The Burning World

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  “She morphed her hands into scary pointy things once,” Andreas said. “Couldn’t pick up shit. Bone is still bone and nails are still nail, so clawing her way down a building isn’t likely. Unless they’re changing the material they’re climbing.”

  So it was true. “Harold said Dunn referred to Daisy as the First Alchemist.”

  Andreas pulled onto the road leading to the parking garage. “I don’t know if your father explained to you about pregnancies and activations, Rysa.” He slowed as they drew closer. “They don’t mix.”

  Her present-seer had pulled that little bit of horrid information out of the what-was-is-will-be. “I know,” she said.

  She hadn’t told Gavin yet, though, and neither had anyone else.

  Daisy needed a healer. One of their fathers would have been a better choice than Rysa, but neither man was available. So whatever help Daisy needed, Rysa would have to provide.

  She and Ladon had already made contingency plans. As soon as they arrived, the dragons would do a full scan, to check for easily-healed issues, and to check the baby. Then Rysa would follow their lead and offer Daisy as full a healing as her abilities allowed.

  Even if Dunn got away. Even though it was the end of the world. The woman Rysa considered her sister needed her, and she would do whatever Daisy needed.

  Rysa hadn’t felt this overwhelmed since her high school physics final.

  Suck it up, buttercup, her dark Fate said. She’d stopped being… other. She’d become… what? Rysa couldn’t describe the feeling. Her dark Fate felt here as if she’d finally figured out how to occupy the same physical space as Rysa—and Rysa suspected her presence was why she felt so spooked.

  The veil thins this close to the witching hour, sweetheart, her dark Fate said. Rysa hitched her shoulders as if warming up her muscles, but suppressed the need to manifest her blade and clean her nails.

  Why so mystic? Rysa thought. Why not just tell me the truth?

  Her dark Fate snickered. You can’t handle the truth.

  You are so utterly predictable, Rysa thought.

  The blade manifested around her arm. Andreas glanced over, but he didn’t startle. But then again, Andreas wouldn’t startle because he was Andreas, and the Second of the Dragons’ Legion didn’t startle.

  Anna would have gotten a dark version of herself under control a long time ago. Daisy would have, too. Derek probably would have smiled and charmed good behavior out of any Ambusti-possessed dark Tsar in his head.

  But no, this dark Fate had to land inside Rysa. This angry, bitter thing had to be a version of scattered, ADHD her.

  Ladon is your husband, her dark Fate randomly hissed. She sounded, once again, jealous.

  Ladon, her husband. Her mate. And they’d been through hell together to get to where they were, no matter how random her dark Fate’s musings.

  Why isn’t he yours? One of her seers told her to ask. One that saw what-was-not. The one that heard… echoes. Because her dark Fate was an echo.

  See? Her dark Fate said. Witching hour. This close to the end of the world, anything is possible.

  “Tell me the truth or I will permanently push you out of my head,” Rysa growled.

  This time, Andreas did startle. His big, warm hand lifted off the steering wheel and landed on her upper arm. “Rysa?” he asked.

  Rysa grinned. “The blade came with a talking version of an Ikea instruction manual. Somehow I’m supposed to fit the pieces together based on her disconnected ramblings.”

  Andreas glanced at her, but went back to paying attention to the road. The intersection ahead had been blocked off. To their left, a tree-lined fence surrounded a small park. To their right, the Medical Center and its parking garages. Several local officers, their flashing cruisers, plus a local television station van, lined the sides of the roads.

  She recognized the Wyoming trooper who had been at the hotel as he talked to a couple of local cops.

  “Pull over,” Rysa said.

  Andreas’s hands tightened again. “I… can’t. Not until I see my damned mother.”

  Rysa unfurled her seers. The park, her present-seer said. “She’s in the park, Andreas. Pull over.”

  Andreas blinked. “You’re sure?”

  Rysa nodded. “I’m sure.” She pointed at the trooper. “I’ve met that cop. He can help us. He can help you get through this without having to enthrall anyone yourself.”

