Phoenix Heart: Episode 4: Rope Worker Read online

  Phoenix Heart: Episode 4 "Rope Worker"

  Phoenix Heart, Volume 4

  Sarah K. L. Wilson

  Published by Sarah K. L. Wilson, 2021.

  Phoenix Heart

  Season One

  Episode Four

  “Rope Worker”

  Sarah K. L. Wilson

  Copyright 2021

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Note to the Reader:

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Behind the Scenes:

  OTHER BOOK SERIES BY SARAH K. L. WILSON

  For my little phoenixes. Fly free.

  Note to the Reader:

  Phoenix Heart is a series very much like your favorite streaming tv. There are seasons and episodes. These episodes are designed to be read in roughly two hours, though fast readers will read more quickly and those of you who really like to absorb the story may take longer. They’re intended to be fast-paced, exciting, and they release frequently so that you can keep up with the story even if you have a very busy schedule. Perfect for lunch breaks, a single evening of enjoyment, or younger readers who like bite-sized chunks, this story will keep you wanting more.

  I’d like to also offer you a prequel short story for free download when you join my subscribers.

  Also of note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, events and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Enjoy!

  Chapter One

  Bright sea spray caught the sun, forming a rainbow of color off to one side of the bow. I wanted to enjoy the feeling of it, but tension twisted my belly.

  “Stop fretting, Sersha,” Judicus said from where he sat cross-legged, staring at the bright feather in his hands. His face was a pale green that complimented the bottle green jacket he’d bought for himself before we departed on The Volente and one side of his face was mottled with bruises. Most of the damage he’d sustained in captivity was covered by his clothing – masses of dark bruises he wouldn’t let me look at – but those bruises on his face were impossible to hide.

  “They’ll heal. They don’t need help,” he’d said, shrugging me off when I tried to examine them the moment we cleared the sea. I’d left them alone, but my fingers itched to tend them.

  I didn’t know how he’d purchased our passage, or the clothing he’d acquired for both of us, or the equipment, I’d tried to ask with my hands, but he studiously ignored the question, so it remained a mystery.

  I squinted at the ocean and wished for the hundredth time that we could simply fly on Kazmerev’s back.

  “It’s better on a ship,” Judicus said, his eyes rolling slightly as he fought against his seasickness again. It made him speak more slowly as if he were trying to breathe through his mouth. “A ship sails day and night. A phoenix only flies at night.”

  I looked around us worriedly, but no one was watching. The sailors were busy working the sails and tidying the deck. The other passengers weren’t on deck so early. We’d chosen a place in the bow where the ropes were coiled, and the sea spray left us constantly misted and it seemed to keep unwanted ears away.

  It was dawn and my beloved phoenix, Kazmerev, had faded from this world again. I clutched a fist to my chest – to my heart – where he slept, dead to this world, and watched the ocean, trying not to shudder as I remembered what it had felt like to almost drown beneath those waves.

  It had only been the bubble formed of Judicus’s magic that had saved us. He’d walked us down the coast until we were too far away for the men in the boat to find us and then he’d stumbled up out of the water – with my help – found us these fine clothes and passage on this ship and then promptly passed out in his assigned hammock.

  By the time he woke in the night, I was practically hopping up and down. We’d lost a full day and there were only three to untangle the puzzle in the feather. At least our ship was sailing in the right direction.

  “You’re sure there are only two days to unravel this?” Judicus asked, looking up at me with a drawn expression. He was a poor traveler. He grew ill from boats and ill from flying. Maybe he even was ill on horseback. I had no way to know since he’d spent most of his time on horseback unconscious. He’d spent most of his time since I met him unconscious, though it wasn’t exactly his fault. I’d grown so used to it that I wasn’t sure what I’d do with a healthy, energetic Judicus.

  I nodded in reply.

  “It’s a complicated bit of magic. I don’t know if I can loosen it in just two days,” he said, but he sounded more intrigued than upset. His eyes hadn’t left the feather since I handed it to him last night and tried to explain what it was.

  Kazmerev had been just as fascinated.

  I’ve never seen this before, he’d said to me. I’ve heard legends of feathers enchanted with riddles, but never before have I seen one. The old man must have been a powerful Flame Rider before his phoenix died.

  I still didn’t understand that part. Kazmerev died every dawn but was raised to life again at sunset. How could a phoenix die and not rise?

  He can be corrupted. Only the righteous rise again. Or, he can have passed to the beyond for some other reason – a death that severs the soul’s connection to this world and forces us to the life beyond, perhaps. Or perhaps the hope in his rider’s heart died.

  That could happen?

  Many people lose hope.

  But if I lost hope, would I lose Kazmerev? The thought seared me like a painful brand.

  You would. Keep your hope alive, little hawk. It is more powerful than you know.

