Giya's Betrayal: Book Three of the Firebird's Daughter series Read online

  And the sun will rise again.

  Glowing crystal, bright sacred seed,

  Shine, shine, shine, bright sacred seed.

  Death reaches out, fulfills the need.

  Now the Sun Child flies free.

  Once she had memorized the chant, Tyran returned to the place in the circle where she had first entered the dream, preparing to disengage herself. Inhaling deeply as she closed her eyes, she realized the boy had stopped singing, so opened them again, only to find the boy had moved closer to her and was looking directly at her. Startled, she gasped. Looking up at her, he said “Seek out the Tadashi child for the forgotten verse.” Then he disappeared and she found herself fully awake, with her hands on Ordan’s head, where she had placed them to begin her exploration of his dream.

  Before she had died, Yujin had told Ordan the song had been forbidden by some parents because it spoke too freely of death, and while she said it had never scared the children, the parents were frightened by it. And yet, the song had persisted through hundreds of years and through the descendants of a people far removed from their homeland.

  It was odd, Tyran thought, that Ordan’s dream, and it’s strange, long-forgotten childhood chant, should come to her now, as she was reaching out to him to provide comfort and stability in what she thought might be his time of need. When she had discussed the dream with him all those months ago – had it already been nearly two years ago? – she had advised him to replace the chant with one more familiar, and to allow Yujin’s memories to fade from his active thought process. Magic wasn’t something one could easily define with any hope of accuracy, she’d told him. And while there may be some larger purpose for Yujin having shared her memories, she could find no evidence of it. They had worked together for several weeks before Ordan had felt comfortable enough to call a halt to their sessions and he’d never mentioned any of it since. Nor had Tyran overheard him chanting the song again. How very odd that she was thinking of all of this now.

  And then he was there. Or, what was left of him. Breathing steadily to avoid reacting to the condition in which she found him, Tyran searched further to determine what had caused him to be so thoroughly brutalized. Pushing away her questions as to how he came to be hurt so badly, she concentrated on reaching through the haze of his pain to shore up his emotional wellbeing, while considering how to ease his pain. She could feel the magical energy of someone else doing much the same, but didn’t recognize the feel of the other person. How odd! Who else would be tending to Ordan, other than another mezhdu ? Once again pushing aside the urgent questions automatically inserting themselves into her thought process, she quickly realized she would have to invoke the bond between the two of them, as well as with Honsa and Ceirat in order to have any hope of saving him.

  A moment later she nearly screamed out loud with frustration and, she had to admit to herself, fear. Ordan wasn’t the only one who had been hurt. All three of them had been. She couldn’t imagine how she was going to be able to help all of them at the same time, and without any help at all. Covering her eyes with her hand as she disconnected, Tyran felt hot tears streaming down her cheeks. She’d never felt so absolutely useless in all of her life.

  Chapter Two – Unshattered

  Rajesh knew the others were watching him, even without looking at them. He was scratching his beard, and if ever there was an indication of his emotional turmoil, scratching his beard was it. No matter if he was annoyed, indecisive, or taken aback by something unexpected, he always found his left hand raised to his face to stroke his beard. It was an irritating habit. Especially when he found himself actually scratching at the skin beneath the growth, or pulling individuals hairs. Dropping his hand back to his side, he sighed deeply. There was far too much going on in the shield room for him to be able to determine whether Giya was finally in need of his services or not.

  Ever since she had returned to Nohoyo, he had known it was entirely possible that this would be the time he and those like him would be needed. Never had he, nor any of his predecessors, ever stepped in to help her since Giya had drawn her first breath upon this world. Indeed, it was their greatest source of pride that she had remained ignorant of their existence. But the magic and raw power coming from the shield room made it completely impossible for him to determine whether or not she was in danger, and so he did something no one in the history of the Ahadi had done. He called the three others of his order into action.

  * * * * * * * *

  Vray thought he might vomit when he opened his eyes to find himself back inside the shield room. He was exactly where he’d meant to be, precisely where he had envisioned himself, but he hadn’t been prepared for the emotional impact of standing in the very place from which he had escaped. The place of his birth. The place where he had grown up, and where he had learned his own magical talents lay in being becoming a Fire Tender. The place where he had taken hundreds of lives for the glory of the Sun God. The place where he had murdered men, women, and children beyond count.

  He had let himself to get so caught up in helping the others he had, somehow, allowed himself to forget he had vowed to never return here alive. He could feel himself quivering; could see his hands in front of him shaking. Memories came crashing back, flowing through him, as if an unending line of those whose lives he had taken was standing in front of him. He could see faces, remember voices, and the eyes of those he’d killed – he had allowed himself to close his memories and his heart to all those eyes. Whether they stared at him in challenge and hatred, or whether they were downcast, refusing to acknowledge him or his role in their deaths – he saw them all. Sometimes he didn’t see their eyes until they were dying. Sometimes not until the full of the moon after they had died. But he had seen them all. All of his life, he had seen all of their eyes, begging, accusing, crying, defiant, confused, bereft. And the worst of all: those filled with relief they no longer had to live in fear and pain.

