Rise of the Firebird (9 page)

“Don’t feel bad. He is better than everyone.”

“How’s your throat?” he asked with a scowl.

“Still in one piece,” Anya took the handkerchief away from her throat to show him. It was stinging a little but she hadn’t even felt his blade break the skin. If he did decide to kill her, then she wouldn’t even know she was dead.

“You should get some sleep,
Elenya
.”

“I can’t. The dreams will come back. I haven’t had a restful night sleep in over a week.”

“Come with me and I will show you an Álfr trick as you like to call them,” he said as he turned to leave the kitchen. Anya took a deep uneasy breath and followed him. He walked straight into her bedroom without asking and she secretly hoped she had remembered to pick up all of her stray clothes. “Get into bed.”

“You know some people would find this inappropriate,” Anya said as she pushed back the covers and climbed in.

“It is lucky we aren’t such people,” he replied. “Besides, you frequently climbed into Aramis’s bed when he was unwell. Now, give me your hand and close your eyes.” He very gently began massaging her palm. He began whispering something slowly under his breath and Anya caught a lilting melody. He was singing. In her mind, she saw flowing rivers and tree’s with golden leaves. She saw wild oceans crashing against wooden ships, and finally, she drifted off to sleep.

Anya woke as the sun was going down again. “Thank you, Søren,” she murmured sleepily. Whatever he had done to her had knocked her out cold for a whole day. She was dozing off once more when Fox burst into her room at full speed.

“Hey, wake up!” she said, jumping on the bed beside Anya.

“What?” Anya grumbled as she opened her eyes.

“Look at this.” Fox shoved printouts in her face.

“Wait a second.” Anya sat up and rubbed her eyes before taking a drink of water from the glass beside her bed.

“I know you’re hung over and I will get you coffee in a minute,” Fox said as she passed the pages over, “but I need you to translate this for me.” Anya looked over the page with bleary eyes.

“It says, ‘She will be killed many years from now and I have to ensure the knowledge of how is safely secured and hidden until the time it is needed’…oh, my God,” Anya said.

“I knew it! I knew he would find a way. God, I love this man, he was so smart,” Fox laughed triumphantly. “Why else give all of this to Álfr instead of leaving it among all the other things on the farm.”

“Now all we have to do is find where he wrote it down.”

“Aramis told me what Yanka did to your dream last night,” Fox said slowly. “If I had known that was going to happen, I wouldn’t have told you to have a nightcap.”

“She would’ve found a way in with or without the vodka. All it did was lower my guard. Not to worry, Honaw saved the day. Now all we have to do is find the instructions on how to finish her.”

“That’s what’s worrying me.” Fox’s face was suddenly serious. “There isn’t one. I have been over them all and it’s not there, not in the obvious sense. I’m running a program I designed that picks up codes and anomalies. Ilya was clever, but if he has hidden it somewhere, I should be able to find it.”

“One thing I know for sure is that I need coffee, so let’s start with that,” Anya yawned.

“So,” Fox said pertly as she climbed off the bed, “Søren helped you sleep, did he?”

“Not in the way that you are implying. He used some kind of Álfr sleeping spell on me. It worked brilliantly.”

“I find it interesting that he was around to do it, because according to Aramis, you kicked him and Yvan out last night.”

“I had my head in a toilet. Would you have wanted them around? Søren turned up after I had showered and calmed down.”

“Or he was waiting until they had both left.”

“I really don’t care about his motives because he did me a huge favour. I actually feel like I might be able to function.” Anya wandered into the kitchen and noticed Fox had turned the jug on.

“You better be making me a cup too,” Fox said as she followed her.

“Of course I am. Why are you on Søren’s case all of a sudden anyway?”

“Because he is on yours. Don’t tell me that I’m imaging things because he hates Yanka and you look so much like her.”

“He came here to kill me last night, did you know that?”

“You would be dead if he wanted to kill you.”

“He turned up with his sword to take me out if I had told Yanka our location.”

“I suppose if I were in his position, I would’ve done the same thing. The point is, he didn’t kill you.”

“Can we please talk about something other than Søren and his obscure motives? I have enough trouble trying to understand him as it is, without having you analyse everything.”

