Rise of the Firebird

by Amy K Kuivalainen

  “How do you know all of this?”

  “Chayton and Honaw have been watching over your dreams. They knew that Yanka would try to get at you that way.” Anya jumped as Aramis appeared through the door that led out to the courtyard.

  “What has happened? I felt your magic burn straight through me,” he said, his face distorted with worry. Anya pulled herself out of Yvan’s arms and sat up on the couch.

  “Yanka tried to get at Anya through her dreams,” Yvan explained so she didn’t have to.

  “What did she want?” Aramis asked gently. He sat down next to her, making her magic leap to life. It wanted to touch him but she really didn’t want Aramis to feel how humiliated she was.

  “She came in Trajan’s form. I have been dreaming about him a lot lately.” Anya ran her hands through her hair. “She tried to make me tell her where I was. She wants the rune stones badly.”

  “Did she offer you a trade?” Aramis asked. She looked up at him surprised. His blue eyes were large in his pale face and they made her feel like they could swallow her whole. She couldn’t lie to him when he looked at her like that.

  “Yes, she did, but I didn’t tell her anything. Honaw and Chayton broke into my dream and…stabbed her.” Anya felt the vodka start to rise and she ran into the bathroom.

  “Anya?” Yvan tapped on the door softly.

  “Go away,” she sobbed, “both of you. Just leave me alone.” There was a murmuring of Aramis and Yvan speaking quietly before both of their magical signatures disappeared altogether. She didn’t know if that made her feel better.

  “How can you be such a screw up and still breathe?” She swore at herself. Yanka had gotten at her with a child’s trick. Yanka had been dream walking for hundreds of years. Of course, she would try to get at her while she was sleeping. To use Trajan’s form of all guises made Anya’s blood boil. Her clothes were damp with sweat so she pulled them off and got into the shower. The hot water beat down on her and mingled with her tears. She had never cried so much in her life and wondered if this was what a mental breakdown was like.

  After a long while, she felt herself begin to sober up, so she got out, pulled on a thick robe and wrapped her hair up in a towel. She caught her reflection in the mirror and shuddered. Not only were her eyes bloodshot from crying, but around them was broken blood vessels from vomiting so forcefully.

  She was so tired but too afraid to sleep again. Yanka had offered her the secret to resurrect Trajan. Even in the dream, Anya had known it was a lie. Trajan was dead and there was no way to bring him back, no way ever to make things right between them. Yanka had dangled that possibility in front of her to find out where the Álfr were hiding.

  “That fucking bitch whore!” Anya shouted as she opened the bathroom door.

  “I couldn’t have said it better myself.” Søren was standing in the doorway that led into her kitchen. He was wearing his full warrior garb and he looked alert.

  “What do you want?” Anya asked as she pulled the towel off her head.

  “I wanted to make sure you didn’t tell Yanka where we are,” he responded coldly. His hand was resting on the hilt of the sword he wore on his hip.

  “What makes you think I would’ve told her anything?” She snapped before she could rein her temper in.

  “She came to you in the form of your dead lover. If it wasn’t for the intervention of the Thunder Twins, I’m sure she would’ve been able to get anything out of you.”

  “And what are you going to do if I did tell her?” A cold blade pressed tightly against her throat.

  “You’ve no idea how catastrophic it would be if she found our location,” he hissed by her ear. “She’d bring the entire Darkness down upon us to find you. I’d kill you before she even had the chance.”

  “Do it,” Anya whispered.

  “What did you say?”

  “Do it, Søren. I didn’t tell her anything but I’m still a risk to you all, so, do it. You’re angry enough, cold enough, and I look like her enough to fill you with revenge. All I’m doing is making everyone a target for her rage. Do it, I don’t care anymore. Better death by your hand than hers.”

  “You’re actually serious, aren’t you?” Søren stepped away from her, removed the sword from her neck and sheathed it.

  “Look at me, Søren. I’m no use to anyone. I can’t keep her out of my dreams, let alone kill her, even if she can be killed!”

