A Promise of Fire (23 page)

My laugh is brittle. “It would probably go faster to list the things she
didn’t
do.”

She looks at me warily. “An example, then.”

I don’t know why I’m talking like this, revealing things. Maybe the more secrets get out, the less important the remaining ones seem. “I had a puppy. It was the only living thing to ever show me affection besides my sister and my nurse. I loved them. I hated everyone else.”
Except Thanos. Not that he was exactly lovable. And Ianthe wasn’t so bad.

“Mother knew I loved it. It was white with big brown spots, floppy ears, and huge round eyes, black like slabs of jet. Not quite a year after giving me the dog, she tore it from my arms, snapped its neck, and dumped it at my feet. She told me, ‘Love nothing and no one can hurt you.’ I couldn’t have been more than eight. I cried, and she beat me unconscious. When I woke up, I had one of these.” I pull up my sleeve to show her the long, silver scars.

Jocasta pales. “I saw them before but… She almost beat you to death?”

I tug my sleeve back down. “It wasn’t the first time. Or the last.”

“What happened to your nurse?”

A lump lodges in my throat. “Dead.”

“And your sister?” she asks quietly.

The lump starts choking me. A burn hits the back of my eyes.

I don’t have to answer. Jocasta’s eyes fill with tears, and she reaches out to squeeze my hand. “I’m so sorry.”

Sitting here with Griffin’s sister, I find myself teetering on a precipice—down one slope a hard shell, down the other an emotional swamp. The swamp is rising up to meet me when Kaia pushes the unlatched door open, sticking her head through the crack and saving me from getting sucked down into it.

“I thought I heard voices.” Yawning, she slips inside and closes the door behind her. She stumbles over to the bed and climbs into the middle, pulling the blanket up to her chin. “You can’t have a party without me.”

“You’re half-asleep!” Jocasta chides. “Why did you get out of bed?”

“More fun here,” she mumbles, closing her eyes.

Not really
. Kaia is sound asleep in seconds. I hand Jocasta a pillow and settle back down on the opposite side of the bed.

Jocasta lies down, too, her thick black hair unbound and covering most of the pillow. “Not worried about killing us?” she asks softly.

“Griffin was right,” I mutter, annoyed. “I don’t have nightmares in his bed.”

Across Kaia’s sleeping form, I see Jocasta smile. She looks maddeningly like her older brother—smug.

“Don’t tell him!” I whisper-shout. “Swear you won’t.”

She grins and burrows under the covers. “Your secret is safe with me.”

I blow out the lamp, getting the feeling she’s talking about more than just the nightmares.

Griffin, Carver, and Egeria are huddled over the healing
center plans. There’s dust on their fingers. A breeze stirs the air. I peer around Kato’s shoulder, listening to the crackle of scrolls while the afternoon sun scorches the back of my neck. Flynn is taking a drink, and I wonder why he doesn’t offer me any water while he’s at it. He knows how hot I get. Healers and other curious Magoi watch us from under the shade of a thick ivory cloth draped over a wooden trellis. It’s crowded under their makeshift tent, and workers are busy constructing a second one.

The men already laid out stones marking the four corners of the future building. The site is flat and open, visible, yet close to woods that provide water and herbs for cases that don’t require magic for healing. Placing the healing center outside the city walls declares its neutrality and availability to all. It’s risky, though, and leaves the establishment vulnerable. Not that Ios offers much protection. Like too many Sintan cities, it’s barely fortified.

I turn to the woods, squinting into the shadows while Griffin argues with Egeria. She wants another wing. He says they’ll add it if necessary.

He looks up sharply, following my gaze. I heard it, too. A rustling. He shoves Egeria toward the healers and draws his sword. Tarvans with blue tribal swirls erupt from the trees. Southern Tarvans in northern Sinta? It doesn’t make any sense. There are at least sixty of them, their swords drawn, their rhythmic battle chant pounding the air like drums of war.

I feel no fear. I have powerful, deadly magic simmering in my veins. I breathe; they die. In a moment, I’ll show them. I’ll give them a chance to change their minds.

The adrenaline of imminent combat surges through my body. I reach for my knives and don’t feel anything—not even myself.

Horror fills me.

“Griffin!” He doesn’t hear my shout. He doesn’t hear me yelling at him to run, to get behind the walls. He doesn’t hear me because I’m not there!

He stands firm, buying the fleeing people time. They all do. Kato, Flynn, Carver. Griffin.

They watch the Tarvans come, their legs braced for attack, bellows on their lips, and my heart plummets. They don’t stand a chance.

My eyes snap open, and my whole world implodes.

“Wake up!” I sit up. Kaia is next to me, Jocasta on her right. “Get Piers. Now!”

Jocasta jumps off the bed, hastily throws a wrap around her shoulders, and then runs from the room. In less than a minute, I’m dressed. Then Piers is in front of me. Nerissa and Anatole, too.

“A Tarvan tribe is going to attack the building site. Sixty men. It hasn’t happened yet, but it will by sometime this afternoon. We have to get to Ios, or they’re all dead.”

They stay rooted to the spot, pale, with too-wide eyes. Only Anatole holds himself together. “To Ios!” he barks. “Now!”

