Page 113 of Of Flame and Fury

Coup let out a breathless laugh. “How did you manage that?”

“He gave it to me ages ago. He trusts me.”

Guilt clawed at Kel’s stomach. She half-turned to her teammates. “You don’t—I can try to sneak in on my own and get Savita. None of you have to—”

“Oh, shut up,” Dira snorted. The others quickly echoed her words.

Kel smiled weakly. No matter how slim, she refused to waste this chance.

Staying low, the Howlers dashed toward the lightning.

Kel had been right—Cristo’s security was moving down another corridor, their backs facing her. Bodies littered the floor, a barrier between the live soldiers and the Howlers. Red blossomed across battered corpses. Kel would have armed their allies with enough sancters to light up the sky, if it meant saving Savita—but she still felt heavy, seeing so many broken people strewn across the floor.

Staying low, Rahn and Kel stepped over bodies and picked their way toward the hall’s door. Sensing Coup at their backs, Kel spun around.

Offering him the sancter, she said, “I can’t hold it steady.”

Coup took the rifle without a word. He moved to her right as the three of them edged forward, Dira and Bekn watching their backs. The walls were too thick to hear anything from within the hall—but Kel could imagine Sav shrieking, calling to her.

One of Cristo’s guards turned around, and the five Howlers skidded to a stop. Coup fired the sancter, sending waves of brilliant, charged air toward the uniformed woman. Her rifle fired at the roof as she stumbled back.

They were mere breaths from the diamond hall’s entrance when two more guards happened to turn their way. Coup fired off quick rounds of blinding electricity at one of the guards, but the other already had their sancter raised.

Straight at Rahn.

With Coup distracted, the Howlers had no weapon to fire with. The narrow-eyed guard cocked his rifle, and Kel bent down, ready to push Rahn to the ground—

Just as Dira leaped through the air and struck the man across the head with her bat.

The guard fell into another of his comrades, and Dira made quick work of them, too. She then moved back to her position behind the group. As if nothing had happened. As if she still couldn’t bear the sight of Rahn.

Kel had always known her best friend was bred for Cendor, and now she knew she didn’t need to worry about the Howlers’ future. From an army or each other, they could protect themselves.

As they reached the entrance, Rahn scrambled for the security card in her pocket.

Kel half-expected nothing to happen. Cristo was too smart. He couldn’t possibly trust Rahn enough to—

A light flashed green overhead, and the door clicked open.

FORTY-NINE

The Howlers stumbled forward and slammed the door behind them, dulling the screams and rifle fire behind them. Whatever chaos continued to brew in the hall was nothing compared to what lay ahead.

Fire of every hue spiraled around the great room. Light reflected off the clear, fractured walls, blinding Kel from a thousand directions. Heat shook the air.

Sweat pooled down Kel’s back as she inched forward. She peered through the pulsing heat, resisting the urge to clamp her hands over her ears to block the deafening screeches bouncing off the diamond. Her sweater was too thin, her feet bare against the uneven ground. Even if she reached Savita, without her gloves or leathers, what could she do?

Phoenixes raced around the hall in clustered infernos. Their fiery wings transformed the room into a flaming cathedral, the diamond turning to a glass mural of reds, oranges, yellows, browns. To Kel’s left, a panel of tinted glass resembling a mirror shimmeredwith the growing heat. The darkened panel rose to half the ceiling’s height, the only piece of the room not coated in twinkling diamond.

Kel edged further into the hall as phoenixes soared in narrow circles above her. Every step forward made her skin prick, reawakening the pain in her hip. She tried to peer through the heat, desperately searching for Savita, but it was near-impossible to distinguish one ball of flames from another. She could tell that none wore saddles, though bands of silver collars glinted through each flaming cloud.

There was something strange about the rhythmic pattern. Even when they’d been trained to race, phoenixes were difficult to control. In such a contained environment, these phoenixes should have been lashing at one another, flying in all directions. Not racing along the faint, melting lines along the ground. Was Cristo controlling how they moved? Had he made the phoenixes train in this hall, for this moment? How many times had he stolen Savita from her aviary to teach her how to die?

Coup placed a warning hand on Kel’s arm, but she kept moving. Sweat poured down her forehead, evaporating almost as fast. Wind battered her skin, drying her mouth. She blinked, trying to see through the growing smoke and shimmering heat and—there!

There she was.

Copper talons glinting, feathers and flames as deep as blood in some places and pale as sunrise in others. Two onyx eyes locked straight ahead, as hungry and determined as any god.

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