Page 23 of A Flame of the Phoenix (An Heir Comes to Rise #6)
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Zaiana
Z aiana couldn’t shield herself from Faythe’s blast. Helplessness tightened her chest, and her arms rose feebly to brace herself.
Light magick didn’t hit her because shadows stole her.
She was saved from the brutal strike, but the moment her feet felt ground again, she was slammed against a wall. Her eyes flew open, met with equal fury in moss-green irises that lashed her with punishment.
He was a weed of weakness she should have exterminated the last time she had the chance.
With his body caging her to the wall, her survival instinct kicked in. When she twisted her wrist, held by him, Kyleer hissed before loosening his grip on her other hand, enough that her elbow angled toward him, jabbing into his chest. Ducking, she pulled her blade free, turning on her knee. The swipe of Nilhlir only cut through starry shadow.
Kyleer reappeared behind her, and though his ability made it a challenge to track him, she focused on the drum of his heart. She rolled to avoid his attempt to grab her again, kicking out her foot, but he took her ankle. She used him as an aid to twist onto her hands, reaching for another small dagger in her belt and throwing it in her handstand. It struck his thigh, and he cried out, releasing her again, and she cartwheeled back to standing.
The most intoxicating scent filled her nostrils enough to slip her focus. Blood. It wasn’t like the craving she’d battled all her life from humans. This was sweet and metallic, with just a hint of bitterness. It made her salivate , so she had to swallow hard. His blood was…
She stilled in the warmth that wrapped around her from behind. In her moment of distraction, he’d used his Shadowporting to once again compromise her, pressing her back to his front. Her eyes fluttered closed only for a second before she snapped them open in bewilderment at herself.
His scent encased her, starting to drown her senses and subdue her fight.
Foolish, childish, weak. Her cruel mind tore her apart.
“I should kill you,” he said, a warm whisper across her ear. It was twistedly seductive.
“Then what are you waiting for?” she breathed.
“For you to fight back. You’ve allowed me ten seconds longer than I expected before you use that stunning lightning.” His hand around her middle tightened a fraction. “Where’s your storm, Zai?”
Her storm. It was gone. Even Kyleer knew it to be an integral part of her, and now it was gone.
“I don’t need it to fight you.”
“Hmm…” His low murmur skittered along her jaw.
The warmth of him contrasted with a cold breath of metal against her throat.
“What did you do to my brother?” he asked.
Zaiana laughed bitterly. “That fool orchestrated everything himself.”
“Is he working for Marvellas and Dakodas?”
“The fact you have to ask that really shows how little you trust your kin. It’s no wonder you’re all flailing in this war.”
She hissed at the sharp sting of the blade almost cutting her flesh with his added pressure.
“As if you aren’t the one with no allies—not true ones. You don’t even know where you stand anymore.”
“Don’t I?”
Her teeth slammed together against the slice at her throat she had to take from his blade, but with her spin, one hand lashed around the commander’s wrist, twisting, and his cry was music to the cold being she became. In her second breath, she freed her own dagger at her waist and hooked a kick around the commander’s knee, aided by the slip of frost. It brought him down. The sharp point of Magestone pinched into the bulge of his neck as she stared down at him with a promise of death.
“Impressive,” he said though a clouded exhale. “But more effort than you should have needed to use.”
His prod at her methods flashed a white anger that made her angle the length of the blade to his skin, and Zaiana leaned in closer, leveling their eyes.
“There are over a hundred ways I can kill you. I would never be so predictable, so you may never know which one will finally come to claim you.”
“You can’t follow through,” he taunted. The note of hurt in his tone wouldn’t be heard by anyone else. And she felt it like the hot brand against her frozen heart.
She said, “There is still fun to be had. You haven’t seen the best of them yet.”
Kyleer’s eyes narrowed, and he was admirably fast to grip her wrist, hissing at the piercing of his skin as he stood. But it was his Shadowporting she was too slow to detect before it engulfed them both.
She gripped his hand around her throat. Not because it choked her, but because it was the only purchase she had, save for her toes on the edge of the rooftop she leaned off. The wind whipped annoying strands of her unbound hair over her vision. They were very high.
“I’m tiring of this dance,” she said.
“Show me,” he said.
Her brow furrowed in annoyance. “What?”
“The best of your ways to kill me.”
Zaiana chuckled darkly. “You’re a twisted bastard.”
Kyleer pulled her to him by her throat until she was balancing straight on the ledge, their bodies flush. His breath trickled along her lips.
“Still my most recurring, tormenting, beautiful nightmare,” he said, a husky murmur near lost in the whistle of winter air.
For a second, she thought he would kiss her, and she would let him, knowing the poison but consuming it anyway. His lips brushed hers. Then he pushed her of the roof, letting go completely.
Zaiana growled, releasing her wings to catch her, before landing in a crouch on the ground. Kyleer was already there, watching her with an amused, unbothered smile. Her anger was rising, having let this go on for too long.
“You’ve lost your lightning, haven’t you?”
Of course it would be obvious to him, to anyone, when she engaged in combat. It made her realize how much she’d leaned on her magick, but she would make him and everyone see she didn’t need human blood to be stronger, and she didn’t need magick to win.
