Drowning in Fire

SEVENTEEN

The Airs refused to let Aya leave until the funeral was over. She sat on the steps of the false church, arms wrapped around her knees, the cold air trying to bite through the impenetrable grass suit. The freeze barraged her face, however, and the sting of it pulled tears from her eyes.

Real tears. Human tears.

The wind shifted, bringing with it the stench of the funeral pyre being lit on the far end of the compound. When it was over, they would name a new leader. Though she hoped it would be Aaron, there were no guarantees. And she, as a Senatus delegate, was required to remain here until she’d been given the name of the new appointee.

Did it really matter? Aya longed to escape out to open space, to dive into the earth and search for Nem, to confront him about what he’d done to Keko and Griffin. To forget about what she’d witnessed here, and how she could have ever found someone like Jason so compelling.

Today marked the first day that she wore human skin but desperately wanted to strip out of it.

A group of Airs turned the corner and entered the square, a low mumble of voices preceding their appearance. Aaron marched at the head, talking and gesturing to Nancy, who walked closely beside him.

Aya rose as Aaron stopped at the foot of the stairs.

“It’s me.” He set one foot on the second step. “I’m officially the Air Senatus delegate. I may have jumped the gun a bit when I told Griffin by phone earlier that a new premier wouldn’t be voted upon until he returned, but it’s what the premier—” He cleared his throat and paused, glancing at his shoes. “It’s what Charles would’ve wanted. He was coming around, with regard to Griffin, you know.”

At least there was that, that Aaron would wait to see what happened with Griffin before making a motion to vote on the new premier.

She nodded to cover her despair and loss. “May I go now? There’s a matter with my people I need to attend to.”

He regarded her for a long moment. “That Son of Earth who went after Keko? Charles told me about it. Yes, you need to take care of that.” He waved off Nancy, who started to come forward. “I’ll take Aya to the gate myself.”

As they approached the gate it opened for her again, this time onto a brilliantly sunlit field. Aya faced her new equal on the Senatus. “I’m so sorry about what’s happened here.”

Aaron pursed his lips, enhancing the wrinkles that radiated out from them. “And I’m sorry you had to witness it. But it concerns my people alone and you shouldn’t think about it. The traitor will be dealt with. He’s a repeat offender, and that is that.”

Aya peered into the angular shadows lying down between the labyrinth of tightly knit buildings. Killers deserved their punishments, she told herself, and this was a Secondary matter dealing with an issue within a single race. It had nothing to do with humans, who were her utmost priority. Aaron was right; she shouldn’t think on it anymore.

Yet as she bowed her head to Aaron and finally stalked out into the open field, striding for the tree in the distance whose bare, clacking branches whipped in the swift wind, she did think about Jason. How she’d apparently gotten him all wrong, and how disturbing that was to a human mind. How she’d been so terribly mistaken when she’d thought she’d seen personal pain and a deep regret in his troubled eyes when she’d first met him, and then his enraged defiance, vehement denial, and total confusion as he’d been shoved down the stairs in custody.

The frozen cornfield seemed to elongate with every step, so she took to running to erase the space quicker. When she finally crested the small rise before the dirt road that stretched one way to nowhere and the other way to nothing, her legs were tired and her lungs burned from inhaling so much cold air. Normally she would have reveled in such human sensations, but now all she wanted was to merge with the crust, tap into the great web of the earth, and locate Nem.

Coming down the small hill to the patch of untouched ground between two of the tree’s major roots, she froze—as suddenly and with as much terror as the moment when Griffin had destroyed half that Chimeran warrior’s arm. For there, wedged underneath a layer of bark starting to peel itself away from the tree, flapped a tattered yellow sunflower petal.

She fell to her knees. The strength in her body just gave out and the earth shot up to meet her. To cradle her. Almost instantly, the smooth, pliable magic grass garment that had protected her body started to merge back with the dirt. She let it, because she could not focus on anything but the fact that Nem had been here.

He’d followed her again.

And she knew, without a doubt, that Nem had been the one to slit the premier’s throat. Not Jason.

