Page 10 of A Flame of the Phoenix (An Heir Comes to Rise #6)

CHAPTER NINE

Zaiana

Z aiana had slept well. It should have been a relief, but the fact kept her on a prickly edge.

Her dream had been real.

The sleep demon had promised to lull her into a deep rest, and he’d done so. She didn’t know what he wanted. Worst of all, she wouldn’t be able to stop him infiltrating her mind again if he truly wasn’t finished with her.

Zaiana marched Rhyenelle’s halls as if they were the warped, cavernous walls of the Mortis Mountains. She’d allowed herself to soften too much with the kernels of weakness that had begun to plague her. Not anymore.

Maverick turned the corner toward her, and Zaiana was torn between wanting to kill him or demand what game he thought he was playing.

Zaiana intended to walk right by without engaging, keeping her eyes locked ahead and away from him. The bastard was dancing with death by sidestepping into her path.

“Get out of my way,” she snarled, lifting her eyes to his dark irises, which narrowed at her reaction.

“Where are you going?”

Zaiana placed a hand to his chest to push him, but he didn’t back down. His hand wrapped around her wrist, twisting to pin her to the wall, and she turned livid.

She only realized it wasn’t a wall he’d pushed her against when he leaned in and the next second it was falling away from her back. Her focus dropped from him only to spin and avoid an embarrassing tumble through the door.

Hate boiled in her. Turning back to him, she couldn’t see fully, as darkness engulfed them when the click sealed them in the room. The unknown tightened in her throat—only for a second before a blue flame ignited, and Zaiana breathed lighter with the illumination allowing her to map her surroundings.

Not a tight confinement.

They were in a small sitting room.

Maverick’s expression was disturbed under the glow of his flame. Then he passed her, stopping at the table, and lit the two lanterns there.

“I’m going to kill you,” Zaiana promised.

“I have never once doubted you’ll be the death of me,” he said, so calm in contrast to her fury.

“Why did you save me?” she snapped.

It had been tormenting her—how he’d caught her in the sky when she would have plummeted to her death.

Maverick took a long, bored breath as he leaned against the table and folded his arms. “I am very adamant you stay alive.”

“So you can be the one to kill me?”

“Something like that.”

Zaiana’s nostrils flared. What had been reeling through her mind since she’d awoken came surging to the surface to use as a weapon now.

“I must commend you for playing the fool all these years, Maverick.” The energy charged between them, growing with his slow steps toward her, which she stood unyielding against. “Or should I say, Callen ?”

His gaze sharpened at the name. She hadn’t been able to stop recalling Faythe’s cry of it during the battle, and Zaiana had finally remembered why it was familiar.

“That person died a long time ago.”

“That prince .”

“Does it matter?”

“You pretended not to know.” Zaiana despised the fact she hurt because of it. That during their time in the cave, he’d led her to believe he’d been robbed of his fae life completely.

Or had she merely missed it? Mistaken his distance and pain as lost memories, not tragic ones he reflected on?

He was Callen Osirion, the fallen Prince of Dalrune.

“They think I don’t remember anything,” he confessed. “They took everything from me, and remembering what they did is the only thing I have against them.”

It made sense. Only, she couldn’t figure out why he’d gone so long without doing anything with it.

“What do you plan to do? Take back your kingdom?”

Maverick laughed—a resentful, bitter sound. “There is no kingdom to take back. Those lands are barren and overrun with dark fae. Their monarchy is gone.”

“You’re still here.”

“I am not him,” Maverick said firmly.

Zaiana didn’t insist. Maybe she even agreed.

All this time…what had he been waiting for?

“Whose side are you on?”

“You know as well as I do there are no sides, only a course of survival that can change like the wind.”

“I don’t understand,” she said.

Her head grew a dull ache in her storm of emotions and chaotic thoughts. It were as if her existence had been blasted wide-open, and she was scrambling to retain any pieces that would keep her from losing herself for good.

“You don’t need to understand,” he said, his voice dropping soft for a split second before it firmed to say, “But I trust you won’t speak of this beyond that door.”

