Page 85 of A Flame of the Phoenix (An Heir Comes to Rise #6)

CHAPTER EIGHTY-FOUR

Zaiana

Z aiana forgot when she had begun to fight, but she saw no end. The mountain fringe waged with a battle to end all, relentless and bloodthirsty.

Blood of silver, black, and crimson painted the stone, her clothing, and the blade. She led the lines, and they were holding up well. They’d fought for days, managing to push the enemy to fall back and tire enough for them to collect themselves for a few hours through the nights too. But the enemy didn’t need as much rest.

By the fifth day Zaiana didn’t know how much longer they’d hold out. Something was different in the battle that had resumed today. Something that pushed them harder than ever before, and Zaiana realized what was happening.

They’d been using their weakest soldiers so far. What was most daunting was that the enemy’s weakest was nearly on par with the strongest among her ranks. They’d always known they were outmatched. The enemy ranks were filled with dark fae enhanced in agility, strength, and speed with human blood. Then they’d discovered Dakodas could command the shadow creatures that still plagued their land, as they never attacked the enemy.

The Spirit of Death lingered somewhere, watching. She knew Mordecai would be too, and that enraged her more. Zaiana wanted to snuff them out, but there’d been no chance to leave the front lines that were relying on her leadership.

They had to find the void that was letting these creatures manifest from shadows. If they closed it, there would be one less ruthless force among the enemy ranks.

Her soldiers were tiring. They were losing hope and strength. Morale was just as important as any skill in combat.

Zaiana realized what else had advanced in the enemy ranks when her boot crunched over something. A vial leaking with a crimson liquid. Their magick wielders had been supplied with the Phoenix Blood potions Marlowe was forced to make in Rhyenelle.

A hum of Firewielding tingled her senses, and with only a split second to react, she threw lightning against the flame that shot for her. Just as she suspected, his magick was too powerful for an ordinary wielder of the ability. As she parried with him for a few seconds, it was clear in the way his fire matched the strength of Maverick’s, but this fae had no skill to use it like he did.

Despite the enhancement, Zaiana ended him swiftly. A bolt of lightning to the chest, a slice of her blade across his neck, and because she was growing particularly frustrated and exhausted, she ripped out his heart.

Then she was onto the next, who attacked with wind.

Shapeshifters on the enemy side could take on mammoth forms like oversized bears and lions. The odds grew detrimental against them, and Zaiana tried to calculate a new strategy to adapt while she fought relentlessly.

But then…the Shapeshifters who towered over the bodies began to writhe, and their wails cut over the chaos of steel and the fallen.

The Windbreaker Zaiana battled faltered before she was about to end it. The fae clutched her throat, and the whites of her eyes turned bloodred. Zaiana didn’t know what was happening, but she didn’t have a breath to spare while the fighting of others still raged on.

She was about to spring back into action when she watched a young female fae take a slash across her abdomen. Zaiana struck a lethal bolt of lightning at the dark fae, who lifted her sword for a killing blow. She caught the younger fae before she fell, and Zaiana shot to the sky.

Landing at one of the healing tents, she ushered her inside, demanding help, but everyone was occupied. Zaiana led the fae over to a bench, grabbing gauze and whatever else she could find to press into the fae’s wound.

Her terrified green eyes met Zaiana’s, and for a second she was pierced by grief. Her hair was a dark brown, and she was a similar age to Amaya. Their features were nothing alike, but still, the memory of her brave darkling filled her thoughts with sorrow for a distracting second.

Zaiana had to shake off the emotions that only served to distract her. “You’re not going to die,” she said firmly.

The fae nodded, and Zaiana had to leave her to resume her station.

Kyleer burst into the tent before she could leave it. He came bearing information, and she straightened to hear it.

“They came. Forces from the south, I believe. They’re wearing purple.”

“Olmstone,” Zaiana said. Had Tarly and Nerida managed to rally the soldiers that were close to joining Dakodas’s ranks?

Zaiana left the healer’s tent, finding her answer as she stared right into the healer’s eyes standing next to the Olmstone prince. Nerida smiled, and Zaiana lost her composure, impulsively crossing the distance and pulling Nerida into an embrace. It was odd to instigate a hug, but Zaiana was trying to accept her emotions, especially right now, when all their lives could vanish in a blink.

“You made it,” Zaiana said in relief.

When they pulled back, the shock on Nerida’s face eased to another kind smile.

“Yes. Nik and Tauria are fighting on the front lines, but we came to aid the wounded.”

Zaiana reached to her side, pulling the jeweled dagger free and lifting Nerida’s hand to place it within.

Nerida’s eyes widened on it, but Zaiana quickly said, “She was dying by another fatal wound at the same time. I can’t be certain if it absorbed all your magick back in time. And Nerida…” Zaiana swallowed the lump in her throat. “Amaya didn’t make it.”

The healer’s face fell with grief. She’d helped save Amaya the day they met and since had grown closest to the darkling.

“Then we carry her with us until the end.”

