Heart on Fire (The Kingmaker Chronicles Book 3)

by Amanda Bouchet

  And I have got to do something! Where is the warrior who took down Piers like a ghost on the wind? Where is the woman who climbed a Cyclops and threw Poseidon’s trident into its eye? And where is the Gods damn soothsayer who sometimes dreams of grave danger before it happens? A warning would have been nice!

  Snarling, I close my eyes and dive headfirst into that place where my magic lives, pulling with all my might. Lightning pops from my hands with a loud crack, startling everyone. Thunder booms in my ears, and the crows closest to each hand drop dead, freeing my wrists. I fall a few feet with a shout.

  Bouncing and swaying, I try desperately to break free before new birds can swoop in to help carry my weight. Too soon, though, more crows dig their claws into my hands and wrists, hauling me back up. Mother’s talons scrape like burning sticks across my scalp, and I grit my teeth in pain, a roar building in my chest.

  “I’m coming!” Griffin’s ragged yell reaches me through a haze of agony and smoke. There’s no way he can jump high enough to grab my foot now, not after that broken table rammed into his ribs. He looks around, his eyes frantic.

  Limping, he gets behind the heavy kitchen table—the only thing down there that’s still intact. He starts shoving it through the wreckage. If he can get it under me, he can climb on top. He’ll be able to reach me then with only a small jump.

  But the fire… Two walls of the house are completely ablaze. Pretty soon, the door will be cut off, and we’ll be trapped.

  “Griffin!” I shout, wincing from the heat. “Get out!”

  “Griffin! Get out!” Mother mimics in her grating bird’s voice.

  He ignores us both, his burned and soot-covered face a mask of concentration and pain.

  My arms feel like they’re being ripped apart and pulled off, and the way I’m hanging makes it hard to breathe. The heat from the fire is nearly unbearable, the smoke blinding. I blink blood and sweat from my eyes. Griffin’s hair is plastered to his neck and temples. Groaning, he digs in and pushes the massive table along. My chest aches for him.

  His feet suddenly slip out from under him, and he crashes to his knees. I suck in a sharp breath, choking on it. He stands up again, bracing himself against the edge of the table. A final, herculean effort gets the huge slab of wood underneath me. His breathing labored, Griffin starts to climb on top.

  Mother squawks a command, and the crows and she fly me just out of range.

  “Very entertaining, watching him work for nothing.” She caws along with her crows, laughing.

  Griffin slams his fist down on the table. He glares up at her from his crouch, his eyes feral and his face covered in burns and blood.

  “No more lightning? What a disappointing show,” Mother criticizes. “Where’s that ichor now? You never understood anything about magic. Want it. Cultivate it. Have it!”

  That sounds just like compulsion. Is that how she does it? Her magic only seems to grow.

  “There’s no one left like us. The perfect mix of Titan and Olympian. And yet you’re useless!” She shakes me, pulling my hair until I cry out.

  “There’s Ianthe,” I growl back at her. And my younger brothers, but I know little about them.

  “Elementals are tied down. Earth. Air. Water. Fire. They’re linked to something’s essential nature, bound by its limitations. They don’t conceive with the mind.”

  “Conceive of atrocities?”

  “Conceive of whatever.”

  Why is she telling me this? She’s always fancied herself my teacher as well as my tormenter, but why share knowledge at this point? Because she’s sure I’m about to die?

  “If that’s true, then why aren’t you spewing lighting?” I bite out.

  Her bird-shriek laugh tells me how stupid she thinks I am. “Lightning is Elemental Magic. The fifth element. Supposed to be Zeus’s alone.”

  “But I’m no—”

  “You are!” She spits the words out like a curse. “You’re both. You have everything.”

  Does she mean… “I have more than you?” I ask, stunned.

  Mother doesn’t answer, and the truth hits me like one of her backhands across the face. Magic. The mind. I’ve always known they were connected, but not to the extent Mother is implying. If she’s right, that means that if I can conceive of it, I can do it.

