Page 49 of A Flame of the Phoenix (An Heir Comes to Rise #6)

CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

Faythe

W hen Faythe watched Kyleer’s life get claimed by the blade across his throat, her mouth opened in horror, but it wasn’t her scream of denial that turned every color of blood in the room to ice.

Lightning erupted. Violent strokes sharpened to anguish and rage. Faythe knew in that moment everything about the still organ occupying the dark fae’s chest was false, as Zaiana’s broke and bled her emotions. All for Kyleer.

Faythe could only brace to absorb the ferocity from her, knowing she wouldn’t avoid the outpouring of a storm that had been bottled for so long it had been unleashed now with devastating force.

The impact threw her back. Curving into herself, Faythe couldn’t move, immobilized by the soul-obliterating torture shredding her own heart, which clashed with the shock of Zaiana’s defiance.

Zaiana had tried to save him.

Faythe couldn’t stop replaying that moment that would haunt her for the rest of her days.

Kyleer…he was gone.

She had been helpless to stop the fatal wound.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. It was supposed to be her . They had gotten it all so horribly wrong. Gus… Faythe mourned for him too.

All Faythe could do was bow her head while chaos ensued around her. Zaiana was still fighting. Faythe clamped her eyes shut and pressed her hands over her ears. Faythe wished only for one person. Over and over. The one she needed to survive the worst nightmare of her existence.

Then everything around her stopped.

The crashing. The voices. The chaos.

Beneath her became so much colder. Then wetter.

Finally, she opened her eyes to the harsh air across her face. By her sheer desperation and heartache alone, she must have Shadowported herself here.

Faythe scrambled to push herself up, gasping at the ice that nipped her palms.

Her vision was restricted by blasts of wind that forced her to squint through the blizzard. The air she breathed was sharp and bitter, bashing her teeth together, but as she looked through the trees and found windows with gentle glows of flame…Faythe knew where she was.

This was the cabin Reylan was tied up within.

By the time she reached the small dwelling, Faythe’s wet hair was slicked around her face, and she burst through the door, panting with exertion.

“Reylan,” she breathed.

He was still there, still kneeling, with arms splayed and head bowed as if he were a tragic statue of sacrifice. He didn’t even look up at her frantic intrusion. Detecting his shallow intakes of breath was the only indicator he was alive.

Faythe fell to her knees with him and took his limp head in her hands.

“Reylan, I need you,” she croaked, her tears spilling over.

The ruin still pulsed with deadly power in his chest. Faythe shook her head as if it would expel its calls.

Faythe didn’t want to use any more power. She clamped her hands over her ears, willing the dark chants of the ruin to stop calling to her just for a moment. Her grief made it even more difficult, translating to the chaos the ruins fed on. Aurialis had once warned her she needed to better control her negative emotions if she ever hoped to wield a ruin.

So tired.

She was so, so tired.

“Phoenix.” That single word. His gentle tone. Faythe cried, wanting to push through her agony to see him.

Her gold eyes peeled open, but she couldn’t stop the world from spinning around her to catch a clear picture of Reylan.

“I need you to free me,” he said, and his voice was her way back to full awareness.

Faythe reached for his face again, but it didn’t take long staring into his beautiful blue eyes to see the shadowy possession still holding him. He was trying to be convincing, but she knew. Faythe smiled at him, playing along.

“I’m going to free you,” she said.

“The key is above the fireplace,” Reylan informed her.

Faythe could hardly bear to stand, but she made it to the fireplace that scorched her skin too hot. Returning with the key, she hesitated when she took his first wrist. Sapphire melted into gold with their shared look of pain.

“Please.”

Her heart squeezed .

Faythe freed his first wrist, aching more at the sight of the thick abrasions. She went for the other.

Reylan took a moment, rubbing his wrists. Faythe’s heart was erratic watching him, his head bowed. Then, slowly, a cruel, foreign smile crept up the corners of his lips.

“Such a bleeding heart,” he growled. “You shouldn’t have come.”

Then he lunged for her.

Faythe opened her mouth to respond, but her words were choked by Reylan’s hands lashing around her neck.

He was far stronger right now. He would be unless she harnessed the power of the ruin. But she would only have one chance if she opened herself to it—one moment to either break it or let it amplify her power to a deadly capacity.

