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Airos stands silently and returns the gourd to the twist of cord at his waist. His golden hair falls across his foreheadas he tilts his head slightly, giving just the vaguest hint of an apologetic smile. The side of his mouth twitches, but I know better than to give a sorcerer a chance to speak. My hand flashes forward and my knife spins through the air like a lightning bolt straight at Airos’s face. A kill strike.
I watch it all happen in the downstroke of a sparrow’s wing. His fingers flick into a strange position like the horns of a bull, and a wooden staff materializes out of nothingness in front of him as a flash of light surrounds his forehead like a silver circlet. A mote of flame sears the air and deflects the knife into the trunk of a nearby tree.
No choice.
I reach into my soul and touch the phoenix nested there, calling on its power to halt the wheel of time. The falling leaves stop in their descent. I fly forward past Tyler who is locked mid-shout, and draw another blade to pair with the assassin’s throat. Mere moments before my steel reaches flesh, Airos’s frozen eyes suddenly shift to the side and pierce me with a stare. He grabs the staff and slams its end into the ground, and I smash face-first into an invisible wall. The leaves flutter down to the ground around me.
“What sorcery…?” I say as I scramble to my feet. “How did you do that?”
Airos calmly rests his staff against his shoulder and shakes his head pityingly at me. “With proper knowledge, a phoenix can interrupt another phoenix’s powers. Perhaps I overestimated you.”
“Youcaused that landslide?” Tyler says angrily. “Why did you help me if you were trying to kill us the whole time?”
“Truly, I’m sorry, Tyler,” Airos says, bowing his head. “It was nothing personal.” His voice is so steeped in regret that even I believe him for a moment.
“Nothing personal?!” Tyler shouts. “You tried to make us into meat pancakes. How is that not personal?”
Slowly, Airos surrenders his staff by placing it on the ground in front of him. He raises one hand, palm up in an attempt at pacification, and reaches into the sleeve of his robe with the other. I reach for another blade—but I know that any fight from here will be with flames, talons and magic, not steel. I’ve never clashed with another phoenix in a mortal battle before, but I’m not going to allow anyone to touch Tyler and the baby—especially not this pretty-boy phony monk. I’ll scorch this entire orchard and leave Athenos in ashes before that happens.
But Airos doesn’t attack. He pulls out a small roll of parchment, which he tosses over to me.
“You can read, I hope?” Airos says.
“Of course I can read,” I snap, unrolling the scroll.
I squint at it. It’s written in a weird script that takes me a moment to understand.
“There’s no shame in not being able to read,” Airos goes on.
“It’s from the frogs,” I say, talking over him. “A contract to recover… stolen property.”
“The map,” Tyler says.
“I’ve been tracking that map for months,” Airos says. “I finally made it to the Erpetosi camp and found someone else had already taken care of the difficult part, but the map was gone. I bartered with the remaining frogs for information on the two escaped prisoners. They weren’t even aware the map was missing.”
Tyler groans. “We’re the stolen property.”
Airos smiles. “All I’m after is the map. You can destroy that contract right now.”
I ball it up in my fist and torch it with phoenix fire. The ashes drift away with the breeze.
“You’re not getting it,” I say. “I’ve been looking for the Great Phoenix for a lot longer than a few months.”
“As have I,” Airos says. “That map was the final piece of the puzzle in my mission. I never would’ve attacked you had I known you’re a Phoenikos. Or that your mate is pregnant.”
I stagger back a step like I’ve just been swatted on the nose. “He’s not my mate,” Tyler and I both say.
“Then if he’s not your mate…”
“It’s a long story,” Tyler adds.
“Allow me to offer my services,” Airos says with a bow. “You’ll need a guardian.”
“He has a guardian,” I say. “And why should I trust a mercenary dressed up as a monk?”
“Hey, monks need to eat, too,” he replies with a grin. “And you need someone to help you decipher the map.”
I snort. “And that would be you, huh?”
