Soul Fire (22 page)

“What is the big hurry?” I asked, trying not to fall over
my own feet.
He was saved answering as we emerged from the trees
on the other side of our camp. My jaw dropped as I took in
the view.
We were standing on a rocky cliff, just above the tops
of the trees. The sun was setting, turning the leaves on the
trees brilliant hues of orange and gold. It made it look like
the forest was on fire, and it was absolutely spectacular. I
edged my way to the drop off, peering over it to the forest
floor below.
“I’m glad we found this before night fall,” I said
seriously, and he laughed.
“You’re so practical,” he told me. “Can’t you see the
beauty?”
“Of course I can,” I replied, turning back to him, the
sun warming my face. “But I can also see broken bones if
one of us had fallen off.”
He just grinned and sat on the rock with his legs
hanging over the edge. I hesitated, and then sat next to
him, close enough to feel the heat coming off of his body.
“I’m sorry about before,” he said.
I waved it away.
“Don’t worry about it. I mean, I’m insanely curious
about what you’re all keeping from me, but-“
“Wait, what do you mean ‘you all?’”
“Jett’s keeping something from me as well. And Larni
too,” my heart sank as I remembered I hadn’t given her
the scarf yet. “And now you. It’s got to be bad, though.”
“It’s not. Well, it shouldn’t be,” he said cryptically.
“No more,” I told him, pointing threateningly at his
nose. “If you’re not going to tell me the whole story, don’t
be a tease.”
The word seemed to affect him more than it should
have. His pupils dilated and suddenly his eyes were
searching mine for something. I found it hard to breathe,
my heart pounding in my ears. He was so very close to me,
and it looked as though he was just beginning to realise
the same thing.
Almost without conscious thought, I lifted my hand
and pressed it to his jaw, just to feel what his stubble felt
like. When he pressed my hand to his face, leaning into
my palm, the air around us became electric with tension.
He opened his eyes, meeting mine, orange to green.
Time felt like it had slowed down almost to a stop, and we
were the only two people on the planet.
My hand slid from his jaw to his chest. I pressed my
hand flat, feeling his heartbeat against my palm. I closed
my eyes, and I felt him lean closer. I opened my eyes again
to find him very near, our noses almost touching. It
seemed like the most natural thing in the world to close
the distance between us and press my lips to his.
He moved his hand to the back of my neck and pulled
me forward, deepening the kiss. His lips were rough but
soft, cold but hot. A gentle breeze moved my hair away
from my face as we kissed in the dying light of the sun.
Suddenly, my eyes flew open and I broke the contact
between us. We both stared at each other for a moment.
Before he could say anything, before I could think
rationally, I fled back towards the camp.
All of those times that I imagined kissing him, I never
seriously thought it would happen! I kept running,
straight down to the river bank. I sat on the rock and
clutched my head in my hands. What was I doing? What
about Dustin?
I knew now that my relationship with him was well
and truly dead. I thought it dead before; now it could
never be revived.
I touched my lips, recalling how Phoenix’s had felt
against them. I blushed a deep red as I remembered every
glorious second.
“Sky,” he said behind me, and I almost jumped into the
river in fright. “I’m sorry. That shouldn’t have happened.”
“I’m sorry too,” good grief, he was in a relationship as
well. What had we done? “It won’t happen again.” I
whispered.
He nodded slowly.
“That would probably be best. Come up and help me
cook.”
I followed him reluctantly back to camp and we made
dinner in silence. I softened a little when he made me the
bread on stick after dinner treat, and the tension lessened
a little between the two of us.
That evening we sat around our fire, and he set about
telling me about his life in Orthandrell and the
Mountains.
“It’s cold, all year around,” he said, the firelight dancing
on his face making him look ten years older and wiser.
“It’s almost constantly dark as well, either with storm
clouds or the night sky,” he prodded a coal in the fire with
a long stick. “I’ve never had a family,” he admitted. “I’ve
always been moved about through our village. It’s why I
came to the Academy when they called; I just wanted
somewhere to call home.”
