Phoenix Rising Signed Hard Cover - Keeper Origins Book 3

• Time spent among the elves. (Doesn’t go well.)
• Time spent among the dwarves. (Doesn’t go well.)
• Time spent with the army. (Some of it goes well, some of it…does not.)
• A fiery phoenix.
• A fiery plan.
• Honestly, just a lot of fire.
• And, as always, a mismatched band of adventurers who become a found family.

Shadows spread long grasping fingers over the shore of the Black River, and the bloody, exhausted line of soldiers waiting to board the riverboats. Those already on board shuffled supplies into place, their shoulders set in a quiet, grim determination.

Sable sat in the bow of one of the larger boats, ripping another strip of cloth from the pile of fabric, rolling another bandage and adding it to her growing pile. She let her hand rest on the pile for a moment.

Reese lay beside her, his skin grey and waxy. She reached out and brushed a lock of blood-crusted hair off his brow. His forehead was cool, and she pressed her palm to his cheek, pushing a little more vitalle into him.

“Watch him,” Serene had said when Sable had first found Reese lying bandaged and unconscious on Kiva’s merchant ship in the docks of Immusmala. “Give him a little vitalle if you can spare it.”

But after hours of offering him what little energy she had while they sailed to the mouth of the Black River, the flow was down to a trickle. Now that they were finally settled on a much smaller riverboat, ready to head back to the north, the vitalle she pushed into him barely warmed his skin before it dribbled to a stop. Underneath her hand, he grew cold again.

A spray of fire shot over the trees along the riverbank, leaving a trail of glittering sparks as Innov circled the shore choked with soldiers. Hundreds of weary eyes turned up toward the phoenix, bathed in her golden light until she skimmed over the side of the boat and alighted on the rail above Sable’s head. A shower of embers rolled and bounced harmlessly down the wood like tiny fires, settling on Sable’s shoulders and lap, burning for a breath on Reese’s cold skin before winking out.

Atticus’s voice came from the gangplank, convincing the soldiers that fitting his wagon onto the riverboat was a perfectly logical thing to do. From where Sable sat, she could just see the roof, a bit of bright, cheery blue, like some fluttering decoration from a distant festival that had been caught up and blown here to land among the muted sea of uniforms.

Serene crossed the deck toward Sable. Her black robe was streaked with dirt and wet in spots with something that glistened more darkly than water. Her eyes were shadowed with smudges, her nearly black hair was pulled back in a tight knot, and her face was drawn.

Jae came with her, carrying another pile of fabric and a lantern. His normally quick smile was weighed down with exhaustion as he dropped the cloth onto Sable’s pile.

“Has he woken?” Serene asked, handing Sable a waterskin.

Sable shook her head. Serene knelt on the other side of Reese, setting her hand on his forehead.

“How bad is it?” Sable asked quietly.

Serene cast out. Both she and Sable lit up in Sable’s senses like bonfires of vitalle, blazing with life, but between them, Reese’s body held only a hint of warmth, no stronger than a bed of dying coals.

Serene’s wave rolled farther across the boat, and first Jae, then the soldiers flared into towers of heat. The small sensation of warmth from Reese faded until Sable was left gripping his cold hand.

Serene sank back against the side of the boat, meeting Sable’s eyes with a grave expression. “His ribs aren’t broken, but the cut was deep. He lost so much blood I’m surprised he’s still alive. I cleaned the wound and closed it as well as I could, but…” She looked back down at Reese. “If it doesn’t get infected, and if he gets a lot of rest, he may recover.”

Sable looked between Serene and Jae. Neither of them looked hopeful. “May?”

Serene watched Reese take slow, shallow breaths. “Or he may not. If he lives, it will be a long time before he’s strong enough to fight. He needs time and rest and a good dose of luck.”

“And vitalle?” Sable asked.

“It helps. It gives his body the strength to heal.” Her hand moved to her own stomach.

Sable sat forward. “Does it hurt the baby when you heal people?”

Serene shook her head. “Not if I’m careful.”

“We hope.” Jae’s eyes, lined with worry, lingered on Serene before he moved over and knelt next to Sable. “Teaching you how to manipulate vitalle is long overdue. We’ve had too much to worry about since we met you. But we have time on our hands now, so I thought we’d remedy that. Luckily for us, and unluckily for Reese, he is the perfect exercise for practicing control.”

“Jae is a thousand times better at teaching than I am,” Serene said, pushing herself to her feet. “So I’ll leave him to it. Whenever Reese is awake, get him to drink.” She motioned to the waterskin. “There’s wartroot in here. It’ll help with his pain. When we get to Tutella Island, we’ll have someone who knows what they’re doing look at him.”

“Be careful,” Jae said to his wife as she started across the deck.

She gave him a weary smile over her shoulder.

With a sigh, he turned back to look at Reese. “His most pressing problem is that he lost a lot of blood. His body will make more, but it is a slow process, and until then, he’ll be incredibly weak. We can help that to a limited extent. All our vitalle does is give his body the energy to do what it’s already doing. He’s not strong enough to use a flood of it. He needs slow trickles, just enough to help the healing. As he gets stronger, he’ll be able to use more.”

