20
Overhead, phoenixes soared.
It wasn’t yet daybreak, but they were already on the road once again. Valine hadn’t minded the abrupt departure from the night’s camp.
After the visit from the arachne, Valine had torn away from Malik and rushed to the tent set aside for her. She had barricaded herself within and refused to let anyone inside. Malik and Sarim were the most determined of sympathies, but Valine was locked in the cage of her mind, and her mind was snarled.
Death had come for her a second time, and it was only through a twist of fate she’d survived the most recent attempt.
She had been tried by the arachne, and she had been found guilty. Yet still, she lived. And if not for her, then Malik, too, would have been the subject of their justice. Valine didn’t dare contemplate how damning that pronouncement was. Instead, she clutched a pillow to her chest and bit down on it, suffocating the tearless sobs that threatened to be unleashed. She stared at the four walls of the canvas, dark eyes wide, watching shadows and the light of flame play outside the tiny sanctuary.
She had slept fitfully, and when she woke, she was equally shocked and unsurprised to find Sarim sleeping outside her tent, Malik pacing nearby. There were circles under his eyes, but he had a coffee in hand, and he smiled.
Sarim had woken and took leave to relieve his bladder, and Valine had made her way to Malik. The king passed her his half-full mug, and she gratefully took a sip. She smiled when she tasted the cinnamon. She should have known. When he took it back, he didn’t say anything but pressed his mouth to where hers had been only moments prior. Her heart flipped.
“Do you want to talk about it?” He hadn’t needed to elaborate on what he meant by it. There was only one it he could be referring to, and Valine wasn’t ready to face it.
“Not yet.”
“Okay,” he whispered and offered her the coffee once more.
Now, by the light of the moons and the flames of the firebirds, Valine looked skyward. Two phoenixes blazed across the sky like shooting stars, the horse-sized birds of prey shooting sparks. Their elegant tail feathers were long lashes of flame, leaving smoke in their wake. They were feathered in orange and red fire, their forms were streamlined and virtually weightless, with incredible wings spanning two men with arms outstretched.
“Did you know phoenixes are only native to Talloh?” Alastair announced from beside her.
She was startled to find someone else awake in the carriage. To her right, Malik was asleep, head against the jostling wall. Across from her, Freyja was propped on an arm, her legs in Sarim’s lap, while the Valmotti warrior himself was outstretched, feet between her own.
“I did. I’ve just never seen one before.”
Alastair leaned back his fiery head. “They are majestic creatures. Loyal only to other phoenixes and their patrons. It has never been known for one firebird to attack another.”
“Truly?”
“Truly,” Alastair confirmed. “That doesn’t mean they are non-violent, though. Phoenixes will pluck out your eyes and burn you alive if you attack or encroach on their territory. And if you manage to kill them, they remember what you’ve done once they’re reborn from their ashes.”
Valine was aware, and even so, she humored him. “Remind me never to piss off a phoenix.”
Alastair gave her an endearing, patient smile. “I know you’re just being kind. You already know all this, but have you heard the tale of how Mrithun and Seraphina came to be the bearers of the phoenix?”
This time, Valine was intrigued. Despite having Mrithun to thank for her necromancy, this was not a story she’d heard before.
Alastair laughed before resettling his face into a grim air, becoming deadly serious.
“Before Mrithun earned daemon status, and before Seraphina was beloved as a saint, they were the first mages of their patron magics. Mrithun was lord over death, and Seraphina was wielder of flame. And they were as close as kin. As children they fancied playing with their magics, heretics of the Old Faith blaspheming against them and the new power they possessed. They cursed at them and stoned them in the streets. They were outcasts, as the rest of the patrons were.
“When Seraphina was nearly blinded by a volley of rocks, the fury that erupted from her was untold horror. From her rage and fear and rejection was a production of Great Flame, a winged beast not formed of this earth. She lost control of her creation, and it ravaged the village Seraphina was birthed into, reaping destruction everywhere it went.
“It took Mrithun’s intervention to quell the Great Flame. He tethered her fire, binding it to the laws of death, giving it earthly form. Once he wrapped the Great Flame in his dark magic, he doused its flames, and it smoldered into coals.
“Seraphina grieved her loss, but after a week and a day, her creation rose. Born in an avian body, feathered in shades of flame. It was no longer the ethereal creature formed from hate, but rather a terrene being invoked by loyalty. Because Mrithun stood by Seraphina, so did her flame, and with that, the bond between them was sown.”
Valine screwed her brows into a frown. “If Seraphina massacred a village, and Mrithun saved it—why is she heralded as a saint, and he a daemon?”
“Why indeed?” Alastair smirked wryly. “People like order. They like when things make sense. They do not appreciate when something is not the black and white that they like. What they believe is that fire can be cleansing, but forget the destruction. That death is bad, and life is good. But one is a painful truth, and the other blissful ignorance.” He leaned forward. “It’s why Vitus is a saint, and Mrithun is a daemon, despite Vitus wronging the death lord many times over. Anything that doesn’t fit in their predetermined boxes sparks doubt, and doubt has the same ramifications as hope. It’s a threat to order, so we keep our mouths closed and nod when we’re supposed to.”
