Page 118 of Of Flame and Fury

Another lap, and fire singed the damp hairs pressed against her cheeks. Another, and Kel felt as though she sat on a bed of burning coals, seeping into her blood and demanding she scream. Another lap, and Savita became too hot to touch. She felt her legs blistering and her weight tipping.

One more lap, and when Savita swooped around the hall’s edge, furthest from Cristo’s viewing window, Kel screamed, “Now!”

The sancter rang out at Kel’s back. The sound needled at her ears. Lightning fractured the hall and crackled through the air. Phoenix screams mingled together, crashing against the diamond in a tangled, deafening web. Halfway down the length of the hall, toward the tinted window, Savita’s wings beat a chaotic, frightened rhythm.

Coup had timed the shot well. The phoenixes were moving toofast to stop, even if Cristo tampered with their collar controls. Each of these phoenixes had participated in enough CAPR races to know what a sancter shot meant: for the next few hundred meters, their track was clear, straight.

Savita’s confusion slowed her, and two larger phoenixes shifted ahead of them. Each of the six firebirds battled their own instincts. They’d been conditioned to fly straight after that sound, to use a burst of strength to climb ahead on a track. But had they been conditioned enough to collide with a window?

Even if they’d wanted to stop—the phoenixes were moving too fast. Through scorching winds, Kel risked a glance up, ahead of them, and spotted her own wide-eyed, blistering reflection. She saw their future as it collided with the glass panel, flexing beneath the heat.

Kel leaned as far forward as she could, hiding her face. Before she scrunched her eyes closed, before the world shattered around them, Kel noticed that two other phoenixes were still ahead of Savita—just a few inches.

As they collided with the wide window, Kel had never been happier to place third.

FIFTY-ONE

Hot fragments of glass glistened around them like sprites. The broken window cut a jagged river through the air and sliced thin cuts into Kel’s arms. Kel gripped clumps of thicker feathers through the pain, relieved that Savita didn’t seem to bear any deep cuts. The two phoenixes who had broken through first flailed in the air, confusion and rage clear in their cries. Ruptured glass rained to the ground, an electric, tinkling sound filling Kel’s ears.

Kel drank in the new room, so much darker than the diamond hall. Three figures cowered on the ground, as far from the shattered window panel as possible. Kel spotted Cristo limping out of the adjoining room, blood trailing after him as he vanished into another layer of his labyrinth.

He must have been injured by the shattered glass. But Kel didn’t care where he’d gone. She squeezed Coup’s hands around her waist and he squeezed back. Relief shuddered down her spine as she glanced upward—spotting a skylight. Moonlight guided their path.

Kel directed Savita toward the glass panel. With two other blazing phoenixes also in the small room, the standard glass had already half-melted by the time they reached it. There was no hesitation, no doubt in Savita’s movements as she soared toward the ceiling.

Into the night sky.

As they crashed through the window, Kel refused to look back. She guided Savita into the clouds with numb fingers, staring straight ahead. She wouldn’t say goodbye.

Kel would see them again. All of them.

Coup’s hands tightened around Kel’s waist, his chest pressed tightly to her back to keep her steady. They had no buckles to secure their legs or saddle pommel to grip onto, but Savita’s feathers were sturdy enough for Kel to bunch them for grip. Kel sent Sav a silent plea, hoping that her heat wasn’t as painful for Coup as it had been during his last race. The firebird rose higher and higher into the dark sky, until they floated above the facilities. Above Vohre and Cendor.

Almost automatically, Kel guided Savita south, toward Fieror, though the farm would be the first place Cristo would look for them.

Vohre Forest, Kel thought sluggishly.We can hide out with the Fume until it’s safe.

Kel guided Sav through the stars and to the right, where—

“Look out!” Coup bellowed.

Savita screamed, almost loud enough to bury the sound of a sancter at their backs.

The phoenix jerked to the left as lightning flew past Kel’s hip. Kel almost lost her grip on Sav’s feathers, burning beneath her whiteknuckles. Sav zigzagged through the clear sky as more electricity shot past.

Kel’s anger climbed until it matched Savita’s raging inferno.

Leaning into Coup’s steady grip, she twisted around and squinted through the darkness, just as more lightning soared past her.

Nestled between a pair of great red-and-copper wings sat Cristo.

FIFTY-TWO

“We have to land!” Coup screamed.

Two more sancter shots raced past them. Coup tried to shoot back at Cristo with his rifle—but without a saddle, it was too hard to balance. His shots were wild and nowhere near Cristo or his phoenix.

“If we land, he’ll take Savita,” Kel shouted, gripping Sav’s feathers tighter.

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