Chapter 28 Lore
Lore
It was grave-like quiet on the fifth floor. No footsteps. No voices. No echo of doors slamming nearby. Reyla glanced at me once we’d reached the landing and shrugged. Either no one else had made this far or they’d already found the damn key and hadn’t told us.
Farris didn’t seem concerned. Tail low, he padded ahead of us, his ears twitching like he was listening to something we couldn’t hear.
He guided us down one hallway after another until I wondered if I could find our way back.
Finally, he came to a stop at a door, its blue paint long faded.
In the center, someone had painted a red and yellow bird with outstretched wings so wide, they touched the frame on both sides.
“Big bird,” Reyla whispered.
I stared at it. “Is this supposed to be a joke?”
She frowned. “I'm not laughing yet, but I'd like to later.”
“I'll keep that in mind.”
“Why do you suspect a joke?” She cocked her head my way.
“Because someone took the time to paint a bird on the door.”
“They’re an artist?”
“Not a very good one.” I pushed the door open. It groaned against the floor, wood scraping stone as if something on the other side had been leaning against it for years. Dust spiraled outward, pushed by a gust of air from inside.
“I feel like we're back inside the labyrinth,” she said with a wry twist of her mouth.
I nodded and poked my head through the opening.
The chamber soared three stories high, a cathedral converted to house birds.
Ivy crawled across arched beams while chains rattled overhead.
At the far end, a window revealed a late-day sky and a valley cut through with silver streams that shimmered despite the weak sunlight.
Wind slipped in through the gap beneath the window, stirring chains hanging from the ceiling, making them rattle like teeth in a skull. Rusted bird perches swayed in the breeze, creaking like old swings in a storm.
Farris remained in the hall, whining.
“He doesn’t want to come in with us,” Reyla said.
“He brought us here.”
“Is the key inside?” she asked her pet.
Our friend only stared at us forlornly.
The door slammed shut and the lock clicked. We were committed now.
Reyla gave me an uneasy look. “Might as well look around.”
Weapons in hand, she moved left. I went right.
Chains drifted overhead, clattering against little cages hanging by enchantment rather than rope. Some cages were open, their doors rusted ajar, while others had been bent into jumbled distortions.
Far above, ember feathers began to fall. One brushed my cheek. I caught it in my hand, but it crumbled into ash before I could close my fingers around it.
The tinkling bell rang out in the room.
A cry echoed from above, and we came to a stop, peering in that direction.
The air shimmered.
A phoenix appeared overhead with its wings spread. It soared around the upper part of the room, a glow building from deep inside it. Bells tinkled through the air, so soft, I almost couldn’t hear them.
When the glow turned into flames, the bird dove toward the floor, disappearing before it reached the lowest level, leaving only ashes sifting down to land around our feet.
“You saw the key on a chain around its neck?” she said.
I nodded.
“Too bad it vanished.” Turning to where she stood on the opposite side of the room, she peered at one of the ivy-covered walls. She reached out, tugging some of the vines to the side, staring at the wall.
What is it? I asked.
She didn’t look my way. One second.
I joined her, studying the circular set of carvings, small mural medallions almost hidden beneath the vegetation.
She brushed the surface of one, wiping soft moss away to reveal paint that appeared older than either of us.
A red bird, its wings outstretched, had been carved into the face of the medallion.
In the next, we found the same red bird, now glowing.
In the third, it was diving, flames licking across its wings.
In the fourth, ashes drifted to the ground.
“They look like story slices. A cycle,” she said under her breath. “Four phases in endless repetition: flight, flame, dive, ash.”
“The medallions match what we'd witnessed, a cycle driven by sound.”
She shrugged. “Perchance.”
I grinned at her use of the word.
“Bells,” I said, remembering hearing them not long ago.
She glanced toward the beams above. “The pictures could be tied to the sounds because I heard them too. Every phase could match a tone. The bird and sounds aren’t random. Nothing is inside this place.”
“The chimes could be driving it through its cycle of resurrection and rest.”
The air hummed, carrying the faintest echo, a chime rung inside a dream.
Above, the phoenix materialized again, soaring across the upper aspect of the room like it had done before. The key still hung around its neck.
Another ding, though subtle, and it started glowing.
A third chime, and it dove down, flames leaping off its feathers as it soared lower, though it was still too far overhead for me to grab the key.
Another tone, barely audible, and it flared so brightly, I had to shield my eyes. When the light winked out, ashes drifted down around us, and the fourth bell sounded.
I stepped out into the middle of the chamber and dragged my boot through the thick ashes. “Unfortunately, it takes the key with it.”
Rejoining Reyla near the wall, we waited, barely breathing, until the first chime rang out, and the phoenix appeared again, gliding across its invisible path, following the same trajectory and the same pattern we’d seen before.
I felt the next chime in my bones, and the phoenix slipped into view again, soaring through its course of burning to ash to disappearing.
Reyla pointed as it swept across the air. “That pass takes it near the center. See the perch? It flies almost right underneath it.”
The third tone rang out.
Flames exploded around the creature mid-flight, but for three long counts, it remained solid. The key swayed on its chest, attached to a silver chain around its neck.
It burst into flames and turned to ash again as the fourth bell dinged.
“Alright,” she said, her head tipped back, her gaze on the ceiling. “We need to grab the key before it blazes.”
I nodded. “Three counts after the second bell. That's our window.”
She paced once in a slow line, glanced back at the medallions, then toward the ceiling again. “We need to be waiting on that perch.”
I frowned. “Looks rickety.”
“Sprout wings.”
I huffed out a laugh. “Not my skill, though it’s probably someone’s.”
“I think you’d be cute with wings. I could call you my pretty little bat boy.”
Grumbling, I shook my head. “We've established I'm no boy, Wildfire.”
