Ashes of the Firebird (The Firebird Fairytales Book 2)

by Kuivalainen, Amy

  Praise for

  CRY OF THE

  FIREBIRD

  “…the story incorporates a fair share of surprises, and never fails to provide new scenes featuring bloodshed and strange new creatures…The beasts, in particular, help this story to move beyond the genre’s many clichés, and their complexity extends well beyond typical fantasy creatures. Fantasy fans will likely enjoy Anya’s adventures, which feature novel supernatural elements in a modern setting.”

  Kirkus Reviews

  “A series that promises a fresh twist on the world’s mythologies and folklore. Kuivalainen immerses her tale in the fantastic - a fact that will no doubt thrill fantasy enthusiasts. It also has enough love triangles and romance subplots to keep this genre’s fans entertained for days. Cry of the Firebird contains a compelling cast of characters and a delightful grounding in the some of the world’s most ancient legends - all told by a natural storyteller.”

  Self-Publishing Review, 4 Stars

  Works also

  by Amy Kuivalainen

  CRY OF THE FIREBIRD

  THE EAGLE KEY

  Connect with Amy Kuivalainen

  https://firebirdfairytales.wordpress.com

  Twitter.com/@AmyKuivalainen

  Facebook.com/AmyKuivalainen

  For Anna and Fox, who endured all the re-writes over the years

  And a special acknowledgement for Amanda Fucking Palmer, whose music this entire book was written to.

  Ashes of the Firebird

  Amy Kuivalainen

  Copyright© 2016 Amy Kuivalainen

  All Rights Reserved

  Cover Design by The Scarlett Rugers Design Agency

  Interior Design by Polgarus Studios

  Copy Editing by F J Sutton

  Prologue

  Look through the forest and see a cold grey concrete building. High electric fences and glaring floodlights surround it. Dogs and men patrol the borders. Their guns aren’t for stunning, they are for killing. Inside, harsh artificial lights line the halls. Men and women in white, gleaming uniforms roam the corridors with clipboards and pens. More guards are inside the building and cameras are installed that run night and day.

  This hospital houses a single patient. She is in a narrow bed in a large room surrounded by monitors. Tubes are stuck into her heavily bruised flesh. Her long silver hair is fanned out on the pillow around her head. The nurses know that they should cut it, but even if they do, it grows back to the same length overnight. The woman is young in appearance. Her lips, despite the coma, are flushed with colour.

  She is a sleeping beauty and she is dreaming.

  Chapter One- Budapest

  Aramis surveyed the River Danube from a small balcony in one of Budapest’s most beautiful homes. Aramis had always loved Budapest even when they had been separate cities under the rule of the Romans. One of his rules with the Illumination was that he never work an assignment in the city.

  After Anya had fallen to Ladislav’s attack, they had fled from Russia. Anya was not dead; she was sleeping. Trajan had refused to let her go since it had happened. Izrayl had to use physical violence against him to allow them to put her in a bed in one of Silvian’s many guest rooms. Aramis knew the loss of a great love. He understood the twisting knife of despair deep in his chest and the sickening sensation of being unable to do a thing to help them.

  The file that Silvian had put together for him still sat on his lap unopened. It had been weeks and he still hadn’t pulled himself together enough to look inside. Yanka isn’t dead.

  The Illumination had officially branded him Rogue, and Anya and her companions as fugitives. Perhaps they suspected Aramis had found the truth about Yanka through Anya. That would complicate the problem for them. Aramis would be more than a formidable enemy and the people with him held no allegiances. Aramis picked up the file and opened it. The mint tea steamed in the glass next to him, sending fragrant curling mists into the winter air. Two hours later, the only movement that occurred was the turning of pages and the silent tears rolling down his cheeks.

