Page 50 of A Flame of the Phoenix

She knew the answer wasn’t what he wanted. “Yes, I believe he does, though I don’t know when he started to remember.”

Faythe wouldn’t absolve Maverick for a single heinous choice he’d made, but she couldn’t help that her heart had started to separate the dark fae from the former prince. In the end, they were one and the same, but for Nik and the friend he knew, for a prince that had his will and his life stolen, maybe she could understand just a little.

“I want to talk to him—just one last time,” Nik confessed.

She couldn’t be sure they would ever get that chance, so she didn’t respond.

After a quiet moment, Nik said heavily, “Mordecai is taking Tauria to Valgard. She told me last night.”

Faythe dropped her last piece of bread with that information.

“Have any of you ever been across to that island?”

“No. All our lives, we’ve stayed far away. Even before my father was compromised as Marvellas’s servant, he’d never in all his battle plans or talks with the other kingdoms considered leading an attack on the county they believed responsible for the war.”

“What makes them so frightening?”

Nik contemplated. “I guess their history of the Dark Age. No one even knows who’s ruled over there since. The kingdom might be in disarray, and that’s why Marvellas took over before bringing Mordecai back.”

“Why would he be taking Tauria there now?”

“I can’t be sure. I’m terrified for Tauria. It’s killing me that she’s alone in this, but as she said in her letter, this is an opportunity to see inside enemy territory that’s never been possible before now. She’s afraid but also so damn brave and confident.”

Faythe was also torn with immense concern for her friend. Nik’s pain and turmoil ripped through her.

“I believe in her,” she said.

“Me too. I just wish I could be with her.”

The somber silence left them picking at the last of the breakfast.

“While Tauria is gaining advantages, we should keep ourselves busy doing the same,” Faythe said.

“What do you suggest?”

“With all forces heading to High Farrow, that’s where we’ll make our stand. In the meantime, we have to gain as much as we can before we head there ourselves.WithReylan and Tauria.”

Nik inhaled, long and deep. “Agreed. I plan to head to Fenstead when Tauria returns from Valgard. If we can’t reclaim Fenstead, we can still retrieve her, and maybe she’ll have something valuable to use against Mordecai.”

That gave them both a lift of pride and hope. Tauria was brilliant.

“While I still have you, want to accompany me on a quest the others might try to argue against?”

Nik’s slow smirk of deviance was all the confirmation she needed. “Now I’m intrigued. Spill it.”

“Just meet me at sundown.”

“It’s only sunrise—you’re keeping me on edge all day?”

Kyleer called out and came into her tent. “You didn’t tell me it was your birthday!” he exclaimed upon entry.

She shot Nik an accusing look, but he held his hands up.

“I didn’t tell him.”

“I did,” Livia said, slipping in around Kyleer’s dominating form. “Reylan told me. He…was planning a surprise dinner he wanted my help with before everything happened.”

Faythe’s heart plummeted.

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