Source Fire: A Young Adult Fantasy (Arcturus Academy Book 5) Read online

  Ryan was nowhere to be seen.

  “The handsome chap with the perfect hair and glasses has to be Headmaster Chaplin,” Georjie said, gripping the dashboard as we took the steep downhill. “Who are the other three?”

  “The lady in the suit is Ms. Shepherd, she used to head the agency. She’s ex-military, and a natural. The other woman is one of the magi who met us in the Arctic. Her name is Shereen. The tanned guy is ex-mage, his name is Mehmet. He’s a tech-wizard.”

  “Poor guy, and she looks pissed.” Georjie undid her seatbelt as we came to a stop in front of the academy. It was clear who she was talking about. Shereen hadn’t cracked a smile since the accident on the tundra.

  “Yeah, that’s her face nowadays. Fred and Greg are friends of hers,” Tomio explained as he got out of the back seat.

  I introduced Georjayna to everyone. She shook hands and gave her sympathies.

  “Where’s Ryan?” I asked as we climbed the steps and passed into the lobby.

  “I’m here.” Ryan looked up from a sofa and stood, putting his phone into his pocket. His eyes fell on Georjie and he extended a hand. “You’re obviously Georjayna. Thanks for coming.”

  I was proud of Georjayna for not hesitating. She was cool but polite as she doffed her sunglasses and told Ryan it was good to meet him, too. She knew about all the conflict between us and had vented her frustration and anger on my behalf. I’d told her on our way through Dover how badly Ryan’s family had been impacted by Nero’s actions. She gave a grunt that could have been sympathy or could have meant he deserved it. It was hard to say.

  Georjie stood there in the lobby taking in the antique furniture, the old phone-box, the elegant second and third story railings and the chandelier. “I’m dying for a tour, but let’s do the remote viewing first. Where’s the sample?”

  Ms. Shepherd picked up her red satchel and produced the pile of rubble and debris that I’d collected. It had been transferred into a sturdy clear bag with a zip closure. She handed it over with a thinly veiled look of hopeful desperation. Georjie took the bag and examined the dirt through the clear plastic, a frown creasing her brows. The lobby went dead silent as she made her inspection, holding the bag up to the natural light streaming in through the lobby’s windows. All gazes were locked on the half-fae woman.

  “Looks volcanic,” she observed. “I’ve never looked into volcanic soil before. This should be interesting.”

  “Do you think it’ll be a problem?” I sounded calm but my pulse was jumping. I uttered a silent prayer that she’d be able to tell us something. Anything.

  She let the bag drop to her side and smiled. “Only one way to find out. I assume this place has a back yard? Outside is always best.”

  Like the perfect host, Basil gave a little bow and gestured to the hall leading to the nearest lounge, which had French doors opening to the rear terrace. “This way.”

  The headmaster and Georjie led the way, the rest of us following like ducklings. On the rear terrace, Georjie kicked off her sneakers and left them sitting on the pavement. She walked out onto the Academy’s lush grass, closing her eyes as her bare soles sank into the lawn. I could have imagined it, but I thought the leaves of nearby trees rustled more vigorously as she did this. We watched her, not sure what to do with ourselves.

  She looked up at the line of curious faces and laughed. “You can relax. This’ll take a few minutes.”

  She beckoned me over as the rest of our party sat on the stone benches. Georjie took my hand when I got close. She spoke quietly, so only I could hear. “Fyfa taught me something called endowment.”

  I gave a little gasp. “We have something called endowment, too.”

  Her brown eyes widened a fraction. “Does it mean you can temporarily share power with someone else?”

  “Sort of. Well, there’s two kinds. A Burned mage can pass fire into another mage for them to use, so yes. But there’s also plenary endowment, which is permanent.”

  “That’s what happened between you and Isaia?”

  I nodded.

  “We have a similar principle to the first version. Do you want me to endow you with whatever this dirt reveals, so you can see it too?” She held up the bag of volcanic rubble.