Faythe had fled from one horrifying nightmare into the clutches of another.

“You won’t kill me,” she wheezed.

He wasn’t capable of it. She had to believe that.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said, his voice so sinister it were as if the ruin were speaking through him. “Marvellas doesn’t have what it takes to rule this world, but I do. With this power, I can contend with her.”

Faythe choked, thrown onto her back. Reylan circled her like a lion while she struggled for stolen air.

“You can’t kill her without the ruin,” Faythe enlightened him.

Reylan’s wicked smile widened. “I have it,” he said smugly. Crouching, Reylan’s fingers brushed the tangled hair from her face with deceptive tenderness. “I’m surprised you haven’t realized yet… which ruin I have in me.”

Confusion fluttered through her panic. Faythe eyed the distortion on his chest she could see through his thin shirt. It called to her like it always did, but Faythe focused on it—actually listened to the whispers and let her body feel it.

Darkness caressed her skin; shadows leaked through her mind.

Darkness…like death .

“Oh Gods,” Faythe breathed.

All this time, there hadn’t been even another consideration, another reason to believe the ruin embedded in Reylan was any other than Marvellas’s.

“Dakodas found me in Rhyenelle,” Reylan said. He cupped a large hand around her nape, pulling her up and holding her. “Before we all ended up on that courtyard. She offered me a choice. We were backed into a corner. Marvellas was always going to implant her ruin in one of us, and Dakodas wanted me to swap them before she did. I agreed then to be able to give you Marvellas’s ruin to kill her once and for all. I didn’t care what happened to me. So when Marvellas took me to retrieve hers, I switched it with Dakodas’s before they embedded it in my chest.”

How could she not have seen it sooner?

“Now I have Marvellas’s ruin to kill her, and as I’ve come to learn, there are manacles—Aetherbonds—which can seal away the power of the greatest being, and then I can stop Dakodas too. You don’t happen to know where they are, do you?”

Faythe’s mind was racing too fast for her comprehension right now.

Reylan switched the ruins.

Reylan has the Death Ruin inside him.

“That ruin is corrupting you,” Faythe said desperately.

“Do you know why I wanted you to break it? Because if you do, it will split a void for shadow creatures to emerge.”

Horror flooded her veins.

“Why would you want that?”

“Because they will purge this world of sinners.”

“Everyone is a sinner.”

Reylan’s smile spread, wickedly triumphant. “Exactly. Death’s realm will begin to thrive again.”

“No…”

“Yes, Faythe. There are two choices for you. I kill you here, then I kill Marvellas with her ruin she thinks is in me, then I find the Aetherbonds to lock away Dakodas’s power. This realm will be mine.”

It wasn’t him in the slightest. He was a vessel to this ruin that wanted conquest in death and darkness, perhaps a worse fate than Marvellas had planned in her course of genocide.

If Faythe broke the ruin…she was enlightened to the creatures she would unleash that would begin devouring everyone .

“The other choice?” Faythe asked, keeping her voice steady as she stared into his beautiful alive eyes.

“You break the ruin. We kill Marvellas together, lock away Dakodas together, and watch the world burn from its sins.”

Two choices, both damning to the world. The second would give her Reylan back, but he would be horrified with what she’d done to have him.

Faythe held his eyes with such desperation, as if his true self would surface to tell her what to do.

Unexpectedly, he kissed her, and Faythe gave in to it. Just for a moment.

Then she braced herself…and splayed her palm over the ruin, opening herself to its power.

His fist tightened in her hair, pulling her close as surges of magick tore through them both, raw and electric. The pain that had once racked her body faded. She forgot why she had been crying. Everything dulled to nothing under the overwhelming rush of power now flooding her veins. For the first time she felt unstoppable, a fierce strength blazing within her, hot and boundless.

Faythe seized that newfound power, feeling it pulse under her control, and channeled it through her palm pressed firmly against Reylan’s chest. Her hand glowed with intensity as the energy surged forward, flowing into him with a force that made the air crackle around them.

But she couldn’t make such a detrimental choice yet.

Reylan flew back from her force of magick, crashing into the wall. Faythe flipped herself onto her hands and knees, but before she could scramble up, Reylan was already upon her again, dragging her back by her ankle.

