Page 11 of A Flame of the Phoenix (An Heir Comes to Rise #6)

CHAPTER TEN

Izaiah

A rodent wasn’t his proudest form, but he gave it a try to scuttle to the large room Jakon and Marlowe were all but imprisoned to. Old kitchens, where their sole task was to make Phoenix Blood potions. He couldn’t deny the thought of such a weapon at Marvellas’s disposal made him wary, and he hoped they hadn’t achieved many since Marlowe’s magick wasn’t that strong.

A few guards passed, but he kept close to the wall and dipped out of view where he could to avoid being swatted.

At his destination, he surveyed the gap between the door and the ground. He shifted again into a smaller mouse, but his body still only got halfway. Dammit.

Izaiah tried scratching furiously, but their weak human senses didn’t come to investigate the sound.

A bird it would have to be.

Flying around, he landed on the awkward window frame of the high box windows and started pecking. As he did, he realized exactly why they’d failed to hear him. Izaiah threw his feeble bird body at the window to create more commotion, and only then did Jakon look, mercifully before he decided to begin undressing his wife.

He was glad they weren’t being thorough in their potion making, but Izaiah wished the human could see his matching sour look. He didn’t want to be here either.

He shifted as soon as he slipped into the window.

“You’re late,” Jakon grumbled.

“So you decide on a quick affair? Unless this is an invitation, which I am not opposed to?—”

“Izaiah.” Jakon cut him off. “What did you want?”

Jakon’s tone of distrust was mutual.

Jakon had slipped the time he should come by in a note, handing it over when Izaiah had purposely knocked into him in the hall.

Then Izaiah had gotten a little too… preoccupied in the king’s study to remember such a time.

“Is it done yet?” Izaiah asked.

Marlowe’s concern swirled in her eyes before she nodded.

“It almost killed her,” Jakon near snarled.

He shadowed his wince with a nonchalant shrug. “We all have prices to pay in this war.”

“And what in the Nether is yours?” Jakon accused.

Izaiah’s eyes narrowed at the response.

The human went on, “So far, you seem only to be benefitting since you haven’t told us what it is you plan to do with the one thing Malin and Reuben are tearing apart the damned castle in search of.”

Izaiah took a second to calm himself against the desire to strike out at Jakon for his prodding. It was justified, though he had no care to share that with them.

“Where is it?” Izaiah asked Marlowe without taking his eyes off her husband.

She shifted off the counter, going over to a pile of sacks and digging beneath them before returning.

“How do we know you won’t just hand it over to them?” Jakon asked.

“Because I would have killed you both and done so by now.” His attention landed on the intricately carved box Marlowe held. A shadowy touch pricked his skin. His tone softened for her. “Did you achieve the transfer spell?”

Her nod was a relief. Even if a foreboding and damning one.

Izaiah had enough of Faythe’s blood on him when he’d retrieved her from the square. Enough for Marlowe to use on the Blood Box containing the Light Temple Ruin, transferring the ownership and binding his blood to it instead now.

Faythe had trusted Izaiah enough to show him where she was hiding the ruin: in catacombs hidden beneath the castle.

There was only one unsuspecting and cunning way down to those catacombs. She hadn’t even told Reylan of it. Smart. The fewer minds that knew where it was, the better.

Izaiah planned to follow her sense in that regard.

“What do you plan to do with it?” Jakon asked warily.

“You know more than you should already,” Izaiah said. He took a step to retrieve the box, but Jakon shifted. Izaiah stifled his ire to say, “You’ve done your part. Now hand it over and focus on the part where you escape.”

“You’re not coming with us?” Marlowe asked, pulling the box back to herself as if she doubted her actions in aiding him now.

“No,” he ground out. His patience was running thin. “Is there a problem?”

Jakon said, “How do we know we can trust you?”

“Simple. You don’t have a choice.”

He tried not to be affected by their doubt. Everything was so blasted to shit he couldn’t blame them. It wasn’t safe for them to know, and he didn’t need to be told of the consequences.

Finally, Marlowe extended the box to him. It was heavy in his possession. Not in weight but in dark whisperings.

“You know the route out to take?—”

“I’m not finished yet,” Marlowe interrupted.

Izaiah twisted back from his pivot to leave. “What do you mean?”

