Bounty Of Ash (The Phoenix Series Book 2)

by Sarah Rockwood

  "That's funny! I thought you could fly!"

  Damn it. How do you forget something like being able to fly? I grunted a few minor insults at myself and then took to the air. I flew as hard and as fast as I could up the side of the mountain. I hadn't had much opportunity to really fly for long stretches, and the breeze felt absolutely fantastic on my face as the strong muscles in my wings worked their magic. It also gave me time to really absorb my surroundings.

  Archer's home was definitely on the side of mountain. But what I had first thought to be a gigantic mountain became dwarfed as I observed the range of mountains around it. They stretched out in a circle creating an enclosed valley at the base. I could make out a grassy open field and a cluster of trees. I thought I could see tiny human shapes moving around, but I was too far away to be sure.

  I beat Archer to the first boulders, but not by much. I sat down on a big rock to catch my breath and watched Archer approach. He was running up the mountain, but this wasn't straight up running. He would use his arms to push himself up and over larger rocks and as he approached me he hopped up onto a boulder and then leapt from rock to rock with the grace of a dancer. The muscles in his chest were visibly firing, and his thighs looked like they were going to rip through his pants. Was everything this guy did sexy? Yes. Was I complaining? You bet your ass I wasn't.

  "Nicely done," I said as he stood before me. He wasn't even breathing hard. The man was a machine. I fought down the tingling that had begun in my core and the blush that had started to creep up my cheeks.

  "Thank you." He was smiling, it had heat to it, and the tingling in me grew.

  He reached forward and grabbed my hands. Within a heartbeat, he had pulled me to him and locked his mouth on mine. I kissed him back, and for a few beautiful moments, we stood there steeped in lustful oblivion.

  "Wow." I shook my head, trying to clear it. "So where is this home I've been so curious about?"

  I felt the energy in him shift so quickly that it made my head hurt. Literally. A sharp pain shot through my skull, I hissed and threw a hand up to my temple. If Archer noticed this he did not acknowledge it, he just started walking.

  "This way."

  I followed him through the maze of rock. We twisted through dirt pathways covered in sand so soft my footprints barely registered. We wove through gardens of boulders that had been touched by so many hands that grooves had formed in the rock. And we climbed. Not higher into the mountain, but over rocks too big to be avoided. This was a simple matter for Archer, but not for me. The passages were narrow, and it was difficult for me to manoeuvre with my wings. More than once I had to call Archer back to help me up and over stone. After what seemed like an eternity of scrambling over rock and getting sand in my eyes, I rounded a corner to find Archer standing in front of a large circular stone propped up against a wall of rocky mountainside. He looked so sad, so unsure. I took his hand in mine.

  "Am I the first person you've brought here?" I said softly.

  "No."

  I wasn't expecting that.

  "Oh, okay."

  "Mhyr has been here."

  "Oh, okay." Amazing how a couple words can carry so many different meanings. "Archer, were you lovers?" I think I already knew the answer to that question, but I wanted to hear it from him.

  "We were more than that."

  "Oh, okay." Calm, Phoenix, be calm.

  "We were..." He struggled to find the words. "More." Evidently, there weren't any. "But that is over now." He looked at me, his eyes were as hard as steel. "And it will never be again. You are my future. You are welcome here."

  He turned back to the stone and raised his hand before it. I could feel the power rising in his body, I tried to pull my hand from his, but he held on tighter. As the power in him grew, he began to make circular motions in the air. Big sweeping, counter-clockwise circles. His arm moved faster and faster as a great rumbling started in the ground. I held onto Archer's hand with both of mine, prepared to jump out of the way of any boulders shaken loose by the great rumbling in the mountainside. Just when I thought the whole mountain was about to come down around me, the large circular stone began to move.

  Archer was straining with effort as the stone rolled slowly to the left. With his hand still in mine, he put his whole body into it and was soon in a muscular lunge as he pushed the rock aside with his power. Power. His power. My brain suddenly put the pieces together. My power. He needed my power. I called to it. It woke quickly in my belly and flew down my arms and into Archer. His eyes widened as it hit him and he tried to keep it out.