  “No one is expecting you to face her alone,” he said as pulled out a green silk handkerchief and pressed it to her throat. “I’m sorry for drawing blood. I shouldn’t have raised my sword.”

  “You had a right to. If you were threatening all the people I care about, I’d try to kill you too.”

  “And yet you want to die? You dying means she wins, Anya. Don’t you understand that? You’re the only thing that’s ever going to be able to stop her. Pull yourself out of your grief and think straight. She wouldn’t have gotten to you so easily tonight if you hadn’t drowned yourself in vodka. You loved him, I know, but while you are wallowing in self-pity and grief, she can find a way into your mind to try to destroy it. You’re young, you will love again, trust me.”

  “Oh yes? Like you have?”

  “I wasn’t young when she died, so it doesn’t apply to me.”

  “Of course, it doesn’t. I’m sure you have a string of heart broken Álfr girls after you, so pick one.” She put her hand on the handkerchief at her neck so he could move his hand away. She wanted him to change the subject. She didn’t want to start crying again, especially in front of him.

  “Hardly,” he replied. “They know better to fall in love with the Dauđi Dómr.”

  “Because you’re so frightening?”

  “Partly. I’ve a tarnished soul from the things I have done.”

  “Human women call that ‘high maintenance’.” Anya was starting to feel edgy having him so close to her, so she moved past him and went to fill a glass with water.

  “Human women don’t feel it the way we do,” Søren said from behind her.

  “We can still feel it. You have this really big,” she waved her arms at him, trying to think of a way to describe it. “It’s a big fuck off or I will slaughter you aura.”

  “It doesn’t seem to bother you.”

  “You aren’t special. Mychal is scarier than you,” she shrugged. A small frown appeared on Søren’s face.

  “The demon hunter is not all he seems,” he said. “He can’t be all human. No one has gotten the best of me like he almost did. That is why I’m the Enforcer. I am the best. Do you know what he is?”

  “I’ve no idea and he isn’t forthcoming. He saved my life and the look on his face when he killed that Nehemoth was so frightening that I almost wet myself. I’m not about to pry into something he doesn’t want to share. Whatever he is wouldn’t really matter. We are a motley crew of freaks, remember? He fits right in. Besides, you are extremely old. No wonder he is better than you.”

  “I didn’t say he was better than me,” Søren said as he crossed his arms.

  “Don’t feel bad. He is better than everyone.”

  “How’s your throat?” he asked with a scowl.

  “Still in one piece,” Anya took the handkerchief away from her throat to show him. It was stinging a little but she hadn’t even felt his blade break the skin. If he did decide to kill her, then she wouldn’t even know she was dead.

  “You should get some sleep, Elenya.”

  “I can’t. The dreams will come back. I haven’t had a restful night sleep in over a week.”

  “Come with me and I will show you an Álfr trick as you like to call them,” he said as he turned to leave the kitchen. Anya took a deep uneasy breath and followed him. He walked straight into her bedroom without asking and she secretly hoped she had remembered to pick up all of her stray clothes. “Get into bed.”

  “You know some people would find this inappropriate,” Anya said as she pushed back the covers and climbed in.

&nbs
p; “It is lucky we aren’t such people,” he replied. “Besides, you frequently climbed into Aramis’s bed when he was unwell. Now, give me your hand and close your eyes.” He very gently began massaging her palm. He began whispering something slowly under his breath and Anya caught a lilting melody. He was singing. In her mind, she saw flowing rivers and tree’s with golden leaves. She saw wild oceans crashing against wooden ships, and finally, she drifted off to sleep.

  Chapter Six - Love Letter

  Anya woke as the sun was going down again. “Thank you, Søren,” she murmured sleepily. Whatever he had done to her had knocked her out cold for a whole day. She was dozing off once more when Fox burst into her room at full speed.

  “Hey, wake up!” she said, jumping on the bed beside Anya.

  “What?” Anya grumbled as she opened her eyes.

  “Look at this.” Fox shoved printouts in her face.