  The problem is, I’ve never been able to conceive of beating Mother. In my mind, she always wins.

  But this time, there’s Griffin. This time, I have Little Bean to protect.

  Gathering my strength and doing my best to breathe through the pain, I swing my legs up and try to kick the enormous crows off me. They flap and caw, and I bob wildly, my arms and scalp pulsing in agony.

  “Cat!” Griffin shouts my name over the bellowing fire. He moves the table, chasing us across the room. He’s almost underneath me again.

  I thrash and yank, frenzied to break free, even if it means ripping my hair out. I can’t stand Mother touching me; she’s so polluted. I need to get her away from my baby, and I’ll fall all the way to the floor and break both legs if I have to.

  Mother curls her talons inward, tightening her hold on me. The sound that erupts from my mouth is raw and inhuman.

  “I’m here!” Griffin leaps for me just as the crows yank, Mother leading the way with my head. His hand closes on thin air, and I yelp as we race toward the towering, east-facing window.

  Instinct takes over. I haul my knees up to protect my middle and duck my head, screaming as Mother lets go of my hair, and I blast through the hermit’s window with only the crows to hold me up.

  Fear and pain storm through me so hard that for a split second everything goes blank. Then I feel each stinging cut from every jagged piece of shattered glass as momentum and the huge birds send me flying out over the pit.

  “No!” Griffin roars.

  “Griffin!” I scream in terror.

  Mother caws a harsh call of triumph from inside the house.

  I twist and look over my shoulder, blood in my eyes and my heart in my throat.

  Griffin stands like a colossus on the table in the middle of the burning house, his legs braced apart, his hands reaching for me, and his eyes wrecked. Our petrified gazes lock for the space of a broken heartbeat before the injured and dying birds retract their claws, and I drop.

  CHAPTER 13

  Hot air punches into me from below, but panic ices me over inside. My heart hammers fast against my ribs. I can’t see the bottom of the pit. It’s so deep it narrows and then fades into darkness except for a distant red-orange glow.

  “Help!” I scream my terror toward Olympus as I plummet to the center of the world, aiming it at Ares and Persephone, at Poseidon, Hades, and Zeus. But no one came earlier, while Mother was kicking our asses and burning the house down around us. Where are they? Are they all so busy that no one can show up for this?

  Fear rushes through me like the sulfurous wind. Heat slams into me hard, increasing along with the fiery glow. I turn my head to the side, squinting. The air flaps so brutally against my face that my eyes dry out, and I struggle for breath.

  This can’t be the end. Of Griffin and me. Of Little Bean—who hasn’t even lived.

  My heart feels like it cracks wide open in my chest, and I yell savagely, refusing to believe it’s over. I’m alive, and until I hit lava, sink into it, burn, and drown, I will fight. And I will get those bloody Olympian Gods to fight along with me.

  “Thanos!” I scream.

  The popping sound and blinding light hardly even startle me. I knew he’d come. Deep down, I knew.

  “I recommend up, not down,” Ares says, grabbing my upper arms. We slow to a halt, hovering high above the churning magma that’s hot enough even here to burn my toes.

  “Up,” I echo dumbly. Seeing him, having his huge, reassuring hands on me, feeling him hold me up… It’s like taking a battering
ram to an already weakened dam, and I nearly burst into messy tears. But I don’t have time for that. No one has time for that.

  My stomach lurches violently. “We have to get back to Griffin. He’s fighting her alone!”

  “So spread your wings, little monster.” Ares lets go of me and disappears.

  My shriek gets snatched away by the pounding wind. The bastard dropped me! “Thanos!”

  He explodes into existence again, huge and glowering. His power-filled, seafoam eyes roil with irritation. He makes no move to catch me this time, and I grab for him. He twists and keeps just out of reach as we fall together. I try to plunge through the air, frantically reaching for him, but these are currents I can’t swim. I only dip and flail.

  “Thanos! Help me!” I cry, the heat nearly choking off my words before they can form.

  “Help yourself,” he shoots back.

