Red Runs the Blood (Bright Burns the Flame #2)

Chapter 1

One

Lory

The Amrin Mountains were as hostile after the forty-eight-hour trial she’d barely survived as when she’d still been in the middle of it, their steep cliffs and rocky terrain deathtraps where Ashthorn students were no longer hunting her.

She didn’t even count the Criu rebels she’d dodged over the past two days of searching her way back to the outpost, where Khayrivven Falcrest was hopefully still alive, but no matter how many times she marched down the trampled paths or picked a new turn when she came to yet another impossible crossing on the mountainside, she kept ending up at the cave she’d fled, a shadow with antlers hot on her heels, and gnawing hunger hollowing out her stomach.

How she wished she had at least a knife to defend herself, but when she’d woken in the cave, her weapons had been gone.

“Useless the Flame’s endeavors are,” the leonthor narrated, his voice like a second conscience by the time she turned away from the unwelcome cave for what felt like the fortieth time, her heart relentlessly pounding the rhythm of her fear for Khayrivven. “Meant to join her kind she is.”

“My kind is at the outpost, and if you’re just following me around to annoy me, count it a success.”

Lory didn’t glance to the side, where she knew the leonthor’s shadow was lurking between the rocks by a seam of bushes she’d been fascinated by mere days ago; it would have dispersed into thin air the moment she laid eyes on it.

“The truth will follow the Flame. Not hide she can.”

Lory made a vulgar gesture at the bushes instead, ambling over the next hilltop before taking an unfamiliar path lined with patches of grass. If only she could find something to eat out here, she might outrun the mythical beast and leave behind the nightmares of the mountain.

“I’m well aware that hiding from you is virtually impossible,” she shot at the creature, wondering if it would lead her to food eventually, the way it had led her to a narrow stream the first day, when she’d blatantly ignored its existence in hopes it would go away.

Then she’d realized that she’d been wandering in circles, or the cave kept magically appearing in her path whenever the leonthor found it opportune.

“Back to her people the Flame must go.” It had been voicing its opinions with the same wise and grumpy voice that had pushed Lory to nearly cry out with frustration, but it hadn’t attempted to harm her or force her.

All that remained was a shadow in the background, stalking her as she despaired about whether she’d ever find her way back to the outpost.

“Not home the other magic wielders are. Home her people are. Home we are.”

With a sigh through her nose, Lory stepped by the next boulder and sank onto it, hands braced beside her hips as she stared out into the afternoon landscape.

From up here, she could see pieces of the desert land spreading out for miles and miles behind the brown and green at the foot of the mountain.

But an outpost, she couldn’t spot anywhere.

If only Khayrivven would draw her into a dream the way he’d done at so many—and at the most inopportune—times, she could have asked him for help, but the silence in her sleep was only one more reason for Lory to lose her mind.

“Can’t you do something useful and get me out of the mountains?”

A grumble rolled over Lory like a stream of dark mist, and the shadow slunk past her left, his shape massive and everything she would have run from two days ago. Now, defeat had settled in her stomach, and she was tired—body and mind—of being afraid.

“Not hold her back we can, but not help her we will either.” The shadow vanished behind a rock formation at the top of the hill.

“Bastard,” Lory hissed under her breath, wondering if the leonthor could read her mind the way it had in the cave.

Because if he did, he’d know exactly how little she appreciated being sent in circles, even when he wasn’t actively planting his mythical creature body in front of her to block her from proceeding with her search.

A grumble snuck by her ear, even when the leonthor had vanished out of sight. “Not force her we can. But free us she must.” He said it so emphatically that Lory almost missed the rhythmical noise of boots on packed earth—many boots.

“Shit—” With the most ungraceful movement she’d performed since hanging limply in Khayrivven’s arms after she’d gone up in flames when the Almelyte powder had first triggered her magic, Lory threw herself off the boulder, flattening her body to the ground as she peered in the direction of the noise.

“Seven of them there are,” the leonthor commented from wherever he’d disappeared to. “Not find her they must.”

A reluctant grin stole itself onto Lory’s face. “I guess it’s the first thing we agree on.” Her whisper was carried away by a harsh gust of wind and, of course, the leonthor heard her.

“That we are right about many things, the Flame will learn. Agree more often she will. Trust us she must.”

Why the creature took that one little comment to push her into compliance with his own agenda, Lory didn’t even want to know.

“Maybe if you finally explained your motives and your part in this whole mess, I would be more inclined to at least consider—” Why was she even bothering?

She’d asked the leonthor what was going on at least as many times as she’d found herself in front of that Guardians-cursed cave, without getting a hint of a response. Secretive little shit.

“Heard that we have,” the leonthor’s voice reverberated in her mind, and she could tell that he wasn’t happy with her.

Heard her thoughts? Great. Why didn’t that surprise her? “Then maybe you’ll tell me what the fuck is going on. Why am I locked in a repeat performance of flee from the cave?” She was still whispering, even when the leonthor could apparently listen to what was going on in her mind.

Rolling to the side, she made sure she was hidden from view when whoever was marching through the mountains would get close enough to have a view on her boulder. Probably more Criu rebels.

“Still she must be. Past the soldiers will march.” The leonthor had a point. If she remained quiet, they wouldn’t notice her back there, behind the piece of rock, but what if they did find her and take her away? Would that break the endless loop she seemed to be stuck in?

