Heart on Fire

by Amanda Bouchet

  “Finally.” Squinting toward the hermit’s house, Griffin blows on his chilled hands. He draws his Eternal Fires of the Underworld cloak more firmly around his broad shoulders. Jocasta stitched up the tear the Hydra made in the back of it, and the flaming threads glow gently on the inside.

  I’m wearing mine, too, but it’s completely dark. Little Bean keeps me excessively warm.

  “Anxious for a hot meal?” I ask, eyeing the curling wisps of grayish-white smoke rising from the hermit’s chimney. The air as we leave the thick evergreen forest behind us smells deliciously woodsy, like burning logs, crisp, frosty ground, and moldering leaves.

  “There’s no guarantee of that,” Griffin says, although he does look hopeful.

  “No. We could be attacked, welcomed, ignored… I have no idea.” All I know is that the power here is staggering—and not exactly comfortable. “The magic here feels strange.”

  “How so?” Griffin asks, turning to me.

  “Like it’s not something I could—or should—take.”

  He frowns at that. Since my lightning is hit-and-miss—mostly miss—magic theft is my best defense at the moment, and neither of us likes what I just said.

  “When you take and use someone else’s magic, you heal from whatever wound they inflict on you, but they don’t heal from the magic you throw back at them. Why is that?”

  I offer him a cheeky smile I’m not really feeling deep down. “Because Poseidon wanted me to be able to play with the big fish.”

  Griffin grunts. But however I might spin it, we both know that’s true. The gifts my God Father gave me weren’t haphazard in the least, but carefully selected for the best chance of bringing me to where I am now—smack in the middle of a Power Bid that could reunite the realms.

  That’s the idea anyway.

  We point our horses toward the hermit’s house. The large, wooden structure sits at the top of a substantial clearing on the slope of a mountainside. The meadow between us and the house is still green, despite the chilly weather, and the grass is cropped short, so it must be used for grazing. I don’t see any animals right now, but there is a barn. The tree line continues sparsely for about half a mile above the slant-roofed dwelling, and beyond that, the first of the snow and granite peaks of the southern Deskathis tower above this place, growing taller and wilder as they stretch northward toward Olympus.

  We rein in partway across the meadow. The ground is soggy here, and there’s a bubbling and probably frigid mountain spring that feeds a ribbon-like stream leading back into the woods. The modest, partially open-faced barn houses sheep and goats, who seem to have decided that inside is better than outside today. I wonder why. The sun is shining, even though it’s cool. Buckets and rusty tools hang from the rough-hewn outer walls, along with a pair of old lanterns that look like they haven’t been lit in years. The place strikes me as having an oddly abandoned, lonely feel, despite the livestock looking in good health and the chimney smoke flavoring the rich autumn air.

  I shiver, although not from cold. Maybe this feeling that grates on me like a bad itch is exactly what a hermit looks for. Objectively, the setting is calm and beautiful, but the Gods know I could never live up here all by myself. The solitude would eat me alive.

  Dismounting, I glance toward the pine forest we just left, with its dense, frosty carpet of fallen needles and continuous shadows. The warmth of day hasn’t fought its way through—and probably can’t—but it’s still far more appealing than what I think is on our right.

  My heart beating a little faster than normal, I turn and face what must be the unique Thalyrian phenomenon that gives Frostfire its name. Running along the edge of the meadow and directly abutting the far side of the house, there’s what appears to be a sheer cliff. We can’t see down into it from here, but the precipice supposedly drops off into an almost bottomless volcanic pit—although I’m pretty sure it’s more than that.

  Nervous heat billows up through me—a lot like a scorching blast from what I’ve been told is at the bottom of the ancient caldera: Hephaestus’s forge, the smith God’s fiery domain.

  Griffin leads Brown Horse into an empty enclosure, and I follow him in with Panotii, relieved to turn my back on the yawning gap between us and the summits to the northeast. We don’t loosen the horses’ girths at all, since both Griffin and I are currently fervently and wholeheartedly worshipping the cult of you never know, so be ready to run for your life.

