Heart on Fire (The Kingmaker Chronicles Book 3)

by Amanda Bouchet

  Healing? Here, have Griffin—a great force of stubbornness predestined just for you. Not only will he eventually succeed in making you hate yourself less, but he’ll push you into that pesky destiny you’ve been trying so hard to avoid.

  Bring Thalyria full circle? Why not? If we can. That’s everyone’s plan, after all—the Gods’ and ours. Why not bask in a little peace and glory before whatever new path we establish opens up all avenues again?

  I shake my head, stomping along the ledge. Endless cycles. Human choices. The Gods watching it all and manipulating outcomes. Because above all, we’re entertainment to them, albeit entertainment they might become attached to.

  Thalyria today. Attica, Atlantis, or even Tartarus tomorrow. Who knows?

  I’m a pawn. Griffin is a pawn. Probably in what was a moment of curiosity for them, the Gods threw idealistic optimism and bleak-hearted cynicism together and waited to see what would happen next, which one of us would temper the other.

  Are they surprised to find that Griffin’s loyalty and steadfastness won out over my distrust and doubt? If they are, they’re idiotic and, once again, don’t understand the human heart. What every person longs for is a connection, whether they’ll admit it or not. I’ll bet even Mother does, deep down, somewhere in her most secret and lonely thoughts.

  I stop and reach out but don’t touch the image of Griffin, too afraid of disturbing the magic with my dried blood. I need to get back to him, to what we’re meant to do. My speculation about the Gods and their motives is worthless if I’m stuck on a cliffside in Tartarus. In fact, my guesswork doesn’t matter at all, because the Fates have already laid down their map. All that matters is what I do next. Which path I choose.

  And I know exactly where I’m going, which means I need my wings back.

  I watch Griffin through time and space and magic, mentally commanding my obstinate wings to spring free. I demand forcefully. I coax. I try using compulsion on myself, but apparently I can’t control my own mind, at least not in that way. My heart and psyche converge, and I focus so intently on Griffin, yearning for him, that tears cloud my vision. Nothing I do works. Hours pass with no more success than before, and fear and anxiety at my lack of progress start to creep through me like a poisonous vine.

  Apart from when the wings were shocked out of me by some Olympian force, I’ve only felt any evidence of them with Griffin—when something he did made me feel treasured, or needed, or loved. He’s here with me now, in a sense, but it’s not the same, and it doesn’t give me whatever magical potion of emotion I need to set my wings to beating.

  I worry my lower lip with nervous bites. I pace. I curse. Griffin sits like a dark statue in the night-blanketed room until dawn finally breathes pale colors across his face. He looks awful, like he hasn’t slept in weeks.

  I don’t know what to do. Ares smacked me in the chest, and my wings popped out. I thump my own chest. Again. Harder. It doesn’t work.

  Not entirely sure it’s a good idea, I point a lightning bolt at myself. I let fly, and the hot, bright flash of magic doesn’t do anything to me, not even singe my grubby clothing.

  Bollocks! Bollocks again!

  I turn to Prometheus. The eagle will be coming soon, and the Titan is watching me with a sort of blank insistence that makes me wonder if he sees anything at all.

  Our eyes meet from across the short distance of sheer cliff, and my heart turns over heavily in my chest. He’s suffering. He’s so close to me, but so completely unreachable as well.

  “Fly,” he whispers for the hundredth time.

  I plant my hands on my hips. “Any ideas how?”

  “Fly,” he says with more intensity, his eyes wide and emphatic now.

  Huh. He’s as helpful as everyone else.

  CHAPTER 27

  Four and a half Thalyrian days, two livers, and no wings later, I make a shallow slice across my palm, dip a finger from my other hand into the gathering pool of blood, and then draw a second square of symbols onto the cliffside wall. When my open is complete, I think of Ianthe.

  The magic is so easy with just a small trace of my blood. She appears before me instantly, and I exhale the restlessness I’d been harboring in my chest since the moment she left with Lycheron. I’d needed to see her, to be sure she was all right.

