Embracing the Flames (20 page)

The ink was fading in the creases where she had folded and unfolded it so many times. In one of the creases was a face that was smudged out, but I didn’t need to see it to know that it was Fenn. I was off to the left in the photo, around twelve years old, chasing butterflies that were fluttering around Mily’s garden. Fenn was watching me, writing poetry in his journal, like he did so often when we were little.

I felt his gaze on me, the heat building behind my cheeks as I looked up at him. Recognition registered in his eyes as his mouth pointed up into a crooked grin. I couldn’t help but grin back.

He went to kiss me, but Zane interrupted by saying, “That’s perfect, give it here.” He reached between us and snatched it from Lexi’s hand, side-eyeing Fenn and me.

My eyes shot to the floor. Now is not the time to get caught up in Fenn. Especially not when there were bigger things to worry about.

I turned away from him and watched Zane as he opened the Tracer and chanted, “Aperium.”

The Tracer cracked open at the middle, revealing a miniscule vial of blood.

“Eww, what is that?” Lexi asked, cringing.

“This must have been what my father used to find you,” said Zane, the uneasiness in his tone setting off alarms in my head. He pulled it out, rolling it in the palm of his hands.

“Whose blood is that?” Fenn asked, instinctively pulling me into him.

But I already knew the answer. “The canvas to your mortal soul; the connection to your immortal enemy,” I repeated. “It’s a part of the prophecy. The part that explains my connection to Zordon and the Oraculus. Zordon and I are one and the same, Astral said it himself.”

They all looked at me, eyebrows raised in question.

“He wouldn’t need my blood. He could use his own. All he had to do was tell you to go to a place that was heavily linked to me. He must have known somehow that this cave was where everything would happen. Though I’m not sure how.”

“Rory,” Fenn rejected, “that’s not possible.” His weighted face tore at my heart.

“It’s not possible? Or do you not want to believe that Aurora could be so deeply connected with someone other than you?” Zane proposed.

Fenn eyes narrowed into slits, and he clenched his fists. He stepped forward, but Lexi was quicker, putting herself between the two of them. “Whatever the case,” she mediated, “it’s not going to change what is.”

She yanked the Tracer out of Zane’s hand and shoved the photo inside it, chanting, “Extium.” The crack sealed shut. She glanced once more at Logan, deep lines of regret replacing her normal careless smile, before throwing it on the floor.

We were all thrown back as the air seemed to bruise. I peeled myself off the floor and looked around. Fenn was beside me, rubbing his head where he had hit a crystal. Zane was already weaving the portal, using the swelling wound in the air to take us back to the other side.

“Hurry before it closes,” Zane instructed, grabbing Logan, who was unconscious again, and throwing him over his shoulder. He looked over at me, smiled and then jumped through.

Lexi was two strides behind him. I pushed off the ground to stand and lent a hand to Fenn. “Come on,” I said, tugging him off the floor.

“Thanks,” he replied bitterly as we walked over to the port. He wasn’t ready to let the blood thing go. I took his hand in mine and squeezed it, knowing that it would speak louder than words. He stopped and looked down at me, the anger dissolving away. “Let’s go home,” he said softly, kissing my forehead lightly. Then he pulled me through the portal.

Chapter 15

An Abandoned Room

IT WAS AS IF WE had never left. The twinkling stars shimmered through the O that was still missing from the rusted, flickering Motel sign.

Fenn and I looked up to the second floor. The past clouded my thoughts. We had so much going for us here. A shot at a normal life. I watched Fenn. The sadness that filled his eyes told me that he felt the same way. He looked over at me and smiled ruefully.

“He’s still here,” Lexi said, heading straight for Soothe’s door.

“What about me?” asked Logan, scurrying after her, the Morbit still resting on his right shoulder. “I need to go home. To shower. To watch TV!”

Lexi stopped mid-stride. “Go back to the mundane then.” Her tone was cutting.

He tensed, struggling with his words. “Alright then,” he said, taking an unsteady step back.

She let out a huff and stared past him, into the darkness of the night as her hands hung uselessly at her sides. A car turned into the parking lot, its headlights spotlighting the frayed strings of their relationship. We all moved aside so they could park.

Without notice, Lexi walked over to him, gave him a long, soft kiss, rubbed the back of the Morbit’s ears as it purred, and then headed back towards Soothe’s apartment. She never looked back.

Zane and Fenn followed suit, shrugging at each other. I watched Logan watching her, the conflict clouding his rootless eyes. He must have felt my mindful stare because as he turned to leave, our eyes met for just a moment, and I could have sworn somewhere inside was a glimmer of remorse and relief.

“Rory, come on,” Fenn called, rushing me with an arm wave. I looked away, feeling sorry for Logan for the first time, and a bit jealous. He could choose to walk away without a second thought. He didn’t know how lucky he was.

