Page 213 of A Flame of the Phoenix

“You’ve said you’re sorry twice now.”

She had no energy to form the defense she usually would. He could expose every vulnerable part of her, every weakness, and she was too broken right now to fight it.

“I know. It can’t fix anything.”

“I only mean…why do you care so much?”

Zaiana didn’t want to deny anymore. “I think I gave you my heart,” she whispered, clutching the bars and leaning her forehead to the cool metal. She couldn’t look at him with the confession—it was taunting her to take it back. “Before it had a beat, it was yours. Even now, it’s cold and not worth much. Should you not have woken up…you would have taken it with you, and I don’t know what I would have become in myvengeance. Should she have killed you for good, I might have caved in the world just to take her down with me.”

For the first time in her life, she felt at peace giving him possession of what was left of her while she still could. She didn’t have the courage to look up, nor the strength to pull away when he reached closer.

“Then I promise to protect it with everything I am. Beyond this life, I’ll use it to find you again. That’s what it’s worth.”

A tear gathered, falling before she could stop it, but it feltfreeing.Ironically liberating to be this breakable in front of him and not care about hiding it.

Zaiana nodded though it scraped the metal over her skin. “Maybe in another life, things would be different. A few days ago…you died in front of my eyes, and all I could think of was that you were gone and you would never know that I might have hurt you, but in doing so, I’d have hurt myself more. You’re not done breaking me, Ky, but I don’t fear it anymore since you’ve never let the pieces shatter. Despite the sharp edges, you still held them.”

His warmth slipped over her cheek, shivering her body stiffly at the treasured contrast to the bitter-cold air wrapping the cells.

“In truth, I don’t think I know myself anymore either,” she said in defeat.

“I want to remember,” he said.

All Zaiana knew was to how be strong, and that meant building wall after wall against anything that threatened tofeel.To feel was weakness. Emotions clouded judgment and exhausted the body. She faced it now with crushing punishment as all her walls tumbled down and she became buried under their weight.

Kyleer said, “Maybe we can find ourselves with each other.”

Zaiana enjoyed the notion. To be found with him…orwithinhim.

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

Faythe

Atherius landed on the hills in Farrowhold that held so many of her childhood memories with Jakon. Humans nearby ran from the flaming bird and screamed as if they were under threat. Faythe couldn’t pay them any mind.

She sprinted through the Eternal Woods, knowing from Izaiah’s thoughts this was where Jakon would be. The familiar sight of the waterfall clearing burst within her for a second before she was darting past trees again, letting the branches cut at her hands and cheeks.

Stumbling past the tree line into the temple clearing, Faythe’s world stopped for a beat of broken time.

Jakon was down on one knee before a simple gravestone. He didn’t look back to see her, continuing to twirl a bluedrop by the stem between his fingers as she approached. Faythe’s tears fell uncontrollably, but she couldn’t sob.

This image felt so morbidly wrong.

So untrue. A dark, hideous lie.

They were supposed to be together. All three of them. An unbreakable bond until the very end.

“These are her favorite. Did you know that?” Jak said.

Faythe could hardly recognize his voice. It belonged to a shell of her best friend, who’d been hollowed out by the deepest grief.

“No,” Faythe confessed.

That realization cut her deeper. One of many things Faythe had neglected to find out about Marlowe, and now she would never get the chance. The thought was inconceivable, and now so many small pieces she wanted to know about her friend skipped through her mind. So many things she’d wanted to do with Marlowe screamed with severed endings.

Faythe’s eyes fixed on the dull gray headstone, and the monotone started to steal all the color from her world.

“I brought the first bunch here. Then they started to bloom themselves,” Jak said.

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