Flipped onto her back, Faythe kicked his chest, connecting with the ruin again. Every time they physically connected through the ruin, together they skipped through so much color and space. Towns and cities. Paths of endless possibilities.

An entangling inferno of darkness and fire raged through her, and Faythe turned starving for it.

There were few times Faythe had felt this alive. Unchallenged. This kind of magick, if not careful, could corrode her soul.

When they plummeted back to their reality, Faythe was breathless but reforged.

“You chose death then,” Reylan snarled, furious with her rebellion.

“Not today,” she said, right before her hands collected a gale of light that she threw at him.

Reylan broke through the wall of the cabin this time.

Faythe didn’t waste a precious second—she raced out of the hut.

Reylan or the world. Reylan or the world. Reylan or the world.

How was she to make such an impossible choice? One was selfish. Completely, villainously selfish. But she wanted him so badly, clinging to a thread in her being that screamed at her to never let him go; that once they were together, they could figure out how to right all that Faythe had wronged.

Only the moon illuminated the night enough for her to make it out of the tree line. She didn’t have a plan as Reylan’s chase stormed over the snow. Her mind whipped between the two choices Reylan left her with. Both were so detrimental Faythe struggled to accept either.

Her time was running out.

Faythe felt him following. Lightning pricked her fingertips, and she turned to send a strike toward Reylan. He took the power from her effortlessly, sending the strokes of amethyst parrying right back. Faythe narrowly avoided their paths by ducking behind trees.

The timber behind her split with the next blast Reylan sent into it, and Faythe shrieked, her heart choking in her throat as the tree began to fall. She had to dive out of the way to avoid being crushed under it.

Faythe had barely managed to scramble back to her feet when a sense raising the hairs on her nape made her whirl around. Light magick surged from her glowing palm as a natural defense. It collided with a stroke of dark power of the likes she’d never seen nor felt before. Faythe’s other hand joined the strain to hold steadfast against Reylan when the dark was winning against the light. Their collusion fused, so beautiful yet deadly, and Reylan stood just as mesmerized as the world around them began to gild in her vision.

Pushing harder, the strength of their powers became so much for them that it erupted in a flare that sent Faythe soaring back. She slammed into a tree, and the pain that impacted her head threatened her consciousness. Faythe’s senses lapped back slowly to feel the snow melting under her face, turning her skin numb. She was so tired, barely able to angle her arms to lift herself from the freezing ground.

Faythe cried when she was flipped onto her back suddenly, and Reylan straddled her, pinning her hands by her head. Even with the loathing and rage sharpening his features, he was so beautiful against the moonlight, with the snow falling around them.

“It’s okay,” she breathed. There was nothing left to do but accept peace. This moment she had with him. “I found you. I will always find you. In every realm and in every time, Reylan Arrowood.”

Reylan only stared at her, searching her eyes with confusion but struggling against the demand in him against her.

“Why do I feel this way?”

Her heart skipped a beat. “What way?”

Reylan’s eyes scrunched shut. He was slipping. There was a glimmer of hope he could come back to her, and it was slipping away.

“Like I have to kill you but I don’t know if I have the strength to do it.”

Faythe’s eyes dropped to the glowing ruin in his chest. “Me neither,” she whispered. Tears slipped down past her ears.

Their time was up.

Faythe had to try .

A shrill caw broke over the silent night. Faythe had felt Atherius moments ago. The flaming beauty soared up from the edge of the mountain like the sun rising blazing and triumphant against the night. She landed, melting the surrounding snow instantly, and her chest heaved, ready to blast toward them.

It distracted Reylan long enough that Faythe’s leg hooked around him, flipping their positions.

Her vision blurred, her heart cleaved in two, and her soul wailed as she said, “Please come back to me,” and pressed both her palms to the ruin.

Their souls… transcende d.

They touched the beginning of time and the end of it. She saw the birth of stars and the chaos of constellations. The first light and the last darkness.

A voice echoed to her through the void she drifted in.

If you break the ruin, you will damn your world.

It was Aurialis.

Reylan’s face came to her in opaque flashes. It had never twisted with so much pain and pleading.

“It’s not my world without him,” Faythe whispered.