  Little Bean has changed my outlook on a lot of things, my own safety being the primary one. I don’t consider caution to be cowardice. I never have. It was just never my way before. Lately, to Griffin’s unending satisfaction, I’m considerably less prone to running headlong into danger.

  “I get the frost part,” Griffin says, taking my elbow and guiding me. He must think I need help walking in a straight line up a hill toward a house. I don’t object. His strong hand is too blissfully cool on my heated skin for me to want to pull away. “But why fire?” he asks.

  I lift my nose and sniff. “Smell the air.”

  He inhales deeply just as a breeze swirls up over the precipice. His nose wrinkles. “Sulfur?”

  “That cliff over there… It goes waaay down.”

  “Waaay down?”

  I nod, skirting a small animal hole in the ground. “Apparently, that crater is Hephaestus’s forge, where he crafts the weapons of the Gods. Also, Thanos once told me that Hades stokes his furnaces with the magma from the deepest depths of the Frostfire pit, and I assume he knows what he’s talking about, Thanos being Ares and all.”

  Just then, whatever is far below belches up steam and a wave of heat, surprising us both. Maybe Hephaestus is working on something down there.

  “Humph.” Griffin’s hand tightens on my arm.

  I roll my eyes. “I’m not going to fall in, you know. The cliff is all the way over there.”

  He loosens his hold. Sort of.

  I glance up at him, trying to tame my sudden smile. Domineering and overprotective doesn’t even begin to describe my husband. There’s also deliciously jealous, but that’s another subject altogether. The black stubble framing his mouth makes his full lips look impossibly kissable. It’s been hours since they were last on mine. And I love to kiss the hawkish curve of his nose. So strong and masculine. I adore that nose. And the rest of him. His powerful body. Muscle. Sinew. Bone.

  I gaze up at him, nearly sighing. “I love you.”

  Griffin stops dead in his tracks and glares down at me. “That’s it. We’re leaving.”

  I blink. “What? Why?”

  “You think something terrible is going to happen.”

  “No, I don’t.” I frown. “I don’t think so.”

  His eyes narrow, wariness hardening his expression. “You do.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  He scowls at me.

  “Well, something terrible could happen,” I concede. “But that’s always true, no matter where or when. Tomorrow, I could trip over my own feet and break my neck for all I know.”

  Judging by the look on Griffin’s face, I don’t think that helped.

  “You only say you love me or you’re sorry when you’re scared or almost dead. You’re not almost dead, so what’s scaring you?” he demands.

  “I say I love you all the time!”

  “When we’re in bed. When I’m so deep inside you that you can’t feel anything but me. Not when we’re about to knock on a stranger’s door. What’s scaring you?” he demands again.

  I huff. “At the moment? The way your jaw is popping like it’s alive.”

  Griffin crosses his arms. “I want honesty. Right now.”

  “Right now, Your Imperialness?”

  His nostrils flare. His hard look is spectacular.

  I’m not intimidated. It makes me hot. Then again, so does just about everything at the moment,
but not in the same way.

  “If you must know, the magic around here is a little intense and…disturbing, but it’s not scaring me. Not really. It’s probably just something coming from whatever is down there in that God Pit,” I say, waving toward the cliff. “I’m a shade nervous. That’s all.”

  His eyes stay flinty and unconvinced. “That’s all? That’s not generally cause for a heartfelt declaration, at least not from you.”

  I toss my hands in the air. “Fine. I take it back. I looked at you, found you incredibly desirable, and my body got all hot and tingly. I blame Little Bean for an excess of sentimentality and…and…urges!”

  Griffin stares at me. Then his mouth splits into a grin that makes me all kinds of angry. He reaches for me again, his grasp lighter this time.

  “Incredibly desirable?” Looking smug, he threads his fingers through mine.

  Scowling, I poke him in the chest with my free hand. “Well, you do have that whole overbearing warlord thing going on. Plus, plenty of muscles in all the right places, some good ideas, and, you know, a really big sword.”

