Page 56 of A Flame of the Phoenix (An Heir Comes to Rise #6)

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

Zaiana

T hey came for Zaiana.

Nyte wandered ahead of the three guards who trailed behind him. They obeyed his command to stay back while he approached her gate, unlocking the door to her cell.

Zaiana studied him closely, recalling what she’d requested of him the last time he was here.

Nyte grabbed her, causing Kyleer to shift closer to the bars that joined their cells. He did so for show, as he was playing the role of the vicious Captain Daegal. Too well. She hissed to his fingers digging into her biceps as he leaned in close.

“You’re not going to like the answers sending that message brought back.”

Zaiana’s newfound heart skipped a beat of trepidation. “What have they done to Acelin, Kellias, Drya, and Selain?” she dared to ask.

Nyte’s caramel eyes flexed around the edges. “I hope they weren’t dear to you. They were executed by people called the masters.”

The weight of that knowledge slammed into her, and she ripped out of Nyte’s hold.

“What’s wrong?” Kyleer asked, worried.

Those four dark fae had been Zaiana’s trusted team of the best. She’d selected them herself, watching each of them for many months before she’d brought them into her close circle. Their bond had forged over centuries, and they were the only people she knew with absolute certainty their loyalty to her was true. That they would lay down their lives for her.

The masters had killed them. Killed them simply for what they meant to her.

“Did you find out when?” Zaiana asked, hardly present when the reel of the masters’ faces turning in her mind grew her need for bloody retribution. She could hardly think straight.

“Many months ago. They weren’t exact.”

That meant they’d killed them not long after Zaiana left the mountain on her first endeavor to capture Faythe Ashfyre—a quest given by Mordecai. Was he behind their murders too? Was it another cruel lesson for her to receive when they believed she would return?

Zaiana had to turn away, tipping her head back in horror over the wetness that pooled in her eyes and threatened to spill. She willed them to turn to glass and cut, to add to the scars she carried within, because this was her failure. Their deaths were on her conscience.

Though one thing became absolute in the cold darkness Zaiana paced within in her mind: the masters would pay, and it would not be quick nor merciful.

She had nothing to lose anymore, and the more she pictured her spree of blood and vengeance against them, the more determination trembled in her bones to get out of here.

“Marvellas sent me for you,” Nyte informed her. “Do you have a plan to get out of this? I need to know, because I’d like to be escaping with you and could prove useful if you tell me.”

Zaiana didn’t have a plan. She’d asked Nyte to get a message to the inner circle she’d left behind in the Mortus Mountains, hoping they’d make it here to assist when she inevitably made a lot of commotion to escape. All she had now was her intuition she hoped would collide with her drive for violence when a moment to escape presented itself.

Had she known the information about her inner circle before now, she might have considered a more stealthy plan of escape before Marvellas decided to summon her, if only to exact her revenge on the masters first, in case she never made it out of here alive after facing the Spirit for punishment.

“If you have any ideas, I’m all ears,” she said under her breath as Nyte began leading her out.

“Take me as well!” Kyleer yelled.

Nyte slipped a look to her in question.

“Please?” she asked him, not accustomed to the sour taste of begging, but she had little advantage here.

If Zaiana managed to create a moment for escape, even if she couldn’t make it out herself, she hoped Kyleer would.

Nyte obliged.

He led with her, escorting them to the glass throne room, where the flaming red hair of Marvellas stood out starkly, surrounded by snow beyond the transparent walls.

This castle was beautiful. A true observational masterpiece.

But entirely fragile.

Maverick was here, observing silently by the throne Marvellas spilled herself over. She couldn’t read him. His expression remained more cold and distant than ever. They had been rival allies before Zaiana’s traitorous actions. Now they really were enemies.

The hall was weighted with judgment, and Zaiana didn’t know what to anticipate. One thing remained certain in her chest: she would not submit. She would fight with her last breath for herself, and for Kyleer.

Right now, she had to forget the commander shackled beside her and hope he’d remain compliant until Zaiana achieved what she needed.

They were pushed down roughly, and she gave no sound, though her knees felt close to shattering against the marble floor.

Then, silence. Chilling, tense silence fell in the stare-down between Zaiana and Marvellas.

There was something more savage in those glowing amber eyes—something out of place about her usual impeccable composure.

