On Wings of Fire: Chapter 14

Something was wrong.

Cassia knew it deeply in her bones, though she had not even opened her eyes. She felt a sickness in her chest and a dullness in her mote.

She opened her eyes. The night was darker than it should have been, even under the shadow of the outcropping. Her silver skin, her clothing, even the sandy rock had a strange, reddish tint to it.

“Fyn?” Cassia whispered into the night.

No response. Suddenly panicked, Cassia scrambled to her feet and whipped her head around.

Fyn was gone. Sasha was nowhere in sight. She was alone.

Feet scraped against stone.

No. She wasn’t alone.

Cassia spun and flared light from her outstretched palm. Tinted red like everything else, it blazed in the night for a split second before a wave of dizziness hit Cassia and she doubled over.

“Hey!” a familiar voice shouted, indignant. “Calm down, it’s just me.”

The dizziness passed as quickly as it had come. Cassia squinted into the darkness. Sasha’s shape was still indistinct, but it had to be her voice. “Sorry?”

Sasha climbed the ridge and approached Cassia. “Where’s Fyn?”

“I don’t know,” Cassia said, trying to swallow a rising panic. “Something’s wrong, Sasha. I can feel it.”

Sasha sighed. “Inconvenient,” she muttered.

In a single quick motion, she pulled Cassia to her chest and held a dagger to her throat.

Cassia screamed, but Sasha’s arm crushed her windpipe and choked her off. She writhed in Sasha’s grip, flexing her wings to try and throw Sasha off her, but Sasha kept her grip and angled the dagger, etching a burning line of pain across Cassia’s throat.

Cassia froze. The point of the dagger pressed underneath her chin.

“That’s right,” Sasha whispered. Her other hand seized Cassia’s arm and twisted it into a painful grip. “Come quietly, and you’ll be fine.”

“Why?” Cassia choked out. She’d thought she’d started to know Sasha, after what Fyn had told her. After their late-night talks on watch. Her quiet strength, her confidence, her help above and beyond what they were paying her to do. Had it all been a lie?

Sasha pressed her lips together. “Did you really think a random human would save two godformeds’ backsides just so she could work for them? Gods, you two are gullible. I have other loyalties.”

She looked over her shoulder and nodded. A human woman and four men that looked like Aisen natives appeared around the side of the rocky overhang. Cassia recognized the woman immediately, though her long, graying hair hung loose around her shoulders instead of in a bun. Iona.

“Well done, Sasha,” the mage said.

“Thank you, Mother,” Sasha said, the words loud in Cassia’s ears.

Mother… Shock rattled Cassia’s bones as a memory slid into place. That was why something about Sasha’s voice had always sounded familiar. Cassia had assumed it was because she had a common human accent.

But it was because Cassia had heard Sasha’s voice before. In Haven.

“Bind the angel,” Iona said, nodding to the four men.

Sasha stepped back, but Cassia was still too shocked to resist. They wrenched her arms behind her and tied the length of her forearms and wrists with rope. Another set of ropes bound her wings to her back. Even after that, two of the men held her by her shoulders and forced her to her knees.

Cassia bit down on her lip and tried to control her breathing. She was going to die. They hated godformed. They could take her and do something awful to her and kill her and Fyn probably wouldn’t even come looking, and there was no way he could get the Treatise all by himself before it broke and—

Iona stepped up to Cassia, the reddish light staining her hair russet. She tilted Cassia’s chin back, forcing her to meet her gaze. The cut on Cassia’s throat stung. Blood ran down her chest.

Iona’s eyes widened. “You’re young. I thought they sent their Grand Mage.”

Under her terror, a spark of defiance flared. “That’s me. For almost a year now.”

“Be careful, Mother,” Sasha said.“She’s resourceful with her magic.”

A smile touched Iona’s lips. She didn’t pay heed to Sasha’s words. “Well, then. Ayil is dead? This may make things easier.”

Cassia lurched against the grips of the Aisenni men. “How do you know my mother’s name?” she demanded.

Iona shook her head. “Micah and Ayil’s own child, and you do not know? Your parents are infamous. At least, among humanity’s gods.”

“What?” Cassia whispered. Nothing about that statement made sense. Humanity’s gods? Iona didn’t speak like she meant the seven deities that had transformed the first godformed and gave them their power.

Iona’s gaze softened into pity, the harsh, reddish shadows lightening as she turned her head and barked a command to the Aisenni men. “Back to the Hive. Bring her.”

