Shadowborn Page 27

“I am your loyal Seraph,” Bree said. “Whatever you need of me, ask.”

  Avila turned her way, and Bree quickly bowed in respect. She couldn’t meet the woman’s eye. Her personality had always been forceful yet controlled, a guiding hand for her husband’s actions. That was gone. The Archoness had inherited the Archon’s title, and now there was no need to keep her strength in check. When she spoke, her words were iron, and the only thing that matched her sorrow was her smoldering rage.

  “The people are furious,” she said. “And they have every right to be. Thousands are dead on both sides, and yet it is not enough for the bloodthirsty monster that rules on Center. To be so petty, so cruel …” Avila took in a deep breath, let it out. “I will accept no treaty offered by the theotechs, no matter how generous. I don’t care what direction the winds of battle turn. I don’t care if Marius threatens to bury us below the ocean waves like he did Galen. We shall have no peace until the Speaker drops in a Weshern well, and we bury his corpse with the bones of the dead his war machines wrought upon our land.”

  Bree found herself unable to argue against the sentiment. Everyone felt betrayed. The joy they’d felt at their victory against Center’s invasion had lasted but a moment before being tainted by an assassin’s blade. Such a vile deed demanded punishment.

  “We Seraphim are ready to lay down our lives for you,” Bree said. “Give your orders, and know we shall carry them out to the best of our abilities.”

  “Indeed, you risked your life many times this past week,” Avila said. “Both you and your brother were vital in our defense, which means I’m a fool to continue to sequester you here for Argus’s murder.”

  “So you believe my innocence?”

  “What I believe doesn’t matter anymore. Weshern’s fate is all that does.”

  Avila put a hand on her shoulder, bidding her to rise. Bree obeyed, and dared meet the woman’s gaze, inwardly berating herself. She had faced Center’s wrath. She could face a widow’s grief, no matter how uncomfortable it made her feel.

  “I still remember the first day I met you,” Avila said. “It was at the solstice ball. You were just a skinny little thing, shy to hold the hand of her date. I could hardly believe you were the child of two skilled, vicious Seraphim.” Avila smiled at her. “Then I heard of your reckless attack on the Seraph who slew your lover, and I knew I’d been wrong. You had the spirit of your father, his same fire. He’d have been proud of you, Bree. Very proud.”

  The words were meant to give comfort, but they only reminded Bree of how much her father had changed in Center’s clutches. No, he wasn’t proud of her. Instead he viewed her as a betrayal to his teachings. She debated telling Avila of her father’s survival but decided against it. The last thing the Archoness needed was more conflicting feelings.

  “Isaac saw the same fire,” she said. “He believed, just as Argus Summers believed, that you represented something magical. You were a powerful symbol the people could understand. You were untamed. Uncontrolled. Unbeatable.” Both of Avila’s hands held Bree by the shoulders. She felt the fingers tremble. She heard her words turn desperate and tired. “We need that symbol again, Bree. Too many have died, and I fear the rage will suffocate beneath the anguish. We need hope in this dark hour. We need something to cling to among the loss.”

  Bree stammered for an answer.

  “Give the order,” she said. “I am still a loyal servant of Weshern.”

  “Thank you,” Avila said. The Archoness released her iron grip, took a step back, and composed herself. “I’ve ordered messengers to spread word throughout Weshern that we will be continuing our battle for freedom against Center. I would like you to accompany them, in a sense. For many citizens, our rebellion truly began when your swords lit the darkened sky. Will you do so again? Will you let the people know the Phoenix still flies?”

  Bree’s dry throat had progressed from sand to a coat of razors.

  “And my imprisonment here?” she asked.

  “Do this for me, and I will end it. Investigation into your guilt will halt until the war is over. For the sake of our island, we need this from you, and we need it now.”

  There was no rejecting this request. Bree stood up straighter and thudded her fist against her breast in salute.

  “I will,” she said, surprised the words even exited her mouth.

  “Good. You are dismissed, Seraph.”

  She bowed low and then fled the room as if a thousand fireborn nipped at her heels.