Her soul plummeted back into her body, returning the sensation of the magick that burned through her more powerfully than she’d ever known before. Faythe anchored herself through the feeling of her hands on her mate, and she would never let him go. With a battle cry from the Gods, Faythe pushed her magick harder . Deep into the crevices, splitting apart the ruin with piercing wails.

Time fractured, and the world erupted.

Faythe was flying, thrown by an impact that separated her mind from the explosion of pain in her body. The bright flare of light stole her away from the consequence of her actions.

She was standing in a dark hall, in front of a massive statue towering high. A cloaked figure with no face, only a depthless hood. It held a scythe, a chip missing from the under curve of the blade.

Around the huge statue, the still black birds began to find movement, twitching until the first broke off to fly. Then another. And another. Terror seized her when hundreds of ravens beat around the space. The towering figure warped and shrank, the illusion weaving a dizzy spell as it became a tall mortal size and glided for her across a shallow, rippling pool of dark water.

“What are you?” Faythe breathed.

“I am the thing every being fears to meet, but their hand in mine is inevitable.”

Faythe was chilled to her core. “Death,” she uttered.

Oh Gods, had she failed?

“I like to ask, what is it you fear about coming with me?”

Faythe broke inside. “I can’t leave my friends. I can’t leave him. I’m not done yet.”

The primordial hummed. “My children have caused something of a mess in your realm. It is why I had to awaken the essences of the mortal Gods to unite against them. Power, strength, wisdom, resilience, courage, knowledge, light and dark as one.”

“Your children?”

“Life, death, and soul. I have many of them, across many ages and realms.”

Faythe raised a hand to her heart that didn’t beat in here. “Aurialis has been helping us.”

“Or is she another power that has managed to manipulate you with gentler means?”

Her instinct was to rebut that accusation. All this time, Aurialis had guided her. She’d been the Spirit on their side, and Faythe wouldn’t have gotten this far without her.

“No. You’re the one with your own agenda, wanting to unleash the shadow creatures that will feed your realm with the people from mine.”

“I will admit, that is a highly advantageous turn of events for me. You see, fate has many paths, and this one leads in my favor. My realm has been starved by meddling Gods in another realm not so different from yours. Reaping all the souls is highly tempting, but against every law of how balance should be achieved.”

Faythe couldn’t decide if this primordial was against what would unfold with the shadow creatures.

“How do I stop them?” Faythe pleaded.

“You already know there is one weapon that can kill the undead. You also know what was used to forge it.”

Faythe racked her brain desperately.

“The Ember Sword,” she concluded.

“Phoenixfyre destroys, while Shadowfyre controls.”

She didn’t know what that meant— Shadowfyre . She’d never heard of such a concept.

Death said, “I’m going to show you some memories, Faythe Ashfyre. They don’t begin with you, but they have always been destined to end with you.”

Faythe fell to her knees, not entirely of her own conscious thought. Her hands fell into the shallow pool around her, and the reflection of her horrified expression changed. The water swirled, filling with color, starlight, and wonder, and she wanted to tear her sight away, but that wasn’t within her control anymore. The moving pictures hooked onto her, and she was compelled to watch the past of her world unfold.

Faythe saw the dawning of the world the seven Gods had created. Zaiana had told her their names before: Demetris, the God of Strength. Erosen, the God of Wisdom. Iyana, the Goddess of Knowledge. Helios, the God of Courage. Fedara, the Goddess of Resilience. Kitana, the Goddess of Darkness and Light. Lasenna, the Goddess of Power.

She watched the mortals they’d created in their image live their age, bear their children, and see through ages of peace. Faythe saw the age of demons, human-like beings with piercing red eyes, and the annihilation of them. She tumbled through the Dark Age led by Mordecai Vesaria and saw how the mighty continents of Ungardia and Salenhaven came together to stop him. Faythe got to see the fall of Marvellas to land, her tragic captivity, and her freedom.

In the mere blink of her eyes, Faythe had captured the beginning and the end of her world.

She couldn’t move. No mind should harbor this much knowledge, and Faythe didn’t know how hers would contain it.

“ Fesia omarte, Fesia lasera.” Death spoke the old language Zaiana once had.

Fall one, fall all.

“You are the One, Faythe Ashfyre. Not just the Heir of Marvellas but the Heir of Lasenna. But without the others fulfilling their destiny, you will fall, and all will be lost for this world.”

