Page 56 of Phoenix Burn

“Well, drop in more often,” Cass said. “We’ll find you a shovel.”

I snorted and watched them head back toward the wall. Eli’s hands sketched the air, no doubt pursuing his tattoo agenda. They be good friends of mine. I did not have many, and if I be honest, I missed their company.

I ran slowly along the path, aware of the fatigue that dogged my every step. I should head back to the academy. But I wanted to see the reservoir. When the path forked, I took the one that climbed above the dam.

The traditional role of the Bellatis be to force the balance. To destroy, if necessary, in order to clear the path for the Watchers to heal the land.

Galeran had taken that philosophy to heart. And there be times when I doubted my decision to leave him. Seeing this river clogged with pollution gave me insights as to why the rogue Bellati thought the way he did. Why he might think that resident populations must be eliminated before the realm could ever again find balance.

His approach had sounded so noble at first. Until the reality be placed before me, and I be witness to the slaughter of millions.

The very man who Galeran had used to accomplish those atrocities—his son, Nikolai—be now trained by Cara to do the exact opposite. To heal like a Watcher, instead of destroy like a Bellati. It brought an entirely new meaning to the balance the Liberis, male and female, be designed to protect.

The path climbed a steep rock ridge, and I felt the pull of exhaustion in my muscles. I sipped from the life energy around me to sustain the effort, and broke out onto an open stretch of rock.

I looked down upon the reservoir and suddenly found it difficult to breathe.

The water gleamed blue in the sunlight, still as a mirror, perfectly reflecting the sky overhead. It didn’t just look clean. The energy coming off it told me stories—of the plants and animals that lived within and around it, most of which had been all but extinct. But now they lived and breathed and mated, healthy and content. Thriving, when before, they’d been dying.

I be awestruck. The word miracle be far too innocuous a term. This reservoir had been as polluted as the river when I’d last stood here. It be as though a god had waved his hand and created something beautiful and pristine.

Standing there, I finally acknowledged that this be the way to save the realms—by using Nikolai’s enormous power not to destroy, but to heal, and then showing residents how to work together towards sustainable options.

We Bellati could help them to save their own realms.

And it proved that Galeran, with his policy of wiping the slate clean by slaughtering both offenders and innocents, be in every reality a monster.

* * *

I emerged into the academy meadow on a lovely afternoon, with birds flitting and insects buzzing amid the wildflowers. Before I had gone a hundred yards along the path, two figures rose from the academy steps and approached.

They’d obviously been waiting for me. I gritted my teeth and diverted to the bench by the lake.

I was dead tired. My kind recharged by immersing ourselves in life essences rather than sleep, but I had not had an opportunity to do either. Considering the way my body buzzed with exhaustion, this conversation be likely best done sitting.

Cara gathered her flowing dress around her and sat next to me, but Bess stayed standing, staring out over the lake. The Watchers often preferred dresses woven from the gossamer silk of our homeland over growing their own hair as clothing.

But then, they didn’t spend much time as beasts. Shifting tended to be somewhat hard on clothes.

Cara’s gaze measured me. “Nothing yet from the Dragons?” It was as much a statement as a question. She knew as well as I how resistant the big shifters be to interrogation.

“It will take time,” I agreed.

“We have another wrinkle,” Bess said. “Talakai’s role in the twins' kidnapping has been cast in doubt.”

I managed to keep my expression stoic, but my heart did a funny little leap.Hellfire.I needed to keep my head in the sardding game.

“In what way?”

Cara tapped her fingers on her lap, a sure sign of her brain working hard. “Tyrez told us Matt and Anna found a sword in the Dragon’s room. It’s apparently something a master would hand down to a student—and the inscription on it indicates it may have been gifted to Talakai.”

My eyebrows rose. “Not something he would leave behind on purpose.”

Cara nodded. “Exactly.”

My mind spun. “But if that be the case, where be he?”

“Precisely,” Bess said.

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