  Bree stared up at the dark night sky, trying to remember that initial awe and wonder at seeing the stars for the very first time. The whole world felt new after the removal of the suffocating midnight fire. The stars felt tranquil in comparison to the constant, moving chaos. Against that crawling midnight fire her flaming swords had been a protest, a signal of rebellion. What would it mean now when it carved through a sky of diamonds?

  For some, it’ll mean the world, she thought.

  Bree adjusted one of the belts on her harness, tightening it. The wind was cool, nature itself mourning the fallen Archon. She stood in the mansion garden, one of the few places of solace in the entire building.

  Nothing to this, she told herself. Just a simple flight like before.

  Except it wasn’t the same. Before, when she unleashed her flame over Weshern, it had been in celebration as well as warning to the occupying forces of Center. This was neither. This time she was offering the people a promise. She was asking them to trust her despite everything, and deep down, Bree didn’t believe herself worthy of such trust.

  Waiting would only make it worse. Bree flicked power to her wings, felt the thrum travel down her spine. Her feet drifted off the ground, weightlessness taking her. Before she flew away, she closed her eyes and offered a rare prayer.

  Make this mean something.

  Bree flew straight up, knowing she’d need significant height to ensure her flame burned visible for miles in all directions. The mansion receded, just a blur among the rest of the dark land. Bree turned her eyes upward. Stop fearing the ground. Start watching the sky.

  You fly among the stars, Bree told herself. You fly where you belong.

  Bree ceased her ascent and put her left hand across the right gauntlet. With gritted teeth she jammed in the needle, drawing blood into the fire prism’s chamber. The pain quickly faded, her awareness of the prism growing in her mind. Another flick of a switch armed the gauntlet. Last, she drew her swords.

  “Let’s go,” she breathed into the silence.

  Bree tilted forward and flooded life into her wings. As her momentum increased, she made the mental connection in her mind, channeling the flame. It swirled out from her focal prism, danced across the hilt without burning, and then bathed the blade. A clack of her two swords spread the flame to the other. Their heat washed across Bree’s skin with a pleasant warmth. The fire streaked behind her, trailing off her swords. Bree felt the drain on her mind, just a minor thing as her blood easily kept the fire prism full.

  Not enough, thought Bree. Avila wants a message, so I’ll give them one.

  She focused on her swords, building her rage. The fire built, growing hotter and brighter than she was used to. She kept her swords far out to either side to minimize the discomfort. There was nothing she could do for her hands, so close to the heat she felt her skin turning raw. Randy Kime had insisted her skin would heal quickly from wounds caused by her element. She prayed that was the case.

  Her flame streaked across the night sky. The greater fire wore at her mind, and she found herself breathing rapidly, as if in the middle of a sprint. She pressed on. The twin trails were enormous now, vicious and blazing. Bree found herself sensing it for the first time. She could shape it, in a way, envisioning it spreading out flatter and wider. The flame obeyed. It would always obey.

  Weshern passed beneath her like the hours, quiet and dark. Bree bounced her gaze from the stars to the ground, needing the heavenly light above to chase away her sorrow. The closer she neared sou
thern Weshern, the more destruction littered the landscape. She saw craters where there should have been houses. She saw flickering orange embers where there should have been tightly packed fields. She saw black spaces of abandoned towns where there should have been lanterns, candles, cook fires. Docks were closed. Stalls vacant.

  Bree let her fire roar above it all. Perhaps the Phoenix moniker had been more prophetic than anyone realized. With her fire, she would do all she could to bring her beloved home back to life.

  Glensbee and Lowville approached. Bree hadn’t realized she flew that direction, but there was no doubt. Center’s cannons had blasted it all away, nothing but painful scars to remind Weshern of what had once been. Bree felt guilt claw at her throat. She had helped start this conflict. She’d pushed and pushed so that a small rebellion turned into a grand war.