Sable set her finger on the cool skin of Reese’s arm. “And if he gets weaker?”

“Then there will come a point when no matter what we do, his body won’t be able to use it.” He looked up at her with a small smile. “We’re not at that point, and we won’t worry about it unless we get there.”

“I feel like I don’t have much left to give.”

Jae nodded thoughtfully. “Your body is flooded with vitalle, but only a little is available to use. The rest is busy keeping you alive. You can access that with a lot of effort, but you can also kill yourself in the process.”

He turned his hand over and showed the old scars on his palm. “There are limits. When we move too much vitalle, we burn ourselves, then if we continue, we deplete the energy we need to live. How much we have to use varies. Serene has ten times more than I do. Maybe more. She can move tremendous amounts of vitalle at a speed that would kill me.” His words were warm. “And probably kill you, no matter how much you train, but that’s her strength. She is not as good at things that require a low level of steady control.”

Jae held his hand out, and Sable got the impression of heat flowing out from it in a thin sheet. He waved his fingers toward her, and a swirl of wind blew past. “For instance, she’s horrible at moving air, which requires creating a stable boundary layer that you can push. It’s why she dislikes healing. Directing a thin line of vitalle delicately enough to help a body close a wound takes a lot of energy and a lot of control. Lucky for us, she’s done the hard part in closing Reese’s wound. All we need to do is offer his body more vitalle to help it continue healing.” He looked at her hand. “Show me how you do it.”

Sable focused on her palm and pushed vitalle into Reese’s skin. Like before, it was only a small trickle.

“Pushing is the least effective method.” He set his hand on the back of hers. “It’s the natural instinct we have, but we end up wasting energy in the pushing part. Reese is so much weaker than you are, you don’t need to push. Just open a channel, and the energy will flow into him.”

Vitalle moved from Jae’s hand, through hers, and into Reese. Instead of a shove, it slid like water.

“It’s like you’re full to bursting, and he’s hollow,” Jae said. “The energy will try to fill him.” He cut off the vitalle and pulled his hand away.

Sable focused again on her hand, imagining an opening filling her palm. Imagining the vitalle flowing through—

A rush of energy gushed out of her and into Reese. His arm suddenly flamed with heat, and she yanked her hand back, her palm red and hot.

“Well done,” Jae said with a smile. “Maybe a smaller channel this time.”

Sable tried twice more, discovering that it took only a very thin connection before vitalle began to move.

“If we need more energy than we have available,” Jae said, “we draw vitalle from things around us. There are obvious ethical questions about pulling vitalle out of other humans or animals, but most people are comfortable drawing it out of plants or fire.” He opened the lantern glass. “See if you can follow the heat.”

They set their hands back on Reese’s arm. Jae opened his other palm toward the flame, and a trickle of heat pulled out toward him. She could almost trace the path it took up one arm, across his shoulders, and down the other arm. A gentle warmth passed from his hand, through hers, into Reese.

“Fire is a great source of energy, but it can grow powerful very quickly. Stick with something small like a candle or a lantern for now. And, in general, don’t drive vitalle across your chest. You have important things in there like lungs and a heart. If you’re going from one hand to the other, bring the energy up high across your shoulders.”

He set the lantern next to her, and she put one hand toward it. Once she could feel the warmth of the flame on her palm, she opened up a channel. The heat slipped into her hand, making her feel a bit like she was filling with hot water. It pooled inside her palm until she pulled it higher up her arm. The warmth seeped through her like a mist, and she directed it across the top of her back and down her other arm. Her palm near the flame was painfully hot, but her palm on Reese let out barely a trickle.

Still, Jae nodded encouragingly. “Good. As you practice, you’ll get better at not letting it disperse inside you. Some people think of a tube that the energy moves down.” His mouth quirked up in a smile. “Serene says it’s not her energy, so why would it go into her body unless she told it to? But for most of us, it’s not quite that simple.”

Sable tried again to pull warmth from the flame, and this time a bit more of it made its way into Reese.

“Good. Any questions?” Jae asked.

Sable shook her head.

“The more tired you are, the more you’ll waste, and the less will go into Reese, so take your time.” He picked up the pile of bandages she’d rolled earlier. “Besides, if you exhaust yourself, Serene’s going to be mad at both of us.” His gaze dropped to Reese, and he sighed. “Just do what you can.” With a smile that wasn’t particularly reassuring, he headed across the deck toward Serene.

Sable set her hand on Reese’s chest, but his heartbeat was weak. Innov shifted on the rail above them, but even the sparks of her fire didn’t take away the greyness of his skin.

“Can you help him too?” Sable looked up at the phoenix and patted her hand on Reese’s chest. “You helped Narine when she was weak.”

