Heart on Fire

by Amanda Bouchet

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  Copyright © 2018 by Amanda Bouchet

  Cover and internal design © 2018 by Sourcebooks, Inc.

  Cover art by Gene Mollica

  Sourcebooks and the colophon are registered trademarks of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems—except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews—without permission in writing from its publisher, Sourcebooks, Inc.

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious or are used fictitiously. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Published by Sourcebooks Casablanca, an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.

  P.O. Box 4410, Naperville, Illinois 60567-4410

  (630) 961-3900

  Fax: (630) 961-2168

  sourcebooks.com

  CONTENTS

  Front Cover

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  A Sneak Peek at Amanda Bouchet's new series!

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Back Cover

  For my mother, the most generous heart I know.

  CHAPTER 1

  “Do you see what I see?”

  What normal person doesn’t look up at that? Not that I’m entirely normal, but at least Griffin’s question snaps me from unpleasant thoughts of giant metallic birds, Cyclopes, fire, and blood.

  “I see…Piers?” And there’s another person riding alongside Griffin’s brother on a large gray horse. Nondescript traveling clothes flap on a tall, lean frame. There’s an odd, lumpy hat. I frown. “Kaia?”

  “Then I’m not hallucinating.” My husband does not sound happy, and seeing as he thinks everyone he loves should be protected by his own army and safe behind thick walls, finding his baby sister on the road to Tarva City disguised as a boy must come as an Olympian shock.

  With a muttered oath, Griffin urges Brown Horse into a gallop. Squeezing his sides, I direct Panotii to follow, my newly healed ribs aching in mild protest at the increase in speed. Another day of rest would have done them good. Not heaving up my pregnant guts after breakfast every morning for the last few days might have helped, too.

  We reach Piers and Kaia and rein in, four sets of hooves kicking up clumps of half-dried mud in the road. Kaia doesn’t bother to dismount but launches herself directly into Griffin’s arms, landing mostly across his lap. He grunts and grabs her, keeping her from slipping to the ground.

  “What are you doing here?” he practically growls. “This is no place for you.”

  She clings to him, crawling up his chest until his chin knocks her hat askew. A long ribbon of dark hair tumbles loose. Kaia gulps down a breath, but then her face crumples, and she lets out a huge sob.

  My heart goes into painful overdrive. Did something happen at home?

  “What’s wrong? Is everyone all right?” Griffin echoes my worries, anxiety sharpening his words. A deep crease forms between his eyebrows as he takes in his brother’s grim face.

  Piers looks haggard. And angry?

  “Is everyone all right?” Kaia repeats, her voice rising shrilly before breaking on a hiccup. Almost violently, she knocks her hat all the way off, getting it out of her face. “I thought you were going to die. Over and over. All of you.” She twists her fingers in the front of Griffin’s tunic, holding on tight. “Blood. Fire.” She turns and spears me with a bloodshot gaze. “Spiders.”

  My stomach hollows so fast it leaves a gaping hole in my middle. She was at the Games? Fifteen-year-old, sheltered, innocent Kaia was at the Agon Games? How in the name of Zeus and his pet Pegasus did that happen?

  “But then you didn’t. Die, I mean. You just kept going, no matter what. But Carver, I thought he did. He looked so…dead.” Sniffling, she wipes the back of her wrist under her nose. Her hand shakes. “And then the news spread that you’d taken over Tarva, but we couldn’t get to you. Your new guards didn’t know us and wouldn’t let us in. They wouldn’t let us in!”

  Kaia balls up her fist and thumps it hard against Griffin’s chest. She hits him again, pouring her fear and frustration into her punch rather than into a new rush of tears—tears she seems to be only barely holding back.

  I shift uncomfortably in my saddle. We did this to her. And it was my idea to compete in the Games to gain access to the previous Tarvan royals. Because of me, nearly everyone Kaia loves was almost massacred on more than one occasion. Worse, she obviously witnessed the most recent ones.

  His jaw flexing, Griffin looks up from his sister’s tearstained face. His somber gaze flicks to Piers. “Did you ask the guards to bring us a message?”

  Piers nods, keeping his eyes trained solely on Griffin, as if I’m too unsavory to look at. “But so did about a hundred other people every hour, using all sorts of incentives. Saying they were family. Offering bribes.” He makes no effort to disguise the bitterness in his voice. “Everyone wants a look at the glorious winners of the Agon Games—and the new Tarvan Alpha couple.”

  I glance at Griffin. He catches my quick look and frowns. The reason we’re out alone, and in our dingiest old traveling gear, is because disguising ourselves and slipping away was the only way past the crowd chanting “Elpis” at our new front gate. The meaning behind the name we gave our team in the Agon Games has been spreading, reminding Thalyrians of the ancient and mostly forgotten spirit and personification of Hope: Elpis. And now, the indomitable idea of hope in a world full of ills appears to be contagious. It’s expanding far and wide.