  Her feelings only worsened as she flew over the complete ruination of Glensbee. What had once been a town was now a crater. Bree stared at it in horror, unable to believe the power laid witness before her. How could Marius unleash such a terrible weapon and still claim to be God’s voice? Hundreds of lives, snuffed out in an instant. Not warriors. Not rulers and rebels. Men, women, and children, running from a war they could not outrace. It should have fueled her rage, but it only added to the weight on her shoulders. There below, another cost of their rebellion. One of many. Worst of all, it was a cost they might pay again and again, for there’d been no sign of the weapon responsible amid the abandoned and destroyed war machines left on Weshern soil.

  Lowville, at least what remained of it, was just past the tremendous crater. Bree looked for familiar sights and found depressingly few. Everything was burned and flattened. She pieced the ruin together in her mind, seeking their old home. She spotted one of the town’s wells still intact and flew down to it, shutting off her flame and putting an end to her lengthy flight across the island. Bree walked the street, or at least, the winding gap between the two long stretches of broken stone and burned wood. And then she found it.

  “Aunt Bethy?” Bree whispered aloud. “I’m home.”

  The wood roof had collapsed in on itself, and based on the impact, she guessed a large blast of lightning had slammed through it. The walls had crumbled on three sides. Stone, perhaps? Or ice? No evidence remained, the elements long since faded away into mist. Bree stepped through one of the broken walls. Little parts of their old life littered the floor. Broken dishes. The ashes of the fire pit. The wooden chair Aunt Bethy had rocked in beside the fire. It was broken in half, clipped by a large chunk of stone wall. With the upper floor collapsed, it was that much harder to decipher what had belonged where. Feathers from the ripped mattresses covered the eastern wall, gathered there by the wind.

  “I hope you’re fine, Bethy,” Bree said. She didn’t even know if her aunt had survived the attack. So far as Bree knew, Center’s advance had neared, but not reached, the surrounding farmlands of Selby. Bree prayed the fury of the cannons had passed over the farmstead. She also prayed her aunt never had to come back to see what was left of her home.

  Bree sat in the center of it all, her knees curled to her chest. The tips of her wings dipped into the clutter, holding her in place. Her strength was gone. It had drained away in the flight, and the energy it had taken to refill the fire prism and keep her swords alight was only partly to blame. Her life had been a dull chore for so very long, working in fields and preparing meals for their little family of three. The months of training in the Academy were a blur, each day ending with her collapsing exhausted onto her bed.

  Yet when the Academy burned to the ground, everything that followed had happened so fast. The discovery of the power in her blood. The assault at Camp Aquila. Her imprisonment and experimentation upon by Er’el Jaina. The collapse of the dome, and the fall of the fireborn. All of it, one after another, mixed with memories of the dead and dying. Center’s defense of the Crystal Cathedral, and then the invasion of their war machines. Kael’s near execution. The return of their father. It was too much, too much. Each day a trial. Each week a lifetime.

  Her tears fell, and she didn’t stop them. She brushed away debris to reveal a part of the wooden floor covered with dust. Bree put a finger upon it and began writing. Cassandra. Dean. Brad. The names of the dead. The names of those dear to her forever lost. Argus. Isaac. There were so many, so very many. Chernor. Randy. Aisha. Loramere. Some had no names. The mother, reaching up to her as Galen fell. The child in her arms. The tens of thousands free-falling in that brief moment of twilight horror before the island struck the water and sank into the ocean.

  Out here, without soldiers, Seraphim, and teachers, without theotechs, without the Mariuses and Johans of the world, Bree settled into her dark private place and finally broke down. She sobbed for it all, the dead, the living, a mother who died in her arms, a father who returned to only offer condemnation. For the responsibilities she was terrified of failing. For the promises she’d already broken. She stopped pretending the weight on her back didn’t exist. In one glorious space of time, the Phoenix ceased to be. Only Breanna Skyborn remained.

  The tears slowed in time. Bree dried her face with her hands, and she looked about the home in a new light. No, she didn’t want to remember it burned to ash. The memories remained, and one day, they would be built anew.