Faythe’s mind began to recite her vow, because a part of her had already figured it out:

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.

Death said calmly, “There are infinite worlds much like yours. It is not personal.”

“You mean we’re disposable,” she snapped.

“All things must die. You are all but a blink of time, a grain of existence, to the expanse of all that is. The universe births new worlds, Gods create new systems, all in a never-ending search for something that cannot and will not ever exist—perfection.”

“Then let us be flawed.”

“That is not something we can accept. So we try again, and again. That is infinity. But your small world can be saved so life can be lived for many ages to come. A Godless world can survive. It is up to you now.”

“What if the Spirits win?”

“Then they win. My final interference was to awaken the mortal essence in the bloodlines of the seven who created it.”

“If you don’t care what happens to us, then why are you telling me this now? Why bring me here at all?”

“Because Gods are proud and do not like to be bested by each other. The Spirits were bestowed from my realm, and what they have done is an insult. Much as I would have liked for you to send them back to me, that is no longer a possibility now one of the ruins is broken. They are all cunning. I cannot hold you here any longer. You must go back.”

Before she could speak again, Faythe’s body seized.

With a long draw of breath, the vision around her collapsed. What was endless black above her started to lighten to a hue of navy and flood with glittering stars. For a second, the view brought her complete peace.

Pain started to creep back through her bones, but a wave over her soothed the sharpness. An amber hue danced against midnight, and Faythe remembered Atherius. She was helping her now. Healing her. Faythe’s arm reached until she felt something.

Someone.

Her head lolled, finding Reylan, and her whole world turned still.

Because his chest…it wasn’t rising.

And as she listened…his heart was silent.

“Reylan,” she said, pushing up and swaying with the dizziness, but she shook her head. “Wake up.”

Faythe got to her knees. Panic trembled her hands that rose over him, but she didn’t know what to do. She tore down the front of his shirt and saw the ghastly sight of the ruin still in him, but she only felt the echoing cries of its fading magic. It was black and crumbling within his flesh.

He needed Nerida. A healer.

But that wouldn’t matter if his heart wasn’t beating.

He couldn’t lie there in the cold, so she maneuvered him around, crying out with the weight of him but managing to hook her hands under his arms. Faythe sobbed trying to hold him off the snow, only lifting his head to her chest.

“I need him!” Faythe cried. She looked around, but no one was coming.

Atherius gave off a sound like a soft cry of pain that she couldn’t help.

No one could.

Faythe’s forehead leaned to his silver hair as she cried.

She’d failed.

“I can’t lose him!”

She didn’t know if any Gods were listening, but her head straightened with the rage to defy them all.

Slipping a hand over his chest, Faythe reached for her magick. It glowed brightly, and Faythe searched for him. His soul that was hers . He wasn’t getting to leave this world before they’d gotten to claim their bond.

In her distant senses, Atherius beat her wings. Her cries pierced the air, and Faythe felt threads of Phoenix magick entwining with her. Then a touch so barely-there hovered over her hand, and Faythe gasped—then her face crumpled, and she broke a sob.

“I can’t save him,” she wept to Caius.

“We’re right here with you.” Caius crouched with her, his boyish smile so assuring.

Then another hand took hers, adding to the glow of magick that was growing over Reylan.

Faythe was distracted for a moment of shock and joy, but an old wound cleaved open within her.

“Mother?” she breathed.

Lilianna nodded, and Faythe knew this was no dream. It was something precious, and perhaps the last of the Spirit of Life inside her that, despite all Faythe had done in condemning the world, was giving her this one last gift.

Behind Lilianna, Agalhor lowered too, placing his hand with theirs, and Faythe never thought she would get the chance in all her lifetime to see this.

Her parents—together. Fresh tears flooded her eyes.

“I’m so sorry,” she said to him.

Agalhor shook his head. “We are so proud of you, my girl.”

Faythe didn’t think she deserved it, but she was so grateful they were here.

Then two more hands eased over hers, and Faythe’s attention was stolen by them.

“Freya,” Faythe said. Then her eyes fell to the other, who she only remembered from a flash of vision. “Kerim.”