Days ago on the Aran Islands she’d witnessed a murderous intent cross Nem’s face. Back then it had been directed at Keko, his duty as Source guardian sewn into his Children’s blood. Even though he’d given his word, Nem had gone after Keko anyway. And he’d failed.

So he’d switched his focus and gone after the premier, whom Nem believed had given the no-kill order. The fact that Jason had been there—the very air elemental Nem had accused Aya of wanting more than him—had given him the perfect opportunity to escape. The perfect person to frame.

Aya shuddered. The cold wind of the great Canadian prairie finally seeped into the grass that was trying desperately to make root again around her. She started to shiver.

No, not from the cold. It was the fact that Nem, a Son of Earth, had chosen humanity for her, and humanity had turned on him. Twisted his mind. Disagreed with his choice. His descent was ugly and irreversible and she had to stop him before he hurt someone else. Before something even bigger and more devastating happened.

There was only punishment left for him, a lifetime of sunless days and gasping for thin air Within. She needed to find him. She needed to tell the Father what he’d done.

She needed to tell Aaron that Jason was innocent.

Ill and desperate, Aya yanked herself free from the restraining ground and pulled protective magic around her again. Coming to stand on wobbling legs, she started back up the rise, the expanse of field stretching far, far back to the white walls.

A terrible realization stopped her dead, erecting an invisible barricade that prevented her from taking another step.

The truth about the former premier’s murder would bring war.

How could she run back into the compound and admit that one of her own people had somehow snuck beyond the walls and killed the air elemental leader?

Conversely, how could she let Jason take the fall for something she had had a distant hand in causing?

The earth reached up and grabbed her. Pulled her down and tried to embrace her. To tell her exactly what she had to do. Where her true loyalties lay.

It hurt so much, this choice. How could anyone live with this? Live through this and come out alive when it was over? It was a physical pain that inhabited the entire place where her organs should be. Her body curled into itself, but the position did nothing other than remind her how small she was, and how she had to fit so much into that little, evolving heart and mind.

A rumble started in the distance—the insistent whir of a car’s engine getting louder and louder as it came down the dirt road. Aya had to reach deep for the earth’s magic to camouflage her body where it lay on its side atop the rise. She was weak. Too far away from the untouched spot on the earth. And too human. But she managed to assume the disguise as the car rolled by, appearing as just another bump on the half-frozen, snow-dusted ground.

She lay there for a long time, watching the car become smaller and smaller until it finally disappeared. Though she did not believe in signs or omens, the appearance of the human’s vehicle had seemed to make her choice, and it left her as lonely and empty as this very spot in the world.

If she told Aaron about Nem, the Children’s position in the Senatus—carefully planned and positioned over centuries and centuries—would be annihilated. All the jockeying they’d done to keep the Secondaries together and under the Children’s watch would disappear.

If she told Aaron about Nem, war between the Secondaries would seep into the human world. It would destroy parts of their planet and it would endanger innocents. In the end, everything had to come down to her sister race. Humanity’s existence relied on peace.

With a dreadful tremor that shimmied from her crown to her toes, she let the earth take her back in. Swallow her. The rock and dirt and clay ground her up. She felt no better in tinier pieces.

She would hunt Nem, she decided. But the secret truth behind the murder would have to remain her own.

• • •

Griffin dragged his feet away from the B and B. Hilo. He had to get to Hilo. That’s where she’d try to get a boat, but with what money? What was she thinking? If he could get there quickly, he could try to reason with her once she’d cooled off.

Except that she’d made it pretty damn clear that reasoning with her would be like slamming his head against a wall.

She hadn’t killed him, but she’d thrown some serious, scary magic at him. Knocked him out so good he still heard the bells, and he was still trying to get his vision to realign.

He jogged as fast as he was able, but already he needed a bit of rest. Using his own magic was out of the question, at least until it had some time to regenerate. That heat she’d blasted at him had boiled his water to uselessness. Time. He just needed a little more time to recover, then he could hunt again.

Ahead stood a one-pump gas station that looked like it had been caught in a 1975 time warp. He snuck around to the back of it and collapsed against a cracked concrete wall. Exhausted, legs pulled to his chest, forehead resting on his knees, he fought for his equilibrium.

I love you.