  “How?” I shout into the racing wind.

  “Spread your wings,” he repeats, growling now.

  “I don’t have wings!” It’s bright now. And viciously hot. The buffeting updraft bakes my dried blood right into my skin.

  “Haven’t you felt them? In here?” He pops me hard in the chest, driving the air from my lungs. I list backward, trying to suck down a breath and seeing a dizzying slice of clear, blue sky high above me.

  Thanos grabs the front of my tunic and tilts me upright again. When he lets go, I lunge for him, but he neatly evades.

  Wings? In my chest? Yes, I’ve felt them, but only when Griffin is with me, making me feel other things. They’re not there otherwise, and they’re definitely not there now. “They’re in my chest, not out!”

  Ares’s face darkens. “Then get them out!”

  “I don’t know how!”

  “Push!” he shouts. “Push with all your might.”

  He’s nearly as frightening as the lava bubbling below, so I do as he says. I push, and I have a lot of might.

  “Nothing’s happening!” Only panic spasms across my chest.

  “You’re not trying!” he bellows.

  It’s too hot. I can’t concentrate, and everything hurts. My hair burns my cheeks. My eyes feel scorched. “Thanos!” I beg.

  Glaring at me, he rams the flat of his hand into my chest again. A bright light pulses from his palm, and I could swear my heart stops beating. My whole body goes rigid, my back bowing hard. Then pain rips through my shoulder blades, and I throw my head back with a scream. Wings unfurl behind me, catching the wind.

  “Now fly,” Ares commands, shadow and light splashing across his scarred features. Sweat beads his brow. The center of the world roars and groans just below, casting us both in a red-hot glow.

  Still reeling in shock, I start flapping my arms. My torn skin pulls and burns.

  “Your wings,” he snaps, ruthlessly batting my injured arms down and sending me careening off balance.

  Instinct rears up and helps me to beat my new wings. Somehow, I start to rise instead of fall. Stabilizing, I glance behind me. White feathers quiver on hot currents of air. The wings are strange and broad and almost as tall as I am.

  I hazard a look down into the boiling pit, seeing great, popping orange bubbles letting off steam and heat. My eyes burn just from looking at it. The forge of the Gods, indeed.

  “Concentrate!” Ares barks.

  My head snaps back up, and I beat hard on the scorching air. I give a bigger push with my wings and shoot upward in a dizzying rush.

  Flying is foreign, amazing, and strange. The whoosh of air around me is almost as exhilarating as the surge of relief inside me. Still, as we move farther from the ungodly heat, three thoughts play over and over again in my head: burning house, Mother, Griffin.

  Adrenaline pumps through my veins, pounding along with my wings. “Thank you!” I shout to Ares. “How can I ever thank you?”

  Floating seamlessly by my side, he shoots me an odd look. “Don’t thank me. Thank Nike.”

  What? Now really isn’t the time to be cryptic.

  Frowning, I veer toward him by accident and then manage a wobbly rectification—up being key. “I have no idea what you’re talking about!”

  Ares looks at me like I’m unhinged. “You’re the ultimate child of the Gods. Unique in all the worlds. There’s no one else like you.”

  My eyes widen, although I’m not entirely surprised. Still, to hear it with my own ears… Straight from a God…

  My mouth goes even drier. “No pressure there,” I say.

  “Olympus was fracturing. You know we fight like cats and dogs. The competition, the betrayals, the games. Thalyria has always been the glue that binds us, the one place where we all have a stake, the best of all our worlds. Or it used to be,” he adds with a bitterness that startles me. “You carry Zeus’s blood because he’s your ancestor, but there are others who chose to help alter the path of Thalyria through you.”

  Others? Like Nike?

  Sulfurous air stings my tongue, and I snap shut my wide-open mouth. “You made me?” I blurt out, incredulous.

  He scoffs. “Your mother and father made you.”

  I draw back as if slapped. I don’t like that any better, all considering.

  “You look like them,” he says. “That’s the outside. Inside, you’re all ours.”

