Giya's Betrayal: Book Three of the Firebird's Daughter series Page 12

  “Get up! I said.” A woman’s voice. “Come with me.”

  * * * * * * * *

  As his eyes flew open, Ordan gasped, then took a deep breath, trying to understand where he was and what was happening to him. Everything around him was dark, although he could see some kind of subdued lighting coming from... . underneath... him? His immediate thought was to sit up and see what was going on, but he made himself lie still while he figured out where he was, letting his breathing even out. He knew that he was lying flat, and that he was cold, given that he could feel his teeth chattering, but it didn’t appear that anything was underneath him except that strange, glowing kind of blue light. He moved his arms towards his chest in order to rub them together to get warm, but as soon as he did, his body started rocking as if... then he heard it – water! He was in water! Totally submerged in water and still breathing! How was that possible? Why was he here? How did he even get here? Drawing another deep, shaky breath to make sure he still could, he tried to remain as still as possible. He could feel small waves rocking his body gently back and forth and thought it might be a really incredible sensation if he wasn’t so terrified of drowning!

  He remembered being bonded with Honsa and Ceirat, with... what was her name? The owl child. The granddaughter of Siri Ventus. Clever girl. Too smart for her own good, probably, he chuckled to himself. She was with them when Ceirat had invoked the bond which would take them from the desert to... where? It was so hard to remember. There was a place. A place where someone was waiting for them. No – that wasn’t right. Nobody was waiting for them. But someone had been there and they were... oh yes! Denit! His eyes flew open again when he remembered more details, all rushing together. Denit had left unexpectedly – she had run away, actually. After she had been having a talk with Jarles about becoming the Sun Goddess. Ordan shook his head, then stopped again, when the motion caused him to rock harder than expected.

  Batal had followed Denit. He remembered now. Denit had gone through the earth, and Batal had followed her through the water underneath the sand. But Denit had disappeared, and Neiva – that’s what her name was! The owl child. Her name was Neiva! She was taking the three of them to Batal so she could show them where Denit had disappeared. But something had happened. Something bad. Ordan shivered, even though he couldn’t remember what had happened. He really couldn’t remember anything after that. Something had happened, and... oh! he had been falling through the air! But... there was nothing after that. No. Nothing. Why was he under water? Did Batal have something to do with it? And if so, where was she now? And what was that weird light anyway? Was someone going to come back and get him? Surely they didn’t just put him under water and leave him? Did they? But what if they thought he was dead?

  Stop it! he commanded himself. There was a very simple way to figure this out, one that very few other people would have been able to use. Because he was a Mezhdu, he could very simply and very easily reach out to any of the others and ask them what was going on. Simple, he told himself. Now relax, and reach out. He knew Honsa would know what was going on; he always did.

  Before he could make contact with Honsa, though, he felt himself suddenly pulled deeper, as if someone – or some thing? – had grabbed him around his waist. He screamed, terrified something was drowning him, as he was pulled deeper and deeper. He was almost doubled over, with this head and his feet nearly touching as the thing was pulling him ever downward by the waist. With his arms pinned to his sides, he was unable to do anything more than to thrash back and forth, trying to break its grip. He could not begin to imagine why he was able to scream, and was still breathing while being pulled under water. Why is this happening to me?

  The next thing he knew, he was dropped on what he assumed was the bottom of whatever body of water he was in, with his vision obscured as the sand billowed wildly all around him. He just knew he was about to be eaten. Wait! What was that light? There! He reached towards the glowing blue light, surprised when his hand encountered some kind of object. A rock? He picked it up, noticing that as he did so, there was a layer of... nothing? Something. Something was covering his skin. But it was transparent. It wasn’t anything he could see. He touched one hand with the other, but was unable to feel anything. The extra layer of... skin? was what was keeping him alive. He’d never heard of anything like this. Never. Looking closer at the rock, he could see it wasn’t a rock at all, or – if it was – it had purposefully been crafted to look like a tear drop. But what was making it glow?

