Page 223 of A Flame of the Phoenix

Despite the lethal edge to the Goddess’s eyes, Zaiana dared to edge a smile on her mouth.

Marvellas surged up from the throne, her irises flaring a darker shade. “You made the greatest mistake of your life,” she spat. “You threw away everything you worked to build, for what?”

She’d never heard Marvellas sound this unhinged. She was faltering. Slipping the reins on her own internal control.

“I threw away everythingyoubuilt of me. The anchor of your manipulative curse. I will commend you for it. Preying on my people who were desperate, hunted to the brink of extinction, using a history that painted them as nothing more than ruthless villains anyway. The curse of a still heart solidified the belief they were immune to any feelings of care or love like the humans and fae. Making them your unfeeling, merciless soldiers.”

Marvellas stalked down the long glass steps, challenging Zaiana with those molten eyes. The beat in her chest sped up, which tightened her throat. Zaiana had played with the rhythmof other people’s heartbeats many times, but for some cursed reason, she couldn’t control her own.

“Your people?” Marvellas said in a dead calm. “You have nothing, Zaiana. No people. No dignity. No power.”

The Spirit loomed over her, and Zaiana’s teeth gritted painfully when her cruel hand curled around her chin.

“You gave it all up.” Her blazing sight flicked to her left. To Kyleer. “For a fae who will always have a loyalty above you. Who, if hisPhoenix Queendemanded it, would betray you.”

“I would never betray her,” Kyleer snarled.

Marvellas let go of Zaiana roughly, shifting her focus to Kyleer, which turned Zaiana more furious than if she were the target of the unpredictable Spirit.

“Your wings are like those of a fable. They are not meant for this world,” she said. It was then Zaiana realized Marvellas knew more about their origin.Not meant for this world.What had touched Kyleer when he Transitioned? “Tell me, can you still Shadowport?”

“I wouldn’t know in these Magestone shackles.”

The Spirit hummed. “And your memory?”

Kyleer stayed silent, and Marvellas’s cold smile returned.

“You place your loyalty with a dark fae who will never choose you,” Marvellas said, slipping a knowing look to Zaiana before she paced away from them both.

That wasn’t true. Not anymore.

“The Blood Trails,” Zaiana said thought a tight breath. “You manipulated Finnian.”

Marvellas had to take a moment to recall what she spoke of.Whoshe mentioned. That the Spirit had forgotten his name, or perhaps had never cared to know of it in the first place, boiled her blood.

“Ah, the young dark fae you cared for. Yes. He was becoming a problem.”

Zaiana knew the Spirit was behind Finnian’s death, but hearing it so effortlessly confirmed by the culprit flashed her vision. She had to breathe and reel back her impulse to explode in a chaos of lightning like she’d done in the celestial dome.

“He would have broken the curse—is that why?”

“No. In fact, it was a risk that could have broken the curse had you chosen differently.”

“What do you mean?”

Zaiana was growing dreadfully wary. She wasn’t accustomed to this fragility, feeling like glass in the palms of this wicked Spirit.

“The curse couldn’t be broken just by love. You had to be willing to sacrifice yourself for it. Had you let that dark fae truly attempt to kill you, or succeed, the curse would have broken. Instead, you did what I hoped. You saw his betrayal and chose yourself.”

“It wasyourbetrayal! It was?—”

Zaiana stopped short because her voicebroke.It had never done that before, and when a wet trail made its way down her cheek before she could prevent it, she was horrified.

She wascrumbling.

Zaiana swallowed, but there wasn’t enough air getting past the marble growing in her throat. Her vision started to pepper around the edges, and her ribs became too big for her chest. She didn’t know what was happening to her, but she couldn’t get the images of Finnian to stop flooding her mind. Couldn’t subside the guilt over her choice. Couldn’t erase the battering possibilities of all that could have been if she’dtrustedher love for him and believed his was true for her.

One choice…and she’d picked wrong.

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