Page 59 of A Flame of the Phoenix

“Not many books exist about the dark fae anymore. Any that do only portray history. Maybe your kind aren’t born monsters. Maybe you were actually a peaceful people and this was the only way to begin to break that.”

She didn’t know why dread began to pool in her stomach. Perhaps she didn’t want it to be true. If it was something so simple, how could she accept that? If her still heart was nothing more than aspell…what would happen to every vile thing she’d stacked the blame on for this vacancy in her chest?

She’d been tormented by it ever since the King of Rhyenelle had infiltrated her sleeping mind and shown it to her.

A heartbeat. Hers.

No. She wanted any other truth but this. For if she came to welcome a pulse in her cold chest…she may very well rip it out for the evil that lurked within it.

Zaiana’s sight pinned on the open door, needing an outlet she didn’t want to display here. She knew just who she could take it out on.

“I haven’t granted you leave,” Malin objected.

He wasn’t saying this to her, but the fact he thought he held any real authority over Tynan flared in her all the same. Zaiana met eyes with her second, who had begun to follow her. She despised what she had to do.

“You should stay,” she said to him.

Tynan’s expression widened in ire, but hers warned against protesting. His jaw worked, but he gave a tight nod. She would come up with some excuse for him later. Right now, she couldn’t care about anything but the fury shaking her bones.

“You made sure he wouldn’t come after you?” Izaiah drawled.

Zaiana found him leaning with arms crossed against a small door in the library where he’d instructed her to meet him. He was going to take her to the ruin. There was no attempting his suicidal mission towieldit without the real thing. Anytime they met elsewhere in her attempts to school him on what it would take, all they achieved was useless bickering.

“Why would it matter if Tynan were here anyway?” she bit out.

Izaiah lifted a brow at her tone, but he said nothing as he unlocked the door. When he waved a dark, bloodied cloth at the entrance, Zaiana spared a second to marvel at the ward, enjoying the thrill that was a temporary balm to her constant irritation.

“I don’t need anyone else telling me the obvious odds of what I’m doing,” he said casually.

Zaiana watched his back as he entered. A sinking anchor fell within her at Izaiah’s comment. Realization that he’d become a vulnerability to Tynan, and there was nothing she could do. Killing Izaiah would only turn Tynan resentful against her even if he tried to hide it. Her fists balled with bitterness toward the younger Galentithe brother for the new claim he had—unwitting or not—over her second.

Izaiah reached the desk, meeting her eye with a gleam as he reached beneath it. As he pulled something out, Zaiana braced against the groaning of wood and stone that disrupted their silence. Then movement began along the back wall. The back tapestry sank in, then it slowly lowered, disappearing into the ground to reveal a long, narrow, depthless corridor.

A secret passage.

She chilled at the sight of it. Her throat constricted, and she swallowed against the rising nerves.

“Not afraid of the dark, are you?” Izaiah quipped. “It would be rather ironic.”

“No,” she snapped.

Izaiah only smirked, and with a hand slipped into his pocket, he headed inside without hesitation.

Zaiana took a few deep breaths as though they might become limited before following him. She focused on the air coating her throat. The cool temperature that began to drop. Tracking the walls, it was only her cruel imagination that tightened the space and forced her hand to occasionally brush the rock to be sure.

They descended stairs that felt endless, until light broke at the bottom, and she was eager to each it. They emerged into a giant space she hadn’t expected. Catacombs. At the far end, a huge sculpture of a Firebird stood, wings splayed and triumphant. In front of it, a tall, dominant male figure.

“The first King of Rhyenelle,” Izaiah said as she gawked. “And that’s Atherius. We had the pleasure of meeting her on the Fire Mountains, if you recall.”

Zaiana couldn’t tear her eyes from the bird while her mind replayed the scene from the mountains. The gray stone torched with brilliant red fire. It was not the king she saw…but Faythe.

“You fear confinement,” Izaiah diverted.

The change of topic snapped her head to him. She found him watching her with an expression she couldn’t decipher, but it coated her skin withvulnerability.

“I’m not,” she said. He wasn’t convinced. “I’m merely cautious, being led down a secluded path by the enemy.”

Izaiah smiled, though not with any kindness, as if he enjoyed the hostility between them. Zaiana preferred her enemies quaking at the thought of her, notexcitedto torment her back. This was going to be a long and insufferable task.

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