Innov twitched her head, then launched off the rail, tucked into a tight circle, and spiraled down to land in a flurry of fire in the center of Reese’s bandage. Tiny tongues of flame flickered along her feathers as she settled her wings. Her warmth pressed against Sable’s cheeks like she was sitting by a glowing hearth. But more than that, a gentle current of hope seeped into the air, smoothing the jagged edges of worry and fear inside Sable and the aching emptiness left by all the things lost in the battle at Immusmala.

Sable ran her finger down Innov’s chest. “Thank you.”

Reese didn’t move.

What if he never did? What if he never sat up next to her, solid and protective and…alive?

She swallowed and took his hand again. “I need you to live,” she whispered, the truth of the words warming the air around them. “I thought you were dead once already, when I saw you fall in the battle.” The heat swirled through the air between them, pooling around Reese. She focused on it, willing it to sink into him. “Actually, when you hear what I did after that, you’re going to be really mad.”

An officer approached and saluted, the motion including Sable as well. “Preparations are almost finished. We’ll be pushing off soon, leading the fleet north up the river.”

The word “fleet” was too sophisticated for a haphazard cluster of borrowed merchant boats and would have been amusing if everyone boarding them hadn’t been exhausted, wounded, and filthy.

The officer was looking at Reese, who didn’t move.

“How much of the army is here?” Sable asked.

The officer shifted his attention to her. “Everyone well enough to march from Immusmala.”

“Any news on the Kalesh forces who already went north?”

“From what we’ve gathered, they have a four-day head start. With the boats, we should shave at least a day off their lead.”

“Only a day?” Sable asked.

“We’ll be rowing against the current,” the officer said, his eyes straying to Innov perched on Reese’s chest. “We’ll be moving no faster than someone could walk along the shore, but we’ll row in shifts so we can continue moving through the night. If all goes well, we’ll gain on the cowards a little.”

“Thank you,” Sable said.

The man saluted and, with one last glance at Reese, started back across the deck. Atticus’s wagon finally rolled on board, and there were a few moments of commotion as some crates were moved to fit it into the back of the boat.

Next to Sable, Reese groaned, and she leaned closer, grabbing his hand. His eyes cracked open.

“Reese?” she whispered.

He focused on her face. His fingers twitched, trying to squeeze her hand, but she could barely feel the pressure. “Are you hurt?” His voice was whisper quiet and strained.

“Me?” A breath escaped her, sounding more like a sob than a laugh. “I thought you were dead.”

His eyes closed. “I hope being dead isn’t going to hurt this much.”

“Serene says you need to drink. There’s wartroot in it for the pain.” She lifted his head, and Innov flapped her wings, fluttering up to the rail of the boat, dousing them in a shower of sparks.

Reese took a few swallows before his head lolled to the side. “Where are we?”

“Back on the river.” Sable gave a quick explanation of how they’d taken a merchant boat from Immusmala to the river, and how they were now readying to row north on the smaller riverboats.

He squinted up at her. “How did we get merchant boats?”

Sable shook her head, remembering how Kiva had escorted her to his ships. “I’ll save the details for when you’re feeling better and have the energy to be properly angry with me.”

When he looked like he might object, she continued. “We won the battle, though.” In broad strokes, leaving out her own involvement, she explained the end of the fighting. As she talked, though, his eyes began to glaze over.

Innov shifted on the railing, and embers cascaded around Sable’s shoulders.

Reese blinked and focused on her. “You look magical.”

She let out a short laugh. “I’m too dirty to look mag—”

“And plain,” he declared.

She tilted her head. “Plain?”

His eye slid shut and he nodded weakly. “Plain.” His voice was warm with truth.

“Thanks, Reese.” She patted his shoulder. “That’s very sweet.”

He didn’t answer for so long, she thought he had fallen back asleep. Finally, his hand tightened on hers. “Don’t,” he whispered.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t…” The word was slurred. “…leave…”

She set her hand on his cold cheek. “I’ll stay while you sleep.”

He shook his head slightly. “Not…enough,” he mumbled. “Not…”

“Reese?”

He didn’t answer.

She slid her fingers down to his neck. His pulse was weak and thready and his skin so cold she reached out toward the lantern and funneled more vitalle into him. The merest hint of warmth flowed between them. Dropping her hand, she leaned back, her arms and head heavy. She closed her own eyes, and the world spun slightly. The groan of some wounded soldier floated across the deck, and she forced her eyes open. There were more bandages to make. She picked up a new piece of cloth.

As she tore it into strips, the events of the day replayed yet again in her head.

Ending, like it always did, with the thought of the raven racing toward the Empire. The Kalesh would be returning soon. It was inevitable. When they did…

Her hands closed around the cloth.

There was an obvious solution.

A painful one, but an obvious one.

She pointedly refocused on the fabric, starting a tear and ripping off a strip. Rolling it neatly in her pile.

Atticus’s voice rang across the deck again as he climbed on board. His wavy white hair and beard came into view with several familiar faces following him.

Sable breathed out a long, slow breath.

As soon as they were all gathered, she’d tell them what had happened.

They’d see the solution too. They might argue a little at first, but they’d agree in the end.

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