Page 190 of A Flame of the Phoenix

As a guard drew a blade to approach the silver-haired fae, Maverick poised his over Kyleer’s throat, and Zaiana’s fate became sealed to his knowing what she was about to do.

Zaiana finally broke.

Her first dagger lodged into the throat of the dark fae in front of her. Spinning, the one beside her clutched his hands to his neck with the slice she’d made over it in the same breath. There was nothing but her and those in her way to Kyleer. She fell two more before she caught the flicker of blue she was all too familiar with.

Zaiana moved like the wind to the dart of flame, feeling the hot breath of it pass her before it slammed into two dark fae she’d maneuvered in front of.

“Stop!” Maverick called, but he braced with another attack.

Zaiana pinned him with a promise of death.

The room erupted to chaos, with guards advancing to stop her, and Zaiana gave herself over to the merciless killer she was. Her hand plunged through the chest of a fae, tearing the heart from his ribs, and she kicked his body away only to reach back, hooking arms around the neck of a fae behind her, and his neck snapped as she lunged down, crying out with the force it took to twist his head over her shoulder.

“Enough!” Marvellas bellowed.

Zaiana felt the invasion in her mind. It took hold of her movements, but Zaiana was too far gone in her defiance that sheshattered the mental grip. It wasn’t without a pain like no other that split her mind, blackening her vision.

Zaiana. Didn’t. Stop.

Two guards managed to take hold of her in the moment she was debilitated. As soon as her vision returned enough, her iron guard pierced the flesh of one of them, scoring across his neck, and her other sharp finger guards plunged into the eye of the another. Their shrill cries in her ears were as victorious as they were damning when the weight of her headache to defy Marvellas was becoming too much.

Then a heat scorched her chest, having been too occupied with the guards to keep track of Maverick.

Her back slammed into a wall before she fell to all fours.

She couldn’t give up.

It wasn’t over.

Zaiana’s head snapped up with a frantic fear, locking her sight to the wide, moss-green eyes of Kyleer.

This moment became a cruel mirror copy of the time she’d watched Maverick in the same position.

She never should have cared for that fae. Callen Osirion. Not now he’d become the thing that stood to take everything from her.

When she watched the knife Marvellas held slice over Kyleer’s neck and drown in his blood, something more deadly than fury overcame her. More powerful than hate.

Kyleer was her fight.

The first fight she had that wasn’t just to survive but tolive.

She recalled the time she’d had the choice of kill or mercy, confronting him in a meaningless alley in Fenstead. For the first time in her life of emotionless killing…

She’d let Kyleer live.

Only to watch him die now.

The dormant well of magick inside her didn’t just awaken.

It exploded.

Her lightning expelled from her in waves so strong she was only the vessel for the storm that snapped around them. As if through all this time of silence it had been building for this moment. Glass shattered, and it rained beautiful weapons. She stopped any of them from hitting Kyleer.

It couldn’t be too late.

Zaiana had one target overall, and when she found the flaming beauty, it was a triumph to see the cuts across the Spirit’s pale skin from the fallen glass dome.

“You were supposed to be everything, Zaiana. Now look what you’ve become,” Marvellas spat.

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