Iona looked back at Cassia. “You really do not know…. Well, I’ll tell you, come morning. We’ll see what you make of your family history. Until then… you are my guest.”

She spun on her heel, beckoning Sasha and her grunts. The men hauled Cassia to her feet and started to drag her up the ridge.

“I can walk, thanks,” Cassia snapped, pulling away from them. Her mind raced. What would Fyn think, to come back and see her gone? Would he realize what had happened?

She let her foot catch a rock and tripped. Without her hands to break her fall, her chin slammed into the stone. Cassia saw stars, but she writhed against the ground as if trying to stand, braising her neck and her chest against the rough stone.

When the men dragged her back to her feet, a few crimson streaks were smeared across the ground. It would have to be enough.

Cassia let the men push her the rest of the way up the ridge. They emerged from the sheltered outcropping and into the full light of the moon. Cassia looked up at the moon in a wordless plea.

It was as red as blood.

Cassia staggered in the arms of the men half-dragging, half-carrying her. Her sense of wrongness, the dull absence of her mote, it all made sense. A blood moon was the illest omen Mithrinde could give. It meant death, and signified her anger.

Mithrinde was furious. And Cassia had no doubt it was because of her.

Iona’s men half-dragged Cassia down the gorge. Cassia stared at the ground, not even looking up when the angry light of the blood moon faded as the ceiling of a strangely circular tunnel closed over her head.

She didn’t know how deep they took her, how many turns they made. They passed through large chambers and smaller ones, some well-lit by torches and others so dark she stumbled forward by touch alone.

At one point, Iona addressed her men. “Take her below and give her water and her bedding. Unbind her, but set a watch. Bring her something to eat in the morning. I’ll see her tomorrow.”

“Is this it? Is she the key?” one of the men said. He sounded much younger than his scarred, bearded face implied.

If Iona nodded, Cassia didn’t lift her head in time to see it. The mage turned the corner and vanished into the labyrinth. Sasha followed without even a glance backwards.

They took her deeper, into ever darker tunnels, until at last they stopped in front of an enormous, rusting iron door. It took two men to lift the bar and open it.

They pulled her inside and cut the ropes around her wings and arms, their spears and daggers warning her not to try anything. Cassia let out a shuddering breath as the ropes around her wings fell free and feeling surged back into them.

The young man handed her her bedroll and waterskin. The torchlight flickered across his dark face.

“Too good for a godstealer,” another man muttered.

The young man said something back in a human language Cassia did not know, but the anger on the second man’s face was unmistakable. Cassia shrunk away.

The second man turned away and spat on the ground, then gave a jerk of his head. The rest of the men followed him out of the enormous iron door. The door closed and the iron bar slammed into place with an echoing clang, leaving Cassia in complete and total darkness.

Cassia lowered herself to the floor, looking around her with another shuddering breath.

Nothing. She couldn’t even see her own hand. She only knew where her bedroll was because she was clutching it in one hand and her waterskin in the other.

She was hyperventilating now, terror settling under her skin as the darkness weighed on her.

“Please,” she whispered, and willed light into her waterskin. The simplest spell she knew, and still for a moment, the magic flowed like molasses.

The waterskin began to glow, but its light was red like the moon overhead. Red like blood and fury.

It fell from Cassia’s limp hand as her shuddering breaths turned into sobs. The guilt plunged like needles into her heart and a roaring shame stuffed her chest and head.

She should never have left Mithrinden. Micah had forbidden her time and time again to take this mission upon herself, and she had defied him and Mithrinde Herself. In the end, she had failed, and now the Treatise would break tomorrow and the gods would go to war, and it would be her fault.

Of course Mithrinde was angry. Cassia was surprised she hadn’t already been struck down in punishment. Maybe Mithrinde knew that, if she ever got out of here, facing Micah would be worse.

But for now, she could not even tell Micah she was sorry.

She snuffed the awful red light with a wave of her hand, curled up on the cold stone floor, and left herself to the darkness.

------

The night froze around Fyn. His mote went blank and the desert air chilled as Zhiron’s order rang in his skull.

Kill her, and burn her body. Like he was ordering Fyn to butcher a deer.

Zhiron was watching him expectantly. “Fyn?”

Fyn shivered under his stare. For a long moment, he could not bring himself to speak. He could almost hear Cassia’s laugh lingering from inside the dream.

Something inside him cracked.

“Yes, sir,” he said to Zhiron, pushing away the ghostly sound. It had only been a dream. It could never be real.

The chill in his veins receded and warmth from his mote flooded Fyn, settling in his veins and anchoring his surety. He had a mission.

