Chapter 25 Catch On Fire
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
CATCH ON FIRE
ADELINE
“I’ll keep watch.”
I hadn’t realized he meant it so… literally. He’s standing there, arms crossed, watching me. Like a cat watching a mouse scurrying by, interested and ready to play.
“Roane, can you turn around, please?”
He blinks. “Then how will I see if a monster is coming at you?”
“Don’t be glib. Look elsewhere until I’m in the water.”
He gazes at me for a moment too long, his eyes darkening, then turns around. “Be quick.”
“I’m doing my best.” I remove Olm’s book from my bodice and place it on the ground, then wrestle with the fabric belt I’ve tied around my chest to keep my ruined yellow dress from falling apart.
The harrowing experience in the griffin’s nest and the ride on the phoenix’s back haven’t helped matters.
The ends of my dress are singed, and the seams are coming apart.
“Do you think Talton has found any clothes for me?”
“Yeah, in between hunting for food and saving your life, I sat with him and we discussed your new wardrobe,” he mutters, though his deep voice carries in the still air. “I told him you might need more ballroom gowns. You never know, they could come in handy since your social program is so full.”
“Fine.” Finally, I manage to remove the fabric belt and I let it drop to the ground. “I just need undergarments, a petticoat and a dress that holds together. This one is destroyed.”
“I should take your measurements. My tailor will whip one up in no time. I’ll make sure he slots you in his busy schedule.”
“Can you not be sarcastic for a moment?” The last laces are all knotted and undoing them isn’t easy, but I look up when he takes a long moment to reply.
“I’m not sure,” he says eventually. “I haven’t…” He scratches the back of his neck. “I haven’t seen or talked to a human or a fae in a long time.”
“But you have Ardruna and Talton.”
“If not for them, I’d have gone mad ages ago.”
His voice is quiet now, soft around the edges, and I go still, my arms halfway out of the sleeves. He has his back to me, his tall form a shadow. Is it easier for him to admit to certain things when I’m not seeing his face?
“Why did you choose this life?” I whisper. “You don’t even like stories, or so you say.”
“I wasn’t given a choice in the matter. I’m paying for my father’s sins.”
“Your father…” Sedrig told me about this, didn’t he? “He was a gambler, right?”
A slight shake of his head. “No, why? But my mother… I’d have done anything for her. Ending up here was a small price to pay.”
Sedrig must have gotten that wrong. Pulling down my dress, I make sure Olm’s book is wrapped up and protected in it before I place it down on the pebbles and lift my thin petticoat over my head. “When I get back, I can ask after her. I can—”
“You can’t, and my family’s troubles are none of your business.” He turns around. “I’ve tried—”
We both freeze.
I’m only in my underpants and nothing else. Exposed. The thought is slow to trickle in, and then with a gasp, I rush to cover my breasts with my hands.
“Roane!” I hiss.
His brows go up, eyes impossibly wide. The color is rising in his pale cheeks again, making his gray eyes glow. His mouth opens without a sound.
With a curse, he turns back around. “Didn’t I say to hurry up? Get into the water.”
My knees shaking, I push down my underpants, step out of them and splash into the river. The water is shockingly cold, stealing my breath, making my busted ribs scream in agony. The cut in my side throbs.
I dip under, scrubbing at my head, then surface with a curse.
The expression on his face, that hot flush… the speed with which he’d turned the other way. Didn’t he like what he saw? Wouldn’t a man want to take a longer look?
A gentleman wouldn’t.
But Roane is no gentleman. So why?
You’re reading too much into this, as you tend to do. Stop it. And why should you care if Roane liked what he saw or not?
Good point. I don’t. Not at all.
I wash my face and rub at my skin, using my nails to scrub my knees, elbows, and feet. My teeth are chattering and I’m starting to feel numb from the cold, but it’s also a relief to shed all the dirt and sour sweat of fear off me.
We may be poor, but Naida raised me with certain rules and they have become a part of me.
Wash yourself. Use a twig and water to clean your teeth at night.
Make sure your clothes are clean and change your underpants often.
We may not be aristocrats, but we’re honest people and don’t stink.
Being a healer means she also believes cleanness is the key to good health.
So, as the shock of everything that has happened starts to wear off a little, an icy layer thawing, it lets my thoughts run down their usual pathways, and washing myself is turning into a pleasure.
“Get on with it,” Roane rumbles, his broad back hunched. “If you don’t die of the cold, there may be other ways.”
“Almost done.” I scrub away at my skin, humming a tune under my breath. “Why, have you seen something?”
“The griffins are active in the sky. What if they’ve noticed the missing egg?”
That breaks through my bubble of happiness. I glance up at the winged shapes circling in the high. “Gods, I hope not.”
“We won’t have light for much longer. Come.”
He’s right. I wade through the rushing water toward the bank as the sky darkens, flickers of light popping up, imitating the stars set on the real sky.
Roane is standing there and in the gathering dark, he has… a glow about him. Are my eyes playing tricks on me? Narrowing my gaze, I force myself to move faster through the water, stepping over flat stones and untangling my leg from a knot of weeds, only… for something else to snag my ankle.
A cry escapes me. I shake my leg and it’s freed. Spinning in a circle, I glance wildly about. “What was that?”
