Fire's Daughter: A Reverse Harem Urban Fantasy (Arcane Rebels Book 1) Page 4

  The sight of each one filled me with its own flavor of dread. Of the dozens of men who’d studied the Arcana, these four were the best and the brightest? It hardly seemed possible. Grab any random guy off the street and put him in that spot, and that’s the one I’d be rooting for. I focused hard on Blake and told myself his Transfiguration would be a good thing. Progress. But I didn’t feel it. Not in my gut.

  The four men lined up in front of the presiding Masters. They knelt.

  Opening speeches began, a bunch of dry rhetoric about the preciousness of the Arcanum—which I knew was as empty as the interview answers I’d been fed. If anyone cared about the Arcanum, they’d change the policies about The Great Machine.

  I searched desperately for something to focus on that didn’t feel like a hopeless charade, but anywhere my eyes fell was something disturbing. I ended up staring at the back of Gus’s head, when I imagined, for just a moment, what he’d be like if he Transfigured and filled with Arcane power. If I thought he was insufferable now, imagine if he was on equal standing with my dad.

  My heart skipped a beat.

  If he and my father were peers and he decided he wanted to stick a ring on me, I was as good as hitched. Not only would my father have no grounds on which to refuse him…but the opportunity to ally the houses of Fire and Water and effectively rule them both? He’d jump at the chance.

  I’d thought Blake was a shoe-in, but what if I’d been wrong. My stomach gave a lurch of anxiety at the mere thought. Maybe I should’ve encouraged Dad to nominate Blake for the Arcanum when I’d had the chance instead of bringing up The Great Machine. If Blake was the next reigning Master, I’d be off the hook.

  Now that I’d realized I really did have a stake in the proceedings, the ritual words seemed to drone on forever, tedious, hollow blathering about the Masters’ moral obligation to protect society.

  Maybe neither my brother nor Gus would end up as the next Water Master. Maybe it would be Chad. He was the most financially successful of the current Aspirants. Alongside his Arcane studies, he’d managed to build his first online business when he was still too young to drive, and he’d sold it for enough to buy not just a limo, but a whole fleet of them. But the thought of him swallowing the Arcanum gave me no comfort whatsoever. Let’s just say, I’ve seen the way he treats his chauffeurs. And if he Transfigured, he’d consider the whole world to be nothing more than a big pool of servants.

  That left Floyd. I wasn’t entirely convinced he was actually human—he seemed more like a mannequin who occasionally blinked. But better him than the hothead, the pervert or the bully.

  Or maybe, if I were lucky, it would be none of them. Maybe, when the Aspirant knocked back that vial, the Arcanum wouldn’t Transfigure him.

  Maybe it would consume him.

  It had been a few generations since the Arcanum didn’t take. We were about due for a spectacular implosion.

  The Earth Master’s wife caught me smiling to myself. Hopefully she just thought I was excited to witness such a historic event. The Transfiguration, I mean. Not a gory misfire.

  Her husband was reciting the various responsibilities that went along with the Arcanum—a beacon of hope, a bastion of integrity, and a banner of protection. More dated phrases, like the one carved above my work station.

  He finished his recitation, and my father stepped forward. Flames can be doused with water, smothered by earth, or snuffed from lack of air. But if there’s an unofficial leader of the Arcane Tetrad, it’s Fire. My father has always been a charismatic man—how else did lure my mother away from her budding photojournalism career and into a life of ceremonial pomp? And when he stepped up to the crucible, limping only slightly, the crowd’s demeanor shifted from attentive to enthralled. Even in the dated regalia, he commanded respect.

  Torch, the reigning Fire Master, held the audience in the sway of his magnetism, sweeping his gaze over the throng of people as if he’d looked into the hearts of each one present, and he began. “The debate over which Aspirant is ready to receive the Arcanum begins just as soon as the last Master has Transfigured. We cast a wide net through all the community’s finest sons, and we invite the best of the best to train in the Arcane mysteries. Only a few of those hopeful trainees become Aspirants. All of the four Aspirants are worthy men. But today, only one may receive the Arcanum.”