Zaiana straightened, tunnelling herself deep into a focused battle calm. Kyleer was certainly an opponent she couldn’t underestimate even if he didn’t use his Shadowporting. She assessed they were matched in battle knowledge and experience; it was just a matter of outwitting him in skill.
With Nilhlir gripped in one fist, she adjusted her stance and answered, “I don’t need it.”
Then she moved, as quick and silent as wind. Her advantages lay in her size and her speed, opposing his strength and broad stature.
Their steel clashed against each other, and she couldn’t explain the hypnotism that overcame her listening to the song of their blades. It was a battle melody unlike any other she’d engaged in before, and she began to enjoy their dance.
He wasn’t going easy, but his attacks responded with a magnetism to hers. He swiped high; she bent low. She twisted around him; he spun to find her path effortlessly. The exertion began to ache through her bones, but she didn’t want it to end so quickly. Fighting Kyleer…she wasn’t thinking about striking him down. Not yet. She wanted to keep expending her bottled-up emotions because he could take it, let her cry and yell and release everything that killed inside, all of it pouring out through her blade, not her mouth.
“Be done with this.”
A loud voice broke through her trance, but she didn’t lose focus on Kyleer. She caught a glimpse of the Rhyenelle general carrying Faythe in his arms.
Kyleer must have too, because he faltered. Absolute dread then fury contorted his face, and that was his last mistake.
Zaiana knocked his sword from his right hand with a slam of hers. In the same breath, her left foot shifted for her middle to pivot, and her right foot kicked his chest hard enough to send him sprawling back. The impact might have even broken a rib or two.
Before he could even try to peel himself up, Zaiana straddled him and sent the pommel of her dagger into his temple to knock him unconscious.
When all had turned cold and still, Zaiana couldn’t move for a moment while the adrenaline dwindled. She was transported back to the cells in Rhyenelle with how similar this moment felt to the first time she’d bested him.
It hadn’t been as easy this time, but still…she expected more from him. Wished he hadn’t toyed with her and instead had poured his wrath and loathing over her.
Several sets of footsteps approached, and Zaiana suppressed her urge to snarl at the dark fae who’d come to take Kyleer. She could move him herself.
“Let’s go,” Reylan said from behind her. “You did well.”
Zaiana blinked at that. She’d never heard the small praise before, and it came from the most unlikely source. She forced herself to stand, not watching as the dark fae took Kyleer.
The general was so different from when she’d seen him all the times before. She scented Faythe’s blood before her eyes found the bruising puncture wound on her neck in shock.
What was more shocking was the ugly, horrible essence of the ruin she could feel from him. Faythe had managed to score his chest, and Zaiana shuddered to see the glow of it peeking through his black clothing.
It was absolutely astounding he still lived with it embedded into his chest. An extreme measure Zaiana never could have predicted by Marvellas, but it had worked for her. She didn’t doubt his mind would have been near impossible to warp to her mercy without it. But though she knew the general was powerful like Faythe, he shouldn’t still be alive.
“Where are we going?” she asked.
Reylan walked as he answered. “Back to Marvellas, of course.”
“Where is that?”
“Across the sea.”
He was being cryptic with his answers, but she couldn’t figure out if it was because he’d become a mindless soldier or if he lost his own capacity to engage normally.
“Your interference was unexpected but welcome,” he went on.
It was jarring to be walking and speaking with someone who, not so long ago, had harbored a strong will to kill her. He still did, but having to see him as an ally right now was strange, and she didn’t like him this way.
Reylan placed Faythe into the back of a wagon, being careful with her despite the injuries he’d inflicted to capture her. He lifted himself in too, pulling the heir to lay her head in his lap. He did so as if it were a habit, not conscious thought. Tragic, really.
Kyleer was already in the back, and she wished to claw the itch from her skin to check on him.
Reylan looked to her expectantly, but Zaiana considered taking to the skies and following. When she thought of being seen by Dakodas or Maverick, she decided to smother her discomfort and climb in, sitting on the edge to dangle a leg off the open back.
She didn’t look at Kyleer when it took off, jostling them.
“Do you feel anything for the harm you caused your mate?” Zaiana asked curiously.
“I did what I had to.”
“What does Marvellas plan to do with her?”
His brow furrowed. Zaiana could see how mindless he was. He wasn’t acting with any given reason, only following what was asked of him.
“She wants Faythe’s fealty.”
It would be hopeless to keep testing him for any true information when he likely couldn’t give a good explanation as to what the Spirit wanted with him .
Zaiana planned to find that out herself. She would go to the Spirit of Souls, Goddess of the Stars. She would promise her allegiance to her and hope the desertion from Dakodas wasn’t unforgivable when she came to serve her instead.
Her sights found Kyleer when she didn’t mean to. Part of her wanted to lay his head on something soft to keep it from knocking off the wooden wagon with every movement. She didn’t. Zaiana tried to erase him from her thoughts as she watched the streets they left behind.
She understood what Dakodas meant now. Reylan had been undercover as the leading general here, but now he had retrieved Faythe, Zaiana was to take over. She was supposed to stay and lead this legion in Fenher.
Zaiana smiled with defiance as she rode away from the insulting position she’d been given.
She didn’t have a plan, really. Didn’t know how outraged Dakodas would be to find her missing, or how annoyed Maverick would be. Honestly, for once in her life, she didn’t care at all.