Curse of Stolen Flame (Firebird, #1)

CHAPTER 38

“Again,” came Jasper’s command, and Kindra let out a snarl of frustration, sweat dripping from her brow.

She swung the sword he’d given her with a grunt. It buried itself into the dummy’s shoulder—and then refused to budge. She bit back a scream as she yanked on it, stumbling back when it finally pulled free.

They’d been training for the last few nights together, working solely on Kindra’s ability to use her new sword. She was abysmal. All she wanted to do was throw the blade to the ground and go up in flames.

“Can we switch to the dagger?” she asked between pants. “I think that would be a lot easier.”

“Yes, it would,” Jasper agreed. “That’s why you need to get a handle on the sword.” He flashed her a wicked smile. “Just think how easy the dagger is going to be once you build up the strength needed to use this!”

“I don’t think that’s a tried-and-true teaching method, Your Highness.” She so badly wanted to drop the sword and lay down on the cold stone floor. They were underneath the castle—there was another, smaller, training ring in the basement of the barracks where the Royal Guard slept. Wielders rarely used it; the space was too closed in, too confined, but non-Wielders did. This late at night nobody else was in the space to disturb them.

“Trust me, your body will thank me.” His grin grew more mischievous. “I could have it thanking me in more ways than one, if you’d like.”

Her face grew hot. “Trust you to never miss an opportunity to make a crude joke.”

She was only partly in the mood for his flirtations. Though she’d started to look forward to their nightly sessions, she wished she could have come up with an excuse to cancel tonight’s. Her mind was elsewhere: on an inconspicuous broom closet door, and the mystery it held. But she didn’t want to raise any suspicion. The last person she needed watching her more closely was Jasper.

So she’d train with him, and then, after she said goodnight, she’d continue her sleuthing.

“Of course I’ll never miss an opportunity, not when your reactions are always so delightful.” He came up behind her, grabbing her arms and putting them into the correct position. His chest pressed up against her back. She could feel his heartbeat. It was always pounding. Despite his suave facade, he was still a nervous mess around her. She’d given up trying not to find that endearing. And, despite her straying thoughts, she found her heart pounding equally as fast as Jasper pressed a soft kiss to her neck.

“Is that supposed to help my focus?” she asked, and he laughed. He pulled back, to her disappointment, though one of his hands lingered on her waist.

“Again,” he repeated. “Perhaps this time you can swing it without stumbling about like a newborn foal.”

She growled, stepping away from him, and shot him a glare. “You talk a lot of shit for somebody who’s not holding the sword.”

Within an instant, he had her disarmed, the blade now firmly in his grasp. She hadn’t even registered that he’d moved, he was so fast. Her magic pulsed under her skin defensively; she had to take a deep breath to steady herself.

“Now who’s holding the sword?” He strode over to the dummy and made a series of quick, brutal strikes. He handled the sword effortlessly; it was like an extension of himself. Like her magic was to her, she supposed.

“Now I see why you ranked so high at Grydmarth,” she remarked. “Though I could still just set you on fire.” She lit a small flame in the palm of her hand for emphasis.

Jasper tsked. “You Wielders, so brash. No refinement or finesse.” His lips quirked upwards. He swung the sword around, the tip of it painting figure eights in the air.

Kindra smiled, the fire in her palm turning to a mere thread of flame. She sent it twining up her arm, then around her neck, until finally it settled around her head, a small, fiery crown .

“You know,” Jasper said softly, “my ancestors used to do that. A crown of fire, instead of the ones we wear now.”

She turned and regarded herself in the giant mirror across the room. Queen Cordilya’s cryptic words echoed in her head. You wore a crown of fire upon your head. The crown made her gold eyes brighter, casting a warm glow across her skin and hair. She looked…

“So royal,” he finished her thought. Then, almost tentatively, he added, “If we ever got the chance to be crowned, it would be an honor to have you by my side as queen.”

Kindra held in her flinch. The crown disappeared. “To be a princess is enough,” was all she said. Let Jasper figure out what she meant by that.

Judging by the look on his face, he already had: to be a princess was enough of a cage.

“Right,” he amended, “of course it is.” He offered her a half-hearted smile, and then held out the sword for her. She took it and faced the dummy once more.

“Again,” Jasper said, and Kindra struck.

