Page 229 of A Flame of the Phoenix

Kyleer’s fingers grazed hers, and she didn’t tear her eyes away from the scene as she embraced his closeness, linking their hands. She wasn’t leaving here without him anyway.

“I really hoped they were all wrong about you,” Nyte said. His face bore no emotion at all as Marvellas sank to her knees intoa pool of blood, almost close enough to reach for him. “I hoped I would discover your motives were justified, considering the scale of the massacre you see fit—or at the very least, that your plan had some merit, even if it meant sacrificing so many lives for a greater good. But there is nothing but vengeance in your broken heart, which has built this ideal where only the powerful deserve to live.”

“Please…” Marvellas let go of that word in a breath. As if her reaper were standing over her, not her son. “Stay with me.”

“If I stayed here…I would become the war. No side could stop me. I would rip apart this world and every other I fell into until I made it back to my true home. To Astraea.”

“This is your home. With me.”

“Never.”

Zaiana flinched at the sudden flare of light that erupted from behind Nyte. She was pulled into Kyleer’s firm body when a roar shook the room. Reylan Arrowood, in his legendary white lion form, lunged for Marvellas. A giant paw pinned her to the ground, while his powerful jaw snapped at her face.

Marvellas must have infiltrated his mind, as the lion roared and wailed, fighting an invisible force. Then his lethal talons swiped at the Spirit’s face, slashing deep across her porcelain cheek.

Zaiana was snapped from her stupor in observing the fight by a tug on her hand.

“We need to go!” Kyleer yelled over the commotion that began.

Before she left, Zaiana’s eyes found Maverick, as if there was a magnet within her that would always find him no matter how much she despised him. He clutched his bleeding shoulder, standing by the side of the hall like a shadow. He was already watching her. For just a second, his eyes dipped to her hand joined in Kyleer’s. Then, without a flicker of expression, he sankdeeper into the shadows, disappearing around the bend of an arch and out of the throne room.

Zaiana tried to cast him out of her mind. He was not her problem right now. She ran with Kyleer, accounting for Tynan, Amaya, and Nerida, who followed.

While they had wings to flee with, Nerida made steps of ice, which she climbed up to mount the Phoenix. The way the Firebird examined her and Kyleer confirmed her suspicion: it was Izaiah in shapeshifted form.

“After my brilliant intervention to grant this escape, you’re not leaving without me,” Nyte called, following after Nerida.

Zaiana spared a glance back, with adrenaline tight in her chest. The white lion tore through soldiers in black before Reylan charged out of the castle.

There were too many of the enemy on both sides of the wide river that wrapped around the castle. Arrows cut through the air, aimed for them, and they were all wide-open targets. Izaiah, being the largest, took two arrows to his wing.

“Go!” Zaiana yelled.

Izaiah splayed his wings, and right before he used them to shoot to the sky, Nyte leaped off Nerida’s ice steps, grabbing onto his feathers, and Nerida helped him find a stable position.

Amaya covered him, taking out the archers aiming for Izaiah, until he cleared range.

Her fingers tightened, and her heart skipped a beat, realizing Kyleer should have left on Izaiah as well since he’d never used his wings before. Flying took practice, and those with wings were trained from young.

“We need a running start,” Zaiana said, glancing over his shoulders at his stunning black feathered wings. She said to Tynan and Amaya, “Follow Izaiah—now.”

Hand in hand with Kyleer, Zaiana sprinted toward the bridge that would take them across the river. As they reached it, Reylantransformed from a lion into a white eagle, but he didn’t fly high to join the others; he stayed with them, tracking from the skies.

“What are we doing?” Kyleer asked.

“We need to get to a cliff edge—it’ll give you some momentum for your best chance of flying. I’ll warn you, no darkling I’ve taught has ever flown well on their first try.”

“I’m not a child.”

“Exactly. You’re worse, since your size will make it significantly more difficult.”

Zaiana had though Marvellas was incapacitated enough for them to have time to flee, but the Spirit’s voice struck their backs as though it were one of the arrows they dodged.

“You will not win against me!”

The bridge beneath them shook violently, breaking apart as a gold flare cracked in various vines across the frozen structure. Before they were swallowed by the icy river, Kyleer wrapped her tight, and familiar starry shadows pulled them both.

They landed in a rolling heap through the snow at the other side of the bridge. Voices shouting toward them had them both scrambling up. Zaiana threw darts of lightning, and Kyleer attacked with shadow, but they couldn’t stay stationary with Marvellas still at their backs.

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