  My stomach fizzled with excitement, like I’d drunk too much soda pop. I hadn’t dreamed this was a possibility. “Absolutely.”

  She squeezed my hand. “I thought you’d be up for it. But be prepared. I’ve been told it’s disorienting to be on your end of it, especially for someone who’s not fae or Wise.”

  “What does it feel like?”

  She opened her mouth but hesitated, her gaze wistful. “I can’t tell you, especially since you’re a different species. Your experience might be completely different to mine. Fyfa endowed me to show me how it works, but it was really just like doing the viewing myself. No big deal.” She cocked her head and thought of something else. “I already told you I can now see them in color sometimes? It flickers in and out, I’m still working on it.”

  A burst of pride swelled in my chest. “You’re progressing.”

  “That’s what Stavarjak has done for me.” She dimpled. “And Lachlan, not to mention a few other things—”

  She halted, glancing briefly at our audience, and evidently decided now was not the right time to elaborate on the things Lachlan had done for her. We’d already been standing here with four pairs of eyes patiently—or impatiently, but they were quiet, so it was hard to tell—waiting for her to get information out of what was in the bag.

  “Take off your shoes.” She unlocked the zip-top. A fine puff of black powder, as light as air, emerged from the sack.

  Kicking off my sneakers, I peeled off my socks and stuffed them in the toes of my shoes, enjoying the damp, cool feeling of the well-tended grass.

  Georjie scooped a handful of the stuff out of the bag, then let the bag drop. She held her other hand out for me to take. Her eyes were already illuminated by a soft, white light.

  I took her hand…

  And went immediately and completely blind.

  “Georjie,” I gasped, clenching her hand. But I could no longer feel her hand in mine, or the academy’s lawn beneath my bare soles, which went so much deeper than the grass now. I stiffened and my eyes stretched wide as grays and blues and blacks swirled and flecked in front of me. It felt as though roots had shot from the soles of my feet, thrusting deep into the pedolith, searching, probing, sucking up information.

  A slender form took shape beside me, wavering and flickering in hues of white and pale blue.

  “Georjie?”

  “I’m here.” Her features sharpened, every detail of her now as clear against the backdrop of grainy texture as my own when I looked in a mirror. But there was something different about her.

  “Your ears.”

  Georjie had told me her pointed ears only manifested when she was in Stavarjak. I had never seen them for myself.

  She smiled. “Look around you. Do you know where we are?”

  I pulled my eyes away from her to focus on the setting, feeling a wave of vertigo as our location flickered in and out of focus.

  It was the blast site, only there were no black marks or darkened surfaces. I recognized the location by the cleft in the rock, the overhang, and the stones themselves. There was no rubble, but beneath the overhang, where we’d seen what looked like the remains of the broken sculpture, the rocks were large and whole. They were also hiding something smooth and shiny, the only black thing against a field of gray.

  Nothing moved, and there was no sound. I looked at Georjie, standing beside me, waiting.

  Her eyes glowed with that ethereal light. “Time is stopped. When you’re ready and you can see well, I’ll let it go on.”

  “How do you know where we are in time?”

  “I don’t, exactly. But the soil knows whatever it is that we are seeking to learn. It wants to give up its secrets.”

  I tried to take a step, but at first, I couldn’t lift
my foot off the ground. Then, like parting magnets, I dislodged myself and moved closer to the overhang for a better look. The background flickered in varying shades of gray, like an old damaged film, making it hard to walk without shooting my arms out for balance. The smooth black shape revealed itself as I went around the rocks. Georjie walked with me, holding my hand. I had to sit down hard as the blood rushed from my head and my vision dimmed at the edges.

  “Are you alright?” Georjie’s voice brought me back.

  I nodded, but couldn’t find words as the hairs on my arms and legs stood on end.