His voice is like a whip. Everyone flies into action. I’m the first one out, sword strapped on, four daggers in my belt. I raise the alarm at the barracks. Soldiers tumble out of their rooms and into the dawn-cool courtyard, the white marble pearlescent in first light.

Piers jogs over. The hilt of a full-sized sword pokes up over his shoulder, and there’s a shorter blade attached to his belt. He’s wearing leather armor. “We have forty horses in the stable,” he says, stopping next to me.

Forty is a decent number. Armies travel mostly on foot. “Have fifteen horses carry women, and they double up. The twenty-five others carry your best men. Sixty more follow on foot. And they
run
. I’ve run for a day. So can they.”

I finish adjusting Panotii’s saddle and then reach for the stirrup. He’s prancing, reacting to the stress in the air.

Piers lays a hand on my arm. “You’re not supposed to leave.”

I shake him off. “This is a dire emergency.”

“Griffin won’t want you in danger.”

“I don’t give an Olympian damn what Griffin wants!”

“You’ve made that abundantly clear,” Piers snaps, grabbing Panotii’s reins. “But I do.”

“Let go,” I snarl.

“Why? From what I’ve seen, you’d abandon him in a heartbeat if you could.”

It’s all I can do not to kick Piers in the face. I hold up my hands instead, backing off. “You’re right. Go get killed.”

Piers throws me a contemptuous look before turning to the gathering soldiers and calling out orders as they form ranks.

With a running leap, I land on Panotii’s back, grab his mane for balance, and throw my right leg over his other side. Before I’m even upright, we’re thundering across the courtyard, under the raised portcullis, and out into the sleeping streets of Sinta City.

Urgency explodes inside me. Panotii feels it and stretches his legs. Waiting for the army doesn’t occur to me. I have no food and no water. I don’t even have a bloody sense of direction, and I have to slow down at the east gate, shouting to the guards for the road to Ios.

As the sun climbs the sky in front of me, I’m forced to stop in two villages so Panotii can drink and rest. It’ll kill him to run flat out in the heat. I drink, too, and then ask him to carry me again. When he’s lathered with sweat and breathing impossibly hard, I get off and jog beside him, telling him how brave and strong he is while I scream inside with the need to gallop.

Hours pass. I’m so hot I get a decent idea of what it must feel like in Hades’s dungeon and so thirsty that my mouth feels like the dried-out basin of an evaporated puddle. Steam rises from Panotii’s drenched hide. I slow him to a walk so he can breathe and then reach down to stroke his burning neck. His sides heaving, he shudders beneath me.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, but we can’t let them die.” I dismount again, and we run together until my whole body aches.

Finally—
finally
—Ios looms in the distance, but Apollo has already driven his chariot of fire more than halfway across the sky, and I’m still on the wrong side of the city.

I glance over my shoulder, squinting against the sun. Where’s Piers? I don’t see any sign of the army, and the terrain behind me is flat and clear.

I haul myself back into the saddle and push Panotii into a canter, dreading hearing the sounds of battle. Will there even be any battle noise? How long can it take sixty men to slaughter four?

My heart knows the answer to that.
Just long enough to get Egeria to safety, along with a bunch of healers who despise them and everything they stand for.

Anxiety cramps my stomach as we skirt the city’s east side, following the shade of the wall so that Panotii can pick up speed again. At last, the building site comes into view, and I go limp with relief. People are working and standing around. The healers’ tent is still overflowing with gawkers and casting a long shadow across the parched ground.

My eyes find Griffin among the crowd. He’s talking to Egeria when his head snaps up, and he looks toward the woods. Panic wraps icy fingers around my heart, squeezing out a painful, punishing beat. I’m too late.

I shout a warning cry, too far away to be heard. “Go. Go. Go!” I beg Panotii for one last gallop, wincing at the sickening sound that rattles in his chest.

Healers race toward us, running for the city. I see Egeria among them, white-faced and panicked. I tumble off Panotii and grab her.

She shrieks, then recognizes me and falls into my arms. “Cat! Oh my Gods, Cat!”

I push her off me and then shove her onto Panotii’s back, turning him back toward Ios. I send him off with a slap on his rear, yelling hoarsely, “Close the gates! Give my horse food and water!”

“Cat!” Egeria cries, twisting in the saddle.

I run toward the Tarvan tribesmen, snagging a healer by the dress and dragging her with me in case I need her later. Healing magic works on a curve, limited when young and old, and at its peak near middle age. Women are universally stronger. The woman is about forty years old, potentially the most powerful of the fleeing group. She jerks and stumbles at the sudden change in direction, but I keep her with me, either with my momentum, or by sheer force of will. I hardly feel her pushing on my arm, trying to break free.

The Tarvans have maneuvered tactically, coming around Griffin and the others to cut off any chance of their retreating into the city. It doesn’t take a strategic genius to know they’re after the royals, and Griffin in particular. Carver’s an added bonus, and they probably figure they’ll have Egeria soon. Sixty armed men have a good chance of taking an unprepared, weakly fortified city like Ios, and I’m guessing they know it.

