“Tell me, Firebird. Does it hurt?”
Echo had never quite understood what people meant when they said they were seeing red. It had always seemed to her a cartoonish idiom. But a hot wave of rage rushed over her at the feel of Tanith’s warm breath on the shell of her ear. At the sight of the library, half in ruins. At the sound of people who trusted her enough to follow her into battle falling under the onslaught of the ku?edra’s vile creatures.
Her anger seethed. It bubbled and spilled over, sparking into her hands in white-hot pulses of flames. Still on her knees, Echo pivoted with a snarl that sounded, even to her ears, more animal than human. The power rolled from Echo in waves, knocking Tanith off her feet. The sound of armor scraping over pavement was loud, even in the din of battle.
Tanith pushed herself up, wiping at a split lip with a gauntleted hand. Black ooze seeped through the broken skin, leaving a smear like shadow dust across her pale cheek. She looked at the blood that was not blood, so dark against her gilded armor. “It feels good, doesn’t it? The rage. The bloodlust.” She smiled, licking at the black not-blood on her lip. “I used to try so hard to contain it, to hold it back, when all I wanted was to bathe the world in blood until there was no one left standing. But no more. I don’t have to hold back.” Her smile widened. “And neither do you.”
“Oh, fuck you,” Echo spat. Angry tears burned at the corners of her eyes. She hated that Tanith was right, but it had felt good. Letting the magic pour out of her hands, fueled by pure emotion, felt like nothing she had ever experienced before. It felt raw. Immediate. She felt like she was overfull of power, and it wanted nothing more than to be let out.
And so she would let it out. Right into Tanith’s smug face.
Echo rose to her feet. Her fall had been cushioned; she’d felt someone’s magic buoying her, but she hadn’t seen who had done it. No matter. It had saved her, and now she would put a stop to Tanith’s insanity once and for all. Whatever it took.
“It didn’t have to be like this,” Echo said. “Your people—and mine—are in more danger now than they ever have been, and it’s all on you.”
“What an awfully myopic worldview.” Tanith shook her head. “This is the only way it was ever going to be. I just gave the world the push it needed. It will be cleansed, and we will have a blank canvas on which to paint our new world. That you cannot see that tells me you were never worthy of the power given to you. If only you had known how to wield it properly. The prophecy was true. The firebird was the catalyst for our salvation, the harbinger of our future. The future simply does not include you.”
“You really love the sound of your own voice, don’t you?” Flames manifested in Echo’s hands. She would need to call more of the power within her than she ever had. Her blows had been as effective as a mosquito stinging an elephant; Tanith had brushed them off with minimal effort. The fire burned, brighter and brighter, until even her own skin was sweltering under the heat of it.
Black tendrils swirled around Tanith’s form, creating a cloud of impenetrable darkness. She approached, stepping over snapped power lines and fallen cables, and the darkness moved with her, dancing around her in a frenzied mass of movement. “I can feel all that light inside you. Burning. Wanting to destroy.” The darkness fragmented into different shapes. Dark veins raced down the unmarked skin of her neck. It was as if each deployment of the ku?edra’s power meant that the monster within her was claiming more and more of her, marking its territory. With enough time, there would be nothing of Tanith left.
“What are you waiting for?” asked Tanith. Her feet, encased in plated sabatons attached to the gold grieves on her legs, came to a halt right next to a severed power line; one of them was squarely in the middle of a puddle, inches away from where sparks of electricity sputtered from the exposed end of the cable. It was a hell of a fire hazard if Echo had ever seen one.
“This,” said Echo. She bent down and reached for the end of the cable near her. The rubber melted under her touch as her flames ran the length of it, all the way to the sparking tip. It took only a second or two for Tanith to realize what was happening, but it was enough. The exposed coils caught fire and exploded.
Echo was glad Tanith had headed into battle wearing armor. Metal was a fantastic conductor of electricity. As was water.
The shock sent Tanith crashing to the ground, her body writhing as electricity coursed through her. The black cloudlike beings around her evanesced like a fleeing mist. Her black irises rolled back, exposing the pale whites of her eyes, laced with capillaries gone dark. The acrid smell of burning hair wafted over Echo.
She approached Tanith, careful to avoid the flailing power lines, grateful that the rubber soles of her boots protected her far better than the metal of Tanith’s sabatons.
“I was waiting for you,” Echo said. “This is my city. This is my world. I know it better than you ever will.” She unleashed another volley of fire at Tanith’s vulnerable, prostrate form. A scream tore its way from Tanith’s throat as flames and electricity seared once more.
Echo tried to ignore the thrill of satisfaction she felt at the sound of those screams. It was a horrible sight to behold. No one should take pleasure in what she was doing. And yet…
She reached behind her, rucking up her leather jacket. The dagger was still tucked safely into the waistband of her pants. It had dug painfully into her spine when she fell, but she was obscenely glad she hadn’t lost it when the roof had collapsed. She slid it out of its scabbard. As Helios’s vain attempt at an assassination had proven, a simple stabbing wouldn’t stop Tanith. But Echo would saw through her neck, through bone and tendon, if she had to. Let’s see how well you bounce back without your head.
Tanith’s screams quieted as she fought to roll away from the sparking cable. Her hair was a frazzled mess, and she reeked of an odor straight from Echo’s—and Rose’s—nightmares: burnt flesh. Echo had done that. Another surge of gratification shot through her. A detached part of her felt sickened by the thought that she was the one turning the tables and inflicting the same damage Tanith had on Rose so many years ago, but it was a small part. Easily ignored.