  That’s when he felt something push against his back. Scared all over again, he turned to find out what it was, his heart beating furiously in his chest, not really wanting to know, just wanting to go home. The sand was still billowing, but he saw enough to know it was some kind of sea creature, not another human, nor even another one of Amphidea’s True Children. It was huge, but it wasn’t attacking him. Instead, it was pushing him. Fine. Not that he really had any choice. The tentacle on the thing was strong enough to make sure he did what it wanted him to. He had only taken three steps when he found her. Batal!

  Stooping down to pick her up, he started swimming towards what he knew must be the surface. She was heavy in his arms, since she wasn’t helping at all. He wondered if she was even still alive. Why was she not breathing? Wasn’t she a True Child of Amphedia? What had happened to her that he was the one who was rescuing her in water?

  The next thing he knew, the thing that had grabbed him before had its tentacles wrapped around him – and Batal – and he felt himself dissolving. There was no other word for the sensation. His body was disappearing. In the next moment, he was laying on the sand of the desert under a blazing sun, with Batal and man he’d never seen before.

  “Quickly!” the man told him, a frantic look in his eyes, “put the Tear on her chest. Hurry!”

  “Tear?” Ordan asked, knowing he was looking at the man stupidly. Oh! The rock that looked like a tear. He belatedly realized the damned thing was burning his hand. He could see the burnt edges of the extra layer of transparent skin where he’d been holding it in his hand. Quickly placing it on her chest as instructed, he stepped back, shaking his stinging hand, to see what would happen next.

  Chapter Eleven – Denit’s Father

  Stretching herself out so that she grew even larger, Amphedia felt amazingly strong. It had been far too long since the last time she had raced through space and time in her natural form. It was really too bad, she reflected, that her murdering brother was so stupid. They could have had such a marvelous time together. She was surprised to discover she missed having company. Then again, rarely was she able to trust anyone for any reason, so it was probably better this way anyway. Screeching loudly into the space around her, she reveled in the feel of extending her wings. Of flying. Of being a force to be reckoned with.

  No! She felt a tremendous wave of energy ripple through her and she knew. Giya had stolen the waters of the world from her! Her immediate thought was to turn around, return to the planet and make her pay. In fact, she had halted in midflight, craning her neck as if she would be able to see Giya standing there, her hands tucked into her sleeves, her face serene, waiting for her to attack. She felt her mouth quirk in what would have been a smirk if she’d still been in human form. So be it! They were Giya’s to begin with, and she would have no more need of them. She was going to destroy her brother, or die trying.

  At the thought of dying, she remembered the dire warning Siri Ventus had given her – that she had seen her dying in that damned crystal goblet. Well, that goblet no longer existed, so who could say what would happen now? Besides, it had been Sov’s all along, so he had probably planted that particular “vision” in it out of spite. Or wishful thinking on his part. None of that mattered now. Not even the part where Siri had said it would only be with her own power combined with that of her heir’s that she would avoid death. Whatever Siri had seen had been nullified when Denit had taken possession of the goblet, she was sure. No matter – she was going to make her
brother pay for his selfishness once and for all.

  With the ripple of energy taking away her connection to all the waters of the world far below her, she had felt another sensation too – a boost of sorts, as if the seas had been a burden; one she no longer carried. She was free. And powerful. And ready to kill Sov.

  “I’m sorry, sister,” she heard Sov’s voice, tinged with sadness, all around her. He hadn’t even tried to connect with her mind to mind. Good! Because she most certainly wasn’t about to let him inside her head! The last time he’d tried, she had barely been able to keep him out, but then she had been in human form, and had been much more vulnerable than she was now. She flew on, eager now to engage him in battle.

  “I never should have hurt you,” he told her, “I never should have left you.” His words, sounding so sincere, would have been a balm at one time, she knew, but not now. They were nothing more than a pathetic attempt to make her vulnerable. To get her to let him live. But that was something she would not do.