What the Tarvans don’t know is that their position now puts them between Beta Team and me, and every last one of them is about to comprehend something vital—that’s the
wrong
place to be.

I draw in a deep breath and let Sybaris’s deadly magic out on a scorching exhale. Dragon’s Breath surges from my mouth and melts the thirty men closest to me. There isn’t time for them to scream before the skin sloughs from their bones and there’s nothing left but smoking, stinking puddles of melted men, metal, and leather.

For a moment, everything stops. The clanking of arms ceases, and all eyes turn to me. I see only Griffin, and the endless chaotic wrath inside me focuses, turning sharp as a blade. Powerful magic explodes from previously dormant places. My loose hair lifts on a sudden gale. Lightning bursts from my body, splitting the air with cracks of thunder. I advance, my footsteps charring the ground as bolts radiate from my feet, long, jagged, and intensely hot. There’s a tearing pain in my back, along each shoulder blade. I don’t stop to question it, or the lightning, or the wind. I don’t question anything. I am
mighty
, and I will kill anyone who gets in my way.

“Run.” The command is deep and echoes eerily. It doesn’t sound like me. It hammers my enemies like a storm from Olympus.

Half the remaining Tarvans sprint for the woods. The rest make a stand. Griffin shouts my name, the sound of his voice reaching me through layers and layers of sound-dulling power. My vision wavers like a mirage, everything coated in fiery orange. I’m too close to indiscriminately blast Dragon’s Breath from my mouth without endangering the people I’m here to protect, so I throw a ball of Chimera’s Fire at the Tarvan closest to me instead. He goes up in flames, screaming. I repeat until the Chimera’s Fire wanes—five more fire balls, and then it’s gone.

I still have the healer in my left hand. Her face is stark with fear and shock, but she’s looking at me, not at the Tarvans, or the battle, or the gore. I draw a dagger and throw it at the man charging us. It sticks in his eye, and he crumples without a sound.

Across from me, Beta Team slices through the remaining Tarvans with ferocious efficiency. Two stumble back from their onslaught, trapped between Beta Team and me. The younger one turns my way, cocking back a small throwing ax. Griffin’s knife lands in his kidney before the man can complete the throw.

I stare across the bloody space at Griffin, my eyes telling him I could have handled the tribesman myself.

He stares back, his brilliant, battle-bright eyes telling me he knows.

The last Tarvan sloshes through the liquefied remains of his companions. His frantic eyes dart between us, me on one side, Beta Team on the other. He knows it’s over, the defeat total. Making a placating motion, he goes to lay down his sword. As the leader, Griffin steps forward to accept his surrender, but the man abruptly twists and throws his blade with a quick, powerful snap of muscle. It flies end over end and buries itself in Griffin’s chest.

My scream snuffs out the storm. Silence crashes down as magic collapses back into me. Confusion, disbelief, and the rawest pain I’ve ever felt make me stumble. I lose my grip on the healer, and she runs. I’m slow to move and then waste time chasing her down. I grab her by the hair and jerk her back while Carver sprints toward the fleeing Tarvan, ruthlessly taking his revenge.

Griffin drops to his knees, shock etched across his rapidly paling features. Tarvan swords are short. A skilled warrior can throw one with relative accuracy. It’s not a technique used in Sinta, and no one was expecting it. Griffin grips the hilt and pulls out the blade, his face turning ashen. Blood washes down his front, shiny and dark. Kato and Flynn ease him to the ground while I scramble to his side, dragging the healer down with me. My shadow falls across Griffin’s face.

“You saved us. Again.” He reaches up to touch my cheek. I try to turn into his hand, but his fingers fall too soon.

“You should have taken me with you!”

The anguish in my voice makes him frown. “How did you know?”

“Soothsayer. Remember?”

He smiles faintly and then coughs. Blood bubbles in his mouth, drips from his lips. “…thought that was a front.”

“Usually. Not always.”

His eyes lock on mine. They lack their usual piercing clarity. “My kingdom’s treasure. My treasure. So glad I found you.”

My eyes sting, and my heart aches, and I want to rip someone apart with my bare hands. He coughs, and there’s more blood. Too much blood.

“Merciless, merciless Cat.” He sounds proud of me. His voice is weakening. There’s blood everywhere. I’m kneeling in it. It’s on my hand, which is pressed to his wound. It’s in the air, damp and metallic in the dry heat.

I yank the healer’s hand down and hold it to Griffin’s chest. “Heal him.”

Her eyes are huge. “Not him. Not Hoi Polloi southern warlord scum.”

Everything in me flattens. My anger is surprisingly cold, a torrent of emotion frozen solid in an instant. I shove her hand away from Griffin and blow on it. The softest breath melts the entire appendage, leaving the charred stump of a wrist bone and mangled, blistered skin.

Her breath starts coming in short bursts. Her eyes turn unfocused. I’m afraid she’ll lose consciousness, so I give her a shake. “Heal. Him.”

She spits on me. “I’d rather die.”

There’s no searing pain, no roasted organs to tell me that she’s lying. Why would she do this? Do idiocy and prejudice run this deep? Griffin is a thousand times better than any royal Sinta has ever seen. She should be falling on her knees to kiss his feet.