Page 57 of A Flame of the Phoenix (An Heir Comes to Rise #6)

CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

Zaiana

N erida Da’Naid.

The lost heir to the Lakelarian throne. No—not lost. Nerida had always known who she was and where she wanted to be. Or rather, where she didn’t want to be.

It was so clear now. The fae’s elegance, her calm but firm charge when needed: leadership was in her blood, and the way she stood now, facing Marvellas, with defiance in her stance, proved exactly who she was.

Marvellas didn’t answer right away, and the hall fell into a fragile, deadly silence. If Zaiana didn’t know any better…the Spirit appeared confused over the declaration.

“There is no heir for this throne. Iana had one child, and she is dead.”

“As you can see, I’m very much alive. And this kingdom remembers their heir.”

“I saw it in her mind,” Marvellas snapped, clearly despising the mockery she thought this to be.

“You saw her grief and my funeral—that was all true. She didn’t want anyone to know her only heir had run away. My death was an easier acceptance for her.”

“I’ll see your lies for myself,” she snarled.

Zaiana feared for Nerida. Her friend. In this moment when their lives all hung in the balance, Zaiana allowed the term of endearment to attach itself to the one fae she couldn’t stand by and watch being harmed.

When they’d locked her up, they’d taken her weapons. All but one. The most deadly, and the only one she needed.

Zaiana had Marvellas’s ruin tucked within her layers. Unbeknown to the Spirit, who’d believed all this time hers was embedded in Reylan Arrowood and Faythe would break it to save him.

It was covered in a suppressant material—all she had to do was reach it.

“I infiltrated the castle alone because I knew I could, but I have this place surrounded. You didn’t fool everyone in this kingdom when you took my mother’s place. There’s been a movement against you for centuries. You know that.”

The Spirit’s eyes flared in confirmation.

“No reign is without needing to weed out conspiracy and resistance,” Marvellas seethed. “I have just as many allies as you here, Nerida Da’Naid.”

“You underestimate the loyalty and intelligence of this kingdom. As if the people of Lakelaria wouldn’t notice or care that the gentle humans who once coexisted with them have slowly vanished. How our island has filled with outsiders that bring more coldness to the land than the weather.”

“This island would have crumbled under the weak reign of Iana Da’Naid. I saved your people and made the population of Lakelaria the strongest it has ever been. Over time, more abilities will flourish. Waterwielding will grow as a powerful force to be reckoned with in the new generations.”

“So that is your goal then? You start with eradicating the humans for having no power, then you shift your target to fae with no magick?”

“In a world as cruel as this one, only the strong survive.”

“It is vultures as power-hungry and bloodthirsty as you who make it so cruel. “

Zaiana admired Nerida’s confidence and spirit in the face of her mother’s killer, the usurper of her throne, the continent’s greatest villain. She’d always thought there was more than met the eye with the gentle healer, but this was beyond her expectation.

Marvellas declared, “I am not the poison. I am the antidote.”

Zaiana caught the flicker of movement from outside—only a split second—before the arrow shattered the glass wall, heading with incredible speed toward Marvellas.

It was Maverick who stepped into the path of the arrow, which speared through his shoulder instead of the Spirit’s.

Then chaos erupted as the walls of the room came crashing down, inviting the rage of the winter weather outside to join the battle that ensued inside. At least Marvellas’s soldiers fought back against the Lakelarians who had come to avenge their nation, believing in their fight now more than ever with their lost queen returned.

This was not Zaiana’s fight. Not her battle. She had one objective, and that was to make Marvellas pay for all she’d done to her. And Zaiana had the one weapon that could end her once and for all.

She didn’t know why Reylan Arrowood had entrusted her with the Soul Ruin. He wasn’t in his right mind, but still, he’d harbored a secret rebellion against the Goddess who’d tried to manipulate him against his mate.

Zaiana pulled the serrated slate out from inside her leathers. It’s power hummed faintly. As soon as she removed the suppressant cloth, it would become a calamity to the chaos Zaiana charged within herself.

The room cried with soldiers’ final breaths. Steel sang around her. Magick coursed from different angles.

Zaiana only acknowledged one person. Her lightning raked hot over her skin, and her steps moved, urgent but slowed, in time with her sight as it locked onto the unsuspecting Goddess of Stars. Marvellas’s attention was on the charge of adversaries.