  It was a sculpture, we’d been right about that. But it was not a large egg, or a vase. It was a man. He lay reclined in the dirt, in a relaxed position. He was naked, totally unfettered by so much as a loincloth or an earring, with smooth and perfect limbs. He appeared to be carved of obsidian or onyx, but neither was quite right. His shoulders were narrow but ropy and taut with muscle. His stomach had more fat than a typical sculpture might have if it was made to capture male beauty. It hadn’t been made for that purpose, though, that was obvious by his posture. It looked like some artist had seen a sleeping man, and had been inspired to sculpt a rendering of him just as he slumbered.

  But it was his face that took my breath from my mouth and set electricity shooting through my nerves. It was fierce and familiar, even while it was relaxed, a slight smile curving the generous lips. The eyes were open, solid black and glinting. His hair was long and wild, half tied back, revealing a thinning hairline. Lines ran through his forehead and cheeks, bringing age and character to his features.

  Here was the prominent visage I had seen while traveling through the orb, at the end of my journey, looming like an exclamation point or the crescendo of a symphony.

  When I found my voice, I told Georjie: “This is the sculpture of a man I saw when I heated the orb. I don’t understand what it’s doing here, or what it’s made of. Do you know?”

  She crouched, observing the sculpture through a soft, respectful gaze. “If he’s made of the same stuff you gave me, it’s unique. A bit like charcoal, only it has more energy.”

  “Supernatural effluent,” I murmured. “Maybe it has permeated the stone, whatever this was carved from. It was obviously carved by a mage.”

  This sculpture lay at the epicenter of the effluent we were using to track Nero. It wasn’t the place, leeching elemental magic, it was this perfectly formed piece of art. When I thought of it as art, my mind veered to the orbs, and I wondered if they’d been made by the same artist. I thought it possible, maybe even likely, though the orbs had not been manufactured from this shiny, black stuff.

  “Are you ready to see what happens?” Georjie asked in a low voice.

  A deep sadness came over me, because I already knew that this priceless creation would be destroyed. How didn’t seem to matter as much as why. “I’m ready.”

  Moving away from the sculpture and the overhang it hid beneath, we retreated to the clearing.

  Little tufts of grass began to move with a breeze, as Georjie let the timeline play. Wind whistled over and through the rocks. Illumination appeared in the cleft between the rocks, brightening. A figure followed, a figure on fire with unnatural flames. Nero. His whole body was ignited, his eyes were two white windows, not soft white like Georjie’s, but sharp, like lit fuses. He wore black clothing I recognized as fireproof. It too, was alight. Nero’s face was smooth, his expression calm, and his walk into the clearing, confident. No, he didn’t walk, he seared his way into the rocky glade, scorching the air with an unnatural, caustic heat. He knew exactly what he was doing and precisely what he would find here. He crossed the clearing. There was a momentary flicker of color, and I took in a breath. His body was consumed by licks and flashes of orange, pink and yellow. If I hadn’t been observing my enemy, I would have been awed by the rainbow beauty of his appearance.

  He made a sound like high winds as he passed us by, like a lot of air compressed through a small open door, heading straight for the sculpture. Wherever he stepped he left black footprints, the edges of which seeped outward, expanding as puddles of obsidian dust.

  I wanted to scream as he stopped at the overhang, looking down at the sculpture with those blank, blazing eyes.

  Georjie moved with me so the rocks didn’t block our view. I wanted to look away. What Nero was about to do seemed so much more horrifying than someone simply destroying art. I began to shiver and quake as the desire to stop Nero became nearly overwhelming. Georjie’s hand tightened around mine and she murmured something in a soothing tone, though I was too disturbed to pay attention to her words.

  Nero made a fist, and cocked it.

  I sucked in a breath and winced, wishing I could tear my eyes away.

  He rammed the fist into the sculpture’s chest. A fracture appeared there. He struck the same place, again and again, tirelessly, brutally. He did not stop until the chest contained a jagged hole. Using his fingers, he pried away shards, revealing a thick-walled but hollow interior. A new glow sprang up against Nero’s face, an illumination flickering from within the sculpture’s chest. Nero himself flickered in and out of color, and so did the light licking out from inside the form.

  It was violet.

  I felt like crying. My throat closed up, my eyes stung.