A full explanation flexed around her features, but the words floundered on her parted lips. Izaiah figured it was her Oracle gift that kept her grappling threads of the future, but at risk of reaching for the wrong one and what it could trigger if she spoke, she stayed silent.

He chose to ask instead, “Does Faythe know?”

“I told her I had to make the Phoenix Blood potion for Malin,” Marlowe admitted, torn by her guilt. “I told her the kingdom would fall and that I would have to stay here. She knew we’d be standing on Marvellas’s side at the end. I don’t think she’ll forgive me, but she asked me to try to make sure they couldn’t make any more with the feather, and that’s the part I have to do.”

“They’ll kill you if they find out you’re purposely holding back.”

Izaiah glanced over at the measly half-dozen vials of potions, which might not even all be spelled fully. The Phoenix feather was clipped into many pieces, with a large part still to be sectioned. Various other herbs and powders and liquids littered the space.

“I know what I’m doing,” Marlowe assured him.

Izaiah looked at her, overcome with his own accusation, which he couldn’t hold back now he knew she’d seen the kingdom’s fall. “The king’s death—did you know of it before?”

Marlowe’s gaze fell, but he caught the answer in the crease of her brow and the way Jakon shifted as if to shield her from Izaiah’s wrath at the truth.

“You did nothing?” Izaiah said coldly.

“What could she have done?” Jakon snapped in her defense.

“I didn’t know when.” Her voice turned small. “But I knew Agalhor had to fall for Faythe to rise.”

“That’s bullshit,” Izaiah snarled. He couldn’t suppress the rage that surged. “They would have risen together.”

Marlowe didn’t respond. Part of him felt for her—it couldn’t have been easy to harbor the knowledge Faythe would be orphaned again without being able to tell her friend. The more he thought about the consequences if she had told her, the spiral Faythe would have fallen into to try to stop the unstoppable…it would have robbed them of the time they’d had left.

His resentment started to turn to understanding for Marlowe’s position.

“Shit,” Izaiah conceded, running a hand down his face.

It didn’t make acceptance any less like swallowing knives. Izaiah hadn’t grieved for the loss of his king. He couldn’t. Because that wasn’t all Agalhor had been to him, nor to Kyleer or Reylan. Izaiah had too much left to achieve, and mourning only served to split his composure. War didn’t wait for the wounded to heal.

“Does Malin have something against you that forced you to stay and make those potions for him?” Izaiah diverted, needing to dissolve the marble growing in his throat.

Marlowe hugged her robe tighter around herself. “He threatened our lives, of course,” she said bitterly. “But I would rather die than make another elixir for him to pass around their armies to make them stronger.”

Jakon’s energy changed with her unwavering statement. Terror for her life. Izaiah believed her. He even surfaced a kernel of guilt that he’d assumed her capable of any true betrayal.

“We had to find a way to stop the production. If Marlowe weren’t making them, he would have found another human with spell magick, and we’d have had no eyes on the inside,” Jakon explained.

Marlowe said, “I’ve seen so many versions of this war it’s hard to keep up sometimes. In most of them, we lose. This is one path that doesn’t end in our favor. If Malin gets enough of the Phoenix potions, the enhanced fae abilities, along with the dark fae armies on human blood, would make them unstoppable. There is a reason both enhancements were outlawed long ago.”

It unfolded in clarity. Bone-trembling clarity. Izaiah stifled a shiver that felt like a lick of death at the downfall Marlowe painted. He fixed his eyes on the Oracle, now with an urge to go to his damn knees for the invisible suffering she endured. He couldn’t imagine witnessing the very real—and very possible—death of everyone she loved and herself.

“You haven’t explained your betrayal, which I’m trusting is false,” Jakon cut in.

“Like you, I can’t risk my course being found out or stopped.”

“We told you ours,” he protested.

“No offense, but I have higher hopes of evasion if they start to suspect me. Your plan is safe.”

“Thanks for the confidence boost,” Jakon remarked.

Izaiah turned for the window, but just before he shifted, he lingered a look back.

“Just stay alive,” he grumbled, not enjoying the care that was starting to grow roots for them. “For Faythe’s sake. It would be a shame to have her burn everything to the ground if she lost either of you.”