Page 324 of A Flame of the Phoenix

Kyleer burst into the tent before she could leave it. He came bearing information, and she straightened to hear it.

“They came. Forces from the south, I believe. They’re wearing purple.”

“Olmstone,” Zaiana said. Had Tarly and Nerida managed to rally the soldiers that were close to joining Dakodas’s ranks?

Zaiana left the healer’s tent, finding her answer as she stared right into the healer’s eyes standing next to the Olmstone prince. Nerida smiled, and Zaiana lost her composure, impulsively crossing the distance and pulling Nerida into an embrace. It was odd to instigate a hug, but Zaiana was trying to accept her emotions, especially right now, when all their lives could vanish in a blink.

“You made it,” Zaiana said in relief.

When they pulled back, the shock on Nerida’s face eased to another kind smile.

“Yes. Nik and Tauria are fighting on the front lines, but we came to aid the wounded.”

Zaiana reached to her side, pulling the jeweled dagger free and lifting Nerida’s hand to place it within.

Nerida’s eyes widened on it, but Zaiana quickly said, “She was dying by another fatal wound at the same time. I can’t be certain if it absorbed all your magick back in time. And Nerida…” Zaiana swallowed the lump in her throat. “Amaya didn’t make it.”

The healer’s face fell with grief. She’d helped save Amaya the day they met and since had grown closest to the darkling.

“Then we carry her with us until the end.”

Nerida’s face firmed, and she hissed, slicing the jeweled dagger across her palm. She gasped, and blue light glowed over the wound. It was such a relief to see, but Zaiana held her breath, waiting to find out how much had been returned to her.

From a nearby bucket, water lifted from it in a thin stroke with Nerida’s gentle hand movement.

“My Waterwielding is weaker,” she said, but still she smiled, bringing the water closer, and Zaiana drew a breath at the bite of it touching a wound through the leather on her arm. The sting subsided as Nerida healed it fully in seconds. “But my healing feels the same, and that’s what matters most to me.”

Zaiana’s shoulders fell in relief.

A commander came rushing toward her. “General Zaiana, there’s been a sudden overwhelming force of shadow creatures coming from the east. We’re going to lose that entire legion soon.”

Zaiana’s battle-focused mind sharpened again. “I want a team of scouts finding where the rift is that is summoning them. Investigate the east mountains—it has to be close to here. Which commanders are east?”

“Commander Izaiah is leading east.”

She didn’t have to look to feel Kyleer’s tension growing beside her. “You should join him,” Zaiana said.

So far, Kyleer had been close by her every day, fighting valiantly and leading what he could as more instinctual memory came back to him as the second highest-ranking commander of Rhyenelle’s armies.

He hesitated with a pained look. She didn’t want to be separated from him either, but his brother needed help, and he was more important to him than she was.

With a nod, Kyleer splayed his beautiful black feathered wings and shot to the sky. She watched him leave with an aching pull in her chest, but her station was in the center point.

An enemy stumbled through their healer tents, having slipped through their lines. Zaiana braced to kill them at seeing the small blue flame in their hand, but it winked out as they clawed at their throat, dropping an empty vial of Phoenix Blood as they collapsed and died.

“What is happening?” she pondered to herself.

“Poison,” Tarly said. “All the Phoenix Blood potions in Rhyenelle are poisoned. I wasn’t sure if they would detect it or notice people dying before they distributed it all.”

Everyone turned to the Olmstone prince, stunned.

He glanced at Nerida. “We found that plant in the woods you deemed nothing but poisonous, remember? When we met with Faythe and Kyleer. The idea came to me when I spoke to Faythe, and she told me what Marlowe was being forced to do in Rhyenelle.”

The clang of steel and shouts of battle became louder in their pause of silence.

“You are brilliant, Tarly Wolverlon,” Nerida said, pushing up on her toes to kiss his cheek.

Zaiana looked away from them and down at the enemy body. What he’d donewasbrilliant. And a huge relief.

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