Page 89 of A Flame of the Phoenix

“I found you,” she said through a breath, trembling with the strength it took to hold their locked blades.

His eyes flared, and her brow furrowed deeper before he pushed, and Faythe stumbled, immediately on the defensive. She stepped to dodge most of his swings, watching his every flicker of movement that had become memory to her. There were dozens of patterns he could take, but there was always a style she would never mistake.

“Reylan, stop!” she yelled—not a plea but a command.

He did, perhaps only to decide whether to maintain the façade he wore.

“Why is she making you hide?” Faythe asked, softer now.

Marvellas had to have known Faythe would figure it out easily—she just had to be close enough. Then Faythe realized that was the Spirit’s plan, because once she found him, Faythe wouldn’t let him slip away again.

It tore her apart to stare into her anchor to this world in those sapphire irises that were placed on the face of a stranger. She wanted him to shift back, but he didn’t. The color was him, but the unfeeling, harsh stare he held her with was not Reylan at all.

“What did she do to you?” she tried again when he stood there like cold steel.

He stalked to her slowly, like a predator confidently approaching its prey. “You made this as easy as she said you would,” he said, but these words weren’t his either.

Marvellas had succeeded in breaking his mind, and Faythe crumbled at the mere thought of what it took.

She paid the error for her pining stupor when she allowed him to get close enough to wrap his powerful hand around her throat.

There it was again. Ripples of dark, sinister energy emanating from him. In his sapphire eyes, she thought shadows flickered through them occasionally. He wasn’t completely restricting her airway, and Faythe’s attention was drawn to his chest. Right where she’d touched him before.

It was a reckless move to press her palm to it again, this time without summoning her own magick in defense, but the moment she felt something solid there Faythe gasped, and Reylan’s grip turned deadly around her neck.

With little time to think, Faythe wrapped one of her hands around his, summoning magick to burn him, and he let her go with a hiss. At the same time, she’d retrieved a small dagger from her side, slashing at his chest deeply enough to only cut his leather armor.

When a glow broke through the black material, Faythe stumbled back until she hit the wall.

“How did she…?” Faythe couldn’t believe what she was seeing.Feeling.

She wanted to deny what was damagingly obvious.

Reylan had a ruin embedded in his chest.

Faythe didn’t know the full gravity of what it meant, but one thing was certain: it was powerful enough to have split his mind for Marvellas’s influence, and it had granted him unparalleled power.

At the same time, Faythe could still feel its pull, wanting to merge with her and amplify her power too if she dared to reach back.

She was too untrained to give in to the tempting lethal advantage. It would risk killing her or Reylan if she didn’t resist its dark chants.

“Let me help you,” Faythe said desperately.

Reylan’s smile was scarily sinister. “Help me? I have more power than you right now. The more you resist me, the more it will hurt, but it makes no difference to me.”

Faythe hadn’t felt him take any of her power, but her eyes flew wide when he cast his palm toward her and a gold flare surged at her. She clashed her own lazy attack against it, but that was the wrong response since it vibrated through her as if she were a struck gong.

Her head slammed against stone again, and more warmth leaked down her scalp and her nape.

“Giving up yet?” he taunted.

Never.She would never give up on him.

Reylan gripped fistfuls of her jacket and her cloak, hauling her up to stand on weak knees.

“You can’t contend with me, Faythe. I can take everything you have.”

Staring into his deep blue irises that were her home and her orbit tore her apart.

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