Nerida’s face firmed, and she hissed, slicing the jeweled dagger across her palm. She gasped, and blue light glowed over the wound. It was such a relief to see, but Zaiana held her breath, waiting to find out how much had been returned to her.

From a nearby bucket, water lifted from it in a thin stroke with Nerida’s gentle hand movement.

“My Waterwielding is weaker,” she said, but still she smiled, bringing the water closer, and Zaiana drew a breath at the bite of it touching a wound through the leather on her arm. The sting subsided as Nerida healed it fully in seconds. “But my healing feels the same, and that’s what matters most to me.”

Zaiana’s shoulders fell in relief.

A commander came rushing toward her. “General Zaiana, there’s been a sudden overwhelming force of shadow creatures coming from the east. We’re going to lose that entire legion soon.”

Zaiana’s battle-focused mind sharpened again. “I want a team of scouts finding where the rift is that is summoning them. Investigate the east mountains—it has to be close to here. Which commanders are east?”

“Commander Izaiah is leading east.”

She didn’t have to look to feel Kyleer’s tension growing beside her. “You should join him,” Zaiana said.

So far, Kyleer had been close by her every day, fighting valiantly and leading what he could as more instinctual memory came back to him as the second highest-ranking commander of Rhyenelle’s armies.

He hesitated with a pained look. She didn’t want to be separated from him either, but his brother needed help, and he was more important to him than she was.

With a nod, Kyleer splayed his beautiful black feathered wings and shot to the sky. She watched him leave with an aching pull in her chest, but her station was in the center point.

An enemy stumbled through their healer tents, having slipped through their lines. Zaiana braced to kill them at seeing the small blue flame in their hand, but it winked out as they clawed at their throat, dropping an empty vial of Phoenix Blood as they collapsed and died.

“What is happening?” she pondered to herself.

“Poison,” Tarly said. “All the Phoenix Blood potions in Rhyenelle are poisoned. I wasn’t sure if they would detect it or notice people dying before they distributed it all.”

Everyone turned to the Olmstone prince, stunned.

He glanced at Nerida. “We found that plant in the woods you deemed nothing but poisonous, remember? When we met with Faythe and Kyleer. The idea came to me when I spoke to Faythe, and she told me what Marlowe was being forced to do in Rhyenelle.”

The clang of steel and shouts of battle became louder in their pause of silence.

“You are brilliant, Tarly Wolverlon,” Nerida said, pushing up on her toes to kiss his cheek.

Zaiana looked away from them and down at the enemy body. What he’d done was brilliant. And a huge relief.

“I’m going back,” Zaiana informed them. “They need all the healing help they can get in there.”

Nerida and Tarly nodded firmly, and she shot to the sky.

She examined the field, noticing how they’d been pushed back too much, and though Tarly had wounded their magick wielder ranks, it was the bloodthirsty dark fae who attacked brutally that had the fae on her side retreating.

There were barely any dark fae left to help stop those on the enemy side from flying and dropping into the thick of their lines. Zaiana gritted her teeth, disappointed in her kin. They were trying to change the perception of the dark fae, yet the numbers who fought with her were negligible.

Zaiana decided to stay airborne. Instead of two sides of the field, it had turned to four. With Nik and Tauria leading a force in from the south, it helped to trap a large portion of the enemy on two sides. It would be an incredible advantage, were it not for the enemy that kept arriving from the skies and the land, also trapping Nik and Tauria’s force on two sides.

The enemy numbers felt endless.

Her heart nearly stopped when she spied the threat racing in from the south.

Skalies.

Zaiana had faced the wretched, mindless creatures in the Fire Mountains before, but why had they come down from there?

She was about to swoop down and warn Nik and Tauria, but to her shock, the skalies started slashing through the enemy side. Did they have no allegiance and simply craved blood? Zaiana didn’t have time to deliberate over it. Right now, they were making great impact against the enemy, which would help Nik and Tauria’s force.

Zaiana focused on the skies, using her lightning only to strike as many dark fae as she could before they descended into their lines.

It didn’t matter how tired she grew. How exhausted her magick was. How overwhelming the numbers were. Zaiana would not falter.

A dark fae approached from behind, and she spun, throwing out a spear of lightning, but they cleared the path of it. She charged again, her two metal-guarded fingers pointing toward the female dark fae.

“Wait, Zaiana!” she yelled, holding her hands up in surrender.

Zaiana held her lightning. She recognized the dark faze as one who had been a year behind her training grade. Giselle, Zaiana recalled.

A blade glinted, and Zaiana thought herself a fool for falling for her distraction, but the small dagger flew by her head, and Zaiana heard a choke before she pivoted, watching a dark fae tumble from the sky with the blade in his neck.

“We’ve come from the mountain. We’ve come to help you…Zaiana Vesaria.”

Right in front of her, more dark fae flew in from the north where the Mortus Mountains that had once chained them all were destroyed. In their freedom, they’d chosen to join her. Their wings beat fierce and triumphant as they merged into the enemy line and began fighting.

