Page 45 of A Flame of the Phoenix (An Heir Comes to Rise #6)
CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR
Faythe
F aythe couldn’t stare at her hollow reflection. Instead she picked at the pearls of her skirts while Marvellas combed her hair. The nausea turning within her hadn’t stopped since she’d been brought to this room, the same as before, when the young servants had bathed and dressed her before Marvellas arrived.
It was the act she was forced to endure that troubled her. Because every tender touch was like poison, every comb though her hair like betrayal, every sweet smile the Spirit gave her like pure manipulation, trying to convince Faythe that Marvellas could replace her mother and should not be her enemy.
She might have pitied Marvellas for the tale she tried to spin around them. An alternate reality she tried to force. It was tragic, and Faythe was nothing more than a trapped doll in her delusion.
Faythe’s sight kept catching on Nyte in the corner of the room, standing poised and quiet while he posed as Captain Daegal. He’d been the one to bring her here, and now he was forced to be in close proximity with his mother and couldn’t do a thing.
“You used to enjoy your hair in braids,” Marvellas said. “You would sit for hours and let me decorate your beautiful locks. They were lighter and shorter back then. Would you like me to cut it?”
The fact Marvellas was giving her the choice was jarring but just another seed of delusion, trying to convince herself Faythe would surrender in her fight to stop her.
I’m not her , Faythe wanted to say. I am not Aesira.
How she kept referring to Faythe as Aesira was starting to confuse her mind. Every time Faythe was weakened enough, Marvellas had been planting fond memories of herself and Aesira, which was starting to break apart Faythe’s right to retain her own identity. At the same time, she’d started to pluck Faythe’s most treasured parts about Reylan out.
Faythe couldn’t remember
She couldn’t rebel against Marvellas’s attempts to slip Faythe into the role of Aesira in the past. She had to learn more about Marvellas’s true history.
“Agalhor never mentioned his brother’s name before,” Faythe said.
Marvellas drew in a long breath, so lost in her task . “That’s because I wiped it from existence when he left me and took my son.”
“Not even I know my father’s name, because he doesn’t know it himself,” Nyte said—a loud thought projection meant for Faythe to catch.
Faythe blanched at the power that would take. To erase his name from the minds of everyone who knew him as the Prince of Rhyenelle.
“You forsook your duty as a Spirit for him?” Faythe posed it as a question.
“No. It was for a human.”
Faythe was slammed by that admission, realizing she was about to understand Marvellas’s hatred toward humans. It began with the reason she’d bound herself to a mortal form on their lands…for love.
“He visited my temple as nothing more than a wandering traveler with a thirst for knowledge on the three Spirits that balanced your world. There was something charming about him—blond with brown eyes and a kind face. He kept coming back, and I grew to enjoy his company. The way he talked, complimented me—I grew feelings I’d never had in all my eternity of watching over your lands. We both wanted more. I’d never known what it was to want something for myself—it is not what we Spirits are supposed to be capable of. But I did…and my want grew into an obsession. I confided in Dakodas to help me find a way to bind myself into a mortal body.”
Faythe swallowed hard, watching Marvellas lose herself in her own tale as she absentmindedly tended to Faythe.
“We lived nearly a decade together, and I had a human daughter. Then everything changed shortly after. I was ambushed by a dozen men who bound shackles on me that stole my power.”
Faythe’s heart skipped. The Aetherbonds , she thought.
“I waited for my human lover to come for me, and he did…because he was the one who’d orchestrated my capture. I couldn’t understand. I thought someone had gotten to him, a Nightwalker must have warped his thoughts…but it didn’t take long for the reality to shatter my delusional hope. He told me it was all a lie…his love for me was a lie. He knew all about the Spirits, every legend, every God. He knew my blood could be used to turn humans into fae. That was always his goal, and all he had to do was bide his time until the manacles were forged.”
Faythe couldn’t believe the story, but with the melancholy that kept Marvellas using the same lost tone, she did.
Nyte came a little closer, watching Marvellas with deeper attention as she told her tale.
“So you see, your books tell some truths, but they are never the whole and only truths. My love for a fae warrior came after my human lover’s betrayal.”
“How did you escape?”
Though her irises moved like the sun, she met Faythe’s stare in the mirror for a single pause that was so cold Faythe almost felt pity for what was to come.
