Phoenix Chosen #3 (The Phoenix Guardians #3)

26. Tyler

26

TYLER

T he arrow, drawn just a couple of feet away from my head, drips with a pulsing, writhing darkness. It’s cold, even despite the growing forest fire. It’s like a damn magnet, pulling away the happiness and life inside of me. And something else, too. Something buried deep inside of me.

My phoenix. It has to be.

It has me thinking about when I went rock climbing and ended up with sore muscles that I didn’t even know existed in my body. It’s there, like those barely-used mystery muscles. Small, weak, hiding away… but there. Darkness has revealed the light, even if it’s just a glimmer. Even if I can’t use it.

I curl my body protectively over Eggy, praying that the cursed arrow’s influence affects me before it does my baby.

“The egg,” the archer repeats through her fangs. She tilts her head and glares at me from one slitted iris. “You can’t escape. Make this easy on yourself.”

“The same can be said for you,” Airos says to her.

He has his staff pointed at her, but I’m pretty sure whatever he can do from his distance won’t keep me from getting plugged in the face first.

“We can test this,” she says, cocking her head in the other direction. Her tail flicks mischievously back and forth. “See if I’m fast enough to kill this one and take the egg before you can attempt to hit me with another one of those spells. What do you think?”

I can see the sweat on Airos’s forehead. He knows it, too—there’s no way out of this without me getting an arrow to the head because I’m sure as hell not going to hand Eggy over willingly.

The cat’s mouth pulls into a grin. She also knows this. She’s happy about it.

“You might be fast,” Airos says, “But if you think you can escape from here after you take that egg, you’re very mistaken. It won’t be long until we’re trapped here, with nowhere to go but to the river. Can Aylourosi swim?”

“I love the water,” she replies.

Her bow creaks as she pulls the string even further. I close my eyes. I’m searching desperately for a way to connect to that little light inside me and finally access it.

If you don’t come forward, it’s gonna be all over.

I see Kalistratos in my mind and the vision I was given of the future we share with our child after all of this is finished and we’ve completed what we’ve been chosen to do. And then I see him wounded, bloody, fighting his way forward on legs that can barely keep him upright.

That glimpse of him fades, like a flashlight running out of batteries, and somehow, I know that what I’ve seen isn’t just my imagination or even a vision of the future. It’s now .

Kalistratos is hurt. He’s dying . And he’s trying to get to me.

It feels like my chest is going to crumple inward on itself, along with the entire world around me. I want to cry out, but my breath is trapped by fear of what will happen if I do.

I’m so sorry, Kalistratos. I fucked up. I couldn’t keep our baby safe. I couldn’t protect your dream.

Is this it? Is this the end of us, after all the shit we’ve survived? Are we really going down to a goddamn dog and cat?

Am I going to die apart from you?

“Wait. Stop.”

I look up. It’s Jackson. He pulls up the front of his cloak, revealing his pregnant belly to the archer. Sparks and embers whirl behind him.

“Look at me,” he says. “You see this? I know what you’re after. I know the whole story. You’re looking for the Chosen and their babies, right? Well, ta-da. Yeah. I’m one of them. And I’m fucking pregnant. Let him go, and you can have me. I’ll go willingly. You can spare yourself a fight that you’ll probably lose. You aren’t getting us both, so which will you choose?”

The archer looks at him. Her ears twitch as she digests what she sees.

“Jackson!” Airos holds up his palm, beckoning him to stop.

“Don’t worry,” Jackson says calmly. “This is a much less permanent solution than the alternative.”

The archer, still with her arrow aimed at my head, takes a step back. “Walk to me,” she growls at Jackson. “Slowly.”

When he reaches her, she steps behind him and, in a quick motion, releases the tension from the arrow. Gripping it like a knife, she slips her arm around Jackson’s neck and presses the tip to his throat. His body tightens in reflex as it touches him, like how a leg bounces at the knock of a doctor’s hammer.

“Shit on a shingle, that’s spicy,” I hear him say.

Jackson’s eyes connect with mine, and I can see the arrow is working its venom on him, draining the color from his skin. I’m stunned. Why would he do this? Doesn’t he know what’s going to happen?

He forces a smirk and nods at me. It’s a look of reassurance like he’s trying to tell me it’s all going to be fine.

No… He’s telling me he understands what’s at stake. Maybe he hasn’t exactly seen what we’re fighting for , but he knows what we’re up against. And he knows what we’ll do for each other. We aren’t going to abandon him.

The fire spreads further. I cover my face as smoke wafts around us. I move to Airos.

“Kalistratos is hurt,” I tell him.

“How do you know?” he asks, keeping his eyes fixed on the archer.

“I saw it.”

The cat pulls Jackson backward, retreating from us through the burning trees to a clearing in the forest. We advance, maintaining the gap between us.

“First we’ll deal with her,” Airos says to me. “The fool has forfeited any advantage she had.”