Both of them smiled. “It wasn’t your fault back then,” Kerim said. “You might never remember, but it was a privilege to be your friend, Aesira.”

She remembered him on a battlefield, about to be struck down, and Aesira’s arrow could have saved him…but she’d missed.

“He needs you,” Freya said. “You need each other.”

Faythe smiled her gratitude, returning her focus to Reylan. She couldn’t feel his heart when so much life was coursing through the both of them. It was light and binding and promising. Her eyes closed, and Faythe searched through the endless darkness for him. She would keep searching until her last light winked out.

She found him in a dark expanse of time and space. He had his back to her this time, kneeling in a shallow pool of black water while flocks of ravens flew violently around him.

“Reylan.” His name escaped her in a breath.

The birds didn’t harm him, but it was like they were aware of his presence. Maybe even protective of him.

Faythe approached slowly, cautiously, trying to tune out the pounding of wings to find his heartbeat, but not even her own existed in her chest here.

This Void of Choosing.

Faythe didn’t know what was about to come; what had to happen for this second chance. Whatever the price, she was willing to pay it to have him.

Reylan was shirtless, and his back was marked in ink. The closer she got, the air was stolen from her lungs at the beautiful black wings tattooed there, draping over his shoulders and his biceps.

Her hand reached out when he was close enough to touch, and her fingers trailed up his spine. Reylan was so still she didn’t know if he could feel her.

Until he spoke.

“Faythe.”

“I’m here,” she said, emotion tightening her throat.

“I don’t know what to do,” he said. So lost and broken.

“It has to be his choice,” the primordial said. “To die a hero. Or to be reborn.”

“As what?” Faythe dared to ask.

“My servant.”

Of this God as old as time.

Faythe came around to Reylan’s front, sinking to her knees, and the icy water lapped around them. She took his face, guiding his bowed head up, but he couldn’t see her. His eyes were wholly black, the white and sapphire swallowed by depthless obsidian.

“All I see is darkness,” he said.

“I’m with you.”

His brow flinched at that, hand rising over hers. “If this is where you are, it’s where I want to stay,” he said.

“I’m not leaving without you.” Tears slipped down her cheeks as her forehead pressed to his. “You don’t have to come back. I’ll stay right here with you.”

Faythe’s hand upturned between them. She sobbed when Reylan’s slipped into it, and the black branches that crawled across his skin began to reach over hers, entwining with her golden tattoos. She wasn’t afraid of the darkness. Not with him here.

“I choose you,” Reylan said.

Reylan’s sapphire irises started to come back as the black pool dispersed.

Faythe leaned in, and the moment their mouths met, she found a heart. One that beat for both of them.

She wasn’t afraid. As long as she had him, she could never be afraid.

The real world came crashing down around her, and Faythe’s throat was speared by a deep inhale of winter air.

Faythe kneeled, holding the weight of Reylan’s upper body. She was alone. Blinking, she remembered her parents and her friends. Under her palm…

She gasped at Reylan’s cold hand that slipped over hers on his chest. Over his heartbeat, which Faythe treasured every beat of with a euphoric, breathy chuckle that was pure exhaustion and relief.

“Faythe,” Reylan said, shifting his head to look up at her.

“I’m here,” she rasped, delirious and overwhelmed. “It’s me.”

When Faythe saw sapphire, the world of war and heartache around them ceased to exist.

Reylan pushed up with a groan of pain. They stared at each other as if they were both reflecting on the same dream, trying to puzzle together what was real of it. Until it didn’t matter.

Faythe sobbed into his shoulder when his arms encircled her, and their bodies met tightly. He pulled her over him and held her like they were one person.

“You shouldn’t have come for me,” he mumbled into her hair.

“There’s no realm that I wouldn’t crack the spaces between to find you.”

His arm tightened a fraction before his body tensed with a hiss.

Faythe pulled away, only to examine the ruin that was still embedded in him. The flesh around it was getting worse. They needed to reach Nerida.

His hand cupped her cheek, eyes filling with an ocean of grief. “I’m so sorry. Everything I did?—”

Faythe shook her head, bringing her mouth to his. She kissed him, needy and desperate, wanting to treasure every feel of him after clawing them out of their worst nightmare together.

“I’m sorry too,” Faythe said against his lips. “But this is the last time we say it.”