Maverick noticed her advancing as he clutched his bleeding shoulder, now freed from the arrow. He turned to her fully, and Zaiana’s retribution was ready to cut him down if he tried to stop her. His sight dropped to her hands as she pulled her wrists apart with gritted teeth, breaking the chain of her shackles.

It wasn’t Maverick who stopped her.

A firm grip on her wrist holding the ruin spun her around, and her lethal stare pierced into the caramel of Nyte’s.

“You played the part well,” Zaiana hissed, trying to yank her arm free, but he was stronger than her with the Niltain steel manacles still around her wrists. “Let me go before I kill you too.”

“Using that on her will kill you ,” he growled, as if he thought he were doing her a favor.

Zaiana could have laughed. “I don’t care,” she snapped.

“I do.” Kyleer stood close behind.

Those two words conflicted her, but her resolve hardened.

“If you had your memories, you wouldn’t. Trust me.”

This time, when she pulled her arm, Nyte let her go. Zaiana spun, intending to head straight to Marvellas again, but the sight of Kyleer distracted her. He was her greatest weakness.

“I would advise we get out of here!” That voice, strained in the midst of fighting, made Zaiana’s spine lock, and her eyes sought out Tynan.

He fought with a sword, and Amaya with a bow. Both of them moved in tandem, watching each other’s backs.

How had they known to come here?

A Phoenix cry rattled through the night. Zaiana believed it was Faythe with her Firebird, Atherius. But this one was different…and on its back was Reylan, without his mate. She couldn’t figure out what their objective was in being here, but right now, all that mattered was making sure they all made it out alive.

Zaiana might not get her chance to end Marvellas today, but whether by her hand or another’s, she pledged her life toward ending the Spirit.

Nyte reached for her wrist again, but she snatched it away. She beheld the key in his hand, intending to free her from the manacles. His impatient ire wasn’t subtle, but with a flat look, Zaiana clenched her jaw, hooked her fingers under the stinging metal of one of them, and broke the binding, letting the wretched Niltain steel clatter to the ground.

“I could have made that far easier and far less painful,” Nyte grumbled.

“Remove Kyleer’s instead,” she said, not paying him much attention as she surveyed the chaos, slipping into a battle focus as she charged her lightning.

Tucking away the ruin, she decided to keep that element of advantage secret. Marvellas truly believed it was broken and that she was untouchable by death now.

Tynan and Amaya were keeping the fighting back from them. Their skills in tune with each other were admirably effective. Nerida was a force to be reckoned with on her own, using powerful currents of water to strike and manipulating the snow to bring the storm indoors.

A flicker of silver caught her eye, and she didn’t know how to react to Reylan running through the broken wall and into the chaos. He didn’t come to join the fight or confront Marvellas. Instead Reylan Arrowood slipped through the bodies masterfully before disappearing through a door, venturing deeper into the castle they should all be escaping from before their opportunity closed.

He was unnoticed by all but one other person.

Marvellas took a step in his direction, and Zaiana didn’t know when the line between enemies had blurred, but instinct drove her to act, running again toward the Spirit to stop her from following the general.

Her lightning charged to her fingertips, and without a second thought, she braced her stance, casting her fingers out to throw the might of her lightning toward the Spirit. Marvellas sensed it just in time to spin. Waving her hand expelled a flare of gold that clashed with the purple bolt.

“Go after him,” Marvellas snarled to her captain. To Nyte.

He watched his oblivious mother as she didn’t even spare a glance his way. Zaiana couldn’t imagine the turmoil he must feel.

But she couldn’t consider him right now. Her need for violence coursed so strong while she held the Spirit’s attention that her magick came out in a lethal dance of storms. Instinctual, precise, and deadly. Lightning so vicious and dominating exploded from her, so she could hardly see Marvellas through the jagged strokes of purple.

The Spirit didn’t attack, only defended, with bright flares of gold. Then, when Zaiana caught her attention subtly shifting sideward, she realized Marvellas wouldn’t make a target out of her—wouldn’t risk accidentally killing her—but she could harm Zaiana far worse by taking Tynan or Amaya from her.

Zaiana wouldn’t make it to them in time. She threw out more darts of lightning in a frantic attempt to stop Marvellas, until the Spirit invaded her mind. Zaiana cried out, having her movements halted, but she’d broken Marvellas’s influence before in her desperation.

This time she was too late.