“It’s what I do. Now, I’m going to take this coffee and go back to work. I suggest you get your shit together and join me. We have work to do.”

Fox’s computer was beeping at her as she sat down next to her usual desk. The decoder running was a product she had designed with two other hackers. It could run every possible sequence they could imagine. She tapped on the blinking icon and saw that it had a hit on with a prime number sequence where each number was a letter in every second line.

“Leeseetsa, what you seek is with the Forest.”
Fox stared at the message on the screen for a full thirty seconds.

“You look awfully serious,” Anya commented as she walked in.

“Do you know what
leeseetsa
means? Is it even a word?” Fox asked quickly.

“
Leeseetsa
is the Russian word for fox, why?”

“Because your descendant has left me a love letter.”

“The Forest? What forest? That could mean anything,” said Isabelle. After their revelation, Fox and Anya had rounded up everyone they could find for an emergency meeting.

“If I couldn’t figure it out, Ilya wouldn’t have left it,” Fox said stubbornly. “Somehow he knew I’d find the hidden message. He knew what he was doing.”

“We all need to stop arguing and focus on the main issue here,” Yvan spoke over them. “Ilya was extremely smart. He knew that the information about how to kill Yanka would be taken from the collection. We need to find who it was, why they did it and where they’ve hidden it.”

“For all we know, Ilya told them to hide it,” Izrayl pointed out. “I wouldn’t be quick to jump to a sinister view point on this. Obviously, it wasn’t meant to be revealed until now. Otherwise, he wouldn’t have left the note.”

“I wish it hadn’t been so obscure,” Fox mumbled.

“I don’t think that this is an X marks the spot sort of game we are playing,” Harley said as she put an arm around Fox’s shoulder. “Awesome work though, Sherlock. No one else could’ve figured it out.”

“My mind is still spinning that he saw as far as he did,” Aleksandra said in awe. “I thought my talent could be burdensome. I get a headache thinking about it.”

Yvan leaned forward to rest his elbows on his knees, “He was strong enough to find where the firebird’s egg was hidden in the Otherworld. He found it before Vasilli or anyone else knew it existed.”

“He probably saw that I’d need you to help me defeat Yanka. He didn’t do anything without a purpose,” said Anya beside him.

“We should ask one of the Álfr,” Mychal said softly, but his voice silenced all other conversation, “they’ve been around for hundreds of years. There are too many immortals involved in this, so why not try the oldest?”

“I’m sure Ruthann would have some idea,” Hamish added as he poured himself another drink. “He’s ancient and has clearly kept an eye on Yanka’s doings.”

“But don’t you think if he had some kind of idea of how to kill Yanka, he would’ve given it to the Illumination?” Anya asked.

“Perhaps, it outlines it could only be done now, in this time. Or whoever has it had no way of deciphering it,” said Fox, “but Mychal is right, someone should definitely ask the Álfr.”

“Definitely,” agreed Harley. There were nods of approval all round until Anya realised they were all looking at her expectantly.

“Wait a minute…but why should…?” she began before she muttered, “Fine.”

“Good evening, Anya, you’re the exact person I wanted to see,” Ruthann said as he opened the door to his chambers. Søren and Aramis were sitting on the couches and they looked like they had been there for a while.

“Secret business again, I see,” she commented as she eyed them. “No wonder I couldn’t find you both an hour ago.”

“They’ve been here with me discussing your unusual abilities,” Ruthann explained as he poured her a glass of wine.

“How exciting,” she said sarcastically as she sat down opposite them. “Have you decided that you should have put me down last night?” Søren looked at her sharply but Aramis and Ruthann seemed blissfully unaware.

“Quite the opposite, in fact,” Søren replied coolly.

“Lucky for me.”

“We were talking about the time we were in New Orleans and Søren’s magic linked with yours,” Ruthann explained, “and how Aramis got your magic to refocus.” He said it so tactfully, Anya felt her neck starting to burn.

“Who would’ve thought sticking your tongue down someone’s throat could have that kind of effect?” Søren added bluntly. Anya glowered at him.

“It was quite the kiss, I admit,” she replied. His green eyes flashed hot for a moment but returned to a sulky simmer. Aramis cleared his throat awkwardly.

