Chapter 311: Go Ahead And Show Me
The floor went still. Danistasia’s hand lowered a fraction.
Solaris opened her palm toward her. "Will they take me to the land you call Carrion Spire?"
Several professors moved at once.
Ordenance raised his voice. "Nobody move!"
Danistasia did not look away from Solaris. "You have awakened in a world that remembers what you did."
"Does it remember why?"
Danistasia shook her head vehemently. "That doesn’t matter. What matters is what you did. We remember that you burned through Carrion Spire and killed everyone who stood between you and a dead city."
Solaris’s eyes brightened. "Cinderhold is not dead."
"It has been gone for a century."
Solaris grew very defensive, anger flashing in her eyes. "Your history is written by thieves!!"
Danistasia stepped onto another stair as ice formed beneath her. "I know what you are capable of."
"Do you?"
"I know the records. I know your first uprising and the second. I know how many districts burned when Carrion Spire stopped you."
Solaris’s shoulder feathers spread.
Danistasia kept climbing until they stood nearly level. "But if you believe you can crawl out of the past and tear apart everything that has been built after you," she said, "then I will show you the power of ice."
A murmur moved through the students.
Some backed farther away. Others stood on benches and low walls to see.
Lancet pushed through the crowd until he reached the professors’ line. He could feel the bond between him and Solaris burning hotter with every word exchanged above.
Ordenance glanced at him. "What are you doing here?"
"Watching, sir."
The Dean gave him a bewildered look. "Return to the rest of the students, Lancet!"
Lancet looked up at Solaris. "Probably too late for that."
Above them, Solaris spread both arms. Fire left her body in a broad wave.
The shape behind her transformed from a shadow to a vast specter of a Phoenix. The giant burning thing formed over the museum, gold-red wings opening across the sky.
Its head rose above the nearest tower. Flames ran between the feathers without breaking apart, and each breath from its beak sent heat over the courtyard in heavy pulses.
Students cried out and covered their faces.
Danistasia summoned ice on her fingers, preparing herself for an attack.
The Phoenix lowered its head. Solaris stretched one hand toward her.
"This power of ice," she whispered, "go ahead and show me."
The specter dived.
Danistasia’s eyes widened. She struck both of her hands together.
The ice on her fingers expanded outwardly and formed a wall of ice in front of her, thick enough to hide half the museum. Layer after layer grew across it, packed hard and clear, with snowflake runes forming through the center.
The Phoenix burned bright and sped towards her. Just as it was about to collide with the wall of ice—
"Stop!"
Lancet’s voice rang over the courtyard.
He had climbed onto the broken base of a statue beside Ordenance, high enough that the word carried.
Solaris’s hand closed, freezing the Phoenix in the air.
Its burning beak stopped inches from Danistasia’s shield. Steam tore outward where fire and cold pressed against each other without touching.
Danistasia looked over her shoulder and down to the ground.
Lancet stood above the professors with one hand cupped beside his mouth.
Her eyes narrowed. "Him again."
Solaris looked down. The Phoenix turned with her.
Her gaze found Lancet, a young blonde Summoner with catching blue eyes, and remained there.
There was something about him...
She felt a sensation in her chest sharpening the moment he saw him. There was this odd sense of familiarity tugging at her soul.
It was not a memory. She had never seen his face. Yet something beneath her ribs knew him. Her Phoenix Channels bent toward him as though a hook had been placed somewhere inside her soul.
That boy.
Solaris pointed at him. "I will speak to him."
The crowd reacted at once.
Lancet heard his own name moving through the students.
Danistasia looked from Solaris to him. Lancet raised one hand in a small greeting.
Danistasia’s expression hardened further. ’What is this now? He did not resurrect Solaris through his summoning so she can’t be his Summon. The Phoenix had completed its own rebirth exactly as the historical records said it would.’
Her eyes narrowed. ’So why has Solaris chosen him from hundreds of people after one glance.’
Danistasia turned back toward her. "Ignore him."
Lancet lowered his hand.
Solaris’s brow lifted.
Danistasia continued. "Release the students. Put out the fire. Then you may answer questions under supervision."
"That was not what I offered."
"You are not in a position to dictate terms."
Solaris looked at the ice wall between them. Then at the buildings surrounding the courtyard.
"You mistake restraint for weakness."
The Phoenix specter drew back from the shield and rose above Solaris again. "If we fight," she said. "I will win."
Danistasia’s eyes became colder.
Solaris continued. "And even if I do not, your Academy still loses."
She pointed toward the museum beneath them.
"The roof will fall first. Then the tower by the West there, because its foundation is already soft from the heat below. Your glass bridges will burst. There will be damage after damage. The students you placed around me will breathe my smoke and roast their own lungs before any Healer reaches them."
Her hand shifted toward the main Academy buildings.
"The old wood inside those halls will burn behind the stone. Your archives will become ash. Your barriers will trap heat inside instead of keeping it out. By the time you defeat me, there will be little left here for you to rule."
No one spoke.
Solaris looked back at Danistasia. "Perhaps you will kill this body."
The golden crown along her brow burned brighter. "In fifty years, I will rise again."
Her voice softened. "Will your Academy?"
Danistasia stared at her through the ice. Below, Ordenance exhaled through his nose.
Solaris lowered her hand. "There is one way I stand down. I speak with the boy."
Every eye moved toward Lancet.
Kasto stood several rows back with his mouth open.
Anita looked from Lancet to Solaris and then back again, already forming questions he did not want to answer.
Min Tu said nothing. Her stare sharpened.
Danistasia remained on the ice steps for several seconds. The wall in front of her began to crack from the Phoenix’s heat.
She looked toward the students held inside the burning hands. Then she looked at the museum and the smoke still rising from its shattered roof.
Finally, the ice around her hands faded. "Very well."
The students beneath the fire-hands dropped several feet before the flames lowered them to the ground and released them. Some scrambled away. Vernon stood more slowly, jaw set as he stared up at Solaris.
Danistasia turned and descended.
The ice steps formed beneath her until she reached the courtyard. As she passed Lancet, she stopped.
Her eyes met his.
Cold moved across the stone between their feet.
"Do whatever you want," she said to Solaris without looking away from him. "But if any more harm comes to my Academy, you will feel my wrath."
Then she walked past.
Lancet watched her go. "That went well."
Ordenance looked at him. "What is going on, Lancet?"
Lancet smiled at the Dean. "You’ll see, sir."
Fire suddenly gathered above them.
The crowd raised its collective voice as Solaris lowered from the ruined roof. Her feet never touched the museum. Flames carried her down until she hovered a few feet from Lancet, close enough that he could feel the heat moving over his face.
Her eyes searched him.
The Phoenix within her pressed toward the bond again.
Lancet smiled. "Hey."
Solaris said nothing.
"So, how was your..." He glanced toward the smoke pouring from the museum. "Sleep?"
Her fire abruptly wrapped around him.
Lancet’s smile vanished. "Wait."
She ignored him and manipulated the flames over his body without burning him. They closed on him then lifted him from the broken statue and pulled him into the air beside her.
The courtyard erupted.
"Lancet!" Kasto shouted his name.
Anita shoved through the students toward the front. "Hey! Let go of my friend!"
Ordenance raised one hand, but Solaris’s wings formed before he could act.
Gold-red fire spread across the sky.
Solaris looked once toward the Academy grounds, then toward the distant horizon. Lancet hung silently beside her inside the burning grip.
With a single beat of her wings, a sound like thunder filled the sky and she shot away from the Academy in a streak of fire, carrying Lancet with her while hundreds of students watched them disappear.