by K. Gorman
For a few heart-pounding seconds, nothing happened. She stood there, eyes closed, her arm shaking from the fear and adrenaline pumping through her system.
Come on, Phoenix. You know me. Let me in.
She released a breath as warmth slipped under her hand. When she opened her eyes again, the orange lines had appeared, cutting through the surface like slices of lava light. She let her hand fall as the wall began to move, then stepped inside and turned around.
Chris moved into sight on the other side of the door, his right side cast in the orange glow from the door. He didn’t follow her in.
“I’ll see you in a few minutes.” She bit her lip. “Maybe thirty, depending on how long it takes.”
He nodded. “Be careful.”
She swallowed. “I will.”
Then, the door slid closed beneath them, and the elevator began its descent.
Chapter 29
It took three minutes before the transfer switched.
Mieshka knew. She was good at counting.
She leaned to the left, her shoulder resting on the brushed aluminum sides of the elevator, the hand with the transfer mark hidden in the pocket of her hoodie as she felt the familiar heat slip into her bones. The control panel was in front, but she stared straight ahead, feeling little trembles of fear and panic as it came closer to enacting her plan.
Even now, she was probably surrounded by soldiers. An estimated six or seven could cram into the elevator, though she wasn’t sure how much could be crammed in without her having to walk into them. She imagined that would strain the telepath’s illusion a bit.
Another bite of heat sank through the mark on her hand and trickled into her bones. Though she hid the mark from sight, it had zero problem transferring the Phoenix’s energy into her—in fact, it felt eager to do so, with each second bringing more and more power as she drew closer and closer.
Much more than she’d felt with Aiden, or the dragon in his engine’s crystal.
Perhaps the partial transfer it had done before had made it easier to leech the Phoenix’s energy.
Or maybe it just liked her.
It also felt different to Aiden’s power. The fire of the sun as opposed to a volcano. Feathers hovered at the edge of her mind, waiting. The Phoenix knew she was coming.
The elevator kept going down.
She closed her eyes and repressed the power that was building inside of her. She needed to wait. Though the carriage might appear silent and empty, its brushed metal walls reflecting only her blurry image, there had to be at least one gun on her. She fancied she could feel it, the way some people felt others’ stares.
After another count of sixty, she leaned off the wall and placed herself in front of the door. Nerves jangled inside her, but she forced herself to relax.
Just pretend it’s a race. But don’t look like you’re going to run. She pictured her old running track in Terremain, the thin, worn rubber one of the few things still intact about the place. They’d let everything non-essential go—the grass on both the inner and outer fields was as yellow as it could have gotten, and none of the lines had been repainted for baseball. Most of the balls had been broken, too.
It was starting to get like that in Ryarne, as well, but not quite as bad. This city had more people, which gave it more longevity. Terremain had been stretched thin.
Of course, if the bombs got through tonight, all that would change.
She let out a low, deep breath and tilted her head back a moment, attempting to relax. Then, as the elevator began to slow, she tipped it back forward, opened her eyes, and stepped up to the center of the door, feet loose and muscles slack and ready.
Ding!
She pulled on the Fire—and staggered at the sheer force of power that flooded through her. The air ignited, heat bursting across her face and the back of her head as she shot forward into the dark. A crackling pain snapped through her mind, like someone tearing off a bandage, and she yelled as the illusion ripped apart—then the Phoenix was there, fiery wings burning a snarling anger through the remainder, removing all sensation of pain as she stumbled forward.
Someone screamed behind her, and a couple of guns fired. As she launched herself to the left, pain snapped through her shoulder. A bullet punched into the frame of the door behind her with a metallic crack.
Fire exploded in her wake. For a brief moment, the entire hangar lit up in the afterglow.
Then, it died down. She ran blind, sprinting into the dark, breath hissing as she clutched at the numbing pain in her shoulder. Darkness swallowed her. She veered to the right, jamming the hand with the glowing transfer mark into a pocket and ignoring the loud, concussive ringing in her ears. Her legs felt rubbery underneath her, but she forced them to work. At least, the floor was flat and empty.
She counted to twenty and turned back, shaking from adrenaline.
The elevator’s square of light was hazy with smoke. Inside, the sprinkler had come on, making parts of the air glint from the falling water. With the illusion broken, the car had three new occupants. One of them—the telepath? It looked like him. She thought she could see glasses—lay sprawled on the threshold as the door tried to close on him.
The other two were mobile. They slipped away into the dark, fire still burning on their clothes.
She watched them move. Then, making sure her transfer mark was well-hidden, she stepped backward, farther into the hangar, and let the darkness fully envelop her.
Okay, where is the ship?
She noted the tiny, moving flames on the other side, marking where the two men had gone, then lined up the light of the elevator and estimated the distance.
Crack-a-tat!
Muzzle flare flashed to her right. She flinched and ducked, suppressing a yelp—then froze when she realized that it wasn’t shooting at her.
On the other side of the hangar, the two walking flames dropped to the ground.
Ears ringing, she stood in the darkness, stunned.
