It wasn’t fire that Echo encountered when she followed Dorian through the red door.
It was lava.
Well, that’s new.
One would have thought that a pit of molten lava would have warmed the antechamber they had just been in due to its proximity, but Echo hadn’t felt the slightest hint of warmth radiating from the stone. The temperature had been as moderate as the rest of the temple, which was in itself strange, now that she thought about it.
A narrow stone bridge – wide enough for only one person to cross at a time – ran the length of the room, joining the landing on which they stood to an identical one on the other side. That landing had a door much like the one through which they had just entered. An array of figures and symbols had been carved into the walls. Echo recognized a few Drakharin runes here and there, peppered among drawings of dragons in flight.
On either side of the bridge were rectangular pools of bubbling magma. Every now and then, a jet of boiling fluid would shoot off like a small geyser, splashing the stones of the bridge. Anyone standing upon it would have been severely burned.
It said something about Echo’s chronically perturbed state of mind that she found the presence of unthinkably hot magma more comforting than the fire she had expected.
The three of them stood on a stretch of stone tiles that ran the length of the wall they were all pressed against.
“So, who wants to go first?” Jasper asked. It was abundantly clear from his tone that he was not about to volunteer.
Before Dorian could indulge in more selfless heroics, Echo stepped onto the first tile of the bridge. It felt much narrower when she was standing on it, bracketed by those wicked pools of bubbling magma. The stone was so hot beneath her feet she could feel it through the soles of her boots. She hoped they didn’t melt.
“Does anyone else feel like they’re trapped inside a Super Mario game?” Jasper asked from his perch on the tiles by the door. He hadn’t budged.
Dorian followed Echo onto the bridge. “Who is Mario and why is he super?”
“Oh, Dorian. I have so much to teach you,” said Jasper. With extremely reluctant steps, he followed Dorian onto the bridge, eyes on the spurting lava to his left, the glow of the magma reflected in their yellow depths.
Their banter soothed Echo somewhat – as much as one could be soothed when there was a very real possibility of dying like Gollum clutching the ring of power in the fires of Mordor. At least it would make for an interesting obituary. We regretfully announce the passing of Echo, no last name. She bit it in a pit of lava. It was excruciating, but she was comforted in her final moments by the thought of how badass it would make her obit sound.
About halfway across the bridge, Echo felt the sudden spike of magic in the air. It crackled like static electricity, raising the hair on the back of her neck. She stopped.
“Something’s up,” she said.
“Is your spidey sense tingling?” Jasper asked. To Dorian, he added, “Spider-Man. I’ll explain later.”
The reference may have been meant in jest, but it wasn’t too far from the truth.
She’s here, whispered a voice at the back of Echo’s mind. The spirits of the vessels – more like metaphysical fingerprints, according to the Ala – swirled around Echo’s skull like a flock of agitated ghosts.
“Who?” Echo asked, ignoring the quizzical glances Dorian and Jasper directed her way.
The second the word left her lips, Echo realized what a hugely stupid question it was. There was only one she who could drive the spirits of firebirds past to that sort of frenzy, stirred up by Rose’s fear. Her terror was a rich and heady thing. It made Echo’s muscles freeze and joints lock like a deer caught in the lights of an oncoming car.
“What is it, Echo?” Dorian asked. “What do you see that we don’t?”
Echo shook her head. “Nothing. There’s nothing there, but I feel …”
She closed her eyes and extended her senses the same way she had in the room that contained the moat that wasn’t just a moat, attempting to detect something the room didn’t want her to see. A swell of magic countered Echo’s tentative exploration. It came at her with such force that she nearly lost her footing. If not for Dorian grabbing her arm tightly to steady her, she would have plummeted face-first into the magma.
“Tanith,” Echo gasped. “She’s here.”
Dorian swore in rapid Drakhar and attempted to position himself in front of Echo, but the bridge was too narrow.
“Where is she?” asked Jasper. “I don’t see anything, but I don’t have your firebird sixth sense.”
It was a good question. There was no one else in the chamber, nor was there a place for someone to hide. All around them was stone and lava. No obstructions. No alcoves. But there was the magic. And if magic could make solid ground look like a bottomless pit, then magic could hide a single Drakharin woman, especially one as powerful as Tanith was with the kuçedra tucked away inside her.
“If there’s going to be a fight,” Jasper said, “we’re – how do I put this delicately – screwed.” He had one hand on Dorian’s forearm. His grip looked tight enough to hurt, but Dorian allowed it.
“Back up,” said Dorian. “Get to the wall.” He began to guide Jasper back to the landing with careful steps lest accident claim their lives before Tanith could.
“Echo?” Dorian called. She didn’t follow them.
Jasper wasn’t wrong. On the narrow bridge, there would be no room to maneuver. The stone landing by the door through which they’d entered was better but only marginally so. Echo felt Tanith’s presence, mingled with the familiar sensation of the kuçedra’s influence. Every person’s magic had a unique aura, and Echo had felt Tanith’s power months ago, in the Black Forest, and then again at Avalon. Only here it wasn’t Tanith’s aura alone.
A presence pulled at Echo, as if beckoning her to step forward, to keep walking the length of the bridge. It felt the way an oil slick looked, darkly beautiful but toxic. The power of the firebird thrummed in Echo’s veins. It surged forward, as if yearning to be free of its mortal cage to pursue that dark force calling to it.