Two hours later, sweat still coating her skin and her muscles aching from hours of training, Kindra slipped out of Jasper’s rooms and made her way to the broom closet.

She’d left the prince splayed out on his bed, half-dressed and asleep. Jasper had asked her to stay with him tonight, but she’d refused. Even without her mission, she still was not ready for that. Besides, she desperately needed a late-night bath.

The hallways were dark and deserted; it was past midnight. Besides the patrolling guards, she was the only one in the halls. When she rounded the corner to the stretch where the broom closet was, she was nearly giddy with relief to see that it was entirely empty.

Keeping her footsteps as light as possible, she hurried to the door, and was delighted to see that it wasn’t locked, the knob turning easily. With one final look to make sure nobody was around to see her, she opened the door and slipped inside.

The door shut silently behind her. Kindra lit a small flame in her palm to illuminate the dark space. As it was before, the broom closet was empty, save for a few, well, brooms. But they were dusty, cobwebs stretched between them. Nobody had touched them in a long time, further confirming Kindra’s belief that this was not really a broom closet.

She faced the stone wall before her. At first glance, it was just that: a wall. She approached it, and ran her other hand over the stones, searching for anything out of the ordinary. A loose one, perhaps. One that, when pushed or pulled, might trigger a door to be revealed.

However, she didn’t find any stone even slightly out of place. She gritted her teeth in frustration and spun around to investigate the rest of the tiny closet, running her hands over the other walls. But they, too, held nothing.

Kindra closed her eyes and thought. If not a hidden lever or button, then what? Was it a trapdoor in the floor? But a few minutes of tapping her foot on various stones on the ground showed that was also a dead end.

Finally, after several minutes, it came to her.

Fire.

What else would the Annalindis family use to reveal secret passageways in their castle, especially ones meant to operate as escape routes for themselves?

Tentatively, she took the palm of her already ignited hand and pressed it, still burning, into the center of the stone wall.

The crevices between the stones began to glow as her fire threaded through them, until the shape of a door was illuminated. Kindra grinned and pushed.

The stones gave way, parting and sliding back into the surrounding wall. She marveled at it—some kind of combined feat of a Firefury and an Earthwarden, no doubt. She stepped forward into the archway the stones revealed.

Before her stretched a steep stairwell, descending into darkness.

There were no torches lining the passage’s walls. She hovered at the top of the stairs, her fire only providing so much light. From what she could tell, the entire passage was built out of the same old gray stone. It was silent. The smell of stale air wafted out.

Kindra stepped onto the top stair. Her small victory at discovering the door made her confident, perhaps overly so, and she began her descent eagerly, footsteps echoing.

She came to a halt about a dozen steps down, though, when she realized she had no idea how to close the secret door behind her or what she was doing at all.

What if it shut behind her and she couldn’t reopen it from the other side? What if somebody—a guard or worse, Tess—came in and found her?

Her common sense prevailed, and she turned back, returning to the broom closet. She faced the open entrance, and, not knowing what else there was to do, she simply touched the stones with her fire again.

That did the trick—the stones once again began to glow and shifted back into their places, hiding the passage once more.

She listened at the door for passing footsteps, only poking her head out when she heard none, and slipped quietly back into the hallway, feeling both victorious and defeated.

Part of her wanted to explore the catacombs, but a larger part of her knew better than to try. She had no guide. And, frankly, she had no reason to. She’d only wanted to prove that there was an entrance there, to confirm her suspicions about Tess. And now she had.

It was more trouble than it was worth, she told herself as she entered her rooms and called for Sala. As the Healer scrubbed the sweat from her skin and soothed her aching muscles, she repeated it again.

There was enough attention on her already. She didn’t need people catching her sneaking around the halls at night and finding hidden entrances to the tunnels that would allow her to escape the castle.

And it didn’t really impact her, what Tess was doing down there, anyway. Maybe Tess just enjoyed the privacy. Maybe she had a secret lover she met with in the catacombs. Maybe she just used it as a way to slip out of the castle and into town for some late-night fun.

Or maybe she’s doing something dangerous, the suspicious voice in her head whispered. Maybe she’s not the person you think she is.

But how is that my problem? Kindra shot back. How is any of this my problem?

“More trouble than it’s worth,” she murmured to herself that night in bed, willing sleep to come.

Far more trouble than it was worth.