  I scrubbed nervously at the back of my neck as I watched Judicus. I was uncomfortable in these new clothes – they were far too rich. He’d bought me thin stockings of a wool so fine they clung perfectly to my shape. Tall leather boots protected my legs up and over the knee. My skirts were warm and practical but were full and cut in a flattering way and the sleeves of my bodice had a decorative puff as if I were a lady and not the daughter of villagers. I was afraid it made people look at me more and I wanted to be looked at less.

  “Patience, Sersha,” Judicus said in a wavering voice – but I knew it wavered from his nausea not from lack of confidence. He seemed very at home sitting here and studying a magic feather. “I’ll figure it out. I always do. It was I who found Mally, wasn’t it? That was a tricky puzzle if there ever was one and I was the first to solve it.”

  I looked around, worried someone was listening, but to my relief, everyone was too busy to keep their eyes on “that seasick lord and his mute sister” which was what she’d caught them calling her and Judicus.

  “It’s a knot made of magic, kind of like a blacksmith’s puzzle. Have you seen those? The ones with two horseshoes chained together and a ring around the chain, or the ones with a series of rings and a pair of pins?”

  I nodded to him. Tyndale made those when he was bored in the darkest depths of winter and sometimes he brought them to Uncle Llynd to try with the understanding that Tyndale could eat and drink f
or free until the puzzle was solved.

  “I think that if I just ...”

  His brow furrowed and then slipped into disappointment. It must not have worked.

  I shook my head and he looked up. “Oh. You’re bored. I suppose you can’t see what I’m doing.”

  I nodded. Could he help me see it?

  But no, he reached into his pocket and pulled out an oilskin, and handed it to me. Wrapped inside was a detailed map.

  “Here. You can learn some geography while we travel. That can only help. We’re here, leaving the city of Halvered and we’re headed to Briccatore in the south. See it here?”

  My eyes studied the map, tracing the scrolling letters for the names of places and the jagged coastline we’d be following all the way south down to Briccatore.

  With my finger, I traced a looping letter near my home village.

  “Wildrock,” Judicus said, pointing to the letter I was tracing. That’s what people call your country. Did you know that?”

  I shook my head. I knew Landsfall. But not Wildrock. I tapped the map where it should be but Judiucs laughed.

  “If they put every village on the map, it wouldn’t fit them all. It’s just cities and important landmarks. But I think studying this will help you – and it will give you something to do while I try to solve this puzzle.”

  I lifted two fingers.

  “I know,” he said, looking even greener. “Two days. I have to solve this puzzle in two days.”

  He turned back to it, and I tried to keep my eyes on the map and to concentrate, but what if he didn’t succeed? How would we stop the Stryxex from hunting down and killing phoenixes? I would do anything to protect Kazmerev. Even give up on ever regaining Mally.

  The thought of that drew me up short. I shouldn’t think that way. She was important, too. And she was relying on us.

  But now I had two impossible things to do, and I felt helpless in the face of them.

  Chapter Two

  We were each so absorbed in our tasks that we hardly noticed the passing of time as the rest of the crew changed the watches and rang a bell to let everyone know they were doing it. We barely noticed the strolling of other passengers walking by us as they took a turn around the deck before retreating below again. We hardly noticed the ship’s captain as he came over, stared at us a few moments, shook his head, and then left again. To him, it would have looked like Judicus was staring feverishly at a dark feather and like I was engrossed in a map beside him.

  I’d learned a lot. Not how to read the names of the places on the map – but I’d learned the coastline well and learned the dips and weaves of the roads and where the cities and countries were. I’d need Judicus to tell me their names later, but I was fairly sure he was right and that this would help me to think about where we were going and how we could get there.

  Judicus had made no further progress, though he’d become slightly less green as he muttered over the feather.

  “A cross knot, perhaps? No. What if I tug this end? No? How can one wrap a thing in a rope worker’s knot without being a rope worker?”

  I had brought him food and water twice and had checked on him, tapping his arm and cocking my head to ask if he had the energy to keep going. He just waved a hand vaguely as if dismissing the question.

  “Staring at a puzzle and tugging at strings requires minimal effort.”

  I hoped that was true because our hours seemed to be melting away.

  We’d both avoided the company of others. Me, because I couldn’t speak to them and that always made things awkward with new people. Judicus, because he was too seasick. Just moving from this spot seemed to make it worse.

  I had just begun to grow complacent when the ship bell began to ring for dinner. A shadow loomed suddenly, and a hand reached out and snatched Judicus’ feather from him.

  I surged to my feet, the map falling to the ground and Judicus scrambled to grab it before the winds whipped it away. But maps could be replaced. The feather could not.

  It gleamed bright on a weather-worn palm, and a large man in a trim jacket and high leather boots looked down at me. His dark hair was threaded with silver and little wings of white were over each ear, running down behind them. His skin was very dark, but not the dark of natural-born dark skin but the darkness of someone who had started brown and become browner and browner under a sneering sun. Little light squint lines around his eyes and mouth highlighted that and his chin was dusted in light stubble. I judged him to be nearly the age of Aunt Danna – early in his forties, perhaps. He had the powerful frame of an older man who had been physical all his life and so was still strong despite a bit of extra thickness that came with age.