“Aline?” Roane turns and suddenly he’s unsheathing his scimitars and splashing into the river. “Watch out!”
“What are you doing?”
“There is something there. Keep still!”
“What is it?” I swallow a shriek when a sleek, long tentacle slithers over my leg. “It’s here!”
Roane roars, sinking into the water, scimitars and all, his glow winking out. He leaves me floundering in a gathering darkness that’s more mental than physical.
“Roane!” I inch backward toward the shore, my nipples as hard as pebbles, my skin erupting in gooseflesh. “Are you all right?”
The water seems to be boiling where he sank. Something gray and glittery swims under the surface, and I clap a hand over my mouth, bile rising in my throat.
Long hair flying, Roane surges out of the water and hacks at the creature with both scimitars, turning and twisting, dancing a dance of death.
Shadow and thorn, I think of the names of his scimitars. One dark, the other silver.
Crimson blood sprays, and the creature swings around. There are five huge snakes rising out of the water. The glow about Roane intensifies, his movements accelerating. He cuts off a head, but another emerges from the stump almost instantly.
“Hydra,” I say. “It’s a Lirnean hydra!”
The moment I call out the creature’s name, the snaky heads swing toward me.
“Fire,” I shout. Grabbing stones from the riverbank, I start throwing them at the monster, distracting it from Roane. “Fire!”
“Is that supposed to be helping me?” he grouses, lifting his scimitars, preparing to attack again.
“It’s fire we need. You have to cut off every head and scorch the stumps. Call your phoenix down!”
He hesitates for a long moment, his gaze on me, then he looks up. “Simu!” he hollers. “Over here!”
I keep throwing stones, wishing I knew how to use a sling, a bow and arrows, or maybe how to throw knives. It was never a skill I thought I’d ever need, but here it’s a whole different story, pun intended, and new skills are required.
A flash at the edge of my vision, high up in the sky, resolves into the phoenix. Seeing it from afar is so different. It’s a magnificent dragon-like creature, burning as it flies.
Which is strange. I thought phoenixes only burned after dying and were then reborn. But there was a story Naida told me, about a phoenix who burned forever…
The hydra snaps at Roane, and my heart drops to my feet as he ducks and slashes, again and again. His movements are almost superhumanly fast, but I think I’m noticing a lag.
He’s slowing down. He was tired before. Now he has to be exhausted.
With a shout, I wade back into the water. “Hey, hydra lady! Over here.”
“What are you doing?” Olm hisses. “Not this again. Stay back!”
Ignoring him, I keep fishing stones out of the river and throwing them. Two of the heads turn toward me again and, as they lunge, I stumble backward.
The phoenix lights up the evening as it flies over us, a banner of fire.
Roane swings one of his scimitars, cutting off a snake head. “Burn it, Simu! Burn the cut neck!”
The firebird returns, flying low, his wings like burning war banners. Its trailing flames scorch the cut stump and lick at Roane.
With a shout, he jerks away, falling into the river.
“Roane!” Terror seizes me, and I can’t seem to draw a full breath until his head resurfaces.
Good Gods. This isn’t working. It’s not quick and coordinated enough. In the story, the hero had a cousin who held a burning torch and instantly cauterized the cut heads. That’s what we need.
Lacking a cousin, we need a torch.
Wading back out of the water and onto the bank, I cast about for a branch. When you need something, it’s never easy to find it, but the grove of pines isn’t far, and I get lucky.
Grabbing the branch, I run back to the river and hurry into the water, careful to keep the wood dry. “Roane, I’m coming. Hold on!”
He’s back up, swinging those wicked blades around, scoring the monster’s necks. His hands are glowing and where the magic touches the monster, it seems to lose solidity. He’s trying to send it back to its story.
A story he doesn’t know.
No wonder his magic isn’t working properly.
Cursing under my breath, I wade in deeper. “Don’t let its blood touch you. It’s poisonous. And call the phoenix down one more time.”
“No!” He knocks his elbow into me, throwing me into the river as two of the heads go after him. He stabs one and manages to behead the other. “Get out of here, Aline!”
And I, miraculously, manage to keep the branch aloft and dry. “I’m not leaving,” I shout. “Simu! Where is that bird?”
A bark of a laugh escapes Roane. “That bird. Simu! Here!”
The giant fiery bird sweeps back down toward us, streaming flames, and hurrying close to Roane, I raise the branch as high as I can, standing on my tiptoes in the rushing water.
The branch catches fire as the phoenix flies over us.
“Now,” I say, “together. Cut—”
His blades swing, and I duck under a lunging head to burn the stump of the other. It really is a dance of death, I think dazedly, and that’s all the thought I can muster, all my focus spent on evading the remaining three heads.
Another head cut. Another pass of the torch.
Another head down, and I’m almost grazed by the long fangs as I dart in to scorch the stump.
This is so dangerous. Those fangs keep coming way too close to both of us with every pass, and that poison is hard to counteract, with only one version of the story offering a potential antidote.
With a dark rumble that sounds like a curse, Roane sheathes one scimitar, grabs the torch from my hand and dispatches the last head, burning the cut until it’s black and smoking. The stench of scorched flesh is nauseating.
The headless necks thrash in the water, one of them almost hitting me. With a roar, Roane grabs me around the waist and hauls me away as the evening turns into night.