  He could hear Sakari’s voice and understood what she was doing, but was unable to move. He knew he should be doing something, but was unable to process what he was seeing. A small part of his consciousness mocked him, reminding him that he’d thought the only reason the others wanted him with them was so that he would be able to drain the life from anyone they might encounter. That, and the fact that his eyes glowed red, as supposedly foretold in some dusty, old prophecy that may or may not have any basis in truth. He remembered thinking he would trick Sahil and the rest of them by refusing to kill anyone they encountered, and would only drain some of their life force instead of killing them outright. And now, here he was, face to face with reality and he could do nothing. He, who had lived in fear all of his life, and thought he had become so accustomed to it that it could no longer touch him – he stood here, doing nothing, unable to act, unable to even think, except to taunt himself for his failures.

  No! his mind suddenly screamed at him when he finally began to piece together what he was seeing. There were other Fire Tenders here! Here, in the shield room, in the middle of the night. And they were chained to the wall! He couldn’t get past the thought they should not be here. The chains were an abomination! He felt anger rising up inside of him. There were rules and this violated everything. They should not be here! Not when the sun wasn’t shining. They should not!

  He realized he recognized most of the faces, even though some were turned away from him. He wasn’t sure what else was going on, but it seemed that the woman standing in the middle of the room – was she a woman? Or something else? She felt entirely different than anyone else he’d ever encountered in his life –with her arms outstretched, was creating an energy shield of some sort. But was she protecting herself from the Fire Tenders, or was she attacking them? The other woman standing beside her was also engulfed in the energy blast, but Vray didn’t understand why. It was just too confusing. And why were most of the Fire Tenders looking towards the ceiling? What was happening here? And where was this “Sun Child” he was supposed to help anyway?


  When he felt the energy swirl nearby, he knew the others had arrived. Eruitt, who named himself as the apprentice to the Earth Goddess, Giya. Aidena, who had pinned him to the ground when they’d first met because she’d been afraid of him, but who had since proven to be the kindest among this group of strangers. Kaya, whose family’s history stretched back through hundreds of years and whose ancestor had been the first to hear of the prophecy directly from Lumas, the Goddess of Beauty. Sahil, who was a very old man from Bila, who had told everyone of the prophecy and who was the only one not affected when Vray had drained the life force from most of the others when he’d felt threatened by the sudden events happening all around him. And Than, who had been sent by Bila’s emperor to either kill Sahil, or bring him back to Bila for the crime of having caused the death of the emperor’s daughter. And, of course, Sakari, who rightfully blamed him for the death of her friend.

  All of them possessed powerful magic, for good or for ill. Under any other circumstances, he would have trusted none of them, but they were united in their fear of the Sun God destroying the world. And they needed him because of the prophecy Sahil had told them.

  “She warned them of the times to come, of a time of fire and chaos. She told them if they did not ward against it together, a day would come when Sov would rule them all, and that he would become cruel and disdainful. She told them that if they failed in maintaining balance and that time came to pass, there would be one whose eyes would burn as red as Sov’s fire, and that man or woman must be the one to shatter the crystal seed so the Sun Child could be released.”

  Vray looked at the woman who was creating the surge of energy in the middle of the room and realized she was aware of him. Given the strange feel of her, he was sure she had become aware of him and Sakari as soon as they had appeared in the shield room; yet she had done nothing more than to glance their way. Now, though, with more strangers appearing without warning, the look on her face had changed. She wasn’t going to be as likely to overlook six strangers arrayed against her as she would only two. Only a moment or two had passed since he had arrived, transported by the magic Sahil and the others had used, but he had a feeling everyone in the room was standing on the cusp of an explosive situation. Vray knew if he could slow things down, as he’d been able to do before, when Kaya had arrived in the place where Sahil and Sakari had set their trap, setting off a startling series of unexpected reactions from everyone, then it was less likely anyone would be hurt or killed. In the deepest part of him, it was more important than anything to him that he not be the cause of any more deaths.

  Quickly raising his hands to put everyone to sleep, he was interrupted by the arrival of two men and two women on the far side of where the woman who held the Fire Tenders captive in her energy surge was standing. Deciding to expand his reach in order to include them in his plans, he let loose a small portion of the terrible force of his magic. He could feel several of the others among his traveling companions standing behind him releasing energy at the same time, knowing some of them were, undoubtedly, aiming their energies at him – hoping to stop him. He was unconcerned, knowing none of them would kill him, while none of them had any idea whether he would return the favor.

  But even as he felt the impact of the energy from three different sources, causing him to physically jerk forward, almost losing his footing, he realized he wasn’t being affected by the magic that should have, at the very least, sent him flying, or should have pinned him to the ground. Nor, he noticed with some alarm, had his own magic put any of the others to sleep.

  “Stop this at once!” one of the men who had just arrived shouted. Vray knew he was staring, but was unable to tear his gaze away. The four newcomers were wearing clothing like nothing he had ever seen before. It shifted in color and texture, even as the man was standing still. It seemed to be adapting to the lighting and colors of the shield room – as if it was designed to hide him in plain sight. Even the color of his skin seemed to be changing. And more – it seemed as though the very features of his face were changing. Quickly glancing at the others who had entered the room with the man, it seemed to Vray that their clothing, their faces, and even their shapes and sizes seemed to be fluid, changing as they each looked at the different people in the room around him. He knew without any doubt whatsoever he had never seen anything like these four people before in Nohoyo. Not ever.