  “Wait a second.” Anya sat up and rubbed her eyes before taking a drink of water from the glass beside her bed.

  “I know you’re hung over and I will get you coffee in a minute,” Fox said as she passed the pages over, “but I need you to translate this for me.” Anya looked over the page with bleary eyes.

  “It says, ‘She will be killed many years from now and I have to ensure the knowledge of how is safely secured and hidden until the time it is needed’…oh, my God,” Anya said.

  “I knew it! I knew he would find a way. God, I love this man, he was so smart,” Fox laughed triumphantly. “Why else give all of this to Álfr instead of leaving it among all the other things on the farm.”

  “Now all we have to do is find where he wrote it down.”

  “Aramis told me what Yanka did to your dream last night,” Fox said slowly. “If I had known that was going to happen, I wouldn’t have told you to have a nightcap.”

  “She would’ve found a way in with or without the vodka. All it did was lower my guard. Not to worry, Honaw saved the day. Now all we have to do is find the instructions on how to finish her.”

  “That’s what’s worrying me.” Fox’s face was suddenly serious. “There isn’t one. I have been over them all and it’s not there, not in the obvious sense. I’m running a program I designed that picks up codes and anomalies. Ilya was clever, but if he has hidden it somewhere, I should be able to find it.”

  “One thing I know for sure is that I need coffee, so let’s start with that,” Anya yawned.

  “So,” Fox said pertly as she climbed off the bed, “Søren helped you sleep, did he?”

  “Not in the way that you are implying. He used some kind of Álfr sleeping spell on me. It worked brilliantly.”

  “I find it interesting that he was around to do it, because according to Aramis, you kicked him and Yvan out last night.”

  “I had my head in a toilet. Would you have wanted them around? Søren turned up after I had showered and calmed down.”

  “Or he was waiting until they had both left.”

  “I really don’t care about his motives because he did me a huge favour. I actually feel like I might be able to function.” Anya wandered into the kitchen and noticed Fox had turned the jug on.

  “You better be making me a cup too,” Fox said as she followed her.

  “Of course I am. Why are you on Søren’s case all of a sudden anyway?”

  “Because he is on yours. Don’t tell me that I’m imaging things because he hates Yanka and you look so much like her.”

  “He came here to kill me last night, did you know that?”

  “You would be dead if he wanted to kill you.”

  “He turned up with his sword to take me out if I had told Yanka our location.”

  “I suppose if I were in his position, I would’ve done the same thing. The point is, he didn’t kill you.”

  “Can we please talk about something other than Søren and his obscure motives? I have enough trouble trying to understand him as it is, without having you analyse everything.”

  “It’s what I do. Now, I’m going to take this coffee and go back to work. I suggest you get your shit together and join me. We have work to do.”

  Fox’s computer was beeping at her as she sat down next to her usual desk. The decoder running was a product she had designed with two other hackers. It could run every possible sequence they could imagine. She tapped on the blinking icon and saw that it had a hit on with a prime number sequence where each number was a letter in every second line.

  “Leeseetsa, what you seek is with the Forest.” Fox stared at the message on the screen for a full thirty seconds.

  “You look awfully serious,” Anya commented as she walked in.

  “Do you know what leeseetsa means? Is it even a word?” Fox asked quickly.

  “Leeseetsa is the Russian word for fox, why?”

  “Because your descendant has left me a love letter.”

  “The Forest? What forest? That could mean anything,” said Isabelle. After their revelation, Fox and Anya had rounded up everyone they could find for an emergency meeting.

  “If I couldn’t figure it out, Ilya wouldn’t have left it,” Fox said stubbornly. “Somehow he knew I’d find the hidden message. He knew what he was doing.”

  “We all need to stop arguing and focus on the main issue here,” Yvan spoke over them. “Ilya was extremely smart. He knew that the information about how to kill Yanka would be taken from the collection. We need to find who it was, why they did it and where they’ve hidden it.”