  “I let you stay when I could have made you leave,” he continued. “This is my world. I created it from nothing. I wanted to make peace with you, so I let you stay.”

  She would not respond. She would not. Arguing with him would only serve to let him find a way to get under her defenses. He must die. He must! He was murdering a whole world full of people merely so he would not die – even though he must. Such a stupid fool he’d been. A stupid, self-serving, murderous fool!

  ::And how many times have you killed your own children?:: his voice hissed across her mind.

  You will die brother! was her only response as she allowed her body to transform once more. While she still may have resembled a bird-like creature, her body was now made entirely of water. Or at least what looked like water. She was a goddess, an eternal creature not subject to the trivialities of the inconveniences observed by nature. She was water magic incarnate and she was going to drown her brother, the Sun God. Screeching loud enough for the echoes to reach the planet below, Amphedia bared her talons, flying directly through the raging inferno of his outer defenses into Sov’s body.

  * * * * * * * *

  “Stupid Lumas! You’ll pay for that!” Denit screeched, righting herself after tumbling and plummeting through space nearly half way back to the planet.

  “No! She’s right. Sov is trying to control me,” she told herself a moment later, breathing heavily at the realization. She knew enough to know that Sov would do anything to be able to stay alive. Anything at all, including killing her, killing Lumas, or even killing every living thing on the planet he had created. She could feel his fear bleeding into her, as if it was her own. She screamed out her rage at the Sun God for his duplicity. He was using her!

  Of course he is! she told herself, but how do I fight against emotions that feel like they’re my own?

  ::This is his madness, Denit, don’t make it your own. Don’t let it consume you.:: she heard Lumas’ voice clearly in her mind.

  “He is my father,” she felt herself whining, feeling incapacitated by the emotions lurching through her. All her life she’d been told her human parents had abandoned her, and she had tried – she had tried so hard not to let that small fact affect her. Giya had always been there, throughout her unnaturally long childhood, teaching her, tempering her, holding her. But she had lied! she felt her father’s rage pouring through her, urging her to be convinced that one fact mattered more than anything else: Giya had lied to her about her parents. Nor had she been created out of love – she had been created out of need, the voice told her. Giya had been afraid of Sov’s power overwhelming the humans she cared so much about, so she had fashioned together some materials to create a thing to counter the threat. A weapon. A tool. With her heart beating furiously in her chest, Denit let out a mournful wail. She had never mourned the parents Giya had lied about. She had never allowed herself to feel the sadness, the rage, the utter loneliness for having been abandoned. For more than two hundred years, as a child, she had never allowed herself to cry for the loss of the people who had left her to die in the desert alone as an infant. But oh, how she had wanted to! And now... now all these many years later, it turns out she never had a right to those emotions. She had never been abandoned. She had never been unloved, as she had convinced her child-self. If Giya would have just told her the truth from the beginning, she would never have had to feel worthless.

  No, her other – rational - self reminded her, Giya had cared deeply for her. She had but to recall any single day throughout her life to see the proof of that. She had been there to hug, to hold, to teach, remind, to explain, to dry the tears. She had been there to...

  Choose your mate for you! her raging-self reminded her. You had no say in that either, because it wasn’t you she wanted, it wasn’t even Jonath she wanted – it was Jarles!

  No! she vehemently denied the accusation, even though she could feel an irritating scratch in the depths of her mind, begging to be itched. The thought had, indeed, crossed her mind on more than one occasion, like a scab aching to be picked.

  Then why did she join with Amphedia and Siri Ventus in wanting to kill you once the seed inside of you had been broken? Why Denit? She already had Jarles. She didn’t need you any more, the voice taunted, completely sane. Completely rational. If you don’t think so, then why did you run away? And why, Denit, did you think she broke the bond between you?