  He watched as the man walked towards the powerful woman standing between them, the others of his kind following behind him. When the woman released the energy she’d been holding on the Fire Tenders, Vray felt a physical sense of relief. He knew, in that moment, his own reason for agreeing to come with Sahil and the others had been some sense of duty, responsibility, or even guilt for the other Fire Tenders. There was nothing he wanted more than to release all of them from their horrific lives as unwilling murderers. None of them moved in the least; terrified, he knew, that their own lives were in terrible jeopardy with no say in what might happen to them. It was ironic, he knew, that they were capable of lethal action, with the mere touch of a hand, and yet they were cowering against the wall, hoping against hope that someone else would be the one to suffer this time.

  Then the man with the strange clothing and skin did something Vray did not expect. He stopped several steps away from the powerful woman in the middle of the room, and fell to one knee, bowing his head. The three with him echoed his movements. Vray felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end, wondering who the woman was. Nor did he have long to wait to find out. He heard someone hiss behind him and nearly jumped out of his skin. He turned quickly around to find it was Eruitt standing so close to him he was nearly breathing down his neck, literally. Finding someone else standing so close to him without having realized it made his skin crawl. What if it had been a Kasai? He would never have known, because he would have been dead. And where were all the Kasai anyway? Why had all the commotion in the shield room not brought them running? There were too many questions he didn’t have the answers for.

  “What are they doing?” Eruitt asked him.

  “I don’t know. I have never seen them before,” Vray answered honestly. “Who is she?” From the look Eruitt shot him, he was obviously shocked, perhaps even appalled that Vray didn’t already know. Which, of course, gave him the answer to his question before Eruitt even opened his mouth to say “Giya.”

  * * * * * * * *

  So it was true. For many, many years Giya had thought she had seen others following her from time to time. Not “someone” but more of a some “thing.” The few times she’d had the feeling of being watched, when she knew for certain she had been alone, she had sensed nothing and no one more than the vague feeling of what she came to call a shade. She had completely dismissed the idea of any person following her, certain there was no one who might have hoped to have done so for long. She was, after all, the Earth Goddess, and could feel every living thing at any moment in time, whether it be a single blade of grass, a spider hidden in the smallest crevice of a rock, or a bird overhead. Of course, her first inclination in the matter was to have blamed Amphedia, or perhaps even Siri Ventus. Who else? She would have felt the presence of anyone else, no matter if they were human, sprite, spirit, or some kind of deity.

  “Whom do you serve?” she asked, looking down at the man in front of her, her hands firmly inside the cuffs of her robe. She could feel anger niggling at the corners of her mind. Instead of stomping down on it, though, as was her usual reaction to those few things which upset her, she allowed it to grow. This was her world. These were her people. She would not be stalked nor interfered with. She would not allow it.

  When he raised his face to speak, though, she needed nothing more than to look into his eyes to know the truth of the matter. Glancing quickly to the others with him, she was unable to verify her suspicions because their eyes were still either closed, or looking towards the floor of the shield room where they knelt before her. Still, she knew what she would find once she looked into each of thei
r eyes. His words only confirmed what she already knew in the moment her eyes met his. The silvery moonlight dancing through his eyes gave him away.

  “We serve your other self, My Lady Giya, and have always done so since the moment of your creation.”

  “Lumas,” Giya spat the name.

  “You are one, and so has she protected that part of herself bound to this existence.”

  “Existence!” Giya felt herself shout. “Is that what you call my life? An “existence?” As if it is some burden or something less than what she experiences?”

  “She races through the stars, My Lady. Through time and space. You are bound here. You are the most precious part of her.” The man paused. “Would she have given less to Sov, her heart, than her own heart? You are that part of her, My Lady.” He closed his eyes again, bowing his head. Hiding his beautifully dangerous eyes.

  She could feel every heartbeat in those surrounding her. The Fire Tenders, so filled with fear and self-loathing she wanted to tear down the very building in which they were all standing so as to ensure none of them would ever have to fear again. Eruitt’s heart was bristling with determination and a bit of awe. He wanted nothing so much as to be standing next to her, to ensure her safety. He was eager, she knew, to earn his place. Hadia, who was standing next to her, was alarmed that there were yet more people in this world about whom she had never learned. But she had long ago learned the value of stillness, so her heart was strong and steady, perhaps even calm. She felt the astonishment in the others, and the strong desire to take some kind of action, but they hesitated, uncertain what kind of threat these newcomers posed. Indeed, she wondered the same thing.

  “What is your purpose here?” she asked.

  “My Lady, we have only revealed ourselves to you after long centuries of having the joyful duty of protecting you from harm because of the great disturbance we felt coming from this room. And yet, it seems as though my decision to aid you has been in error. You have no need of protection beyond that which you can provide yourself. Will you help me to understand what has happened here?”