I came up behind the three of them, huddled around the door of Soothe’s motel room. A bug zapper went off as a swarm of mosquitoes flew blindly into it.

“Let me do this,” I requested as the energy of my magic eagerly pulsed in the palms of my hands.

They stepped back.

“Aperium!” I commanded, directing the flow towards the doorknob to unlock it. My skin itched as the urge to shift consumed me. A gleam of ruby scales covered my hands.

“Rory,” Fenn heeded, touching the small of my back.

I ignored him and focused on the rattling door, its hinges threatening to rip from the walls as the knob seared to a bright reddish-yellow.

They moved closer around me, trying to shield the magic that poured from my hands.

“Aperium,” Zane compelled along side of me, our familiar energies merging. He looked over at me, the flash of our last merging hinting in his eyes, and then up at Fenn.

Almost immediately Fenn chimed in as well, his energy linking to ours. The door was now vibrating, the bronzed knob molten and dripping like tiny shooting stars onto the cracked sidewalk. 

The magic wasn’t working as well here, even with all our power combined. For a moment, I thought the door might explode, alerting the neighbors to our raid, until Lexi dropped into a feline crouch and drop-kicked the door. The little extra push it needed. Our magic broke off.

“Bad ass,” Fenn chuckled, ruffling Lexi’s choppy short hair. She smiled at him and leaned into his one arm hug, then started poking him. 

Zane nudged my side. “Reign in those eyes, hatchling.”

I turned to face him. “Hatchling?” I snorted, thinking of something to throw back at him. “You’re looking good for an old man.” The words rushed out before I had a chance to think them over.

He looked at me, confusion marring his brow. “Not really,” he said laughing. “Why do you say old man?”

“Because I saw you in the visions. My dad didn’t meet my mother until after he learned about the prophecy. The prophecy you wanted to decipher. That would make you like twenty years older than us.”

Pain flashed in his eyes, maybe from the memory of when his father strangled him for asking permission to decipher the prophecy, but it quickly disappeared. “Well, when you put it like that, yes, I guess would be. But you were sent to this realm where time moves a lot faster.”

I felt my face scrunch in confusion. “Not even going to try and understand that one,” I said with a laugh. “But,” I said with my index finger pointed in the air, “that works in my favor then. You can’t technically call me a hatchling since you’re not that much older than me.”

He smirked. “Not when you consider about how new you are to this. Every emotion you feel radiates through your eyes, and if you don’t get it under control, you’ll be too easy to read. Especially to my father.”

My mouth shut. “Right.” I inhaled deeply to calm my stirring dragon and gave him a weak smile.

“It’s cute though,” he added quietly and then followed Lexi and Fenn around the smoldering front door that had become the welcome mat to Soothe’s apartment.

He just had to slip that in, didn’t he?
I stood there for a moment, trying to decipher his last comment. I remembered the first time our energies merged and the look in his eye. I shook my head.
Get over yourself
, I thought.

“I thought you said he was here,” I asked Lexi as I carefully stepped around the door.

“I felt his energy. Still do,” she replied, picking up a magazine that rested on the end table and flipping through it. Her face grew thoughtful as she gazed longingly at the ads of clothing.

“There’s no port trail to follow. He must have felt our presence and left,” Zane mentioned, shuffling through Soothe’s dresser. He met my eyes and then turned away, back to probing through the dresser drawers.

“He’s gotten good at using magic in this realm then,” Fenn said over his shoulder to us. He was bent over, rummaging through the drawer of the end table next to the bed.

“That’s just great.” Lexi’s words dripped with sarcasm. She was sitting on the edge of the bed now, her legs crossed as she picked at her nails. “Of course it wouldn’t be easy to find him and get right back before Myrdinn has time to notice we’re gone.” She frowned.

“What now?” asked Zane, moving away from the dresser. All three of them looked at me like I should have the answer, but I was thinking the same thing.
What now?

“Put the door back up,” I motioned to Fenn and Zane. “We can’t very well keep a low profile if the door is blown off. For now we’ll just wait here, see if he comes back.” I was going through the motions until a real idea struck me.

“You think he’s coming back?” Fenn questioned, lifting the door and holding it in place. Zane combined his energy with Fenn’s and welded the hinges back together.

I walked over to the fridge. “Well, all the food in here is still good so he can’t have been gone for long.” I looked up from the refrigerator. “Where else would he go?” I grabbed a chunk of cheese and began nibbling on it.

“The towel on the floor is still damp,” Lexi’s distant voice added from the bathroom.

Zane exhaled sharply, clearly annoyed. “Then we wait,” he agreed, plopping onto Soothe’s bed.

Midnight came and went as did the early morning sun. We took turns keeping watch for his return, but it never came.

“I’m going to go grab us breakfast,” Fenn said groggily as he headed for the door. He ruffled his hair, trying to shake out the bed head. Butterflies rose. He was cute, no matter how his hair looked.