  "Let me help you," I called above the din as power began to back up in my arms.

  He grunted and shook his head.

  "Archer, let me in!"

  Something in him stilled and without words he opened himself and my power flooded through him. He cried out as it shot through his body and out his arm. Our combined power hit the boulder with such force that it shot back like a marble flicked across the floor.

  Archer dropped to his knees, and I released his hand. His breath was coming in ragged gulps. We both looked at the dark entryway that had been revealed by the moving of the stone.

  "I've never moved it that quickly." He stood shakily and took my hand again. "Thank you."

  "You're welcome."

  "Shall we go inside?" Although his legs shook, his voice was full of confidence and joy.

  "Definitely."

  We stepped into the passageway.

  31

  We walked hand in hand along the passage. It was dark, but I could feel smooth stone beneath my feet and lots of space around me. The ground felt like it was sloping gently upwards.

  "Archer, are we going up?"

  "Oh, right, the lights."

  It wasn't an answer to my question, but I didn't have to wait long to find one. Archer made this short hissing sound, and light started glowing from the floor. It formed a long thin line that stretched out before us. The light bled out towards the walls and encircled us in a ring of light that moved with us as we walked. This continued the entire length of the passage. Every step we took was fringed in a vertical halo of light. We were indeed in a rising passageway, I could make out the change in elevation easily now. The ceiling had to be sixteen feet above us, and the width of the passage was about half that. Everywhere I looked was stone, but not the cruel stone of the tunnels I had stumbled upon, this was limestone, soft and welcoming to the eyes. It was the colour of sand, a calming beige with thin strips of copper and gold running through it. The sweeping passageway looked as if it had been carved by water.

  "It's beautiful."

  I didn't realise I'd stopped walking until Archer tugged on my hand. I tore my gaze from the curving walls and looked at him. He was smiling.

  "Tip of the iceberg, babe." He quipped.

  Archer pulled me forward, and I trotted eagerly behind him. The incline quickly grew steep. Super steep. The passage narrowed as well, and by the time we rounded a bend, things had gone vertical, and hand holds had appeared. There was no room to spread my wings, I would have to climb.

  "Rock climbing?" I asked no one in particular.

  "Is there a problem?" I looked up and saw Archer, cool as a cucumber, his spine straight, his chiselled body gleaming, framed by ambient light from the open space above him, each muscle standing in stark relief..... What was I complaining about again? Right, climbing, rock climbing.

  "Seriously?" I sighed dramatically, grabbed the lowest hand hold and stepped onto the wall. "Seriously?"

  "No one else has had a problem with it."

  We both knew that the 'no one' he was referring to was Mhyr, and damn it if jealousy doesn't get a girl moving. I tried to remember the brief instruction I'd had the one time I'd tried to climb a wall at a gym. The only thing I mined from my brain was the instructor with his backwards baseball hat and artfully trimmed stubble, yelling 'use your legs' as I flailed in the ill-fitting harness. Sigh.

  I was glad Archer had suggested a more r
ugged boot, they fit my feet snuggly, and the rubberized soles made clinging to the footholds slightly less frightening. I kept my attention on the next place to put my foot and then the next place to put my hand, never letting my mind wander to how high I had to climb or how far I had to fall. Archer was so silent as he moved up the wall that I couldn't tell where he was in space unless I looked right at him, and if I ran my eyes up or down the wall, I was pretty sure I was going to throw up. Or fall. Probably both. Did I mention I don't like rock climbing?

  After a few minutes, my thighs were on fire, and my fingers were having trouble gripping the holds. I pushed off my right foot and stretched to reach the next hold, as my fingers touched it my foot slipped, and I screamed as I started to fall. As I fell my wings instinctively spread and smacked into the sides of the passage. It was painful, and I let out a second scream, sure now I was going to hit the ground with two broken wings.