I sat next to him on the log and, despite my misgivings,
wrapped my arms around him, resting my head on his
shoulder.
“You have somewhere to call home,” I told him. “And
someone to come back to.”
He smiled at me, though somewhat a little sadly.
“How about you?” he asked, and I lifted my head from
his shoulder.
“I left my Mum behind,” I started quietly. “I don’t think
she knows where I went,” I wrapped my arms around my
legs. “I miss her a lot. I’ve thought of her every day since I
came here.”
I bit my lip to stop it wobbling.
“And, my dad,” I stopped myself. I’d never talked to
anyone about my dad, not
anyone
Phoenix put his arm around me, drawing me in close
and suddenly I felt incredibly safe.
“My dad left when I was little,” I said quietly. “I don’t
even remember him. I know that he and Mum weren’t
married though; the kids at school teased me enough for
it.”
“How did they know?”
“Everyone in my town knew. It’s the kind of place you
can’t keep secrets. Or road rage.”
We sat together in silence with heavy hearts.
“Here, remember that trick that Yu taught us?” Phoenix
said suddenly, sitting up straight. “The one about using
your surroundings to help you in combat?”
I sure did remember. He’d strung up Ispin with vines,
because Ispin had been talking in class.
“I modified it a little,” he continued. “And look.”
The coals in the fire suddenly merged together, and a
little man made of fire and ashes stood up. His eyes glowed
with embers, and he looked up at us both.
“Is he alive?” I asked in wonder.
“No, he’s just a puppet,” Phoenix said, his hand out over
the fire. “Go on, try it.”
I held out my hand, mimicking the way Phoenix held
his fingers. I sent a pulse of magic into the coals, picturing
the little man Phoenix had made. Another fire puppet
stood up out of the ashes and looked up at me, though this
one had long hair made of flames.
“They’re so cute,” I said, watching them closely.
“Don’t get too close,” Phoenix warned. “They’re still
made of fire and they’ll burn you.”
We played with the puppets for a little while, watching
them chase each other over the burning sticks. The fire
burnt low, and we let our fire puppets sink into the ashes.
I was sad to see mine go.
“We can make them whenever we have a fire,” Phoenix
told me. “They’re not gone.”
That night when we lay down to go to sleep, all of the
tension between us that I thought had melted away came
rushing back tenfold. I knew he was facing me – I could
see him slightly in the glow of the dying fire – and he
knew I was looking at him. When my eyes had adjusted to
the dark, I could see his mouth and I ached to lean over
and finish what we’d started on the cliffs. When we
finally dropped off to sleep, I dreamt of fire puppets and
fish eating birds.

The next morning when I woke, he was gone. I
emerged into the clearing to find him crouched next to
the fire, stirring something in a pot sitting in the coals. A
small crowd of the fire puppets were sitting around the
pot, watching curiously.

“Morning,” I said, trying not to let the strain in my
throat through.
“Good morning,” he replied, and I immediately noticed
something different about his voice.
My heart plummeted. Was this going to be a day of
very forced companionship?
“Is anything wrong?” I asked, fighting to keep my voice
casual.
“Uh... actually,” he sat back on the log and I plonked
down next to him. “I’ve decided to end things with
Eleanora.”
I looked away from him, my heart beginning to
increase in pace.
“So what are you going to do?” I asked quietly, trying
not to give anything away.
“I’ll see how it goes for a few more days, I suppose.”
We both sat pensively. Suddenly everything seemed
brighter, happier to me, a contrast to Phoenix’s
gloominess. He genuinely liked her, I realised suddenly,
and my happiness suddenly seemed selfish.
“Maybe you should talk to her?” I asked, very quietly.
“Unless the whole thing was an act to keep me away from
you.”
“No,” he said just as quietly. “It wasn’t. I do like her
but... she’s not... never mind.”
