Keko screamed at her attacker, but not in defeat. No, his Keko was far from finished. She gritted her teeth, bent her knees just a tad more, and kicked the Son off with a mighty yell. All power, all strength, more than Griffin had ever witnessed in her. The Son’s body flew to one side and he hit the ground with a yelp. He’d landed on his left leg—the leg bearing a giant, festering gash down the length of one thigh, the leg Griffin had injured once before. He gripped his thigh and snarled up at Keko, his agonized eyes a strange, haunting silvery gold.
As Griffin finally reached them, the Son released his leg and lumbered to his feet.
Keko rose, too, eschewing Griffin’s helping hand. If she felt pain, it didn’t show. With a nod he moved out wide, keeping their dual position strong. Her chest expanded, creating her fire. She lit both arms, holding them out toward the Son in a frighteningly beautiful warning.
The warning was not heeded.
The Son growled and lunged. Keko arrowed her fire at his feet, igniting the ground around his body in a tight circle, encasing him. Brilliant, his Keko.
The Son laughed at first, the sound half human, half gravel. Then he tried to power through the wall of fire surrounding him. The smell of burned skin and sulphur, and the shriek of unexpected pain filled the air. He looked down at his hands in shock and then in fury as though he hadn’t known about the damage fire could do. His chin rose, his lip curled in a cocky sneer.
He went for Keko again. This time through the earth.
The Son’s feet and shins shifted from skin to rock, his body shrinking as he tried to go under, to let the earth swallow him. It didn’t work.
Keko’s fire flared in the ragged piles of upturned rock on which the Son stood. Chunky, sharp lava rock cradled her element, spitting out flames under and around his feet—his own personal section of Hell. It rendered his escape and transformation impossible.
The sight of her beaten and bloody body, coated in waves of flame, made her fearsome. Made her invincible. She moved closer to the Son and asked in an eerily calm voice, “Who are you?”
The Son glared at her through the flames.
“Who are you?”
At great length he finally answered, “I am guardian of the Source. And you have violated our boundaries.”
She took another step closer, increasing the blazing circle around him. He cringed, throwing up a useless arm.
“Your name,” she demanded.
Though the lower half of him remained as rock, keeping him locked into the fire cage, the charcoal skin on his torso and arms ran with lava-red veins. His short hair glistened strangely silver. Half human in shape, but not anywhere near human in appearance.
“I am Nem.” The pink of the inside of his mouth stood out in sharp contrast to his skin. “But my name doesn’t matter. If you destroy me, another Child will come to take my place.”
“Did Aya send you?” Keko’s voice hiccuped over the Daughter’s name.
Interestingly, Nem’s face also darkened.
The fire circle crackled and hissed. His skin broke out in droplets of sweat that shone like quartz, and then plinked to the lava rock in solid form. “She didn’t have to,” Nem said. “This is the purpose of my line, to protect the Source.”
Keko sighed in what Griffin understood to be relief. What didn’t he know about Keko and Aya?
Griffin pushed forward and barked at Nem, “You went against Aya when you came after us on the Big Island. Why?”
Nem shifted his glare to Griffin, one hand grazing his leg with the gash. “I went after her. I didn’t know she wasn’t alone.”
Keko had been his sole prey, his only mark.
Griffin’s mind rolled back to the scene outside the Senatus bonfire, to Aya’s words of warning: If Kekona touches the Source, fire feeding fire, she could destroy continents.
Fire feeding fire. Of course.
Griffin whirled on Keko and thrust a finger at the flaming cage. “Will that hold?”
“As long as I keep control over it. Or kill him.” Her eyes narrowed. “Why?”
“Don’t kill him.” Over Keko’s shoulder he caught sight of the massive, cracked rock jutting out of the center of the small island, and he nodded toward it.
“He tried to kill me,” Keko said, frustrated arms flinging out to her sides. “Twice. Don’t I owe him the same favor?” Then she noticed how Griffin was staring at the broken rock. “What? What’re you thinking?”
He said nothing. He didn’t have to. She understood.
Her beautiful dark skin paled. “No. Griffin, no.”
Griffin looked long into her determined, blood-streaked face, then started to walk away. Toward the entrance of the Source.
“Wait. Stop.” It was the Chimeran general talking now. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?”
The split stone called to him, made his signature awareness light up in a way he’d never before experienced. “I’m going in.”
Her grip on his arm was so powerful he felt the twinge of pain all the way to the bone. She spun him back around so hard he had to struggle for balance.
“This is my fight, Griffin. My purpose.” No anger this time, as he’d expected, just a sadness. A disappointment. Devastation.
“You can’t go in there, Keko. Look at the crack, how narrow it is. Even if you could drill for the next fifty years and get yourself inside there, what Aya said about triggering something massive and horrible will happen.”
“It’s no different if it’s you or me. Why do you think you can?”
Griffin glanced at Nem. “Because of something Aya told the Senatus. Because I am water and you are fire. Think about it.”
A tight shake of her head. A terrible crease across her brow. “I don’t understand.”
He couldn’t help it. He had to touch her, had to chance it. One hand came to her cheek, thumb grazing lightly beneath her eye. She startled, killing the fire on her arms but still managing to maintain the circle around an increasingly agitated Nem. Through the sweat and blood, beneath the fire magic, Griffin could feel her true beauty—that gorgeous soul that had given her this quest.
“You’re stronger here on this island,” he said. “Aren’t you? My senses are going crazy and it’s more than just signatures I feel. I can see it’s affecting you, too, in how easily you overpowered Nem. I can feel it in your body, see it in your magic. The Source is feeding you.”
Her gaze turned inward, as though she just realized the truth of it. “Yes. I do feel stronger. And a little . . .”
“What?”
She flexed her fingers. “Unstable.”
“Right. Because you’re made of fire. Same as the Source. Don’t you see? You are too close as it is now, but if you actually find a way down there, if you actually touch it, it’ll be like driving a gas truck into a burning building. Do you understand now?”
Keko’s expression slackened, then she pulled away from him and stomped back to Nem. “Is it because I am fire,” she demanded, “that you’re not allowed to let me in.”
“Fire feeds fire,” Nem said, the truth in his gold-silver eyes. “Fire destroys.”
She made a sound of frustration. “But the Queen found the Source. She touched it.”
“No,” Griffin said. “She never made it.”
Keko gasped.
“No one’s ever gone down there,” Nem said, and Griffin noticed with a shudder that the Son did not ever blink. “My ancestor killed her when her boat landed right over there.”