Zane stifled a yawn, stretching out his back. “I’ll come with,” he volunteered, quickly following behind.

I hadn’t even thought about food in between the few hours of sleep during the night. But now that he mentioned it, my stomach roared to life, the thought of the diner’s pancake medley popping into my mind.

“Pancake medley, right?” Fenn paused at the door, winking at me.

“You know me so well,” I said admiringly. Zane pulled the door shut behind them, silently mouthing, “Pancake?” as if testing the word.

I clicked endlessly through channel after channel on the TV, trying to find something to pass the time until either they or Soothe returned. Truth be told, it had been so long since I’d even thought about a TV that it wasn’t even appealing anymore.

The rays of sun filtered through the cracks of the drapes, mocking my idea to stay in. Rubbing the sleep from my eyes, I drifted towards the smell of coffee wafting through the air, auto-tuning my alertness. Fenn must have put it on for me before he left.

Lexi was plowing through Soothe’s closet, hoping to find something that would lead us to him. Clothes flew through the air as if possessed by spirits. Where did she store her energy? Probably the same place Fenn did.

My eyes burned from the four hours of sleep I was running on. I poured a cup of coffee, mixed in a bit of milk, and then offered some to Lexi. She turned her nose up at the smell. I rolled my eyes and shrugged.

Setting the coffee on an end table, I flipped a pillow over on the bed and leaned back. I pulled the port key from my bookbag that rested beside the bed. I wanted to study it. My fingers traced along the etched swirls up the middle of the orb where the light had seeped through that night in the cave. Three symbols made up the three points where the keys had merged, matching the symbols on the keys and on my Oraculus. A swirling infinity sign, a five-pointed star, and a crescent moon with a small circle just off the right side.

The symbols of The Fates.

I barely remembered what it had said to me on the night of my return. Through all the feared pain and the transformation, it was a wonder I had even heard anything.

I had a nagging feeling bubbling in the pit of my stomach, like whatever it was, was important to this situation. “Lex,” I called.

“Yeah?” she answered from amongst the pile of littered clothing.

“Come here.”

She strode over, tiptoeing around the clothing. “What’s up?”

“Remember this?” I asked, holding up the orb.

“The port key? Of course, it unlocked the portal for our return. I thought it went back with the keys,” she recalled as she took the orb from my hands to inspect it.

“I would assume so too, but it appeared on my dresser the night we left.”

“Who would put it there?”

“Well, do you remember it saying anything that night? Like a message or something? I could’ve sworn I heard it say something,” I said, pinching my forehead, trying to remember, “but I can’t remember.” I sighed.

“I only saw the flash of light when the keys connected to it and then the portal opening. I didn’t hear anything. Do you think there was a message spelled into it?” she asked, handing it back to me.

“I can’t shake the feeling that something was said, so yeah, I guess I do. I wish I knew how to re-activate it.”

“I’m not sure. But I bet Zane would know,” Lexi suggested.

“They should be back soon.”

“Well, until then, help me put these clothes back, please.” I moaned in response. She giggled, ignoring my protests, and tugged me up and out of the bed.

We were putting the last shirt on a hanger when Zane and Fenn fell out of a port onto the middle of the floor. I heard the rustling of paper bags followed by a moan. Lexi and I ran from the closet at the sound of the commotion.

Fenn’s face was bloodied and bruised, and he was leaning over, holding his side and groaning in agony. 

“What happened?” I asked in alarm as I helped Fenn over to the bed. Zane crouched down in front of Fenn, preparing to heal him, but he stopped, amazement replacing his worried expression. Where the cuts and gashes were, fresh skin was already forming from Fenn’s natural healing ability.

“Not sure,” Zane replied, his voice distant. He watched Fenn heal on his own, confusion marring his brow. A strange expression crossed his face and then he looked up at me. “We uh-we had just gone around to the back of the restaurant to open the port back to here when we were attacked from behind. Fenn was behind me, defending me, which is why he took all the damage.” 

Fenn winced, either from the memory or from the last of his healing.

“What attacked you?” Lexi asked. I rubbed small circles into his back, trying to contain my shaking.

“I’m not sure. Whatever it was moved so fast I couldn’t get a good look,” Fenn answered numbly, his voice hoarse. He paused a moment, scrunching his face at the memory. “It definitely was
not
from here,” he confirmed. “My ring lit up just before we were attacked. A sure sign that it was something from the Swamp.”

“How is that possible?” I asked, stunned. Pin needles of panic set off at the faint memory of Gabe warning us against weakening the barrier.

“Not sure,” said Zane as he fell back onto his butt, dumbfounded.

Fenn stood and said, “I’m going to take a shower,” and went to the bathroom. The smell of the food lingered in the air, but instead of stirring my hunger, it stirred only nausea.