildings all the time. For now, though, you need to just me do it on my own.” She patted his arm. “Also, if you could be a teeny bit more inconspicuous, that would be great.”

  Kingu tensed. “This is the extent to which I blend in anywhere.” He told her stiffly.

  “But you’re wearing a suit.” She wrinkled her nose. “I just don’t see why you couldn’t have created yourself a camouflaged outfit. I told you we were going to be sneaking around outside. Yes, okay, camouflage for the Cloud Kingdom would be pink and kind of… girly. But, you could’ve at least considered the mission and not just looking good.”

  Kingu frowned. She’d been talking about his clothes? “Oh.” He relaxed a bit and glanced down at his tailored navy jacket. “I can compromise on gray, perhaps.” He snapped his fingers and turned it into a steel colored Armani. “Better?”

  Hope made an “ummm” noise that told him she still wasn’t completely happy and went back to spying. She was taking this plan of hers very seriously. She’d even had him change the color of her poodle skirt and sequined sweater into muted sunrise shades. Now, she blended into the foliage, right down to a little knit cap with a pink pom-pom on top, which was really cute.

  Why had he ever thought her taste in clothing was silly?

  Hope looked perfect in the outfit he’d created. She looked perfect all the time. Perfect beside him. Perfect in his house. Perfect in his arms. From her chaotic blonde curls to her sequined sneakers and everything in between, she was just… perfect. Even this pointless plan to rescue what’s-his-name the Metal Phase seemed like the perfect way to spend his day, so long as Hope was there.

  Time consuming and overly complicated, but perfect.

  “Okay.” She stage whispered. “Now, I was here yesterday, so I know the interior layout. There aren’t too many guards in there, because everyone’s locked up in cells. But they do have those guards out front and a big plastic door blocking us.” She studied the prison with an intense sort of frown. “We definitely need dynamite.”

  Finally, some forward momentum. “For the guards?”

  “For the door. I don’t kill people.” She paused. “Intentionally.” Another pause. “Often.”

  Kingu glanced down at her, his mouth curving.

  “Hey, the gladiator thing was a total aberration. I swear. I hardly ever stab anybody.”

  “Yet, you knew what you were doing with that broadsword, yesterday.”

  Hope’s expression lit up. “You think so?”

  “I was certainly impressed.”

  “Well,” Hope gave what she obviously intended to be a modest shrug, “I do have some training. My Uncle Frankie teaches everyone in my family how to fight, but I’d never actually won anything…”

  “Wait.” His amusement faded. “Frankie, of the Heat House is your uncle?” Even Kingu had heard of that maniac. It wasn’t like “Frankie” was a common name among the Elementals. “How is he connected to the Color Phases? Didn’t he kill about forty of you in some war?”

  Hope’s eyes went wide. “Yes. He… did. But… I mean, that really was all the Color House’s fault. They –we-- never should have incited him with the matador. It was basically suicide! They –we-- held a bullfighting thing as a tourist draw and Frankie hates matadors. He blames them for Lincoln’s assassination. Everyone knows that!”

  “Abraham Lincoln?” Kingu squinted at her. “The human with the tall hat?”

  She nodded earnestly. “Yes. Frankie’s sure that Abe Lincoln was really George Washington in disguise.”

  “I don’t think that’s true.”

  “Well, they were both US presidents. Anyhow, Frankie’s also sure that he once met George Washington at the circus. They each liked the little horses, so there was a real bond there.”

  “And… how does that involve matadors and the Color Phases?”

  “Because, the Color House reopened his wounds with that rodeo and he was very upset! They should’ve known better. Frankie really took the whole Ford’s Theater thing hard. I mean, he won’t even look at little horses, now.”

  Kingu should just drop this, except… “Matadors don’t
ride horses.”

  “Oh, Frankie’s reaction comes from emotional memory. Matadors remind him of bulls, which remind him of cows, which remind him of horses, which remind him of little horses, which remind him of the circus and meeting George Washington, which reminds him of poor Mr. Lincoln.” Hope sighed. “Plus, he sometimes confuses matadors with the Confederacy.”

  “A common mistake, no doubt.”

  “The point is, anyone he decapitated during the really short war that the Color Phases totally started –Well-- it came from a place a true grief.”

  “Right.”

  “It’s not his fault.” Hope insisted as if Kingu was arguing the point. “Why does everyone always blame my family for every single murder that happens?”

  Kingu was mesmerized. “Your family’s blamed for many murders?” The Color Phases were apparently a bloodthirsty lot. He never would have suspected that from all the stupid rainbows they liked to make. He’d assumed they the only waged war on sepia tones.

  “Yes, of course they are. It’s so unfair. Frankie is my cousin’s Match’s uncle. We’re very close, so I know he’s not serial killer. Don’t listen to the rumors.”

  “I see.” Kingu didn’t see, but whatever. “You must have a very forgiving cousin’s Match’s aunt, I suppose. If Frankie slaughtered her people and she still Phazed with him.”

  He wasn’t an expert on Elemental rules, but it seemed like she must have also been okay with him keeping his own House designation after they’d Phazed. He wasn’t called “Frankie of the Color House,” after all. Kingu couldn’t blame the woman, though. Hope could have wiped out whole planets, while calling herself Charlemagne, and he wouldn’t have given a damn. Why would this Color Phase feel differently about her mate?

  Hope’s eyes narrowed as if he’d started speaking in some alien dialect. “Auntie Hera? Forgiving?” She hesitated. “Um… Okay. Just don’t ever say that to her face. Please. It wouldn’t be good.” She cleared her throat and refocused on the flat, ugly building. “Let’s just concentrate on the jailbreak. What step were we on, again?”