Memories of Ash (The Sunbolt Chronicles Book 2) (11 page)

I nod jerkily. The phoenix flutters over the nearby tentacle to land beside me. The stairwell is too narrow for him to fly, so instead he descends the stairs on foot, head bobbing, wings extended slightly for balance.

I follow him, grateful for his radiance. My head pounds with the force of the magic I’ve absorbed. I can feel it thrumming through my veins, buzzing beneath my skin. I keep a hand on the wall, try to focus on the strangeness of this moment, the things I need to understand. Why did the phoenix come to our aid? And why is he leading me out now himself?

At the bottom of the stairs, the phoenix dims his fire and crosses to the now-empty doorway. “Quickly,” he says, darting outside. “There is a bridge across the canyon that borders the city. A globe of magefire burns above it.”

I nod, stepping carefully over the newly fallen stones and bricks.

“The Burnt Lands end there. You’ll be safe once you cross.”

I didn’t know that for certain, but it was the one thing I was counting on.

“The bridge is—” He turns to gesture with the tip of his wing.

“Northwest,” I supply, my voice rough as sandpaper.

The wingtip points down the avenue. “Yes. Keep straight to the plaza, then turn left. You’ll see the bridge from there. I’ll keep watch from above.” He folds his wing. “I am sorry I cannot allow you time to grieve your master. Once you’re safe there will be time.”

“He wasn’t my master,” I say, dropping my chin so he doesn’t see the shame written on my face. I wasn’t grieving for the dead mage. I was mourning myself, what I have become.

I force myself forward at a brisk walk, scanning the debris scattered across the road. Ahead of me, a shiny brown boot leans against a broken stone, its pale blue embellishments spattered with a dark liquid. I slow until I am a pace away and can see the splintered white bone and torn flesh protruding from the top.

I swallow hard to keep from retching.

“What is it?” the phoenix calls sharply, and then he’s beside me, wings spread. “Ah.”

I’m shaking. “I should … bury …”

“There is no time. The blood will call to them just as magic does.”

“Magic?” I echo, forcing my attention to the bird. It’s so much easier to look at him than what’s left of the mage.

“Do not use any charms here,” the phoenix warns. “That was your first mistake. They create a beacon for the spell-creatures to follow.” He steps past me, turning so that his body obstructs the boot from sight. “I will carry this to a far rooftop, one that they cannot easily reach. Now run, child. We do not have much time.”

The plaza must have once been the bustling center — or at least one of the centers — of this great city. A wide cobbled expanse greets my eyes, running longer than it is wide. Broken stonework suggests that there might have been monuments here, or fountains, perhaps a raised stage. Whatever it had been, the plaza and its guard of broken-backed, faceless buildings send chills up my spine. I stick to the edges, terrified of moving to the center of the plaza, even though less rubble litters the cobbles there.

As I reach the wide thoroughfare leading to the bridge, a chorus of howls rise from the far edges of the city. Lilting and eerie, they are filled with the promise of death. If these creatures are anything like the tentacled beast, they will move horrifyingly fast. Hiking my pack higher on my back, I run.

The blue magelight is visible above the bridge now, rising in front of me, but the desert air deceives my senses. I cannot tell how far I am, what distance I have yet to cover. The light does not waver, burning brighter than any fire.

I pace myself to reach it as fast as I can
.

Now, in these moments with the dead air searing my lungs and the painful press of magic against the inside of my skin and organs, my thoughts gain a sudden and strange clarity. I catch glimpses of recent memories: Stormwind gazing out over her lake, tall, proud and so very alone; Stonefall greeting me with the words of my father’s people, dark eyes understanding more of me than I had known; my mother, dressed in silks, waiting patiently for the unknown to reach out to her.

My mother, whom I thought dead, who might think the same of me. I can’t imagine what Blackflame might have done to her when she went to him, all those years ago. Perhaps he convinced her she’d lost everything, everyone she ever loved, as he did me. But she hasn’t.

If I live, I will speak with her.

The phoenix shrieks behind me. I glance over my shoulder to see a torrent of shadows pour onto the road some distance back. Individual details are impossible to make out in the shadows thrown by the buildings, but there is no question that they are moving faster than I am.

The phoenix swoops down over the pack, talons outstretched, fire trailing him as if he were an arrow of flame rather than a living creature. One of the creatures answers his attack, twisting away and rising up on its hind legs, clawing at the fire-drenched air. The pack’s howls and snarls send terror needling through my body.

I focus all my effort into running, placing one foot in front of the other, again and again, as fast as I can, as if by doing so I might suddenly take flight. There is no other escape from these creatures. The buildings here are too broken to hope that I might shelter on a roof, or jump from one roof to another and so lose the pack. No doorway I have yet seen still holds a door. The bridge is my only hope.

It is not so far now, clearly visible in the morning light, rising beyond the last of the buildings. Built of the same brick as the city, the bridge offers a glimpse of lost majesty: soaring pillars connected by great stone arches, carved with a twisting floral pattern only partly eroded by time and wind. Below the arches, the roadway soars across the canyon, wide and long and, after all these years, still sturdy and unscathed.

The phoenix shrieks again, so close that I nearly choke. They are almost upon me, and I have nothing—

Not nothing.

I whirl, dropping to one knee to steady myself before my mind even registers what I am doing.
Spider silk
, I think, spinning the image into being in my mind’s eye, drawing on the thrum of the spell-beast’s magic still buzzing beneath my skin. I flick my fingers, focused on the pack leader, so close now I can see the gleam of its eyes, the long dark spines that start at the nape of its neck and run down its back.