  He was frowning at us.

  “And what do you have here, little thieves?” he asked.

  I crossed my arms over my chest. He was the thief, not us.

  “Do you know what this is?” he asked me, turning his body to me and not to Judicus who was pulling himself up awkwardly, still hunched over his healing wound, purple bruises, and rolling stomach.

  I glared into his eyes and tried to snatch the feather back.

  He was shockingly fast. He grabbed my wrist and held it so I couldn’t pull it back.

  “Answer me,” he said quietly.

  “Leave Sersha alone,” Judicus said imperiously, dusting off his jacket. The map had disappeared into one of his pockets. He’d straightened and composed himself so that I could barely even notice the green in his face. “She does not speak, but I will offer you the courtesy. Why have you trespassed on our time and property?”

  He sounded like a prince or a great ruler.

  The man barked a short laugh.

  “Hot. She is hot to the touch.”

  Judicus’ face turned blank. “You should not be touching her enough to know that. Let her hand free, or you’ll be swimming back to shore on your own.”

  I swallowed down a bubble of fear. We couldn’t afford to let Judicus spend his energy that way. We needed every scrap of it to solve the puzzle. And we couldn’t let anything happen to the feather.

  “Do you know this is a phoenix feather?” the man asked in a low voice, looking over his shoulder as he spoke. “Not only is it that, but it is from Arturo – a phoenix of my acquaintance.”

  I gasped. He could tell that? It looked almost indistinguishable from Kazmerev’s feathers to me.

  “Was he accompanied by an old man?” Judicus asked grimly. “An old man a little shorter than me with grim eyes who rambled half-consciously about something bent on destroying all phoenixes?”

  I almost sighed with relief at this speech. Because I wasn’t sure if Judicus knew why I needed him to solve the puzzle of the feather. I’d been able to explain the time limit – three days – to him but explaining all the rest with hand gestures had stretched our ability to communicate to the limit. The old man must have spoken to him while they were in custody together. He must have told him about his fears. Or maybe Judicus was just so clever that he’d put all that together himself.

  “Hallimore.” The powerful man released my wrist and ran his hand over his face. “Where is he now?”

  I shook my head sadly.

  “Dead,” Judicus interpreted.

  “He gave you this?” the man’s gaze was fixed on Judicus.

  “He gave it to Sersha. Was he a friend of yours?”

  The man swiveled to regard me. “Yes. Sersha. That makes sense.”

  It did? I frowned. What made sense of that to him? I thought the man had given it to me because I was the only one there when he was dying.

  “I’ll take it then. Since I am his friend.”

  I shook my head emphatically and held up my two fingers.

  “What is she trying to say?” the man asked Judicus.

  Judicus leaned against the ship rail looking as if he was lounging, but I knew it was an act. His green face gave him away. Fortunately, people don’t want to be around seasickness victims, so no one was interrupting.

&n
bsp; “She’s telling you that your friend – Hallimore – told us there were only two more days before the puzzle and message disappear.”

  “What message?” He looked at the feather now, turning it over and over in his hands.

  “The one that’s hidden with a ropework knot,” Judicus said dryly. “The one I was attempting to untangle before you came and so rudely interrupted.” He opened his hand. “If you’d care to return it, I can get back to work. Unless you have the gift of rope working and I somehow do not detect it?”

  He let those words trail off and the man grunted. “And who are you?”

  “Judicus Franzer Irault.” Judicus said in a low tone that did not carry. His eyes were hooded but the look in them was dark and burning.

  The man startled, taking a step back as if unconscious he was doing it. He looked Judicus up and down suspiciously and Judicus sighed, looking at me.

  “You’ll find they do that a lot, Sersha,” he said. “They all think I’ll turn rabid and rip their throats out.”

  And to my surprise, the man nodded at that, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

  Chapter Three

  The man bent his head slightly and said, “And I am Gundt Hellebar. And I’ll take charge of you, little sister.”

  I tilted my head and to my shock he made a sign with his hand that looked like one wing flapping, starting at his heart and moving outward. He placed his other hand – cupped – over it.

  “We Flame Riders watch out for one another. You must be freshly minted if you did not know what I was immediately at our touch or know who Hallimore was. And that makes it my sworn duty to train and protect you until you no longer require my guidance.”

  Judicus snatched the feather from his grip, but he hardly noticed, so intent was he on me.

  “We’ll get you properly outfitted when the ship makes port and every night you can train with Huxabrand and me. We’re not like other orders – there aren’t many of us and we’re so nomadic that you don’t get your choice. You’re stuck with me, I’m afraid. I’m the Guarding Flame.”