On Wings of Fire: Chapter 19

A/N: I finally came up with a new title for this novel after being informed about the existence of the Wings of Fire series. The new title is "Champions of Flame and Silver," but I'm still going to post under On Wings of Fire because when I query this novel I don't want the title easily searchable. But please tell me if you like the new title! I'm pretty happy with it, but am also still open to suggestions. Anyway, on to the chapter.

Broken stone rained down on Fyn, dust showering his snout and pebbles pouring into his nose as he thrust upwards through the ceiling of the tiny tunnel he had dug directly underneath the strange raised dais where the jugs lay. He knew, in the way that drakes knew, precisely where to hit the stone to make it shatter.

He just hadn’t thought about how it would shatter while he was right underneath it.

Fyn heaved upward anyway, shaking his head and spluttering to dislodge the rock. The two main pieces folded and tumbled down to each side, narrowly missing his tail. Shards of pottery rained down around him. Power crackled in the air, the weight of it growing each second as the jugs shattered and more power leaked out.

He reared up, resting his paws on the side of the tunnel so he could stretch his neck out and see into the room, scan it for Cassia—

But even as he thought it, a body thumped directly into his snout and cried out in shock. Fyn thought he had never heard a sound so welcome, but then Cassia tumbled off his snout and to the floor of the tunnel.

Fyn swiped with a paw to catch her, ignoring his watering eyes and stinging nose, and almost swatted her in midair but managed to cushion the fall. He sliced through the horrible ropes binding her with a single claw and clutched her awkwardly to his chest, still half out of the tunnel in the cavern above. Iona and her people had fallen back in shock, but now Iona’s eyes were fixed on him and she was reaching forward with a snarl on her face and the power in the air was near-electric—

“Fyn?” Cassia was gasping, and his heart leapt to hear her okay, talking, and he just had to hold on a little longer, get out of here and not think of disobedience until he had Cassia’s wings. The mages would be on him any second and he did not want to use his fire.

“The Treatise! Where’s the Treatise?” Cassia shouted, writhing in Fyn’s grasp. Her shout shocked Fyn into action — he had not thought of the Treatise at all, only Cassia.

But the dust swirled thick in the air and mixed with the power from the jugs. Everything was glowing and he could not see.

“Fyn, let me go, I have to find it!”

There. Teetering on the edge of the hole, balanced on a hairline crack, sat the glowing Treatise. Power swirled around it, following the strange shifting movements of the white magic inside. It seemed to break apart into colors and then reform, swirling apart and together over and over again, more violently each time. Fyn lifted his other paw, shifting his weight back to barely balance on his hind legs, and reached for it, pulling it toward him so it rolled off the edge and into the hole.

“No!” The shriek was almost inhuman. Iona had climbed to her feet after falling to the ground. The other mages had been pinned under rubble or had fallen further away. She pointed her finger at the falling Treatise and power gathered around her hand.

Fyn dug deep into his mote and roared fire at her. He channeled as much power as he could, and the familiar fury of Selach washed over him, sinking into his heart and coloring the world red. He recoiled from the anger, but soon even the part of him that hated it was subsumed, clouded by a primal sort of fury. Iona was the enemy, her magic an affront to Selach’s purity, her defiance an affront to the drakes’ power and rightful rule, and so she would die.

His fire it blazed so hot it was almost blue. Iona just got a magical shield up in time, digging her feet in and holding her position, but Fyn doubled down, roaring far longer and hotter than he ever had before. Iona grunted with the effort, her face twisted in a snarl.

“Fyn!”

He couldn’t see Cassia below, couldn’t take his eyes off Iona.

“I got it!” she shouted. “I’ve got the Treatise, let’s go!”

Her words sounded dull and far away, their meaning unable to penetrate the red mist clouding his vision. All his focus was on Iona as, inch by inch, her foot started to slip. Dull blows rained down upon him as the warriors through spears at him, and and then one sharp pain as one caught between his scales, but he did not break his roar. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sasha lurking in the shadows and watching Fyn with narrowed intensity, her daggers still in their sheaths.

Cassia was pounding on his leg with her fists. “Fyn, please!”

And he could not speak, could not tell her, could not even think of what he had needed her to do, or why she was pleading with him instead of running. Didn’t she know that she was next to die?

Iona slipped. She fell bodily to the floor and her shield dropped. Fyn’s flames streaked over her and singed her scalp, scalding the side of her head and all Fyn had to do was lower his jaws an inch and she would burn—

His fire ran out. The strain was too great. The unusual power from his mote faded away as his body physically could not hold it anymore. Fyn’s legs buckled and he fell forward, gasping for breath. He seized his mind back as the power receded and as Iona got to her feet and aimed a finger at him again he changed forms, shrinking down into the tunnel and staggering deeper, trying to get away. He made it a handful of steps and fell against the wall.

Then Cassia was there, grabbing his arm and helping him up. She carried the glowing Treatise under one arm and her face was twisted in concern.

“Are you okay, are you hurt?”