A thick, glimmering silver cord flies from my fingertips, spinning across the distance between us. The creature leaps upwards to avoid it, but the cord still brushes its forelegs — and sticks. The end of the cord swings on, yanking the creature off balance and wrapping around one of its hind legs. It slams against the cobbles, roaring its fury.

My fingers loose another cord, and then, as I find my rhythm, a volley of six or seven more. That is all I have. It will have to be enough. The leader still growls and snarls, two legs so entangled it can no longer move them, its other legs scrabbling for purchase as if it might heave itself up. The second cord has slowed, though not stopped, another nightmare creature. The remaining cords have disappeared into the depths of the pack. I can only hope that they have caught on the creatures, binding them together in confusion.

I make for the bridge once more, dimly registering the flare of light behind me as the phoenix swoops again. The arch rises before me, still a good fifty paces away.

The phoenix shrieks again, and the sickening scratch of claws on stone sounds behind me.

Swerve left! Faster!

I dodge left as commanded, knowing I am still too far from the bridge. I’m not going to make it. But I have to — there is still so much I must make right—

Talons close on my shoulders, sinking into the straps of my pack and gripping me tightly. I scream, trying to twist free as my feet leave the ground.

“Be still!” the phoenix thunders from above me.

I sag with relief, air rushing past my face as the ground drops away. The talons grasp my shoulders tightly, strong enough to bruise but not enough to break the skin. Behind me, the nightmare creatures snarl furiously. The phoenix pumps his wings, straining to keep me out of their reach.

Bend your knees.

I do, trying to raise my feet as high as I can without disturbing the phoenix’s flight. Strange how the phoenix’s mind voice is so different from his spoken voice
.

Finger-length claws slice through the air below my boots. I pull my feet higher, wheezing with terror. And then we are winging through the arch. The air ripples around me, a great, thick barrier of magic that almost takes the place of the air itself. I open my mouth, gasping for a breath that will not come, and then we are through.

The phoenix widens his wings into a controlled glide, descending quickly. Not quite a third of the way across the bridge, my feet touch the ground again. I stumble forward as he releases me, my legs wobbly beneath me, and slam to my knees with a grunt.

I have never before been so grateful to feel stone beneath my knees. At least, not in the last year. I lean forward on my hands, fighting the urge to giggle hysterically.

The phoenix makes a tight, swooping turn and lands facing me. He tilts his head, bright eyes focused behind me. I glance over my shoulder in time to see one of the shadow beasts throw itself through the archway.

“No!” I cry, stumbling to my feet. But the creature only slams into the magical barrier, needlelike teeth bared and forked black tongue flicking. It rises up on its paws, swiping at the barrier with claws nearly as long as my fingers. But neither its claws nor the sound of its fury breaches what stands between us.

“It cannot pass. You are safe now,” the phoenix says.

On the other side of the arch, the rest of the pack stalks back and forth, eyeing us balefully. “What are those things?”

The phoenix steps up beside me, watching the nightmare creatures calmly. “I suspect they were once lycans.”

“Lycans?” I echo, disbelieving. They look nothing like wolves, or humans, or anything in between.

“The desert dwellers tell stories of a mage who lived within these lands, and the pack of lycans who swore their loyalty to him. He enslaved them in a spell that twisted and changed their bodies into what you see and destroyed their minds, perhaps even their spirits.”

A shudder runs through me. It’s possible. With magic, a great deal is possible that should never be done. The High Council was founded primarily to regulate magic so that such crimes would never be committed again. “Do you believe the stories?” I ask.

“I met the mage and the lycans. I can well believe it.”

I stare at the phoenix. He’s at least four hundred years old, then. What he looks at now he remembers as something else, something that passed away centuries ago. It’s almost impossible to fathom, that he can hold so much of the past when I can remember no more than a year of my own life.

He turns toward the other end of the bridge. “Come, there is shade and a place to sit at the far end. I would speak with you.”

I follow him across the bridge, wondering what exactly he wants from me. The paved road that leads from the bridge is broken, swept over with dirt and cracked apart by thorn bushes — four hundred years abandoned. The low walls that run along either side of the bridge end at the road, forming large, angled pillars a little taller than I am. The base of each pillar flares out, wider than the rest of it, forming a natural bench.

The phoenix flutters up to sit on one, sheltered from the sun by the pillar’s shadow. He is back to his quiet gleams of gold and scarlet, his shadows of cobalt and deep purple. I lower myself to the rough stone of the bench a pace away from him. He’s a phoenix, a legendary creature so rare they are more myth than anything. They aren’t known for befriending humans — our lives are no more than a candle flame’s short flicker compared to theirs.

“You’re wary of me,” he says, a hint of regret in his voice.

“I am honored to speak with you.” That much is true. I’m pretty sure not even First Mage Talon has had the opportunity to sit and chat with a phoenix. But I don’t know why he’s here, or why he would want to speak with me.

He tips his beak toward me. “You smell of ash.”

I stare at him.

“I thought I imagined it before, or mistook it for wood smoke clinging to your clothes. But it is you.”

I clear my throat. “I burned myself once, with a spell.” I don’t want to explain how, to explain that I gathered the magic of the world around me to kill my enemy. I don’t want to speak of killing at all.

“I see. And then there is…” He pauses, resettles his wings. “You must have questions.”

All I have is questions right now. What did he almost say? How do I possibly get to Fidanya from here? Was it the phoenix in my head or am I going mad? And why does the phoenix care what questions I have?

I lick dry lips. I have water in my pack, but until I know where I can refill my flask, I had better conserve it. I look out over the valley, consider the dead city at our backs.

“What about the bodies?” I ask. “Why were they left behind, but nothing else?” I tick off on my fingers what’s missing. “No doors, no trash, no broken bits and pieces. Just stone — and the bodies.”