  “I was wrong!” she screamed at the voice savagely, her throat burning with the effort of her emotions. If the voice had belonged to another person, she would have pummeled that person into the ground. She would have set them on fire for saying such terrible things, for even hinting that Giya may have betrayed her. “She didn’t! Leave me alone!” she screamed into the cold dark of the atmosphere, alone. Completely alone, except for the hateful, taunting voice inside her own mind.

  * * * * * * * *

  Serat could hear the distress in Denit’s voice even before they came anywhere near her. It was obvious to him Sov was trying to drive her mad so she would end her own life, or at least be incapacitated enough that he could do it for her. He purposefully reigned his own thoughts in, understanding just how easy it would be to use Denit’s obvious mental instability to take the crystal from her so that Sov would have no choice but to crash into the planet. He knew he shouldn’t be thinking these thoughts, but it was hard not to. How easy it would be to make Siri leave this awkward little planet behind if there was nothing anyone could do to stop him from destroying it. And he wanted to destroy it in the worst way possible. Yes he did. This planet, Sov, and that horrible, horrible crystal – all gone. Siri would have no choice but to abandon this place. Of course, if she ever found out what he’d done, she would abandon him forever. And for him, “forever” was a very, very long time.

  * * * * * * * *

  ::Save me daughter!::

  Everything inside of Denit wanted to turn towards Sov when his voice, filled with pain and terror, blasted through her thoughts. She wanted desperately to turn towards her father, to help him. To fight against Amphedia so he would live on. Every instinct, every emotion was screaming at her. She must save him! She must! And yet, she remembered Jarles as a small boy, before his mother was so brutally murdered. She knew it was the crystal embedded within her that was dredging up the long-forgotten memory; she could feel it burning her skin, even though she, herself, was in flames.

  He was sitting in the shade of cook tent, playing with toys she had given him, burying them in the sand. They were toys that had once belonged to his father. He couldn’t have been more than three at the time, with his dark hair falling into his bright, blue eyes. Even though she hadn’t said a word, nor had she moved, he suddenly looked up at her, directly at her, not looking around, not wondering if someone was watching him – he had known she was standing there, watching him. And he had smiled at her in the same way his father, her precious Jonath, had done so very many years before. That crooked little smile, with the knowing eyes, he loved his Maw ‘
Ki. And she loved him.

  And Sov had never loved anyone.

  * * * * * * * *

  She will think you are her enemy if she knows you are Siri Ventus’ brother, Hadia told Serat.

  ::Will she recognize you in this form?:: he asked in return, the doubt in his mind obvious.

  You are powerful enough to make sure she knows who I am, Hadia replied, her own pride in having used flattery to get what she wanted from him evident in her tone. Nor was she displeased to hear the chuckle in his reply.

  ::Very well, little bird, prepare yourself. When I stop, you will need to keep flying straight towards her. I will try to slow your approach, but you will be moving much faster than you’re used to.::

  * * * * * * * *

  Amphedia kept waiting for Sov to unfold himself from the lump of burning rock he had become to fight her in his true form, but he either must not be able to, or thought he would be better defended in his current form. She wondered which it was. She knew he was already dying, but was he really that close to death, or had he been so afraid of dying for so long, that he’d hidden his true strength even from himself?

  She knew Denit was nearby, she could see her flaming brightly in her Firebird form, her great wings flapping in a way that told Amphedia she was flying in place, instead of coming nearer. She couldn’t imagine what she might be up to – she had seen her careening out of control not long ago, streaking past like some rogue comet, but now she was just staying in place. Why? Would Denit help her, or would she fight against her?

  It had been far too long since she had engaged in this kind of combat, and even then, it had been mostly play, and with others of her own kind, who were created of water elements, not fire. Still, she was determined to make sure Sov didn’t get the chance to destroy the planet. He may have been the one to have created this beautiful world, but it had become her home. And whether she had control of the seas or not, she still might return to it. But first, she told herself, there was her brother to take to task. Gathering the water magic she possessed from deep inside of her, she rushed at the flaming rock that was Sov, expending all of her considerable might towards him in a gigantic wave of that which looked like water, but was so much more.