Page 20 of A Flame of the Phoenix (An Heir Comes to Rise #6)

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Izaiah

“ I f you’re going to pretend to read, you should at least look at the pages,” Tynan said.

It jerked Izaiah from the scenes his mind had been playing out as if he were in two places at once. Only then did he realize his hand had been flipping pages while his sight bore holes into the opposite wall.

He thumped his book shut in one hand to glower at Tynan seated at the desk in his rooms.

“If you want to convince me you’re making progress, you shouldn’t be leaving such long stretches of silence. I’m getting bored.”

Tynan’s hair was disheveled from the many times he’d dragged frustrated hands through it, his elbows propped on the table. It was particularly attractive, and Izaiah only itched to be the cause of it instead.

“I think this is pointless. When will I have a use for reading? It’s not like we have time to indulge in fantasies, and besides, if I’m going to die in this war, the Nether isn’t going to care for my illiteracy.”

He leaned back in his seat, pushing the book away, and Izaiah gravitated toward him with little conscious thought.

“I’d say we’ve made do with finding adequate time for fantasy ,” Izaiah said, coming around behind him.

Tynan was too damn tempting, and he couldn’t help himself. This need to touch what should be forbidden. Why was it that the most sinful fruit was always the most desirable?

Izaiah slipped a hand over Tynan’s shoulder, and it was like his tension melted under the tightening of his fingers. It flared dominance in him. A thought that this dark fae would mold for him. Whatever he asked.

“There’s certainly some things I’d rake myself across the coals for,” Tynan answered, tipping his head back against the tall seat.

Izaiah leaned in, unable to help himself with the purposeful breath he fanned across Tynan’s ear as he reached for the quill. On a sheet of blank paper, he hesitated only for a second, then he scribed one line.

“If you manage to read that, you can come claim a reward.”

Their heads tilting toward each other brought their lips just shy of meeting. Tynan broke first, and Izaiah gave some release to the ache swelling inside him for the few seconds he allowed the deep kiss. Then he planted his hand on Tynan’s chest, pushing him roughly against the chair in warning.

Swiping up the parchment, he folded it twice. When Tynan stood, Izaiah slipped it into the pocket of his pants. The dark fae tried to step away, but Izaiah’s fingers hooked into his waistband. For no other reason than his crazed need for the challenge it breathed between them, it was becoming a sadistic thrill.

“It’s just a phrase about my dashing looks and stellar personality,” he said. “You know how to find me when you figure it out.”

Izaiah let him go. Picking up a book, he pretended the tension between them was so easily forgotten. His lust was painted in Tynan’s frustration.

“Where have you been?” Tynan folded his arms with the question. His accusation was enough to smother the mood.

“I didn’t know you needed tabs on me at all hours,” Izaiah brushed off. “You need to find another hobby to keep you distracted. I’m afraid I have other things to occupy my time.”

“You’re an arrogant prick.”

“Flattery won’t entice me.”

Tynan rolled his eyes before heading to the door. “Keep out of trouble,” he grumbled.

Izaiah smiled to himself. It dropped bittersweet in the vacancy of his rooms. Bracing his hands against the desk, his head bowed at the uncertainty that flooded in during the moments he gained alone. His plan wasn’t really a plan as such. Though he’d brushed off Zaiana’s warnings about the ruin, he harbored them truly. He knew the risks and only hoped he wasn’t the coward his father had taunted he was.

The weak, helpless younger sibling who couldn’t do anything.

Didn’t want to fight.

Only wanted the pain to stop, but not for himself—for Kyleer, who took the worst of it for them both.

His fingers curled to a painful grip on the wood.

He wouldn’t be powerless again. Not in this war, when he had the chance to be something bigger.

He couldn’t fight his father for Ky then. Now he could damn well try to fight the world for him. And for Reylan. And Livia. And Faythe. And everyone .

Izaiah would do whatever it took to be unstoppable for them.

On his knees, he had to question his sanity to willingly reach for the torture that reduced him to trembling and helpless on the ground. Izaiah panted on all fours, his skin hot and slicked with sweat, while he tried to blink color back into his surroundings.

“I don’t care for your life,” Zaiana said, crouching by him. “But I hope you’re doing this knowing the wreckage it will cause your brother if it fails.”

Breathing was like inhaling ash, but when his locked muscles began to ease from his attempt to merge with the ruin, he sat back.

“If? Careful—it’s beginning to sound like you actually have faith in me.” Izaiah’s eyes slipped closed as he was reminded of his friend in that word with two meanings.

To have Faythe.

To live like death is a game.

He grinned, perhaps delirious in this state while he tempted the dark force.

Love is a prize.

Should he succeed, it would be for them. All of what he was.

And danger is desire.

There was a life he’d lived when he’d cowered from anything dangerous, but that fae had had to die to survive the mines his father had enslaved him to.

