Page 122 of A Flame of the Phoenix

“You are nothing without me. Nothing more than the peasant your birth mother made of you. I gave up my pretense—now it’s your turn.”

The guards let her go, and she caught herself on her hands.

“Take it all off.”

It took a second for Faythe to understand, until she glanced at the beautiful ruined material pooling around her. The jewels she wore on her body and her hair. She’d been dressed up for Marvellas’s show.

“Or he suffers until you do,” she warned.

Tight sounds of pain echoed from Kyleer, and Faythe became horror-struck. Zaiana still held him, but it wasn’t her inflicting the pain. Marvellas was in his mind.

“Stop!” Faythe yelled.

Marvellas did, turning her attention back to Faythe, coldly impatient.

She forced back the humiliation she felt at this display. In front of Kyleer…Reylan…and…Nerida.The fae healer stood in perfect disguise among the guards. Faythe had met her eyes on the way in but couldn’t bear to see the disturbance that would be filled in them now to witness Faythe’s defeat.

Faythe started with her hairpins, plucking them one by one, and the only sounds to echo in the room were the chimes of her dignity hitting the ground piece by piece.

Red crystals fell around her like tears of blood, but she would not feed the Spirit’s sick pleasure with her emotions. Faythe kept calm, pulling the ties of her corset bodice. The front came loose, and Faythe let it fall. Then she kneeled there in nothing more than a white camisole, her hair unbound.

Marvellas approached with the intent of a serpent, and she struck just as fast, taking a tight grip of the back of Faythe’s hair. She pinched her lips to smother her whimper from the torn roots. She took hold of Faythe’s hand, slipping off her golden butterfly ring before Faythe could fight it, and she gasped.

“No—!”

Faythe’s plea was too late as the ring turned to gold dust between the Spirit’s fingers.

“It was a wretched thing then, and now,” she said spitefully.

Faythe’s heart withered watching the gold particles float away until they were nothing.

It wasn’t just a ring.

It was a thread of time that kept Reylan on the path to finding her soul again. It was their love in all its defiance. That ring was a bond, a promise, between them.

Faythe glanced over her shoulder to where Reylan stood in the shadows. He held her with an intense stare but gave no indication he felt anything at watching the ring get destroyed.

Her head bowed in sorrow.

“Finally…if you loved your poor and powerless life in High Farrow so much, then you don’t need your magick.”

Marvellas released her with a shove, but Faythe was caught by guards again.

Kyleer struggled, shouting profanities and pleading for her. Faythe couldn’t bear to look at him.

One guard pulled her arm, and before she could register what was happening, a blade sliced deeply along her forearm. She was wrong to think that score of fire was pain when what followed was enough to make a person beg for death.

She only caught a glimpse of the dark iridescent stone, and when it was pushed into her wound, Faythe couldn’t scream. An agony so consuming stole her will to do anything at all.

“Faythe!” Kyleer yelled her name, but he sounded so distant now.

Faythe’s consciousness brushed darkness, but it wouldn’t fall under completely. She wished it would give in and let her go. The blood boiling in her veins tested the very limits of her physical endurance.

“I could ease your pain, but you deserve to feel it all for your rebellion,” Marvellas said close to her ear. “But I’ll ease you into the next.”

Faythe was floating in a dark oblivion. She felt a new sharpness scoring her other arm. Her throat burned, but she couldn’t hear the screams clawing from it.

Her veins were torched, and she was burning from the inside out.

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