  A laugh cracks out of Griffin, and my heart swoops like an off-balance bird. He’s rarely free with humor these days, or maybe there’s just not enough of it in our lives anymore. The happy flutter that wings through my chest takes any lingering irritation away with it.

  Gah! Talk about mood changes!

  Griffin captures my other hand and then pulls me in to him until I’m standing between his legs. “I love you, too, Cat.”

  He kisses me, his mouth pressing softly against mine. Warmth rolls straight from his lips to my toes, which curl in my boots.

  “Tell me again,” he coaxes.

  I shake my head, our noses brushing.

  “Say it,” he demands against my mouth.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Last chance,” he warns, gently nipping at my lower lip.

  “Big sword.”

  Chuckling, Griffin swats my bottom. “There’s more where that came from.”

  I look up at him through my lashes. “I sure hope so.”

  He grins. “I think you just managed coy.”

  “Good Gods! Has the Underworld frozen over?”

  “Next, Centaurs will fly.” He brushes his lips over mine again, not lingering, and when he lifts his head, his black hair ruffling on the faintly sulfurous wind, the teasing gleam is already absent from his eyes. “You’re sure there’s nothing else?”

  “Nothing besides Little Bean wreaking havoc on my moods?” I shake my head. “But I wanted you before. I want you always.”

  He lifts his hand and brushes his thumb across my lips. Then his fingers fall away, trailing lightly down my arm until I shiver.

  “You’re the air I breathe,” he says without a trace of humor in his voice.

  My whole chest clenches hard, squeezing a tight, almost painful beat from my heart. “I admire you,” I reply. “I need you. I love you with all my heart.”

  Griffin offers me a different kind of smile this time, small, lopsided, gentle, and so entirely genuine. It fades almost immediately, though, and he straightens to his full, imposing height, abruptly pinning me with his warlord stare. “If you feel anything off here, we leave, with or without the potion we came for. You’ve got great instincts, Cat. Trust your gut.”

  I nod. I will. I always do.

  “And trust me,” he adds, everything about him turning urgent all of a sudden. “Don’t trust anyone but me. Ever.”

  “You don’t mean that. What about Flynn and Kato? Carver? He’s your broth—”

  “My brother betrayed me. He tried to rip you from me!”

  I freeze, taken aback by the burst of rage in his voice. After weeks of granite features and near-silence on the subject, it looks like Griffin is about to erupt. It’s fitting, since we’re at Frostfire, and there’s a volcano under our feet. Like the hot center of the world, a person can only stew and boil and brood for so long before the fire comes surging up.

  “That wasn’t Carver,” I say, unsure of how to tread these turbulent waters with which I’m largely unfamiliar. My family’s solution to squabbles is murder. Not exactly an example to live by. “That was Piers.”

  Griffin’s jaw hardens to stone. “If Piers could do it, anyone can. And Carver… He’s not the same anymore. He’s…”

  “He’s my friend, which Piers never was. He’s also sad, and maybe a little angry, because we have what he doesn’t. What he wants. That’s his right, Griffin. We can’t change that. And it doesn’t mean he’ll betray us.”

  Griffin glances away from me, his face screwing up. “The closer you and I get, the more distance Carver puts between us. Looking back, I realize it started happening almost from the beginning. Then, after the Games and seeing Konstantina in the Underworld, he just caved in on himself. I never know what he’s thinking anymore.”

  “He’s thinking about how the woman he loved chose someone else and then died. He can never win her back. It’s too late, and that’s eating him up inside. He could live with it until he started being faced with us every day, and our happiness. That’s hard for him. It has to be.”

  “It’s changed him. He’s sullen. And drinking again.”

  Again? I don’t like the sound of that. “Lately, you haven’t exactly been a stranger to dark moods, either. And that’s your right. We all change. I certainly have. Look at me, I’m almost responsible. Give Carver time. He’ll come around.”

  “I can’t predict what he’ll do.” Griffin’s eyes turn even more troubled. “I’m not sure you’re safe.”

