She finally moves. She gives a sharp nod and removes her citizenship scroll out of her belt and tosses it to me. Then she heads after the rhino. The majority of the other Fears follow her, throwing furtive glances over their shoulders. A couple linger, eyeing the Tunnels, eyeing me.
“You’re not safe here!” I thunder at them.
I scoop up Helene’s citizenship and tuck it into my belt, then I dig in my pocket for the last of the wheat. This time I find a handful of broken stalks that I’d yet to strip into kernels. I stow one at the entrance of each Tunnel, hoping they’ll protect anyone else who exits through them.
Two Fears haven’t moved. My shouting probably frightened them more. If Stranna were here she’d know what to do.
“If any of you have children and want to find them, you need to follow Helene.” I take my final wheat stalk and rub the wheat head between my palms, releasing the final collection of kernels. If I can help them feel safe, maybe they’ll go.
“Take these.” I pinch a little finger full and hold them out to the nearest man trembling from head to foot, gaze darting from the kernels to me to the shadows and back again. “These will protect you—”
A bolt of black lightning shoots from the sky and pins the man to the ground before he has a chance to move. His life fades from his terrified face in a split second. I whirl.
Luc.
The remaining Fear staggers away from the dead body. I dart in the opposite direction to draw Luc’s attention.
He glides after me, directing the stingray with only his feet. Another bolt flashes toward me, and I narrowly leap aside. It sticks in the ground with a burst of thunder right where I’d been about to plant my foot.
Despite having an awkward angle, I manage to properly load an arrow into the crossbow. I shoot, and it soars over his head, not even close enough to startle him.
For a moment I consider throwing a wheat kernel at him, but each one is so light and small it would never get the height.
Another bolt grazes my back. I utter a cry and arch away from the shock and burn and trip into the mist. My crossbow crunches beneath the fall of my body. Broken. Probably for the best, I can’t even load it without a time-out.
Wheat kernels and arrows litter the ground. I scrabble for both despite the burning on my back.
“What do I do?” I mutter. “What do I do?” I don’t want to create another weapon. When I form things using the power of the light threads it feels different—like life instead of death. Freedom instead of emotional overwhelm. I’m not opposed to grabbing one of Luc’s bolts and hurling it back his way, but I don’t trust that the weapon wouldn’t turn on me first. Besides, the feeling of my kris dagger plunging into Stranna is still strong in my mind. Repulsing.
Am I afraid to fight? Am I weak?
“I don’t want to go down killing,” I whisper to God. “But I don’t see any other way.”
My fingers find kernels . . . not arrows. I wrap my fingers around them, and they grow warm within my palm. Hot. Forming something, though I haven’t directed my thoughts any particular direction. I don’t bother trying to insert my own control. I let the kernels do their own thing.
Suddenly I’m no longer holding on to little wheat grains, but instead feathers of red-and-gold fire.
Feathers.
They connect to one another, creating a huge tail, and I lift my eyes. Before me sits the phoenix, regal and filled with vibrant color. No harness or saddle this time, but I know instinctively she’s the same one.
She flaps her wings once, and the mist flees from around us. I clamber to my feet, and she braces herself, like our minds are one. I leap onto her back, and she shoots into the air. It’s smooth and comfortable. The saddle was never needed. This is so much more natural. Somehow she’s airborne by more than the power of her wings—like light is an air current, lifting her into the sky.
I spy Luc on his stingray, perfectly balanced in body but his face betrays surprise. For the first time I wonder if he’s ever seen a creature made from something other than nightmist this close before. Has he even seen color like this? All the nightmist animals are shadows and grays and blacks.
He collects himself and reaches for a bolt.
I lean forward and the phoenix dives. Before he can hurl anything at me, I drop a wheat kernel above his stingray. It plops between the creature’s eyes, and the ray spirals toward the ground—half falling, half fleeing from the strike of light.
Luc tumbles from its back.
Now I see how Stranna was able to obliterate the thousands of snakes with a single drop of fire.
As Luc falls, a second stingray forms from thin air directly beneath him. He catches himself on its back, steadies himself, and throws his lightning bolt at me.
The phoenix swerves, and I tear out several of her feathers trying to stay on her back. Luc is out of bolts—that, or it’s taking more energy to create them. I ready another wheat kernel, but then he forms a handful of spears from nightmist and even from this distance I can tell they’re split blades—half mistblade, half regular. They are meant to kill both me and my phoenix.
He gives a shrill whistle. Is he trying to command the stingray?
Hardly a dozen kernels are left in my hand. So far all I’ve succeeded in doing is distracting Luc and delaying him from attacking the people below or taking his army to Castle Ithebego. I’m not going to be able to take him down—either with the kernels or with the phoenix. My broken crossbow lies on the ground, pathetic after hardly even seeing battle.
Luc is so much stronger now. What happened to his wheelchair? He hides his weakness well. Hopefully that means he’ll be easier to get past.
I steer the phoenix with my knees, and she bursts upward, leveling out with such suddenness I almost lose my seat. But I don’t lose my chance. For a mere second we’re directly above Luc and his stingray again. I scatter a buckshot of wheat kernels. They ping off his new stingray like popcorn, and the creature lets out a strange wail, holes appearing in its fins.
It evaporates from under Luc, who tries to create something else as he falls, but cascading wheat kernels obliterate any nightmist that tries to form.
He lands on the ground hard, dazed.
I don’t wait to see if he recovers or what he creates when he does. I glance at the Tunnels. Abandoned. How far have the rhino and Helene and the Fears gotten? I pray they are all right.
My phoenix and I swoop down into the mist, and it separates as though it knows we’re the enemy: revealing us and our path no matter which way I direct the phoenix.
So be it.
The great bird flaps carefully, then glides. Flap, glide. We break through the bottom of the strange mist and pass over the rooftops of the abandoned housing, and I head toward the coliseum.
Even with Luc on my tail and his army circling over the coliseum, I have to try to get to his father. If I can pull Galilei onto the phoenix and get him to Castle Ithebego, we might have time to get the information we need.
