Page 48 of A Flame of the Phoenix (An Heir Comes to Rise #6)
CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN
Zaiana
N othing about this day felt right. Something dark and chilling tainted the air. As if Death had crept into these walls, waiting. Not Dakodas, but the true and most final entity of the word.
Zaiana decided today she would confront Marvellas—that had to be the cause of the nerves racking her body. She was no stranger to questioning authority, but this was the pinnacle of her rebellion, and she wasn’t certain she would walk away.
It didn’t matter to her now, so long as Marvellas went down with her.
Her plan was neither for Faythe nor the dark side. It was purely for her own vengeance.
She just needed her confession. To know what Malin claimed and Kyleer suspected was true. Marvellas had tied a curse to her somehow that stilled the hearts of every dark fae, born or Transitioned, making them believe they were unfeeling monsters. Then, when Zaiana herself had started to feel love in her chest for Finnan, Marvellas had stolen that too in the coldest way.
Zaiana was a storm of wrath, but she kept herself collected.
Her path was intercepted, and Zaiana could have taken her blade to Maverick’s chest to remove him.
“Whatever you’re doing, it can’t be today,” he said, a rare urgency in his voice.
“Get out of my way before I make you.”
“Come with me, please.”
It was the plea that dissolved her ire just a little for how out of character it was.
“What’s happening?”
“Run away with me.”
That statement hit her like a blast of her own lightning, so much so she couldn’t respond right away, blinking as if she could still be asleep. Then she laughed—the only logical thing that came to mind, because he had to be joking.
His expression never changed.
“I’m serious. We can leave and never look back. They won’t find us, I promise.”
“You can’t be serious. That…that’s ridiculous.”
“Why?”
“Because I hate you. And you hate me.”
“Hatred is a bright form of passion.”
“Tell me what’s happening,” she demanded.
He’d lost his mind. At that thought, Zaiana blanched, backing away from him.
Could Marvellas be manipulating him right now? Could she have caught on to how much Zaiana had figured out, knowing she was coming for her, and was trying another trick with Maverick like she had with Finnian?
Or worse, had Maverick gone to Marvellas with all Zaiana had told him of her suspicions? She’d been a fool to trust him, but she was not backing away now. Not running away.
“She’ll kill you, Zaiana.”
“For what?”
“If you go against her now?—”
Zaiana pushed past him, but he grabbed her wrist. Hers lashed over his, twisting and crouching, with a cry from the effort. He was thrown over her shoulder, and she seethed down at him.
“Don’t try to stop me,” she warned.
Zaiana was too far gone in her need for retribution. Even if it killed her.
“It’s a full moon. She hasn’t been keeping Faythe and her commander for no reason with no action. She’s been waiting.”
It registered in Zaiana immediately. She was going to Transition Faythe? Of course. A royal. But why would Maverick be so concerned about that?
“She got herself caught knowing that was a risk.”
Zaiana pushed off him, and Maverick stood, still blocking her way. Her fists clamped against the tremors of her temper.
“It requires a fae sacrifice.”
That was when she understood. With a claw of panic in her chest and a siren blaring louder than ever…she understood.
“You’re too volatile right now.” He tried to grab her again, and they fought, slamming each other into the walls. He tried to restrain her, but she was lost under waves of anxiety that he was preventing her from interfering.
“So help me, Maverick, I will kill you.”
He grabbed her arms, pushing her against the wall, and she held him with a death stare.
“Just think for a moment, dammit,” he said, heaving breaths like her. “We’ve both been summoned to the celestial dome, so I’m coming with you. I just thought I’d offer one last out before you set your course for him.”
“It’s not for him,” she hissed. It was a lie, but Kyleer wasn’t the sole reason she needed to face Marvellas. “She killed Finnian.”
Maverick’s face relaxed. Not in surprise at the knowledge, but almost like…
Zaiana became awash with a sickly dread, feeling her world start to spin. “You knew.”
He didn’t deny it. Zaiana couldn’t see; couldn’t feel. Her hands planted to his chest, and the next moment Maverick crashed against the wall opposite. She’d pushed hard enough that pieces of the stone crumbled, and he groaned in a hunch to collect himself.
“I never confirmed it, but I suspected,” he confessed. “That bastard wasn’t capable of harming a damned insect. And it was disgusting how much he loved you.”
