Phoenix Flame - Sara Holland Page 0,90

knees.

We have him. It’s over.

But then he lifts his head toward me. His face is sickly white, blood trickling from his mouth and a hatred in his eyes so intense, it roots me to the ground, freezing me where I am on my knees. He raises my dagger from the floor.

It bursts into flame, white-hot like a tiny star trapped on Earth. And then it flies at me.

I can’t move. I can’t even scream at first; it punches its way free at the same time I feel a blistering heat on my face. The last thing I see before I shut my eyes is the Silver Prince falling forward, face-first. Sinking through the doorway and falling, falling, falling into Oasis.

Someone screams.

I open my eyes. Nahteran is suspended in the air above me, and for the briefest instant I think this is some kind of strange new magic.

Then my brother hits the ground hard on his back, my dagger hilt rising out of his chest.

23

Static fills my senses. Gray and buzzing, crowding out the swirling image of Byrn through the doorway, the clamoring wind, Taya’s shout of dismay. I black out for a few seconds, and when I come to, I’m on my back, looking up at Havenfall’s ballroom ceiling. It’s caved in at the northeastern corner, the beams snapped and splintered, a ragged bit of gray morning sky showing through.

Then I realize the floor beneath me is soft, quicksand-soft. And I’m sinking. I jerk up with a gasp, tugging my limbs free from the translucent substance of the closing doorway to Oasis.

Mom and Taya are crouched at Nahteran’s side. He’s unconscious, and Taya’s back blocks most of the sight, but I glimpse the red of blood. My stomach flips over.

Mom turns to me at the sound I make. Her face is gaunt and grave, bruised and flecked with dried blood. But I don’t know whose blood.

“Maddie, catch,” she says, and throws me something large and gold.

I catch it out of instinct, tipping forward with the weight of the phoenix flame armor breastplate. It’s warm and thrumming with magic, but spattered with Nahteran’s blood.

I shudder, wanting to throw it away from me, but I understand what Mom wants me to do. So I back up carefully, putting more distance between the breastplate and the gauntlets, which are still on Nahteran’s wrists.

The farther back I go, the more the room settles. The seething wind dies down, and the floor settles and hardens, the almost-liquid of the doorway reverting to wooden boards. But warped and broken boards stick up at odd angles, the bedrock below showing through in places.

The orange light dims. The window into Oasis darkens and shrinks and shrinks until I can’t see it anymore.

Then the wind finally dies down. For a moment, everything is silent, until the door to the hallway gives way with a deafening bang, the heavy wood crashing to the floor.

I whirl around, blinking the tears out of my eyes, to see my uncle rushing through, followed by Graylin and Sal and Willow. They drop the concrete planter they were using as a battering ram—another teeth-shaking impact on the floor—and rush toward us all at once. Marcus makes for me, while the other three converge around Nahteran and Mom.

He’s deathly pale, his eyes closed. His chest is rising and falling, but faint and fast, like a bird’s. Taya puts pressure on the knife wound with a wad of cloth that’s already red around her hands. She determinedly blinks away tears. But I can tell from her face that this isn’t good. And Mom. Mom leans over Nahteran, sweat-damp hair falling into her face. For the first time in years, the limp emptiness of her expression is now replaced with a terrible, faraway, lost look.

Back at Sterling Correctional Facility the other week, she told me not to endanger myself by seeking Nahteran out. That he was probably long gone, and she didn’t want to lose two children when I got tangled up with the traders too. But all that forced indifference has fallen away now, leaving her broken, carved open. She didn’t lose two children. But it’s very possible she might lose the same child twice.

Marcus loops one arm beneath my torso and one behind my knees, trying to lift me up. But I pull back. My mind isn’t working properly enough to form words, but I don’t want him to take me away, I don’t want to leave Nahteran. Yet in yanking away from him, a wave