I stood up abruptly, and strode down to the stream. I sat
down heavily on my rock and began stirring my fingers in
the mud, wondering if I could create a mud puppet. It was
only when I had a small army of them made of mud and
twigs that I realised Phoenix was standing behind me.
“We’re a day ahead of schedule,” he said. “Do you want
to practice?”
“Practice?” I asked.
“Hand to hand combat, magical combat, etc. Out here
you could show your true power without fear.”
“What do you know of my power?” I asked.
It was true that I’d always held back in class. One time
I’d managed to knock Yu off of his feet with the force of
my magical blast, and the next day Netalia sat in on our
class. She claimed to be there just to observe our progress,
but her eyes never left me.
“I know you’re capable of a lot more than you’ve shown
anyone,” his eyes were unreadable. “Those fire puppets
took me months to master, and last night you made yours
within seconds. And those mud people,” he nodded at my
army of mud puppets who clutched at my boot, blinking
up at me. “Those aren’t puppets. They’re alive.”
I knelt in the mud, uncaring that I was getting my
breeches muddy. The mud people clustered around the
hand I held out to them, leaving muddy streaks where
they grasped my fingers.
“Oh my goodness,” I breathed as one climbed onto my
hand. I lifted it to my face. “They’re alive.”
The mud person on my hand looked at me with eyes
made of tiny chips of pebbles, smiling at me with his twig
mouth. It was definitely conscious, but worse, it was
intelligent.
“Why did you let me create them?” I asked almost
tearfully.
“I didn’t. You created these all by yourself. The fire
puppets were only coals and ash, but these creatures,”
Phoenix knelt in the mud, facing me. He held out a hand
to the mud people and one climbed onto his hand as well.
“They’re sentient beings, Sky; you created new life.”
“But why can I do that?” I asked quietly. “No one else
can.”
Phoenix lifted the mud person to his eye level.
“I’m not too sure yet,” the mud person reached out a
little hand a touched his nose, leaving a splotch of mud
there. “But you should tell no one of this.”
“Of course,” I lowered my mud person back to the
ground. He jumped off of my hand and ran back to the
others. Phoenix lowered his as well. “What do I do for
them?”
“You’ve done enough. They’re intelligent enough to
stay alive.”
Sure enough, the mud people were already migrating
further up-stream.
“I daresay they’ll build little shelters and find a food
source. One day there might be whole villages of them.”
Phoenix finished, his eyes on me.
We watched them head off, some of them collecting
twigs on the way.
“You’re an enigma, Sky,” Phoenix said finally. “Just
when I think I’ve got you figured out a little bit, you do
something like this.”
“I didn’t mean to.”
“I know you didn’t.”
The mud people had moved so far up stream that I
couldn’t see them anymore.
“So, um, practice, you were saying?” I asked, eager to
change the subject.
We headed back to our campsite, the fire burning low.
Phoenix stood on the other side of it to me.
“Ok, let’s try not to hurt each other,” he began,
swinging his arms to loosen his muscles.
“I don’t think I could hurt you,” I said, doing the same.
Phoenix raised an eyebrow.
“You just created a whole new civilization. I think you
could hurt me if you wanted to.”
“But I don’t want to.”
He smiled.
“There you go. Just remember that, please.”
Phoenix cleared the fireplace with a sweep of his arm,
the coals moving as though caught in a heavy wind. They
died instantly and were stone cold by the time they
reached the edge of the clearing.
“Please be gentle with me,” he reminded me, and then
lunged for me.
I stepped back and crossed my left arm over my chest.
When he got close enough, I flung it back across my chest,
catching him in the neck with my forearm. As he
staggered, I hooked his feet out from under him. He went
down like a rock, and I followed him to the ground. He
landed on his side, and I quickly pushed him onto his
stomach, kneeling on his back, yanking his arms up
behind him. I gripped his wrists in one hand, and settled
my other hand on the back of his neck, my thumb and
forefinger on pressure points I knew would hurt if I chose
to tighten my hand.
“I said be gentle. Ow.”
“Oh right. Sorry.”