Zaiana wasn’t thinking anymore. Unseeing rage overcame her as she slammed her fist into his jaw. Maverick could have blocked it, but he didn’t. He spat black blood onto the ground.
“Be glad you’re the least of my problems right now, but I will come for you if you don’t stay out of my way,” she snarled.
Zaiana stormed toward the place he called the celestial dome, knowing nothing but grief and guilt and sorrow and pain and anguish and…
Her eyes burned, and her hands trembled. Every emotion she was told she could have stirred like a volcanic eruption, on the verge of breaking.
Zaiana still had her wits, however. She concealed the lower half of her face and pulled up her hood. Though she wanted to raze the Nether, she still didn’t have her magick. She had to be strategic.
“Dome” was accurate to describe the sphere of glass that encased the large circular room. It was breathtaking. Very little light was needed in here when the moon blessed the space, flooding a beautiful cool glow over the expanse. The stars shone brilliantly, magnified by the glass. Constellations spilled over the floor, and Zaiana felt pulled to chart them, drawn to one in particular that began to glow from the others, but she snapped her focus back down to survey her surroundings.
It was tragic what the stars were about to witness tonight.
Cloaked, masked, and hooded, Zaiana slipped into the space, keeping to the back of the guards and poised as still as them.
Marvellas stood as the brightest thing in the room, surrounded by darkly cloaked guards. Zaiana’s wrath toward the Spirit was a fire she kept under conscious control.
Zaiana had nothing to lose in seeking her retribution.
When Zaiana spotted Maverick approaching close to the Spirit, her resentment for him sparked anew. His cheek was bruised, but it would heal fast. She despised him even more…because despite it all, she still felt something else in the pit of her stomach that wanted to tell him to flee. To leave her behind and just go .
“Let’s not waste a moment, shall we?” Marvellas said, so proud and calm.
They brought in Faythe, and Zaiana internally winced at the sorry state of her. So much power and potential reduced to nothing. But she was still fighting. She had to be, or this Transition wouldn’t be necessary.
It was tragic, really, what the Spirit wanted from her. To play house was so twisted and wrong, yet one could sympathize with her craving for the one thing always slipping out of her reach. Love.
Zaiana’s resentment twisted like a knife when in turn the Spirit had deprived her people of such an emotion too.
Zaiana had watched this sinister ritual many times. Something wasn’t right.
A stunning silver-haired fae was dragged in, with sky-blue eyes that might have once sparkled like the great waters, but now they were lifeless. This fae was brought to her knees in the middle, but she wondered at her purpose.
Had Maverick been wrong? Had he tricked her into believing Kyleer would be the fae sacrifice so she would leave with him like a coward? She didn’t let her relief soothe any of her anxiety just yet.
Next, Zaiana least expected to see this particular familiar face. Faythe’s sobs broke with fresh heartbreak at seeing Augustine escorted in, not fighting. The usual spirited, playful Oracle bowed his head, led in like a broken dog. Had he seen this coming? What a terrible burden it would be to know where, maybe even exactly when, death’s hand would reach.
“I had sent for Marlowe as it would have been all the more poetic. But her father happened to be there, offering himself up, and I can’t deny his blood will be more powerful with how long he’s lived,” Marvellas said, pleased. “Before Mordecai, I could create dark fae with the spell of Transition using the spiritual blood of an Oracle. But it is not so effective. It would often create those too savage, like a disease rather than a powerful function. It worked to create some fully able dark fae, but it wasn’t until I had Mordecai’s blood that the odds of it were far greater. I guess we’ll see if this one turns out successful.”
After all the Spirit had done to get Faythe, it seemed ludicrous she would risk her life on this Transition.
When shuffling sounded, Zaiana expected to find them dragging Faythe forward to kneel with the sacrifices. Instead, it took everything in her—absolutely everything—not to break her position.
It was Kyleer.
Her blood turned cold.
They brought him to the center of the room and pushed him to his knees beside Augustine and the silver-haired fae. Zaiana’s vision tilted. There were one too many fae.
Faythe gave the outward reaction Zaiana could hardly tame from within herself.
It became clear to her then…so hauntingly clear.
This night wouldn’t be to Transition Faythe.
It was for Kyleer.
She could only conclude it was meant to break Faythe’s spirits, which remained strong despite any other efforts. And it was working. Faythe didn’t stop struggling against the two guards who held her. Despite the Magestone buried in her flesh and the near-death sight of her pale, slicked flesh, Faythe fought for him.
