Page 27 of A Flame of the Phoenix

“Can I sleep now?”

He was in the habit of laughing in soft, barely-there sounds. Its friendliness was beginning to unnerve her.

“Yes. I’ll even send you off before I slip out. I can also feel that you don’t manage a deep rest on your own very often. But you can. We’ll work on that too.”

That sounded desirable. She wouldn’t tell him that.

She allowed the weight pressing down to pass over her. It was gentle. So very peaceful, like an embrace she’d long forgotten the comfort of until now.

CHAPTER SEVEN

Tauria

Tauria Stagknight had been imagining this moment for more than one hundred years. Now, living it, she couldn’t organize her tangled feelings about being back on Fenstead soil.

Staring up at a banner hanging at an angle, Tauria resisted the urge to bow in sorrow with the stag emblem of her kingdom.

The lands were not the same. Casting her sight out the window, it tore her soul-deep to see the vibrant hills and the thriving city she once knew so lifeless now. It may as well have been wraiths who roamed the streets. Many dark fae—but also many of her people who hadn’t been able to make it out—still lived here under a dark, disorderly regime.

These halls she walked were foreign now. She’d dreamed of the welcome embrace they would offer, but all she’d been met with was the shunning of a betrayer. While her kingdom remained overrun by the enemy and destroyed of its beauty, she felt no better than the dark fae invaders. She was here in the arms of the one who’d taken everything from her.

Mordecai had been suspiciously subdued, leaving her alone for the most part while she came to terms with being back on Fenstead soil. Tauria had been allocated a guest room in her own castle as one of the few that wasn’t ransacked and torn apart. She had yet to face what had become of her old rooms.

The walls bore eyes of judgment. Sometimes, she even thought they whispered their shock.

How dare she come back as a compliant hand to the dark fae high lord?

Tauria didn’t dress in her homeland greens. She wore black. Until she reclaimed the kingdom on her own terms and killed the evil that grew like poison, she would continue to mourn on these lands.

Mordecai had requested she join him for supper this night.

She didn’t attend his summons. Instead she made her way to the library—another place she’d been avoiding until now, since it held too many fond memories, and she was afraid to face what state it could have been left in. She wasn’t afraid of Mordecai’s wrath at dismissing him.

Tauria had saved the high lord in Olmstone against Tarly’s arrow, which might have struck his chest true. It had been a reckless act of fear when Mordecai was winning against them, and she’d acted on impulse in an attempt to gain his trust after he figured out Nik had been trailing them all the way to Olmstone despite their broken bond.

She’d done itforNik, yet her heart ached at being so far from him, and she couldn’t subdue the guilt that her ruse was to keep trying to convince Mordecai she wanted to be with him.

Her nerves about Mordecai dissipated when she approached the entrance to the library. There had never been a door to this space, as the long line of Fenstead monarchs had believed knowledge and stories should never be restricted to anyone. In their free time, the castle staff were allowed to wander andconsume as much of the literature as they liked, the only strict rule being no piece was to be removed without the knowledge of the king or queen.

Tauria had slowed in the hallway leading to the open library, taking in the real tree trunks that had been crafted and preserved to create a wonderful archway. Already, she was met with the wounds of war that had defiled the space. She reached out to brush her fingers over some of the deep wedges that had been hacked out of the once perfect artistry. It wasn’t beyond repair, but still, her heart ached, and the sounds of fighting filled her ears as she imagined the Fenstead warriors that would have fought until their dying breath to protect their land and the castle.

With a deep breath, she pushed herself past the entrance. Fenstead’s royal library was not the most expansive—that was the Livre des Verres in Olmstone. Still, here was commonly known as the most beautiful library to exist on the entire continent. Tauria stopped before the balcony crafted of entwining branches. Her knees almost buckled where she stood. Right here was the most at home she’d felt since being back.

As a child, she’d always thought this library must be what it would be like to stand in the middle of a giant, hollowed-out tree, where within, it lent mankind its flesh to scribe the infinite wonders of life, death, and imagination.

The bookshelves were perfectly imperfect, with the artisans having preserved as much natural form as possible. The balcony circled around an ancient silver oak tree this section of the castle was built around. There were many legends about it. Its roots were deep, and they spread so far even Tauria couldn’t feel where the finer veins ended. She could press her hand to it and focus her Florakinetic ability to feel the threads of life running through her kingdom like a heartbeat.

Some of the stories her mother would tell her claimed this tree spread far beyond Fenstead soils. That the strongest Florakinetics could trace the finest threads of the roots to other kingdoms.

Tauria’s bright memories started to dull as she came back to the ominous state of neglect the library had been left to. There wasn’t too much destruction, to her relief. Some bookcases had been toppled, and books littered the ground, but she could fix that; was already making her way toward the first section.

What made her spirit wander the library in sorrow was how lonely it was. This had always been a place of shared joy and wonder, filled with smiling faces, enthusiastic young people, and eager scholars. Now it was just her lone soul among the ghosts of her people.

She didn’t know how much time passed as she immersed herself in stacking books back where they belonged and using her wind to help right the bookcases on the third level she’d entered onto. It brought a spark of hope to watch the library slowly be put back to order.

Book by book, stone by stone, tree by tree, her land would be restored. On her life and lineage, she swore it to the great silver oak tree that remained a proud beacon of her kingdom.

Tauria Stagknight bowed her head to the ancient tree in promise.

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