  ***

  Across the world, Harley was running as fast as her legs could carry her through the dark streets of Treme-Lafitte. The Tehuantl on her trail had turned into his full leopard form to hunt her more effectively. The attacks on her life had become more frequent of late. Isabelle Blackwood had contacted her a few weeks beforehand to warn her to watch her back. Without her warning, she would have been long dead.

  The Darkness had been embarrassed in Russia and they wanted revenge. They had identified Isabelle the day Anya shut the gates and were trying to hunt down all of Isabelle’s known associates. Harley’s relatively quiet life had become very noisy, very quickly. The Tehuantl was the third assassin in the last two weeks.

  Harley swung herself up onto an empty fire escape and crouched down low, flattening herself down onto the dirty metal grating. She pulled one of her woven bracelets off her wrists and dropped it on the ground beneath her. A yowl shook the alley as the Tehuantl followed her scent. Harley tried not to breathe as the leopard sniffled her bracelet. She pulled out her silver hunting knife and braced herself.

  “Here kitty, kitty,” she taunted. The Tehuantl’s head snapped up and spotted her hiding place. It leapt towards her in one powerful, fluid motion. Harley rushed forward; the musty smell animal fur, blood and sweat assaulting her as she slid the knife through its skin, past the ribs and into its heart. It screeched in pain, raking her back with its sharp claws. Skin from her shoulder fell, blood dribbling out of its jaws and onto her boots. Wincing in pain, Harley pulled out her mobile phone and punched in a number. She needed to move the body before the sun came up.

  “Blue Jay, I need your help.”

  ***

  In Budapest, Isabelle hung up her cell phone. Although it was Isabelle’s fault for the attempts on her life, Harley didn’t blame her. They had sent Tehuantl after her. That was desperate even for the Darkness. The Tehuantl were extremely hard to deal with on a contract basis and usually created more trouble for their handlers than the person they were hired to kill.

  “Ya right?” Hamish was leaning against the doorframe in a tight white tee shirt and loose jeans. His hair was still wet from the shower and smelt of the expensive soap that Silvian had in the bathrooms.

  “Harley was attacked by a Tehuantl tonight,” Isabelle said and ran a hand through her hair. “I got a call from Blue Jay.”

  “Is she hurt?”

  “Cuts and bruises, nothing to worry about.”

  “Then why do you look like someone killed your puppy? If she killed a Tehuantl on her own, she must be a pretty bad ass chick.”

  “She got lucky. The thought of anything happening to her scares the hell out of me. How is Anya?” Hamish sat down on the couch beside her, making it a tight and comfortable squeeze. Ever since Russia, they had slowly started to draw close again. Isabelle didn’t know which one of them was more surprised. Nothing like half the supernatural world trying to kill you to bring two people together.

  “She hasn’t moved. Trajan is still blaming himself even though there wasn’t jackshit he could have done to save her. I keep telling him that she ain’t dead, so he shouldn’t be so worried, but he is beating himself up anyway.”

  “What’s your theory, cowboy?”

  “She’s somewhere else. Her body is fine, her mind or her soul has wandered.”

  “Wherever she is, I hope she is having a good time.”

  “I doubt that. I’d say she would be fighting tooth and nail to get back to her body. It would be something major to stop her from getting to Trajan.”

&
nbsp; “Or Yvan,” Isabelle commented. The Skazki Prince was taking Anya’s current condition as badly as Trajan was, spending time as the firebird more often than not. “Poor Anya, I wonder where she is?”

  ***

  Anya woke in a pile of golden leaves under an oak tree. She was dreaming but couldn’t remember falling asleep. Panic rose inside her as she wandered through the forest. As she walked, she noticed a magical presence growing and calling to her. She ran towards it, her legs aching and fear licking her backbone as she recalled the scar on Yanka’s leg. The trees thinned and she found herself in the little yard in front of the cottage.

  “Oh, thank God,” she muttered as she trudged up the stairs and banged on the door. A cry, high and feral, rose in reply from the forest. Anya slammed her fists against the wood. “Yanka, let me in!”