  Andreas pulled over and parked his SUV next to one of the Medical Center driveways. “Me carrying a bag containing a sword and two daggers is not going to go over well with the locals.”

  Rysa undid her seatbelt. “Let me do recon. I’ll come back to you with instructions as soon as possible.”

  “All right.” He pulled out his phone. “I’ll call Ladon and give them the address here.”

  Rysa squeezed his elbow. He was trying. The fact that he hadn’t already sprinted out of the SUV said that maybe the First Enthraller had managed to push back some of his mother’s control.

  “Thank you,” she said, and stepped out of the SUV.

  The cold slapped her across the face and she immediately regretted not grabbing her mom’s obnoxious pink hat. But then again, that hat had one purpose and one purpose only—to make the wearer look less formidable and vicious to an opponent. And right now, she needed Mr. Trooper to take her seriously.

  Recognition immediately appeared on his face when he looked up from a conversation with the other officer. He jogged over.

  He adjusted his black knit cap to pull it down over his ears and, she suspected, to make his Andreas-sized frame less intimidating. He blocked most of the evening light, though.

  He was handsome, too. When they’d met in the rest stop before, Rysa had been too overwhelmed, too frantic, to really see this man and his cousin, but now she realized how similar his features were to Ladon’s. Their heads were almost exactly the same shape.

  At the time, her future-seer told her that she would send him to his death.

  I won’t, she thought. He had a son. She couldn’t see the boy’s name, but she clearly felt his presence in the mind of the big cop.

  She was a Fate. She saw the future, and damn it, this time she would not be bound to it. This time, she’d save a little boy’s father.

  Because she could. And she would.

  He extended his hand. “Officer Michael Seaver,” he said. “You know the two, what are they called?” He looked over his shoulder at the park. “Shifters? In the park?” He looked back to her again. “I’m pretty sure one is the woman you were traveling with. She said she was, but I couldn’t see her face. Her mother… enthralled… me. I think that’s what it’s called. Enthralling. That’s what the other officers are pulling off the internet.”

  “Yes. You were probably enthralled.” Bringing Andreas out now might not go over well. He could enthrall them all, but they knew about enthralling, and knowing made a thrall much less effective.

  Officer Seaver frowned but didn’t say anything. He pointed at a small park and playground across the street and behind a line of trees. Several slides and monkey bars were visible from the street, along with a set of swings.

  “The one in charge asked for the television crew, then yelled ‘I smell dragons!’ just as you pulled up. Other than that, she won’t talk to anyone.” Officer Seaver shook his head. “We still can’t see the other woman, but they argue a lot.”

  Good, she thought. Daisy had some free will left.

  But an angry Dunn might become vindictive. When the dragons got here, even if Dragon stayed invisible, Dunn could enthrall all the cops within a full block to believe they saw a dragon. She could, if she wanted, trigger a mass hallucination.

  She’d done it before. Ladon and Anna had told Rysa and Derek many stories of Dunn’s naughtiness over lots of dinners. Other than her treatment of Derek—no one would ever forgive her for how she manipulated Derek—her behaviors were mostly less destructive and more entertaining than Janus’s, but they were often
impressive. Most of the European tales of winged dragons came from her messing with people’s recollections of interactions with Ladon and Anna.

  Dunn reminded Rysa of her own frazzled lashing out in school, when she couldn’t think straight, though Dunn didn’t seem to have attention issues.

  But tales of dragons in Cheyenne, Wyoming, at the end of the world would help no one. If anything, they would distract the first responders and get someone killed.

  This was why Andreas was the good man he was. Why he never enthralled people against their will unless necessary. Because Andreas fully, deeply understood the emotional strain of being forced to do something you didn’t want to do.

  And this, too, was why he took such good care of the people he felt were his family. Andreas, unlike Vivicus, comprehended empathy.

  “Officer Seaver,” she said. “The man traveling with me has also been enthralled. He has a package he must deliver to the in-charge woman in the park. He has to. He won’t stop if you ask him to. Do you understand? Let him pass.” Or he’ll enthrall the hell out of all of you, and we don’t need that right now, she thought.

