Page 193 of A Flame of the Phoenix

The ruin still pulsed with deadly power in his chest. Faythe shook her head as if it would expel its calls.

Faythe didn’t want to use any more power. She clamped her hands over her ears, willing the dark chants of the ruin to stop calling to her just for a moment. Her grief made it even more difficult, translating to the chaos the ruins fed on. Aurialis had once warned her she needed to better control her negative emotions if she ever hoped to wield a ruin.

So tired.

She was so, so tired.

“Phoenix.” That single word. His gentle tone. Faythe cried, wanting to push through her agony to see him.

Her gold eyes peeled open, but she couldn’t stop the world from spinning around her to catch a clear picture of Reylan.

“I need you to free me,” he said, and his voice was her way back to full awareness.

Faythe reached for his face again, but it didn’t take long staring into his beautiful blue eyes to see the shadowy possession still holding him. He was trying to be convincing, but she knew. Faythe smiled at him, playing along.

“I’m going to free you,” she said.

“The key is above the fireplace,” Reylan informed her.

Faythe could hardly bear to stand, but she made it to the fireplace that scorched her skin too hot. Returning with the key, she hesitated when she took his first wrist. Sapphire melted into gold with their shared look of pain.

“Please.”

Her heartsqueezed.

Faythe freed his first wrist, aching more at the sight of the thick abrasions. She went for the other.

Reylan took a moment, rubbing his wrists. Faythe’s heart was erratic watching him, his head bowed. Then, slowly, a cruel, foreign smile crept up the corners of his lips.

“Such a bleeding heart,” he growled. “You shouldn’t have come.”

Then he lunged for her.

Faythe opened her mouth to respond, but her words were choked by Reylan’s hands lashing around her neck.

He was far stronger right now. He would be unless she harnessed the power of the ruin. But she would only have one chance if she opened herself to it—one moment to either break it or let it amplify her power to a deadly capacity.

Faythe had fled from one horrifying nightmare into the clutches of another.

“You won’t kill me,” she wheezed.

He wasn’t capable of it. She had to believe that.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said, his voice so sinister it were as if the ruin were speaking through him. “Marvellas doesn’t have what it takes to rule this world, but I do. With this power, I can contend with her.”

Faythe choked, thrown onto her back. Reylan circled her like a lion while she struggled for stolen air.

“You can’t kill her without the ruin,” Faythe enlightened him.

Reylan’s wicked smile widened. “I have it,” he said smugly. Crouching, Reylan’s fingers brushed the tangled hair from her face with deceptive tenderness. “I’m surprised you haven’t realized yet…whichruin I have in me.”

Confusion fluttered through her panic. Faythe eyed the distortion on his chest she could see through his thin shirt. It called to her like it always did, but Faythe focused on it—actually listened to the whispers and let her body feel it.

Darkness caressed her skin; shadows leaked through her mind.

Darkness…likedeath.

“Oh Gods,” Faythe breathed.

---