Page 148 of A Flame of the Phoenix

Oh Gods.She’d entrusted its location to Izaiah and didn’t want to believe he would betray that. Now she couldn’t be sure. What possible reason would Izaiah have for wanting to learn to wield it?

“Did he say why?” Faythe asked.

“He wouldn’t tell me.”

“Then why would you help him?” It slipped out of Faythe like an accusation. She didn’t know Izaiah’s intentions, but she cared for him as deeply as she always did, hoping in her heart he would never truly turn against them.

“I owed him a favor. He kept Amaya and Tynan alive when your father betrayed our agreement, and he captured them again the moment they were out of my sight.”

Faythe blinked, steadying her thoughts that were battered with this new information. She’d been an oblivious fool to Agalhor’s plans, and she couldn’t decide what emotion was dominating her now at discovering this.

She wanted to believe in Agalhor’s actions. He’d only done what he’d had to do in the interest of his kingdom, even if it was dishonorable to betray Zaiana’s deal in offering herself as a captive in place of her friends. But the dark fae had been cunning—she’d already known Agalhor wouldn’t honor it.

Zaiana was incredibly preceptive and cunning.

“Why did Izaiah come to you in the first place?” Faythe asked, needing all the pieces she could get of this picture before the Battle of Ellium unfolded.

“He wanted to know about the ruin, and he taunted me with Tynan as if I didn’t know he’d grown feelings for him andwouldn’t have let him die anyway. Amaya was my concern, and she wouldn’t have survived without him.”

Izaiah had feelings for Tynan. Unexpectedly, Faythe found a sense of hope in that. The fae and the dark fae weren’t born enemies. They just had to make the world see that.

Her thoughts reeled back to Izaiah’s motives with the ruins, running over why he could possibly need to be more powerful… Or, the question was, what could he become with his Shapeshifting ability if it was amplified by the ruin?

“You’re wasting time,” Reylan said, cutting through their building tension. “I’m rather hoping it kills you before you can break it.”

Faythe’s heart squeezed. Even Zaiana gave a flicker of disturbance at the cold statement.

“Too bad. I’m not dying, and neither are you,” Faythe said, kneeling back down in front of him. She glanced up at Zaiana. “Tell me what to do.”

“It’s not as simple as that,” she said bitterly. Zaiana cast her sight to the heavens as if a God might hear the plea for sanity in her thoughts. “I guess we’ll see if your stubbornness against dying can hold out with this too.”

Faythe listened to Zaiana with all her attention. Nothing that left her as instruction or personal experience sounded remotely appealing. The more the dark fae went on, the more Faythe grew riddled with terror, disbelief, and anxiety to achieve the impossible.

“You’re not trying to wield it, however. My guess is that you have to trick it. Open yourself just enough for the beginning of an alliance, feel for a crack of weakness, and throw everything you harbor in your own well into the ruin.”

In conversation it sounded plausible; in practice, Faythe knew it wouldn’t be so easy.

“And you can’t take over if I lose control,” Faythe said in a fearful breath.

“I might be able to sever your connection, but it will hurt both of you. A lot. I can’t be certain it won’t leave permanent effects.”

“Like what?” Faythe dreaded to ask.

“Madness.”

She swallowed hard against her dry throat.

Faythe slipped her hands over Reylan’s cheeks, coaxing his face up until she met his sapphire irises. They were so cold and lost it ached in her soul.

Her trembling fingers slipped down his chest. Threads of the ruin’s power wound around her fingertips, quickly spreading a vibration up her arm. It slowly raked over her body and latched onto her well of magick.

Faythe held her panicked eyes on those of the other half of her soul. “Just please stay with me, no matter how much it hurts. I hurt with you,” she croaked, absolutely terrified for them both.

She didn’t know what she was doing. The power began to flood her veins and crash like a shadowy storm through her mind. In her panic, Faythe struggled to keep the magick from overwhelming her in an instant. This terrible, ferocious,starvingpower that clawed and shrieked and wanted to claim her, mind, body, and soul.

She couldn’t let it, but already, it was winning. Faythe tried to search for Reylan in the chaos of dark power—the only anchor that could keep her from drowning in the shadows.

“Please stop.” Reylan’s voice of pure agony echoed through this void of ending they were lost in together.

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