Page 173 of A Flame of the Phoenix

Zaiana slipped out of his hold. “You’re lucky Marvellas is too focused on bending Faythe’s mind. She doesn’t care what happens to you. You’re nothing to her.”

“I’m not offended by that. What is she doing to Faythe?”

“I don’t owe you anything.”

“Then why are you here?”

Once again, Zaiana didn’t know why she’d come. She wanted to blame boredom when it was only the partial truth. As in Rhyenelle, she was left to wander with no purpose during the days, while Marvellas was occupied with her plans for Faythe. Her nights were also getting restless. She’d awaited her sleep demon, but he hadn’t come back yet.

“How many Nightwalkers do you know?” she blurted.

Kyleer frowned. “A few. Not many that personally though. Why do you ask?”

Her insecurity came rushing to seal her lips. “Never mind.”

“Zai,” he said as she tried to walk away. “Ask something more specific. Your company is mildly better than the delirious silence.”

She didn’t have anything more specific.

“It doesn’t matter,” she mumbled.

“Clearly, it does.”

Zaiana ran a hand over her face, debating whether she should abandon him.

“Is it possible for someone to have more than one ability?”

“Of course. It’s very rare though. Most who have two are Waterwielders with healing as a second stem.”

“What about two that have nothing to do with each other?”

Kyleer’s brow hooked as he looked her over. “Now I’m intrigued. Is this about you?”

“No.”

Her quick reaction exposed the lie.

“You think you can Nightwalk?”

“No. I mean…I don’t know. I guess not,” she rambled. It wasn’t often she was so flustered.

This new uncertainty about herself had been slowly eating away at everything she thought she’d mastered in herself. She didn’t want to discover that was what it was. Rather, she hoped it was simply the fae who visited her dreams who was responsible for her being able to meet him there.

“Who else have you told about it?”

“No one. Forget I said anything—no one will believe you.”

“Damn, I was itching to tell the nighttime rats.”

She glowered at him. Kyleer huffed a laugh before sliding himself down the wall to sit. Zaiana harbored a note of guilt for his wince of pain as he did.

“When did it start?” he coaxed.

She pinched her lips. There was some lift of liberation in getting to speak of it. She couldn’t tell Tynan or Amaya. Certainly not Maverick. With Kyleer, she could pretend it would be forgotten. Irrelevant.

“When your king infiltrated my mind, I woke with him in there,” she began, pacing with her reeling mind. “He seemed surprised by it. I didn’t know it was something I shouldn’t beable to do. I think it’s the only way I survived it. Or he would have taken what he wanted without my knowing and killed me.”

Kyleer was silent, and she found him with a tense, distant expression.

---