Cinder Vale (Sins of the Zodiac #3)

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

Apitchy howl cut through the fog in my mind and my lips twisted at the corner. A smile.

It felt strange upon my lips, the accompanying warmth in my chest akin to the fires that burned so deeply in the heart of the volcanoes north of Cinder Vale.

My body was cold in contrast to that burn. I could name that sensation easily enough. Fire and ice were clear cut, two opposing forces that countered each other. This smile was harder to understand. I had to lay out the facts in my mind to even guess at what it meant.

The first, that I was bleeding out on a battlefield.

The second, that my people had lost the fight and our city had fallen to the hands of the Stonebreakers of Avanis.

The third, that I had been stabbed by Everest Arcadia just after she had returned all emotion to me, her Void cutting through some unknown power that had held me hostage. Then she’d left me there to die. But somehow, I still lived, my fingers tight around the dagger that was buried beneath my ribs.

Lastly, a familiar howl was calling to me across a field of ruin, speaking to me in a way I had long ago learned to understand.

North was coming. There; perhaps that was the reason for my smile.

It wasn’t long before the wet nose of a Wolf pressed to my cheek and my gaze found my brother’s. He was the largest Werewolf I knew, his beastly grey and white form towering over the largest of war horses.

“You came,” I said, my voice roughened and dry. The shimmering blue form of Calcifiend landed on North’s muzzle, clicking his tongue at me and I reached up to graze my thumb across the Sayer Dragon’s brow.

North lowered to the ground and pushed his head into the crook of my arm with a low whine.

I fisted my hand in his fur, letting him help me roll over and climb onto his back.

My wounds jarred, my fist slipping on the hilt of the dagger and blood spilled forth, staining North’s pelt.

The pain was molten and my vision darkened but I determinedly held onto consciousness.

My brother rose up onto his mighty paws and took off across the darkened field, carrying me away from our enemies.

The colossal ships of Cascada were retreating fast, already shrinking away into the horizon along the canal; behind us, the Avanis machines that had ripped the earth apart were still causing a raucous sound that made the ground shudder.

The Skyforgers were leaving, abandoning the wreckage of Echo Fort which had fallen from their hovering island, and many of their winged warriors raced after their floating isle to escape.

In the crater where our proud city of Cinder Vale stood, the warriors of Avanis were celebrating their victory, their cheers following us into the gloom.

My teeth ground together, my mind trying to work through the logic of our next steps, but it was difficult to ignore the ragged labouring of my heart in my chest. The weight of our failure perhaps causing the hardship.

There was no choice for us now but to follow the evacuation trains and flee the scene of our defeat. Our home.

That, of all things, seemed to make my heart thunder hardest.

Calcifiend flew ahead of North, marking a path of safety to lead us away from our enemies towards the tunnel where the trains had fled.

My eyelids grew heavy, drooping until darkness seized me and I willed my body to hold on before I disappeared into the black.

But there was no knowing if I would wake.

And between the flickers of consciousness and nothingness, I had visions of one Fae in my confused state.

A girl with wild hair and eyes that burned with accusation.

Her Void had freed me. From what exactly, I wasn’t certain yet.

And she had also broken the bond of the Fearsire, shattering magic that should have been indestructible.

I no longer felt the connection to her and somehow the emptiness her absence left behind had become a great chasm. Where was she now? Rejoicing my death?

Well, I still draw breath, silka la vin. And I believe the stars are not done tangling our fates yet.

Fire. Roaring, searing, blazing fire scorched a mark on my chest and I lurched upright, a bellow leaving me, my muscles tensed and fists swinging.

A wild tempest rushed through my body when I found soft flesh, my fists pummelling as I took on the group of Fae closing in around me.

I punched and shoved and burned them with magic until a familiar face came into view between them.

“Stop,” Mirelle commanded. She was still dirty from battle, blood flecks on her cheeks and fingers blackened by ash, her braided hair falling loose of its ties. “That’s enough, love. You’re safe. You’re with your family now.”

I blinked, slow to adjust to the heat in my veins, the adrenaline urging me to keep fighting, but Mirelle’s eyes told me not to. And she had always guided me along the right path.