Why do I get the feeling that came from the ship?
It hadn’t looked like Lürian tech, though—that had been normal Terran gunfire.
Not that Mages couldn’t use Terran tech. But it seemed odd and suspicious, and she had a sneaking suspicion that the muzzle flare had been next to the ship.
Removing her hand from her shoulder, she held it out in front of her and edged closer, waving it in the dark to feel for the ship.
She hit it with her forehead instead. Biting back a swear, she reached up and felt something hard and glass-smooth. The wing?
Aiden hadn’t put anything else down here in the last day, had he? The only thing she remembered seeing was the ship the last time she’d been in the hangar.
She froze as a voice spoke ahead of her.
“Hey, Meese. Can’t say we expected to see you down here.”
Jo?
She squinted into the dark, for all the good it did her. Feeling her way along the silent ship, she wandered closer.
“I see you brought us some presents,” the voice continued, slipping into a low whisper. “You’re so thoughtful.”
Definitely Jo.
“I thought only Roger hung out in the dark,” Mieshka said.
“We have our moments.” Buck’s voice rumbled beside her, somewhere to the left. Somehow, he’d gotten around her.
By the curve of the metal, and the angle it made next to her head, she suspected she had found the front edge of the wing. She followed it to its joint. “I’m going to get the crystal. Be careful. One of them puts up a mean illusion.”
“Is that the guy on the floor?”
She looked back. “Aren’t they all on the floor?”
“True. What did he look like?”
Asking that of an illusionist?
“Glasses. Brown hair. Hispanic-ish? He wasn’t soldiery.”
“‘Soldiery’?”
“You know what I mean.” She splayed her hand on the ship’s side like Aiden had, nearly jumping at how quickly the d
oor responded to her touch, the firelight slicing through the blackness at nearly twice the speed it had with Aiden and jerking her hand to the side with the motion as it slid the door open. The running lights flicked on, reflecting in two sets of eyes next to her. Buck gave her a slight assist as she hauled herself onto the inner grating.
She turned around, meaning to thank him—but the door shut in both their faces before she could, sealing her in.
And, with the soft rustle of fiery wings felt through her link, a message shivered onto the main screen at the front.
“Hello, Mieshka.”
Chapter 30
Her heart tripped. There was only one screen, its orange glow lighting up the black console like a cheap lamp at a school Halloween party that was only matched by the pale, mercurial running lights that underlit everything in a ghostly, underworld cast.
Yeah, this isn’t creepy at all.
Before, when Aiden had been with her, he’d used a secondary console to collect the data—and to provide a kill switch.
That wouldn’t help her this time. Now, it was just her and the Phoenix.
Her sneakers tapped on the grating, the sound loud in the insulated silence of the ship. Her legs shook, as did her hands and shoulders. She squeezed her fingers into fists as she stared at the message on the screen—and winced as the movement twinged the wound in her shoulder.
Shit. In the run, she’d forgotten she’d been hit. Gritting her teeth, she lifted her left fingers to her clothes, feeling the holes the bullet had cut through her hoodie and shirt. She angled her shoulder to the light and pulled the fabric edges apart, feeling the skin underneath.
She hissed as it stung, but relief flooded through her as she caught sight of the wound.
Just a graze.
It could have been much worse, given the area, and she’d probably only been saved due to her initial stumble. Contrary to popular belief, shoulders weren’t the best things to have wounded—too full of complicated tendons and ligature, muscles, veins and arteries, and bones sprouting off at odd angles to each other. Surprisingly, it had been her father who’d taught her that, not her mother.
The thought sobered her.
He’s above-ground now. Vulnerable.
She straightened, pulled her clothes back to normal, and strode to the back of the chair, pushing away the fear and adrenaline that shook through her system and focusing on the fire that ran on the underside of her bones.
Now that the connection was this close, she could feel the Phoenix’s attention on her—burning white-hot eyes fixed on her, blood made of fire sifting through its system like a live thing, powering it exactly like its dragon sibling had powered the shield.
Just as her hand slipped over the back of the pilot’s chair, the light flicked on overtop of it. She snatched her fingers away as the message on the screen changed.
‘Please sit.’
She laughed. A hollow laugh. With the way a few dust motes floated through its beam, the light looked almost sacred. Holy.
“The last time I sat in that chair, you tried to possess me. Forcibly.”
Something clicked inside the console, sounding like her computer’s hard drive—had Aiden put Terran parts into it? She wouldn’t think it needed it, being a whole Lürian ship. Glancing at the keyboard as she waited, she hoped that it could hear and understand her. There was no way she’d figure out those symbols in the next few minutes.
A new message appeared, answering her question.
‘Sorry.’
Could it feel regret? Aiden had said they were sentient.
The message switched again. This time, a shade of emotion slipped into her blood—a loneliness served with such sterility, it was as if the Phoenix were presenting it to her like a scientific specimen. It felt so utterly different to the complete and immediate exhaustion that Aiden’s dragon had shared with her, which had almost sidelined her in its strength. The loneliness the Phoenix gave her was more like a fragment, or a pearl clutched in a display case, as if there existed some distance between them that hadn’t existed between her and the dragon.