Opposites attract, Echo thought.
The kuçedra and the firebird. The dark and the light. Two sides of the same coin.
“You want my magic?” Echo let the energy slide outward from her core, down her arms, into her hands. It came easily. Painlessly. It wanted out, so she let it flow through her. “Come and get it.”
“Now, now, little Firebird. Sheathe your claws.”
Tanith’s voice appeared before her body did. She materialized at the other end of the bridge, coalescing from a swirl of dark smoke. She looked at home amid the lava and the stone. Her hair fell free around her shoulders, wisps of it defying gravity to halo her face in a golden cloud. She wore a scarlet gown, as dark as freshly spilled blood. It had been a fine gown once, but the hem was in tatters. Her feet were bare, and her calves streaked with blackened veins. Her hands were so thoroughly coated in blood that at first glance Echo thought she was wearing gloves.
Tanith was a horror to behold, but it was her eyes that made a shiver run up Echo’s spine. The irises were no longer crimson, but as black as coal.
Vermilion lips cracked into something too mad to be called a smile.
“I was wondering when you would show up, Firebird.” Tanith took a step toward Echo, her bare feet leaving charred footprints on the stone. “I knew it wouldn’t take long. Lay a little cheese in the trap and snap” – Tanith clapped loudly – “the mouse is caught.”
Echo widened her stance, planting her boots as solidly on the precarious bridge as she could. “I forgot how much you love the sound of your own voice. I can’t say I missed it.”
Tanith blinked at Echo as if she had said something in ancient Greek. “My brother doesn’t know what he has, does he? The love of one” – that smile widened – “no … not one … two, the love of two hearts so devoted.”
“Look, can we just skip the half-crazed preamble and get on with it?” Echo let the fire in her hands crackle to life. “If we’re gonna fight, then let’s get to it. The less I have to look at your ugly mug, the better.”
Tanith gazed at Echo with that uncomprehending stare. Slowly, the black bled out of her eyes. Her brows pinched and her lips turned down slightly. “I have no wish to fight you. Not now.” She looked down at her hands as if confused by the presence of blood on them.
“It’s a trick,” said Dorian. Echo didn’t risk glancing at him, but she was confident he was brandishing his sword, ready to fight.
Echo didn’t buy it either.
“I never meant for this to happen,” Tanith said distantly. Echo felt suddenly superfluous. “I wanted power, but not at such a cost. Not at the cost of his life. That was never my intention.”
A mad laugh bubbled forth from Tanith’s lips. “How strange that it has come to this.”
Her attention returned to Echo. The black capillaries in her eyes had returned and were becoming more prominent. The red of her irises retreated from the encroaching darkness.
“Consider this a gift,” said Tanith. “My first – and final – act of mercy. My goodwill will not last. Not with this beast inside me. It will not be denied. Not by me, not by you. There is only one way forward, and I have no doubt you will not appreciate it.” She frowned again. “But there are some lines not even I will cross, no matter what the beast bids me to do. There may come a day when I claim my brother’s life, but that day is not today.”
With that, she disappeared.
One minute, Tanith was there. The next, she was gone. Not a swirl of smoke was left in her wake. Even the blackened footprints she had left upon the stone were gone. It was as if she had never been there. And maybe she hadn’t.
Echo sent out a tendril of her own magic, feeling for the stain of the kuçedra’s presence that she had sensed before. There was nothing besides the old, thrumming energy of the temple.
“Was that a hologram?” Echo asked. “Like, a magic hologram? Do those exist?”
“I don’t know what a hologram is, but if you mean do magical projections exist, then yes,” Dorian replied. Echo didn’t take her eyes off the spot where Tanith had stood, but she heard the whisper of steel being slid into a sheath as Dorian put up his sword. There would be no fight today. One was brewing, inexorable and imminent, but it seemed they would have today as a reprieve.
Silently, Jasper came up behind Echo. “Did you notice that she didn’t actually reply to anything you said?”
“Now that you mention it,” Echo said, “yeah. It was almost like a recording.”
“Magic voice mail,” Jasper said.
Dorian approached. “That was unexpected. But if Tanith did leave some kind of projection, why would she leave it here?”
“Fire magic,” Echo said. “That’s what powers this chamber. Maybe she felt strongest here?”
Dorian nodded. “Perhaps she needed that connection to battle the pull of the kuçedra. She did say she was acting against its wishes.”
“By leaving Caius here,” Echo finished. She began walking toward the door Tanith – or her projection – had blocked. “And you know what? I don’t really care how or why this is happening, but if she was telling the truth, then I’m not leaving Caius here a moment longer.”
“Agreed,” Dorian said, hot on her heels. When they got to the door, Dorian reached over Echo’s shoulder to touch it. There was no rune, but the stone glowed faintly in the shape of his handprint and then slid open, revealing a dark chamber and another door – a plain wooden one, also free of runic inscriptions – set into the opposite wall.
“Let’s go find him,” Dorian said.
Tanith’s perplexing presence opened up a whole host of questions that would need answering eventually, but right now Echo cared about only two: where was Caius, and what had his wretched sister done to him?