  If people were so ready for change in Thalyria, it’s hard to believe they waited for me to come along to do it. Or, more accurately, for Griffin to push me into doing something about it. No expectations at all seem to have turned into too much expectation overnight, and now all that growing excitement is camped out on our doorstep and serving as a loud and constant reminder that I have a lot to figure out—and soon.

  At any rate, we went out the back.

  Piers finally looks at me, his expression going from hard to harder. As if reading my mind, he says, “Elpis. How fitting.”

  So why the irony? I narrow my eyes on the one member of Grif
fin’s family—my family—that I just can’t seem to like. “You’re the only one with something against hope.”

  “I’m the only one with something against leading my family and friends into bloodbaths!” Piers snaps.

  “We’re not dead!” I snap back.

  “Where’s Cassandra?”

  The blood drains from my face so fast it leaves my head numb and my hearing dull.

  Piers’s eyes turn as chilling as winter frost. “They told me she went to fight alongside you in the Games, but then I saw Jocasta, my sister, in that terror pit of an arena instead.”

  I open my mouth to respond, although I don’t know what to say. Still, it’s my responsibility, just like Cassandra was. But before I can form the awkward words scraping at my tongue, Griffin steps in, his voice even and strong.

  “Cassandra left our rooms at night to do unsanctioned reconnaissance. She made that decision herself, and it cost her her life before the Games even started. It wasn’t Cat’s fault.”

  Piers pales, his face turning the same shade as the knuckles on the fists clenching his reins. He looks sick, and in that moment, I realize he still hoped, maybe even believed, that Cassandra was alive. She could simply have been somewhere in Castle Tarva with us, off limits, protected behind high walls and slightly overzealous guards.

  But she’s not. She never saw either of our victories—winning the brutal Agon Games or the successful takeover of Tarva—and it was my fault. Partially, at least. My plan to enter the tournament brought her to Kitros. To the arena. She came because she believed in Griffin and me, to fight for us, for a new Thalyria, and she was the first casualty on our side since I joined this cause.

  Slowly, Piers looks away from Griffin. His dark-gray eyes land on me and spark like flint on steel.

  The heavy dose of guilt weighing on my chest makes it hard to breathe. “I’m sorry. She was very nice.”

  The moment I say it, I want to shove the weak platitude back down my throat. Two bright spots appear high on Piers’s pale cheeks, and I think he wants to shove my words back down my throat, too, along with his fist. I can hardly blame him.

  The muscles in Piers’s face twitch, and I think he’s just barely holding back the colossal tongue-lashing he wants to give me. Clearly struggling for control, he still urges his horse forward until he’s uncomfortably close. When he finally speaks, his voice is so tense and low that it vibrates like the first ominous tremors before a volcano belches up destruction from below.

  “Let me get this clear, Cat. You stole my second-in-command when I wasn’t there to stop it, got her killed, and then replaced a solid, seasoned warrior on your team with my completely untrained sister?”

  I swallow. Gods, I’d hate me, too. “Jocasta handled herself well in the ring.”

  “She should never have been in the ring!”

  “She wouldn’t have been if Cassandra had stayed put!” Damn it! I want to take that back, too.

  Piers’s nostrils flare. “You’re blaming a dead woman for putting my sister’s life in danger?”

  “Your sister volunteered,” I answer through gritted teeth. “We needed six people in order to compete. She was courageous and strong.”

  “She’d be dead if Carver hadn’t intervened in the final round. For days, we thought he’d died saving her.”

  Painful memories filled with heartache and fear hit me like a series of hard punches to the gut, nearly winding me. It was so close. If Selena wasn’t frighteningly powerful and a healer beyond compare, we could never have brought Carver back from the brink of death.

  Piers drops his reins and balls both his hands into fists, grinding them hard against his thighs. His hands are big and strong, but they don’t scare me. Sometimes, I wish he’d go ahead and hit me. Then I could show him just how unfriendly I can be.

  “I could have lost three siblings because of your impossible, insane scheme,” he bites out.

  My eyebrows fly up. “Impossible? It worked! As the victors, we got an audience with the Tarvan royals. In their own home.” Ours now, hard won, but without a long and bloody war and with only a handful of lives lost. I’ll only regret two casualties: Cassandra and Appoline, the seer princess who protected my unborn child and me at the cost of her own life.

  “I’d think my brother was dead right now if I hadn’t finally heard otherwise from news at the castle gate!” Piers seethes.

  I’m truly sorry for his loss, and his worry, but indignation starts to seethe back. Doesn’t he realize what we’ve accomplished? How many lives we’ve saved? What we’ve gained?

  “We sent a message home.” Griffin’s too-even tone means to tread carefully. He’s still holding Kaia on his lap, and his fingers flex with tension against her back. “If you’d been where you were supposed to be—both of you—you would have known we were all right. And Cassandra made her own choices. So did Jocasta. So did Carver, for that matter.”