Those words gave him the tiniest edge of hope to grab and hold. His fingers were worn and bloody, his muscles shorting out and his heart in tatters, but he’d fucking well cling to that edge.

“Fuck.” Griffin’s arm flew out to the side, his fist hitting the concrete. A chunk of it, painted pale green, crumbled off and fell to the dirt.

On the front side of the gas station, a screen door opened and slammed. Two voices—one male, one female—drifted back to where Griffin hid. They sounded worried, their tone clearer than their words. Griffin thought he heard the word fire tossed about. He couldn’t be sure, but his stomach dropped anyway.

No, Keko wouldn’t. He shook his head, choosing to believe she wouldn’t have done anything to harm Primaries. She was many things, but not that kind of woman. She knew her battles, and right now her only opponent was him.

He peeked around the gas station corner and saw the rotund figures of a man and woman hurrying up the road in the direction from which he’d come.

Griffin pushed to his feet. He still needed time to recover, and if those two had been the only employees inside, they’d just given him a good opportunity. He slunk around to the front of the station. The place was empty, the door laughably locked. The screen in the door gave way under his fist, he undid the feeble latch meant to keep it locked, and the hinges screeched as he let himself in. A phone hung on the wall behind the cash register and he snatched it up, pulling the cord over the counter so he could stand in the aisle and keep an eye out for the returning couple.

He got an answer on the third ring. Gwen still picked up her phone even when she didn’t recognize the number of the caller. She’d told him once that after all she’d been through, she never knew who might be calling, who might need her help. When Griffin heard his friend’s voice answer with a terse “Hello,” he’d never been so grateful for a practice he’d once chastised her for.

“It’s Griffin.”

Gwen exhaled. “Great stars, Griffin, it’s been days. I thought I’d hear from you sooner. Or at least get word through the Senatus.”

“Not from the premier you won’t. He’s dead. Bad situation I don’t know much about. Things are a little . . . up in the air right now.”

“Are you okay? You don’t sound so good.”

He glanced down at his body. “I’m alive.”

By the way she paused, he knew she was about to say something she didn’t want to. “I’m sure you don’t want to hear this, but your cabinet is restless, and when they get like that, they talk. They hate not knowing where you are, what you’re doing, and they’re letting all Ofarians know it. You’re going to have your own bad situation on your hands when you get back. You might . . . Griffin, I’ll just say it. They’re talking about deposing you.”

That was a new one. Grinding a heel of one hand into his eye socket, he took pleasure from the burst of stars that came out behind his eyelid. He didn’t want to hear about his cabinet or his office right now. There were bigger things to worry about.

“Listen, Gwen. Things have . . . changed.”

“Did you find Keko? Are you with her?”

The ache in his chest burned with her absence.

“I was,” he replied. “Then I lost her. And I think—oh God, Gwen—I think I might have to let her go. I think I might have to let her get to the Source.”

Gwen’s tone shifted from that of worried friend to concerned Ofarian. Which was exactly what he needed. “You can’t. That’s not why you went there.”

“I know I can’t. But . . . oh fuck, Gwen.” The hand that didn’t grip the phone tapped incessantly on the counter. “I think . . . I think I love her. And the only way she’ll ever believe how I feel is if I let her go after the Source, let her do this one thing that means more to her than anything, far more than me. The one thing that she believes will make her whole.”

“The Children will kill her before she ever gets it, Griffin.”

“I know! You don’t think I know that?”

The pause on the other end was interminable. “There’s more you aren’t telling me.”

He barked a short, hard laugh. “A lot more. And if I could tell you, I’m pretty sure you’d agree with me.”

“I probably would. You sure you can’t say anything?”

“No. I really can’t.”

He could almost hear her nodding. “Okay, then. You called for a reason. What do you need from me?” This was the Gwen he knew and treasured—the Gwen who’d never backed down from a challenge and whose mind knew all too well how to parse the personal from the political, the heart from the head.

“I just need you to listen. I’m trying to work shit out in my head.”

“I’m here.”

Yes, she was. And he could trust her.