  Officer Seaver peered at Andreas. “What’s in the bag?”

  He had to ask. He was a cop. That’s what they did. “Nothing harmful to the people here. No drugs. It’s not a bomb. But it is need-to-know only and I’m not sure if, as a Wyoming State Highway Patrol officer, you have the correct clearance.”

  It was a lie, but appealing to his sense of authority might help.

  “I’ll need documentation and the contact information for his superior,” Officer Seaver said.

  Or not.

  You’re a shitty Fate, her dark Fate said. I would have had this situation under control by now.

  You are not helping, Rysa thought. All she wanted to do was minimize the enthralling and maximize the cop buy-in. In the long run, working with the trooper and not against him would make her job easier.

  And might save Officer Seaver’s life.

  “Look, Officer Seaver—”

  Andreas slammed his door.

  Officer Seaver’s hand dropped to his side arm. Andreas frowned and a targeted ‘trust me’ filled the area.

  Officer Seaver took his hand off his gun. “Are you another Shifter?” he called.

  Andreas’s frown deepened and he followed the ‘trust me’ with a heavy dose of ‘ignore me.’

  Officer Seaver’s mouth rounded. “Damn it,” he said as he pointed at the SUV. “I don’t know what you all are doing, but this vanishing-into-thin-air thing is not helping.”

  Andreas walked up. “Rysa,” he said. “Our commanding officers just turned off the freeway and will be here momentarily.” He nodded toward the park. “We should ask Mom why she wants the blades.”

  “Because she heard whispers,” she said to Andreas. The confused Officer Seaver looked like he wanted to punch someone.

  Andreas zipped his duffle. “Aye, yes, the whispers. They are just as much an excuse for bad behavior as ‘No one is as bound by fate as the Fates themselves.’”

  Rysa snickered. The fog in the what-was-is-will-be gave fate the cover it needed to pack up and run for the hills—like they all should be doing.

  “We’re going to go into the park now, Officer Seaver,” she said. “When I come out, I’ll explain everything as best I can and give you a full account.”

  He nodded and touched the top of his head. “This is going to get some getting used to.”

  Andreas slung his duffle over his shoulder. “He’s taking this better than I expected.” He looked the other man up and down. “Tell him we will do our best to block any other enthrallings coming from my mother.” He shifted the bag. “And that I apologize for making him ignore me.”

  Rysa gave Officer Seaver her best disarming smile. “He’s going to make sure the woman in there doesn’t enthrall you again. And he apologizes for making you ignore him. It had to be done.”

  Officer Seaver shook his head.

  Rysa pointed down the street. “When the Praesagio bus appears, you let them through, okay? They have specialized medical training.” Again, a semi-lie, but she’d need the dragons to help her help Daisy.

  But first they needed to get Daisy away from Dunn and out of the park.

  Andreas would handle the swords. The farther she was from the midnight sword and daggers, the better. They creeped her out anyway, with their eerie black blades and their similarity to the shard of Janus’s talisman. Even with the silly names, they still made her cringe.

  A small, dark-haired woman climbed on top of a slide in the playground. She straddled the bright red plastic fort over the head of the slide, one foot on each side of the small flag waving in the chilly winter breeze. She wore an indigo-violet Praetorian Guard jacket and carried a black bag over her shoulder.

  The bag, not the woman, screamed in Rysa’s perception. Her present-seer outlined it. Her past-seer whispered of suspected secrets it could not read. And her future-seer yelled Change comes!

  Her dark Fate’s blade manifested around her arm.

  Officer Seaver’s hand went to his holster. “Whoa!” he said.

  Andreas blew out a strong blast of ‘calm.’

  And once again, Officer Seaver took his hand off his gun. “What’s the shimmering around your arm? Are you something else? A… Fate?”

  The blade pulsed with her heartbeat. It tingled and it distorted the air like a mirage.

  But this time, it felt fine. Not good. Not bad. Just fine, like any piece of clothing she’d grown accustomed to wearing.