  A soft shimmer of silver flew overhead. Bree didn’t need to look to know who it was. The hum of wings replaced the silence, but only until Kael landed beside her and shut them off. He looked her over, at the mess she surely was. His lip twitched. His guarded brown eyes gave away nothing.

  “Hey,” he said, plopping down next to her. “Need a hug?”

  She burst out with a tearful laugh.

  “Yes,” she said. “Yes, I do.”

  He wrapped his arm about her, and she leaned into him, sniffling but already feeling infinitely better than when she first took flight.

  “Figured you’d be here,” Kael said as the silence dragged on. “I mean, it wasn’t exactly an amazing guess since I just followed your trail of fire. I wanted to fly with you, by the way, but you never told me what you were up to.” He winked at her. “Weshern could have used a bit of my shield’s light as well, you know.”

  She leaned harder against him.

  “Sorry, but I think I’ll hog it all for myself for now.”

  “If you insist.” He looked about what was left of their home. “Well. This place got wrecked, didn’t it?”

  Another laugh. Bree elbowed his side.

  “Show proper respect, Kael. Can’t you see I’m having a moment?”

  Kael pulled away and grinned at her.

  “And can’t you see that I’m doing my job? No sulking when Kael’s around. If I have to act like an idiot to cheer you up, then that’s what I’ll be doing. So, please stop making that job difficult by oh, say, flying off to be a symbol of the revolution the night after our Archon’s death.”

  Bree sniffed as she wiped at her eyes.

  “If I ever have to do that again, I promise I’ll invite you along with me.”

  “Damn straight,” Kael said, rising to his feet. “You’re already famous. Give me a chance to get a little bit of that glory. I’m still playing catch-up.”

  Bree stood and flung her arms around him, clenching him tightly. She felt his body tense, then relax as he embraced her back.

  “Thank you, Kael,” she whispered. “Thank you so much.”

  “I’m here for you, Bree,” he said, his joking tone vanished. “And I always will be.”

  She pulled away and fluttered her wings back to life.

  “Let’s return to the mansion,” she said. “I’m pretty sure Clara needs you more than I do.”

  Kael’s smile cracked the briefest second.

  “She’s stronger than anyone gives her credit for,” he said. “But you’re right. Let’s go.”

  His wings hummed along with hers, silver light flooding the debris. Bree gave it one last look, refusing to dwell on the rubble but ins
tead the memories it brought forth. To keep hopeful instead of buried by the loss.

  The Skyborn twins soared into the air, little silver dots among a star-filled sky. They left behind the loss, the old life, and the painful names of the dead.

  CHAPTER

  24

  A furious Liam passed the line of wagons full of tributes leading back to Heavenstone’s entrance. His chest twisted into knots and his hand clenched into a fist despite his attempts to remain calm. The news rattled inside his brain, banging against his skull. Along with the frightening memory of the execution, it all created a cacophony the knight desperately wished for the Speaker to silence.

  It can’t be true, he thought. It can’t mean what I think it means.

  The people were devastated by the recent series of defeats, and the once unthinkable was becoming a reality: Center herself might soon face invasion. Rumors and fear spread like wildfire. Marius was performing an emergency tour of major cities throughout Center in an attempt to keep the public’s support, a task Liam didn’t envy in the slightest. That morning the Speaker would be in the nearest village, Seralworth, before continuing on. Liam knew he should fly there but he kept the wings on his back dark. His steady jog lit a pleasant fire in his muscles. More important, it gave him time to grasp the latest in what had been a long string of shocking and terrible news: Weshern’s Archon, Isaac Willer, had been killed by Marius’s agents.

  The distant walls faded, the grass turning to fields of grain worked by Seralworth villagers. Liam did his best to ignore the blackened gaps the soft wind revealed with the bending of the stalks. There was enough on his mind. He didn’t need to add in the fireborn assault and the possibilities of future attacks.

  Seralworth was the final town all traders passed through on the way to Heavenstone, and it had been hit harder than most by the cessation of trade, hence Marius’s visit. He’d come to assure them the trade would resume, the minor islands would fall in line, and all would return to as it was. An impossible promise, Liam knew.