  Her head is tipped forward for the moment, and her loose hair obscures my view of her face. She’s in a dress unlike anything I’ve ever seen before, like she’s wrapped in a fluffy, white cloud from the neck down. It’s cinched at the waist with a ropelike sash, and to be honest, I’d want to live in a garment like that if I had one. Maybe it’s Nymph gear, or something Lycheron picked up somewhere else. Magical creatures aren’t bound to their world like humans are. Olympus is their universal hub, just like for the Gods.

  It’s well past dusk wherever she is on the Fisan border, and another day in Thalyria is crawling toward night. Unlike Griffin, who only sits in the dark, Ianthe moves from candle to candle, illuminating her tent. Her surroundings look comfortable, truly cozy and warm. I see a table and chairs, a bathing corner with a big brass tub it must have taken a few Ipotane to carry in there, a pile of books, and a chest for clothes.

  Lycheron gains a few points in my book—and I am keeping score—because he obviously supplied Ianthe with whatever she needed after she left us with nothing but the clothes on her back, not even her protective pearls.

  I touch them at my waist. Even here, I wear them to protect Little Bean from outside influences. No compulsion can get through them, no mind control or planted thoughts. Mother can’t reach my baby. With any luck, the Gods can’t, either.

  In Ianthe’s tent, the remnants of a one-person meal wait on a tray, ready to be taken out. Ianthe obviously ate alone, and I wonder where Lycheron is. He didn’t look like he was planning on letting her out of his sight when he galloped off with her…what? Two months ago now?

  Of that time, I’ve been in Tartarus far too long. The tangle of nerves in my abdomen draws ever tighter, and it isn’t Little Bean doing something odd. She only kicked that once, and if I couldn’t feel the steady hum of her life force inside me, I’d be terrified she was gone. She’s just not growing here, not changing at all while I try to figure out how to get us both home.

  Far from me and yet only a few feet away, Ianthe moves a painted screen of folding panels off to one side and then lights the candles near the previously concealed bed. It’s not so much a bed as a large pallet of cushions and furs, the luxurious pile thick enough to be nicely raised off the rug-covered ground. It looks like something a weary body could sink into and not want to get out of for days. The bulky, warm weight of the golden fleece crowns off the bedding, sprawled haphazardly across the top.

  The tawny, one-of-a-kind treasure reminds me so much of Kato that something painful roars across my chest. My heart screams, and it’s all I can do not to scream along with it.

  Blinking hard, I push past the tear in my soul and focus again on Ianthe instead, watching her as she continues to chase the shadows from her snug little corner of the world. When she finishes her tasks around the tent, she sets the candle she was using to light the others down on the table and then looks up, seemingly right at me.

  I take in every detail of her face. The straight nose, the green eyes, the small but stubborn chin. I miss her. I lost her too soon and then found her too late. I fear our time will never come.

  Ianthe isn’t really looking at me, though. She has no idea I’m watching her. She must hear something, because she glances toward the tent’s door just before Lycheron pushes his large, muscular frame through the heavy flap, his imposing presence instantly filling more than his fair share of space.

  Stillness grips them both the moment their gazes lock. Neither of them seems to remember to breathe. A current passes between them that I don’t have to see or feel to know is there. The raw strength of it reaches me even here
. I swear a natural disaster could crack the world wide open under their feet right now, and they wouldn’t even notice falling in. Nothing but the two of them exists.

  I snap my jaw shut. It’s epically apparent they’ve formed a deep attachment—far beyond mere interest or lust. I get the strangest impression of the two of them both settling and vibrating, like being in the same room together is as much a comfort as a thrill.

  I see it in them, because it’s so much like Griffin and me. They haven’t touched. They haven’t spoken. But oh Gods, I think they’re in love.

  Ianthe finally breathes. As if to steady herself, she curls her fingers around the edge of the table, gripping it hard. “Did you find out anything?” The slight hitch in her voice hints at both eagerness and fear.