  Her energy blade, this weird manifestation of power that no human should be able to make, much less control, this intrusion of the new into the real, the physical evidence that her dark Fate wasn’t a figment of her imagination, her blade, felt like a warm winter sweater.

  Rysa looked up at Dunn absurdly standing on top of brightly colored playground equipment. Then she looked back at the face of a cop who absurdly reminded her of her husband.

  Then she looked down at the absurd mirage around her arm.

  “I am the Draki Prime,” she said. “I am Fate. I am Shifter. I am Dracae.” She held up her arm. “And, it would seem, a part of me is Burner.”

  Dunn waved her arms, then pointed at Rysa. “Hello there, Draki Prime! Come speak with your great-grandmother, darling!”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The city of Cheyenne kept the small playground clear of snow. Most municipalities in Minnesota didn’t bother; only parks with ice skating rinks got winter attention when Rysa was a child. Maybe Cheyenne wanted the downtown area to sparkle. Maybe they were being nice to the kids who visited the Medical Center.

  Whatever the reason, the children of Cheyenne never wanted for a slide or a swing.

  It was a nice little playground. The dark-red-plastic-hut-topped slide looked new and maintained. Blues and other reds burst off panels and bars. Though cold, whatever space-aged material made up the ground surface still had a spring to it.

  The park wasn’t nature, but at least it was fun.

  The local television crew—a reporter and a camera guy—paced the entrance to the park. Their van sat not far away, and Rysa’s present-seer indicated only one other person, probably an engineer or a producer, huddled inside with the equipment.

  The reporter—an indistinguishable, heavily made-up woman with fake blonde hair wearing an Eyewitness News jacket and an Eyewitness News ski hat—paced back and forth with her microphone. The camera guy just stared at Dunn as if he didn’t know what to do.

  Clear ‘no normals allowed’ calling scents hung in the air. The poor crew—and the cops, too—wouldn’t step into the park even to avoid stampeding bison.

  Dunn squatted on top of the tallest slide. She semi-watched Rysa walk through a wide opening in the fence surrounding the playground, but mostly her gaze and head movements indicated that she was looking for an invisible Dragon’s path toward the second set of equipment with the monkey bars and the rope walk.

&n
bsp; “They’re not here,” Rysa called.

  Dunn squinted. She was somehow keeping her ‘don’t see Daisy’ calling scents hidden, but Rysa knew Daisy was here somewhere.

  “That camera will get a picture of your beast soon enough,” Dunn yelled. “You might as well tell your boyfriend to come clean now in a way that pleases you instead of them.” She shrugged and the black bag she wore swung in front of her belly.

  “Husband,” Rysa said.

  “That’s right. Daisy was at the reception.”

  Where’s Daisy? Rysa asked her seers. The entire park brightened as all three of her seers searched for Daisy’s position moments ago, where she was right now, and where she would be in the moments to come.

  Nothing.

  Andreas walked into the park. He clutched the duffle with the blades as if it were the most precious thing in the entire universe. “Enough, Mother,” he said. “I brought you the blades. Stop playing games so we can figure out what we need to do.”

  The air filled with the strongest brew of ‘perceive’ Rysa had ever sensed from Andreas.

  It didn’t do any good. Dunn rolled her eyes.

  Rysa sent her seers to find Daisy again, and again, Dunn’s calling scents blocked her access. “Daisy, I’m sorry,” she said. “The only way I’ll know you’re here is for you to slap me.”

  Unseen fingers swiped across her cheek.

  Something just hit her face. She touched her cheek. She’d said “slap me” to the air hoping Daisy would hear her and something slapped her face.

  Another round of ‘perceive’ rolled out of Andreas.

  Daisy flickered in front of Rysa’s eyes. She flickered and she slapped Rysa even though the calling scents in the air told Rysa she was not to perceive anything at all about Daisy, including her physical touches—but she’d felt the slap and Andreas was right here.

  Rysa’s seers knew where to grab. She caught unseen upper arms in her hands.

  Rysa fired the strongest bolt of undifferentiated healing into her friend that she could before her body stopped understanding who she held onto. “I won’t let go,” she said. “I don’t know why but I won’t let go.”