  “With Carver?” I stare at him in shock. “Are you kidding me?”

  Griffin grunts, and I’m not sure what that means. What I do know is that he’s looking for betrayal where there is none, where I know down to the very marrow of my bones that there never will be. Carver would die for me, and he would kill himself before he ever hurt me. He would do the same for Griffin, for any of his family, for Kato or Flynn. But Griffin trusted a core group of people with his life, with me, with everything, and one of them kicked a hole straight through his heart. A person doesn’t just get over that, not even someone as balanced and confident as Griffin.

  “Piers didn’t think he was betraying you. In his mind, he was protecting you. Protecting his fam—”

  “Don’t.” Griffin cuts me off, his glare ice-cold. “Don’t defend him. He’s dead to me.”

  I bite my lip to stop from saying anything else. Right now, the finality in Griffin’s words is flat-out undeniable. Their veracity snaps inside me like a barb-tipped whip, almost as painful as a lie igniting a fire in my bones. With Griffin, a hard truth always sets off the flip side of my Kingmaker Magic. He’s only ever lied to me once, and that was just to prove the truth—that he was in love with me.

  “Fine.” For now. “Just be careful not to convict Carver of crimes that aren’t his.” And for Griffin’s sake, I hope he’ll find a measure of peace with his memories of Piers, because that’s all he’ll ever have.

  He nods once, but his eyes are flatter than I’ve ever seen them. I wish I could say something to help him, to heal him, but I don’t believe there are any words that can stitch up a tear in a person’s soul. Only time can do that, and the hope that it will eventually get better.

  Oh my Gods. More things suddenly make sense to me than ever before. Hope extends from suffering. Elpis is the hand that reaches out to the torn.

  I grab Griffin’s forearm, squeezing hard. Maybe I can do something. Maybe I’m meant to.

  He looks at my hand, then at me, and we stare at each other.

  “You’re the best man I know, and the only man I want.” I tighten my grip. “You’re the father of the future of this world. You’re a torch, not the dark. I look at you, and all I see is fire and light.”

  Slowly, some of the distance fade
s from his eyes. “You’re the light, agapi mou. You glow, and you don’t even know it.”

  “If I glow, it’s because you lit me up.”

  He shakes his head. “It’s because you forgive.”

  “Me? Forgive? I can hold a grudge like an Olympian. I’m practically an expert.”

  A wry smile just barely lifts his mouth. “You forgive everyone except yourself.”

  I press my lips flat, not answering. His words are kindly meant, but they feel like lead on my chest, weighty and full of pressure. Like the future. Elpis. Thalyria. Motherhood. I don’t think I’m ready for any of it. I’m not sure I’m qualified at all.

  I’m saved from having to respond when the cabin door creaks open, the squeal of wood and hinges loud even from across the meadow. I let my hand drop from Griffin’s arm, and we turn as one.

  A severely stooped woman looks out from the shadowed entrance of her house. She’s old, wizened, powerful. A sudden chill bursts over the back of my neck. I wasn’t sure what we’d find here, and she’s at the same time everything a hermit should be and not at all what I expected. But potion making is a nasty, slippery, dark skill, usually practiced by people who are nasty, slippery, and dark. To be honest, I think she’ll fit the mold.

  I take a deep breath and steel myself to deal with the kind of Magoi that are better left alone. It’s time to meet the hermit witch of Frostfire.

  CHAPTER 11

  Her bright-green eyes, much like mine, stand out even from a distance. That’s not unusual in the north of Fisa, or among powerful Magoi, but her eyes seem disturbingly vivid and intense for an old crone.

  “Only the most temerarious of travelers come this way.” She opens her door farther and takes a lumbering step out onto the front stoop. “Most are afraid of the pit.”

  She talks softly, pitching her words low. Shrugging off my initial unease, I move forward in order to hear her better.

  “The pit’s way over there.” I nod toward the gaping hole on our right, a small but paranoid part of me wondering if she might have just threatened us. Probably not. I could take her down with one kick, and she’s way too frail to push Griffin around.