  My heart speeds up, making me realize how starved I am for living noises, for words besides my own. Tartarus is a lonely place, each of us trapped and isolated in our own solitary punishment or labor. Besides grunting his thanks for food he hardly touches, Griffin doesn’t speak. When he leaves the bedroom, he must talk—presumably, he still has two realms to run—but he always comes back, silent and brooding, and I can’t seem to follow him anywhere else. The last conversation I had was with Perses. The Titan hasn’t reappeared, although he’s no longer a crumpled heap down on the valley floor. And Prometheus is the very antithesis of talkative. Ianthe’s is the first much-needed and familiar voice I’ve heard.

  After a slight hesitation, Lycheron answers her with a small shake of his head. “No, little dove. Nothing.”

  Shock stamps a startled look across Ianthe’s face. Her eyes widen, and her lips part, forming a small, crestfallen oval. She makes no effort to hide her emotions. They’re right there, written all over her features.

  “But Talia can’t just have disappeared. Someone must know something,” she says.

  Her disappointment has an obvious impact on Lycheron, as plain to see as Ianthe’s own unguarded distress. His jaw hardens, and a visible twitch vibrates along his long equine back. He moves farther into the tent, his glossy black coat gleaming in the flickering candlelight. Fluid muscle ripples beneath his skin. The Ipotane Alpha exudes virility and strength like the sun radiates heat and light, all that masculine potency an inherent part of his very nature.

  “If they do, they’re not telling me,” he answers, a sour note creeping in to embitter the deep timbre of his voice. He ties the tent flap closed behind him, and then to my utter astonishment, he turns into a man. Not a horse-man, just a man. Well, not just a man. A naked, glorious, huge-in-every-possible-way man. It only takes a second, a blink of an eye, to make the seamless transition from brawny magical creature to jaw-dropping, powerful male.

  My chin hits my chest. Ianthe doesn’t seem surprised, but a flood of color still blazes across her cheeks. She lowers her gaze. I don’t. My eyes are huge. I can’t stop staring.

  So that’s how they do it. I’d wondered how those Nymphs could possibly manage, how anything could…fit.

  I cock my head. Fitting might still take some work.

  Lycheron reaches for a garment much like Ianthe’s, only bigger, and inserts his thick arms into the sleeves. He ties the sash, covering his nakedness and leaving only a vee at his neck, his striking face and his long mane of black hair visible on top. Strong calves and attractive bare feet flash as he rounds the table to reach Ianthe. He steps toward her and then cups her jaw in his large hands, gently tilting her face back up.

  Lycheron’s thumbs brush a tender stroke over her cheekbones, as if writing an apology right onto her skin. “I consulted Artemis in her icy labyrinth, but she wasn’t talking. I went to the lake at the Phthian Gap, but that bastard Titos didn’t even show up for me. I combed Sykouri a hundred times and then a hundred more trying to pick up her scent, but the God Bolt cooked everything within the walls. I don’t know how anyone survived in there, even though they somehow did. I smell her going in, but there’s no trace of her ever leaving again.” Frowning, he delves his hands into Ianthe’s thick, dark hair, holding the sides of her head. “I’m sorry, my love. I don’t know where your sister is.”

  I startle at the importance of the endearment, even though I knew just from watching them. Talk about taming the beast. It took Ianthe a matter of weeks to have Lycheron laid out at her feet.

  Ianthe forces down a hard swallow. She tilts her head, leaning into his touch, and the vulnerability she’s willing to show makes it pretty clear that she’s laid out at his feet as well.

  I look back and forth between them, trying to shift everything I knew about them into this new paradigm. The Lycheron I encountered those few times was sly and volatile and patently out for himself. I can scarcely reconcile the care and calm I’m seeing in him now.

  Then again, while compassionate and ready to defend, the Ianthe I last saw was also a tight, brittle ball of rage and reserve—hardly the unguarded woman in the tent.

  She lifts a hand between them and lightly touches the triangle of bronzed skin at the hollow of his neck. “I missed you. While you were gone. I…” She presses her lips together, flattening her mouth before speaking again. “I didn’t sleep as well.”

  Lycheron’s ocher eyes slide closed as he leans down and places a lingering kiss on her forehead. It’s ardent. Not chaste, but not invasive or demanding, either.

  Ianthe’s hand slides down, opening the garment to the center of Lycheron’s sculpted chest. Her fingers visibly tremble as she traces the hoof-shaped scar on his left pectoral. Lycheron straightens, holding very still.