“I don’t know, she’s got an arrow to Jackson’s neck.”

“And she needs him alive.”

But when we reach the clearing, the archer presses the arrow harder into Jackson’s flesh, drawing a trickle of blood. Jackson doesn’t flinch, but Airos and I freeze in our tracks.

Come on.

I’m searching for my phoenix, trying to find the source of the connection I’d felt, but it’s like I’m back in that pitch-black cave again. Goddammit!

I reach behind my back and place my hand against Eggy’s warm shell.

Wake up. Daddy needs your help.

All I need is another glimmer.

And then I see it again—another flash of Kalistratos in my mind. He’s struggling to stay on his feet. Dark blood flows from beneath his hand pressed firmly to his shoulder. His eyes burn with furious determination to keep moving.

The vision strikes me right in the heart. It hurts more than any arrow could.

I have to go to him, but where is he? I can see him, but I can’t find him. Here I am, powerless to help him.

Powerless to do anything at all.

A shrill sound pierces through the vision, pulling me back into the moment. Hot tears are flowing down my cheeks, and through the blur I see the archer blowing through a small pan flute, repeating three notes almost like a bird call. Am I going crazy? Did this cat bitch really just decide to start tooting away on a fucking pan flute?

Airos tenses up. His eyes wander, alert like he’s waiting for something to happen.

“You’re gonna blow out my damn eardrum!” Jackson shouts as the cat blows into the pan flute again.

“What’s happening?” I say to Airos. “What are they trying to do?”

“I think we’ve made an error,” he replies in a low voice only I can hear. “Get back. Back to the trees.”

I look over my shoulder to what looks like a wall of flames. “Must be one hell of an error,” I say.

“ Go ,” he urges. “You’ll be safer in the fire than out here. Get to Kalistratos!”

The cat is dragging Jackson further out into the clearing, blowing relentlessly into the pan flute. She watches me move away from Airos and retreat toward the oppressive heat. I’m forced to go laterally to find a way back into the woods. What kind of an idiot runs into a forest fire? Me, apparently.

I keep low and scramble beneath the blazing canopy. Just as I do, I hear a low sound pulsing around me, almost like a drum beat. It’s not my imagination. It’s growing louder, kicking right into the center of my chest and the ground. I realize the fire is responding to it too, wavering with each pulse like it's being hit with bursts of air from gigantic bellows. I throw my hands over my ears and am immediately knocked off my feet. Those bursts of air have turned into gusts, and the low thrumming is now enough to rattle my teeth and almost knock the wind from my lungs.

The fire goes out in an instant, blown away by the force. Looking up through the blackened branches, I’m awestruck by the appearance of a ship eclipsing the sky. It's close enough that I can see the wood planking of its flat-bottomed hull, painted orange and black with a patterned motif, and in the center is the profile of a wolf with bared vicious fangs.

The first thought in my head is Praxis Skotos .

The ship—a sky flier—booms over the clearing, shaking the trees and flattening the grass beneath it. Gray ash whirls around from the scorched forest. Airos has his neck craned back, and he turns and sees me still at the edge of the forest.

“Go!” he shouts at me.

A rope ladder swings down over the side of the ship and hits the ground close to where the cat has Jackson held hostage.

If I don’t leave now, I’m going to end up a prisoner on that ship too, or dead, and Jackson’s sacrifice would be for nothing.

I turn and run. The trees around me look like they’ve been dunked into a lake of black, charred and scorched from their branches down to their middle. Smoldering leaves and flecks of ash blow around me, choking my lungs.

I don’t know where I’m going. I’m just running. The only thought in my head right now is getting to Kalistratos, and somehow, I feel like I’m going the right way. It’s like I’m a cave diver following a guide line in silt-filled waters; I'm following a path I can't see, but I know it exists. No, it’s not that I’m following anything. I’m being pulled . Pulled to him.

I hear Airos’s magic cracking like fireworks over the repeating dum dum dum of the sky flier’s engines, or whatever power keeps the thing afloat. I pump my legs faster and pull a choking, smoky breath through my shredded throat. I’m racing across the uneven terrain, somehow managing to keep my feet over it all with Eggy slung tight against my side like an oblong bowling ball. I barely even feel their weight. They’re a part of me—they always have been.

I’m coming .

The sound of the flier is fading. Either I’ve gained distance or the thing has flown away. It doesn’t matter. Right now, Kalistratos is the only thing that matters.

I can feel you.

It’s like a compass in my chest, guiding me to magnetic north.

I’m at my limit now—my heart, my lungs, my legs, all of them about to explode, but I can’t stop until I find him.

And then I see him, sprawled on the ground beside an ancient olive tree. A bloody palm print is smeared across its gray, craggy bark. His head is turned to the side, his cheek pushed into the dirt, his face hidden by his dark hair.

I scream his name. He looks so far away, and I’m begging and pleading with any fucking god that will listen that it’s not too late.