“Quite well, actually, though I’m sure a repeat performance would solidify this opinion in my mind.”
“Might?”
She grinned.
“Keep talking like that and I'll make you pay, love.”
“Oh, yes, please.” Her smile faded as she peered upward. “Flitting might work as long if it’s timed right. Sadly, I don’t believe I should be the one to handle it.” Before the next bell could strike, she turned to me. “Let me try something.”
When the phoenix appeared again, Reyla lifted her hand, her fingertip lit. A bolt of lightning streaked away from her, across the room, smacking into the phoenix's chest. The bolt didn't stop the flight or interrupt the pattern. It just sparked against the bird and died.
Reyla lowered her hand. “That's disappointing.”
“The phoenix exists beyond normal magic.”
The next time the bell chimed, and the phoenix burned into view overhead, I braced myself. “Let me…” I flitted to the perch the bird flew under before chime three. Landing crouched, I spread my arms to balance myself on the creaking, rusted bar.
Reyla gasped below.
The phoenix cut through the space like it had before, its wings bright, and its feathers almost boiling, poised to burst into flames.
The moment it drew near, I reached out, straining… ding. The phoenix flared. Fire exploded toward me. I flitted before the full wave roasted my face, barely escaping the blast.
I landed on the floor next to Reyla.
She grabbed my wrist, holding me steady. “Are you alright?”
“Too close. Another second and I'd have been turned into ash.”
She curled her finger, and I lowered my head, kissing her like she was air, and I'd been drowning. She pressed her forehead into my chest after and just breathed.
Backing away, she glared at the ceiling.
The bird appeared on cue again, soaring across the upper part of the chamber before flames licked across its wings.
Reyla frowned, and I sensed her tugging in power and sending it out. Her shoulders slumped. “Nothing to nullify.”
Time to try something else.
I gathered wind magic, keeping it loose, and nudged it through the space above us, curling toward the route the bird repeated every pass. A steady tug to see if something could make it dip.
The moment the phoenix blinked into view, I caught the pressure shift. Its wings adjusted to my wind but didn't drive it off course. The key kept swinging across its chest, taunting us.
Wind wouldn’t do it either.
Reyla watched the path it took, her jaw clenched. “We’ll have to climb and physically retrieve it.”
I followed her gaze up to the beams, the layers of vines netting around the room. One large arch was slick with ivy on the west wall.
“Race you?” I quipped.
She snorted. “Not unless you want a broken arm. But let's do it.”
“Together then.”
She stroked my side. “Always.”
The moment we split, she climbed up the vine-encased west wall, using shadows as handholds and lightning to burn new grips. I went for the central vine-net, a mess of twisted chains and creeping moss.
We moved fast.
I didn’t let myself think past the next grip.
Above us, the caged perches jerked back and forth. I couldn't tell if they were traps or protection, but they looked ready to crumble.
I climbed fast, not thinking past the next grip. The chime rang, and the phoenix appeared, trailing fire behind it.
“Two,” Reyla called from her perch on the arched beam. “And…”
The creature burst into flames and vanished, leaving only ash.
A single feather drifted through the ashes, disappearing before it hit the floor.
“It faded earlier this time,” I said. “It’s going through the cycle quickly now.”
“Soon, it might not appear at all. Climb faster.”
We kept moving, racing against time.
Finally Reyla clung to the vines two stories up. She lifted one hand and sent a piece of darkness out across the beam, a shadow as thin as a ribbon. It reached the perch close to where the phoenix always passed and spread itself thin below it.
The first chime rang out.
Legs straight, I deployed wind pressure against the bottom of my feet as I launched myself into the air. I caught a chain-vine with both hands and climbed fast enough to burn my palms. With a growl, I swung my body toward a bronze arch close to the perch and trusted the grip.
The phoenix pushed through the air again, arching across its flight that would take it by the perch.
As the bird swung in that direction, it ducked, sweeping below the shadow.
Another chime and it burst into flame, soon burning through, leaving nothing but ashes and a solitary feather behind.
Ding. The phoenix appeared again, swooping faster this time.
“Let me…” I shoved off the chain, using the wind to lift again. As the second chime rang out, wind magic carried me forward.
I stretched out my hand.
A ping echoed around us. Flames gilded the bird's chest, curling up its neck.
Reyla yelled something as I forced the wind to shove me toward the bird.
This was our last chance. If I missed, we may not get another chance. I snapped my fingers around the chain.
And I was falling.
The phoenix burst into flames…
…and I flitted.
My teeth jarred together when I landed on my knees on the beam near Reyla, looking up at her with my fingers still locked around the chain holding the key.
Staring down at me, my wildfire bride lifted one brow. “Look at you, kneeling right where I like you best. Such a good boy.”
A smile tugged at one corner of my mouth. “Tonight, I'll taste every sound you make until you're breathless beneath me.”
“Is that a promise?”
“Always.” I held up the key, dangling it from the chain and wrapped my fingers around it. My heart leaped. “Warm. Hot, even, love.” I passed it to her. “We found the right key.” Relief flooded through me. One step closer to breaking this curse, to keeping her forever.
A chime rang out.
Above us, the phoenix glided once more below the rafters, no longer following the full cycle. It skimmed through air, its wings glinting, then disappeared. We waited, but it didn't reappear again.
“We only saw it at dying and rebirth,” I said, thinking about it. “Dying and reborn, again and again. Just like us, tested by fire but rising stronger.”
Easing over, she settled on the beam beside me, leaning against my side.
“A cycle of fire, failure, and persistence, followed by unity and flight. It is us.” Reaching up, she brushed soot from my shoulder and gave me the sweetest smile.
“Let’s take the key to the queen. Then, my good boy, you’ve got a promise to fulfill. ”
A crash echoed from somewhere in the castle, followed by a shriek of pain.