“There is a pretty challenge,” Sophie said from beside her.
“What do you mean?”
“Was that tossed at the Smith?”
Sara was getting used to Sophie answering questions indirectly, if at all. She frowned at the coin. “It was left at the door of my shop yesterday. Why?”
“How strange,” Sophie mused. She lifted her hands and Sara gave her the coin. She peered at it for a minute, arched a brow, then handed it back to Sara. “It speaks of the Smith’s origins. A pretty challenge from someone who knows who he is and where to find him. You say it was outside your shop?”
“My bookstore, yes.”
“And no one entered it?”
“No. I had locked the door at Quinn’s request, and he had made a territory mark around the shop….”
“Ah!” said the Wyvern as if that explained everything. “So the challenge could not be delivered.”
“Why do you keep calling it a challenge?”
“Because that is what the Pyr do. They challenge each other to blood duels, when they perceive that justice must be served. The Slayers do it just to provoke a fight to the death, because no Pyr of honor will decline a challenge to his integrity.”
“Challenge how?” Sara asked, her scalp prickling.
“The challenger tosses a coin at the one with whom he would fight. If the coin is caught, the battle is accepted, and they will fight to the death.”
Sara remembered Ambrose tossing the coin at Quinn in that village, the gold coin bouncing off Quinn’s bound hands. “Why a coin?”
“It is tradition. I suppose it is derived from the winner claiming the hoard of the loser as spoils of the blood duel. Once upon a time, our assets were almost purely gold.” She shrugged. “It must be somewhat more complicated to claim the stock holdings of a losing Pyr.”
So, Ambrose had declared his intention, to fight Quinn to the death, on that first meeting. But Quinn hadn’t understood and maybe over the years, he had forgotten that detail.
She hoped she had a chance to tell him. It might make the difference in his trusting Erik.
She pushed herself to her feet and paced, trying the bolted door again. She paced the cabin once again, feeling silence and inactivity weigh heavily upon her.
The Wyvern simply watched.
Sara wasn’t even sure she was breathing.
Sophie spoke softly, as if for Sara’s ears alone. “Tell me, Sara, where is it writ that what you and the Smith create together must be a child?”
Sara pivoted to find Sophie’s gaze solemn and steady. There was something a bit creepy about how seldom she blinked, how she seemed to see Sara’s most secret thoughts.
“The prophecy,” Sara began, but Sophie shook her head.
“That is not what it says.”
Sara sat back on her heels, trying to remember Quinn’s verse. Sophie filled in the gaps that she couldn’t recall, until they recited it together.
When the Dragon’s Tail demands its price,
And the moon is devoured once, not twice,
Seer and Smith will again unite.
Water and air, with fire and earth
This sacred union will give birth
To the Pyr’s sole chance to save the Earth.
The Wyvern was right. It didn’t specify what would result from the union. “I’d assumed,” she began but Sophie shook her head.
“You know what they say about assumptions. I think sometimes that prophecies exist to make us all look like fools.” That wry amusement lit Sophie’s eyes again. “And that the Great Wyvern greatly enjoys a joke at our expense.”
Sara folded her arms across her chest and leaned back against the wall. She’d have to think about that.
It looked as if she would have the time.
Sara knew she wasn’t imagining that it was getting hotter by the minute in the cabin. The Wyvern had gone to sleep and Sara sat beside her, restless and uncomfortable.
Hours had passed. It might as well have been weeks. The air was stagnant with the cabin sealed so tightly and Sara was sure that she could feel heat emanating from the metal roof above. She guessed it was approaching noon, which meant that she’d slept through at least one night.
Maybe more.
What had happened to Quinn?
The pail of water was warm and its swampy smell got stronger with every passing minute. One fly buzzed around the interior. Sara couldn’t see it but she could hear it, especially when it flew against the cracks of the boarded-up windows in frustration.
A fly couldn’t even get out. How would they?