  I knew, in the pit of my gut, that he was going to announce Blake. How else could he possibly stand up there on the dais so proud and composed, practically beaming at the assembled crowd? But when I saw the intensity in Blake’s eyes, I had the sinking feeling that he’d be the very worst candidate—even worse than Gus, which is saying a hell of a lot.

  Because I’d seen that look on his face before. How could I ever forget? It was scorched into my mind’s eye.

  I was fourteen, longing to be in a normal high school, which would have made Blake ten. In the wing of the estate where we’d had our training, the labs were modern, all gleaming white tile with stainless steel work surfaces. But inside some of the cabinets, you’ll find old tinctures and powders that wouldn’t be out of place in Dr. Frankenstein’s workroom. Some of them dated back nearly a century, to the days when soda got its buzz from cocaine, and patent medicines were laced with laxatives and opium.

  He palmed one of the dusty old bottles, some weird metalorganic suspension of cadmium. He didn’t know what it was. That was my father’s defense later, the explanation everyone pretended to buy.

  When he doused a fellow student with the volatile liquid, the kid burst into flames.

  Maybe I would’ve agreed that Blake had no idea that would happen…had the bottle not been clearly labeled Greek Fire.

  I don’t remember that kid’s name. But, with utter clarity, I recall the smell of him cooking. I harken back to it every time a maid flat irons one spot on my hair too long.

  Would there have been actual ramifications if the student had died? Who knows. The poor kid lost an eye—it was boiled like an egg—and my brother didn’t get so much as a slap on the wrist.

  The smell of burning hair, the sight of the boiled eyeball…you’d think those would be the worst memories. But they weren’t. It was the look on Blake’s face when I asked him why he did it. The utterly satisfied look. “He copied off my test,” Blake said simply. “He deserved it.”

  Gazing down at the dais, I chafed goosebumps from my arms. Everyone around me was starting to glisten in the courtyard sun, but me? I was chilled to the core.

  It goes to show how convinced I was—that my father either didn’t realize how petty and cruel Blake could be, or that he simply didn’t care—that when he announced which Aspirant was to receive the Arcanum, and I was baffled when a name other than my brother’s came out of his mouth.

  “Floyd, please rise.”

  It wasn’t Blake.

  It wasn’t Blake!

  One Aspirant got to his feet while, in their silly linen pajamas, three sets of shoulders sagged. Nearly imperceptibly—it wouldn’t do for any of them to make a scene—but their disappointment was palpable, anyway. How could it not be? It might be another dozen years before the Arcanum refilled.

  It might be decades.

  The big winner, Floyd, was only a few years older than me, but he looked like a boring old college professor trapped in a young man’s body. When the weather turned cold, he wore a cardigan around the estate.

  A cardigan.

  I might be going around in an acid resistant apron more often than not, but even I knew a weird fashion choice when I saw one.

  Floyd held his head high, but the look on his face as he approached my father couldn’t be called pleased by any stretch of the imagination. It wasn’t even relieved.

  It wasn’t anything.

  He gave me the willies. Then again, so did the rest of them. Each and every one.

  “It is with great honor,” my father intoned, “that the reigning Arcane Tetrad has chosen to bestow upon you this great gift. However, nothing worthwhile can be ha
d without risk. Are you willing to receive the Arcanum?”

  No one had ever refused the Arcanum, but there’s a first time for everything. My stomach clenched as I wondered if he’d worked out the chances of going up in flames like a screaming kid in the white tiled laboratory, and the Arcanum would pass to the current regime’s second choice. But Floyd didn’t feel fear…in fact, I’d wager that Floyd didn’t feel much of anything. He simply squared his shoulders, and in a clear, loud monotone, said, “I accept.”

  In turn, each Master stepped (or wheeled himself) over to the slab and inserted a key into the many-metaled cage. My father went last. And with his key, the bars of the cage all fell away with a gentle clatter, freeing the Arcana. It was nothing more than ritual, of course. It only took a single key to open the door to the distilling chamber. Still, thinking back on it, I was pretty proud of the level of trust my father must have had in me when he let me bear the Arcanum.

