Page 24 of A Flame of the Phoenix (An Heir Comes to Rise #6)

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Faythe

F aythe had never traveled by boat, and it was a shame she was hardly awake for the first time she ever crossed the sea. The blindfold hadn’t helped the dizziness and the nausea, but luckily, she managed to avoid being sick, though her stomach couldn’t handle the peculiar motion of the boat against the waves.

The cold became sharper, with her breaths gathering ice chips in her throat.

“As if this is going to stop us knowing we’ve crossed to Lakelaria,” Kyleer grumbled.

All she could be grateful for after their capture was that they hadn’t separated her from Kyleer yet.

“It’s to stop you being noticed or doing something foolish,” Zaiana answered from somewhere nearby.

“Considerate of you,” Kyleer said with more chill than the frozen island.

Faythe was yearning to know where Reylan was. He’d remained elsewhere, letting others handle her, in the long journey Kyleer had been tracking better than her. He estimated around three weeks had passed.

She was tired of the darkness now, but she feared the lashing contrast of light when they would finally take off the damn wrap from around her head.

When they were taken off the ship, Faythe trekked through more inches of snow than there had been on the mainland. Water flowed beside them, and from what she recalled about the great western island, river paths stemmed through the kingdom like roads.

They were pulled to a stop, and Faythe’s chest raced with anticipation. A presence crept closer to her. Unmistakable. Reylan reached to the back of her head, pulling the tie of her blindfold under her hood.

Her eyes immediately watered and slammed shut at the first attack of daylight. She bowed her head, blinking to adjust and subdue the dull ache it pulsed in her head. The crystal stone beneath her feet was mesmerizing. This path had been flattened of snow for people to walk safely.

Faythe was roughly pulled from her moment of admiration by a firm grip on her chin, yanking her head up. Reylan maintained his guise of brown hair and different angles to his face, but those irises were the same, and every time she was forced to meet the vacant loathing in them, a piece of her heart cracked deeper.

“We’ll stop here for the night. Getting to the castle by foot will take a day in itself, and it’s nearly nightfall.”

Faythe’s gaze tracked over his shoulder, and she was taken by the sculpture of the buildings she could only glimpse the peaks of. It was like she was standing in a city of glass and white stone. It reminded her of High Farrow—Caius City, specifically—in some ways, but far colder, and with more ice. The other detail that set apart this kingdom was the accents of gold—Lakelaria’s sigil color. It adorned parts of the stone in elegant filigree, or was stamped on shop signs, or on the white fur cloaks of the few fae she caught passing distantly.

“Go inside. Try anything, and I won’t hesitate to do this again,” he said, sweeping his fingers across the bruised bite wound on her neck.

Faythe shivered with a break of pleasure at the contact. Despite everything, he was still her mate, and her body gave away her yearning for him.

The bruising was almost gone, but thanks to her Magestone shackles, it took longer to heal. She wondered if the small puncture wounds would stay, however. Even though he’d bit her in malice, she didn’t want it gone.

“I doubt the Lakelarian citizens would run to my aid if I called,” she grumbled, heading inside the inn they’d stopped at.

“You’d be surprised how far word of you has spread,” he said low from behind her.

That was genuinely surprising, but whether they’d heard of her or not, she wouldn’t expect them to care about her captivity in their kingdom. A Phoenix Queen without wings or a crown—pitiful, really.

Faythe skulked down the narrow corridor, her nose stinging at the notes of alcohol and wafts of musk. Before she could veer into the main room, Reylan’s firm hand pushed her the opposite way. She muttered her curses, but they fell on uncaring ears.

“You watch over him,” Reylan instructed. She cast a wary look at Kyleer, whose face fell in discontent. “But don’t kill him.”

Zaiana smiled with pretend sweetness, opening the door in front of Kyleer before pushing him inside. “If he doesn’t give me cause to,” she sang, following him in.

Faythe genuinely feared for her friend, doubting he’d see the dawn without injury at least.