Despite the lethal edge to the Goddess’s eyes, Zaiana dared to edge a smile on her mouth.

Marvellas surged up from the throne, her irises flaring a darker shade. “You made the greatest mistake of your life,” she spat. “You threw away everything you worked to build, for what?”

She’d never heard Marvellas sound this unhinged. She was faltering. Slipping the reins on her own internal control.

“I threw away everything you built of me. The anchor of your manipulative curse. I will commend you for it. Preying on my people who were desperate, hunted to the brink of extinction, using a history that painted them as nothing more than ruthless villains anyway. The curse of a still heart solidified the belief they were immune to any feelings of care or love like the humans and fae. Making them your unfeeling, merciless soldiers.”

Marvellas stalked down the long glass steps, challenging Zaiana with those molten eyes. The beat in her chest sped up, which tightened her throat. Zaiana had played with the rhythm of other people’s heartbeats many times, but for some cursed reason, she couldn’t control her own.

“Your people?” Marvellas said in a dead calm. “You have nothing, Zaiana. No people. No dignity. No power.”

The Spirit loomed over her, and Zaiana’s teeth gritted painfully when her cruel hand curled around her chin.

“You gave it all up.” Her blazing sight flicked to her left. To Kyleer. “For a fae who will always have a loyalty above you. Who, if his Phoenix Queen demanded it, would betray you.”

“I would never betray her,” Kyleer snarled.

Marvellas let go of Zaiana roughly, shifting her focus to Kyleer, which turned Zaiana more furious than if she were the target of the unpredictable Spirit.

“Your wings are like those of a fable. They are not meant for this world,” she said. It was then Zaiana realized Marvellas knew more about their origin. Not meant for this world. What had touched Kyleer when he Transitioned? “Tell me, can you still Shadowport?”

“I wouldn’t know in these Magestone shackles.”

The Spirit hummed. “And your memory?”

Kyleer stayed silent, and Marvellas’s cold smile returned.

“You place your loyalty with a dark fae who will never choose you,” Marvellas said, slipping a knowing look to Zaiana before she paced away from them both.

That wasn’t true. Not anymore.

“The Blood Trails,” Zaiana said thought a tight breath. “You manipulated Finnian.”

Marvellas had to take a moment to recall what she spoke of. Who she mentioned. That the Spirit had forgotten his name, or perhaps had never cared to know of it in the first place, boiled her blood.

“Ah, the young dark fae you cared for. Yes. He was becoming a problem.”

Zaiana knew the Spirit was behind Finnian’s death, but hearing it so effortlessly confirmed by the culprit flashed her vision. She had to breathe and reel back her impulse to explode in a chaos of lightning like she’d done in the celestial dome.

“He would have broken the curse—is that why?”

“No. In fact, it was a risk that could have broken the curse had you chosen differently.”

“What do you mean?”

Zaiana was growing dreadfully wary. She wasn’t accustomed to this fragility, feeling like glass in the palms of this wicked Spirit.

“The curse couldn’t be broken just by love. You had to be willing to sacrifice yourself for it. Had you let that dark fae truly attempt to kill you, or succeed, the curse would have broken. Instead, you did what I hoped. You saw his betrayal and chose yourself.”

“It was your betrayal! It was?—”

Zaiana stopped short because her voice broke . It had never done that before, and when a wet trail made its way down her cheek before she could prevent it, she was horrified.

She was crumbling .

Zaiana swallowed, but there wasn’t enough air getting past the marble growing in her throat. Her vision started to pepper around the edges, and her ribs became too big for her chest. She didn’t know what was happening to her, but she couldn’t get the images of Finnian to stop flooding her mind. Couldn’t subside the guilt over her choice. Couldn’t erase the battering possibilities of all that could have been if she’d trusted her love for him and believed his was true for her.

One choice…and she’d picked wrong.

A hand lashed around her throat, and Zaiana choked, caught completely off-guard in her vulnerable spiral. Harsh brown eyes came into focus. Nyte.

He kept a vicious front but spoke to her mind with a sense of calm.

“Keep yourself together.”

She thought she was a master of composure, but her steel walls were softening. She’d come here fueled with anger and scorching resentment, believing she could end Marvellas.

But she was nothing.

The clanging of chains wasn’t from her. She couldn’t move. Kyleer was struggling against two guards to reach her.

