Page 7 of A Flame of the Phoenix (An Heir Comes to Rise #6)

CHAPTER SIX

Zaiana

W hen Zaiana’s eyes flew open to a crack of lightning, she knew immediately her consciousness wasn’t awake in the real world.

No. This can’t be happening again.

It had to be a nightmare. A cruel punishment plucked from her worst memories. She stayed down, curling into herself, since she couldn’t stand to find the face of King Agalhor that would come out to taunt her after infiltrating her mind.

Even with him dead, and whatever he’d discovered about her burning with him, she was unable to forget the violation of his intrusion into her mind. Even awake, she carried a new shame as if the world now knew her twisted mind, and nothing of her was safe anymore.

Zaiana whimpered at the presence that grew stronger. Approaching to stalk its feeble prey, submissive on the ground.

This wasn’t her—she didn’t yield like this. Yet in here she didn’t have to pretend she wasn’t afraid and tired. So very tired.

“How are you awake?” the male asked with a fascination she didn’t expect, in a voice that wasn’t familiar.

Zaiana uncurled herself, raising a hand against the stormy wind that dragged her hair across her vision. She could barely make out the tall figure cloaked in the darkness of her mind and concealed in an oversized hood.

“Who are you?” she asked.

“More fascinatingly…who are you?”

Zaiana knew this game. He spoke in taunts she was all too used to parrying with.

“You already know that if you’re here.”

“You got me there. Though knowing of you and wanting to know you are two different things.”

She tried to squint through the darkness of his hood, but his face was completely erased, lost to darkness, and she came to the conclusion that was his manipulation.

“It’s rare to find a colorless mind,” he said, pacing away. “More so, this aggression… Your own mind is rebelling against you. Torturing you. It’s almost a miracle you’re sane.”

“Thanks for the compliment.”

He chuckled smoothly.

“Have you ever tried letting go of what it is you’re fighting against?”

If she knew what that was, perhaps she would consider it.

“What are you doing here?” she diverted.

“I was curious,” he said simply.

Zaiana found the sensation of him odd. Unlike Agalhor, he didn’t feel so daunting and vicious. She watched his hooded form with his back to her. He reached out a hand toward the strikes of lightning that slammed into the ground violently. Her chest ached to feel it coursing through her veins instead.

The next jagged purple line touched his fingertips. Zaiana drew breath sharply, as if it had been absorbed by her own body. The male tensed with it, but it didn’t hurt him like it should. Instead he seemed to play with the last of the snapping bolts across his hand.

“How did you do that?” she asked.

He lifted a shoulder. “It’s your mind. You could make it hurt me if you wanted.”

“I don’t know how,” she confessed.

The male twisted a fraction back to her, but his head was tipped down. “I can teach you how to use your Nightwalking.”

“I’m not a Nightwalker.”

“Are you in the habit of denying what is right in front of you?”

His hand moved elegantly, and her dark clouds answered him. She cupped a palm to her forehead, dizzy with the movements that weren’t in her control, but part of her thought they should be. That this male should not have this kind of power in her mind.

This is a dream.

It was all she could do to make sense of this twisted illusion.

“Are you…a Stormcaster?” she wondered.

Zaiana’s ability was beautiful, but this…it was the ugliest, most untamed side of it. Yet the male didn’t react with any disgust or pity—not like Agalhor had.

“I don’t think I am,” he said, reaching out a hand again, and it was as if the bolts were attracted to him.

“Then I can’t teach you anything in return.”

“I didn’t ask for anything.”

“No one offers help without something for their own gain.”

His hood tilted, and Zaiana was growing irritable and uneasy that he could see her, fully exposed, while she couldn’t be sure where his eyes were at all.

“I can understand why you believe that.”

“You don’t know anything about me.”

“I want to.”

“Why?”

She should be afraid, like the terror she’d felt with the King of Rhyenelle’s invasion. But she wasn’t. This male wasn’t targeting her memories; he didn’t seem to care to dive deeper when his power radiating through her warned he was more than capable.

“I want you out of my mind,” she said. Only then did a trickle of fear ease though her. If she provoked him, she didn’t know how to cast him out. His power was as dominating as the king’s, perhaps even more powerful, and she knew she would lose in here.

She didn’t know how to protect herself.

“I can help you.”

“Why would you do that?”

Everything came with a price.

He took a long breath, swirling fingers that shifted the dark mist.

“Maybe I like the challenge.”

On the tip of her tongue, she wanted to demand he show himself. But maybe she preferred not having a face to this presence. Without it, she could pretend he was only a ghost of her own conjuring, not a real person trespassing in the most private place.