It was her turn to be roughly handled, thrust into a room with one bed occupying the center. There wasn’t much else. Her craving for heat had her staring into the dark fireplace, but her stubbornness didn’t want to ask him for anything.

“You should rest. I reckon it will be the best you’ll achieve for a while.”

Faythe found him by the corner of the room, leaning into the shadows like he didn’t plan to move from them anytime soon.

“I didn’t think you’d care.”

“I don’t. Stand there all night if you wish—I will not interfere.”

Faythe sighed dramatically. If he wasn’t going to light the fire, the blankets alone would have to do. She sat on the bed, too tired to even take off her boots. Grabbing the covers, she awkwardly slung them around her shoulders, gritting her teeth with the burning against her wrists, then she sat against the headboard.

“You’ll regret the stiff neck if you fall asleep in that position.”

She ignored him. “Why didn’t you change your eyes with the rest of you?”

“Shapeshifting always leaves a trace. Trying to imitate another fae or human has the most noticeable distinction like a scar or eye color.”

Faythe wanted to believe that even if she didn’t recognize his eyes, she would have still known it was him as soon as she was close enough.

“Why the guise at all if she wanted me to find you?”

“You’re not the only recognizable face. The Valgard armies wouldn’t have trusted Rhyenelle’s leading general even less than they did this newly appointed facade.”

“It’s just us now. You can let it go. It must be tiring you to hold the ability for so long.”

“Nothing tires me now. Not with this,” he said, tapping his chest.

Faythe swallowed hard. She was trying to push aside the whispers of darkness that came from it.

A strip of moonlight pouring in from the single window kept the bottom half of his face in view.

“Go to sleep,” he ordered.

“Aren’t you going to?”

“I’m not risking you attempting something foolish.”

“I’m certain you’d wake up before I could try.”

He huffed, pushing off the wall and coming closer. Conflict raged in her. The trick of this mask while knowing it was Reylan inside wrecked her.

Reylan sank a knee onto the bed, watching her with those icy sapphire eyes. Their stare grew with tension, as if he anticipated she’d break, to provoke him into something that would be catastrophic in here.

“Release the mask,” she said.

“Why? Do you want to pretend?”

“You’re the one pretending.”

He eased more pressure onto the bed, leaning closer. Then, to her surprise, he did as she asked. Faythe’s ribs rattled watching the strands of his dark brown hair spill with silver, as if ice had formed along each strand. His eyes shifted shape, and she realized it had been a mistake to provoke him when she was overwhelmed with delusion now. Her mind had fooled itself into believing she could break through Marvellas’s influence on him with the yearnings of her heart alone.

By the time the last of his features had turned back, he’d eased all the way over, and Faythe couldn’t resist the hand she slipped across his face.

“Come back to me. Please.”

Reylan’s body hovered just shy of pressing into her. His face came down inches from hers, and for a second, she thought…

“You’re so pitiful it’s no wonder she will win without resistance.”

Faythe went to snatch her hand back, but his lashed around her wrist, and before she could struggle, she was on her back. Fire and ice blazed against each other in their battling stare, passing the same breath of anguish back and forth.

Her impulse and defiance won. Faythe lifted her head, pressing her lips to his. She didn’t know what she was doing, only that desperation and heartbreak were responsible for all that followed.

He answered with equal anguish, deepening the kiss in an instant, and Faythe almost lost herself to the passionate wrap of him. He let go of her bound wrists, and she gripped the front of his jacket, needing him closer in any way she could muster. The taste of him, the scent of him, it wanted to draw her into the clutches of a painful delusion. All that kept her from falling for it completely were the dark whispers that amplified in the heat of their anger and their hopeless need for each other. The shadows of the ruin circled them with glee, wanting Faythe to give in to its power as it held Reylan.

Their kiss was a clash of tongues and teeth, feverish grasping of hair and clothing. The cold was now forgotten with the heat of his body pressing her into the mattress.