  He instructed the three remaining Aspirants to step aside to the edge of the dais, not only so the crowd could better see Floyd take the Arcanum, but to put them out of the splatter zone. Once Blake took his place, I realized that my father’s choice that morning had nothing to do with how much faith he had in me, but how little he trusted Blake. My brother’s color was high, a red dot on either cheekbone and an angry flush across his throat. His expression was probably supposed to pass for neutral, but even from the balcony, I could see a tendon jumping at his jaw from the way he mercilessly ground his molars together. I felt sorry for anyone who crossed his path later.

  I’d have to make sure it wasn’t me.

  Floyd stepped up to the slab, turned his back to the enthralled audience, removed his linen top, methodically folded it, and placed it on the dais beside his bare feet. My father watched him with rapt attention, his expression enigmatic. Whether he trusted Blake or not, it couldn’t have been easy to pass over his own flesh and blood. And while it was possible he’d been outvoted, I highly doubted it. Like I said, he’s phenomenally persuasive.

  “From this day forward,” Dad said, “you will shed your former identity and be reborn as the Elemental Master chosen for you by the Arcana. Do you renounce the name of your birth?”

  “I do.”

  “Then take up the Arcanum. Consume it. And let your past be consumed.”

  Part of me wished there was a strategic mirror, so I could see the look on Floyd’s face when he took the Arcanum. There used to be, way back when. I’ve seen engravings.

  They retired the mirror the last time a Transfiguration went bad.

  It was just as well I couldn’t see Floyd’s expression. In all likelihood, it was nonexistent.

  Collectively, the crowd held its breath as Floyd picked up the tiny vial, unstoppered it, and placed it to his lips. Even me. And at first, it seemed as if nothing happened. But I knew how Arcanum moved. When his body heat reacted with the top of the bottle, the contents would rush up into his mouth. He must have been ready for it. In fact, he placed the vial back on the slab so calmly, I started to worry that someone had swapped its contents with vodka—someone like my brother. A morbid fantasy spooled out in which he and Dad colluded to make sure I was blamed for the theft, and Blake took his place in the Tetrad after all.

  But then Floyd’s legs gave out. He folded to his knees, threw back his head, and made a noise that should never come from a human throat. I’d call it a scream, except it was directed into his lungs, not out.

  It was the sound a body makes when it’s filled by the Arcana.

  I leaned forward eagerly. Worried he’d fall in on himself as the Arcanum destroyed him? Or hoping he would?

  Overhead, a cloud eased in front of the sun, and I saw Floyd was glowing. It was like a spotlight from the heavens had found him. But spotlights start out small and get bigger when they hit the stage. This one started out broad and narrowed to its target. The Arcanum had marked Floyd as a vessel. I was unprepared for how violently the elemental power surged in to fill the void.

  Just when I was sure we’d all be treated to a spray of gore, the screaming stopped. Trembling, Floyd got one bare foot under himself, then the other, and ponderously, he stood and turned to face the crowd.

  His chest was glowing.

  I’d seen the phenomenon in engravings, too. I’d just figured it was symbolic, some kind of artistic license, to show the Arcana had descended.

  Apparently not.

  Even though it hurt my eyes, I couldn’t look away. The sigil didn’t lie on top of Floyd’s chest like a big neon pendant—it came from somewhere within. Deep inside, as if I could look into the shape and see his muscles and bones and organs, if only the light emanating from it weren’t bright enough to blot out my vision.

  It was too bright to see, like a camera flash, but only for a moment. As the Arcana was absorbed, the symbol dimmed, and glowed blue. A spiral within a diamond: the Arcane symbol of Elemental Water.

  “Tell us your name,” my father commanded.

  Floyd cast that blank stare across the breathless crowd, seeing everything, or seeing nothing. And with a voice ragged from the surging Arcana, declared, “I…am…Flood.”

  6

  EDWARD

  Time was ticking. All the preparation in the world wouldn’t buy back the hours I’d already wasted. And so, I might have been tapping my foot as I stood watch, while Sterling laboriously disassembled the ventilation fan, so I could slip into the compound.