Selach pressed against his mind again, weaker now that Fyn was in human form, but his mote still raged, crashing anger over Fyn in waves he could barely push back. He could feel rock shifting overhead — the tunnel wasn’t stable. They needed to run.

“Your wings,” he choked out. “Cass… please…”

She drew back for a split second, searching his face anxiously.

Then she closed her eyes, reached her arms across her shoulders, and gave him her wings.

The second she pressed them against his chest, a flood of silver light swept through Fyn. Her mote pierced through his back and settled just behind his shoulder blades, far above his stomach where his mote of Selach burned. Just as he’d prayed, where Mithrinde’s calm light blazed Selach’s anger receded, drawing back into his own mote as if in surrender.

As his head cleared and both motes settled, Fyn thought he heard a faint voice whisper in his ear. This one was heavy and rich and kind, but it carried with it a note of warning.

You have her trust. Guard it well.

Fyn caught his breath in great gasps and realized he was clutching Cassia’s shoulders, and she was clutching his. He looked into her eyes and she looked into his and he thought he might cry from the beauty of being here and alive with her. Could being happy make someone cry?

Then the tunnel overhead cracked and the moment broke.

“Come on!” Cassia said, and she seized him by the hand and ran down the tunnel as a shower of rubble cascaded behind them, burying Fyn’s hasty work in half a ton of stone.

------

Fyn wasn’t sure how far they ran. After they burst into the main tunnel Fyn had split off from, he took the lead, pulling Cassia along as he made turn after turn, running on instinct and not conscious thought. He didn’t think about getting lost — he couldn’t get lost, not with the drake marks on the floor — he just knew they had to get as far away as possible.

At last he could run no more, and then he knew where his feet had carried him — to the comfortable bubble-like nesting rooms where drake mothers laid their eggs and left them, and the broodfathers — older, weaker drakes who could not hunt anymore — watched them hatch and raised them.

There were still scraps of a nest here: bits of animal hide stretched across the floor. Fyn collapsed onto one of them with Cassia and looked at her. She was still clutching the Treatise under her arm and had a strangely distant stare.

“Cassia? You can set it down now,” he said cautiously. “Are you okay?”

She shook her head and broke out of her reverie with a yelp. The Treatise slammed to the floor, where Fyn saw that its energies were swirling more volatile than before.

“They said the words,” she said, and her face was like ash. “The Renewal’s started, but we can’t complete it, not without one of every godformed, or at least their power. Ugh! It was going to work!”

“What—” Fyn started, utterly befuddled. A fear took hold in his chest. “I thought I was saving you. I mean, you were tied up and everything. Sasha told me they were going to use you to break the Treatise—”

“You talked to Sasha?” Cassia said. She pulled away from him, instantly on the defensive.

Fyn bit his lip. This wasn’t how he’d imagined their reunion at all. “Well, after I left and then came back and you were gone I realized… a lot of things, all at once. Then I found her when I was looking for you and I knew that the reason she betrayed us, that the reason she was part of the Seekers at all was because of me. Because they were going to kill her for being friends with me, so Iona sent her away, and now she’s fighting us. So I had to… apologize. Because even though I didn't realize it, I almost got her killed. I kept looking for her to play.”

“And she let you go?” Cassia asked.

Fyn nodded. The crack from Iona’s slap and the sound of Sasha falling to the floor echoed in his mind. What matters, Fyn? He wondered if she had an answer to that question herself.

“Um,” he pressed, needing reassurance, something other than the tight line of Cassia’s mouth. “If I shouldn’t have come to get you, you can tell me, but I couldn’t leave you. I couldn’t.”

Her mouth softened, her lips parting. She glanced down.

“I didn’t think you would come,” she admitted.

Fyn found himself wanting to touch her, yearning to pull her close and close his eyes and drink in her presence. But it was like a barrier had risen between them. Of course she hadn’t known what seemed so obvious now: that he owed her far more than he could ever repay. He himself had not known it until Zhiron had given him his ultimatum underneath the blood moon.

“I need to tell you something,” he said. “Why I left that night.”

He told her all of it, every detail. How Zhiron had promised him a place at his side, told him he was doing so well, before giving his order and sealing Fyn’s fate. How he walked step by step down the gorge and collapsed with relief when she was not there. How Selach’s had tormented him when he touched the jug and how it had sparked a desperate plan to save her from Iona and from himself.

He fell silent, waiting anxious to see if she would hate him.

She spoke slowly, with an edge of humor in her voice. “I guess… I guess it’s lucky for me that you’ve changed.” Her hands balled into fists and he thought she would punch him, would get up and flee, but instead she shook her head and said, “Tell me you’re not going to go back. Not after what they tried to make you do.”

“I…” Fyn’s voice faltered. What else could he do? He had only meant to get Cassia away, and then he would go back with the Treatise to praise and fame and a lifetime of spying and killing at Zhiron’s side. But that life he had dreamed of since he was a small hatchling repulsed him now. How many more would he be forced to hurt? How many more would he be asked to kill?