The Wyvern slept deeply. She almost seemed to glow in the darkness, she was so pale, but she didn’t look strong. Sara again had the impression that Sophie was more wounded than she appeared to be. How much blood had she lost? How much hope had she lost? She seemed so fragile, as if she were half-faded from the world already.
As if she didn’t care whether she lived or not.
But then, Sara had heard the determination in Sophie’s voice more than once. Was she disguising her true strength? Or was she stubborn despite being down?
Sara wished she could have known.
The fly slammed itself into a crack of daylight and fell heavily to the soil. Sara could hear it buzzing, probably spinning in circles from the sound of it. On the one hand, its noise was so irritating that she wanted to get up and squish it under her shoe.
On the other, she respected its determination to live. She leaned her head back against the logs and closed her eyes, letting the sound of the fly fill her senses. She was hungry. She was tired. She didn’t know what to do, and that made her feel more tired.
The sound of the fly grew louder. Sara licked her dry lips and wondered how long it would take her to become thirsty enough to drink swamp water.
She wasn’t there yet.
The buzz of the fly became much louder.
It sounded, in fact, more like a rumble. Sara opened her eyes and looked around. She heard the fly thwack itself against the other boarded-up window, again without success. But the rumbling continued. It was getting louder, as though a truck was driving closer.
Or a train.
Sara spread her hands flat on the dirt floor and her eyes widened as she felt the vibration beneath her palms. It got stronger.
An earthquake? There was an earthquake when she was trapped in a small cabin?
What kind of rotten luck was that?
The whole cabin began to shake and Sara got to her feet. She shook Sophie awake.
“What’s the matter?”
“There’s an earthquake. You have to get up. We might have to run.”
“I can’t run anywhere,” Sophie said, then yawned.
“Well, you can’t just lie there and wait!”
“Why not?” Sophie smiled serenely. “The planet knows who keeps her safe. I am in Gaia’s good care.”
Sara, however, didn’t feel quite so certain of that. She crossed the shaking cabin and tried the door, without any success. She pounded on it.
“Hey! Let us out!” There was no answer. Sara banged on the door some more. “Let us out!” The cabin rocked and Sara hoped for a moment that it might tip right over.
Instead, a hole opened in the middle of the floor, between her and Sophie.
And the shaking stopped.
It wasn’t the kind of hole that an earthquake makes, a long crack that threatens to close again without warning. It was a round hole, like the end of a tunnel, about four feet across.
The Wyvern began to smile. “I feel the earth move,” she sang lightly, just as Quinn’s head appeared in the tunnel.
Sara gasped.
He looked around, narrowed his eyes, and she knew the moment he saw her. He braced his hands on the sides of the hole to pull himself up to the cabin floor.
Sara sputtered for a moment before she managed to make a coherent sound. The Wyvern continued to sing, just a little bit off-key, and the cabin became markedly hotter. “Quinn! But h
ow did you do this?”
“We’ll talk about it later, princess.” He caught her hand in his, pulled her close to his side, then looked down into her eyes. He felt strong and warm and solid. Sara was very glad to see him and she didn’t care if he knew it. There was a glint of satisfaction in his eyes that warmed her to her toes.
Or was that the firestorm?
“Are you all right?” he asked, not for the first time in their acquaintance.
“Thirsty, hot, but otherwise uninjured.”
“Good. Let’s go.” He pivoted and tugged her toward the hole.
“We have to help the Wyvern,” Sara said, digging in her heels.
Sophie waved her fingertips at Quinn from the far side of the cabin. Sara felt Quinn jump in surprise. Sophie’s move showed that her hands were shackled together, a fact that couldn’t be missed when the chain jingled. “Hello, Smith.”
He paused for only a beat before stepping toward her. “Go, Sara. Jump!”
“I’ll help you.”
“It’ll be faster if you just go, Sara.”
“But…”
“Now!” Quinn roared. Sara turned to the dark hole just as the door to the cabin was opened. Sunlight flooded into the dark cabin, and she could see three men silhouetted in the doorway.