Zaiana said nothing, still mulling over what the revelation meant. To him; to her. What it could mean to the world. She couldn’t figure out what his motive was. After all he’d done… Killed Faythe. Then Agalhor. Dalrune had a living heir who’d made sure there would be no redemption for him should Marvellas fail.

“You haven’t shown your lightning,” Maverick said.

It turned her painfully stiff. Her skin pricked, fingers flexing in irritation as if it would conjure the bolts to prove him wrong.

Zaiana couldn’t hide it anymore. Not from him when he would always be on her tail, but at least now she had a secret against him to trade, should he spill her temporary affliction.

“It’s been silent since I woke.”

Maverick massaged his forehead with one hand. “I figured.”

She didn’t voice her panic to ask how it was so obvious to him.

“How is that even possible?” he said, a note of anger tuning his tone. “Faythe seems to have all her abilities. Shit, it’s almost like she keeps advancing no matter what.”

“Yeah, well, she’s practically the daughter of a Spirit. I’m the daughter of…nothing.”

It was all Zaiana could think of that set them apart. Perhaps her magick was gone simply because she was weaker. Unable to resurface after a burnout that had taken her ability as punishment. This new train of torment had her wondering something she’d locked away for so long.

Who were her parents? Why she wanted to know was simply practical.

The Stormcaster ability wasn’t common—did one of them have it? Or had it awoken from a long bloodline?

Were they even still alive?

Zaiana’s back met the wall, and her head tipped against it. She was slipping. Crumbling. Overcome with questions she’d spent so long denying. She needed the answers, but they would only serve to wound her armor. Zaiana had made herself, and she didn’t want anyone to try to take a piece of that because of blood. It meant nothing.

“Your power isn’t only in your lightning,” Maverick said, so quiet her head straightened to be sure he’d spoken.

He closed the distance between them, and she didn’t have the will to push him away. They were sealed within four walls, and Zaiana let the exhaustion win for a moment of relief.

“It never has been. You know it too, and you need to get yourself together. You’re better than all of them, with and without magick. It does not define you.”

His proximity conflicted her. She fought a certain gravity that pulled them together against an impulse to gain distance. Then guilt. Sinking, dreadful guilt as she pictured another in his place.

“Stop,” she said, anticipating the hand he began to reach up to her.

“Why?”

It kept rising slowly.

She had no answer.

Zaiana allowed his palm to meet her cheek. She didn’t look up. Didn’t want to risk snapping out of the feelings she’d tuned in to, trying to figure them out to grapple control of herself again. If she conquered what this was with Maverick, perhaps she’d be able to fight what weakened her about Kyleer.

So she let him angle her head back as warm wisps of his breath blew across her lips. Then her lids slipped closed as their mouths met. She came alive in ways she did in the face of an enemy, wanting to slay the threat Maverick had become. The adrenaline of battle was addictive.

He was the mirror she couldn’t look away from. The centuries they’d shared, every conflict, transgression, and slip of passion, would always add a new crack to their shared tragic reflection. Because she couldn’t stop attacking, and neither would he.

She kissed him back with the same demand, allowing his body to mold into her against the wall, and her back curved at the trail of his hand. While desire sparked across her skin, it wasn’t without unease in her gut. That swimming note of guilt that she was only kissing him to know if she would feel anything.

She did. There was a pulse for him that echoed in the place a heartbeat should be. But it wasn’t enough. For what? She didn’t know herself, and this was a distraction she couldn’t afford.

With a hand on his chest, she pushed him away.

They caught their breath in a matched stare of desire and hate.

“You tell anyone of this, and I’ll make sure to ruin you with the betrayal of who you are to everyone around you, Callen .”

Sharp words, and she watched them cut but didn’t stay to witness the bleeding.

What had she been thinking?

She’d promised never to get close to him again, yet she’d craved it from him. The only thing that had made her stop…was the cruel and punishing emittance of another firmer pulse that wouldn’t stop growing even when the commander was nowhere near.