My breaths came heavily while the Fae I’d attacked scrambled to their feet, some of them holding poultice jars, and one gripping a heated lance which was still glowing hot from where it had touched me.

I looked down at the wound beneath my ribs, now cauterized, the tissue glaringly red.

With a wound so deep, they must have had to stitch it first and use a mixture of poultices to help the healing process.

Aries only knew if I would make it now. An infection might yet brew or the bleeding might not have been stopped properly on the inside. But I had looked death in the eye many times before and it hadn’t taken me yet.

The floor was tremoring beneath my feet and from the dark red furnishings surrounding me and the vague shadow of the mountains moving beyond the windows, I surmised I had made it onto one of the evacuation trains.

“Kai?”

I turned to find North, his brow lined as he looked at me with some bright emotion in his green eyes.

I took a step toward him and realised the extent of my injuries as my right leg gave out and I crashed to the floor, the adrenaline subsiding and leaving me raw with the pain of it all.

I took stock of my ailments. There was a terrible pain in my right foot, but whether it was badly bruised or broken I wasn’t sure, and there was certainly some deeper ligament damage that ran through my thigh.

North took hold of my arm, hauling me upright and guiding me back to the sofa I must have been lying on before.

I limped with his help, a growl in my throat.

The restriction of my injuries was a burden that made the heat in my flesh rise, but as I sat down and looked at North, the knotted lump in my chest gave way to something lighter.

His dark brown hair was sticking up in all directions, his face smeared with muck. The clothes he wore must have been given to him by someone half his size because he was nearly bursting out of them.

“You look like shit,” I commented and his eyebrows lifted.

A bubble rose in my chest filled with light and it burst in my throat, creating a rumbling laugh.

North looked wildly back at our mother and Mirelle stepped forward, staring at me like I’d just grown a second head.

“What’s wrong with him?” North demanded and my laughter grew louder.

It felt uncontrollable, these bellowing, powerful waves of noise pouring from me – only coming more forcefully at the sight of everyone’s strange expressions.

I couldn’t for the life of me understand what they were feeling, but I liked the way I was feeling at least.

“Has he been poisoned?” North begged as Mirelle kneeled down and gazed at me unblinkingly.

“No, I don’t think it’s that,” she breathed, a tear falling from her eyes. Then another.

My laughter slowly hollowed out until the world was all too quiet. I touched Mirelle’s face, catching her tears but not understanding the meaning of them. She was smiling, and I was fairly sure that tears meant she was unhappy. But weren’t smiles the opposite?

“What happened to you when the Void halted everyone’s magic?” she asked, her fingers knotting around my wrist and squeezing.

Memories ticked through my head and I saw it all through a sharper lens, the unusual sensations in my body cycling as I reviewed each moment.

“I was trying to reclaim the Void. I lost her during the battle. There were too many warriors seeking to capture her.”

As Everest’s face came to mind, a thick and potent force arose in my chest, like her hand was gripping my heart and squeezing it close to bursting.

Murmurs broke out around us like a drone of wild hornets in my ears and a snarl pulled at my mouth.

“Shut the fuck up!” I barked, the sharpness of the feeling taking me by surprise.

Mirelle squeezed my wrist to draw my focus back to her and the raking sensation in my chest lessened. “Go on,” she urged.

“I was close when Everest used the Void. She wielded it to break the magic of the Fearsire.”

“Impossible,” Mirelle gasped.

“Apparently not,” I said and a smile drew my lips wider, the rapid swing of my feelings taking me by surprise. I had no idea how to control them or if I should even try.

Mirelle took in a shaky breath, another tear escaping her, then she tightened her expression, looked to the Fae in the carriage and shouted, “Out! All of you leave, immediately.”

They ran to escape the cabin, but North stayed, stepping closer to me.

“You too, North,” Mirelle insisted.

“I’m done being kept out of the loop,” he growled as Calcifiend landed on his shoulder. “I’m staying.”

“North–” she started, but I cut over her.

“He stays,” I said in a low voice and she looked back at me with widening eyes. “He stays or you can say no more.”