Page 60 of Phoenix Chosen 3
“The egg.” The archer’s slitted eyes flick from my face to Eggy. “Give it to me.”
“How about no?” I reply. “You can shoot me with a thousand arrows. You’ll never get this egg from me.”
I can feel a rock beneath my hand. Above us, the fire jumps. It’s gone from a few burning branches to the start of something really bad. Gray ash drifts around us as flaming leaves drop like dying fireflies. I don’t know how I manage to get the rock into the sling, but I do. I don’t even aim. I just swing and throw—it’s pure instinct, all gut. I see the bowstring bounce as she lets the arrow go, and I brace for the pain of the impact. It doesn’t happen. Instead, in that split second, a sharp crack echoes as my rock strikes the oncoming arrow. Sparks fly, and both the rock and the arrow shatter. Jackson shouts in surprise and brushes fragments off himself with the same kind of frantic panic of someone who has just realized they’re covered with a swarm of stinging fire ants.
“Jackson!” I shout, throwing myself towards cover. “Move!”
The archer is fucking fast. Her target is Jackson, and she has an arrow in her hand.
Then a bolt of green energy flies over my shoulder and strikes the archer in her chest. She flies backward and slams into a burning tree, raining cinders from its crown onto her. She snarls in pain and surprise, batting the smoldering embers off her fur. Jackson runs to my side and pulls out his stun gun. There’s a strip of medical tape stuck to the grip, and he pulls it over the activation button and holds the thing up like a buzzing combat knife.
The cat leaps out of the way as another bolt of energy sizzles past and explodes into a shower of whirling sparks. Airos bursts out from the forest, clutching his staff in both fists. He hurtles two more blasts at the cat. She leaps and flips out of the way. I grab another rock and launch it at her head, but she easily backflips to avoid it. As she’s in the air, she grabs an arrow fromher quiver and launches it. Airos swings his staff to counter it with another energy bolt.
It misses.
The bolt sails just to the right of the arrow, crackling benignly into the forest behind the cat. The arrow ricochets off a nearby tree and spirals into Airos’s shoulder. He staggers off balance and stumbles but catches himself on his knee.
“Airos!” Jackson and I shout.
No, it didn’t get his shoulder—he’s blocked it with the center of his staff.
The cat sprints for me, and it’s too late for me to do anything except guard Eggy with my body and brace for the attack. She slams into me with her shoulder and knocks me onto the ground, driving the air from my lungs. She pushes an arrow into her bow and draws the string, aiming it at my face.
“The phoenix egg,” she demands. “Now.”
26
TYLER
The arrow, drawn just a couple of feet away from my head, drips with a pulsing, writhing darkness. It’scold,even despite the growing forest fire.It’s like a damn magnet, pulling away the happiness and life inside of me. And something else, too. Something buried deep inside of me.
My phoenix. It has to be.
It has me thinking about when I went rock climbing and ended up with sore muscles that I didn’t even know existed in my body. It’s there, like those barely-used mystery muscles. Small, weak, hiding away… but there. Darkness has revealed the light, even if it’s just a glimmer. Even if I can’t use it.
I curl my body protectively over Eggy, praying that the cursed arrow’s influence affects me before it does my baby.
“The egg,” the archer repeats through her fangs. She tilts her head and glares at me from one slitted iris. “You can’t escape. Make this easy on yourself.”
“The same can be said for you,” Airos says to her.
He has his staff pointed at her, but I’m pretty sure whatever he can do from his distance won’t keep me from getting plugged in the face first.
“We can test this,” she says, cocking her head in the other direction. Her tail flicks mischievously back and forth. “See if I’m fast enough to kill this one and take the egg before you can attempt to hit me with another one of those spells. What do you think?”
I can see the sweat on Airos’s forehead. He knows it, too—there’s no way out of this without me getting an arrow to the head because I’m sure as hellnotgoing to hand Eggy over willingly.
The cat’s mouth pulls into a grin. She also knows this. She’s happy about it.
“You might be fast,” Airos says, “But if you think you can escape from here after you take that egg, you’re very mistaken. It won’t be long until we’re trapped here, with nowhere to go but to the river. Can Aylourosi swim?”
“I love the water,” she replies.
Her bow creaks as she pulls the string even further. I close my eyes. I’m searching desperately for a way to connect to that little light inside me and finally access it.
If you don’t come forward, it’s gonna be all over.
I see Kalistratos in my mind and the vision I was given of the future we share with our child after all of this is finished and we’ve completed what we’ve been chosen to do. And then I seehim wounded, bloody, fighting his way forward on legs that can barely keep him upright.