He scratched at his face and neck. “So I go after her. Stop her. Drag her back to the Senatus and get my seat. Save the fucking world from breaking apart or whatever it is the Children fear. Yay. I’ll get everything I want by surrendering the one person I desire. Keko is alive but all her hate for me is validated. I’m nothing but a liar and a traitor, and in her eyes I’ll never be able to climb out of that pit.”

“Did she really say she hated you?”

“Yes. After she told me she loved me.”

Gwen whistled. “Wow, all right.”

“So I have to let her get killed to prove my honesty? To prove how I feel? That’s such bullshit.”

“You’ll lose your chance at a Senatus seat if you do that.”

“Fuck the Senatus. I want what’s best for Ofarians, and if I have to find another way, I’ll do it.”

At length Gwen said, “You know what I think?”

“No. Please tell me. I’m flailing over here.”

“I think you should talk to someone else.”

“David?” Griffin could use a good slap in the face. David was much less diplomatic than Gwen.

“No, not David.”

And she gave him a name he hadn’t expected.

He hung up with Gwen and reached over the counter to dial a new number. As it rang, he pushed aside the flapping portion of the door screen to see if the gas station owners were returning. The coast was still clear.

As someone picked up, the explosion of chaos on the other end of the line—music and the TV and young voices—had Griffin pinching the bridge of his nose to stave off emotion.

“Hello?” A deep, skeptical voice.

“Pop, it’s me.”

“Griffin.” He heard the familiar creak of the old couch as his father got off it.

“That’s Griffin?” called his mother in the background. “Is he okay?”

“Where the hell are you?” Pop demanded. “Everyone’s—”

“I’m sorry.” The apology was as much for interrupting his father as it was for his unexplained disappearance. “I’m fine, I promise. Is Henry around?”

“Henry?” Griffin heard his dad’s curiosity, but didn’t want to add anything more. “Yeah, he’s in his room. I’ll get him. You sure you’re okay?”

Griffin wasn’t remotely sure, but he said he was anyway.

The door to Henry’s room opened and a stream of really bad dance music tumbled out. “Turn that off,” their father shouted over it. “Your brother’s on the phone.”

The music cut. “Which one?” Henry asked.

“Pop?” Griffin said before the phone was handed over.

“Yes?”

“You didn’t hear from me today. No one in the family did. Okay?”

“I can’t at least tell people you’re all right?”

“No.” Griffin hated to do this. “And that’s an order. Please.”

Pop sighed. “Absolutely.” Then, “Come home safe.”

There was shuffling as the phone traded hands.

“Hey, buddy,” Griffin said.

“Griff!”

“How are you?”

“Good, I guess. Got a B on my math test yesterday. Thought you’d like to hear that.” There was very little excitement in Henry’s voice.

“I do. Wow, buddy, that’s great.”

Griffin’s chest filled up so suddenly and sharply he had to brace himself against the counter to keep his balance.

“So, ah,” Griffin said, “I was thinking that when I get back, I’d like to spend a little time with you at the gym. Help you out, like you asked.”

Henry gasped. “For real?”

The boy’s eagerness and excitement splintered Griffin’s emotions and shifted some muddy areas of thinking back into alignment. Sometimes Gwen was a genius.

Henry wanted nothing more than to follow in his parents’ and brothers’ and sisters’ footsteps, to become a soldier worthy of wearing the Ofarian black. To protect the race. To make his leader, and oldest brother, proud.

So who the hell was Griffin to deny him that? What gave Griffin the right to try to steer a boy into a life track he didn’t want to enter in the first place? How did that make Griffin any better than the old Board? It was Henry’s choice to make. It was Henry’s heart and passion on the line, and it was Griffin’s job to support him in whatever that was.

Griffin could, however, do exactly as he just professed to Gwen. He could still try to pave the way for other Ofarian kids who wanted to branch out. He could still focus on expanding their options, and that, in turn, would end up helping Henry.

There, in a dingy Hawaiian gas station, with Keko sprinting toward the first boat she saw, Griffin grinned at his baby brother through the phone.

“For real,” he said. “I’ll even help you with the formal training application if you want. But you gotta know I’m not going to pull any strings or anything. You want to do this, you do it with your own skills. You got that, soldier?”