The numbers in the sky started to even out, and Zaiana’s body felt the relief that she was no longer at perilous odds in the sky.

“Thank you,” Zaiana whispered though they couldn’t hear her.

She watched with pride beating in her chest. They’d come at her call. They’d come because they believed in her.

Zaiana noticed the front line faltering and headed back to reform and strengthen where she could. She glamoured her wings, and as a riderless horse charged past, Zaiana ran with it, grabbing hold of the reins and leaping onto its back.

“We can’t fall back any farther—hold your lines!” she yelled to the commanders as she rode past.

Just as they were beginning to form a new formation, a loud boom trembled the ground. The horse reared back, throwing Zaiana out of the saddle, but she caught herself with her wings, spinning in her lunge toward the source of the impact.

Darkness spilled over the ground, touching them all with chilling welcome of death. Standing in the center of the smoke that began to clear…

Dakodas had finally come.

The fighting eased off with the arrival of Dakodas. The enemy welcomed their leader; the opposition balked at her.

Zaiana would never yield.

She headed toward where Dakodas stood while the warriors behind her braced anew for when the battle would collide viciously again.

“Took you long enough,” Zaiana goaded. Her voice cut through the eerie, tension-filled pause of battle.

“I’ll admit, your efforts have outlasted our expectation. But you lead everyone behind you to a slow slaughter.”

Behind the Spirit, Zaiana’s chest tightened to see Maverick. He stood there as cold and expressionless as ever, eyes fixed on Zaiana.

Zaiana said, “What you see is a realm that will always fight back. That does so with purpose in its heart.”

“I never expected you to become so weak to the hollow notion of a heart . Such sentiment doesn’t suit you, Zaiana Vesaria.”

“Is my father with you, or does he still cower behind his soldiers?”

Dakodas’s smile crawled her skin. “You are merely a carrier of the power that is his, and it will be returned.”

Zaiana laughed . “Mordecai is nothing but a warm corpse. A failure of plan you had to step in to revive.”

“Then you know it is for your kind we march, and you are a traitor to the dark fae. I’m looking forward to the spectacle they’ll make of tearing out your wings.”

Everything within her recoiled at the horrific notion. She fought a strong urge to glamor her wings at the mere thought. “You want the dark fae to dominate as the bloodthirsty savages history painted of us. We want peace too, and you destroyed that.”

“There will be peace when the war is won. Peace and power for the dark fae, never again to be undermined or cast out again.”

“You’re right,” Zaiana said, bracing her stance. She couldn’t contend with Dakodas’s power for long. Maybe if she had a ruin to amplify hers with. But she would give her all no matter the odds. “The dark fae will prevail alongside the humans and the fae when we win.”

Zaiana prepared for this to be her final fight, but she was ready.

For Amaya, who was a dreamer. For Acelin, Kellias, Drya, and Selain, who believed in her. For the better world they all wanted.

A golden flare illuminated the night above, so sudden and out of place it demanded everyone’s attention. Then, in the blink of an eye, that shooting comet plummeted down , slamming into the space between Dakodas and Zaiana with the force of a boulder and the heat of the sun. Within the ripples of bloodred flames…stood Faythe Ashfyre.

The world held its breath at her arrival charged with so much vengeance and rage even Zaiana feared her in that moment.

Something had happened to bring Faythe here in a blazing storm of anguish.

Faythe didn’t speak. She barely let the world take in the compelling sight of her before her palm cast out and light erupted against the darkness Dakodas threw out in challenge.

Zaiana ducked like everyone else, shielding her eyes and bracing her legs against the gales of wind that pummeled into them from the catastrophic collision of magick. Many were thrown off their feet; some were struck and killed by tendrils of dark or light that spat out from the beam of their connecting magick.

The kind of power they gave to each other was enough to destroy this entire fringe with one wrong move.

“Fall back but stay in formation!” Zaiana yelled down the line.

The battle would resume, but for now, the field belonged to Faythe and Dakodas, who were ruthless in their attacks.

A white eagle flew overhead, catching her attention for how out of place it was. Until it swooped low, and from a small burst of light, Reylan Arrowood stepped straight into battle, alone on the enemy side.

Along their front line many started to notice him, his white hair stark against the night and his black-clad enemies. Though she thought it reckless, they charged forward, matching the bravery and valiance of their great general.

Zaiana nearly lost him through the throng of bodies, but a blue flare caught her attention, and Zaiana pushed through the soldiers more urgently.

Maverick was attacking him.

Damned fool , she thought with her heart speeding.

Reylan wouldn’t have mercy for all Maverick had done, and he was placing himself as the perfect target in front of Reylan, who slaughtered enemies with as much rage as Faythe had.

She followed the flickers of blue that drifted farther away from her. Zaiana would have to fly to keep up, but she realized Maverick’s game…

He was goading the general away from Faythe, and Zaiana knew, now he was within reach, Reylan wouldn’t give up until Maverick was dead.