Page 54 of Phoenix Burn

“But if he isn’t, where is he? Is he in some other kind of trouble? And if he is, will they do anything about it?” She swallowed. “He killed people for a living.”

It was a valid point. “He was a slave,” I reminded her. But I remembered the way the Dragon moved, like a predator stalking, even when he walked. Quiet as a ghost, able to blend into the shadows. The way he’d assessed everything around him. And how he’d fought in class, that deadly combination of skill and speed.

I had little doubt that he was, indeed, a lethal weapon.

“Why do I care?” The anguish in Anna’s whispered voice tore at me. “No matter what everyone tells me, my heart insists that he’s innocent.”

My own heart ached at that admission, but my arm tightened around her, pulling her close. “If he’s in trouble, Angel, we’ll go after him.”

She gazed up at me, and the light in her eyes set my world on fire. “I would kiss you, right now, if I knew it wouldn’t kill you.”

My heart thundered as she pulled away, but I thought she’d summed up the whole crux of it. And the terrifying thing was, I wasn’t sure I cared if I lived or died, so long as I could kiss her.

Which was when I realized I would also die for her.

16

Sebastian

The walk to the gate be a couple of hours. If I’d jogged, it would have taken a fraction of that time, but I be not so inclined.

The young Dragon would no doubt carry stories back to his friends about how strange Bellatis were. I supposed it be always good to foster the mystique.

I finally stood before the stacked stone arch and raised my hands.

To the Liberi, the gateways be linked to multiple highways of energy that we mentally traced through to their destinations. Watchers as powerful as Cara always had their mental fingers wound into the gate energy, but we all had the ability to trace the pathways.

With temptation, I touched those that would take me far, far away from all of this. Because that be what I longed to do—to run away from what Fate be trying to accomplish.

I owed Cara. The realms desperately needed what she be trying to build. But I be not ready to return to the academy. I sought clarity. So instead, I chose another route familiar to me. The gate energy swirled, and I stepped through.

The temporary gate at this end facilitated the movement of resources back and forth. It spat me out along the river.

Rivers evoked images of fresh, flowing water with dense foliage along the banks and living, wriggling creatures within its cool depths. But this river be different.

This river be dying.

It stank of decay, and be choked with the inorganic debris of a civilization run amok. The water be rife with pollution of just about every description, and even the riverbank plants shunned it.

If Cara’s vision came true, it would soon be reborn.

I ignored it all as I closed my eyes, and I sought two specific energies. They seldom be apart from each other, and sure enough, I sensed them. Not far away.

I turned upriver and ran along a path that followed the curving banks. Soon a town came into view.

My targets be working on a channel that would carry the new river safely past the settlement. Digging machines be hard at work. A new concrete and stone wall was partly erected, and it be here that my friends be, side by side with members of the dominant race for this realm.

They looked nothing like us. I had once been leading this crew, and we had worked hard to convince them that we be an isolated cult from a faraway continent. Not an easy feat in a virgin realm with their technology, but we’d been successful.

The two Bellati I searched for sensed me coming and broke away. They jogged to where I paused, admiring their hard work. The dam upstream from here be ancient and threatening to collapse. I’d spent a couple of months here helping the locals to compromise between generating power and rejuvenating the river.

A very different approach from the one I’d embarked upon with Galeran. He believed that the realms could only be saved by harsh intervention. I’d just had no idea how harsh he’d envisioned.

Galeran had been the biggest mistake of my life. And by the time I realized it, the men I’d led to him be invested in his brutal plans for the future. Some of them had been brave enough to follow me out again. Two that had done so pulled up in front of me.

Cass merely nodded a greeting, but Eli offered a broad grin and smacked me on the shoulder.

“Hey, Sebastian. That’s a sexy new look you’ve got there.”

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