“The point is that you have a piece of my magic in you because of the
elvianth
and it automatically connected to mine,” he said. “Ruthann has suggested that because the
elvianth
was put on you by mistake that you may actually be able to siphon people’s magic.”

“But we didn’t even touch or anything that day in the garden.”

“But your power ran into him and vice versa,” Ruthann pointed out. “You kept some of his power inside of you, which caused the
elvianth
to occur without any kind of preparation for it. Usually, it takes months for it to work effectively, if it works at all.”

“Are you saying it’s my fault that it happened?”

“Yes,” said Søren as the other two answered no.

“No,” Aramis repeated as he glared at Søren. “It is not her fault. If she didn’t know she could absorb people’s magic, she can hardly be blamed for it.”

“How do you know I can do it at all? My power has always reacted oddly to Aramis which could explain why it worked,” Anya argued.

“You could try it with someone else. You can’t get an
elvianth
twice, but you might be able to drain someone’s power slightly,” suggested Ruthann. “If you could do that, you could dramatically weaken any magical opponent you came up against.”

“As in Yanka?”

“If you became good enough at it.”

“No one is going to be silly enough to let me try to drain their power for practice,” Anya stated. “It could hurt them.”

“Not necessarily. It’s their magic you are taking, not their physical energy.”

“So you expect me to go up to an Álfr and push them to see if I can do it? That’s crazy.”

“When you put it like that, it certainly sounds it. You could try it right now on Søren,” said Ruthann with a wave of his hand.

“No,” she said stubbornly. “I knew Aramis when it happened, so I was comfortable around him. I’d been into battle with him and my power was already drawn to his. If I can take some of Søren’s abilities, it would be because he is Aramis’s twin.”

“I can see that I’ve embarrassed you,” Ruthann said calmly. “Perhaps, you can try it some other time when you get used to the idea and you are not feeling so awkward. Now, what is it you wanted to ask me when you came in?”

“One of Ilya’s writings is missing and I want to know what happened to it,” she said as she tried to keep her voice steady and her eyes off Søren.

“There are no other writings or prophecies. I have been through them a hundred times,” said Aramis. “If there had been one missing, I would’ve found out.” Anya saw something shift on Ruthann’s face before it went carefully blank.

“Fox found a message in them written personally to her. It says that one of Ilya’s writings is with the forest. What forest?” Anya risked a glance at Søren who was looking at Ruthann.

“I don’t believe this…” Aramis muttered.

“I will look into it for you,” Ruthann said calmly. “Please let me know if you discover anything else.” Anya knew she was being dismissed, so she got up.

“I will. I hope you can turn up something,” she said bluntly. As she walked out of the room, she thought about Ruthann and Søren’s reaction. They knew where it was.

Thirty minutes later, she was pacing and muttering in her own chambers. She wanted more vodka to obliterate herself completely, but she was resisting after the previous night’s escapades. She jumped as Søren appeared in the small courtyard outside of her room.

“Go away,” she said before she could stop herself.

“Make me,” he said as he walked inside. “You know you’re a lot smarter than I gave you credit for. You figured it out much quicker than I expected.”

“Credit can go to Fox for it. She was the one who discovered something was missing. I drew the short straw and had to be the one who asked Ruthann. He knows where it is, doesn’t he?”

“Of course he does. He was the one who hid it to begin with.”

“Where did he hide it?” she said through her teeth. Her temper was mounting and she couldn’t stop it.

“He never told me. It was done years ago. Not even Vasya Melenko knows where he placed it.” He was angry too. She could see it in his eyes and the way he held himself. He was so calm on the surface that it made Anya wanted to hurl something at him.

“That’s great. You know what? I’m so over this…shit! If he’d produced it when I turned up, we could be working on defeating Yanka instead of contemplating what I can do with my powers. Who cares what I did or didn’t do with Aramis? Thanks for blaming me for that, by the way. I still have no idea what I can do or how I can control it and having you sitting there accusing me of things isn’t going to…” Søren started to move toward her furiously, and as if a rabbit faced a wolf, she turned to run. She had taken two steps before he had grabbed her and pressed her roughly against the wall.