Firedragon Rising (5 page)

As she examined the blades, a warm feeling
of gratitude rushed through her. “These’ll come in handy. How do I
activate the abracadabra?”

“
Clang the blades together
and say, ‘Metal fire.’”

“
In
English
?” Incantations would work in
any language—since it was the intention that mattered, and not the
actual words—but unless you were a foreign citizen, speaking them
in anything other than Latin would get you thrown in
jail.

“
You’re a rebel now.”
Connor shrugged. “You’ll be breaking greater laws than speaking
magic words in the wrong language, so what does it matter? Besides,
your Latin’s awful,” he added jokingly.

“
What’ll I do without your
frou-frou crap to make fun of?” As she stuck the sword back into
its sheath, her throat tightened. That was the closest she could
come to saying good-bye.

For a moment, Connor was quiet. Then he
said, “I’d better leave you to your escape.” As he lifted the
silencer spell, sorrow shaded his once-bright eyes.

She stared at the plain black hilts of the
two swords, motionless. Friends were supposed to hug and cry and
blubber sappy words when they parted. And though she couldn’t bring
herself to do any of those things, Connor must have known what she
wanted to say. The bittersweet smile he gave as he walked toward
the door told her as much.

As he started to leave, she was seized by
the abrupt need to say something, and called, “Connor!”

He stopped and turned back.

She hesitated. “See you later,” she said
finally.

His face brightened. “You too.”

For some reason, those few
words brought some relief to the ache within. They meant she’d seek
a way to see him again, and he’d do the same. That neither of them
believed this was the last time they’d speak. The next time could
be an eternity later—
years
, even—but she’d made an
unspoken promise to him, and she intended to keep it.

Okay, enough of this gooey
crap
. She straightened as the door shut
behind him. She had no time to mope—her window for escape was
growing narrower by the second, and she had to get out before it
closed altogether.

HARDLY A SINGLE STREETLAMP
DISTURBED
the darkness of the Capital’s
outermost zone, and the mandatory curfew meant that the streets
were deserted except for the patrolmen. Concrete buildings
surrounded Aurelia, their windows black. Midnight had come and
gone, which meant that just about everyone was asleep.

Nevertheless, she gave her hood a quick tug to
make sure it hid her face from anyone who might be watching. The
thick leather jacket she wore over her hoodie kept her upper body
warm, and the ponytail stuffed down her collar acted as a scarf,
but the winter wind cut through her jeans.

She narrowed her eyes,
watching for movement, and kept her ears sharp for any noises other
than the steady mix of the motorbike’s rumbling with the wind’s
whooshing. As long as she avoided the gaze of the patrolmen, they
would assume that she was one of them, since they rode motorbikes
as well. But that didn’t mean she was safe. Far from it. Everett
couldn’t have missed her zooming out of the Academy, and she was
certain he’d alerted the authorities. That meant those patrolmen
were looking for
her
, and while camouflage and the cover of night guarded her for
now, it couldn’t last.

Her best chance at escape was to make it out
of the city and into the wilderness, where further darkness and
unfamiliar terrain would serve as shields. But she’d be leaving one
danger for another; even if she managed to avoid the Triumvirate,
monsters were waiting outside the perimeter.

Fear trickled down her
spine and she tried to shake it away, reminding herself that if her
untrained housemaid of a mother could make this journey, then she
certainly could. Since learning the truth about Bridget Sun, she’d
felt an unshakable connection to the woman who had sacrificed her
own life to give Aurelia hers.
I won’t let
you down, Mom
, she thought.
I’m gonna make it to the Rising, and then I’m
gonna take down the slime balls who killed you. No Triumvirate goon
or supernatural beast will stop me.

The swords Connor had given her bounced
against her thigh as she veered around a corner. Normally she would
have worn them strapped to her back, but her knapsack occupied that
spot. All the bag contained were a change of clothes, a canteen,
and the contents of her secret food stash—apples and candy bars and
other snack foods she’d stolen from the cafeteria. It was hardly
enough to live off, but the Way Station was little more than an
hour away by motorbike, so she wasn’t exactly going camping. Since
Williams had mentioned the place being stocked with provisions,
she’d even considered bringing only her weapons—less chance of
stuff getting in her way if she had to fight a monster. Some part
of her brain had niggled at her, though, saying it was better to be
prepared than risk being sorry later.

At the end of the street, a barely visible
silver haze shimmered against the darkness—the edge of the Capital.
What looked like faintly glowing mist was in fact a powerful
enchanted barrier put in place by the Sentinels to keep the
supernaturals out. Those magical wisps were the bars of a
magnificent cage that protected those within from the terrors
outside. But it was a cage nonetheless, and she couldn’t wait to
break out.

She was still within the cage’s bounds,
though, and her Triumvirate pursuers were fast gaining on her. The
sounds of the patrolmen’s motorbikes buzzed through the darkness,
growing louder by the second. That meant they were getting closer,
and her double shields of camouflage and darkness were far from
perfect. If they recognized her—if they realized she was the
runaway they’d been sent to capture and not a fellow law
enforcement officer—then her journey would be over before it began.
The city’s border was so close—she couldn’t let them stop her
now.

She twisted the right
handlebar to accelerate the motorbike—
gotta move at max speed—
and a rush
of exhilaration flooded her as the vehicle shot ahead. It had taken
her longer than she’d planned to make it across the Capital from
the Academy’s location, since avoiding the patrolmen had meant
zigzagging through the streets, but now, an end—and an escape from
the Triumvirate’s eyes—was in sight.