Zhiron smiled, baring curved fangs. “Good. I must go. But I will see you soon, Apprentice. I know you will not disappoint me.”

He vanished into the shadows of the gorge. Fyn could not have followed him if he tried. His paws were rooted to the ground.

Another laugh echoed in his mind, younger and richer, rising out of buried memories.

Except Sasha’s laugh ended in a scream. And now Cassia’s would end worse — and by Fyn’s jaws.

It had happened again. He’d shown weakness again.

Fyn snarled. He raked his claws across solid rock. They snagged against crags and pain shot up his paws. This is your fault, he accused himself. You swore. You swore, but you did it again. She’s your enemy, not your hatchmate.

He dragged his claws against the stone again. The pain calmed him, gave him something to focus on. He filled his lungs with the cool desert air and exhaled a spit of fire, losing himself in the rush of Selach’s power.

He was born for this. Selach had crafted him and every other godformed, given them powers and sent them into the world to fulfill his glorious mission. There was no such thing as a drake without Selach.

There was no such thing as Fyn without his Order.

Fyn’s paws started walking him back down the gorge.

The walk felt endless, but with each step, the fire in his mote kindled and his resolve grew. He slipped into hunter mode, creeping lightly toward their camp.

It was the easiest hunt he had ever been set. He knew exactly where she was, and she was sleeping. Even if she woke, her moonlight tricks were no match for his fire. Underneath the outcropping, she would not even be able to fly away. All he had to do was creep up and burn.

He swung his head to the side, jaws open to tell Kez how perfect his plan was.

Of course, there was no one there. No one to hover over him, mocking his plans. No one to call him a weakling.

No one to see her die.

Fyn rounded the last outcropping of rock. The ridge just blocked the sheltered alcove from view. The ground was already stained red from the strange moonlight overhead.

Fyn halted, crouched in the shadow of the ridge. He’d have to kill Sasha too, or she’d attack him. And then he’d have to get the Treatise all by himself. Why had Zhiron ordered him to kill Cassia tonight? Why not after he got the Treatise? Until then, Fyn needed her.

Fyn shook that thought away. Clearly Zhiron thought Fyn could get the Treatise all by himself. Fyn had to prove him right.

He slid one paw forward, then another, creeping up the ridge. His heart pounded louder with each step. He sank into the moment, digging deep into his mote for strength, but the certainty and power that had surged through his veins minutes earlier had withdrawn. Like Selach was waiting. Waiting for Fyn to prove himself worthy.

I’ll show them worthy.

Fyn leapt to the top of the ridge. His paws slammed into the rock, sending showers of sand down the slope. He lashed his tail and stretched out his neck, fire kindling in his core.

Cassia wasn’t there.

Fyn choked on his own fire mid-roar, spluttering out a handful of sparks and swallowing the rest.

She wasn’t there. The overhang was completely empty.

Something so powerful swept through Fyn it left his knees weak and his head spinning.

It was relief, followed by fear.

Fyn launched himself down the slope, sliding and almost slamming into the back wall of the alcove. He put his nose to the ground, sniffing madly, straining to catch a scent that would tell him what had happened to Cassia — or to Sasha. She was gone, too.

But while his drake form had a better nose than his human form, there was a reason drakes did not hunt by smell.

“Think, think, think.” He could smell Cassia just fine. White pine and that scented mint she usually wore. That had been in the dream, too. He thought he smelled Sasha — the sharp, metallic scent of dust and leather, and something else? Or was that a separate scent altogether?

Fyn gave up on the scent trail. He spun around, scanning the alcove. All their stuff was gone. Every last bundle. Cassia and Sasha couldn’t have possibly carried it all by themselves.

Which meant they hadn’t abandoned him. They’d been taken.

A faint new scent reached his nostrils. Blood.

Fyn honed in. There, on his right near the top of the ridge, a was long scrape of still-fresh blood, stained almost brown by the blood-red moon.

And a single white feather.

An entirely new rage filled Fyn’s body. It spread from his heart and left him clear and calm-headed, washing around his mote, which was still and cold again.

Fyn threw back his head and roared fire. It consumed the alcove. Fyn didn’t stop until he had scorched the rock into glass. He knew Zhiron would hear it, maybe even see the flame as it licked up the side of the cliff. He would believe that Fyn had carried out his orders.

But Cassia was gone. And what Zhiron with all his cleverness and spying eyes did not know was that Fyn could not kill Cassia. He never could have.

Instead, he was going to save her.