Page 343 of A Flame of the Phoenix

The ghost of their memories played out in every abandoned corner. This place had never been vibrant in color, but it had been in joy. She’d lived out so much joy with him as her best friend.

In the bedroom, she hardly made it to his cot before she fell in her grief. Curling tightly into herself, she finally let go. Sobs racked her to agony, until she couldn’t draw breath and nearly let darkness claim her. She buried her face in his pillow, and his scent…it was still there, so faint, but her fae smell could draw it out, and that only shattered the last piece of her heart.

She didn’t know an end to this agony. How she would be able to go on when he’d left her here.

And that was all she was…left behind.

For hours, days—she couldn’t be sure how much time she exhausted herself between crying until she thought it might kill her, sleeping, and lying there in a hollow detachment she couldn’t climb out of.

She knew she wasn’t always alone.

Most of the time, it was Reylan who stayed with her, sitting on the floor, because this cot was never even big enough for Jakon himself.

He didn’t try condolences or attempt to pull her out of the void she was drifting in. She was grateful for it. Reylan’s hand would brush through her hair or trace idly over her arm or leg. Sometimes he took her hand and just stayed with her, patient and mourning with her. He would fill the silence at times just to relay what was happening with everyone else outside these walls she couldn’t leave yet.

She knew she would have to. That the world was moving on, and she would have to follow.

After a few days, she knew she couldn’t deny her hunger any longer, and she was alone when she found the strength to sit up. She sat on Jakon’s cot, hugging his pillow as a final farewell to him. This hut. This life. It would live eternally in her heart, and she was starting to accept what she’d lost.

Her mother. Her father. Caius. Jakon. Marlowe.

She repeated their names, stored them in her soul, and when Reylan returned this time, she felt enough stability to give him attention.

He hesitated in the doorway he’d ducked through, surprised to see her sitting. Faythe managed a small smile, and it was genuine. He was the rock that always grounded her. The fire that always blazed in her. With him, she would have the strength to live with her great losses.

“My Phoenix,” he said, as gentle as a whisper across frost.

Reylan crouched in front of her, taking her hands and searching her eyes. Faythe fell into him like gravity demanded it. Her arms wrapped around his neck, and he held her with tight arms around her body. She listened to his heartbeat—the sound that kept her wanting to live. The sound she would always come home to across time and realms.

“We made it,” she whispered, using her voice carefully for the first time in days.

Reylan’s face burrowed more into her neck, and he breathed in deeply. “Yes, we did.”

Faythe found the will to release him slowly, in no rush, but steadily climbing toward leaving this hut once and for all. She slipped a hand over his jaw while her head bowed with the weight of sorrow.

“How is everyone?”

“They’re mourning with you in their own ways. Nik is grieving deeply, but he’s still taking charge of his kingdom. We won the war, but there is always a battle to be fought for the survivors in the aftermath.”

Faythe nodded. She knew how close Jakon and Marlowe had been to Nik and Tauria too. Their circle felt broken now, but between them, their heroic human friends would never be forgotten.

“She knew,” Faythe said. Reylan’s hand cupping her face forced her teary eyes to him. “Marlowe knew Jakon would die. He should have a long time ago, before I met him, by the same illness as his parents. But he was spared by Aurialis in the woods. My mother took him there. That was why Marlowe sacrificed herself, setting off her own chain of events to aid us toward victory. She wanted to be with him in the end, even in tragedy. Marlowe wrote it all and left it in the book I once borrowed from her, knowing I would come here at the end. It’s my choice whether I let it be closure—that fate, no matter how tragic, could never have been fought—or let it fuel my resentment for that fact. It’s unfair and cruel, isn’t it, how the true heroes of the story never win? It simply cannot be.”

Reylan’s eyes filled with misery, sharing her grief.

“What do you choose?”

“I don’t know yet,” she said honestly. Her thumb brushed along his cheek while she swallowed her turmoil. “But I know I choose you. I feel selfish for it. That while you’re still with me, I’m glad I’m alive.”

His eyes closed briefly, like reprieve, before he lost his restraint to kiss her.

“You have no idea how desperately I’ve been waiting to hear that.”

“I’m sorry I took so long.”

Reylan shook his head. “Take as long as you need to grieve. I’ll be right here. But know that from this moment I won’t allow you torment in survivor’s guilt.After all you’ve given, I swear my life to making sure you know how deserving you are to live this life to the fullest.”

Faythe gave a broken smile of gratitude. He would never let her fall apart. They would return to Rhyenelle soon and begin the long road to healing their kingdom too. And for the first time since their victory, Faythe let the warmth of hope seep into her.

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