  “And you sanctioned it! Every part of it. Cat says jump, and you all march blindly to your deaths!”

  Griffin’s face darkens with anger. I can tell he’s barely holding on to his temper, and his tolerance far exceeds mine. Personally, I feel like my head is a geyser, and steam is about to explode from my ears. I understand that Piers is protective and angry, and he has every right to be, but this is about a lot more than losing his second-in-command, or even Jocasta competing in the Games. He’s never liked me. At first, it was because I didn’t support Griffin’s ambitions, or fall blindly into his arms. Now it’s because I do? And because I have? I’ve become an integral part—no, the lynchpin—of Griffin’s grand design for Thalyria, but that’s still not good enough. Or maybe it’s too much.

  Gods! I can’t win with Piers!

  Kaia pushes up from Griffin’s chest, straightening as she wipes her lingering tears away. Her face is splotched with red. “But they’re not dead.” She bites her lower lip hard enough to turn it white. Glancing down, she quietly adds, “Except for Cassandra.”

  Piers flinches. So do I. Then his eyes blaze with anger so fierce I feel it like a physical blow. “You turned my sister into a murderer.”

  Rage rises up in me, lifting my chin a notch. “She turned herself into a warrior. You should be proud.”

  “You should be ashamed,” Piers shoots back. “Making innocent people fight your war.”

  My war? I open my mouth to argue, because really, how can I not respond to that? But Griffin has apparently heard enough.

  “You’re talking to my wife and your Alpha,” he says. “The Queen of two realms. Jocasta showed great bravery. And Cassandra wasn’t forced into anything. She came by choice, and we lost one life instead of thousands. As the person actively recruiting our army for us, you should see the bigger picture, and you should definitely respect your friend’s sacrifice.”

  “As the person recruiting your army, I feel useless. You don’t even need it,” Piers spits out, glaring at me as if I’ve single-handedly undermined his life’s work.

  “We do,” Griffin counters. “There’s no taking Fisa without a huge fighting force.”

  “Fisa.” Piers huffs a bitter laugh. “So this is all about Cat and her mother? You’ll drag all of Thalyria into a war to settle your wife’s family squabble? To feed her need for power?”

  My jaw drops. Acid coats his every word, and Piers makes everything about me, when I never initiated any of this. Without Griffin, and apparently a few meddling Gods to push me along, I’d still be telling fortunes at the circus, occasionally filling in for the acrobats, lying about my past, ignoring my future, and living as far away from my cruel tyrant of a mother as humanly possible.

  “This has nothing to do with a family squabble or anyone’s need for power,” Griffin answers harshly. “And you know it.”

  Piers doesn’t meet Griffin’s eyes. Instead, he and I glare daggers at each other. I have a lot to say, but I so
mehow keep my mouth shut. I don’t want to make things worse.

  Kaia slides to the ground between Griffin and me. I back Panotii up a few steps to give her more room. There’s the added benefit of putting some distance between Piers and myself without looking like I’m backing down. Because I’m not.

  “Why are you out here alone?” Kaia looks around, as if half expecting the rest of Beta Team to come galloping down the road.

  Alpha Team?

  Nope. I’ll never get used to that.

  “Where’s everyone else?” she asks.

  “Back at the castle,” Griffin answers. “They’re fine. Cat’s friend Selena told us to go see what was on the West Road.”

  Griffin and I exchange a look. Apparently, we found it.

  “We’re on the West Road,” Kaia says, brightening. “Piers finally gave up. We were leaving for Sinta City, but I convinced him to turn around and try again. I had this…feeling.” She wrinkles her nose, scrunching together the few sun-induced freckles she must have picked up over the last couple of weeks.

  A feeling? Like the sight? Or a nudge from a God?

  With Griffin’s immunity to harmful magic, Carver’s incredible skill with a sword, and Kaia’s “feeling,” I have to wonder if this family is as Hoi Polloi as I’ve always believed. Sometimes magic is a sort of intuition, and their instincts are usually spot-on.

  I dismount next to Kaia, feeling stiff and heavy and kind of out of breath, even though I wasn’t really moving. All that seems to be a permanent condition at the moment. It started a few days ago, along with the copious vomiting.

  “You did the right thing,” I tell her. “You should always listen to your gut.” I loop my arm around Kaia’s waist and squeeze, attempting a casual display of affection. It goes well, I think.

  Joining us on the ground, Griffin plants his hands on his hips and gives Kaia a stern look from under lowered brows. She immediately starts shifting from foot to foot. I squeeze her again in encouragement and then drop my arm, stepping back.

  “And what, exactly, are you doing here?” Griffin demands, his eyes narrowing on his sister. “And why in the name of the Gods were you at the Agon Games?”