  Her eyes flick up, meeting his. “Will you make me forget?”

  My chest implodes, collapsing into a hard knot. She’s not talking about me. Well, maybe a little bit, but my disappearance isn’t really what she wants to forget.

  Lycheron knows it, too, and his eyes flare with amber light. His glowing eyes are still frightening, but not to Ianthe. They burn with an I will crush all your nightmares under my hooves and defend you with my body and my life kind of light, two blazing infernos of absolute promise—and what woman doesn’t want that?

  Ianthe shivers, and Lycheron sweeps his hands down her arms, chasing away her chills.

  She leans forward and presses a sweet kiss to the arching blemish imprinted onto his torso. It’s a little awkward. A lot hesitant. Lycheron looks like he’s in pain.

  His voice drops to a quiet rasp. “If you want to stop, we stop. You’re in control.”

  My heart shatters, my eyes burn, and just like that, Lycheron earns my eternal gratitude. Somewhere between Ianthe deciding to gallop off with him to ensure the Ipotane’s menacing presence on the Fisan border and this moment now, she and Lycheron have become friends, and so much more. I didn’t think it was possible, didn’t imagine it, but Lycheron must have depths he chose to reveal—or found—only for her.

  The expression on his face as he looks down at my sister—passion, protection, need, patience—it all combines to tell me that she’s confided in him, trusted him with things that happened at the hands—and body—of Galen Tarva that she’s hardly even hinted at to me, and that Lycheron was worthy of her trust. And that means that no matter his strange past behavior toward me or his dubious dealings with Griffin, for as long as Ianthe wants him in her life, he has a place with us.

  Unfortunately, life may be a problematic term for them. Eternity rarely mixes well with mortality. There are things about it that simply don’t work.

  But Lycheron and Ianthe don’t seem to care—at least not right now. They’re more interested in the kiss that begins heating up between them. It turns positively scorching.

  Lycheron breaks the embrace to drag Ianthe’s roaming hand over his heart. Breathing hard, he holds it there.

  “Do you feel this?” His powerful rumble of a voice could never be soothing, and his eyes glow with a heated intensity that’s not even close to being metaphorical. Everything about him screams
danger, but Ianthe isn’t threatened at all.

  “I feel it,” she answers huskily.

  “It beats for you.”

  My breath catches. Ianthe molds herself to her surprising creature and seeks his mouth again with hers. I reach out and smear my blood across their images, wiping the scene from the rock. She’s in good hands, safe, and whatever happens next is no one’s business but their own.

  I close my eyes, still seeing them. Ianthe and Lycheron are two beings that needed each other. As individuals they were one thing. Together they’re something else. A new creation. Something more.

  And that reminds me of the person I most need to get back to, of how in Griffin my jagged pieces found a safe place to become a whole. He shored up my foundation, but I’ve always been the mason of my own construction. I know the placement of every stone. I know that each building block has a flip side that’s shown itself and will show itself again—light, dark, forgiving, vengeful, protective, violent. I know there are things I’ll do, things I won’t, and things I’ll always struggle with. And in the perpetual gray of Tartarus, I take a deep breath and finally decide that that’s okay.

  CHAPTER 28

  The sudden burn in my shoulder blades catches me off guard. The unexpected rip and pop and grow lasts mere seconds, but for the time it takes for my wings to spring free, it hurts like Cerberus is scraping poisonous fangs down my back.

  The throbbing quickly fades. I glance over my shoulder, and my new wings reveal a regular pattern of white and black. White is the more dominant color, with only the tips of each feather steeped in shadow. The root is light. The periphery is tarnished. I look at them, and know that each individual feather is a reflection of me.

  Deeply satisfied with the fitting new shading, I flex my wings. Balance. I have it now. Or at least I know what it looks and feels like. I understand how it functions inside me. Some days the scales will tip one way, some days the other, and as long as I don’t lose sight of what’s at my center, I can accept that, just as Griffin always has. I don’t need to be perfect, or have all the answers. I just have to be me, and fair, and do my best for the people and place I love.