“Aw, yeah!” The books and academic trophies on Henry’s shelves rattled as the kid jumped up and down.

“You and me, bud,” he added. “When I get back. I promise.”

Griffin twisted his head to the side and had to focus hard on an old Camel cigarettes poster, because who knew what was going to happen to him or his leadership or his people when he left Hawaii.

Then he hung up the phone, punched out of the gas station, and started jogging down the road. Away from Hilo. Because he realized while talking to Gwen that if Keko was intending to throw him off the chase, she wouldn’t have headed into the big town, toward the obvious source of boats. That’s exactly what she’d assume Griffin would think. No, she would go for the hidden spot, the remote area with fewer craft . . . so that’s exactly where Griffin went, too.

Because he couldn’t help the future and current generations of Ofarians by standing on the sidelines, by just throwing away all that he’d worked toward for five long years.

He couldn’t help Keko obtain a cure for her people if he didn’t find her first.

And he sure as hell couldn’t fight for the woman he loved if she went and got herself killed.

• • •

Keko would not cry. She would not fucking cry.

Enough water plagued her every step—it sat in her line of sight no matter where she looked, and it poisoned her heart with a slow drip. No tears. Anything but water. She turned up her inner heat, trying to burn away her emotions, but not nearly succeeding.

She concentrated on running, her legs pumping over the uneven ground as she clung to the edge of the Big Island, heading away from Hilo. The little enclave of homes and local shops and the B and B she’d burned fell behind. The land sloped hard upward, dense clumps of trees pointing inland, in the direction she did not want to go. The houses spread out and she slowed her steps, moving more carefully over private land, keeping to the cliff side draped in trees and greenery. Every now and then a large tour bus gave a high whine as it braked, and then gunned its way up and down the distant road.

The run refused to delete Griffin from her mind. He would come after her again. But he would be too late.

When he found her, she would be holding the whole of the Earth’s fire in her hands, and it would be hers to command. The Queen had touched the Source once and there had been no devastation like Aya had claimed. The same would be for Keko; her prayer had been answered and she could feel it.

Now she did want to be Queen. Fuck what she’d told Griffin just that morning. She wanted to rise above everything . . . but most especially heartbreak.

She slipped from a wide swatch of private land into an area heavily forested with tall, skinny trees that permanently swept back and away from the coast like a woman’s hair in the wind. The natural area climbed higher and higher, and at the very top the bluffs dove sharply downward. At the bottom and about a half mile to the northwest was a small community with a marina.

The air whistled as it tried to negotiate its way through the thick trees, and Keko had to slow down even more to get up and through the rocky, shaded area. She refused to listen to the moans and complaints of her body. It was how she’d been trained, and she was still Chimeran, above everything. She pushed and climbed until the sun went down, splashing into the ocean.

She wanted food. She craved water.

When Griffin’s stars popped out, she knew she had to stop. She could give herself fire to see by, yes, but it would also announce her presence to anyone peering out into the dark.

She found an outcrop of rock, a huge tree erupting from the top, its roots coiling down from the sides to form a black, moist, hidden cave, and she climbed into it. Thirty feet in front of her the bluff dropped off a scary distance into the roaring ocean. From her little hiding place she had a good vantage point to the left and right—high enough to see anyone approaching before they noticed her.

A distinct scent filled her nose, bringing with it an avalanche of unwanted emotion. It confused her until she remembered she was wearing Griffin’s T-shirt. Grinding the back of her skull into the rock, she turned her face to the treetops, trying to get away from the smell she loved but didn’t want to. If she could burn the black cotton like she’d burned his coat, she would. But she couldn’t.

She choked back any and all sorrow. Choked it back hard enough the tightness in her jaw turned to pain. Bitterness and disappointment and heartbreak and determination clenched every muscle into a wiry, uncomfortable, shaking mass. Though her eyelids dragged down, the extreme physical discomfort did not allow her to sleep.

She would stay awake until daybreak, then, and meet her fate under the sun.

So when she actually did wake up, blinking into pockets of sunlight breaking through the shadowed morning trees, it was with great disbelief. She was lying on her side, knees tucked into her chest.

Not ten feet away, Griffin leaned against a tree, watching her.