I let him go, my nerves clambering about being in such
close proximity to him again. He rose quickly, too quickly
to be innocent. I blocked his first swing and leapt over the
foot he’d swept across meaning to drop me like I’d
dropped him. I twisted to the side, pivoting my arm that
still blocked his. His arm became pinned in by my side. He
lashed at me with his feet, and I grabbed one, dumping
him on his face again. I let go off his arm as he fell.
“You’re good,” he said appreciatively.
“I’m sorry if I hurt you.”
“It would take a little more than that to hurt me,” he
said, and I remembered the scars that marked his body.
“Done?” I asked a little while later.
“Yes,” he panted. He was favouring his right side, and I
immediately felt bad. “I don’t have to worry about you as
much as I thought. I suspected you were holding back in
class but I had no idea how much. How did you learn so
much?”
I shrugged.
“It just came to me naturally,” I lifted my hand from my
side, commanding the ropes to return to me. They
shimmered back into ropes of magic and I reabsorbed
them.
He climbed to his feet and stood looking at me for a
second, admiration in his eyes.
“You’re amazing,” he said, and I turned away before he
could see me blush.
“Oh come on, you weren’t even really trying,” I said,
heading to the tent to pack it up.
“No, alright, I wasn’t.” He meandered over to the tent
and helped me pull it down.
Suddenly, something that he’d said struck me anew.
“Hold on,” I said, pausing in the act of rolling up the
canvas.
“You said you didn’t have to worry about me as much
as you thought. Why did you say that?”
He didn’t answer and his expression was unreadable.
“Phoenix. Why do you need to worry about me?”
“It’s just a hunch,” he said roughly, continuing to pack
our tent up. “It’s nothing to worry about, I really-“
“Phoenix,” I interrupted, and he stopped.
“It’s nothing, really. It’s just... I used to get letters every
week from my last foster father in the Mountains,” I
stopped working, listening closely. “And now, for three
weeks, there have been none.”
“And is that cause for worry?” I asked, and he shrugged.
“I don’t know. I don’t want to.”
“You said you had no family,” I said, trying not to
sound like I was accusing him.
“My last foster father had different ideals about the
world. He tried to teach them to me and I left to come to
the Academy. The letters were further pleas for me to
understand.”
“Oh.”
“But it’s nothing,” he repeated, looking up at me.
“Nothing to worry about, I swear.”
We finished packing up our campsite in silence and
then set off on the trail. The sun had come out and it was a
warm autumn day for once.
We pulled off our travelling cloaks and walked side by
side, chatting amiably. Suddenly we came to a water fall.
“Phoenix,” I said in surprise. “It’s the water hole!”
We looked at each other for a second, then dumped our
packs and pulled our boots and tunics off. We swam about
for a bit and then floated on our backs.
“You know this means that we’re close to returning to
the Academy,” Phoenix said, looking up at the sky.
“I know,” I replied heavily. This had felt so much like a
holiday that I didn’t want it to end.
“When we get back to the Academy, everything has to
go back to the way it was. I have to pretend like I don’t
like you again.”
My stomach sank but I nodded.
“Don’t tell anyone about the trip either. Or… anything
that occurred on it,” he continued. “Netalia and Iain have
ears everywhere.”
“What are they listening for?” I asked, watching a few
birds fly over head. “Gossiping students?”
“If it’s about us, yes.”
“Why? Are we so special?”
“You can’t know.”
“But you do!” I protested.
“Yes, I do.”
I swam to the side and got out. Phoenix followed me a
second later.
“You know, I’d almost think that you were ashamed of
me,” I said, lying down on the rock to dry off.
Phoenix lay down next to me.
“The last thing I feel towards you, Sky, is shame. Unless
it’s about how I’ve been treating you, but I swear, I
swear
there is a reason,” and then he said so quietly I almost
missed it. “I can’t lose you.”
“Why would you lose me?”
He looked at me in surprise.
“Your hearing is good. I’m still not telling you.”