“That’s not true.”
“Isn’t it?”
“I refused to be part of the machine that Runell designed me for, and I took parts of it when I left,” she hissed, wrath firing in her veins.
“So, you are a threat to the way things are.”
Valine’s hackles rose, her mouth thinning. “If questioning things that don’t make sense makes me dangerous, then so be it."
Alastair was silent, but slowly, a smile crept across his handsome face. “I think you’ll fit in quite nicely.”
A rush of air escaped from Valine’s parted lips. She hadn’t expected Alastair to virtually welcome her disregard for the way things are.
Evening her breathing, she looked out the window once again, catching a hint of sparks dancing on the horizon. Seraphina and Mrithun were an unlikely duo but forever bound by the phoenixes their combined power created. It was a wild thought, but she found herself pondering the unpredictable group they had assembled in the carriage. A king, a warrior, a dignitary, a mage, and an assassin. A colorful assemblage that was painted with strokes of red.
It was midday when Valine caught sight of the oasis. It was glittering blue, a radiant sapphire in the velvet darkness of the Twilight Sands. Slowly, the Muravo Pass opened its arms, the ominous mountains pulling apart from its impenetrable embrace, allowing more and more sunlight and moonlight to burn across the sky. It widened above them until the ceiling of the pass was gleaming blue.
Valine craned her neck to see more beyond the window. The place and the coast were past the oasis—paradise. She wondered if everyone had the same thought after days of traveling through the tenebrous air of the pass—if everyone thought that the grand white palace ahead was such an idyllic dream.
Light from both the moons and the sun reflected off the golden spires and domes of the tops of the palace, the entirety of the majestic structure done up in blinding white, arched doorways and gilt balconies dotted the entirety. Three minarets soared into the sky, and Valine knew, from the placement of two of the orbs, that upon the Tri-Moon Festival, each moon crowned the towers like pedestals of the gods.
Tallohians did not follow the faith of saints and daemons. The royals brought with them, from an unknown continent, the religion of the Stygian. Of three moon gods: He, She, and They. The people of Talloh agreed the patrons existed, but not that they had ascended to godly rankings. They believed there were higher powers beyond and before them.
Further, the ocean glimmered turquoise as it crashed against violet surf. The palace was raised upon a crest of the earth, the city of Selyndyr below teeming from the gates of the palace to the edge of the shore. Markets were bustling at the ocean’s edge, churches reaching through the throng of buildings designed low and elaborate. Nothing was higher than the Crown and the Gods.
The pass turned into flat rock that curved around the oasis and led directly to the city. Around the far edge of the oasis itself were dwellings and shacks, used more for temporary shelter than living because, despite the closeness of the palace, they were still on the sands, and it was still very possible that sand serpents could attack. It was why there were guards stationed at regular intervals upon the road.
Bearing arms, each soldier had a pistol holstered and a long-barrel firearm in hand. Paired with them was a mage; evenly arranged were pyromancers, hydromancers, aethermancers, and terramancers. The four basic magics were common but powerful, and their presence made the most sense in a battle against a sand serpent. A luxmancer would be useless, as their affinity for blinding would be hardly effective against an already blind beast. Fire, water, air, and earth were their best fight if they could not find mages of lightning, storm, or destruction.
“Valine, I want to ask you to do something very difficult for me,” Malik began carefully, calculating. Valine turned to him and could see in his eyes that he had weighed this decision heavily. The knowledge of it sitting behind his eyes.
“As we discussed, I will hear it, but if I doubt the merit of it, I will refuse.”
Malik hesitated but nodded once. “I don’t want you to use a pseudonym. I want you to be represented as you are, who you are. If you arrive with Adraali with a Runellian name, it will aid in the dissolution of Runell’s grip on the west.”
Valine inclined her head, measuring the king’s request. It was simple, and it was true. She did possess a Runellian name—a powerful one at that—and that fact would not go unnoticed in Talloh. A Runellian lady allied to a near enemy? It would cast doubt.
Talloh was most closely allied with Luneth—Pravo amicable with both kingdoms—but Runell possessed only a tentative alliance with the three. She knew that Runell was trying to conquer the realm, just as Malik was. Their reach was spreading across the continent, slowly like a disease. Valencya and Thycca were caught in the middle, and the problem was that only one could be won. The two were enemies, sworn to hate. They would choose the other side for spite, but they were the center and firmly divided both Runell and Adraali. Especially since Valencya had ties with Dubon and Thycca with Luneth. It was only their indecision that had thus halted war. Once one declared Adraalian or Runellian alliance, things would move quickly.
Valine met Malik’s blue-gold, gold-blue eyes and nodded once. “I will bear the Desdemon name.”