“I was rescued from him—and from all those who’d worked with him and held me captive for centuries—by the Prince of Rhyenelle. I was still bound in the manacles, and we were searching for a way to release me. But they were forged in dark magick. I met an Oracle, who foretold that to be free of them I had to lose that which was most precious to me. Then I found out I was pregnant, and for a while I didn’t care how mortally bound I was in those manacles. I gave birth to a son—a fae this time. I loved my daughter for the decade he allowed me to keep her. Then she was taken from me, and two centuries passed. I only knew she’d gotten to live a full life and had her own daughters. I became aware of rumors of the gold-eyed children once I was freed. I was glad for that at least, but I couldn’t bear to seek any of them out, for they were only a reminder of the motherhood I’d lost. Then my fae son…the moment he was born, I could feel how powerful he would become. I loved him more than I thought myself capable of loving anything.”
Faythe dropped her eyes with the weight of the story. How a terrible, terrible turn was about to happen. Her sight flicked sideways to where Nyte had turned his back to them, his fists clenched tightly by his sides.
“I remember…” Faythe shook her head with the threads of memory she didn’t think she would ever fully grasp from her soul’s past. “I think Aesira knew where he was. Not in this realm.”
The comb paused in Faythe’s hair, and her heart skipped a beat.
“No, he is not,” Marvellas confirmed, starting a new braid. “The prince took the only thing I ever treasured truly in this world, assuming I would kill my son to break the manacles, since he was most precious to me. Do you believe me when I say that I would never have been capable of it?”
Faythe’s heart squeezed. “You killed me—or at least you planned to.”
“I don’t know if I would have gone through with it,” she confessed. Marvellas stood, wandering over to a jewelry box. “In taking my son beyond where I could search five hundred years ago, I did lose him. The prophesy was fulfilled. When my manacles released and my power was freed, all I had left was vengeance. My downfall started with human greed—when one who claimed to love me had tricked me and used my blood to make himself and others fae—so it was there I would begin. I visited the same Oracle as before. He told me I would need the help of another powerful entity like myself, but he warned such an alliance could turn to betrayal just as fast. So I planned to Ascend my sister, Dakodas, who was the only one who understood my choices. I needed Dakodas’s help to assume a mortal form, but Aurialis would never help in the same way as Dakodas. She always has been insufferably obsessed with her duty. But there was another way for Dakodas to gain a mortal form, which the Oracle showed me.”
Marvellas returned, holding up one red earring, then a sparkling blue sapphire, reminding Faythe of Reylan with a painful stab in her chest. The Spirit chose the red, fitting them on Faythe’s ears.
“To sacrifice one of your bloodline?” Faythe guessed to continue the tale.
“Not just any. My bloodline had long since been diluted from the human girl I gave birth to. So for the Ascension, it would take one who would come close to that purity. The offspring of a bloodline-blessed paired with a direct descendant.”
“Aesira,” Faythe concluded.
“Yes. Your soul is just as fierce as it was in that life. I captured Aesira’s mother and kept her under the mountain, and I killed her father, but I did not intend to form the attachment I did to Aesira. To you. You were so bright, joyous. You loved me back in the way I’d always dreamed of, but you were human, with such a fragile amount of time. When you came into adulthood at sixteen, I Transitioned you with my blood to keep you alive long enough to ascend Dakodas as I’d planned. But you became everything I hoped I would have found in my son. Light in my days when I was still making movements for the war I had started, using Valgard as the driving force. We were happy, and for a while, I thought we would conquer together, and I wouldn’t need Dakodas.”
The cool metal of the necklace she adorned Faythe with next was sharp compared to the heat of her skin from the adrenaline. The story of Marvellas was unfolding in Faythe’s mind with terrifying clarity. Images that should have been monochrome were given color, perhaps from some influence in her soul. Never full memories, but she could imagine it all so vividly as Marvellas spoke of their history.
“You said she died from a battle,” Faythe prompted.
“Yes, and I mourned deeply. I found you dying from three arrow wounds next to Reylan. The two of you looked a perfect picture of tragedy on that battlefield. I tried to warn you he would only bring you pain, but you would not listen. I knew of another use for your life when it was far too late to save you, and I was so angry, so impatient, that I used the last of your life to raise Mordecai Vesaria, the dark fae king who led the Dark Age. He might have failed in that conquest all that time ago, but I was hopeful he could amass and lead a great dark fae army for me. Your life force was a sacrifice to raise the dead, and I held onto your soul.”
