Page 33 of The Phoenix Inheritance

Isobel

Sharp tapping wakes me up one evening as I had fallen asleep in front of the fire. I spent the day fabricating soap – now isn’t a time to look like a barbarian as I have an extremely good-looking male in my life – and the activity exhausted me.

I leap up from my chair immediately. Could it be Dane already? It’s only been three days since he came, and he predicted he may be gone a whole week.

But when I open the door, three people enter instead of the single person I most want to see in the world. My welcoming grin is genuine though, as the last Hunter meeting was over a month ago.

“Garrison, Nicolas, Rudyard… How nice to see you again!”

They don’t meet my smile. My heart plummets as I take in their dark airs.

“What’s wrong?”

Garrison, usually a picture of joviality with his curly brown hair and twinkling blue eyes, gazes at me grimly. “Ehren is at Østrom.”

My jaw drops. Ehren is the leader of our small pack in this region.

“But… I thought he headed to the border to work with the Hunters over there.”

Given that we live within miles of the fort, there aren’t many Hunters in this part of Sowilo. Most gather around the Eastern frontier far from the Phoenix King. Ehren had decided to spend a few weeks with the largest group of Hunters to meet its leaders and better strategize our actions.

Garrison drops to a chair. “I just got word from the East. They thought he’d cancelled the trip.”

“Yesterday I overheard two Østrom guards say they don’t know how long Ehren will last,” Rudyard explains. The only member among us who is half mythical – his mother was an elf, brutally murdered for her refusal to bow down to the Phoenix rule – he serves as our informant by entering the fort as the Queen’s jewelry merchant. “It seems they captured Ehren five weeks ago and have been torturing him to reveal names, but he hasn’t relinquished.”

I grip the table as I fear I may faint. Ehren, tortured? He’s by far the bravest of us all, so I have no doubt he’d withstand the worst pain before giving any of us away. The thought makes me sick.

And what were you doing in the meantime? A bitter voice in my head taunts. Mooning over your handsome visitor!

“We need to figure out a way to get him out of there,” I utter weakly.

Rudyard is already shaking his head before I finish my sentence. “From what I understand, Ehren is in a sorry state right now. Knowing him, he’d rather die than have us see him like that.”

“Or live as a cripple,” Nicolas supplies gravely.

My fists clench. “That’s ridiculous!” I spit out, shocked to the very core. “Who are we to sign his death sentence over baseless assumptions on his character?”

Garrison lifts a hand. “We want vengeance too, Isobel. Rudyard came up with a plan, and I think it’s a good one.”

I cross my arms, still vexed by their train of thought. I carry a hideous scar that grows each day, but I’d rather cherish my every breath than die over some twisted sense of honor.

“The Hunters need to strike back in a way Østrom will remember,” Rudyard growls. “We’ll capture the youngest Prince, and torture him until the King regrets the day he laid a single finger on Ehren.”

I gawk at the three strangers in my cottage, wondering how in the world these people can be my friends.

“The Prince must be a Phoenix,” I try to reason with them. “We’re by no means strong enough to defeat a Phoenix, let alone the flock of guards who must follow his every move!”

“For years the talk at Østrom has been about how weak the King’s youngest born is,” Rudyard drawls. “Everyone believed he wasn’t even a Phoenix. He only turned days ago.”

“They’re holding a tournament right now to determine which of the brothers will become King,” supplies Garrison.

“I saw the first match,” Rudyard points out. “The boy has barely hatched. Hardly controls his powers at all.”

I rest against the table before my legs give in. “If we’re ready to penetrate the fort, we might as well try to bring one of our own home, rather than the enemy.”

“Ehren wouldn’t want to be saved,” Nicholas counters. “Not when he’ll probably die within days, if he isn’t already dead.”

His words lend me a new kind of energy. I storm his way and jab him in the chest.

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