Page 9 of A Flame of the Phoenix

Retreating from his mind, her teeth ground together.

Nothing. They all knew nothing.

They were merely mindless soldiers ordered to capture her and take her to Dakodas, who must be the only one to know where Marvellas had taken him.

“Send this message to her for me,” Faythe said.

He jerked, seething with a string of profanities as her hand reached for his shoulder. She’d learned to tune out the ear-splitting cries. Gold dust crept in behind him, shimmering beautifully over his wings, until it began to devour the flesh and cartilage like flame. His eyes bulged and his mouth tore wide-open, but she could hear nothing.

Feelnothing.

When his wings had been burned to nothing but serrated stumps, she let him go.

The dark fae curled into himself, trembling on the ground. Every time she watched the vicious creatures turn from her foe to her victim, she wondered if any would ever make her feel regret.

Faythe crouched to him as she said, “I will burn flesh, I will burn cities, I will destroy anything she tries to claim if I find him harmed.”

When all turned silent, Faythe bottled her scream against the torment every still moment opened up to. With a deep breath, her exhale shuddered from her in the aftermath of her brutal vengeance.

“Phoenix Queen.”

Faythe’s shoulders locked, only her head twisting back to the woman she thought had been killed.

“They say you turned on us. Abandoned us. That Malin Ashfyre is our savior king who will bring peace again. I didn’t believe it.” Her voice croaked with pain. A hand clutched the bleeding wound on her neck. “It’s not true, is it?”

Words scrambled her mind, most of them vicious and self-deprecating. Faythe only lifted her hood.

“Get somewhere safe. Find a healer. They won’t get the chance to harm you again tonight.” She didn’t look to the woman again, disappearing as a shadow of the night.

Faythe took more caution to remain hidden now. On the rooftops, she tracked the injured woman until she found her way to an inn, where a group of humans immediately came to her aid.

Observing the moon spilling a glow over the cloudless sky, Faythe wondered, with a bleeding wound on her heart, if Reylan could see it, or if he was chained somewhere dark and lonely, robbed of day or moonlight.

Faythe crouched, gathering her hands together, and honed her focus on her task. Phoenixfyre had a distinct feeling in its magick. It wasn’t ashy or hot like Firewielding; it was like growing a heartbeat. Millions of tiny vibrations crawled to her fingertips and began to draw across the air in front of her. When she was finished, the form it took would never fail to entrance her. She watched the tiny Firebird fly away.

It had been six agonizing weeks without Reylan. Two of them, she’d been in and out of consciousness from the effects of her burnout and Niltain steel-poisoned wounds following the Battle of Ellium they’d lost and fled from. Since she’d been well enough, they hadn’t remained idle for a moment.

Kyleer had taken her to one of the army camps in Fenher. Most of Rhyenelle’s forces who had been told to retreat by Reylan—his last command as general when he knew the city was lost—would be around the many camps in Rhyenelle, waiting for their next instruction. As Reylan’s second-in-command, Kyleer had become the leading general.

There was not a day, barely a moment within each one, that Faythe wasn’t thinking about Reylan. They had a kingdom to take back and an evil to rout out, but she didn’t know if she could do it without him.

Faythe had been too distracted to detect an intrusion sooner, but she freed her blade, lunging up to attack…

Her body relaxed from a braced pose of combat as her eyes trailed the length of the Ember Sword as it clashed with Lumarias, finding a disgruntled Kyleer peering down at her.

“If you’re heading out for some fun, it’s only fair you extend the invite,” he grumbled.

Faythe huffed as their blades slipped off each other, and she sheathed Lumarias. Watching Kyleer do the same, an ache clenched within her, catching the glint of the ruby pommel that mocked her.

Every time the light caught on it, her pulse would skip, but never did it glow like she hoped, indicating the direction to Reylan. She’d slipped the twin Eye of the Phoenix around his wrist before they were parted.

Perhaps Agalhor’s tale about them had been a fable.

“At least one of us should be well-rested,” Faythe said. It certainly wouldn’t be her.

Kyleer folded his arms, but his expression was all-knowing. “I’m not having much luck with sleep either.”

Faythe ran a hand down her face. She was exhausted, but it wasn’t often by choice she didn’t find sleep. Most nights she braced to meet horrible nightmares in the darkness, and this time she didn’t know how to tame it.

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