“Quinn,” she whispered. He took one look and shoved her toward the hole. Sara took the hint. Quinn leapt toward the Wyvern, obviously intending to pick her up and carry her. Sara wondered why the three Slayers didn’t even come over the threshold.
Were they afraid of Quinn?
Or of the Wyvern?
Then she saw that they were shimmering around their edges and all were exhaling in unison.
“Even the Seer is blind in a fog,” whispered the Wyvern.
Quinn glanced back and swore. Sara watched him, knowing he could see the smoke that the Slayers were exhaling. She understood from his grim expression and the direction of his glance that they were sending it toward the hole.
They were trying to block his escape.
And the smoke moved fast.
Quinn couldn’t believe how quickly the Slayers were breathing smoke. They created an incredible volume, breathing in unison, and it moved swiftly toward the hole that Rafferty had created for him. In the blink of an eye, he knew that he couldn’t reach the hole before the smoke if he took the extra steps to fetch the Wyvern.
But he couldn’t leave her.
“Go, Smith,” she whispered in old-speak. “You are the prey they seek.” He was still torn, but she dispatched her last command with force. “Breed for all of us.”
Put that way, Quinn had no choice. He leapt across the cabin, landing beside the hole just as the smoke edged to its rim. Sara had jumped down into it and he could see only her head. She pulled him over the lip and into the hole, pushing him in front of her.
The smoke tumbled over the lip of the hole in pursuit.
When the tunnel became horizontal, it was as tall as Quinn, by Rafferty’s design. He could stand upright, without a lot of extra space to walk.
“I want you in front of me,” Quinn argued but Sara poked at him from behind.
“It can’t hurt me the way it can hurt you. Run!”
Not for the first time, Quinn was glad that she was so sensible. He reached back and seized her hand, then ran. She stumbled behind him, tired and weak, and he squatted in front of her. “On my back.”
“We’ll be slowed down.”
“We’re already too slow. Move it.”
Sara put her hands around his neck and Quinn started to run. She swung up her legs and he caught her knees around his waist. She wasn’t that heavy and he felt better knowing precisely where she was.
The tunnel that Rafferty had opened was reasonably level, so even in the darkness Quinn didn’t slip. He had his sharp Pyr vision to guide him, as well. The smoke, however, was similarly unobstructed and it seemed to gain speed once it was swirling to fill the tunnel.
Or maybe the Slayers exhaled even faster.
Either way, Quinn quickly realized it would outrun him before he got to the other end. There was no going back to the cabin, either. He sent a thought to Niall in old-speak, hoping that they had made enough of a connection that the younger Pyr would hear him.
“They’re sending smoke into the tunnel behind me,” he murmured and felt the jolt of the other Pyr’s surprise.
Quinn didn’t know what would happen when the smoke reached the end of the tunnel. If it spilled out, would it injure the other two Pyr? Could it surround them and leave them trapped until the Slayers came to finish them off? Quinn realized that he didn’t know nearly enough about using smoke as a weapon.
Probably because he’d never thought of doing so before.
He was faintly aware of a change in the pitch of Rafferty’s song then. The other Pyr had sung to the earth to coax it into creating a fissure, then had chanted a low chorus that had persuaded the hole to broaden and become more round. Quinn had descended into the opening and followed its course as Rafferty compelled the earth to do his will.
It was much as Quinn sang to fire and metal, but the song had a different rhythm, one that sounded sufficiently alien to him that he couldn’t anticipate it.
He knew when it changed though and some deep old part of him seemed to recognize it.
Clumps of soil began to fall from the roof of the tunnel when Rafferty’s song changed. Quinn glanced back to see the tunnel closing behind him. It wasn’t tumbling in on itself: it was simply and seamlessly closing, as if it had never been there.
He was afraid then that Rafferty would close the tunnel, securing the safety of himself and Niall but condemning Quinn and Sara.
Sara swore. Quinn bolted.
