Page 303 of A Flame of the Phoenix

“What do you mean, ‘gone’?” Reylan demanded.

Fear so all-consuming seized Faythe. She stood there vacantly, hand to her mouth, hearing of her friends being pulled into an infinite void with the only way they knew to follow being shattered afterward.

“Tarly and I are going to Olmstone now,” Nerida said.

Reylan had gone so silent, pacing and calculating. This was a detrimental blow to all of their plans and strategies without the rulers of High Farrow. All that kept Faythe from crumbling wasthe small dose of hope there could be another passage to try to get Nik and Tauria back.

“There was a mirror passage in Rhyenelle,” Faythe informed them. She told them how she’d shattered it and freed the Dresair there too. It added further merit to the creature’s claim there could be one in all kingdoms.

“Go immediately—we need Nik and Tauria back,” Reylan instructed them.

Nerida and Tarly nodded, leaving swiftly, with the two wolves following.

Faythe had been concluding her own plan while hearing of all that had happened when she’d allowed Marvellas to slip by her. She couldn’t forgive herself.

“I’m going after her,” Faythe said.

Reylan stopped his pacing by the fire. “I’m coming with you.”

“We need you here. The battle is still moving forward, and we need a leader in High Farrow, as well as one on the mountain fringe, where the biggest mass of their foot soldiers will be in days.”

“We have plenty of generals and commanders.”

“It’s not the same. No one knows the enemy like we do. Nik and Tauria were to be the ones guiding our forces around Farrowhold, but that’s not an option anymore.”

Reylan crossed to her, pulling her by her waist into him. “We don’t separate. Not now. Not when any day might be our last and we stand against our greatest enemy.”

Faythe conceded. Selfishly, she wanted him fighting by her side.

Nyte cut in. “I’m the crucial part of killing Marvellas, remember? She’s not going alone.” He didn’t look at either of them, leaning against the far wall while he absentmindedly traced things on the side console, lost to his own thoughts.

Jakon said, “I might not be much help, but I want to fight.”

Faythe feared for him greatly, but she nodded. “The forces that broke through the outskirts will just be the beginning. We have to anticipate more will reach even as close to the outer town as they try to divide and conquer.”

Jakon understood, standing with a firmed expression. He left, and Faythe fought the urge to go after him for some reason. To not let him out of her sight.

Faythe, Reylan, and Nyte switched to the drawing room, where they pondered over a map for the next hour, reorganizing their plans while waiting on edge for the hopeful triumphant return of Zaiana, Kyleer, and Izaiah from the battle on the outskirts.

One hour turned to two, then three. Faythe bit at her fingernails as she watched the clock, about to suggest she fly out with her wings of Phoenixfyre to see what was happening.

She was saved from doing so by their return, which deflated her sharp tension. Yet the ominous weight they carried into the room between them had Faythe bracing her emotions. Zaiana, Kyleer, and Izaiah were accounted for, but something was wrong.

“Edith was there,” Zaiana announced, but her voice was stripped of any emotion. She pulled the jeweled dagger free from her side, the steel now unpolished, with speckles of dried silver blood on the edges. Zaiana had done it: killed Edith and retrieved Nerida’s power.

“Nerida just left. Maybe we should catch up?—”

“Mordecai was there too.” Zaiana cut Faythe off.

Faythe was beginning to suspect they’d won the battle, but the cost…

Her eyes caught on Tynan, who slipped into the room silently, his head bowed. Faythe waited for the dark hair of Amaya, who always followed, but it never came.

Zaiana met her eye, and it was all the confirmation Faythe needed in her cold stare. Amaya was dead. Faythe didn’t know the younger dark fae well, but what was clear for all to see was the unfairness of another pure heart and gentle soul lost to the viciousness of war.

Faythe closed her eyes, settling the loss within herself for all it represented. She barely registered the wooden figure in her hand before it went careening into the wall, exploding into splinters with her force.

So much senseless, tragic loss.

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