  Suddenly Archer's strong hand was wrapped around my wrist. I looked up to see him hanging down from the top of the wall. I grunted and threw up my left arm which he caught easily.

  "Damn it." My feet skidded along the wall as I searched for a foothold.

  "You did very well."

  My feet found holds, taking some of the weight off his arms.

  "Do you want me to pull you up?" he asked, his voice studiously neutral.

  “Let's do a half and half thing. I'll keep my feet on the wall, you pull."

  "Excellent."

  He started pulling, and I tried to keep up. He was so strong that he could have popped me like a cork out of that passage, but it probably would have dislocated both my shoulders. I was way closer to the top of the wall than I had originally thought and within seconds Archer was pulling me onto a ledge. It was about three feet wide, and I knelt there as I looked around at his home.

  "Holy shit.”

  We were in the peak of a mountain. The very peak itself, for the ceiling, rose to a point high above the centre of the room. Cream coloured stalactites hung there. The room was round and along the walls were arrow slits. They all started about a foot from the floor and rose up the wall to a height much taller than Archer.

  "I'm glad you like it." Archer chuckled as he slipped off the ledge and landed softly on the floor five feet below.

  Holy shit really was the best my mind could muster at that moment because about a dozen things happened at once. Okay, it was only two things, but it felt like a dozen. First I was thrown by the beauty of the space, and second, I had an overwhelming sense that I had been here before. Not only that I had been here, but that I knew this place intimately, almost as if I had lived here myself.

  I crawled along the ledge that framed the entrance. The entrance being the deep hole I’d just climbed out of. Below me was a large mattress that was tucked partially under the lip of the ledge. I got to my feet and continued walking along to discover a living room type area with big beanbag chairs bunched haphazardly in piles. Completing the circle, I came to where Archer was standing before a large console. Screens showed different views of the valley and mountains surrounding his home. He touched a button, and with a soft grinding sound, the room began to spin.

  But it wasn't the entire room. The ledge was stationary; it was the floor on which Archer stood that moved. The whole circular room surrounding the entrance swept gently to the right. I stood still as he drifted away, once again struck by the familiarity of the movement. I watched his hands on the console, he reached for a blue button, and before he pressed it, I knew that the walls of the room would begin to spin. And they did, in the opposite direction from the console until an arrow slit was directly in front of Archer.

  "The green button!" My voice rang out in vast space.

  Archer stilled, his back to me, his hand just above the green button, he looked like stone. After a few heartbeats, he reached out and touched the green button. The stone of the arrow slit before him opened like the petals of a flower. The green valley below was now clearly visible.

  "Have I been here before?" I asked.

  "No."

  "Then how ” I walked along the ledge towards him, “did I know what button to press?"

  I sat down on the ledge and let my legs dangle over the side. The valley below was so green it was almost shocking against the soft beige of the limestone that framed it. I felt like I had been looking out at that valley for centuries.

  "Why does this place feel so familiar?"

  "It does?" Archer turned to me.

  "Yes, I feel like I know the curves of the stone, the direction of the sun through the windows. You started the room turning, and it felt as natural as opening a door. How can that be?" I looked back at the entrance and said as an afterthought. "That was definitely not familiar though. I would have remembered that."

  I felt Archer's hands on my thighs, he could move so fast.

  "Phoenix, you've healed me."

  "Twice."

  "Yes, twice." He smiled, and my heart melted just a little. "My memories have bled into you."

  "Because I healed you?"

  "Yes." He took my hand in his and lifted it to his lips. He ran his silver lips lightly over my fingers. "Thank you."

  My brain fought its way through my swirling hormones.

  "Is that why the Guard doesn't want me healing creatures?"

  His mouth stopped moving, he looked at me quizzically.

  "Are you just figuring that out now?"

  "Yes." I pulled my hand away. “I didn't know I was sucking memories out of people, the wings haven't shown me anything like that."