“What do you want me to do with her?” Nyte asked in a cold tone, not looking at Marvellas. His mother.

Yet the Spirit was still completely oblivious to her son wearing the skin of her trusted captain of the guard.

Zaiana focused on her breaths.

Her son.

Her mind started to spin with that fact all over again. Marvellas could only be killed by something she was made of… Nyte didn’t have his true form in this realm, but could he still be valuable?

“I haven’t decided what to do with her yet,” Marvellas said, bitterness coating her words. She looked at Zaiana like a festering plague.

The feeling was more than mutual.

“What else do you know?” Marvellas asked her.

Nyte let go of her throat, and Zaiana rubbed the tenderness growing there. She gave nothing away on her face, but her curiosity was grabbed. What else was there to know about the curse? She was reminded of the male in her subconsciousness. The memories he’d dragged forth, which had been blocked somehow.

Marvellas had been there. So had Mordecai.

“What do you know of my parents?” Zaiana blurted.

She’d never cared to know before. They’d given her over to the masters, and she’d suffered an upbringing in their merciless custody. The dark fae didn’t hold sentiment to their offspring, so why would she care about her parents?

“I don’t know why I’m wasting my time on this exchange,” Marvellas said.

Zaiana’s skin crawled as she came closer, and Nyte was forced to back away from her. She didn’t trust him , but regardless of what she thought of him, she couldn’t deny an unexplainable feeling that he was safe at least. He wouldn’t truly hurt her.

“I can find out everything I need from you,” Marvellas taunted wickedly.

Her gold eyes pierced into Zaiana’s, and she gasped, slamming her lids shut, but it wouldn’t help. Zaiana was powerless to stop Marvellas from infiltrating her mind, and the invasion was vile.

“Stop,” she breathed, but her plea was like a rock thrown to stop a broken dam.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve been in your mind. How quiet and innocent it was back then compared to the storm of darkness that rages now.”

“Show her me.” Nyte’s voice filtered through the wild pounding in her head.

Zaiana doubled over, fighting the forces in her mind.

“My real face. It will distract her enough to stop,” he added.

An image of an ethereally beautiful dark-haired fae passed through her mind. His eyes were as striking as the sun. His tall, broad build made him a statue of powerful authority. A scar ran from his right temple to his cheekbone, giving him an edge of danger. She could even hear the smooth, silvery tone of his real voice, with an accent not of this world.

Rainyte Ashfyre had been so criminally downgraded in the body of Captain Daegal compared to his real self that he almost didn’t seem real.

Marvellas retreated all at once. Zaiana’s palms flattened against the cool marble, and she panted, relieved of the swarming presence combing her mind.

“I’m here,” Kyleer said, beside her now.

His touch on her skin was a lifeline, and she let him peel her upright, leaning into him while she trembled. She caught her breath and braved a look up at the Goddess.

Marvellas held eyes on her, but there was no malice. No rage. Nothing. She looked at Zaiana, but that wasn’t what the Goddess saw.

“Rainyte,” Marvellas said in a ghostly tone. Zaiana glanced sideways only briefly, so as not to give up his cover. “How…where did you see him? What is this trick?”

“You won’t find that answer in my thoughts,” she said. This was her upper hand.

“I will find everything, even if it shatters your mind.”

That threat was so doused in savage desperation that Zaiana shivered, bracing and clutching Kyleer tighter. He shifted as if he would lunge between them. The spirit took one single step?—

Guards came rushing into the room, their urgent steps vibrating under her.

“There’s been an infiltration,” one said hurriedly.

“Who?” Marvellas snarled, slipping farther away from her usual elegance.

“We’re not sure, but she’s a powerful Waterwielder.”

“One fae?”

“Y-yes.” His voice quivered to admit this.

A single person. Powerful enough to make her way across the bridge alone.

Zaiana pictured the brown-skinned, white-haired beauty before cries echoed in the halls outside the throne room. Then a sudden flood rushed past the doors. Zaiana and Kyleer gripped each other, bracing to be swept away in the violent current.

Sharp slices of ice came next, and Zaiana followed the flow of the water in awe as it parted, shooting high in twin waves before freezing in time.

Who stood between them…?

Nerida.

Though her entrance could not be as stunning as the words she followed with.

“You’ve sat for too long on my throne, Marvellas.”