It was futile, and this Transition…unstoppable.
He won’t survive it.
It was all her thoughts roared. A pounding erupted in her head, filling her ears with cotton and blocking out any logical sense to leave, only impulse and desperation threatening to break her.
“Maverick.” Marvellas called him over.
Kyleer meant nothing to her. Should mean nothing to her.
Yet that statement gave a haughty laugh in the voice of Death that laid a closer claim to him.
Maverick hesitated . Near undetectable. No one else would have noticed.
“Please!” Faythe cried, becoming hysterical.
It took three guards to restrain her, and she sympathized with Faythe then, knowing exactly how it felt to harbor magick that could destroy them all and have it silenced when she needed it most.
Zaiana had never wanted anything in her life. Never thought she cared for anything enough to place it above her own survival.
Her fingertips flexed behind her back, feeling a prickling sensation grow. It wasn’t enough. Not close to the well she knew could erupt lightning through this room.
“You’ve defied me for too long, Faythe. I’m hoping this might make you realize how impatient I’m becoming.”
“I’ll do anything you want—just please don’t hurt him!” Faythe sobbed.
Zaiana could hardly hear her. Anything. Her mind was stilling to a calm so cold and lethal as she watched only Kyleer. Seconds turned to a sound in her mind: a loud countdown to the end of the world.
“I’ve tried to be patient with you—even kind. I’m afraid your chances are gone.”
Augustine spoke, spilling a silent tear as he did, only to Faythe. “You were right. She was absolutely wonderful, and a privilege to have met.”
Faythe knew what he meant, and it broke down the heir even more.
Then a blade sliced his throat. Zaiana wanted to look away from his final stare of agony held on the stars.
She couldn’t move an inch.
A guard came forward, collecting blood that pooled from his neck as he choked on it. Everything about this was a painting of gruesome depravity. A heinous way to have Faythe watch her friends die.
Zaiana’s next exhale shuddered from her with a slip of rage when Maverick gripped Kyleer, yanking his head back. Augustine’s blood spilled over the sides of his mouth as he was forced to drink it. Murderous rage toward Maverick overcame her far more powerfully than anything she’d felt in the heat of their worst battles. He leaned down subtly, saying something in Kyleer’s ear.
A cloaked person on their knees was reciting the forbidden and ancient words of the dark spell, tracing markings on the ground with the spilled spiritual blood.
“Please stop,” Faythe sobbed.
Time raced forward so fast. Too fast.
As a guard drew a blade to approach the silver-haired fae, Maverick poised his over Kyleer’s throat, and Zaiana’s fate became sealed to his knowing what she was about to do.
Zaiana finally broke.
Her first dagger lodged into the throat of the dark fae in front of her. Spinning, the one beside her clutched his hands to his neck with the slice she’d made over it in the same breath. There was nothing but her and those in her way to Kyleer. She fell two more before she caught the flicker of blue she was all too familiar with.
Zaiana moved like the wind to the dart of flame, feeling the hot breath of it pass her before it slammed into two dark fae she’d maneuvered in front of.
“Stop!” Maverick called, but he braced with another attack.
Zaiana pinned him with a promise of death.
The room erupted to chaos, with guards advancing to stop her, and Zaiana gave herself over to the merciless killer she was. Her hand plunged through the chest of a fae, tearing the heart from his ribs, and she kicked his body away only to reach back, hooking arms around the neck of a fae behind her, and his neck snapped as she lunged down, crying out with the force it took to twist his head over her shoulder.
“Enough!” Marvellas bellowed.
Zaiana felt the invasion in her mind. It took hold of her movements, but Zaiana was too far gone in her defiance that she shattered the mental grip. It wasn’t without a pain like no other that split her mind, blackening her vision.
Zaiana. Didn’t. Stop.
Two guards managed to take hold of her in the moment she was debilitated. As soon as her vision returned enough, her iron guard pierced the flesh of one of them, scoring across his neck, and her other sharp finger guards plunged into the eye of the another. Their shrill cries in her ears were as victorious as they were damning when the weight of her headache to defy Marvellas was becoming too much.
Then a heat scorched her chest, having been too occupied with the guards to keep track of Maverick.
Her back slammed into a wall before she fell to all fours.
She couldn’t give up.
It wasn’t over.