“I’m going again,” he said through a labored breath.

“No, you’re not.”

He didn’t expect her to care, but Zaiana slipped the box closed. It wasn’t until the energy silenced with it that he realized how taut his body was at the power emanating through the catacombs.

Izaiah eyed the knife on the ground. He’d just open the Blood Box again.

“How do you know when you’re close to merging with it?” he quizzed.

Zaiana paced. Something else was on her mind today, and he’d bit back several instincts to question it.

“It’s like…death,” she said.

“I gathered that. I’ve felt like it would claim me several times we’ve tried now.”

She shook her head. “What you feel is your physical body’s limit, convinced it’s dying. You need to surpass that—let the mind push further.”

“Aren’t they one and the same?”

“No. Your mind can wholly convince your body to shut down when it is perfectly well. It is the most powerful thing alive. So if it can kill its own host just by thought and emotion, it can transcend the physical punishment magick will try to convince you is enough to kill you. Take back control of your heart that will race to its influence, cool your blood it will set fire to. Magick can’t be fought physically—it has to be mastered mentally.”

Izaiah’s brows lifted in admiration. He had to admit, she was kind of brilliant, but not aloud.

“How did they teach you that?”

“They didn’t.”

He watched her, an arm folded over herself while the other propped her chin in her hand. It were as if she was in two places at once.

“Want to get off your mind what has you challenging the ground you’re wearing down?”

She seemed to contemplate. They barely tolerated each other as acquaintances, but perhaps down here, they could forget the past transgressions of above.

“Your heartbeat…do you believe it’s tied to your emotions?”

The question was as na?ve as it was vulnerable, and at anyone else, he might have laughed.

“It’s nothing more than an organ that circulates blood.”

Izaiah found it somewhat tragic and ironic that someone so in tune with the mind could believe in such a fairy tale.

“I’ve heard it before,” she said so quietly the tension in the room became as fragile as glass. One wrong word, and it would shatter and raise steel to block him out again. “From fae and mortals. They become tricked by love and give each other their hearts. I’ve heard the declaration before.”

He didn’t expect the impact that slammed into him. She believed it. Perhaps Tynan did too. All of them. That their still hearts truly meant they couldn’t love.

“It’s not meant so literally,” Izaiah said, equally hushed, so as to walk on that glass with her.

She didn’t look at him, but he couldn’t stop watching her, so lost in thought he wondered what had brought on this new curiosity.

“Have you ever given yours?” she asked.

“No.”

“Would you?”

He didn’t know how they’d gotten here, but while they would go back to showing their claws to each other above, he kept them retracted for as long as this moment might last.

“Maybe,” he answered. “Though your kind is right about one thing. To give it, to love even in friendship, it is vulnerable. It is a weakness for any enemy to exploit, and the more spots you allow, the easier you are to kill.”

“Do you think I’m a monster?”

“I don’t think that’s what you’re wondering,” Izaiah said, feeling a crack on this rare pane they were balancing on. “You think you have a still heart to blame for all your heinous actions, but you don’t. Regardless of whether you managed to strike a beat in your chest, everything you’ve done is on you. But for what it’s worth…what I do think is that you’ve always chosen survival.”

“Aren’t we all creatures choosing that? Even Marvellas.”

“No. Or at least not anymore. She’s driven by power and greed. Marvellas sees a world not to her order, and she wants to fix it to her vision, no matter the devastation it would take to reconstruct it. It’s not her own survival that motivates her—it’s villainy believing it is heroism.”

Zaiana was silent, with her back to him for long enough he thought their moment was over.

“They’re cursed,” she said. “All of the dark fae. Led to believe they can’t find attachment to one another—can’t love. Shouldn’t mourn and shouldn’t hurt. Because they have no heart to be plagued by such weakness. They’re taught it’s what makes the dark fae superior, that being cold and ruthless is what will win them the land and freedom they deserve. It’s all a lie.”

“You said you were born that way.”

Her head barely shook, her voice hardly a whisper. “I don’t think I was. I think my heartbeat was taken.”

Izaiah stood slowly. He hadn’t expected Zaiana to share this with him. Something that felt like it could shift the tide of the war. Despite this, he was growing uncomfortable with the feelings stirring between them. It didn’t feel right—he wasn’t the one who could hear her troubles and give a damn.

But Kyleer would. He’d wanted to be there for her, and she’d betrayed him. For that, he pushed back anything of comfort he wanted to extend to the dark fae.

“So what are you going to do about it?” Izaiah said, swiping up the knife.

He cut before she could turn around, watching the box flare to life again.

“They think they made me into their perfect weapon,” she said.

Izaiah smiled without meeting her stare, feeling their thoughts align.

“Then I do hope I get to witness when they meet their maker.”