  “For all we know, Ilya told them to hide it,” Izrayl pointed out. “I wouldn’t be quick to jump to a sinister view point on this. Obviously, it wasn’t meant to be revealed until now. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have left the note.”

  “I wish it hadn’t been so obscure,” Fox mumbled.

  “I don’t think that this is an X marks the spot sort of game we are playing,” Harley said as she put an arm around Fox’s shoulder. “Awesome work though, Sherlock. No one else could’ve figured it out.”

  “My mind is still spinning that he saw as far as he did,” Aleksandra said in awe. “I thought my talent could be burdensome. I get a headache thinking about it.”

  Yvan leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, “He was strong enough to find where the firebird’s egg was hidden in the Otherworld. He found it before Vasilli or anyone else knew it existed.”

  “He probably saw that I’d need you to help me defeat Yanka. He didn’t do anything without a purpose,” said Anya beside him.

  “We should ask one of the Álfr,” Mychal said softly, but his voice silenced all other conversation, “they’ve been around for hundreds of years. There are too many immortals involved in this, so why not try the oldest?”

  “I’m sure Ruthann would have some idea,” Hamish added as he poured himself another drink. “He’s ancient and has clearly kept an eye on Yanka’s doings.”

  “But don’t you think if he had some kind of idea of how to kill Yanka, he would’ve given it to the Illumination?” Anya asked.

  “Perhaps, it outlines it could only be done now, in this time. Or whoever has it had no way of deciphering it,” said Fox, “but Mychal is right, someone should definitely ask the Álfr.”

  “Definitely,” agreed Harley. There were nods of approval all round until Anya realised they were all looking at her expectantly.

  “Wait a minute…but why should…?” she began before she muttered, “Fine.”

  “Good evening, Anya, you’re the exact person I wanted to see,” Ruthann said as he opened the door to his chambers. Søren and Aramis were sitting on the couches and they looked like they had been there for a while.

  “Secret business again, I see,” she commented as she eyed them. “No wonder I couldn’t find you both an hour ago.”

  “They’ve been here with me discussing your unusual abilities,” Ruthann explained as he poured her a glass of wine.

  “How exciting,” she said sarcastically as she sat down opposite them. “Have you decided that you should ha
ve put me down last night?” Søren looked at her sharply but Aramis and Ruthann seemed blissfully unaware.

  “Quite the opposite, in fact,” Søren replied coolly.

  “Lucky for me.”

  “We were talking about the time we were in New Orleans and Søren’s magic linked with yours,” Ruthann explained, “and how Aramis got your magic to refocus.” He said it so tactfully, Anya felt her neck starting to burn.

  “Who would’ve thought sticking your tongue down someone’s throat could have that kind of effect?” Søren added bluntly. Anya glowered at him.

  “It was quite the kiss, I admit,” she replied. His green eyes flashed hot for a moment but returned to a sulky simmer. Aramis cleared his throat awkwardly.

  “The point is that you have a piece of my magic in you because of the elvianth and it automatically connected to mine,” he said. “Ruthann has suggested that because the elvianth was put on you by mistake that you may actually be able to siphon people’s magic.”

  “But we didn’t even touch or anything that day in the garden.”

  “But your power ran into him and vice versa,” Ruthann pointed out. “You kept some of his power inside of you, which caused the elvianth to occur without any kind of preparation for it. Usually, it takes months for it to work effectively, if it works at all.”

  “Are you saying it’s my fault that it happened?”

  “Yes,” said Søren as the other two answered no.

  “No,” Aramis repeated as he glared at Søren. “It is not her fault. If she didn’t know she could absorb people’s magic, she can hardly be blamed for it.”

  “How do you know I can do it at all? My power has always reacted oddly to Aramis which could explain why it worked,” Anya argued.

  “You could try it with someone else. You can’t get an elvianth twice, but you might be able to drain someone’s power slightly,” suggested Ruthann. “If you could do that, you could dramatically weaken any magical opponent you came up against.”

  “As in Yanka?”

  “If you became good enough at it.”