“Not show herself the Flame will. Not caught the Flame will let herself get.”

Ignoring the leonthor, Lory inched forward, ready to get a better look at whoever was approaching. If the leonthor had wanted to hurt her, he’d have long done so. Apparently, he was all teeth, no bite.

“Regret the Flame will her words.”

Lory didn’t imagine the anger in the creature’s voice, yet the bitter taste of fear for Khayrivven’s life outweighed the fear of the creature’s wrath by far.

If she failed to return, the Triad would kill him, and if Lory had learned one thing over the past days, it was that the thought of the Veiled Hand dead was more than her already throbbing heart could bear.

The loss of Aiden during the trial was a raw wound inside her chest. There was no escaping the terror of what had happened, not even if she pretended that the banter with the mythical creature following her around in its shadow form was actually entertaining.

“Disappear the ache will in time,” the leonthor commented on her thought as if he was privy to anything going on inside her head, and for a fraction of a moment, Lory paused, postponing her attempt at making her presence known to whoever else was sneaking around the mountains.

“Her life not risk she may for the sole purpose of consolation. At stake, bigger things are.”

Pressing herself deeper into the dirt, Lory held her breath, letting the footsteps pass and the voices fade until they remained an idea on the wind, but she hadn’t given up yet.

“Can you leave this mountain at all? Or are you trapped up here for good?” she asked over her shoulder in the direction she’d last spotted the shadow.

It took a while for the leonthor to respond, and when he did, the voice came from right behind Lory’s neck, a brush of hot breath against her sweaty skin, and a shudder of panic raked down her back. “Leave we never can, unless the Flame frees us.”

Considering the statement for a heartbeat, Lory fought a war between her curiosity and the need to find a way out of these seven circles of Eroth’s Veil.

“Ask us must the Flame.” It wasn’t a command, so Lory shook her head.

Whatever had happened, she wasn’t ready to deal with any of it before she convinced herself the Triad hadn’t killed Khayrivven. And for that, she needed to get out of these mountains and find her way back to the camp.

With a deep breath, Lory pushed herself up, ducking behind the bushes as she headed toward the trees behind which the voices had disappeared, hope lodging inside her chest that she’d finally find her way out.

“Not go the Flame can,” the leonthor’s voice followed her as she reached the greenery, and for the first time in two days, she didn’t find the cave behind them, but a trampled road, wide enough to host a man and a horse.

A few hundred feet ahead, a group of soldiers in brown leathers was marching downhill between trees and rocks, their weapons glinting in the afternoon light.

“Not protect we can the Flame, if she crosses the invisible line.”

“What invisible line?” Lory whispered, her eyes on the soldiers whose loyalty she couldn’t make out based on the brown of their armor.

They could have been from the common Brestolyan army, or rebels disguised as Brestolyan soldiers.

Either way, she didn’t plan on finding out, now that she could simply follow them.

“The end of our cage the line is. Not cross we can the line. And so the Flame must not cross either.”

Shaking her head at the shadow, Lory continued down the path, careful to remain hidden while not losing sight of the soldiers. “I’m not staying here unless you trap me. That is you, trapping me up here, right?”

No answer. Not that Lory had expected one.

Ever since she’d accepted the creature was not part of her imagination but an actual being, it hadn’t given her real answers, and the ones it had given her—like the fifteen supposed Flame-born sitting around a fire at the other end of the cave—had made her doubt the creature’s judgement.

“Not abandon her people she can,” the leonthor growled into her mind, and the ground beneath Lory’s feet seemed to shake.

Struggling to keep her balance, she grabbed onto a boulder at her side, watching with terror as the path in front of her started to blend into the dark mouth of the cave she’d hoped to never see again.

“No.” With all her stubborn determination, she willed the path back into existence, but to no avail.

With every passing second, the darkness in front of her swallowed her more, until she was staring, yet again, into the black mouth of what seemed to be the leonthor’s home.

And from there, the mythical wingless cat-horse-stag greeted her with a pair of flashing lilac eyes.

As he stepped out of the shadows, Lory was reminded of how sharp those antlers were and how big the creature, and her knees became wobbly.

“Rest she must.” On silent paws, the leonthor padded over, nudging her arm with his pale, wet nose, the command gone from his voice as if he was just realizing that she was barely standing upright, when in reality, he must have known, being in her head and all.

“To the other Flame-born carry her we can,” he offered, tilting his head to scoop her up with his antlers, but Lory stepped aside, defeat settling deep in her bones as she realized that she wouldn’t leave this place—not if the leonthor didn’t want her to.

With a sigh, she sat down right where she was, narrowly avoiding the antlers catching on her dirty, sweaty tunic. “Why is it so important to you that I join a group of strangers in a war I cannot win?”

Because no matter that the Triad had let her live, Ulder would happily have them kill any Flame in their path because of their uncontrollable magic.

“Uncontrollable her magic is, the same as theirs,” the leonthor reminded her with that annoying wise tone that nearly drove her up the obsidian walls.

Hand tucked under her cheek, Lory lay down on the hard ground, staring into the purpling sky beyond the cave mouth.

“I know,” she thought at the leonthor, her mind already drifting.

If only she could reach Khayrivven in a dream, the unbearable knot inside her stomach might loosen, and she might take a real breath again.

But as the cave faded and sleep enveloped her, solid black was the only thing awaiting her.