She didn’t want to stop. Her resolve was slipping away under the familiar weight of him, and she wanted to pretend a little longer. Faythe didn’t know when he retrieved the key to her shackles—she was too focused on him and what to do next—so when they came free, she moaned into his mouth with the relief, giving over for a few more seconds. He hooked a hand under her knee, drawing her leg around his hips to push against her tighter.

So familiar. So much lust and yearning. So much pain and longing.

She drove her hands into his soft silver locks as his groan vibrated along her neck, scattering pleasure across her body. Faythe had allowed her desire to cloud too much. The pinch of his teeth against her neck shocked her back with a gasp.

Before he could fully bite her, Faythe’s hand slipped up his chest, and she wasn’t thinking straight when she forced her palm to encase the ruin embedded in his flesh beneath his leathers.

When she did, the world around her ceased to exist, and all she explored beyond was death and darkness. The dark at the end of everything.

Faythe grappled control within herself, remembering who she was. Threads of the real world started to weave her surroundings back. Shadowy power engulfed the room, hissing and flowing like she’d opened a world of dark beasts clawing to be free.

Reylan’s hand gripped her throat, and that dragged forth her instinct to survive. She had no discipline nor experience to wield a ruin and could feel it threatening to claim her instead.

She had to break it.

With both of them attached to the ruin, Faythe was more powerful than Reylan. They’d both always known this. She was a descendant of Marvellas, with Aurialis merged within the core of her magick, and with this amplifier, she could destroy the world in a few heartless thoughts.

And Gods , did this dark power whisper such temptation for it.

Faythe cried out, hooking her leg around his waist and managing to flip them. She pressed both palms to the ruin now, trembling with the fragile grasp she kept on her humanity.

“Do it,” he growled through the chaos battering the room. This establishment was close to collapsing if even a fraction more power was released from the ruin.

His blue eyes glowed, swimming with ethereal power.

“Break the ruin, Faythe. It’s what she wants, and it’s inevitable.”

The ruin attacked that thought, slicing and clawing deeply into her mind and her flesh with no physical trace. She whimpered, feeling herself set alight.

Deep within the essence of the ruin, Faythe found a faint crack. All she would have to do was hook her magick into the thin crevice and push . It would take every ounce of her being, and it could wipe out a devastating radius of innocent civilians. But she didn’t know what it made her when that wasn’t the thought that stopped her.

Reylan was so hauntingly beautiful. The malice was gone, and instead he almost pleaded with her fiery gaze as it pierced his. Was he in pain? When he’d watched her all these weeks, so steely and pretending not to care, was he writhing inside to an unimaginable, unseen agony?

The door behind them slammed open, but Faythe couldn’t lose focus, or she risked letting go and causing a blast far worse than the first time she’d touched this ruin in the alley of Rhyenelle.

“What are you doing?” Zaiana yelled over the shadowy hurricane destroying the room. Faythe was surprised the walls still held up when the desk and the chest of drawers had become deadly splinters carried in the storm.

“Get out!” Faythe shouted back.

“You can’t harness the ruin! Stop her!” That was Kyleer.

“I can’t. Not this time.”

The flicker of hope that Zaiana could help her release this magick died out with those words.

“Then tell her how, dammit!”

“It’s not that easy!”

Reylan reached a hand up, so jarringly tender it widened her eyes when his fingers brushed soothingly over her cheek.

“Break it.”

“I don’t know if it’ll hurt you. Or…or kill you.”

He appeared the most convincing, as the Reylan she loved, but she couldn’t figure out if it was just a trick. That was what Marvellas wanted, but was it also the only way to get him back?

She’d put his life in danger, and Faythe was about to let go?—

“Don’t!” Zaiana yelled, far closer to her now.

“I have to let go.”

“You’ll collapse this place and several others like a house of cards if you do that so recklessly,” she hissed. “Untrained fool. What were you thinking?”