Zaiana’s eyes flew wide, and a scream was all she had left to warn Tynan and Amaya, who were so focused on the relentless surge of Marvellas’s soldiers

The powerful flare of the Goddess’s power slammed against a wall of rippling darkness. She’d seen those starry shadows before, but never like this. When the barrier that saved Tynan and Amaya came drifting down, Kyleer stood there, tall and vengeful, staring off with Marvellas.

Discovering that Kyleer had not only kept his Shadowporting but that it had somehow advanced to more , she couldn’t be anything but immensely relieved.

“Enough!” Marvellas’s declaration was accompanied by the strangled sounds of everyone in the room.

Every mind on both sides of the fight was seized by the Goddess, who panted, hunched, with a manic expression, as she blazed over the scene she’d lost control of.

Zaiana turned nauseous with the invasion in her mind. It held her still like everyone else, and she could break free, but there were too many others to consider. Tynan, Amaya, Nerida, and Kyleer. She had to figure out how to get them all out safely.

“Is this one not worth more than all of them?”

Marvellas heard the voice of her loyal Captain Daegal; Zaiana saw Nyte entering.

He escorted Reylan—or rather, threatened the general with a blade to his back into the ruined throne room.

Zaiana glanced down at what Reylan gripped tightly. He’d risked himself to retrieve Faythe’s sword, Lumarias. It held the Riscillius stone they required to access the Spirit temples in its pommel, but Zaiana knew that wasn’t why he’d recklessly gone to claim it for his mate.

Her hip felt suddenly too light, and she wondered with a pang in her chest if she would ever get her own back, Nilhlir , which was taken from her when she was locked away.

Marvellas blazed at the sight of him, shocked and suspicious. “Faythe Ashfyre?”

“She’s not here,” Nyte informed her.

Marvellas took that information as a trick, eyes darting around as if her heir was lingering in the shadows waiting to strike.

“I wanted to spare you, Reylan Arrowood. Now I’m forced to make such a tragic waste of power,” Marvellas seethed.

Nyte pushed Reylan to his knees, and Zaiana should have been tense, concerned, but Reylan was too calm as Zaiana studied him…bracing for something she didn’t know what yet.

“Kill him,” Marvellas ordered.

Nyte’s eyes shifted to his mother, contemplating. The tension of the room thickened with a battle frozen in time.

“You don’t want the satisfaction of doing this yourself?” he asked chillingly. Nyte lifted the common blade to Reylan’s throat, and the Firebird outside gave a piercing wail.

Izaiah , Zaiana realized. It had to be.

Marvellas schooled her expression. “I will reunite him with Faythe Ashfyre piece by piece.”

Nyte stalked around Reylan with the blade resting on the general’s shoulder. A mere second of movement could take his life, and Zaiana didn’t know if she should act to prevent it…or trust Nyte.

His chilling, tilted-down gaze never left the Goddess of Stars. “No, you won’t,” he said. His blade slipped from Reylan before he dropped it lazily. The clang rebounding around the deadly silent hall was like a declaration, and it was then Zaiana didn’t know who she was more fearful of. Nyte embodied more sinister energy than she’d felt even from Marvellas herself.

“What are you doing?” Marvellas hissed.

Nyte slipped a hand into his pocket, so calm and composed it was frightening. How he moved like a predator and looked with peace at the death and bloodshed he walked around.

“The Oracle you killed showed me what would have been my alternate path of fate in this realm. Should I have never been taken, had I been raised here with you, I would have become the villain of this realm.”

Zaiana couldn’t believe he was exposing himself now. She whipped her gaze to the Spirit, who blazed at who she believed was her captain, but the confusion of his words began to settle in the deep fold of her brow.

Nyte continued before she could interject. “You had to lose that which was most precious to you, your son , to break the Aetherbonds and regain your power all that time ago, and you would have done it. Even if I had always been here. The greatest irony is, you would have killed me to stop me. A heroic act, but in your grief, you would have carried on down the path you’re taking now, believing your plan of genocide is liberation. With all the power I was born into, with the drive for supremacy you and my father harbor, my path would have been inevitable. I would have conquered this continent far easier than you.”

Nyte paced the hall, gripping everyone’s attention.

“In all the endless loops my fate travels on, there is only one that shows me a path beyond villainy. A path with a chance to be good . I had to follow the brightest star. Only Astraea could find the light in all my darkness. Only she could love a monster and show me freedom isn’t in conquer or power—it is in loving and being loved in return. So, you see, though I will kill him, my father saved me by taking me away from here. Or I would have ended up just like you now. A tyrant on the brink of true madness.”

