Page 120 of A Flame of the Phoenix

“There are none if their allegiance is to you.”

Perhaps she’d lost her sanity. Morality. Maybe she wouldn’t be able to live with herself after what it took to win. But he would be safe, her friends would be safe, and that was worth condemning her soul.

“You always did have a temper, Aesira.”

“Aesira died trying to escape you,” Faythe said coldly. “All of this, bringing back my soul—why? What was so special about me?”

“Everything.” There was an ache in that whisper of a word from the Spirit.

All Faythe saw were markers to hit to make her bleed as much as Faythe had over two lifetimes. Each time Marvellas had come between Faythe and the only thing she wanted in the world.

“You could have taken the realm without me.”

Marvellas stepped over plates of food without even looking. Faythe wanted to retreat, but she stood firm against the instinct.

“This war began because I had someone who meant the world to me stolen from me.”

“Me?”

“No.”

Faythe didn’t want to see the humanity that was surfacing in the Spirit, but it felt important to understand.

“Your son,” Faythe said in realization.

At the thought, a new set of bright gold eyes flashed to the forefront of her thoughts. She’d dreamt of him before, and it had been the reason she’d snuck out to meet Gus in Rhyenelle—the last time she saw him. She’d needed answers, and it was then he’d told her Aesira had discovered Marvellas had a son. A male with dark hair and eyes like hers. But something had happened long ago…something that had taken him out of this realm, beyond where Marvellas could ever go looking.

“How do you know of him?”

“I don’t know how…but Aesira found out about him.”

“I never told you about him in the past,” Marvellas said, turning to suspicion. “Oh, my dear, perhaps I didn’t get to find out all of what you discovered back then before you foolishly got yourself killed.”

“How-how did she die?”

“Misplaced bravery. A mere mortal wound, of all things, on a battlefield you should never have been on.” Marvellas stopped, glancing over the ruins Faythe had made of the table. “We could change the world together. This doesn’t have to be a fight.”

Faythe shook her head, unable to fathom this ages-long delusion of partnership Marvellas still clung to.

“You want to eradicate an entire species,” she said. It was the first conclusion Faythe could make of Marvellas’s driving motives for this war. “Starting with the humans. Why?”

“They’re too weak to survive in this world. And if left unchecked, they will try to take a power that was never meant to be theirs. Time that was never theirs.”

This vengeance was personal to the Spirit. After all this time, Faythe had to learn the story of Marvellas, as far back as the beginning of her fall to land, or she would never have closure.

“What happened to you?”

Marvellas held her with a deep look, so cold and detached as she said, “Love.” Then her gaze dropped, one note of sorrow, before her guard firmed and she walked away from Faythe. Casting her sight out the glass wall, she added, “It will always find a way to destroy you.”

Faythe’s throat turned dry, her next words an attempted plea. “Just release him from your ruin and compulsion, and we’ll leave.”

“I thought all this time, Reylan would only get in the way as he tried to tear us apart in the past. But now there is a way for you to stay together. We can finally start to bring this world to its full potential.”

Her head was already shaking, making the slight flicker of hope turn ugly on the Spirit’s face.

“Then you leave me no choice?—”

“You leavemeno choice,” Faythe cut in. Slipping into the minds of the two guards who moved in behind her, Faythe had to set aside her morality to snap their necks. It wasn’t without consequence. Each life, even those of the vicious dark fae who were loyal to Marvellas’s cause, tainted black spots on her soul. “I never knew I could contend with you in villainy until you gave me the right motivation.”

---