We headed back to the Academy in the evening, my
steps falling heavier and heavier as we neared the grounds.
We were met by Jett and Yu, who’d been waiting for the
students to emerge from the woods. I handed our
equipment to Jett, who was marking things off as they
were returned.
“How’d you go?” he asked, and I remembered what
Phoenix had said.
“Yeah, it was great,” I said dryly. “Stuck with him for
three days was a laugh and a half.”
Jett sighed and took our sleeping roll from me. I headed
back up to the castle, acting as though I couldn’t see
Phoenix a few steps in front of me. When I got to the
double doors, Dena and the others were waiting for me.
“How was it?” Dena asked worriedly.
“Oh... great,” I said sarcastically. “Simply fantastic.”
Everyone winced in sympathy with me. From the
sounds of it, they’d all had a great time. I ached to admit
that I had too, but I trusted Phoenix enough to keep my
mouth shut.
Agreeing to meet everyone downstairs later, I headed
up to my room to change. I thought back over the
camping trip, smiling secretly at all of the new memories.
My heart fluttered happily as I thought of Phoenix; this
must’ve been what all of those romance books in the
library that Yasmin and Rain read religiously were on
about. I’d never felt this way about any guy before.
Suddenly another memory struck me, from my first few
days in the castle.
“There’s just one thing you don’t do.”
“Which is?”
Jett glancedatme.
“Never fall in love with them.”
“What? But you said it wasn’t anything romantic like.”
“Sometimes people have a tendency to disobey
tradition. Trust me, the repercussions aren’t worth it.”
I swallowed, hard. I had forgotten. What were the
repercussions? Nerves were beginning to flutter in my
stomach. Tying my hair into a knot and securing it with a
pin, I examined my reflection in the mirror.
There was only one person I could go to now. Because
now I understood.
I stepped into the corridor and then broke into a run,
hoping desperately that I wouldn’t meet anyone. I didn’t,
and I made it to the stairs that led to Jett’s office. Tears had
spilled over and I felt them run slowly down my cheeks. I
climbed the stairs and knocked on the door.
“Come in.” I heard Jett call.
Fighting down panic, I opened the door and stepped
inside, closing the door behind me.
“Jett.” I said hoarsely, stepping out of the shadows.
He looked up and saw the tears on my face.
“Sky, what...”
“Tell me about your soul mate, Jett.”
He watched me for a long while as my heart broke.
After a few long seconds, he stood and went to the
window set behind his desk that looked out over the
valley.
“Her name was Lena. We were the same age; her eyes
were green,” He turned around. “Exactly the same green
as yours, Sky.”
I looked down.
“For the first few months, I couldn’t have been happier.
I’d found my other half; why wouldn’t I be happy? But
soon I knew something was troubling her. She wouldn’t
tell me what it was, and she started ignoring me, much the
way Phoenix ignored you... in the beginning anyway.
Eventually I found out.” Jett looked at me with resigned
dark eyes. “She was in love with me. And when it came to
light, I found I felt the same way.”
I took a sharp intake of breath.
“For a few months we went undiscovered. But then one
of the other students who hated me, but loved her,
guessed. He went to the Master of the school, and we were
both taken up to the office,” he covered his face with his
hands for a second, then took them from his face and
continued. “She covered for me. She said she had
bewitched me. I tried to protest but she bound me with
magic.”
Silence fell.
“What happened to her?” I asked fearfully.
More silence. I was beginning to think he wouldn’t
answer me when he did.
“They banished her back to the human realm.”
My heart fell like a stone. More tears gathered and
spilled over.
“They banished her, Sky! For something she couldn’t
help,” he leant against the window. “She lives out in one
of the human cities, with no magic and no memory of any
of this. I could stand in front of her and yell her mage
name, and she would not remember. And you’ve been fool
enough to make her mistakes!”
I was immediately on the defensive.
“You said it was something she couldn’t help. How can
I help feeling this way? I can’t. I’ve suffered for months
watching him fall in love with Eleanora!”