  “There is no need to shout,” said a quiet voice behind her. Yanka stood in the yard holding a basket filled with wild herbs and flowers. She stood very still, her pale hair pushed over one shoulder, frowning as if Anya was some inconvenient guest. Anya was too scared to care.

  “What am I doing here again?” she questioned as Yanka moved past her and opened the door.

  “Did you get killed?”

  “No, not that I know of.” Anya was uncertain. She tried to remember the last thing that happened before she woke in the forest. Her mind was white and full of static.

  “This is the Land of the Dead. I don’t know how you keep turning up here.” Yanka placed a copper kettle on the stove before pushing more wood into the oven’s fire hatch. Anya sat down at the wooden table and put her head in her hands. Her temples were throbbing and there was a pain in her chest.

  “Tell me what has happened and I will try to find why you’re here.” As Anya began to talk, the kettle whistled and Yanka poured them both some heavy black coffee before sitting down.

  Anya began from the day she met Tuoni. Yanka asked many questions about Vasilli and Ladislav. She grew angry when Anya explained about her grandfather never teaching her magic to try to protect her. When Anya finally got to the part where she met Aramis, Yanka’s hands started to clench into fists. The scars on her wrists and forearms stood against the paleness of her skin. Anya knew better than to ask how they came to be there.

  “Aramis said that he knew you,” she said quietly.

  “What else did he tell you?” Her green eyes had gone cold and blank.

  “That you were stubborn.”

  “Anything else?”

  “He was extremely silent on the whole situation.” Yanka was quiet for a long time.

  “Go on, I want to know how this story ends,” she prompted finally.

  As Anya talked, Yanka began to cook. Anya watched her hands deftly cut up vegetables and meat, such a domestic thing to do, as if they were catching up in an afternoon and not in the Land of Dreams.

  “I can’t believe you closed the gates like that,” Yanka said as they ate the soup she had prepared. “Using words and such a small amount of blood. Closing off such magical fields has always required a lot of blood. The bigger the gate, the bigger the sacrifice you need to offer it.”

  “I didn’t even know how I was doing it. I can’t remember much more of that day except the screaming in my head.”

  “I could go into your memories and have a look at what happened,” suggested Yanka with an eager look on her face that she couldn’t hide.

  “Will it hurt?” Anya could remember the last time Yanka had decided to pull memories into her head. It hadn’t been pleasant and she had woken on fire. She thought of Yvan rushing in to save her and a sharp sensation pulsed through her. He would be worried about her. She hated him worrying about her.

  “It’s awkward, not painful, if done correctly,” Yanka replied. Before Anya could protest, Yanka lightly placed her fingertips over Anya’s temples. Warmth flowed through Yanka’s fingers and into her mind.

  Anya’s mind was a mess of images and white noise. Yanka tried to sift through her memories to try to find the most recent ones. She caught a glimpse of Aramis and pulled the memory to her. Anya’s magic was wrapping ribbons around his wrist. She let the memory go and caught another. Anya was standing in front of the gates. Vasilli had fallen to the ground and Ladislav stepped from his hiding place. He looked much more powerful than the last time she had seen him. She watched him summon his spell and Yanka was hit with a blinding light and was thrown from Anya’s mind.

  ***

  “You realise you have been stuck in this room for over two weeks now?” Izrayl flopped down on one of the plush cream coloured chairs beside Anya’s bed. Over the last weeks, Trajan had slowly started to revert to his true Thanatos form. He hadn’t been feeding or sleeping and it was taking its toll on his immortal body. His skin had gone very pale grey and was stretching tightly over his bones. All of the colour in his eyes had bled out into a solid red.

  “I don’t care how long I have been here.” Trajan’s voice was changing with the rest of him. He had developed a more metallic timbre in the last day and that worried Izrayl more than anything else did.

  “You’re putting her at risk by starving yourself. You’ll go back to your most basic instinct and end up feeding on whatever is closest. At this moment it is her.”