Which was odd, since she felt closer to the Phoenix now. As if part of it were standing here, with her—or part of her had gone to it. But she got the feeling that the Phoenix processed things differently than the dragon had, and that it was sharing only a fragment with her as a method of communication, rather than the side-effect the dragon’s exhaustion had felt like.
‘I want to be free. Will you free me?’
Mieshka leaned over her arms, shoulder throbbing as she put her weight into the chair. The transfer mark glowed on her hand. After this was done, she’d never need it again.
That was a kind of freedom.
“I’ve come to take you away,” she said.
‘You want me to find my sisters.’
It was a statement, not a question, but she assumed those ‘sisters’ referred to the other crystal spirits.
“Yes.”
The screen went blank. With a cautious look to the light, she slumped over the back of the chair, folding her arms around the headrest.
“How would possessing me make you free?”
‘I would exist without the crystal. I would go where you go. I would be free.’
The way the bird worded it made it seem as though the crystal were a prison.
“I’m mortal. I will die someday,” she said.
‘I won’t.’
Oh. Well. Okay, then.
She slumped further, staring at the message. Sinking her head onto her arms, she felt the soft cotton of her sleeves. Smoke lingered in the fabric.
‘Please sit.’
She did not move. They were alone. There was no one here to impress. No one here to disapprove or worry. She could allow a little weakness. A little honesty. Soon, the Phoenix would be inseparable from her.
That was about as personal as it got.
“I’m afraid,” she said.
Quiet.
The screen went blank. The clicking returned, deep within the console. Then, after a few seconds, words appeared.
‘I will be your Element. I will light your dark. I will burn all you fear.’
Her throat closed around the feeling. The message blurred as she squinted her eyes shut. She pressed the heel of her hand against her head, staying that way.
Through her eyelids, she saw the light change.
The message shortened.
‘I will be your Element.’
She stared. Wiping at a loose tear, she pushed herself up. Her legs shook as she walked around the chair, grating catching at her soles. Light sank into her hand as it trailed the chair’s arm.
She sat down.
Heat pulsed. She forced herself to relax. Her forgotten finger injury throbbed as she curled her hand around the chair’s arm. Warmth seeped into her skin.
Feathers touched the back of her wrist. As the fire’s orange began to line her body, the screen went dark. She closed her eyes.
There was no urgency this time. No need for speed. They were alone. The Phoenix’s power slid into her like sand in an hourglass, pouring firelight straight into her bones until the back of her skin felt like the underside of a coal bed—but it didn’t hurt. It felt natural. As if she could walk through the heart of a volcano and leave the fire unscathed.
Soon, her whole body was tingling, and energy was bursting from every pore. Licks of fire tickled across her skin.
For a moment, they concentrated on her hand.
She opened her eyes. The transfer mark burned from her skin, the ink rising into the air like smoke. The Phoenix settled into her shoulders like a warm jacket.
Huh, she thought, easing into the chair. This isn’t so bad.
A second later, the entire ship went dark.
Power slammed into her like a nuclear blast.
She gasped, breath hissing at the back of her throat as she struggled, pulling her hands to her side as a ton of heat moved straight into her heart. Her hurt shoulder t
hrobbed at the movement, reminding her of her close call in the elevator—but the thought was snuffed out as the heat took over.
She shook with power. Fire collected in every single one of her thoughts, every shift and move she made, every breath she took. She could feel it in her eyes, her irises and pupils raging with heat and flame.
But she was not afraid.
Instead, she felt giddy.
Though the ship had gone dark, flames lit along her skin. She turned her attention to her hand, lifting it up as the fire shifted across her knuckles, dancing in and out of her skin as if it weren’t even there.
Jesus fucking Christ. I could burn the whole city down.
Which was not what she wanted to do.
Giving herself a little shake, she attempted to tamp down the energy—to, at the very least, not walk around like a walking bonfire.
To her surprise, the flames obeyed immediately.
She watched as they folded straight into her skin, settling into her body like the warmest set of dryer clothes she’d ever put on in the winter.
Except she would stay warm. Ryarne’s winter would not touch her. She would never be cold again.
Using the dead console for leverage, she stood, and she felt a twinge as the pain faded from both her finger and her shoulder. The briefest image of a fiery feather came to her, as if the Phoenix had engulfed them in flame.
Had it just healed her?
Around her, the ship was dark and quiet. With a thought, fire flicked back onto her fingertips.
It tickled. Its orange glow gave her hand a healthy color.
The grating clicked under her feet. Using the light, she pushed her hand against the door. The Phoenix opened it for her.
“How’d it go?” Jo’s voice carried across the hangar.
Mieshka saw her silhouette by the elevator. Two figures slumped next to her. The guy over the threshold hadn’t moved, and smoke still hazed the light. She could smell it even from the ship.
“It worked,” she said. “It’s inside of me.”
Fire followed the thought, darting over the back of her hand, but she frowned, rethinking her words.