Reylan kissed her again. Their lips were almost numb with the cold, but she felt it all in her heart.

A loud boom sounded so distantly below. Faythe shuddered at the reminder nothing was won. Not for the world, but now she had Reylan, Faythe had her strength to conquer it.

“What is happening?” Reylan asked, shifting into a battle focus he was too injured to maintain. “Where are we?”

“Lakelaria. We have to get away from here. You can’t fight like this.”

“Where are the others? Kyleer?”

She helped Reylan stand, but she was close to collapsing again at the devastation his name pummeled into her.

“He…oh, Reylan.”

His attention was immediately fixed on her, cupping her cheek and searching her eyes for the answer she couldn’t speak. Hadn’t accepted was true yet.

“No…” Reylan muttered. She’d never heard such heartbreak in a single word. He looked over at Atherius and started toward the Firebird.

“We have to leave,” Faythe sobbed.

“He’s not gone,” Reylan said firmly.

“He might have survived it.”

Reylan’s head whipped back, but it gave away how weak he was when the sudden movement stumbled his balance. Faythe circled her arms around him again.

“Survived?”

“The Transition.”

His eyes closed, and Faythe bit her lip hard when her own grief threatened to shatter her.

“We have to get you to Nerida or another healer,” Faythe pleaded.

“I have to see for myself. I can’t leave him here.”

“We’ll come back.”

Reylan leaned his forehead to hers.

“I can still move. I can feel your magick and swing a sword. Until I can’t do that, I’ll keep fighting.”

“You can’t swing a sword. And you don’t have one to swing.”

“I’ll— fuck— ” Reylan hissed, a hand rising to his chest.

Faythe began to panic. Her eyes scanned back to the hut. “Atherius can lend some of her magick to help. Let’s just rest for a few hours. Please.”

He followed her line of sight, jaw working with a desire to protest, but to her relief, he nodded.

Faythe bore a lot of his weight as they trekked back through the treacherous weather. Her teeth bashed together violently with her adrenaline worn off, and her fatigue made every muscle strain.

Inside, she took them right to the fire still blazing. Reylan sat by it while Faythe collected every blanket and cushion she could from around the quaint little home. The hole Reylan’s body had made in the side wall was the biggest inconvenience now with the nasty draft of bitter, snowy air. Until a large red, feathery barricade blocked it.

“I didn’t think she’d be tolerant of this climate,” Reylan remarked.

“She’s not, but she knows we need her,” Faythe said sadly. She could feel the Firebird’s distress, both for the weather and their pain. Faythe echoed her gratitude back.

Tuning back in to Reylan, she threw a blanket over his shoulders, immediately standing again. She had to find something to clean his wound as best she could.

Faythe stalled when her eyes caught on a picture above the fire. She hadn’t had the time to notice the painting of Marvellas before…and next to her was a man. Human.

This was her first love. The one who’d betrayed her, held her captive, and stolen her blood. He looked so familiar. With blond hair and brown eyes, tall, with a boyish smile. He looked…like Reuben.

Faythe’s fingers touched her mouth with the eerie coincidence. Then she shuddered, realizing this hut must have been their home at some time. Such a humble setting she could never envision the Spirit in.

“Come here,” Reylan said gently.

Faythe slid her eyes to him. “I need to find water…a salve, maybe, or?—”

“Please.”

She couldn’t resist the compulsion in that single word.

Faythe sank to her knees in front of him. He didn’t waste a second in pulling her close. She turned resistant when he tried to nestle her against him.

“Your wound?—”

“Is nothing compared to the ache I have of missing you.”

Faythe melted into him with that.

She felt him. His warmth. His scent. His touch.

“I missed you,” she said in a whisper. “I missed you so much.”

Reylan tipped her chin, coaxing her to look back at him. He was so beautiful, and she was completely taken by him, as if it were the first time. His eyes sparkled now, free from the manipulation of Marvellas. They held her with such devotion her heart swelled too big for her chest.

He kissed her, deep and promising. “You brave, incredible thing,” he muttered against her lips. “I love you with all the defiance in my being against everything that has tried to tear us apart. We may have broken a ruin and condemned the world to the Neither. Now let’s set the heavens ablaze, my Phoenix, and walk through the fires hand in hand.”