“Why don’t you search my thoughts?” she dared to ask.

“Why would I do that?”

“To gain some advantage? To make me fear you or force me to help you?”

“What has happened to you to make that the first assumption about anyone you meet?”

She cursed the sting that pricked her eyes at the question. What happened? Zaiana could almost laugh.

Her emotions were too volatile and exposed in here, and suddenly, her defense was rising, wanting to cast him out before he didn’t have to reach for a damn thing to get to her vulnerability.

“People want power—it always requires an upper hand.”

“Not always,” he countered. “What about gaining it through respect and loyalty?”

“Values that can be overthrown in a second,” she said firmly. “They can be betrayed, and you wouldn’t know until you were staring into the eyes of the one plunging a dagger into your chest.”

“That is a fair precaution,” he agreed, pacing a few steps. “But I believe there are bonds we can forge that will make such a fear not a lone burden. You become a force of many who would protect each other against anyone who threatened them.”

Zaiana tucked her knees to her chest. She didn’t fully agree with his poetic notions, but she was intrigued about him.

“How do I know you won’t just kill me in here?” she asked.

“Because our first lesson will be how you would stop me,” he said. “Deal?”

Zaiana was cut with memories of Agalhor. The helpless way she’d been overpowered while he’d feasted on the darkest parts of her. How he would have killed her within the prison of her own mind.

This space, it was so furious and ugly. Part of her didn’t want to spend another minute here. She would rather never awaken in her subconscious again. The only way she knew how to survive against herself was to never confront the demons that lived between the cracks.

“I have nothing to gain from this,” she said.

Her cheek met her knees. So tired.

“There’s something detached from you. Your ability, I assume.”

Of course he would know that.

“I’m not searching your thoughts for it,” he added quickly, perhaps picking up on her rising defense. “But I can feel it.”

“Is it…gone?”

“No, but something is blocking it. You won’t want to hear this, but it’s you. A little more complicated than that, for sure. Getting it back won’t be as easy as wishing for it, as I’m sure you’ve already tried.”

“Wishing is for children,” she mumbled.

“Wishing is for souls with dreams,” he responded. “And dreams are powerful to keep us moving.”

Zaiana deciphered his words. They were na?ve. Weak.

They were beautiful .

She shook her head, expelling her contrasting thoughts.

“How do I get it back? My ability.”

“You still have your power, otherwise we wouldn’t be here. Or at least you wouldn’t be. Your lightning has been your armor. I understand hiding behind the identity of your ability.”

“I don’t hide.”

Light streaked across his jaw to reveal the hint of a jesting smile. She wanted to claw it off.

“You don’t know anything about me,” she repeated.

Then she was awash with the fear that might not be true. That he could have infiltrated her mind at a time she was oblivious?—

“No. I don’t. But there are things about a person that can been seen only if one cares to really look .”

“Why would you care?” She couldn’t stop the bitterness of her tone. Her claws that formed to scare away any shred of attention.

“I…don’t know,” he said.

The uncertainty seemed to confuse them both, and maybe he was now bracing to retreat with the enlightenment that he shouldn’t be here. She was nothing to him.

“Do we have a deal?” he said.

This wasn’t a selfless venture for him. It couldn’t be. She would be an absolute fool to agree to let him back into her mind…but it dawned he may be her only chance to recover her lightning.

“I don’t even know who you are,” she pointed out.

“I don’t know exactly who you are either.”

“But you’ve heard of me?” she recalled.

“Sort of. I have no preconceived opinion of you, Zaiana. That, I would like to find out for myself.”

His use of her name shouldn’t have come with the uneasy tension it did. He was in her mind after all.

“It’s only fair I have your name,” she tried.

He shook his head. “For this, you’ll have to be willing to give something you really have a hard time with. Trust.”

She could have cast him out with the force of her irritation alone. Her face folded into her crossed arms. This was pathetic. She would wake up and scold herself for the dream she’d let go on for far too long.

“I don’t suppose I could stop you if you returned,” she said.

“Probably not.”

“Then do what you want. I can’t promise a welcome reception.”

“I wasn’t counting on it.”

“Can I sleep now?”

He was in the habit of laughing in soft, barely-there sounds. Its friendliness was beginning to unnerve her.

“Yes. I’ll even send you off before I slip out. I can also feel that you don’t manage a deep rest on your own very often. But you can. We’ll work on that too.”

That sounded desirable. She wouldn’t tell him that.

She allowed the weight pressing down to pass over her. It was gentle. So very peaceful, like an embrace she’d long forgotten the comfort of until now.