He poured that world-shifting revelation at the Spirit’s feet with the confidence and ease of any weapon. Zaiana’s heart thumped hard, waiting for the tension to break. She didn’t know if what Nyte had done in revealing all to his mother now could trigger something even more unhinged and volatile in the Spirit.

Marvellas didn’t speak right away, but her expression contorted, slipping that hint of madness Nyte probed at through the cracks of her mastered composure. “You don’t know a thing about my son.”

“I am your son.” Nyte’s voice rose to declare it. “You know all about Gods and curses, Mother . This isn’t exactly my vessel of choice to possess, but it has served me well.”

“Impossible.”

Just like that, it were as if Marvellas forgot who she was. The battle, the world , around her. Zaiana didn’t think the Spirit was capable of wearing the kind of terror she inflicted on others, but there it was.

“Rainyte.” Marvellas took three steps toward him before she cried out.

Zaiana stepped back out of nothing more than shock at what she was witnessing. Nyte had infiltrated her mind, stopping her from getting closer. Zaiana was sure Marvellas could easily break past his influence, but she didn’t. Pure heartbreak split her features, slowly absorbing all Nyte claimed as truth. This was the desperate yearnings of a mother forgetting everything else she was in the presence of her child.

Kyleer’s fingers grazed hers, and she didn’t tear her eyes away from the scene as she embraced his closeness, linking their hands. She wasn’t leaving here without him anyway.

“I really hoped they were all wrong about you,” Nyte said. His face bore no emotion at all as Marvellas sank to her knees into a pool of blood, almost close enough to reach for him. “I hoped I would discover your motives were justified, considering the scale of the massacre you see fit—or at the very least, that your plan had some merit, even if it meant sacrificing so many lives for a greater good. But there is nothing but vengeance in your broken heart, which has built this ideal where only the powerful deserve to live.”

“Please…” Marvellas let go of that word in a breath. As if her reaper were standing over her, not her son. “Stay with me.”

“If I stayed here…I would become the war. No side could stop me. I would rip apart this world and every other I fell into until I made it back to my true home. To Astraea.”

“This is your home. With me.”

“Never.”

Zaiana flinched at the sudden flare of light that erupted from behind Nyte. She was pulled into Kyleer’s firm body when a roar shook the room. Reylan Arrowood, in his legendary white lion form, lunged for Marvellas. A giant paw pinned her to the ground, while his powerful jaw snapped at her face.

Marvellas must have infiltrated his mind, as the lion roared and wailed, fighting an invisible force. Then his lethal talons swiped at the Spirit’s face, slashing deep across her porcelain cheek.

Zaiana was snapped from her stupor in observing the fight by a tug on her hand.

“We need to go!” Kyleer yelled over the commotion that began.

Before she left, Zaiana’s eyes found Maverick, as if there was a magnet within her that would always find him no matter how much she despised him. He clutched his bleeding shoulder, standing by the side of the hall like a shadow. He was already watching her. For just a second, his eyes dipped to her hand joined in Kyleer’s. Then, without a flicker of expression, he sank deeper into the shadows, disappearing around the bend of an arch and out of the throne room.

Zaiana tried to cast him out of her mind. He was not her problem right now. She ran with Kyleer, accounting for Tynan, Amaya, and Nerida, who followed.

While they had wings to flee with, Nerida made steps of ice, which she climbed up to mount the Phoenix. The way the Firebird examined her and Kyleer confirmed her suspicion: it was Izaiah in shapeshifted form.

“After my brilliant intervention to grant this escape, you’re not leaving without me,” Nyte called, following after Nerida.

Zaiana spared a glance back, with adrenaline tight in her chest. The white lion tore through soldiers in black before Reylan charged out of the castle.

There were too many of the enemy on both sides of the wide river that wrapped around the castle. Arrows cut through the air, aimed for them, and they were all wide-open targets. Izaiah, being the largest, took two arrows to his wing.

“Go!” Zaiana yelled.

Izaiah splayed his wings, and right before he used them to shoot to the sky, Nyte leaped off Nerida’s ice steps, grabbing onto his feathers, and Nerida helped him find a stable position.

Amaya covered him, taking out the archers aiming for Izaiah, until he cleared range.