  Oh, speak of the devil. The words had no sooner left my mouth when I was hit by a memory. Suddenly I could see Mhyr naked above me, the roof was open, and stars shone behind her. I could feel her breath on my skin and her hair in my hands. The image was so strong I swayed backwards and would have fallen if Archer hadn't leapt onto the ledge and once again caught me.

  "Are you alright?" He wrapped his arms around me.

  "Ask, and ye shall receive."

  "I'm sorry?" Archer asked gently.

  "It's human speak." I rubbed at my eyes. "I saw a memory, your memory. You and Mhyr. Here."

  "That was a long time ago," he murmured.

  "I know, Archer." I reached out and touched his face. "I'm not worried about her."

  "Good."

  He hopped off the wall and reached out to me. He put his strong hands around my waist and lifted me easily from the wall. It's hard to make me feel delicate, but somehow he managed it.

  "Memories are everything, Phoenix. They are our secrets, our power. You can heal any species in the pantheon of creatures that inhabit the Void. You could access the memories of any of them; learn their secrets." He looked at me very seriously. "That is a very threatening power."

  "I'd never thought about it that way."

  "Well get thinking about it. Fast. Because it is that power which has put you here."

  "And where is here, exactly?" I said sarcastically, his tone was starting to get a bit strident for my liking.

  "Here, Phoenix is about to enter one of the worst places in the Void to stop a madman and his army of thousands from tearing apart your soul."

  I gulped audibly.

  "Okay, now I'm scared."

  “Then you are ready."

  "Awesome."

  And then a siren went off.

  32

  "What the hell!" I yelled, clamping my hands over my ears. Archer was at the controls in one quick leap, instantly the siren cut off. "Is it Ganaraj? Has he found me?"

  "No, he does not know of my home."

  "Then who is it?"

  "Myhr."

  “What!?"

  I rushed to the console and looked out through the window. There, a stark slip of silver against the green of the valley was Myhr. You could tell by the black of her bra and long raven hair. Archer spoke quietly.

  "This is bad."

  "Why? She can't get in here, can she?"

  "Yes, she can. And if
she finds you here it will not be pretty."

  "Okay, we'll get into why she can just walk in here whenever she pleases, and why you're still scared of her another time. What do you we need to do now?"

  "We need to get out of here." A beep sounded from the console, and we both looked out the window. Myhr was now running up the scree covered slope. "Fast."

  I moved to the entrance, but Archer's hand on my shoulder stopped me.

  "Over here."

  Archer ran around to the opposite side of the room and began throwing pillows all over the place.

  "What are you doing?" I asked.

  "We need weapons." He had cleared the space of pillows and was now tossing the giant carpet that lay beneath them aside.

  "I have a weapon," I responded.

  "You need more."

  With a quick flick of his wrist, he grabbed and twisted a small piece of metal embedded in the floor. A soft hiss filled the air as the stone floor lifted up, and a large hatch opened at his feet.

  "Come here."

  Normally I don't like being ordered around, but the contents of the hatch silenced me, and I moved to his side. The compartment was full of weapons. Long swords, short blades, clubs, throwing stars, spiked balls on rusty chains. Each one had a fine layer of dust on it, but their disuse did nothing to quell my shock. This was the stronghold of a man who knew incredible violence. This was a side of Archer I did not know.

  "Arms out, stay still."

  I spread my arms and Archer went to work. With a practised ease he slipped short, slim blades sheathed in thick leather onto my arms. The blades fit perfectly along the length of my forearms, and as wrapped thin leather straps around my arms to hold them in place, they began to feel comfortable. They began to feel right. As I marvelled at this, Archer made quick work of strapping two swords to his back and a throwing blade to each shin.

  Now sufficiently suited up for battle, Archer grabbed my hand and pulled me towards the ledge. Before I could say 'how do we climb down,' he tossed me onto the ledge and vaulted up beside me. Then, like some kind of super human Tarzan, he wrapped an arm around my waist and jumped into the blackness of the entranceway.