  It should’ve been me behind that wrench—among the four Rebel leaders, I was the one most hardened to manual labor. But I was so keyed up, I very nearly stripped the first bolt I attacked. When Sterling stepped in, I had no grounds to stop him.

  I tapped my foot louder. He tucked the long bangs of his black-dyed hair behind his ear, slid me a look of annoyance, and said, “Try to look casual.”

  I sniffed out a non-laugh. “I’ve never been any good at doing casual.”

  “True enough. Then just act like you own the place—you’re proficient at that.”

  Spoken like we’d known each other all our lives. Which, essentially, we had…though I never really talked to him until high school. He was the weird kid down the block, the one who’d been too sickly to come outside and throw rocks at each other like the rest of us. The pale kid who spent all his time indoors making models, with emo tunes drifting from his bedroom window.

  But by the time we were sixteen, he was also the kid whose doting parents had scrimped and saved to buy him an old beater sedan. He spray-painted it with matte black primer and christened it Deathmobile. Not exactly my style, but a car’s a car.

  Deathmobile is long gone, but she’d served her purpose. Not only had she hauled the four of us on every memorable excursion and road trip of our teenaged lives—but she’d allowed us to give Sterling a chance. And a decade later, that bond was still strong. Strong enough that I trusted him with my life. Even now.

  Especially now.

  Sterling freed a bolt and dropped it to the concrete with a metallic thunk.

  “How many more?” I asked.

  “As many as it takes.” He’s impossible to ruffle. He claims it’s because he’s died so many times. I don’t exactly believe him…except, when I do. “So, Edward. Instead of standing there spiking your blood pressure while you try to will me to work faster, how ’bout you plan whatever it is you’re going to tell the Arcane Masters. Something that’ll make them say, ‘Sure, random guy. Of course you deserve to be in the running for the Transfiguration. In fact, let’s send out a big general invite to the public. Because a working-class Master is just what this city needs.’ That sound about right?”

  I gave a short sigh. “You know I’d rather think on my feet.”

  Another bolt clattered to the pavement. “I just want to make sure you’re prepared for the part where security shoves a gun in your back and marches you off to a waiting squad car.”

  “I don’t have to convince all of them. Just one.” The choice had to be unanimous, and if I could
convince a single Arcane Master of the political viability of ranging outside their own hand-picked group of Aspirants, a dialog could begin. Maybe it wouldn’t amount to anything, not this time around. But at the very least, it would plant a seed for a more equitable spread of power. The next time a dose of Arcanum distilled—ten years from now, or maybe more—when we brought up the notion of a candidate coming from the people, the concept would’ve had a chance to soak in a little, and wheels of change would start to roll.

  That was the plan.

  Hopefully, I’d make parole once it came time to see it all pan out.

  7

  AURORA

  A Transfiguration Ceremony is a very big deal. Its frequency isn’t measured in years, but in decades. So, after Flood soaked in the adulation of the crowd and my father recited the ritual’s closing words, everyone who’d traveled from across Corona (or across the globe) to witness the event stuck around for dinner. Not just a few fancy courses, either, but a full-blown feast.

  Between the Arcanum drop and the press conference, I couldn’t recall the last time I’d eaten. But even after the ceremony was complete and I knew we were all safe from my wounded tyrant of a brother—at least for several more years—my stomach was still in knots. I tried to loosen them with champagne, but it was a no-go. I could barely choke the stuff down.

  I abandoned my half-full glass on a sideboard and headed to the courtyard for some air. Not the main courtyard, where visitors still loitered, hoping to inhale a molecule that had once mingled with the Arcanum. Instead, I headed for a less glamorous, more private spot, the kitchen garden. Not exactly freedom, but as close as I could hope to get. I was so sure I’d be home free that when I heard a clink and the murmur of voices, I presumed it was a staff member who realized they were running low on tapenade, searching for olives. But then I heard a horribly familiar laugh and froze in my tracks.

  My brother’s laugh. The really ugly chortle, a dissonant ha-ha-ha that usually preceded someone getting hurt.