Faythe watched her own lost and broken expression in the mirror. None of what Marvellas said felt real, but she couldn’t deny it touched her deep inside.
“Why did you bring me back?” she asked quietly.
“Your soul was fading in me. I was running out of time. So I planted the essence of a mating bond within your mother—a descendant of mine—for Agalhor to become compelled to her. Perhaps it was petty of me to wish pain upon him for what his brother had done, but aside from that, he was known as one of the most powerful Nightwalkers to have ever lived, and I needed you as strong as possible for Dakodas’s Ascension on the millennium eclipse. I vowed this time I would not fall for you. When I first sensed Lilianna had finally conceived, all that was left to do was plant your soul before another could manifest. At first I thought I would leave Lilianna and Agalhor to raise their child until the time would come for me to take her. Until Lilianna Aklinsera stole you away. She went to High Farrow, because it’s where Aurialis’s temple is, and with her help, you remained masterfully untraceable to me.”
Wetness trailed down Faythe’s cheeks, but she made no sound. It was twisted, what Marvellas had done, but all her actions were crafted in heartbreak. Faythe was merely the unfortunate soul to have been caught in it all.
“I’m sorry all of that happened to you,” she said, and she meant it.
Marvellas gave Faythe’s arms a gentle squeeze as she leaned in, her smile warm and motherly, and it was jarring to feel it in her chest.
“I didn’t expect you come back after you were killed for Dakodas. So how can I not see this as destiny finally leaning in my favor? All that came before can be forgotten, because we will rule together, be together , for eternity.”
Despite knowing the truth, Faythe would never lose sight of the end that had to come. Marvellas had to die, and Faythe despised her for all she’d done. That would never change.
Faythe met her eye in the mirror and immediately wished she hadn’t.
Marvellas seized the connection to unfold images in Faythe’s mind. Old, old memories that Faythe knew didn’t belong to her. This wasn’t her life.
Aesira’s joy was so genuine with Marvellas. They laughed, enjoying the simple pastime of brushing her hair, just as she was doing with Faythe now.
Faythe’s hands slammed to the dresser as she stood, her breathing heavy as she tried to expel those memories.
It was not her. It is not me.
Even with that settling in her heart again, Faythe was overcome with sadness for young Aesira, who’d had no knowledge she was in the arms of her captor.
“You murdered her parents to take her,” Faythe said. “That is not love.”
“I spared her from a life of poverty.”
“I had a life of poverty,” Faythe said, her fire rising, “and I was happier than I ever will be with you, no matter how you try to twist my mind.”
The Spirit’s hand connected with her cheek with great impact when Faythe stood and whirled around. Nyte shifted in the corner, but he couldn’t intervene without arousing suspicion.
Marvellas’s beloved son was right there, and yet Faythe was at the mercy of her cursed love, not him. She bit her lip against the cry that wanted to escape, holding her throbbing cheek, with a few breaths to calm herself. When she did, she spared a look of sympathy for him.
“I will never be yours, Marvellas. Even if there are times you manage to twist my mind enough to hold this fantasy of yours, I will always break free, and I will never stop despising everything you are.”
Faythe whimpered at the sensation of sharp talons sinking into her mind. They kept tightening, and Faythe’s legs became weak, sinking her to the ground slowly.
“I’ve been too merciful with you thus far,” Marvellas hissed. Her mental claws sank deeper, and Faythe’s head exploded at the pain as if her brain were bleeding. “I will break you, Faythe. Then you will be mine willingly.”
Her knees met the ground, and Faythe stared up at the smooth white roof. Her eyes traced the filigree medallion around the chandelier.
All she could do in her helpless state was recite to herself the things she guarded with iron will from Marvellas’s vile intrusions in her mind. To remember who and what she was and would always be.
My name is Faythe Ashfyre.
She paused, and with a rush of determination to survive this with her mate in her heart, she amended, starting again:
My name is Faythe Arrowood Ashfyre, soul-bonded to Reylan Arrowood Ashfyre. Daughter of Agalhor and Lilianna. Rightful Queen of Rhyenelle. I am Reylan’s strength, Nik’s wisdom, and Tauria’s resilience. Jakon’s courage, and Marlowe’s knowledge. I am not alone, and I will not die today.