Phoenix Flame - Sara Holland Page 0,80
the far side of the armory. It doesn’t let in much light, but the multitude of silver objects in the room catch it and refract it, amplifying it and turning it strange. The quiet seems thicker too. The door closing behind me shuts out the noise from the dining hall entirely, leaving me in silence and silver light. Haven light.
Overwhelming dread and guilt descends on me now. That I’m not doing enough, that I haven’t saved anyone. But I can’t let that slow me down right now. I need to find just the right objects with just the right magic in order to create the armor replica. I find that if I concentrate, if I empty my mind, I can get a glimpse—a whisper—of the magic trapped in each silver piece. It’s less than an image, barely a feeling. But it’s there, somehow. Wind. Ice. Fire.
Nahteran was the one who suggested we use soul-silver to deepen the deception. As soon as the Silver Prince put on our fake armor, he would sense the mundaneness of it. He’d know we tricked him, and make us pay for it. But if we used soul-silver, which emanated its own power …
We could defeat him by making the false armor into a weapon.
I start to gather objects from the shelves, trying to feel out the magic as I go. When my fingers brush the burnished sides of a silver tea kettle, it sings of flames and heat waves. I wrap it carefully in one of the T-shirts from my bag and tuck it inside, reaching up for more. It feels wrong. It is wrong. But it’s the way forward, for now.
An hour later, I meet Nahteran and Taya in the abandoned tunnel to the Turalian door. Marcus had it boarded up years ago, but it’s a simple matter to pry a couple of boards off, stack them to the side, and step through into the dusty blackness. The others follow behind me, each carrying their contributions to the project.
Nahteran’s backpack contains the phoenix flame armor, its pieces separated only by layers of fabric. Taya’s tote bag is filled up a third of the way with Willow’s special-occasion kitchenware—a glittering heap of gold and copper—gardening gloves, and a camping lantern that throws off enough bright white light to see by, but makes us all look like ghosts and intensifies the shadows at the edges of the light’s reach, making them shift and stretch like living things.
Nahteran lays the armor out on the ground—making sure to place each piece several feet apart from the others—and studies them intently. The Silver Prince has never actually seen the armor, so our reproduction doesn’t have to be perfect. But it should be close. Meanwhile, Taya watches me lay out the soul-silver in the shape of the phoenix flame armor, looking as conflicted as I feel.
“How do you know what each object does?” she asks in a soft voice.
“By touch.” I beckon her over, and when she kneels down beside me, I bring her hand to a simple silver bowl. I’m not sure if she’ll be able to feel the magic too. But I can tell from the widening of her eyes that she does.
“That’s wild,” Taya says. She steps back from the bowl and gives the tunnel a skeptical look. “Hey, are you sure this doorway’s sealed? Because the last time we were down here together with the Silver Prince, Havenfall was almost destroyed and I ended up on a one-way trip to Solaria. Now that I’m back, I’d kind of like to stay.”
“Sealed shut with magic so powerful, Marcus says we’ll never be able to open it again even if we wanted to,” I reply.
She wants to stay.
“Okay,” Nahteran calls out. “If you two are done reminiscing, I think we’re ready to start.”
Nahteran comes to stand beside us and looks down at my work. I’ve used ingots for the ribs of the breastplate, and arranged silverware in the shape of two gauntlets. I’ve also separated three small piles of silver objects off to the side.
“Fire, wind, and ice magic,” I tell them, pointing to the three piles. My voice is on the edge of trembling.
Nahteran and Taya are both silent for a long moment. Then she asks me, “How do you use them? How do we get the power out of the silver?”
“I’m not totally sure,” I admit.
I pick up a spoon—like the one Sura gave me, back when we were both prisoners of the soul traders in