Phoenix Chosen #3 (The Phoenix Guardians #3)

21. Tyler

21

TYLER

O ne of the things I love about Circeana is its baths. The people here love to bathe. Kalistratos tells me every town, city, and respectable village will have some way to take a hot bath, whether in a bathing room, a bathing temple or house, or straight up in a natural hot spring, like the one at the hideout. It kicks the idea I’ve always had in my head that people from ancient times were all gross and dirty.

We soak together for a while, enjoying the moment of shared peace beneath the night sky, and afterward, we follow the path down the hill to the cave hideaway. Airos is sitting outside the tunnel entrance on a boulder, sipping on wine from a small clay bowl, hair still damp from his bath.

“I’ve given it thought,” he says as we approach. “If we’re going to Kausos, we’d be fools to do it on foot. A thousand miles of harsh landscape, much of it covered by parched desert.”

“Alyx and I did it,” Kalistratos replies.

“With a pregnant omega and an unhatched egg, we’d doom ourselves to failure—especially since we have a hunter of Umbrios nipping at our heels.”

“You’re not getting me on a boat, dammit.”

Airos tilts the bowl to his lips and drains the rest of the wine. “Not a boat,” he says matter-of-factly. “A sky flyer.”

I saw one of them in Athenos, ship-like things floating high above the city like Goodyear blimps. Hovercraft, airships, weird magical technology.

“That’s even more insane than the boat,” Kalistratos laughs. “But you have my attention. What’s your plan? Let me guess… someone from your order can get us on board?”

“Not quite,” says Airos. “We must acquire our own.”

“How much wine have you had?” Kalistratos asks. “The only way we could do that is if we had a sack full of drachmae. Oh wait, we did, but we gave it away.”

“ Returned it,” I correct him.

“I believe I know another way,” Airos says. “It will require luck, but given all that has happened to us, I’d like to believe we have favor from the goddess of fortune.” He points toward the horizon—west, I think. “I know a coastal gorge that once held a town renowned for its people who built and repaired flyers for generations until a terrible storm cast the place into ruin. Scattered through this place are the remains of abandoned flyers.”

“So the plan is to go to a flyer graveyard and hope we find one that works?” Kalistratos asks.

“Won’t this place have been stripped of anything good already?” I ask.

“That’s why I said it would require luck. I’m not counting on finding a working flyer, only pieces of them.”

“A junkyard Frankenstein, huh?” I say. “Putting together a ship out of scrap parts doesn’t sound like putting together a bunch of Legos. I mean, is it really something we can do on our own?”

“I have some knowledge of flyers,” Airos says. “With our resourceful little band, I think it can be done.”

“We’re missing a member,” Kalistratos says. “Where’s Jackson?”

Airos points to the cluster of big rocks sitting above the tunnel entrance. “Don’t worry. He’s left all his things in the cave. I doubt he’s going anywhere.”

“I’ll get him,” I say. “Here, take Eggy.”

He takes Eggy from me and holds it out in front of him. “Eggy,” he says, then nods and ties the sling around his shoulder. “It’s cute.”

I clamber up the rocks and haul myself onto a flat boulder. I’m above the cave where a crown of boulders forms a waist-high wall, interspersed with a few gnarled and twisted pine trees with roots running into any crack and crevice in the rock they can find. Past them is a clear view of Aelonos, and beyond it, I can just make out the dark shape of dense swampland where I started this wild adventure.

“Yo, Jackson?” I call. “Where are you?”

He pokes his head out from behind a rock and holds his hand up. “Hey.”

I slide down the boulder and shimmy around the rock to the nook where Jackson is. “Hey, man,” I say. “We’ve made some changes to the plan. It sounds like the way we’re going is too dangerous for all of us to go on foot, so we’re going to try to find ourselves a flying ship. Thought you’d want to know.”

“A flying ship?” he says, then laughs and shakes his head. “Fuckin’ wild.”

“We’re all in this together, so I think we should all have a say on the plan.”

“I’m just along for the ride, dude.” Jackson sighs and holds out his hand. Clumps of gravel and dirt ripple across the ground at his feet and slowly rise to form one of those little dirt snowmen I’d seen at his campsite. “Until I can find a way to get back to Earth.”

“What if you can’t find a way back?”

“Aw, come on, Tyler. Don’t say that. There’s a way for us to get back.”

I’m hesitant to tell him exactly what happened on Earth with Kalistratos. It was Umbrios that sent us to Earth, but the one who brought us back here…

That was me.

Right?

I don’t even know.

Here I am, watching Jackson using his powers as easily as I can whistle, and I still have no idea how to harness mine. Or even what mine are.

I’m not going to tell him the way to get back to Earth might be sitting right here in front of him.

“Sorry, Jackson,” I say. “There might not be. Even if there is, my place is here now.”

“Guess I can’t blame you. Dating pool sucks back home.”

I chuckle. “Yeah, no shit.”

Jackson makes another dirtman. “I’ve always thought I was meant to do something important, but this sure isn’t what I expected. Like, fuck, I’ll take the magic powers, but this pregnancy thing is bullshit.”

“We are doing something important. You get that, right? We’re here to save an entire world of people. This is built into our destiny.” I point at his pregnant belly. “That is an honor, alright?”

He gives me this look like I just asked him to join me in a crazy cult. “Yeah, so you’ve told me. I didn’t ask to be fucking pregnant. I didn’t ask for any of this.”

“And neither did I,” I say. “Neither did any of us. Hey. Listen to me, goddammit!”

I kick the dirtman, and it crumbles into bits. Jackson gets in my face.

“Yeah, I’m listening,” he says. “All I’m hearing is a bunch of BS. I’ve been through this kind of song and dance before. This isn’t my cause. I need a reason to fight, and I ain’t got one.”

“Trust me, you don’t want to meet Umbrios. You haven’t seen the things he can do.”

“That’s just it. All I’ve got to go off of is the crazy stories you’ve told me. It’s all Greek to me, man.”

The dark vision the Great Phoenix showed me is clear in my mind. I see Kalistratos and I being torn apart—and from the depths of my heart, I sense the course of the future if we aren’t able to succeed. A world cleared of every last good thing.

“Take me seriously when I tell you that people’s lives are at stake,” I tell Jackson. “And take what you have here seriously. You’re lucky you can do what you can do. Everyone tells me I should be able to use powers, but I just can’t. You can use yours so easily.”

“Yeah? If I could give this to you, I gladly would.” Jackson stands up and brushes the dirt off his hands. “If you need my vote, then you have it. I’m just along for the ride until I’m off the hook and can get out of here.”

I watch as he climbs over the boulder and disappears to the hideaway. I’m pissed, but at the same time… I get it. I can’t blame Jackson for the way he feels. I was in denial, too.

He hasn’t gotten to experience what I’ve been through, what I’ve felt, and what I now know because of what Lord Aethereos showed me. He hasn’t nearly gotten killed by a goddamn shadow monster. And he hasn’t experienced giving birth.

I’d wanted a way out of this, too.

Funny how that works. Back in my old life, it’d been exactly the same. Be careful what you wish for, because you might get more than you fucking bargained for.

I drop into a crouch and examine the piles of dirt left by Jackson.

Mostly I’m just mad that I can’t figure my powers out. I’m jealous of his natural ability, plain and simple. It bugs me that he can’t appreciate it.

Open a cage . Let out my phoenix.

With a quiet sigh, I spread the piles out with my foot and head back to the hideout.