Page 129 of A Flame of the Phoenix

Of course, if he were telling the truth, this fae had no knowledge of the kingdoms here, or their rulers. Though she didn’t know why the name of her father was important to him now.

“Agalhor Ashfyre.”

The tension in his locked shoulders diffused like relief. Not the name he thought she might speak.

“Your turn to give a name,” Faythe said.

The fae’s unnerving gaze roved over her as if he was still trying to process something, and Faythe grew more anxious by the second. She never could have predicted his identity would collide with her own in a truly incredulous, unfathomable way.

“My name is Nyte,” he said, holding her with golden eyes of kin. “Rainyte Ashfyre.”

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

Faythe

Rainyte Ashfyre.

It didn’t make sense. The name. His existence. Faythe was certain she was hallucinating or conjuring an outlandish dream after she’d succumbed to her agony at the banquet with Marvellas.

“It’s been averylong time since I’ve used my family name. I like to forget it exists, but the Gods seem to be having a wicked time with me,” Nyte said, running a hand through his inky hair as he paced around the cell, lost in deep thought with this unbelievable revelation.

Faythe couldn’t wrap her head around it, slammed dizzy and confused.

“Agalhor never would have…beenwith her,” Faythe said in horror. Her stomach churned, and she slipped off the cot. She ached and shivered, but she couldn’t sit still with this world-shifting information.

“He’s not my father, I assure you,” Nyte offered. He appeared far too composed, whereas Faythe was on the brink of insanity.

“His brother…” Faythe recalled the memory of the family painting Agalhor had shown her in Rhyenelle. “But he died in battle centuries ago?”

“He is very much alive, and someone I’m really itching to return to so I can kill.”

“Where?”

All Faythe knew was Ungardia, but could it be true the Prince of Rhyenelle, Agalhor’s brother, had crossed realms?

Did anyone know of his relationship to Marvellas and the son she had of his?

“She put you here to mess with my head,” Faythe said, reverting back to her original assumption. It was far more logical to believe. She took her head in her hands and rocked on her cot, feeling a madness creeping into her mind. “You’re not real,” she whispered.

“Faythe—”

She clamped her hands over her ears, wishing she could take back the token of her name.

He’s not real.

Faythe couldn’t stop whispering that to herself as she lay down with her back to him. She blocked him out of sight and sound, willing the torment of his appearance to disappear.

Yet the Dresair’s riddle in the abandoned Rhyenelle shop repeated through her desperate denial.

Come the return of the lost first son.

What did it mean?

Faythe curled into herself. So much pain ran through her body, her mind, her soul… Marvellas would be able to break her easily if she didn’t pull herself together.

“Death said you would come,” Faythe whispered, recalling the haunting vision in the ruined temple.

Nyte’s curious hum focused her to release her hands from her ears, but she couldn’t turn around and meet those golden eyes again.

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