  Nero reached into the cavity, his hands disappearing behind ragged, broken edges. When they emerged, they held a beautiful violet flame, the size and shape of a heart. It pulsed in his grip, just like a heartbeat, bright then soft, bright then soft.

  “Oh, Saxony.” Georjie’s whisper made me choke back a sob.

  I understood what was happening to my people, what had happened to so many of them already. As Nero held the violet fire in his hands, its pulses slowed, a heart being drained of blood. The violet light infused his hands, then traveled up his arms. It reflected in his eyes. Two points of dying purple light.

  It was like watching someone kill a helpless animal.

  At this very same moment in time, we’d been rolling across the tundra on those amphibious vehicles.

  The violet light shrank and diminished, growing ever weaker, ever smaller, until it was completely gone, absorbed by the mage who’d destroyed its immortal resting place.

  The sculpture had not been a sculpture. The sculpture had been a mage. A progenitor, and the father of all the violet magi who’d come after. His remains had held the source of his offspring’s fire for centuries, maybe millennia. And now that source was gone. Swallowed up. Eliminated, and with it, all those flames who’d come after.

  When there was no trace that there had ever been a violet fire save for the occasional flickering addition of its hue to Nero’s dazzling form, Nero used his foot to stomp out the rest of the sculpture. This time it fractured to pieces like glass. It was brittle, fragile, so easy to crumble, now that its fire was gone.

  “Take me back,” I choked out, tearing my eyes from Nero and the remains of the violet father. “I’ve seen enough.”

  Georjie tipped her hand and let the dirt fall.

  I fell with it.

  My senses sharpened as color and present reality washed over me like ice-water. The ground released its hold on me and the feeling of my legs and feet unexpectedly liberated made me lose my balance.

  Georjie caught me as I fell, my face hot with tears. “I’m so sorry.”

  I sobbed into her shoulder as she lowered me to the ground. I felt as if my heart was breaking. I felt somehow, that I’d known the violet progenitor. He’d once been alive, powerful, he’d loved and lost, had been a father, and a chieftain or a leader. His demise represented the violence that every mage whose fire had been snuffed had suffered. I tried to control my weeping but it was futile, my body wracked with sobs that would not be held in. I’d witnessed something more horrible than anything else I had ever seen. There’d been no blood, no gore, no pain for the victim, yet it had been indescribably, unbearably brutal.

  “It was awful,” said Georjie softly, as she h
eld me, speaking over my head to the others.

  My friends gathered around where we’d collapsed on the grass. They were upset by the spectacle of my emotions spilling out all over the lawn. They whispered words of comfort, but had no clue as to what Georjie and I had seen. They were confused and at a loss.

  Tomio was there, I felt him touch my shoulder, and rub a hand across my back. I felt the care in his gesture, his intense desire to make everything ok. But it wasn’t okay, because there was no way to put that violet fire back, or any of the other idles that Nero had stolen.

  9

  Mystery Delivery

  “This came for you.” Tomio, carrying a box, entered the first-year student’s lounge where Georjie and I were having coffee and catching up.

  While Basil and Ms. Shepherd worked with their people to nail down the location of Nero’s next target, Georjie distracted me with stories about her friends in Stavarjak, Fyfa and Laec. She told me how amazing it had been to be get to know her father and her fae heritage, and waxed mournfully about the history of the Wise and their persecution as witches in the middle ages. But mostly she talked about Lachlan, and as she did, her face and tone took on the trappings of love; her eyes shone, her lips curved in a sappy smile.

  I was happy for my friend and her new life away from Saltford, but it was difficult to allow myself to be fully absorbed by her amazing descriptions of the fae realm and its queen while my own people were under such threat. It felt like watching a hurricane barrel down upon us, watching it gather force and knowing it would hit with biblical-level fury, and there was nothing that anyone could do about it. Indeed, the storm had already struck the majority of us, the damage already done. How bereft magi reacted to the loss was difficult to predict, I’d explained to Georjie. Some ended their own lives while others seemed almost grateful to have been unburdened of their searing internal presence.