Cassia bit her lip and glanced over her shoulder. “Fyn, whatever we do, we have to do it fast. The Treatise is unstable now because the Ritual started but wasn’t finished. I don’t know how long it’ll last. I was going to fix things…”

“You keep saying that,” Fyn said, suddenly irritated. He felt like he’d come to the intersection of four tunnels, but all the markings on the floor had been rubbed away. “What do you even mean?”

And now it was Cassia’s turn to talk, and she told him step by step of the truths Iona had shouted at her while she was imprisoned, and of Mithrinde’s visit in a dream as she slept. She told him how the Treatise bound both their gods and the human gods, how a desperate bid for victory had ended in betrayal.

“So it’s Selach, it all comes back to Selach, Fyn. He tricked everyone else so he could have more power and now look how he’s using it to hurt you and everyone else! We have to break the Treatise, Fyn, but we have to make sure the human gods agree to peace first. That’s what I was going to try during the false ritual.”

Fyn’s mote — his mote, not Cassia’s — stirred, burning calmly in his stomach. It did all seem to come back to Selach, but with a pang in his heart Fyn longed for the simple warmth of sleeping next to a lava flow. Mithrinde’s peace was beautiful, but he knew it wasn’t really his.

“But you can’t finish the ritual now,” Fyn checked.

“No. Not without power from every kind of godformed and a way to bind it to me.” She slumped against the wall. “And I’ve already thought it through. With my foci stolen, I can’t teleport anywhere, even if I dared to try. We’ll have to fly back to Mithrinden, and then my dad will take the Treatise and go renew it, and everything will be exactly the same as it was before it got stolen, except I’ll know what the Treatise really is, and how am I supposed to go back and look him in the eye knowing what he did?”

She put her head in her hands. “Mithrinde gave me a job, and I’ve failed.”

Fyn didn’t say anything at first. Even though he knew Cassia’s goddess wouldn’t hurt her like Selach did for her failure, he still felt that particular kind of sting all too keenly.

“You need power,” he said slowly, remembering the shattered jugs around the circle. “There was power from all the gods there. We could just go back and get it. There’s more entrances than the one I dug, entrances that the Seekers don’t use. I’ll bet they’re gone by now, or will be by the time we get back there. Would that work?”

“Maybe,” Cassia said, lifting her head. “If you really think we can get back there and get them safely.”

Fyn gave an offhand grin. In truth, all he wanted was to get out of there, to send Cassia on her way and then do… whatever it was he was going to do. If she was right about Selach’s role in creating the Treatise, then Selach wouldn’t exactly be happy if Fyn returned with the Treatise half-broken, or whatever Fyn had in mind.

And so here it lay before him. On the one paw, Selach, Fyn’s god and birthright, ready to shower him in praise and power if he fulfilled his duty, and yet it was by his law that Sasha would have been killed, his law that humans were little more than slaves, his law that had forced Fyn to fight and grovel for every part of his life. And on the other paw was Cassia, with her radiant smile and her kindness and above all, her strength. She had not backed down from him, and he knew that she would not give up now until she had set right what went wrong.

What do you want, Fyn?

For the first time in his life, Fyn had his own answer to that question.

He wanted her.

“Of course we can,” he said to her, getting to his feet and stretched out a hand to help Cassia up. “Don’t you know? Caves are drake territory. They won’t stand a chance.”

Cassia laughed at the joke and accepted his hand. It was warm and smooth and lingered in his even after she stood. She looked at him for a long moment, then threw her arms around his neck.

Fyn staggered backwards under the weight of her hug, hands flailing until he found the most natural place for them — around her waist, hugging her back. He could not remember ever being touched like this, not even by Sasha as a hatchling. It was like age-old dust scattering, like a crust of old rock cracking and falling away as new magma rose.

Just before she broke away, she whispered, “Thank you. For coming for me.”

Fyn didn’t know what to say back, so he just held her a second longer, and then they left the nesting cave and set off down the dark tunnel back the way they came.

They took their time, knowing that Iona and the other humans may not have left the chamber yet. As they walked, Fyn holding a gentle flame in his palm, a bubble grew in his chest, swelling until he was sure he would burst with the joy of it. He was here, he had made it, with the Treatise and with Cassia alive, and with her wings on his back he was free from Selach’s anger. Cassia was going to fix things, and then Selach wouldn’t be the most powerful god, and he could come with her to Mithrinden or go back to Aisen or anywhere he wanted. Of course, he couldn’t wear Cassia’s wings forever, but they would figure something out. Once the Treatise was fixed, they would have all the time in the world.

They retraced their steps, Fyn bending down to feel for markings on the floor when he couldn’t remember the exact way they had come. His stomach growled and he realized he hadn’t eaten since the night of the blood moon. Maybe they could steal some food on their way out.

Just as Fyn thought this, they rounded a corner into the tunnel that led directly to the chamber and something dark shifted just beyond the edge of the light. Fyn stopped dead, holding out a hand to block Cassia.

“Who’s there?” he said loudly, hand outstretched.

An enormous, black-scaled foot stretched into the light, followed by a familiar cruel face.

“Is that how you speak to your elders, hatchling?” Zhiron sneered, sparks already brimming around his jaw.