Her fingers tightened, and her heart skipped a beat, realizing Kyleer should have left on Izaiah as well since he’d never used his wings before. Flying took practice, and those with wings were trained from young.

“We need a running start,” Zaiana said, glancing over his shoulders at his stunning black feathered wings. She said to Tynan and Amaya, “Follow Izaiah—now.”

Hand in hand with Kyleer, Zaiana sprinted toward the bridge that would take them across the river. As they reached it, Reylan transformed from a lion into a white eagle, but he didn’t fly high to join the others; he stayed with them, tracking from the skies.

“What are we doing?” Kyleer asked.

“We need to get to a cliff edge—it’ll give you some momentum for your best chance of flying. I’ll warn you, no darkling I’ve taught has ever flown well on their first try.”

“I’m not a child.”

“Exactly. You’re worse, since your size will make it significantly more difficult.”

Zaiana had though Marvellas was incapacitated enough for them to have time to flee, but the Spirit’s voice struck their backs as though it were one of the arrows they dodged.

“You will not win against me!”

The bridge beneath them shook violently, breaking apart as a gold flare cracked in various vines across the frozen structure. Before they were swallowed by the icy river, Kyleer wrapped her tight, and familiar starry shadows pulled them both.

They landed in a rolling heap through the snow at the other side of the bridge. Voices shouting toward them had them both scrambling up. Zaiana threw darts of lightning, and Kyleer attacked with shadow, but they couldn’t stay stationary with Marvellas still at their backs.

Kyleer took her hand, pulling her through his shadows again, and this time they landed on their feet, breaking into a run the moment the darkness cleared to reveal a high ledge. Zaiana released the glamor on her wings, her fingers tightening in Kyleer’s. Then, together…they took the leap.

She knew it wouldn’t be easy.

Kyleer’s wings were as good as deadweight, dragging him down fast and clumsily. Zaiana cried out, pulling him toward her and wrapping her legs around his waist, using her own wings to steady and slow them. But agony strained between her shoulders from the weight, and she risked breaking her wings. She didn’t care. She couldn’t let him go.

“You can do this,” she said—a strangled note of encouragement. “It’s just like breathing. In and out. A steady pulse between your shoulders to keep you soaring.”

Kyleer listened, and some of the weight she carried lifted as he pulsed his wings. Off-beat and crooked at first, but he kept trying until he started to find rhythm. Zaiana could let him go a little more. He was flying.

As Kyleer held a steady flight in the air, he drew her closer, slipping his hands under her thighs.

“You’re incredible,” he said, holding her with an adoring stare that should belong to treasure, not her.

Then his lips were on hers, and Zaiana’s soul, as dark and ugly as it was, flew higher than her body. She had to remember Kyleer didn’t have all his memories; she couldn’t take advantage of his lust and attraction for her. But Zaiana wanted this more than anything. She didn’t know when it had happened, but slowly, unsuspectingly, Zaiana had decided she would leave it all behind for him. The war, her vengeance, her status—none of it mattered more than this.

They continued to fly for a measure of time lost to her. Sometimes Kyleer drifted closer, and she couldn’t help the natural way her body wrapped around his. Occasionally, his flight would stumble, and Zaiana despised the beat in her chest every time it was tested by fear, slamming hard against her ribs and lodging up her throat.

Zaiana cast a look over her shoulder as she held onto Kyleer to see the white eagle flying higher and farther away. Through the clouds below, Zaiana frowned, registering the territory Reylan had taken them to after they’d crossed the Black Sea. She’d noticed they’d picked up pace a short while ago but hadn’t thought much of it until now.

They were flying over Rhyenelle.

Zaiana had overheard the rendezvous point was High Farrow, which should be where Izaiah was taking Nerida and Nyte, with Tynan and Amaya following.

She realized why they’d come here the moment the clouds broke and Ellium expanded below. The inner-city wall she’d collapsed still lay in rubble and ruins. That had been Malin’s request of her in their bargain when she was captive.

But it was beyond that, in the courtyard of Rhyenelle’s colossal fortitude, that Zaiana understood Reylan’s urgency.

Atherius circled above, carrying Faythe’s human friend, Jakon.

There were at least a hundred guards protecting the castle.

Then there was Faythe Ashfyre, her wrath and power tangible even from the skies, already in the thick of fighting them all alone on the ground.

And she was winning.