  Trajan looked at him with cold red eyes. “Is there a reason why you’re here?”

  “Yes, we have found a ring of creatures that work for the Darkness. I thought you might be up for pay back. Could be a chance for you to feed properly as well.” Something feral glinted in Trajan’s eyes, a look that Izrayl had never seen on his friend.

  “Where are they?”

  “Here in the city. Close. We have to wait for night and then we will attack them. There are many of them so I have asked Cerise, Hamish, Isabelle and Katya to join us. Aramis and Yvan are going to watch over Anya.”

  “I don’t trust the Álfr with her.”

  “He is a trained warrior, Trajan. You should see him use that sword of his. If you weren’t stuck in this room the whole time you would have seen him train with us. As for Yvan, you know he would die before letting anything happen to her. That includes if Aramis tries anything inappropriate. “

  “I will think it over.” With that dismissal, Izrayl got to his feet. He found Katya and Isabelle talking quietly together. “Secret women’s business” they liked to call it. “Gossip” is what Izrayl called it.

  “I need your help,” he said.

  “What is it?” Katya looked concerned.

  “I need to find some of the Darkness here in Budapest.”

  “Can I ask why?”

  “I’m going to get Trajan out of the house. He needs to feed. Otherwise, he will start feeding automatically. That means Anya and everyone else.”

  “I will make some calls,” said Katya, instantly efficient.

  “I will ask Aramis and Silvian. Surely between them they can find some rats hiding.”

  Aramis sat at a desk in the library with papers spread out in front of him, so focussed that he didn’t even look up when Izrayl approached. “I’m sorry to interrupt you. I have a favour to ask.”

  “Of course,” Aramis shut the file he had been reading.

  “We are going to take Trajan out and we need you to watch over Anya for a few hours with Yvan. Trajan won’t leave her unless someone else is sitting with her and I don’t think he trusts you enough to leave you alone with her.”

  “Of course he doesn’t, I’m still happy to help though. Trajan is still not feeding, I take it?”

  “No, and it’s becoming disturbing. He is endangering both of them.”

  “I shall be along shortly. For my own curiosity, how did you convince him to leave her at all?”

  “We told him that we have found some of Ladislav’s men.”

  “And have you?”

  “We will have by the time we leave. I could use your help trying to find some.” To Izrayl’s surprise, Aramis actually smiled deviously. Perhaps the Álfr wasn’t so straight after
all.

  ***

  Aramis walked slowly down the hallways from the library to Anya’s room in the guest wing of the mansion. Yvan’s eyes flamed brightly when he saw him enter her room, his black hair tangled around his unshaven face. He sat in Trajan’s recently vacated seat with a glass of vodka on the small bedside table.

  “Any change?” Aramis asked as he pulled up a chair on the other side of her bed. Anger poured from the dark Russian in waves.

  “What do you think?” he asked as he drank his vodka.

  “I think that your anger is misdirected at me and that we should work together to help her wake. Clearly, this is a spell of Ladislav’s…”

  “Clearly that is something you’ll have to solve. I’m not magical, Aramis. Aside from the bird inside of me, I have no magical ability at all.”

  “I know you care about her-” Aramis began gently. He never got to finish his sentence as golden feathers burst through Yvan’s skin, his glaring blue eyes fading into flame.

  ***

  Through the halls of heavy block concrete, harsh artificial lights illuminated the ugly grey coloured walls of a hospital run by the Darkness. Ladislav appeared in the seat next to Vasilli, who lay in a narrow bed hooked to beeping machines and covered in burn bandages. His black eyes opened at the appearance of his master, as he tried to speak, but no words would form.

  “No, Vasilli, do not talk if it pains you,” Ladislav commanded.

  “Where am I?” Vasilli finally croaked.

  “We had to take you to a Mir hospital. Your shoulders and back are badly burned where her power touched you.”