She hadn’t been thinking. All she wanted was to know if she could reach Reylan. All she believed was that if he was with her, maybe they could break it together, and he would be okay. They would win this twisted game before Marvellas got a hold of them both.

Now she could feel this kind of magick was so uncertain and out of her depth, and she wouldn’t gamble his life before knowing more.

“I can’t hold on much longer,” she panted. Her gold tattoos torched like lines of fire over her arms and her spine, her skin slicked with sweat.

Zaiana said, “You’re fighting it, and let me tell you, it will always win. You have to be in control to lock the power back inside.”

“How do I do that?” Her words came sharp in her panic.

“Trick it into believing you are the dominant force.”

“That makes no sense.”

“Maybe not to your simple mind,” she snapped.

“Zai…” Kyleer warned.

Zaiana tsked her irritation. She tried to explain again. “A lion will always have more power than a man, but it can be tricked, taught, into submission. Magick is just a beast. You are the guidance, the smarter entity. Don’t let it devour you—figure out what makes it yield.”

Faythe leaned into Zaiana’s words as they became clearer, but she feared she was too far gone.

“A man wouldn’t jump headfirst into a lion’s den without experience,” Faythe said in daunting realization at what she’d done.

“No. That was your fatal error, so now you have to adapt to survive, I suppose.”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s going to hurt all of us and cause a lot of wreckage, but I don’t think you have a choice but to sever the tie. Without a willing vessel, it will snap back into its containment, but not without rage in its defiance.”

“Break it. You’re right here and have the strength to do it,” Reylan coaxed again.

Faythe shook her head. “We need it intact to use it against Marvellas, and I will find a way to release you from it without breaking it.”

“There is no way. It’s either me or the world, Faythe Ashfyre.”

“Then I choose you!” she cried.

The words came out of her so quick and sure. Even when she repeated them, she did not reconsider. It was in that moment Faythe realized power didn’t make villains; love did.

One of the walls of the inn caved in, and so did part of the roof. Faythe recoiled, hands still braced on Reylan’s chest. His palm cupped her nape, their faces so close.

“Then choose me, my Phoenix. Break it.”

Reylan would never ask that of her. He was loyal and brave and would sacrifice himself if it meant the survival of his kingdom, his people.

This was not his right mind beneath her.

It was Marvellas.

Faythe let go.

All she knew next was endless chaos and weightless projection. Until she slammed into something solid in a punishing claim of gravity. It would have been worse were it not for Reylan, who held her tightly to him, shielding her with his whole body and taking the worst of the impact from the explosion.

The magick that had explored every internal piece of her was gone, and she breathed easier, peeling her eyes open to survey the destruction she’d caused. Yet in her selfishness she couldn’t even look around to face the consequences of her actions—all her attention fell on Reylan beside her, his arms limp around her.

“Reylan,” she choked. His eyes fluttered open to her relief, and she cupped a hand to his face. “I’m so sorry.”

“Faythe,” he whispered back.

“I’m right here.”

“We can’t let her win.”

“We won’t,” she promised. “I’m going to find a way to get this out of you and kill her with it.”

Reylan’s lips parted again, but he was too injured to release his next words.

Faythe forced herself up to face what she’d done. They lay amid the splinters of pain and tragedy. She hadn’t just collapsed this establishment—several surrounding buildings were caved in at various impact points because of her.

She didn’t know who she was anymore. Choosing violence for her own cause. She expected to see more casualties, and while there were bodies being pulled out of the icy wreckages, many more were cowering in fear. Had most managed to evacuate?

It didn’t matter. Lives were lost, and Faythe had claimed them with her newly tarnished soul.

Reylan was unconscious. His forehead bled, and dust coated his tanned skin. Faythe could run. It would be logical since he only had a mind to capture her and hurt her for Marvellas. Yet she shuffled closer, debris cutting her flesh and digging into her skin, until she was tucked into his body.

“I’m going to get you back,” she whispered into his chest. “I promise.”