Even if Rafferty intended to help him, how did the other Pyr know exactly where they were? Quinn ran even faster.
Sara’s fingers dug into his shoulders. “Quinn?”
“Rafferty’s closing the hole to seal off the smoke,” Quinn said between heaving breaths. He spoke as if he’d expected this, as there was no reason for her to be frightened.
More frightened.
He felt her glance back. “Can you run fast enough?”
“I have to.” Quinn pushed himself then, his feet pounding. He could see the light that marked his destination. A beam of sunlight fell through the opening, painting a golden circle on the floor of the tunnel.
Quinn had never been a runner. He was built too solid to be fast and he feared that he would let Sara down in the last minute.
He could hear the tunnel closing behind him. He looked back to find a persistent waft of smoke hard on his heels.
“A hundred steps,” Sara whispered into his ear. “You can do it. It’s not that far.”
Quinn ran faster. The sweat was running down his temples and streaming down his back. His grip on Sara’s knees was slippery and he had a moment’s fear that he would drop her.
She tightened her knees around him. “I’m not that easy to lose,” she murmured, knotting her fingers beneath his chin. “Fifty more steps, Quinn. Make them big ones. Fast ones. You can do it. One more. One more.” Her encouragement gave him strength and seemed to lend speed to his steps.
Then the smoke touched his heel and sent a vicious pain through his entire body. Quinn stumbled, came up gasping, and kept running.
“Twenty steps,” Sara urged. “Just eighteen more.”
They were nearing the closing point of the tunnel since his stumble and the dirt rained down upon them.
Quinn kept his focus on his goal.
The circle of light became bigger and brighter. He could see the green leaves and blue sky overhead. Niall’s head appeared as he looked; then he leaned over the edge and reached for Sara. Quinn swung her around and flung her into the other Pyr’s arms. He reached for the lip of the hole and the smoke that had been fast behind him caught him across the shin.
It was like a brand, searing his flesh, sucking the life out of him. Quinn shouted in pain and los
t his grip. His fingers scrabbled for a hold on the lip of the earthen hole, but he was shaking from exertion.
“Quinn!” Sara shouted in fear. She snatched at his wrist.
Niall grabbed Quinn’s other wrist, giving him a hearty tug. Quinn heard Rafferty’s song cease and knew what that meant. He scrambled to get his legs out of the hole. The smoke teased at his foot, a burning torment that made him want to scream. His left leg was numb from the knee down and felt useless.
Then the earth snapped shut, trapping Quinn’s wounded shin within its grip. Quinn couldn’t tug it free. He collapsed on the earth in exhaustion, fearing he was done.
He would be the lame Smith, after all.
Rafferty opened his eyes, leaned over, and whispered to the soil. He grabbed Quinn’s knee and pulled his leg free of the soil’s grip effortlessly.
Quinn just wanted to lie back and catch his breath, but Niall nudged him. “We’ve got to go. They’re coming after us.”
“How do you know?” Sara demanded, but Quinn knew better than to question the other Pyr’s counsel.
“He heard it in the wind,” Rafferty said with a smile, then caught Quinn under the elbow to help him get to his feet. “Can you carry your mate?”
“No one else will, so long as I have anything to say about it,” Quinn muttered and the other Pyr smiled.
“I had a feeling he’d say that,” he said to Sara, whose smile was more tentative. “He doesn’t need that leg to fly, at least.”
“Are you all right?” she whispered when Quinn caught her against his chest.
“Close enough, princess,” he said and shifted shape. She didn’t need to know that his leg was killing him, and that he was wondering whether he’d be able to walk or not.
They could work that out later.
The three Pyr took flight in unison. They exploded out of the leafy canopy of the copse of trees Rafferty had chosen. The sun was hot on Quinn’s back, sapping his strength a bit more. They were so close to victory: he couldn’t fail now.
Black-bellied thunderhead clouds were gathering on the horizon and there was a rumble of distant thunder. Three Slayers ascended in the distance, their silhouettes dark and menacing against the sky.