Despite the danger she’d already faced, she
knew that fleeing the city would be the easy part, since the
Triumvirate had unknowingly given her two important tools to aid in
her getaway: access to a fast transport and a mental map. The
Academy had provided her with a key to the motorbike garage last
year so she could grab a vehicle at a moment’s notice whenever a
monster needed ganking, and thanks to their assignments, she knew
the lay of the land better than most people knew their own
fingernails.

She’d have no such
advantages in the wild. Out there, it would just be her and her
swords against an unknown, untamed wilderness crawling with
creatures of the Underworld. And the patrolmen would still be after
her. She’d have a better chance of escaping them outside their
turf, but the very things she was counting on to slow them down—the
dangerous terrain and the presence of supernaturals—could snare her
too. She’d have to find her way to an unfamiliar hideout while both
avoiding her pursuers
and
fighting any monsters that crossed her path.
Tension gripped her, and she drew a deep breath.

No monster stands a chance
against me
, she reminded herself.
Nevertheless, a shard of fear remained embedded in her chest. Even
if she could defeat the fiends, there were still specters to worry
about. Her skin prickled. Specters were spirits of the dead that
had returned to the earth. Most were mindless, bloodthirsty beings
as savage as any beast. Even the least dangerous type—Class Cs,
which still had an element of conscious thought left—could shatter
buildings. Class Bs and Class As—the strongest—were creatures whose
souls had been consumed by the dark powers of the Underworld,
leaving only cruelty and hatred toward all living
beings.

If Aurelia were the thinking type, like
Connor, she might have contemplated what it meant that someone who
was once a person like her could turn into something worse than a
monster. Maybe she would even have felt bad for them.

But she was a fighter, and she didn’t have
time to worry about such things when her survival was at stake.
Specters were the worst kind of enemy: The kind she couldn’t
defeat. She could ward them off with silver and force them to
retreat, but she couldn’t kill something that was already dead,
which meant she could never win. And she hated losing.

The sinister droning of the patrolmen’s
motorbikes behind her suddenly swelled, the noise crashing over her
like a wave. They must have turned a corner, navigating around the
buildings that had filtered the sound before. That meant they were
closing in on her. She was sure that if she were to look back, she
would see their shadowy figures, but she resisted the urge to
glance over her shoulder. At this speed, she needed to keep both
eyes forward or risk crashing.

And none of the patrolmen
activated their alarms, which meant they hadn’t yet realized
she
was their target.
But if they tried to signal her as one of their own, she wouldn’t
know how to respond. She pushed against the handlebar, though her
vehicle couldn’t go any faster, and wished she could will it into
accelerating.

Spotting an intersection ahead, she made the
snap decision to turn left, and her knee briefly scraped the ground
as the motorbike veered at an abrupt angle. Maybe that would throw
her pursuers off. Maybe it was a dead giveaway that she wasn’t who
they thought she was. Either way, it seemed like a better idea than
going in a straight line.

She got her answer about
three seconds later, when a trio of loud, wailing noises ripped
through the darkness—the patrolmen’s alarms. Activating them meant
they’d spotted their target and were alerting the others to their
location. Cold sweat broke over her brow, and she cursed herself
for her mistake.
That was so stupid! I
should’ve known better!

Gritting her teeth, she
shoved the thoughts out of her head. She didn’t have time to worry
about how she’d screwed up—she had to
fix
it. Focusing on her ears, she
tried to detect the noise of motorbike engines beneath the blaring
sirens. That would tell her where her pursuers were, at least. She
didn’t hear anything from the road ahead of her, which meant she
still had a chance at escaping before the ones
behind
her caught up. Another
intersection was coming up fast, and the street to her right would
be parallel to the one she’d been traveling down. That meant it
would be a straight shot to the perimeter.

She barreled around the corner, almost
tipping her vehicle in the process. As she straightened her course,
she heard more sirens join the commotion. Back up for the patrolmen
had arrived, then, but she wasn’t giving up yet. The silver haze
marking the edge of the city was once again visible ahead, and if
she could make it past the perimeter before they found her, then
she had a fighting chance.

Her heart thudded, and her right hand
continued pushing against the handlebar almost involuntarily,
though she knew she couldn’t accelerate any further. Only a
spattering of streetlamps lit the darkness—no flashing
blue-and-gold patrol lights—which meant she was still out of
eyeshot, since if she couldn’t see them, chances were they couldn’t
see her. She leaned down, narrowing her eyes against the icy wind.
The city’s shimmering border drew nearer, she was so close…

The enchantment sent
chills through her as she burst passed it. Then, when she hit the
broken, bumpy pavement beyond, an unexpected shiver ran down her
back. It was both joy and terror at once—the immense thrill of
escape coupled with the intense anxiety of facing the unknown. But
what lay ahead, dangerous as it was, tipped the scales in her
favor. The Triumvirate could follow her into the wild, but
now
she
had the
advantage. She’d memorized the long-forgotten roads from Williams’
map, while they’d be left fumbling through the brush.

However, they had strength in numbers—not to
mention magic—and she hoped fiercely that they wouldn’t think to
look for her outside the city. Or, if they’d seen her leave, that
they wouldn’t find her in the shadows.