Zaiana’s head snapped up with a frantic fear, locking her sight to the wide, moss-green eyes of Kyleer.
This moment became a cruel mirror copy of the time she’d watched Maverick in the same position.
She never should have cared for that fae. Callen Osirion. Not now he’d become the thing that stood to take everything from her.
When she watched the knife Marvellas held slice over Kyleer’s neck and drown in his blood, something more deadly than fury overcame her. More powerful than hate.
Kyleer was her fight.
The first fight she had that wasn’t just to survive but to live .
She recalled the time she’d had the choice of kill or mercy, confronting him in a meaningless alley in Fenstead. For the first time in her life of emotionless killing…
She’d let Kyleer live.
Only to watch him die now.
The dormant well of magick inside her didn’t just awaken.
It exploded.
Her lightning expelled from her in waves so strong she was only the vessel for the storm that snapped around them. As if through all this time of silence it had been building for this moment. Glass shattered, and it rained beautiful weapons. She stopped any of them from hitting Kyleer.
It couldn’t be too late.
Zaiana had one target overall, and when she found the flaming beauty, it was a triumph to see the cuts across the Spirit’s pale skin from the fallen glass dome.
“You were supposed to be everything, Zaiana. Now look what you’ve become,” Marvellas spat.
Zaiana answered by drawing her hands together, charging a ball of energy within, and sending it hurtling for the Spirit.
She didn’t get to witness whether it struck when movement caught in the side of her vision. Zaiana spun low, her knees cut over the glass shards, but it was worth it for the twin blades that sliced through the backs of the guard’s knees. He didn’t get the chance to fall before she plunged one through his neck.
Then she came face-to-face with Maverick.
“Stop this,” he said, far too soft and calm.
The monster in her laughed gleefully.
“Never.”
She attacked, seeing nothing but a traitor. This was his fault.
Maverick only deflected, and the lack of strike back only made her push harder.
The next gathering in her palm that prepared to shoot for him never got to release.
Zaiana tensed against moving. An invasion twisted her thoughts, turning her mind against itself, and her head throbbed wildly in resistance.
Zaiana was being pulled under, into a peaceful darkness she didn’t want.
She had to know that Kyleer was alive.
In her helplessness, all she could do was search for his heart.
Maverick caught her before she had the chance to fall.
The last of her fight struggled against him. “You’re a coward!” she cried. Zaiana hit her weak first against his chest but he held her tightly. “You’re a coward! ”
Gods , she was hurting more than she thought any person could withstand. Not on her flesh, or even her mind. Her chest caved in on itself, and she might have been dying from her tight bottling of emotions she’d guarded for centuries that finally shattered.
“I’m so sorry, Zaiana,” Maverick said, so quiet maybe he hadn’t spoken at all. “I’m so sorry.”
The sounds were canceled out one by one. That control remained hers. She found three heartbeats in the room but kept searching. She would know Kyleer’s in a room of a thousand.
It happened so silently and slowly it wasn’t something she could stop, this attachment she harbored at the sound of it. Zaiana found herself looking for it even when she knew he was nowhere near. She listened to other beats, finding every one of them was off-key. His was her perfect song.
And it was gone.
It was then she learned still hearts could break. They could shatter. And the pain of that erupted in her chest, so desperate for an outlet she screamed. The world blasted to pieces and reformed at that cry of anguish.
When it did, a drum was racing in her chest.
It battered against her ribs as if a beast had made a home inside her and she had to claw it out. Hands clasped to her chest, she was ready to sink her iron guards into her flesh to be rid of the taunting creature. No one was restraining her anymore.
“Make it stop,” she breathed, not familiar with this kind of panic. “Make it stop. Make it stop. ”
Zaiana crawled to Kyleer.
Make it stop.
Make it stop.
The more she tried to block out the loud drum, the more it pulsed in her ears and sped in her chest, making her skin feel like paper in its efforts to break free.
Make it stop.
Make it stop.
Make it stop.
She slumped over Kyleer’s body, head falling to his chest that was so still.
Hers wasn’t.
It was… alive .
Though she wished it were vacant to match his. She deserved it, not him. But maybe this was her penance with the agony those beats pumped in her blood, faster and warmer than she’d even felt before despite the snowfall lying around them from the ruins of the celestial dome.
If it killed her, if she died here, Zaiana promised to search for Kyleer’s heart in the next life.