  If it weren’t so damn hot in this hole, a chill would probably be ripping down my spine right now. “Ours like who?” Why can’t the Gods just say what they mean? Tell you who they really are? Be clear for once?

  “Like Nike,” he growls in answer, clearly losing patience with me.

  Nike. I turn my head to look at Ares again, careful to keep a steady upward path this time. Nike is a Goddess synonymous with strength, speed, and triumph. One of Athena’s closest companions. The idea of being partially shaped by Nike slowly starts to sink in—and I like it.

  “Are you saying the Winged Goddess of Victory put her blood in me, and now I can fly?”

  “You could always fly,” he snaps. “You just repressed it, like everything else.”

  Shock ripples through me. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  Before he can answer, a sudden gust of cool wind pushes heavily downward on us from above, and flying gets infinitely harder. I spread out my arms, trying to steady myself. We’re almost to the top.

  I shoot a glare at Ares, my pulse pounding hard. “Knowing I could fly would have been helpful when I was falling over a cliff. Or two!”

  “You weren’t ready. You weren’t ready for a lot of things until recently.”

  Frustrated and desperate to get to Griffin, I beat my wings harder and practically shout, “What does that mean?”

  “It means you weren’t balanced enough for that much power, and deep down, you knew it. You had no grounding force and no confidence in your own humanity.”

  And then I met Griffin. My grounding force. He didn’t coax me from my shell; he dragged me, but every second that he was doing it, he also made me believe that I was good, worthwhile, and capable. He showed me how strong we could be together.

  “I’ve always been an Elemental.” I speak out loud for my own benefit, to finally believe it. “Who could fly.”

  Ares grabs me, stopping me just before I reach the top. Our eyes connect, and my breath cuts off. I’ve never seen him look so serious, and we’ve been through some serious stuff.

  “You’ve been so scared of what you might be able to do that you never stopped to actually figure out what you can do. You’ve buried every bit of power you possibly could since you were six years old and made that one mistake with Ianthe. Your compulsion nearly killed her, and you’ve punished yourself daily by locking up your own magic and being terrified of it. Anything you’re unsure of or don’t understand? You bury it so deep it can’t hurt anyone—or help. The Gods have favored you. Zeus offered you power like none other and gave you hi
s own thunderbolt. You have a job to do here, but you keep throwing away the tools.”

  “I didn’t throw anything away!” I wrench in his hold, but he doesn’t let go of me. “I didn’t even know I had them! And you could have helped me! Taught me! I could have saved lives!”

  I could have saved Eleni! A sharp inhale tangles in my throat.

  He shakes his head, reading my thoughts. “You were too weak by then. Andromeda had been battering you both in that arena for days.”

  “Which would never have happened if I’d had any idea of what I could do.” My words are rough and accusing. And they should be.

  If only I’d known Griffin then. He would never have just stood by and watched those dreadful days in the arena play out. The Gods may have gifted me with magic, but Griffin is the one who has truly helped me. His support and love gave me the courage to open those locked doors, even just a little, and to believe in my own decency and humanity enough to let my repressed magic peek out.

  Ares releases one of my arms and then pops me again with the flat of his hand, this time right in the center of my forehead. My vision momentarily goes dark. “He brought stability to your chaotic heart. Helped you to believe in your own goodness. In your fated path. But free will, little monster. You have to know yourself.”

  I scowl. “Because everyone just wakes up one day and thinks Hey, I’ll bet I can fly and shoot lightning from my hands. Let’s do it!”

  Ares’s face turns terrifying. “I may love you like my own, but you are not exempt from my wrath.”

  I swallow the rest of the angry words boiling in my mouth. I believe him.

  Slowly, he unlocks his hand from around my arm and then nods in the direction of up.

  Heat rises from the magma-filled pit below. Chilled air races down from the snow-capped peaks above. The two collide and try to toss me around like a leaf in a storm, but I’m steadier now, inside and out. I beat my wings and shoot upward toward the open sky.